Human litter has now infiltrated the deepest parts of Earth's oceans and seas. Debris and trash produced by human activity was spotted at a depth of 5,112 meters (3.2 miles) in the Mediterranean Sea. 



The site, which is the deepest point in the Mediterranean, is known as Calypso Deep, and is located off the south-western coast of Greece in the Ionian Sea.



In a new study, researchers have identified 167 objects at the bottom. Of these, 148 were clearly marine debris, while 19 were believed to be of human origin, though less definitively.



According to the authors, this represents one of the highest concentrations of litter documented at great depths in any sea.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-debris-in-the-bottom-of-the-sea">Debris in the bottom of the sea </h2>



To investigate the Calypso Deep, scientists used a crewed submersible called the Limiting Factor, a deep-submergence vehicle capable of withstanding extreme pressure.



Images captured by the Limiting Factor confirm that besides accumulating on coasts, surface waters and shallower bottoms, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/is-it-still-possible-to-save-the-ocean-from-plastic-pollution/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">marine waste</a> also reaches the deepest, most remote points of the Mediterranean Sea.&nbsp;



Given the heavy impact of human activities on this nearly enclosed sea, the discovery emphasizes the urgency of global actions to reduce marine debris and a need for lifestyle changes that cut waste and protect marine environments worldwide.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-calypso-deep-as-a-debris-trap">The Calypso Deep as a debris trap</h2>



Located about 60 kilometers (37 miles) south west of the Peloponnese coast in Greece, the Calypso Deep is a depression within the Hellenic Trench system. 



Surrounded by steep terrain in an area with active faults, it has slopes measuring thousands of meters and a mostly flat floor at its lowest point. 



Its deeper, kidney-shaped portion extends over approximately 20 by 5 kilometers (12 by 3 miles) at depths surpassing 5,000 meters (3 miles).



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-litter-s-journey-to-the-bottom">Litter's journey to the bottom</h2>



But how does rubbish collect so far down?



According to Miquel Canals from the University of Barcelona’s <a href="https://www.ub.edu/portal/web/earth-sciences" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Faculty of Earth Sciences</a>, the debris comes from various sources, both terrestrial and marine. 



It could have arrived by various routes, including both long-distance transport by <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/weakening-ocean-currents-could-cost-trillions-of-dollars/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ocean currents</a> and direct dumping. 



Canals explains that plastic items, for instance, can drift from coastal waters. 



Some light waste, such as plastics, comes from the coast, from where it escapes to the Calypso Deep, just 60 kilometers [37 miles] away. 



Some plastics, such as bags, drift just above the bottom until they are partially or completely buried, or disintegrate into smaller fragments.



“We have also found evidence of the boats’ dumping of bags full of rubbish, as revealed by the pile-up of different types of waste followed by an almost rectilinear furrow," Canals continued.



"Unfortunately, as far as the Mediterranean is concerned, it would not be wrong to say that ‘not a single inch of it is clean.'"



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-debris-transport-across-the-sea">Debris transport across the sea</h2>



Canals noted that the Calypso Deep is a closed depression, which favors the accumulation of debris inside it. He pointed out that the weak currents in the trench also facilitate the deposition of light debris at the bottom.



Floating debris originates mostly in the southern Ionian Sea or further south, and drifting eddies bring it toward the Calypso Deep.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/marine-litter-debris_bottom-seafloor_Mediterranean-Sea_montage_credit-Caladan-Oceanic_1m.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/marine-litter-debris_bottom-seafloor_Mediterranean-Sea_montage_credit-Caladan-Oceanic_1s.webp" alt="The debris identified by the international team in the Calypso Deep warns of the need to implement global policy actions to reduce ocean waste, as well as to encourage changes in citizens’ consumption habits and waste reduction in order to protect seas and oceans around the world. Credit: Caladan Oceanic" class="wp-image-1962233"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The debris identified by the international team in the Calypso Deep warns of the need to implement global policy actions to reduce ocean waste, as well as to encourage changes in citizens’ consumption habits and waste reduction in order to protect seas and oceans around the world. Credit: Caladan Oceanic</figcaption></figure>



“When these eddies are located over the Calypso Trench, some debris tends to fall slowly to the bottom, aided by degradation mechanisms and ballasting processes that increase its density," explained Canals 



"Surface currents can also transport debris from the Adriatic Sea to the north, through the Strait of Otranto, and from the waters off north-western Greece."



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-technology-to-explore-the-abyss">Technology to explore the abyss</h2>



Investigating such extreme depths demands cutting-edge tools. In this case, the Limiting Factor submarine, built by Triton Submarines, allowed a small crew of two to descend. 



Moving at about 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) per hour to obtain clear images, the Limiting Factor covered roughly 650 meters (0.4 miles) in a straight line over a 43-minute window on the bottom.&nbsp;



“On each dive, more time is usually spent descending and ascending the vehicle back to the surface than inspecting the bottom. Each complete dive usually takes a few hours,” Canals noted.



The expedition revealed no substantial impact on local marine life, likely due to the area’s low biodiversity. 



Only a few species - namely, the fish Coryphaenoides mediterraneus and the crustacean Acanthephyra eximia - appeared in the footage. 



“However, in places with more <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/world-ocean-day-a-unified-approach-to-protect-biodiversity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">biodiversity</a>, there are different types of interaction between the debris deposited on the bottom and the organisms, such as ghost fishing, burial, hooking or ingestion, but also the use of debris as a substrate where animals can grow, hide or lay their eggs,” Canals said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mediterranean-s-pollution-problem">Mediterranean’s pollution problem</h2>



Scientists first documented trash on the ocean floor in 1975, in the North Atlantic’s Skagerrak Strait. Areas like canyons and seamounts are especially prone to accumulating garbage, either from settling, burial, or erosion processes. 



Now, the Mediterranean ranks among the worst-affected seas. In 2021, research identified the Strait of Messina as the global hot spot for seafloor litter. 



This highlights broader concerns about intensifying human influence on an enclosed region subject to heavy maritime traffic and fishing.



“The Mediterranean is an enclosed sea, surrounded by humanity, with intense maritime traffic and widespread fishing activity," noted Canals. 



