Every year, over 460 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide, infiltrating nearly every aspect of life. In a review of 3,000 studies, researchers at UC San Francisco have uncovered alarming evidence of how microplastics - tiny fragments less than five millimeters (0.2 inches) in size - are impacting human health.



The findings reveal a troubling link between microplastic exposure and serious medical conditions, including colon cancer, infertility, and respiratory issues.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-are-microplastics">What are microplastics?</h2>



Microplastics, some as small as a grain of sand or even invisible to the naked eye, are <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/microplastics-are-steadily-increasing-in-freshwater-environments/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">omnipresent</a>. They result from the gradual breakdown or fragmentation of plastic pollution in the environment.



Microplastics contaminate air, soil, water, food, and even everyday items like drink containers. These particles are ingested or inhaled without our awareness, entering the body through airways or along with food and beverages.



Shockingly, microplastics have been discovered in human tissues, including the brain and placenta. According to recent estimates, the U.S. healthcare system spends $289 billion annually on health issues that are linked to microplastic exposure.



The small size of these particles makes them especially dangerous, as they easily enter the bloodstream and infiltrate tissues.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-microplastics-harm-our-health">How microplastics harm our health</h2>



Once microplastics enter the body, they act as foreign invaders, triggering widespread inflammation. The immune system’s response to these particles can cause tissue damage in vital organs, including the heart and liver. Over time, their accumulation leads to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/microplastic-pollution-is-everywhere-even-in-newborns-and-getting-worse/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">irreversible harm</a>.



Microplastics have a bio-accumulative nature, meaning their levels in the environment and human bodies will only increase. With plastic production expected to triple by 2060, researchers warn of escalating health risks. 



“Due to ubiquitous exposure and bioaccumulative characteristics of microplastics, the extent of human health impacts due to microplastic exposure is of great concern,” noted the authors of the study.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-digestive-system-and-cancer-risks">Digestive system and cancer risks</h2>



The UCSF research revealed that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-nanotechnology-is-fighting-microplastic-pollution/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">microplastics</a> disrupt the digestive system, particularly in the colon. These tiny particles damage the protective mucus layer of the colon, increasing vulnerability to inflammation and tumor development.



"Exposure to microplastics is 'suspected' to adversely impact the colon and small intestine in humans," noted the researchers.



Chronic inflammation and intestinal cell death were also identified as potential outcomes. Using carcinogen classification methods, the team linked microplastics to colon cancer, and called for urgent attention to these health hazards.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-microplastics-and-reproductive-health">Microplastics and reproductive health</h2>



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/microplastics-trigger-cloud-formation-and-alter-weather-patterns/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Microplastics</a> may also disrupt hormonal balance in the reproductive system. For men, this could lead to reduced sperm quality and testicular health. For women, they can impact ovarian function and the placenta. 



In one study, researchers linked microplastics in the placenta to low birth weight and pre-term births.



Furthermore, adverse effects on ovarian function and development highlight the potential long-term implications for reproductive health.



“We concluded that exposure to microplastics is 'suspected' to adversely impact sperm quality and testicular health in humans,” the researchers emphasized.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-respiratory-impacts-and-lung-cancer-risks">Respiratory impacts and lung cancer risks</h2>



Microplastics also pose <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/hotspots-of-microplastic-pollution-found-in-the-north-sea/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">significant threats</a> to lung health. When inhaled, they irritate airways, leading to chronic inflammation and lung injuries. Over time, this can increase the risk of lung cancer. 



The experts concluded that exposure to microplastics is “suspected to be a hazard to the human respiratory system.”



“These microplastics are basically particulate matter air pollution, and we know this type of air pollution is harmful,” said study senior author <a href="https://profiles.ucsf.edu/tracey.woodruff" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tracey J. Woodruff</a>, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at UCSF.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-widespread-environmental-contamination">Widespread environmental contamination</h2>



The minute size of microplastics allows them to spread across the globe, contaminating even the most remote locations. Researchers have detected microplastics in Arctic sea ice, deep ocean trenches, and in snow and sediment across Antarctica.



Alarmingly, these particles have been found in human breast milk, the liver, and in the placenta - raising concerns about their far-reaching impacts on human health.



Each year, plastic production is projected to increase, reaching 1.1 billion tons by 2050. This means the presence of microplastics in the environment - and consequently in our bodies - will only worsen.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-addressing-the-health-risks-of-microplastics">Addressing the health risks of microplastics</h2>



The UCSF review is the first to systematically examine the health impacts of microplastics using methods approved by the National Academy of Sciences.



While many studies in the review focused on animals, the researchers believe the findings are directly applicable to humans due to similar exposure pathways.



The research builds on previous work by the California State Policy Evidence Consortium, which guides policymakers. 



"We urge regulatory agencies and policy leaders to consider the growing evidence of health harms from microplastics, including colon and lung cancer," noted study first author Dr. Nicholas Chartres. 



"We hope state leaders will take immediate action to prevent further exposures."



The UCSF findings highlight the pressing need for stricter regulations on <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/microplastics-are-infiltrating-the-human-body-even-the-brain/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">plastic</a> production and better waste management. 



Without immediate intervention, the health impacts of microplastics will escalate alongside the increase in plastic production. Reducing exposure is critical for safeguarding human health in the years to come.



The review study was published in the journal <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/envhealth.3c00052">ACS Environmental Science and Technology</a>.



-----



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Microplastics linked to health issues including cancer and infertility

Every year, over 460 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide, infiltrating nearly every aspect of life. In a review of 3,000 studies, researchers at UC San Francisco have uncovered alarming evidence of how microplastics - tiny fragments less than five millimeters (0.2 inches) in size - are impacting human health. The findings reveal a troubling link between microplastic exposure and serious medical conditions, including colon cancer, infertility, and respiratory issues. What are microplastics? Microplastics, some as small as a grain of sand or even invisible to...

The Horn of Africa has become increasingly arid in sync with the global and regional warming of the last century and at a rate unprecedented in the last 2,000 years, according to new research led by a University of Arizona geoscientist.

The region has suffered deadly droughts every few years in recent decades.

The scientists suggest as global and regional warming continues, the eastern Horn of Africa, which includes Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia, will receive progressively less rain during the crucial "long rains" season of March, April and May.

Such a trend could exacerbate tensions in one of the most geopolitically unstable regions in the world.

The team's suggestion that the Horn of <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/the-gambia-river-in-west-africa/">Africa</a> will become even drier contradicts the global climate models that indicate future warming will bring more rain to the region.

"What we see in the paleoclimate record from the last 2,000 years is evidence that the Horn of Africa is drier when there are warm conditions on Earth, and wetter when it is colder," said lead author Jessica Tierney, a UA associate professor of geosciences. Horn Of Africa Is Drying Much Faster As Climate Warms

"The rate of the recent drying in the Horn of Africa is unprecedented in the last 2,000 years," Tierney said.

In their paper, the scientists call for researchers to develop more computer models of climate that focus on the regional scale. Such models might better predict how future warming will affect the Horn of Africa's seasonal rains.

Study co-author Peter deMenocal said, "The region is drying in sync with carbon emissions. This has significant socioeconomic implications for this geopolitical hotspot into the future." The Center for Climate and Life at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is headed by deMenocal.

The researchers used cores of ancient marine sediments from the nearby Gulf of Aden to reconstruct regional temperature and aridity for the past 2,000 years.

The team found their reconstructions of local temperature and aridity were in step with an independent reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperatures stretching back to the year A.D. 1. All the data point to the Horn of Africa becoming warmer and drier in the last 100 years.

The team's report, "Past and future rainfall in the Horn of Africa," was published online today in the open-access journal Science Advances. Co-author Caroline Ummenhofer is at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The National Science Foundation funded the research.