"The evidence provided by our research should shake up global efforts, and in particular in the Mediterranean, to mitigate waste dumping, especially plastics, in the natural environment and ultimately in the sea, in line with the <a href="https://www.unep.org/inc-plastic-pollution" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">UN Global Plastics Treaty</a> against plastic pollution, which is still pending approval."



Canals emphasized that the ocean floor is still largely unknown to society as a whole, which makes it difficult to raise social and political awareness about the conservation of these spaces. 



"It is necessary to make a joint effort between scientists, communicators, journalists, the media, influencers and other people with social impact. The problem is there, and it has an enormous scope, even if it is not directly visible. We should not forget about it."



Details of the study are published in the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X25000852?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Marine Pollution Bulletin</a>.



Image Credit: Caladan Oceanic



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Human trash has found its way to the deepest parts of Earth's seas and oceans

Human litter has now infiltrated the deepest parts of Earth's oceans and seas. Debris and trash produced by human activity was spotted at a depth of 5,112 meters (3.2 miles) in the Mediterranean Sea. The site, which is the deepest point in the Mediterranean, is known as Calypso Deep, and is located off the south-western coast of Greece in the Ionian Sea. In a new study, researchers have identified 167 objects at the bottom. Of these, 148 were clearly marine debris, while 19 were believed to be...

John Kerry tours the Arctic circle to view climate change impact. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday visited Norway's extreme north in the Arctic circle, viewing areas where climate change has melted ice and opened new sea lanes.

Trailed by staff and journalists in small Zodiac-type inflatable boats, Kerry and Norway's foreign minister motored in an <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=arctic&amp;cvid=ab16238a753e43c189238bef5e4700e7&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Arctic</a> scientific vessel from a research station in Ny-Alesund, the world's northernmost civilian settlement. The short cruise took Kerry and his delegation across the iceberg strewn Kongsifjorden (King's Bay Fjord), where puffins and other Arctic birds skirted the waters, to the Blomstrand Glacier. John Kerry tours the Arctic circle to view climate change impact

The glacier has receded significantly in the past 25 years to 30 years, with summer temperatures that can now be 8 degrees and 11 degrees higher than they once were, according to Jan-Gunnar Winther, the director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, who guided Kerry and Foreign Minister Borge Brende.

"It's stunning," Kerry told reporters from aboard the vessel as it idled in front of the massive ice wall. "This is the center of change within the center of change."

As America's top diplomat, Kerry has made the health of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/the-worlds-oceans-have-become-less-resilient-to-climate-change/">oceans</a> and combating the effects of climate change a priority, and he will host an international conference on oceans in September, the third such event he has organized since taking office in 2013.

"We're not on the pace we need to be" to reverse the effects of climate change, Kerry said. He called for renewed efforts to move away from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.

"Even where there is awareness, the steps that people are taking are not big enough fast enough," Kerry said. "So, we have a huge distance to travel."

Kerry was a champion of the global change agreement reached in December in Paris that seeks to hold the temperature change to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), although he said ideally the world would agree to less than 2 degrees.

"If we move more rapidly to the various other clean energies that already exist, we hope to be able to meet what we need to preserve a level of temperature increase that's supportable, survivable," he said. "We'll get there hopefully."

After the visit to Norway's portion of the Arctic Circle, Kerry planned to see icecaps in Greenland after a stop in Copenhagen. Both trips were intended to highlight his concern about climate change and oceans ahead of the September conference.

The ice-loss-driven opening of the Arctic Ocean has led to competition among several nations for its resources and access to newly available sea lanes for commercial maritime trade. U.S. officials say both Russia and China are preparing to exploit those possibilities and that the United States should take note.

On his brief visit to the glacier, Kerry did not address those issues and seemed more impressed by the beauty of the bluish ice.

"It's stunning," Kerry said. "The power of nature and the importance of our respecting it."

He then pulled out a smartphone to take pictures of the Blomstrand Glacier as his boat turned to head back to the research station.

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John Kerry tours the Arctic circle to view climate change impact

John Kerry tours the Arctic circle to view climate change...

<div>
<div class="img-wrapper"></div>
Tropical seas once surrounded Britain A team from the University of Bristol has shed new light on the creatures that inhabited the tropical seas surrounding Britain at the start of the age of the dinosaurs.

Some 210 million years ago, Britain consisted of many islands, surrounded by warm seas. Europe at the time lay farther south, at latitudes equivalent to North <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=africa&amp;cvid=b65171dde68e461c83ec7c05c4ff2e32&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Africa</a> today. Much of Europe was hot desert, and at this point was flooded by a great sea - the Rhaetian Transgression.

Published in Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, the Bristol team's work is the most extensive study yet, based on more than 26,000 identified fossils, of the Rhaetian shallow sea sharks, bony fishes, marine reptiles, and other creatures. Unusually, five members of the team were undergraduates when they did the work, and this was part of a series of summer internships.

The team was led by Ellen Mears, now a postgraduate at the University of Edinburgh, and Valentina Rossi, now a postgraduate at the University of Cork.

Ellen Mears said: "I studied the shark and fish teeth, and found remains of at least seven species of sharks and four of bony fishes. The sharks were all predators, but some were quite small. The bony fishes were unusual because many of them were shell crushers."

Valentina Rossi, who worked on the reptile remains, added: "We found teeth and bones of ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, the classic great sea dragons of the Triassic and Jurassic, as well as some other reptiles, including a tooth possibly from a dinosaur - but it was heavily worn."

Professor Michael Benton, who supervised the students' work over the summers of 2014 and 2015, explained: "The students came to the project with no prior knowledge, but each one took on the task of identifying and documenting their group of fossils. They had to look at thousands of specimens and assign them to species, and then each contribute their part of the paper to proper professional standards. This is the eighth paper published from this internship scheme."

The new work has emphasized the complexity of major global changes, like this remarkable rise in sea level ten million years ago. It has been documented from dozens of localities in England, but also from central Europe. Careful measurement of the rock sections, and documentation of the fossils bed-by-bed allow us to reconstruct the to-and-fro of major animal groups over a few million years.

The fossils even include dozens of examples of coprolites, pellets of dung, hat were deposited by the various fishes and reptiles - some of these even contain bones and scales of fishes, and one even shows small bones of a marine reptile - clear evidence of who was eating whom in those ancient seas.
###
Paper:

'The Rhaetian (Late Triassic) vertebrates of Hampstead Farm Quarry, Gloucestershire, UK' by Ellen Mears, Valentina Rossi, Ellen MacDonald, Gareth Coleman, Tom Davies, Caterina Arias-Riesgo, Claudia Hildebrandt, Helen Thiel, Christopher J. Duffin, David I. Whiteside, and Michael J. Benton in Proceedings of the Geologists' Association

</div>

Tropical seas once surrounded Britain

Tropical seas once surrounded Britain A team from the University...

Hawaii continues fight to outlaw genetically engineered crops. The fight over regulating genetically engineered crops in three Hawaii counties was back in a federal courtroom as some agricultural giants look to protect their farms from bans against modified food.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Honolulu Wednesday on ordinances that seek to regulate or outlaw genetically engineered crops in Hawaii, Kauai and <a href="https://www.earth.com/image/puu-kukui-on-the-hawaiian-island-of-maui/">Maui</a> counties.
Agrichemical companies and trade associations sued each county, and federal court rulings sided with the businesses. The counties and interested environmental groups want the 9th Circuit to overturn the decisions.
There is scant scientific evidence to prove that foods grown from engineered seeds are less safe than their conventional counterparts. But in the islands, some are still concerned, especially about the use of pesticides. Hawaii continues fight to outlaw genetically engineered crops
Lawyers representing the counties argued that state laws do not specifically address genetically engineered crops relevant to the proposed regulations. The counties, which have policing powers to protect their residents, assert that they have the right and obligation to regulate the industry.
They also argued that the Hawaii Supreme Court should have taken up the issue as there is no written opinion specifically on genetically engineered crops in the state.
"This matter should have been turned over via certified question to the Hawaii Supreme Court because it's an important issue for the entire state of Hawaii," said David Minkin, representing the county of Kauai at the hearing.
The state Department of Agriculture regulates harmful plants in Hawaii, however, and attorneys representing the agrichemical companies said the state could and would specifically regulate genetically engineered plants if they felt it was warranted. The department has not said genetically engineered crops are harmful.
"The issue in this case isn't whether pesticides or GE plants should be regulated or what those regulations should be. The only question here is who does the regulating. Under current Hawaii law, the answer is clear," said Chris Landau, representing the companies in the Kauai and Big Island cases. "The state has comprehensive schemes in place."
While the state gives counties some power to regulate issues on a local level, those ordinances cannot conflict with state laws.
In Kauai, the county wants to require the companies to report exactly where and what they are growing and seeks to ban the use of pesticides. The companies argue that the reporting process itself is a form of regulation, and the farms would risk both vandalism and espionage if that reporting were required.
Alika Atay, 62, who is a certified natural Hawaiian farmer who has lived on Maui his entire life, said his major concern is the heavy usage of pesticides.
"In a very short period of time these people have come to our island and they have poisoned our island, "Atay said.
"They are killing the Hawaiian people... if they kill us - or kill our land, kill our water - where do we have to go? This is our home. We must protect our home,"Atay said.
Companies that develop new types crops are drawn to Hawaii's warm weather, which allows them to grow more generations of crops and accelerate their development of new varieties.
Monsanto and Dow Chemical have research farms in Maui County.
U.S. District Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway ruled last June that federal and state law pre-empts that county's ban on cultivating genetically engineered crops, making it invalid. She stressed then that her order addressed only the question of county authority.
Two years ago, Kauai and Hawaii counties adopted measures regulating GMO crops and pesticides. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren struck them down, saying state law superseded them.
---
Follow Caleb Jones on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/CalebAP.">https://twitter.com/CalebAP.</a> Find more of his work at <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/caleb-jones.">http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/caleb-jones.</a>
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Hawaii continues fight to outlaw genetically engineered crops

Hawaii continues fight to outlaw genetically engineered crops. The fight...

South Pole passes global warming milestone. The Earth passed another unfortunate global warming milestone May 23 when carbon dioxide surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) at the <a href="https://www.earth.com/video/south-pole/">South Pole</a> for the first time in 4 million years.

The South Pole has shown the same, relentless upward trend in carbon dioxide (CO2) as the rest of world, but its remote location means it’s the last to register the impacts of increasing emissions from fossil fuel consumption, the primary driver of greenhouse gas pollution.

“The far southern hemisphere was the last place on earth where CO2 had not yet reached this mark,” said Pieter Tans, the lead scientist of NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. “Global CO2 levels will not return to values below 400 ppm in our lifetimes, and almost certainly for much longer.”

Over the course of the year, CO2 levels rise during fall and winter and decline during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer as terrestrial plants consume CO2 during photosynthesis. But plants capture only a fraction of annual CO2 emissions, so for every year since observations began in 1958, there has been more CO2 in the atmosphere than the year before.

Last year’s global CO2 average reached 399 ppm, meaning that the global average in 2016 will almost certainly surpass 400 ppm. The only question is whether the lowest month for 2016 will also remain above 400.

Upward trend continues

And the annual rate of increase appears to be accelerating. The annual growth rate of atmospheric CO2 measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii jumped 3.05 ppm during 2015, the largest year-to-year increase in 56 years of monitoring. Part of last year’s jump was attributable to El Nino, the cyclical Pacific Ocean warming that produces extreme weather across the globe, causing terrestrial ecosystems to lose stored CO2 through wildfire, drought and heat waves.

Last year was the fourth consecutive year that CO2 grew more than 2 ppm – which set another record. This year promises to be the fifth.

“We know from abundant and solid evidence that the CO2 increase is caused entirely by human activities,” Tans said. “Since emissions from fossil fuel burning have been at a record high during the last several years, the rate of CO2 increase has also been at a record high. And we know some of it will remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years.”

---

<a href="http://www.noaa.gov" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NOAA</a>

South Pole passes global warming milestone

South Pole passes global warming milestone. The Earth passed another...