---

<a href="http://www.arizona.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Arizona</a>

Horn Of Africa Is Drying Much Faster As Climate Warms

The Horn of Africa has become increasingly arid in sync...

Alaska Tanker Shipping Lanes Threatened By More And Smaller Icebergs. Icebergs that threaten tankers in Alaska tanker shipping lanes carrying oil from the trans-Alaska pipeline are likely to be smaller but more numerous over the next two decades, according to a study by a citizens oversight group.
Ice that calves off the Columbia Glacier near Valdez has to travel farther to reach shipping lanes because the glacier has receded more than 10 miles since 1980, according to the report prepared for the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council. The longer distance to <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=prince+william&amp;cvid=f64c27614a494d3bb0ab55d7b93b3c59&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Prince William</a> Sound means icebergs have more opportunity to shrink from melting and fracturing.
Ice remains a serious threat, however. Smaller icebergs can more easily clear an underwater barrier, the glacier's terminal moraine, which grounds the largest icebergs leaving Columbia Bay. The smaller icebergs that can float over the moraine will continue to be a hazard, said Mark Swanson, director of the council.
"It's going to pose a risk for shipping for the foreseeable future," until the glacier finally retreats out of the ocean and onto land, he said by phone from Valdez.
The citizen's council was created in the aftermath of the grounding of the Exxon Valdez, a 987-foot tanker that struck Bligh Reef on March 24, 1989. The Exxon Valdez spilled roughly 11 million gallons of crude oil. It was the nation's largest oil spill until the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
The crew of the Exxon Valdez had received permission to stray from shipping lanes to avoid Columbia Glacier ice.
"They just forgot to turn back and then they found a reef," Swanson said. "They avoided one hazard and found another."
An iceberg figured into a second tanker incident five years later. The 894-foot Overseas Ohio, heading north to pick up oil, struck an iceberg head-on. The collision tore a 17-by-20-foot hole in the vessel's bulbous bow.
Icebergs that ride low in the water, weighed down by rock, are hard to see.
"Those are the ones that could really booger up a ship," said Swanson, a former Coast Guard officer who was captain of the port in Valdez from 2002 to 2005. Alaska Tanker Shipping Lanes Threatened By More And Smaller Icebergs
The trans-Alaska pipeline these days carries an average of 496,571 barrels of Alaska North Slope crude oil per day. Tankers carry the oil to West Coast refineries.
Advancing glaciers flowing into the ocean gouge a deep trench and push forward a wall of rock and debris on which ice rests. As the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/new-species-of-sea-sponge-discovered-in-british-columbia/">Columbia</a> Glacier has retreated, that underwater terminal moraine has acted as a barrier to big icebergs near the head of Columbia Bay. The moraine is 60 feet deep at its deepest point. In the past, Swanson said, large icebergs would run aground on the moraine and clog the movement of icebergs.
The study by W. T. Pfeffer Geophysical Consultants LLC revealed that that height of the moraine has not been affected. However, many more icebergs are simply floating over it.
Shipping lanes begin 12 miles east of the bay.
The Coast Guard manages ice risk with 24-hour radar. Five of the escort tug boats dispatched to accompany tankers in and out of Valdez are equipped with radar that can detect ice.
"There are probably 50, 60 days per year when tanker traffic is in some way restricted based on ice hazards," Swanson said. That could mean operating in daylight only, one-way traffic or complete closure of the shipping lanes.
One purpose of the study was to figure out how far the glacier would have to retreat to be on dry land. For the glacier's main branch, that could happen as early as 2029, according to the report. The east branch of the glacier would take longer.
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Alaska Tanker Shipping Lanes Threatened By More And Smaller Icebergs

Alaska Tanker Shipping Lanes Threatened By More And Smaller Icebergs....

Coho Salmon Endangered By Toxic Runoff "The recurring coho spawner deaths have been a high-profile mystery for many years, and we're now much closer to the cause," said NOAA scientist Nat Scholz.

Coho salmon return each autumn to the tributaries of the <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=PACIFIC&amp;cvid=85e81936106b4071b352ead8ee051021&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Pacific</a> waters of the Northwest. But in their upstream quest to spawn, they face swift currents and, in many streams and rivers, toxic runoff.
New research shows just how deadly the effects of runoff is for coho salmon. Runoff is the polluted water that collects on highways, parking lots and other urban expanses before funneling into local waterways.
But researchers also found a simple solution: cheap and simple filtration stations made of sand and soil.

When scientists exposed coho salmon at a hatchery in Washington State to toxic stormwater runoff, all of the fish died within a day. Many died within hours. Coho Salmon Endangered By <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/bioplastics-are-just-as-toxic-as-traditional-plastics/">Toxic</a> Runoff

But when runoff was filtered through a layered cylinder of gravel, sand, compost and bark, all of the fish survived. The filtration system drastically reduced the levels of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, byproducts of fuel combustion, and halved the presence of toxic heavy metals.

"What impressed me most was the effectiveness of the treatment," Jen McIntyre, a researcher at the stormwater program at Washington State University. "It's remarkable that we could take runoff that killed all of the adult coho in less than 24 hours -- sometimes less than four hours -- and render it non-toxic, even after putting several storms worth of water through the same soil mixture."

McIntyre is the co-author a new paper on the experiments, published this week <a class="tpstyle" href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.12534/abstract" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in the Journal of Applied Ecology</a>. The research was a collaborative effort among scientists with NOAA Fisheries and Washington State's Puyallup Research and Extension Center.

"The recurring coho spawner deaths have been a high-profile mystery for many years, and we're now much closer to the cause," said Nat Scholz, manager of the Ecotoxicology Program at the NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center. "Although we haven't identified a smoking gun, our study shows that toxic stormwater is killing coho, and that the problem can be addressed."

---

Credit: UPI

Coho Salmon Endangered By Toxic Runoff

Coho Salmon Endangered By Toxic Runoff "The recurring coho spawner...

Horn Of Africa Is Drying Much Faster As Climate Warms. The Horn of Africa has become increasingly arid in sync with the global and regional warming of the last century and at a rate unprecedented in the last 2,000 years, according to new research led by a University of Arizona geoscientist.

The region has suffered deadly droughts every few years in recent decades.

The scientists suggest as global and regional warming continues, the eastern Horn of Africa, which includes Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia, will receive progressively less rain during the crucial "long rains" season of March, April and May.

Such a trend could exacerbate tensions in one of the most geopolitically unstable regions in the world.

The team's suggestion that the Horn of Africa will become even drier contradicts the global climate models that indicate future warming will bring more rain to the region.

"What we see in the paleoclimate record from the last 2,000 years is evidence that the Horn of Africa is drier when there are warm conditions on Earth, and wetter when it is colder," said lead author Jessica Tierney, a UA associate professor of geosciences.

"The rate of the recent drying in the Horn of Africa is unprecedented in the last 2,000 years," Tierney said.

In their paper, the scientists call for researchers to develop more computer models of climate that focus on the regional scale. Such models might better predict how future warming will affect the Horn of Africa's seasonal rains.

Study co-author Peter deMenocal said, "The region is drying in sync with carbon emissions. This has significant socioeconomic implications for this geopolitical hotspot into the future." The Center for Climate and Life at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is headed by deMenocal.

The researchers used cores of ancient marine sediments from the nearby Gulf of Aden to reconstruct regional temperature and aridity for the past 2,000 years.

The team found their reconstructions of local temperature and aridity were in step with an independent reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperatures stretching back to the year A.D. 1. All the data point to the Horn of Africa becoming warmer and drier in the last 100 years.

The team's report, "Past and future rainfall in the Horn of Africa," was published online today in the open-access journal Science Advances. Co-author Caroline Ummenhofer is at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The National Science Foundation funded the research.

---

<a href="http://www.arizona.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Arizona</a>

Horn Of Africa Is Drying Much Faster As Climate Warms....