Bark beetle epidemic is killing California forests. Bark beetle epidemic is killing California forests. California's drought and a bark beetle epidemic have caused the largest die-off of Sierra Nevada forests in modern history, raising fears that trees could come crashing down on people or fuel deadly wildfires that could wipe out mountain communities.
Aerial images show vast forests that have turned a rust-color. The epidemic has killed an estimated 40 million trees since 2010 in the central and southern Sierra, and it's spreading north.
Officials who are cutting down and stacking the most dangerous trees in piles across six counties, however, say they are stumped by how to get rid of them all.
One solution is to fire up a fleet of 10 large, mechanized incinerators the state recently purchased. Promoters say they burn so hot that they spew little if any smoke, making them environmentally friendly.
Environmentalists contend the burners undercut an emergency order by Gov. Jerry Brown - considered a global leader in the fight against climate change - who called for sending the trees to biomass plants and converting them into energy.
Chief Ken Pimlott, who manages the state's response to the die-off as director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, defended the air burners as one of many tools.
He acknowledged the burners will contribute to air pollution, as with any work in the forest, but much less than a large wildfire, which the air burners may prevent by removing dead trees.
"We could have a catastrophic wildfire in any of these communities," he said, adding that sending trees to electricity-generating plants remains a priority. "We have to be aggressive in terms of protecting life and property."
Called air-curtain burners, the 20-foot long, steel containers blast a sheet of air over the open top, disposing of up to eight trees an hour. The state bought them for roughly $1 million, part of a $5 million investment in equipment to meet the epidemic.
A lack of visible smoke, however, doesn't mean the air burners are clean, said Chad Hanson, a forest ecologist at Earth Island Institute's John Muir Project. He called them a waste of taxpayer money and a misguided approach to managing California's forests.
"You're still pumping a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere," Hanson said.
Living trees absorb and store carbon dioxide, a major source of greenhouse gases, which is released again when the wood is burned. Hanson said he favors leaving the trees that need to be cut down on the forest floor to naturally decompose as wildlife habitat.
He urged Brown to withdraw the emergency declaration, fearing that it would increase logging of dead trees that forests need to replenish. Hanson added that dead trees don't fuel more fierce wildfires as commonly believed.
Last year alone 29 million trees died at the height of California's drought now in its fifth year, the U.S. Forest Service reports. Officials say they'll soon release an updated count.
Drought makes trees vulnerable to the insects' attack, officials say.
A beetle epidemic in forests of the Rocky Mountain states was blamed in 2013 for contributing to Colorado's second largest wildfire, forcing entire communities to be evacuated, said Jeff Mai, aerial survey manager for the U.S. Forest Service based in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado">Colorado.</a>
Officials removed some trees throughout the region that threatened people, selling them as lumber products like fence posts. Most were left to decompose naturally. Mai said that in California, bark beetles have killed five times more area of forests than in Colorado.
It's unclear how many trees in the Sierra will be cut down. Officials say the first job is removing those that threaten motorists and mountain communities.
Declaring the emergency on Oct. 30, Brown formed a task force, including representatives of the energy industry and environmentalists, that is charged with carrying out the order, which emphasizes sending the trees to biomass plants that turn agriculture and tree waste into electricity.
That has moved slowly because California's few remaining biomass plants are closing as utility companies turn to cheaper sources of solar and wind.
Another solution to turn the dead trees to lumber has hit obstacles because they quickly deteriorate, and beetles carry a fungus that stains the wood blue, diminishing its value.
Urgency for residents at the heart of the tree epidemic remains high as California enters another potentially explosive wildfire season.
"One big fire in the wrong place will become very big, very fast," said Randy Hanvelt, a Tuolumne County supervisor. "I'm afraid people are going to die."
CalFire plans to start running the air burners around the clock this fall.
An environmental benefit of the air burners is that they eliminate the soot, a major contributor to climate change, said Norbert Fuhrmann, vice president of Air Burners, Inc., the device's Florida-based manufacturer.
Jim McDougald, a CalFire division chief in Fresno County overseeing the burners, said he prefers turning the trees into energy, lumber or opening undiscovered markets to give them value.
But the air burners are one means for the state to get rid of trees in the massive die-off that's changing the Sierra's landscape for years to come, he said.
"This is bad," said McDougald, standing at a lookout point south of Yosemite, where a few patches of dead trees two years now dominate the vista. "It'll never come back - not in our lifetime."
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Bark beetle epidemic is killing California forests

Bark beetle epidemic is killing California forests. Bark beetle epidemic...

Scientists are battling to save the world's coral reefs. After the most powerful <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Niño">El Nino</a> on record heated the world's oceans to never-before-seen levels, huge swaths of once vibrant coral reefs that were teeming with life are now stark white ghost towns disintegrating into the sea.
And the world's top marine scientists are still struggling in the face of global warming and decades of devastating reef destruction to find the political and financial wherewithal to tackle the loss of these globally important ecosystems.
"What we have to do is to really translate the urgency," said Ruth Gates, president of the International Society for Reef Studies and director of the <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/the-extreme-terrain-of-mauna-loa-in-hawaii/">Hawaii</a> Institute of Marine Biology.
Gates, who helped organize a conference this week for more than 2,000 international reef scientists, policymakers and others, said the scientific community needs to make it clear how "intimately reef health is intertwined with human health."
The International Coral Reef Symposium convenes Monday to try to create a more unified conservation plan for coral reefs. She said researchers have to find a way to implement large scale solutions with the help of governments.
Consecutive years of coral bleaching have led to some of the most widespread mortality of reefs on record, leaving scientists in a race to save them. While bleached coral often recovers, multiple years weakens the organisms and increases the risk of death.
Researchers have achieved some success with projects such as creating coral nurseries and growing forms of "super coral" that can withstand harsher conditions. But much of that science is being done on a very small scale with limited funding.
Bob Richmond, director of the University of Hawaii's Kewalo Marine Laboratory, said the problems are very clear: "overfishing of reef herbivores and top predators, land-based sources of pollution and sedimentation, and the continued and growing impacts of climate change."
While reefs are major contributors to many coastal tourist economies, saving the world's coral isn't just about having pretty places for vacationers to explore. Reefs are integral to the overall ecosystem and are an essential component of everyday human existence.
Reefs not only provide habitat for most ocean fish consumed by humans, but they also shelter land from storm surges and rising sea levels. Coral has even been found to have medicinal properties.
In one project to help save reefs, researchers at the University of Hawaii's Institute of Marine Biology have been taking samples from corals that have shown tolerance for harsher conditions in Oahu's Kaneohe Bay and breeding them with other strong strains in slightly warmer than normal conditions to create a super coral.
The idea is to make the corals more resilient by training them to adapt to tougher conditions before transplanting them into the ocean.
Another program run by the state of Hawaii has created seed banks and a fast-growing coral nursery for expediting coral restoration projects.
Most of Hawaii's species of coral are unlike other corals around the world in that they grow very slowly, which makes reef rebuilding in the state difficult. So officials came up with a plan to grow large chunks of coral in a fraction of the time it would normally take.
Coral reefs have almost always been studied up close, by scientists in the water looking at small portions of reefs.
But NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is taking a wider view, from about 23,000 feet above. NASA and other scientists recently launched a three-year campaign to gather new data on coral reefs worldwide. They are using specially designed imaging instruments attached to aircraft.
"The idea is to get a new perspective on coral reefs from above, to study them at a larger scale than we have been able to before, and then relate reef condition to the environment," said Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences' Eric Hochberg, principal investigator for the project.
If the scientific community and the world's governments can't come together to address coral's decline, one of earth's most critical habitats could soon be gone, leaving humans to deal with the unforeseen consequences.
"What happens if we don't take care of our reefs?" asked Gates. "It's dire."
---
Follow Caleb Jones on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/CalebAP">https://twitter.com/CalebAP</a> Find more of his work at <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/caleb-jones">http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/caleb-jones</a>
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Scientists are battling to save the world's coral reefs

Scientists are battling to save the world's coral reefs. After...

Oil bust leaves states with huge cleanup issue from abandoned wells. The worst oil bust since the 1980s is putting Texas and other oil producing states on the hook for thousands of newly abandoned wells at a time when they have little money to plug wells and seal off environmental hazards.
As U.S. rig counts plunge to historic lows, and with at least 60 oil producers declaring bankruptcy since 2014, energy-producing states are confronting both holes in their budgets and potentially leaking ones in the ground. In Texas alone, the roughly $165 million price tag of plugging nearly 10,000 abandoned wells is double the entire budget of the agency that regulates the industry. Oil bust leaves states with huge cleanup issue from abandoned wells.
The problem is forcing states to get creative: Texas regulators now want taxpayers to cover more of the clean-up, supplementing industry payments. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming">Wyoming</a> and Louisiana are riling drillers with steeper fees. Oklahoma is reshuffling money among agencies in the face of a $1.1 billion state budget shortfall, while regulators also grapple with earthquakes linked to oil and gas activities.
"As downturns go, this one happened faster and accelerated. It moved downward faster than the big downturn we had in the '80s," said John Graves, a Houston oil consultant. "For some people in our industry, it's been more intense." Crude prices that peaked above $100 a barrel in 2014 plunged by 60 percent in just six months.
But these responses - if they even wind up working - are still years from meeting the growing backlog of untended wells. <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/tropical-storm-imelda-brings-extreme-rainfall-to-texas/">Texas</a> officials predict the number of orphaned wells could soar to 12,000, which would be nearly 25 percent more than what regulators can't keep up with now. Landowners, meanwhile, are growing restless with abandoned pump jacks and damage while drillers warn that crackdowns would only put them out of business faster at a time when oil has finally crept from below $30 a barrel to about $50.
"It's the magnitude because this bust is so deep. In Wyoming they had a single operator walk away, and instead of it being 5, 10, 20 wells, it was 150," said Bruce Baizel, who monitors oil and gas regulators for the environmental group Earthworks. "It's not the small, marginal operators. You're starting to get into some medium-sized independents walking away from things."
Orphaned wells are potential environmental hazards below ground as well as rusted-out eyesores above. A 2011 report by the multistate Ground Water Protection Council found at least 30 cases of groundwater contamination in Texas caused by orphan wells between 1993 and 2008.
In the Bigfoot Field south of San Antonio, tall stalks of weedy thistle surround dormant wellheads, some stained with crude or leaking fluids. State regulators place a higher priority on bigger hazards.
The problem is not new. Energy-rich states had thousands of orphaned wells on the books for decades, particularly in Texas, where the backlog exceeded 25,000 in the early 2000s before landowners pressured lawmakers to light a fire under state regulators. Landowners are getting antsy again, as the state's Republican comptroller, Glenn Hegar, has predicted that a third of oil producers in Texas will go bankrupt this summer.
"These landowners are chained to a corpse," said Trey Scott, a managing partner of Trinity Mineral Management, which represents landowners who own thousands of acres in the Texas oil patch. With the state facing an average cost of $17,000 per well, Scott said, "If you have those wells, your chances of getting them plugged are slim to none."
Such expenses are normally covered by fees paid by producers, a reliance that Texas regulators say is no longer sufficient as they appeal for more taxpayer funding. Texas hasn't raised the price of required bonds on drillers since 1991, which are as low as $25,000 for smaller operators. Last year, Texas collected $4 million from drillers who abandoned more than 1,500 wells - about a fifth of the cost of plugging all of them. Texas lawmakers won't decide whether to give regulators more money until 2017, while a critical report by the state's Sunset Commission in April urged finally hiking bonding rates "to protect both the environment and public safety."
Last winter, Louisiana started requiring producers to put up a new bond of $7 for every foot drilled in an attempt to deal with the state's roughly 3,000 abandoned wells. After drillers revolted, however, Louisiana's Office of Conservation in April suspended the new bonding until August.
"The state's broke and they're trying to raise funds however they can," said Dempsey Oil Company owner Jimmy Dempsey, an operator in northwest Louisiana. "It doesn't take a genius to fill a well with concrete."
In Oklahoma, budget cuts to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission have led to fewer well-plugging contracts. Nearly $400,000 in emergency funding that Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin sought for the agency this year was used instead for technology upgrades and earthquake monitoring.
"We're not going to have that same luxury next year," Oklahoma Corporation Commission's Director of Finance Cleve Pierce said of the state's well-plugging dollars.
---
This version corrects the quote in the fourth paragraph to say "As downturns go..."
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Associated Press writer Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
---
Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/pauljweber">https://twitter.com/pauljweber</a>
© 2016 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.