Snorkeling with Sea Turtles on Gili Trawangan - Underwater Photo

Ecotourism Can Harm Wild Animals. Ecotourism, in which travelers visit natural environments with an eye toward funding conservation efforts or boosting local economies, has become increasingly popular in recent years. In many cases it involves close observation of or interaction with wildlife, such as when tourists swim with marine animals.

Now, life scientists have analyzed more than 100 research studies on how ecotourism affects wild animals and concluded that such trips can be harmful to the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/animals-in-cold-climates-are-facing-a-higher-risk-of-disease-outbreaks/">animals</a>, whose behaviors may be altered in ways that put them at risk. Ecotourism Can Harm Wild Animals

The research is published Oct. 9 in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Protected areas around the globe receive a total of more than 8 billion visits each year. "This massive amount of nature-based and ecotourism can be added to the long list of drivers of human-induced rapid environmental change," said Daniel Blumstein, the study's senior author and professor and chair of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA.

The presence of humans changes the way animals behave, and those changes may make them more vulnerable -- to poachers, for one, but also in less obvious ways, said Blumstein, who is also a professor in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability in the UCLA College.

When animals interact in seemingly benign ways with humans, they may let down their guard, Blumstein said. As animals learn to relax in the presence of humans, they may become bolder in other situations; if this transfers to their interactions with predators, they are more likely to be injured or killed.

The presence of humans can also discourage natural predators, creating a kind of safe haven for smaller animals that may make them bolder. For example, when humans are nearby, vervet monkeys have fewer run-ins with predatory leopards. And in Grand Teton National Park, elk and pronghorns in areas with more tourists are less alert and spend more time eating, Blumstein and his colleagues report.

Interacting with people can cause significant change in the characteristics of various species over time. "If individuals selectively habituate to humans -- particularly tourists -- and if invasive tourism practices enhance this habituation, we might be selecting for or creating traits or syndromes that have unintended consequences, such as increased predation risk," the researchers write. "Even a small human-induced perturbation could affect the behavior or population biology of a species and influence the species' function in its community."

Ecotourism has effects similar to those of animal domestication and urbanization, the researchers argue. In all three cases, regular interactions between people and animals may lead to habituation -- a kind of taming. Research has shown that domesticated silver foxes become more docile and less fearful, a process that results from evolutionary changes, but also from regular interactions with humans, Blumstein said. Domesticated fish are less responsive to simulated predatory attacks. Fox squirrels and birds that live in urbanized areas are slower to flee from danger.

Blumstein hopes the new analysis will encourage more research into the interactions between people and wildlife. It is essential, he said, to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how various species in various situations respond to human interaction and under what conditions human exposure may place them at risk.

---

<a href="http://www.ucla.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">UCLA</a>

Ecotourism Can Harm Wild Animals

Ecotourism Can Harm Wild Animals. Ecotourism, in which travelers visit...

Coho Salmon Endangered By Toxic Runoff "The recurring coho spawner deaths have been a high-profile mystery for many years, and we're now much closer to the cause," said NOAA scientist Nat Scholz.

Coho salmon return each autumn to the tributaries of the Pacific waters of the Northwest. But in their upstream quest to spawn, they face swift currents and, in many streams and rivers, toxic runoff.
New research shows just how deadly the effects of runoff is for coho <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/distinctly-different-chinook-salmon-are-part-of-the-same-population/">salmon</a>. Runoff is the polluted water that collects on highways, parking lots and other urban expanses before funneling into local waterways.
But researchers also found a simple solution: cheap and simple filtration stations made of sand and soil.

When scientists exposed coho salmon at a hatchery in Washington State to toxic stormwater runoff, all of the fish died within a day. Many died within hours.

But when runoff was filtered through a layered cylinder of gravel, sand, compost and bark, all of the fish survived. The filtration system drastically reduced the levels of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, byproducts of fuel combustion, and halved the presence of toxic heavy metals.

"What impressed me most was the effectiveness of the treatment," Jen McIntyre, a researcher at the stormwater program at Washington State University. "It's remarkable that we could take runoff that killed all of the adult coho in less than 24 hours -- sometimes less than four hours -- and render it non-toxic, even after putting several storms worth of water through the same soil mixture."

McIntyre is the co-author a new paper on the experiments, published this week <a class="tpstyle" href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.12534/abstract" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in the Journal of Applied Ecology</a>. The research was a collaborative effort among scientists with NOAA Fisheries and Washington State's Puyallup Research and Extension Center.

"The recurring coho spawner deaths have been a high-profile mystery for many years, and we're now much closer to the cause," said Nat Scholz, manager of the Ecotoxicology Program at the NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center. "Although we haven't identified a smoking gun, our study shows that toxic stormwater is killing coho, and that the problem can be addressed."

---

Credit: UPI

Ecotourism Can Harm Wild Animals. Ecotourism, in which travelers visit natural environments with an eye toward funding conservation efforts or boosting local economies, has become increasingly popular in recent years. In many cases it involves close observation of or interaction with wildlife, such as when tourists swim with marine animals.

Now, life scientists have analyzed more than 100 research studies on how ecotourism affects wild animals and concluded that such trips can be harmful to the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/animals-in-cold-climates-are-facing-a-higher-risk-of-disease-outbreaks/">animals</a>, whose behaviors may be altered in ways that put them at risk.Ecotourism Can Harm Wild Animals

The research is published Oct. 9 in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Protected areas around the globe receive a total of more than 8 billion visits each year. "This massive amount of nature-based and ecotourism can be added to the long list of drivers of human-induced rapid environmental change," said Daniel Blumstein, the study's senior author and professor and chair of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA.

The presence of humans changes the way animals behave, and those changes may make them more vulnerable -- to poachers, for one, but also in less obvious ways, said Blumstein, who is also a professor in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability in the UCLA College.

When animals interact in seemingly benign ways with humans, they may let down their guard, Blumstein said. As animals learn to relax in the presence of humans, they may become bolder in other situations; if this transfers to their interactions with predators, they are more likely to be injured or killed.

The presence of humans can also discourage natural predators, creating a kind of safe haven for smaller animals that may make them bolder. For example, when humans are nearby, vervet monkeys have fewer run-ins with predatory leopards. And in Grand Teton National Park, elk and pronghorns in areas with more tourists are less alert and spend more time eating, Blumstein and his colleagues report.

Interacting with people can cause significant change in the characteristics of various species over time. "If individuals selectively habituate to humans -- particularly tourists -- and if invasive tourism practices enhance this habituation, we might be selecting for or creating traits or syndromes that have unintended consequences, such as increased predation risk," the researchers write. "Even a small human-induced perturbation could affect the behavior or population biology of a species and influence the species' function in its community."

Ecotourism has effects similar to those of animal domestication and urbanization, the researchers argue. In all three cases, regular interactions between people and animals may lead to habituation -- a kind of taming. Research has shown that domesticated silver foxes become more docile and less fearful, a process that results from evolutionary changes, but also from regular interactions with humans, Blumstein said. Domesticated fish are less responsive to simulated predatory attacks. Fox squirrels and birds that live in urbanized areas are slower to flee from danger.

Blumstein hopes the new analysis will encourage more research into the interactions between people and wildlife. It is essential, he said, to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how various species in various situations respond to human interaction and under what conditions human exposure may place them at risk.

---

<a href="http://www.ucla.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">UCLA</a>

EU Climate Chief: Global Climate Pledges Are Not Enough. Europe's climate chief has acknowledged for the first time that climate pledges made by national governments ahead of a major U.N. conference fall short of meeting the international goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said the EU's projections show the current pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions would put world on a path toward 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming.
That's a level that scientists say could result in dangerous changes in the Earth's climate system, such as rising seas flooding coastal areas and small island nations.
Canete said the fact that almost 150 countries have made pledges ahead of a December climate conference in Paris is "an extraordinary result" - but not enough.
"In some G20 countries, there is margin of maneuver to increase the level of ambition," he said, referring to the Group of 20 major economies.
Canete didn't rule out improving the European Union's own target of reducing emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, even though he called it the "most ambitious" of all.
"At the moment, we come along with this target to the talks," he said, speaking on the sidelines of a climate conference in Rabat. "Let's see what is in the final version."
Canete noted the target of the EU - the world's third biggest greenhouse gas polluter - didn't include international credits for funding to reduce emissions in developing countries "which opens the possibility of raising the level of ambition.EU Climate Chief: Global Climate Pledges Are Not Enough
The deal envisioned in <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/inconsistent-paris-agreement-pledges/">Paris</a> would be the first where all countries, both rich and poor, commit to take action to fight global warming, which scientists say is chiefly caused by burning fossil fuels.
To make sure that temperatures don't rise more than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times - they are already almost halfway there - the Paris deal should include a mechanism to review emissions targets every five years, Canete said.
The EU position wants the first review in 2025 but Canete indicated an earlier date was not out of the question. "The date is not so important," he added. "The important thing is to have a permanent mechanism of raising ambition periodically."
Climate policy expert Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based environmental think tank, said the date of the first review after Paris is quite significant.
"Science tells us we cannot wait 10 years, especially noting how much more there is to be done," Morgan said.
Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum, who was unable to travel to Rabat because of a storm battering the Pacific nation, said locking in the current emissions targets would spell disaster.
"Without much more urgent and ambitious action, my country simply won't survive," he said in a statement.
All major economies have presented emissions pledges for after 2020 as part of negotiations for the Paris deal but they all look different. Developed countries including the U.S. and the EU have pledged absolute reductions in emissions, while China has vowed to peak its emissions by 2030 and India has pledged to reduce its emissions per unit of gross domestic product.
Saudi Arabia and other oil and gas-producing countries in the Middle East are among those that haven't proposed any targets yet.
"I had talks with Saudi Arabia last week in Istanbul and they told me they will be coming along with their (target) in due course," Canete said. "I'm confident that (it) will arrive before Paris."
---
Karl Ritter can be reached on Twitter at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/karl-ritter" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.twitter.com/karl-ritter</a>
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

EU Climate Chief: Global Climate Pledges Are Not Enough

EU Climate Chief: Global Climate Pledges Are Not Enough. Europe's...

Mozambique Deadly Depot

Mozambique To Turn Old Ammunition Depot in Malhazine Into Nature Reserve. Craters lie where concrete bunkers once stood, testament to the powerful explosions that occurred when a Mozambican ammunition depot accidentally blew up in 2007, killing more than 100 people.
Now work is underway to transform a site littered with old rockets, grenades and shells into a nature reserve with <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=museum&amp;cvid=b9b109c67963406aadf425bf807eff8f&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">museums</a>, restaurants and a children's playground.
Last month, Mozambique said it had removed all known land mines with the help of the United Nations and international demining groups, ending a massive project that began after its civil war ended more than two decades ago. Yet determining teams are still removing ammunition remnants at the former military depot in Malhazine, a densely populated neighborhood on the edge of Maputo, the <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/helsinki-the-nature-capital-of-the-world/">capital</a>.
Much of it is considered harmless, but some military explosives there have degraded fuzes, making them a particular menace because they are unstable.


[caption id="attachment_2385191" align="alignleft" width="150"]<a href="http://cff1.greenatom.net/uploads/2015/10/12134604/mozambique-nature-reserve_2big_ap.jpg"><img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-2385191" src="http://cff1.greenatom.net/uploads/2015/10/12134604/mozambique-nature-reserve_2big_ap-150x150.jpg" alt="A pile of old rockets and other projectiles lies at a former military depot at Malhazine" width="150" height="150" /></a> A pile of old rockets and other projectiles lies at a former military depot at Malhazine[/caption]
The plan to create a weekend getaway for families out of a no-go zone symbolizes Mozambique's peaceful aspirations after conflict that started in the 1960s with the war against Portuguese colonizers and ended with a 1992 peace deal in Rome between rival Mozambican factions whose divisions still sometimes spill into violence. Mozambique was also haunted by civilian casualties from old land mines long after fighting ceased.Mozambique To Turn Old Ammunition Depot in Malhazine Into Nature Reserve
"We want to see if it can be a place for pleasure, not connected to war," Alberto Augusto, director of Mozambique's National Demining Institute, said of the former depot at Malhazine, 3.7 miles (six kilometers) north of the international airport. He compared plans for a park there to New York City's Central Park, saying Maputo must establish green areas as development accelerates in one of Africa's fastest-growing economies.
"We need to create an equilibrium between the buildings that we are constructing and the environment," Augusto said in an interview with The Associated Press.
On a recent morning, teams from APOPO, a non-governmental group whose headquarters are in Tanzania, used metal detectors to locate chunks of old ammunition and other rusted metal. They deployed large rats, attached by leashes to long poles, that had been trained to sniff out TNT. APOPO is testing the unusual program for possible use in Cambodia, where mines from past conflicts still inflict casualties.
The Malhazine clearance project is expected to take at least one more year. The HALO Trust, an international charity that helped clear mines in Mozambique, will join the operation at the 1,480-acre (600-hectare) site, much of which is dense scrub traversed by sandy roads. To avoid scaring Malhazine residents who remember 2007 disaster, deminers don't destroy explosives in controlled blasts at the former depot but instead remove them to areas far from population centers for disposal.
On March 22 of that year, blasts at the depot, originally built by the colonial army, caused Soviet-made rockets and missiles to come down on nearby homes and businesses. Residents said some ordnance flew as far as central Maputo, at least six miles (10 kilometers) away.
Video showed a large fireball on the horizon and giant plumes of smoke. The rumble of explosions was heard for hours as panicked residents fled their homes. At least 100 people died and about 500 others were wounded; hundreds of homes were destroyed. Authorities later blamed the disaster on unsafe storage conditions and high temperatures.
"It's something that locals will never forget," said Lordes Zavale, an APOPO operations manager. Making the area safe for civilians is very challenging, but can be accomplished with time and resources, he said.
The Malhazine depot had already been the scene of similar, though less catastrophic, explosions. In 1985, a dozen people died there in blasts that some Maputo residents initially thought were air strikes by neighboring South Africa's white minority rulers of the time. The apartheid regime's jets had previously targeted Maputo facilities of the African National Congress, the main South African dissident group.
The work at Malhazine is considered less dangerous than mine-clearing, and teams often do not wear protective gear. Even so, a pile of recovered items included several decaying rockets. Another pile near a demolished bunker included the remnants of cannon rounds, aircraft ammunition and an anti-personnel mine.
Mozambique's environment ministry is designing the nature reserve, which will include antelope and other animals. There will also be a zoo, a water park, a botanical garden, a camping ground, a military museum and an observation tower. Augusto, the demining chief, said it is time to "start thinking of the beauty of Mozambique."
The Malhazine park project, he said, "is a dream."
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Mozambique To Turn Old Ammunition Depot

Mozambique To Turn Old Ammunition Depot in Malhazine Into Nature...