Oil bust leaves states with huge cleanup issue from abandoned wells

Oil bust leaves states with huge cleanup issue from abandoned...

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Global coral bleaching event leaves surviving corals very sick. Death is only one possible outcome from coral bleaching caused by rising sea temperatures due to global warming. <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/saint-george-basin-in-northwestern-australia/">Australian</a> scientists report that many surviving corals affected by recent global coral bleaching from high sea temperatures on the northern Great Barrier Reef are the sickest they have ever seen.

"We measured the condition of surviving corals as part of our extensive underwater surveys of Australia's worst ever bleaching event. We found that coral bleaching has affected 93% of the Great Barrier Reef. While the central and southern regions have escaped with minor damage, nearly half of the corals have been killed by mass bleaching in the northern region," says Professor Terry Hughes from the ARC Centre of Excellence for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef">Coral Reef</a> Studies at James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville, Queensland.

"Normally when bleaching kills corals it is a slow death, that progresses steadily when temperatures remain high," says Associate Professor Bill Leggat, also from the ARC Centre at JCU.

"The corals usually rely on mechanisms that help them fight and counteract the damage but this time, on some reefs, it looks like they have died very quickly.

Corals depend upon algae that live within their tissues. These algae, called zooxanthellae, utilise light to generate sugar and nutrients, which are transported to the coral host. It is this energy that allows corals to grow and produce reefs. The partnership between corals and the microscopic algae (zooxanthellae) that lives in their tissues breaks down when temperatures are too high, causing coral bleaching. For corals to recover they need the tissues to remain intact while the remaining zooxanthellae slowly repopulate the tissues.

"Healthy corals have between one and two million zooxanthellae per square centimetre," says Leggat. "During past bleaching events, these numbers have dropped to about 200,000 cells per square centimetre. Now we are finding in this very severe bleaching event that some corals have no zooxanthallae remaining in their tissues at all."

The scientists found that severely bleached corals had an average of only 4,000 algae per square centimetre. This amount is 500 times less than in a healthy coral and 50 times less than reported for corals that survived previous bleaching events. This profound loss of algae means that many of the corals that have bleached, have little chance of recovering, because they have no zooxanthellae left to repopulate the coral tissue.

"These corals are amongst the most damaged I have seen," says Dr. Leggat.

"For some surviving corals in the Northern Great Barrier Reef, over 50% of the coral cells are dead. In some regions the corals were so badly damaged that we were unable to study their tissue because it was rotting away."

Tragically, the ongoing damage from bleaching has been highest in the northern 700km of the Great Barrier Reef all the way up to Papua New Guinea, the most remote and - until now - the most pristine section of the Great Barrier Reef," says Professor John Pandolfi from the ARC Centre at the University of Queensland.

Given the extent of morality and the damage observed to individual corals it is vital to understand the recovery processes of bleached coral. Even if they recover their color, scientists predict that the surviving corals will show other longer-term symptoms, including reduced growth rates and lower reproduction.
###
Note: Bill Leggat, Terry Hughes and John Pandolfi are presenting at the 13th International Coral Reef Symposium in Hawaii. The scientists will be available for media interviews on Monday 20 June at 10:30am in the ICRS2016 media room

Dropbox Images: <a href="http://bit.ly/28IlISr" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://bit.ly/28IlISr</a>

For interviews contact:

Bill Leggat
Associate Professor
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Phone: +1 (808) 722 4013
Email: <a href="mailto:bill.leggat@jcu.edu.au">bill.leggat@jcu.edu.au</a>

Professor Terry Hughes
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Phone: +61-400720164
Email: <a href="mailto:terry.hughes@jcu.edu.au">terry.hughes@jcu.edu.au</a>

Professor John Pandolfi
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Phone: ?+1 (808) 729-6951???
Email: <a href="mailto:j.pandolfi@uq.edu.au">j.pandolfi@uq.edu.au</a>

Kylie Simmonds
Communications Manager
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University, Townsville
Phone: +61 (0) 428 785 895
Email: <a href="mailto:kylie.simmonds1@jcu.edu.au">kylie.simmonds1@jcu.edu.au</a>

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Global coral bleaching event leaves surviving corals very sick

Global coral bleaching event leaves surviving corals very sick. Death...

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Tropical Storm Danielle forms along Mexico coast. NASA and NOAA satellites saw the tropical low pressure area formerly known as System 94L, Tropical Storm Danielle develop into tropical depression 4 then become the fourth named tropical cyclone of the North Atlantic Hurricane Season on June 20.

On June 19, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/nasa-provides-key-insights-into-sea-level-rise/">NASA</a>-NOAA-DOD's Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible light image of System 94L as it was consolidating into tropical depression in the Bay of Campeche. System 94L became Tropical Depression 4 by 5 p.m. EDT/4 p.m. CDT when its center was about 190 miles (305 km) east-southeast of Tuxpan, Mexico.

An animation NOAA's GOES-East satellite imagery from June 18 to 20 was created by the NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The animation shows the development of System 94L in the western Caribbean Sea and movement of the storm into the Bay of Campeche and Southwestern Gulf of Mexico where it strengthened into Tropical Depression 4 and then Tropical Storm Danielle.

On June 20 a Tropical Storm Warning was in effect from Laguna Verde to Rio Panuco, <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=mexico&amp;form=EDGEAR&amp;qs=PF&amp;cvid=17e6907ad7bb4bc3b898e76d73a79267&amp;cc=US&amp;setlang=en-US&amp;elv=AY3%21uAY7tbNNZGZ2yiGNjfNO4RA7ltALoNE5SspyvjPiVf3uFQf62I41vRWYnDbJeBNty0SBX%21xnM1aSeVbWFYfi6hKOhsyGwaiyO0m2QxMD&amp;plvar=0&amp;PC=HCTS">Mexico</a> as Danielle was spreading heavy rain across eastern Mexico.