California May Allow Violent Prisoners To Fight Wildfires. California officials are considering allowing inmates with violent backgrounds to work outside prison walls fighting wildfires, and the idea is generating concerns about public safety.
The state has the nation's largest and oldest inmate firefighting unit, with about 3,800 members who provide critical assistance to professional firefighters. That's down from about 4,400 in previous years, however, and so prison officials are looking for ways to add inmates.
Now, only minimum-security inmates with no history of violent crimes can participate. Starting next year, the <a href="http://www.earth.com/video/santa-barbara-county-in-southern-california/">California</a> Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is proposing adding inmates convicted of violent offenses such as assaults and robberies, if their security classification level has been reduced after years of good behavior.
Officials also are seeking to allow inmates who have up to seven years left on their sentences instead of the current five. Arsonists, kidnappers, sex offenders, gang affiliates and those serving life sentences for murder and other crimes would still be excluded.
"All it does is enlarge the pool of inmates we look at, but it doesn't change the nature of the inmate that we put in camp," Corrections spokesman Bill Sessa told The Associated Press. "We still are not going to put an inmate in camp that has a violent attitude."California May Allow Violent Prisoners To Fight Wildfires
The changes are pending final approval within the Corrections Department. They still have not been sent to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which says it also must sign off.
The proposal comes at a time when the overall prison population is smaller and drought has created the potential for explosive wildfires like the ones that recently roared through the Sierra foothills and communities north of Napa, in northern <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=california&amp;cvid=f4cf8ef41ffc43c7b9d6a9c10597215e&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">California</a>.
Mike Lopez, president of the union representing state firefighters who oversee inmates at fire scenes, supports a robust inmate program but worries about what the proposed changes could bring.
"Any acceptance of criminals with a violent background calls into question the security of our membership," he said, adding, "at what risk is CalFire willing to go to get those inmates?"
CalFire spokeswoman Janet Upton said her agency and corrections officials formed a committee this summer to consider how best to keep the firefighter program adequately staffed. She wouldn't comment on the proposed changes other than to say "nobody is interested in seeing this program go away."
The inmate firefighting program started during the civilian manpower shortage of World War II and now includes a small number of women and juvenile offenders. Volunteers must be healthy and pass a two-week physical fitness training program before they complete two weeks of classes on fighting fires.
Even using only nonviolent inmates has resulted in hundreds of assaults and batteries, along with weapons possessions, indecent exposures and other crimes among inmate firefighters in the last 10 years, according to data compiled by corrections officials and provided at the AP's request. Officials said the rate is much lower than in higher-security prisons.
State Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, a former parole commissioner, said it is "unconscionable" to add to the risk by using inmates with a history of violence.
"They're weighing this minor good against a major bad of compromising justice and the safety of our citizens," Nielsen said.
Harriet Salarno, founder of Crime Victims United of California, said she is also concerned but fears the state has no choice.
"This is very, very dangerous, but when you have a forest fire, what can you do?" she said Monday. "You need manpower to fight the fires, so we're now putting dangerous criminals out there."
Inmate firefighters are housed in 43 unfenced, minimum-security camps scattered across the state. They are guarded by a few correctional officers but while fighting fires are overseen only by unarmed CalFire captains who direct the inmates as they use hand tools to chew through brush and timberland to create firebreaks to stop advancing flames.
An average of nine inmates escape from the camps each year but since 2011 all but one has been recaptured.
The inmates often are used in rough, remote or environmentally sensitive terrain that is inaccessible to bulldozers. They accounted for nearly one of every five state, federal and local firefighters battling the recent Lake County and Sierra foothills fires.
The program makes inmates eligible for earlier parole, has higher pay and more relative freedom than other inmate jobs, and provides skills they can use once they are freed.
Officials are proposing loosening the rules because the number of available inmates has been shrinking since late 2011. That's when, under court order to reduce overcrowding, California began keeping thousands of lower-level offenders in county jails, leaving a higher proportion of violent and serious criminals in state prisons.
Since then, other initiatives have further reduced the number of potential firefighters.
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

California May Allow Violent Prisoners To Fight Wildfires

California May Allow Violent Prisoners To Fight Wildfires. California officials...

California officials are considering allowing inmates with violent backgrounds to work outside prison walls fighting wildfires, and the idea is generating concerns about public safety.
The state has the nation's largest and oldest inmate firefighting unit, with about 3,800 members who provide critical assistance to professional firefighters. That's down from about 4,400 in previous years, however, and so prison officials are looking for ways to add inmates.
Now, only minimum-security inmates with no history of violent crimes can participate. Starting next year, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is proposing adding inmates convicted of violent offenses such as assaults and robberies, if their security classification level has been reduced after years of good behavior.
Officials also are seeking to allow inmates who have up to seven years left on their sentences instead of the current five. Arsonists, kidnappers, sex offenders, gang affiliates and those serving life sentences for murder and other crimes would still be excluded. California May Allow Violent Prisoners To Fight Wildfires
"All it does is enlarge the pool of inmates we look at, but it doesn't change the nature of the inmate that we put in camp," Corrections spokesman Bill Sessa told The Associated Press. "We still are not going to put an inmate in camp that has a violent attitude."
The changes are pending final approval within the Corrections Department. They still have not been sent to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which says it also must sign off. California May Allow Violent Prisoners To Fight Wildfires
The proposal comes at a time when the overall prison population is smaller and drought has created the potential for explosive wildfires like the ones that recently roared through the Sierra foothills and communities north of Napa, in <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/shasta-lake-northern-california/">northern California</a>.
Mike Lopez, president of the union representing state firefighters who oversee inmates at fire scenes, supports a robust inmate program but worries about what the proposed changes could bring.
"Any acceptance of criminals with a violent background calls into question the security of our membership," he said, adding, "at what risk is CalFire willing to go to get those inmates?"
CalFire spokeswoman Janet Upton said her agency and corrections officials formed a committee this summer to consider how best to keep the firefighter program adequately staffed. She wouldn't comment on the proposed changes other than to say "nobody is interested in seeing this program go away."
The inmate firefighting program started during the civilian manpower shortage of World War II and now includes a small number of women and juvenile offenders. Volunteers must be healthy and pass a two-week physical fitness training program before they complete two weeks of classes on fighting fires.
Even using only nonviolent inmates has resulted in hundreds of assaults and batteries, along with weapons possessions, indecent exposures and other crimes among inmate firefighters in the last 10 years, according to data compiled by corrections officials and provided at the AP's request. Officials said the rate is much lower than in higher-security prisons.
State Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, a former parole commissioner, said it is "unconscionable" to add to the risk by using inmates with a history of violence.
"They're weighing this minor good against a major bad of compromising justice and the safety of our citizens," Nielsen said.
Harriet Salarno, founder of Crime Victims United of California, said she is also concerned but fears the state has no choice.
"This is very, very dangerous, but when you have a forest fire, what can you do?" she said Monday. "You need manpower to fight the fires, so we're now putting dangerous criminals out there."
Inmate firefighters are housed in 43 unfenced, minimum-security camps scattered across the state. They are guarded by a few correctional officers but while fighting fires are overseen only by unarmed CalFire captains who direct the inmates as they use hand tools to chew through brush and timberland to create firebreaks to stop advancing flames.
An average of nine inmates escape from the camps each year but since 2011 all but one has been recaptured.
The inmates often are used in rough, remote or <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=environmental&amp;cvid=e7f7f63c4d204a788d5dc8c77902f1e1&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">environmentally</a> sensitive terrain that is inaccessible to bulldozers. They accounted for nearly one of every five state, federal and local firefighters battling the recent Lake County and Sierra foothills fires.
The program makes inmates eligible for earlier parole, has higher pay and more relative freedom than other inmate jobs, and provides skills they can use once they are freed.
Officials are proposing loosening the rules because the number of available inmates has been shrinking since late 2011. That's when, under court order to reduce overcrowding, California began keeping thousands of lower-level offenders in county jails, leaving a higher proportion of violent and serious criminals in state prisons.
Since then, other initiatives have further reduced the number of potential firefighters.
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

California officials are considering allowing inmates with violent backgrounds to...

New Research Maps Areas Vulnerable To ocean acidification. New NOAA-led research maps the distribution of aragonite saturation state in both surface and subsurface waters of the global ocean and provides further evidence that ocean acidification is happening on a global scale. The study identifies the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, and the upwelling ocean waters off the west coasts of North America, South America and Africa as regions that are especially vulnerable to <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/mercury-pollution-is-making-its-way-to-the-deepest-parts-of-the-ocean/">ocean</a> acidification.

"These findings will help us better understand and develop strategies to adapt to the severity of ocean acidification in different marine ecosystems around the world," said Richard A. Feely, a NOAA oceanographer and co-author of the study, which has been accepted for publication and can be read online in the American Geophysical Union journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles.

Ocean acidification is caused by humankind's release of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. Excess carbon dioxide enters the ocean, reacts with water, decreases ocean pH and lowers carbonate ion concentrations, making waters more corrosive to marine species that need carbonate ions and dissolved calcium to build and maintain healthy shells and skeletons. The saturation state of seawater for a mineral such as aragonite is a measure of the potential for the mineral to form or to dissolve.

In the new study, scientists determined the saturation state of aragonite in order to map regions that are vulnerable to ocean acidification. Waters with higher aragonite saturation state tend to be better able to support shellfish, coral and other species that use this mineral to build and maintain their shells and other hard parts.

This study shows that aragonite saturation state in waters shallower than 328 feet or 100 meters depth decreased by an average of 0.4 percent per year from the decade spanning 1989-1998 to the decade spanning 1998-2010. "A decline in the saturation state of carbonate minerals, especially aragonite, is a good indicator of a rise in ocean acidification," said Li-Qing Jiang, an oceanographer with NOAA's Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites at the University of Maryland and lead author.

The most vulnerable areas of the global ocean are being hit with a double whammy of sorts. In these areas, deep ocean waters that are naturally rich in carbon dioxide are upwelling and mixing with surface waters that are absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is coming primarily from human-caused fossil fuel emissions.

"When oyster larvae are born they must draw on the energy in their yolk to build their aragonite shells to protect themselves from predators and grow into healthy adults," said Feely. In waters depleted of carbonate ions, young oysters must expend more energy to build their shell and may not survive. This has significant consequences for the seafood industry."

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<a href="http://www.noaa.gov" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NOAA</a>

New Research Maps Areas Vulnerable To ocean acidification

New Research Maps Areas Vulnerable To ocean acidification. New NOAA-led...

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.igb.illinois.edu/">Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology</a> reveals how scientists can modify common crops like soybean, rice, and wheat to protect them from heat stress.



“We need to double crop production by 2050 to feed a growing global population, and not only are we not on track to do that, but climate change is further complicating things,” said Amanda Cavanagh, a lecturer at the University of Essex. 



The study is part of Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE), an international research project that aims to develop food crops that turn the sun’s energy into food more efficiently.



“Using an engineering approach we designed multiple alternative metabolic pathways to photorespiration. Testing them in the field showed increases in productivity which led Amanda to significantly move the project forward by showing our engineered plants can withstand pretty extreme temperature stress,” said study co-author and RIPE researcher Paul South.&nbsp;



“As the climate changes and temperature stresses increase the pressure on our global food supply, farmers will need every tool available including engineering approaches like the synthetic biology used here to maintain safe and productive harvests.”



The experts tested plants modified to have more efficient photorespiration to see if they were better adapted to warmer temperatures.&nbsp;



The team found that the engineered plants produced 26 percent more biomass than the wild-type plants exposed to the same temperatures, and had 15 percent less yield loss under the higher temperatures.



Video Credit: Amanda Nguyen/University of Illinois



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Designing crops that can beat the heat

[sendtonews key="QGPzYnXEtN-1712599-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from Carl...

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes the first comprehensive estimate of carbon density in the Saharan, Sahel, and Sudanian zones of Africa. In an effort to measure the amount of carbon stored across these drylands, a team of scientists used high-resolution satellite images and artificial intelligence to map nearly 10 billion individual trees. 



"The high spatial resolution (50 cm) combined with AI and field measurements used in this study is key to improving tree inventories in drylands," said Pierre Hiernaux, a French researcher working for NASA. "The ever-increasing availability of very high-resolution satellite imagery will make it possible to assess carbon pools and their dynamics at the individual tree level on a global scale."



"This study is exceptional because it is pioneering a type of approach that will revolutionize the monitoring of trees and forests on a global scale: in the short term, it will be possible to map the world's trees from the centre of the Amazon to our schoolyards," said <a href="https://www.inrae.fr/en">INRAE</a> researcher Jean-Pierre Wigneron.



"Many fields of application will become much more efficient and accurate, such as tracking carbon stocks, biodiversity, monitoring logging and protection against illegal forest degradation, in near real time.”



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Remote sensing will revolutionize the way we monitor trees

[sendtonews key="EjmSP20gQK-2593093-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky" Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features northwest Lesotho in South Africa.



According to ESA, Lesotho is the only nation in the world that lies completely above 1,000 m in elevation. The country is famous for its tall mountains and narrow valleys, and is known as Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky."



Out of a population of around two million people, about 80 percent live in rural areas. More than 75 percent of these people are engaged in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-will-have-a-global-impact-on-agriculture/">agriculture</a>, including rainfed cereal production and animal grazing.&nbsp;



ESA reports that the country’s agricultural system faces a growing number of issues, with climate-related vulnerabilities such as drought, floods and extreme temperatures occurring more frequently. 



Diamonds are amongst the minerals found in the mountains. Indeed, Lesotho can truly be called the Kingdom in the Sky. Beautiful, culturally rich, safe, affordable, and easily accessible from Durban and Johannesburg, mountainous Lesotho is a vastly underrated travel destination. the Kingdom of Lesotho (Sotho: 'Muso oa Lesotho) is an enclaved country in southern Africa. It is just over 30,000 km2 (11,583 sq mi) in size and has a population of around 2 million.



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 



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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> features a visual dataset of.methane emissions from wetlands across the globe. Atmospheric methane levels have reached record highs in recent years, and wetlands are a major source of these emissions.&nbsp;



"Methane is an important greenhouse gas that contributes substantially to global warming. On a molecule by molecule basis, methane is much more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, the main driver of warming," says NASA.



"Though human activities, including agriculture, oil and natural gas production and use, and waste disposal, collectively contribute the majority of methane to the atmosphere, about a third of total methane emissions comes from wetlands."&nbsp;



According to NASA, understanding methane emissions from wetlands and other natural sources is critically important for scientists and policymakers who are working to combat climate change by reducing emissions from human activities.



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Wetlands are a major source of methane emissions

[sendtonews key="f8fukm28Vz-2491833-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> reveals the evolution of the Columbia Glacier in southeastern Alaska. Columbia is among the fastest shrinking glaciers in the world, and the video documents its rapid retreat over the years.&nbsp;



Columbia Glacier is a large, multi-branched calving glacier that flows out of the Chugach Mountains to the Prince William Sound.&nbsp;



According to USGS, Columbia had a long history of stability prior to 1980, with a length 41 miles, and small, short-lived advances or retreats.



In the years since 1980, however, satellite images have captured Columbia’s alarming retreat. By using false-color images, scientists can distinguish between snow and ice, open water, vegetation, and rocky debris on the glacier’s surface.



The series of false-color images featured in today's video were acquired over the span of 35 years. You can see that by 2021, the glacier’s main branch had retreated about 15 miles from its initial position.



The Columbia Glacier has also lost more than 50 percent of its volume, mostly due to calving. <a href="https://www.earth.com/video/nasa-reveals-3d-visual-of-an-atmospheric-river/">NASA</a> reports that while climate change likely started the retreat, mechanical processes kept the disintegration going.



The NASA images are provided by Jesse Allen, Robert Simmon, Joshua Stevens, and Lauren Dauphin using data from Landsat satellites, from the U.S. Geological Survey, and data from MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite. The structure of Columbia’s moraine played a large role in the stability of the glacier before 1980. 