Danielle developed in the Bay of Campeche and moved west toward the east coast of Mexico.

[ooyala code="JtNjJhNDE6otsZ5HXkx6CBfiyNYA6rd2" player_id="ce75157bc770441eaf5e849ae4d1d21f" width="900" height="500"]

At 10 a.m. CDT (1500 UTC) on Monday, June 20, 2016 the center of Tropical Storm Danielle was located near 20.7 degrees north latitude and 96.3 degrees west longitude. That puts the storm's center about 75 miles (120 km) east-southeast of Tuxpan, Mexico and about 105 miles (165 km) north of Veracruz.

The National Hurricane Center said that Danielle was moving toward the west near 7 mph (11 kph). A motion toward the west or west-northwest is expected during the next day or so. On the forecast track, the center of Danielle is expected to move inland over eastern Mexico later today or tonight. The estimated minimum central pressure is 1007 millibars.

Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 45 mph (75 kph) with higher gusts. Little change in strength is expected before Danielle makes landfall in Mexico later today.
###
For updated forecasts and local effects including rainfall, storm surge and winds, visit: <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.nhc.noaa.gov</a>

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Tropical Storm Danielle forms along Mexico coast

Tropical Storm Danielle forms along Mexico coast. NASA and NOAA...

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Study: Crop breeding is not keeping pace with climate change. Crop yields will fall within the next decade due to climate change unless immediate action is taken to speed up the introduction of new and improved varieties, experts have warned.

The research, led by the University of Leeds and published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, focuses on maize in Africa but the underlying processes affect crops across the tropics.

Study lead author Professor Andy Challinor, from the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds, said: "In <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/experts-fear-african-covid-19-infections-will-leap-into-the-millions/">Africa</a>, gradually rising temperatures and more droughts and heatwaves caused by climate change will have an impact on maize.

"We looked in particular at the effect of temperature on crop durations, which is the length of time between planting and harvesting. Higher temperatures mean shorter durations and hence less time to accumulate biomass and yield."

It takes anywhere between 10 and 30 years to breed a new crop variety and have it adopted by farmers. The rate at which temperatures are increasing across the tropics means that by the time the crop is in the field it is being grown in warmer temperatures that it was developed in.

By looking at a range of data on farming, regulatory policy, markets and technologies, the researchers developed average, best and worst case scenarios for current crop breeding systems.

The researchers found that crop breeding duration will become significantly shorter by as early as 2018 in some locations and by 2031 in the majority of maize-growing regions in Africa. Only the most optimistic assessment - in which farming, policy, markets and technology all combine to make new varieties in 10 years - showed crops staying matched to temperatures between now and 2050.

The research team, comprising experts in agriculture, climate and social science, looked at the options for ensuring that crops can be developed and delivered to the field more quickly. These range from improved biochemical screening techniques to more socially-centred measures, such as improving government policies on breeding trials and farmers' access to markets.

Dr Andy Jarvis, from CIAT (International Centre for Tropical Agriculture), said: "Investment in agricultural research to develop and disseminate new seed technologies is one of the best investments we can make for climate adaptation. Climate funds could be used to help the world's farmers stay several steps ahead of climate change, with major benefits for <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=global+food+security&amp;form=EDGEAR&amp;qs=PF&amp;cvid=d0a745b83f7144d8a8dd04d2cbdf6b4e&amp;cc=US&amp;setlang=en-US&amp;elv=AXK1c4IvZoNqPoPnS%21QRLOMAjS%21RFp6jzZWJ7AkCsIYKvARFRxGJpi%21yl3rWMBpOGv8n9cVTn4j5VFrDo7HQmFoyHM3FUvLPtgbroHfoc%21dp&amp;plvar=0&amp;PC=HCTS">global food security</a>."

The researchers have also proposed an alternative plan: use global climate models to determine future temperatures, then heat greenhouses to those temperatures and develop new crop varieties there.

Professor Challinor said: "The challenge here is in knowing what future emissions will be and ensuring that climate models can produce accurate enough information on future temperatures based on those emissions.

"At the Priestley Centre, researchers are working on these challenges by improving climate models and targeting their use directly at solving such problems."
###
Images

Download: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciat/26190616733" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciat/26190616733</a>
Caption: A farmer in Malawi checks her maize crop that is struggling as a result of the worst drought in three decades.
Credit: Neil Palmer (CIAT)

Download: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cimmyt/8254449832/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.flickr.com/photos/cimmyt/8254449832/</a>
Caption: A crop breeder carries out hand pollination of maize at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute's (KARI) Kiboko Research Station.
Credit: F. Sipalla/CIMMYT

Further information

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) funded the study.

The Priestley International Centre for Climate is one of the University of Leeds' flagship strategic investments, with £6.82 million invested in it over five years. The University of Leeds has 150 experts working on climate and climate-related research and receives one of the largest annual incomes in the UK for environmental research. <a href="http://climate.leeds.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://climate.leeds.ac.uk</a>

The research paper, 'Current warming will reduce yields unless maize breeding and seed systems adapt immediately', is published in the journal Nature Climate Change on 20 June 2016.

Professor Andy Challinor is available for interview. Please contact Sarah Reed, Media Relations Officer at the University of Leeds on +44 (0)113 343 4031 or <a href="mailto:pressoffice@leeds.ac.uk">pressoffice@leeds.ac.uk</a>. For enquiries during the weekend, please call +44 (0)7712 389 448. The Press Office inbox is also checked regularly at weekends.

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Study: Crop breeding is not keeping pace with climate change

Study: Crop breeding is not keeping pace with climate change....

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How China can ramp up wind power. China has an opportunity to massively increase its use of wind power -- if it properly integrates wind into its existing power system, according to a newly published MIT study.