Like other tidewater glaciers, the Columbia built up a moraine over time, and the mixture of ice and rock functioned like a dam keeping out the sea. It was supported on one end by the shoreline and by the underwater terminal moraine at the other.



Video Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/&nbsp; NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes how record-breaking heat expressed itself around the world in 2022.



Scientists have determined that 2022 was the 5th warmest year since 1880. Furthermore, the last nine consecutive years have been the warmest on record.



From devastating floods and wildfires to natural disasters like Hurricane Ian, 2022 showed us yet again how a warming climate affects people across the globe.&nbsp;



"As we look back at 20:22 and years past, we see that each year we better understand the challenges we face and how important it is to meet them," says NASA.



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes Earth’s interconnected systems, and how this network is affected by rising temperatures.&nbsp;



During 2020, average global temperatures matched the hottest year on record. The hurricane season was also record-breaking, with many of the storms intensifying at extraordinary speeds. Hot water in the ocean is fuel for hurricanes. The satellite data shows that it's all one interconnected system showing how Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected.



According to NASA, dust swept up from Northern Africa plays a major role in the formation of hurricanes, and is also a key source of fertilization in the Amazon rainforest. As a result of<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/seagrass-wasting-disease-is-fueled-by-climate-change/"> climate</a> change, dust plumes are expected to decline, which will have an effect on vegetation far away.&nbsp;



Images from Earth-observing satellites show how the world’s plant life is affected by natural disasters, fires, and deforestation. Satellites also reveal how widespread changes in vegetation impact waterways,&nbsp; the climate, air quality. Satellites communicate by using radio waves to send signals to the antennas on the Earth. "Earth From Space" is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. 



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

[sendtonews key="JbW4VsY53O-1632195-12187" type="single"] Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected...

Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://welcome.miami.edu/">University of Miami</a> Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science explores how changes in water temperatures have affected tiger shark habitats and movements in the North Atlantic Ocean. The study reveals that rising temperatures have caused the sharks to shift toward the poles over the past 40 years.



“Tiger shark annual migrations have expanded poleward, paralleling rising water temperatures,” explained study lead author Neil Hammerschlag. “These results have consequences for tiger shark conservation, since shifts in their movements outside of marine protected areas may leave them more vulnerable to commercial fishing.”



The researchers analyzed nine years of tracking data from satellite-tagged tiger sharks, combined with four decades of conventional tag and recapture data provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Cooperative Shark Tagging Program.



The experts found that during the last decade of record heat, for every one-degree Celsius increase in water temperatures, tiger sharks migrated further poleward by over 400 kilometers. They also migrated two weeks earlier than usual to waters off the northeastern coast of the United States.



“Given their role as apex predators, these changes to tiger shark movements may alter predator-prey interactions, leading to ecological imbalances, and more frequent encounters with humans,” concluded Professor Hammerschlag.



Video Credit: University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

Today’s Video of the Day from the University of Miami...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> is focused on the melt ponds that emerge during the spring and summer on the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is the largest ice mass in the northern hemisphere.



"Melt ponds are vast pools of open water that form on both sea ice and ice sheets and are visible as turquoise-blue pools of water in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image," says ESA.



"When snow and ice melts atop glaciers, water flows in channels and streams and collects in depressions on the surface. These melt ponds can speed up the melting of the surrounding ice since they greatly reduce the ice’s ability to reflect sunlight."



"This can create a positive feedback where an increasing number of melt ponds absorb more heat which causes ice cover to melt even faster."



According to ESA, Greenland has been hit with a late-season heatwave that began in early September. This caused the type of melt event that usually occurs in the middle of summer.



"In a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, scientists found that major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now ‘inevitable’ even if the burning of fossil fuels were to halt overnight," says ESA. "Using satellite observations of Greenland ice loss and ice cap from 2000 to 2019, the team found the losses will lead to a minimum rise of 27 cm regardless of climate change."



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Melt ponds on the Greenland Ice Sheet

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes how Earth is unique in our solar system for its ability to sustain liquid water on its surface. But now, the water cycle is shifting as the climate warms, and scientists must find ways to predict how these changes will affect water availability.



Overall, 96 percent of Earth's water is saltwater, and nearly all of freshwater is found in ice and groundwater. These sources of water are linked as it passes through solid, liquid and gas phases.



In a warmer climate, the water cycle will be transformed. It will be easier for water to evaporate and form clouds, and storms will become more frequent and intense. Some regions will get too much water, while others will be left without enough water. In addition, soil moisture will be lost - which threatens food security.



Scientists are using satellite data from over the last 40 years to track changes that are happening in the water cycle. This will ultimately help us prepare for extreme events and better manage our water resources, according to ESA.



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Tracking changes in Earth's water cycle

[sendtonews key="fxH3eJHEkQ-2010196-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

Saturn,-,High,Resolution,3d,Images,Presents,Planets,Of,The

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> features images of Saturn from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The photographs capture the start of the mysterious "spoke season" on Saturn - when unexplained features appear on its rings. 



According to NASA, both the cause of the spokes and their seasonal variability have yet to be fully explained by planetary scientists.



"Like Earth, Saturn is tilted on its axis and therefore has four seasons, though because of Saturn's much larger orbit, each season lasts approximately seven Earth years. Equinox occurs when the rings are tilted edge-on to the Sun," explains NASA.



"The spokes disappear when it is near summer or winter solstice on Saturn. (When the Sun appears to reach either its highest or lowest latitude in the northern or southern hemisphere of a planet.) As the autumnal equinox of Saturn's northern hemisphere on May 6, 2025, draws near, the spokes are expected to become increasingly prominent and observable."



Experts believe that the spokes may be a product of the planet's variable magnetic field. When magnetic fields interact with solar wind, an electrically charged environment is created. This phenomenon is visible on Earth as the northern lights.&nbsp;



"Scientists think that the smallest, dust-sized icy ring particles can become charged as well, which temporarily levitates those particles above the rest of the larger icy particles and boulders in the rings," says NASA.



The spokes were first observed in the early 1980s by NASA's Voyager mission. Depending on the angle of the rings, the spokes can appear dark or light.



"Thanks to Hubble's OPAL program, which is building an archive of data on the outer solar system planets, we will have longer dedicated time to study Saturn’s spokes this season than ever before," said NASA senior planetary scientist Amy Simon, head of the Hubble Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program.



"Despite years of excellent observations by the Cassini mission, the precise beginning and duration of the spoke season is still unpredictable, rather like predicting the first storm during hurricane season."



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Mysterious "spoke season" captured on Saturn

[sendtonews key="Ccjk8KEMzv-2550719-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

Closeup,Of,Fresh,Green,The,Napier,Bush,Grass,As,Animal

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="http://www.ntu.edu.sg/">NTU Singapore</a> reveals that some plants can remove toxic heavy metals from soil.&nbsp;



The researchers analyzed samples of various tropical plant species to test for levels of heavy metals and metalloids. The study showed that there are existing plants with high levels of these contaminants, which means that these species are great candidates for drawing pollutants out of the soil.&nbsp;



Among the plants examined in the study, 12 species had accumulated several types of heavy metals and metalloids. These plants are widely available, including species that are native to Singapore.



“In a small nation like Singapore, land may be repurposed to support new development plans, so it is important that we have a green and sustainable way to remediate land that is contaminated," said Professor Lam Yeng Ming.



"We set out to uncover how to better make use of tropical plants to do phytoremediation and through advanced characterization techniques, we showed how some of these tropical plant species can be an environmentally friendly and literally a 'green' way to remove contaminants in soil."&nbsp;



"Phytoremediation also has benefits of cost effectiveness, simplicity of management, aesthetic advantages, and long-term applicability and sustainability. The strategy prevents erosion and metal leaching by stabilizing or accumulating heavy metals, so that helps reduce the risk of contaminant spread.”



Video Credit: NTU Singapore



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Plants help remove heavy metals from contaminated soil

[sendtonews key="6SdlLLbt0t-1988946-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from NTU...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> describes why herbicides are not as effective in killing weeds anymore. In the 20th century, chemical companies developed thousands of herbicides. The most commonly used herbicide was glyphosate, which was introduced in 1974.



Over the past few decades, dozens of species of weeds have evolved resistance to glyphosate. Depending on the site of action, the part of the plant that an herbicide interacts with, weeds may even be resistant to herbicides that have not been developed yet.&nbsp;



With increasing resistance to glyphosate and other herbicides, weeds are - once again - becoming a major concern for farmers.&nbsp;



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Weeds are becoming increasingly resistant to herbicides

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/">NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory</a> (JPL) describes a dust storm on Mars that was nearly twice the size of the United States. As the storm covered the southern hemisphere of the planet, some of NASA’s explorers had to delay their normal activities.



NASA’s Insight lander put itself in a "safe mode" for 11 days to conserve battery power because solar power was disrupted by the dust. The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter postponed flights until conditions improved.



"A fleet of NASA orbiters monitor Martian dust storms like this one and serve as lifelines to Earth by relaying data from the rovers and lander on the ground back to the team. This includes the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, and Odyssey," reports JPL.



"Dust storms like this recent one start close to the ground and are spread by wind as they rise – warming the cold Martian atmosphere."



The images in the video were captured by NASA’s Curiosity as the dust rolled in. A fleet of orbiters monitored the dust storm from above, relaying data from Mars’ explorers back to scientists on Earth.



Video &amp; Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

NASA monitors giant dust storms on Mars

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="http://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. This strait provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.



Qeshm is separated from the Iranian coast by the Clarence Strait, also known as Khuran.&nbsp;The Hara Forest Protected Area is a network of shallow waterways and forest located between the island and the mainland. This protected region is home to sea turtles, snakes, and more than 150 species of migrating birds.



Qeshm is famous for its wide range of&nbsp;ecotourist&nbsp;attractions, such as the&nbsp;Hara marine forests. According to environmentalists, about 1.5 percent of the world birds and 25 percent of Iran's native <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/female-hummingbirds-avoid-sexual-harassment-by-looking-like-males/">birds</a> annually migrate to the forests, which are the first national geo park in Iran.



Tourists are also drawn to the island to see an age-old Portuguese&nbsp;fort, historic mosques, the&nbsp;Seyyed Mozaffar&nbsp;and&nbsp;Bibi Maryam&nbsp;shrines, and the "Valley of Stars."



The average temperature on the island is 81 degress and the region is often hot and humid. From June to August, the island is described as being oppressively hot. The ideal time to visit is during the winter season. 



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Inhambane Bay in southeast Mozambique.&nbsp;



"Inhambane Bay is a deep inlet into which the small Mutamba River flows," says ESA. "On one side of the bay lies the historical city of Inhambane, capital of the Inhambane Province, while the sister city of Maxixe, the economic capital of Inhambane, sits across from it. The province is the second largest grower of cashews, after Nampula, and it also produces coconut and citrus fruits."



The beaches of Barra and Tofo are popular with tourists. There are also coral reefs along the long coastline of Inhambane, making it an ideal destination for scuba diving and snorkeling.



"Mozambique’s extensive coastline heightens the country’s vulnerability to tropical cyclones that develop in the Indian Ocean as well as storm surge flooding," says ESA.



"More than half of the population lives in low lying coastal areas, putting communities at risk. Inhambane Bay was dangerously close to where Cyclone Idai made landfall in 2019 causing widespread destruction to the country."



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Inhambane Bay in southeast Mozambique

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency </a>&nbsp;features the Kangerlussuaq Glacier, one of the largest tidewater outlet glaciers in Greenland. The glacier is located on the east coast of the Greenland ice sheet.



As human-induced climate change continues to drive up temperatures, global ice loss is accelerating at an alarming rate. ESA reports that, over the past decade alone, 3.5 trillion tons of ice have melted from the Greenland ice sheet. This is enough to cover the UK with meltwater 15 meters deep.



Based on satellite imagery, researchers determined that Kangerlussuaq entered a new phase of rapid retreat and acceleration in 2017. In their study, published in <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00123/full">Frontiers in Earth Science</a>,&nbsp; the experts report that the glacier's ice front is now at its most retreated position since the early 20th century.



"Given Kangerlussuaq’s previous impacts on both the magnitude and pattern of ice sheet wide mass loss, we predict that its new phase of retreat, acceleration and thinning will markedly enhance the south-east region’s contribution to increasing discharge from the ice sheet," wrote the study authors.&nbsp;&nbsp;



"More broadly, accurate forecasting of the ice sheet’s contribution to sea level rise will require a deeper understanding of, and responses to, these non-linear ice dynamic processes."



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Kangerlussuaq Glacier on the Greenland ice sheet

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes the complex relationship between ocean and climate. ESA's Climate Change Initiative will help us understand how oceans influence the climate and how climate change is impacting the oceans.&nbsp;



"Earth’s oceans are huge heat stores, soaking up 93% of the excess heat from human activity over the past 70 years. Ocean currents redistribute heat around the planet, from the Equator to the poles. Where this ocean heat goes influences weather patterns and regional climate," explains ESA.



"As well as absorbing heat, oceans are a natural carbon sink, absorbing a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. This has led to the acidification of ocean water, threating marine life."



The amount of heat and carbon dioxide soaked up by the ocean depends on specific variables, including phytoplankton, temperatures, waves, salinity, and ice cover. Satellites can be used to measure these variables from space.



"From their unique vantage point, satellites provide key information for understanding the complexities of our planet and monitoring environmental issues," says ESA.



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Ocean heat influences regional climate

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes the importance of monitoring the shape of the sea surface, which is constantly changing. These observations have many applications, such as ship routing, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/the-modem-ocean-is-a-tough-place-for-whales-to-survive/">ocean</a> current forecasting, and debris tracking.



"A project supported by the Discovery element of ESA’s Basic Activities recently investigated a new technique to measure sea surface topography very precisely," reports ESA.



"The technique involves looking at satellite navigation (GNSS) signals that have been reflected off of the sea surface at very low angles. At these so-called grazing angles, waves and surface roughness have very little impact on the reflection process; the sea surface acts as a very smooth mirror."



Estel Cardellach is the principal investigator at the Institute for Space Studies of Catalonia, who first submitted the idea for the project.



“In a mirror-like reflection the phase of the signal can be tracked – it is continuous," said Cardellach. "Different surface heights result in different phase measurements. It gives a very precise measurement of the surface altitude at a few centimetres’ precision.”



The researchers developed a GNSS receiver and set up an experiment in the Balaeric Islands to collect signals from the receiver that were reflected off the sea surface. Ultimately, these signals will provide improved measurements of the shape of the sea surface.



Image/ Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Monitoring the dynamic shape of the sea surface

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Aerial,Photo,Of,River,In,Amazon,Rainforest,Jungle,In,Peru

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center</a> describes how scientists are using autonomous sound sensors to monitor deforestation in the Amazon. By recording soundscapes, the experts can determine which animals are present through their distinct sounds.&nbsp;



Using this method, sounds can be used as scientific measurements to analyze the effects of deforestation. The researchers will gain a better understanding of how the acoustics of a forest can be used to measure its health.&nbsp;



"From space, parts of the Amazon rainforest that have previously been logged or burned may look lush and green, like a place buzzing with activity and full of sounds. But inside the rainforest, the animal life may tell a different story, of a harsh environment and a quieter soundscape," says NASA.



Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Monitoring deforestation in the Amazon through sounds

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