The study forecasts that wind power could provide 26 percent of China's projected electricity demand by 2030, up from 3 percent in 2015. Such a change would be a substantial gain in the global transition to renewable energy, since China produces the most total greenhouse gas <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/residents-of-louisville-reap-the-health-benefits-of-reduced-emissions/">emissions</a> of any country in the world.

But the projection comes with a catch. <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=china&amp;form=EDGEAR&amp;qs=PF&amp;cvid=4ea65059f97345ba834f32a8982de86d&amp;cc=US&amp;setlang=en-US&amp;elv=AY3%21uAY7tbNNZGZ2yiGNjfNO4RA7ltALoNE5SspyvjPiuygTspKrKEvt0Q6eAs81j9xEty0Mjnlxwjw5*nK1z67zKysTrl52PD0K%21mrx7uEo&amp;plvar=0&amp;PC=HCTS">China</a> should not necessarily build more wind power in its windiest areas, the study finds. Instead, it should build more wind turbines in areas where they can be more easily integrated into the operations of its existing electricity grid.

"Wind that is built in distant, resource-rich areas benefits from more favorable physical properties but suffers from existing constraints on the operation of the power system," states Valerie Karplus, an assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, director of the Tsinghua-MIT China Energy and Climate Project, and a member of the MIT Energy Initiative. Those constraints include greater transmission costs and the cost of "curtailment," when available wind power is not used.

The paper, "Integrating wind into China's coal-heavy electricity system," is appearing in Nature Energy. In addition to Karplus, the authors are Michael R. Davidson, a graduate student in MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society; Da Zhang, a postdoc in MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change; and Weiming Xei and Xiliang Zhang of Tsinghua University. Karplus and Zhang are the corresponding authors of the paper, and lead an MIT-Tsinghua collaboration focused on managing energy and climate change in China.

Co-existing with coal

While China has invested heavily in renewable energy sources in recent years, more investment in the sector will be needed if the country is to meet its pledge of having 20 percent of its energy consumption come from non-fossil fuel sources by the year 2030, as part of the Paris climate agreement of 2015.

While several previous studies have evaluated China's wind-energy potential based on the country's natural environment, the MIT study is the first to study how wind energy could expand, based on simulations of China's power system operations.

When operational constraints are considered, the MIT team found, China may only be able to use 10 percent of the physical potential for wind power cited in their analysis and other studies. Nevertheless, even harnessing that 10 percent would be enough for wind power to provide the study's estimated 26 percent of electricity by 2030.

A key challenge the study identifies is integrating wind power into a system that has traditionally been geared toward consumption of coal. Wind power, being intermittent, currently requires flexibility in the operation of the electricity system to ensure wind can be used when it is available.

That, in turn, requires flexibility in the delivery of electricity from coal-fired power plants, which accounted for over 70 percent of electricity generated in China in 2015. However, China has regulations determining high minimum output levels for many coal-powered electricity plants, to ensure the profitability of those plants. Reducing these requirements and creating more flexible generation schedules for coal would create more space for wind power.

"Renewable energy plays a central role in China's efforts to address climate change and local air quality," Da Zhang explains. "China plans to substantially increase the amount of wind electricity capacity in the future, but its utilization -- and ultimately its contribution to these environmental goals -- depends on whether or not integration challenges can be solved."

New policies possible?

As the researchers see it, new policies can help create the conditions for increased use of wind power -- but may be difficult to implement. As Davidson notes, "establishing regulatory structures and policy incentives to capture these benefits will be difficult in China because of legacy institutions."

And as Karplus adds, current regulations have been designed to ensure profitability for power producers, rather than making them compete to lower costs. "Existing policies prioritize sharing benefits equally among participants rather than facing strict price competition," she says. "As electricity demand growth has slowed in recent years, the limited size of the pie means sharper conflicts between wind and coal."

To be sure, as Karplus notes, government planners in China have been experimenting with using energy markets that do not rely strictly on the system that uses a quota for coal power, but encourages competition for long-term contracts to deliver coal-based electricity, while creating additional markets for flexible operation.

Such market mechanisms could prove beneficial to renewable energy sources, principally wind and solar power. As Karplus concludes: "Our work shows the value of continuing these reforms, including introducing markets and relaxing the administrative constraints ... for China's ability to utilize its present and future wind capacity to the fullest."

At MIT, the research was funded by a consortium of founding sponsors of the MIT-Tsinghua China Energy and Climate Project, supported through the MIT Energy Initiative: Eni, the French Development Agency (AFD), ICF, and Shell. At Tsinghua University, researchers received separate support from government and industry sources. The MIT-Tsinghua China Energy and Climate Project is part of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
###
Additional background

ARCHIVE: Energy storage for renewables can be a good investment today <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2016/energy-storage-renewables-good-investment-solar-wind-0613" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://news.mit.edu/2016/energy-storage-renewables-good-investment-solar-wind-0613</a>

ARCHIVE: Target coal or carbon? <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2016/target-coal-or-carbon-0524" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://news.mit.edu/2016/target-coal-or-carbon-0524</a>

ARCHIVE: Study: China's new policies will limit CO2 emissions faster, without limiting growth <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2016/china-policies-lower-emissions-faster-without-preventing-economic-growth-0209" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://news.mit.edu/2016/china-policies-lower-emissions-faster-without-preventing-economic-growth-0209</a>

ARCHIVE: New insights into carbon emissions in China <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2015/insights-into-carbon-emissions-china-0618" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://news.mit.edu/2015/insights-into-carbon-emissions-china-0618</a>

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How China can ramp up wind power

How China can ramp up wind power. China has an...

Killings of environmental advocates up 60% in 2015. A <a href="http://www.earth.com/video/a-london-bridge-in-arizona/">London</a>-based advocacy group said Monday it documented 185 killings of environmental activists around the world last year, nearly 60 percent more than in 2014 and the highest since it began collecting data dating back to 2002.
In a newly released report, Global Witness said Brazil topped the 16-country list with 50 environmental defenders slain in 2015, followed by the Philippines with 33 and Colombia with 26. The group says 116 were slain worldwide in 2014.
Last year "was the deadliest year on record for killings of land and environmental defenders - people struggling to protect their land, forests and rivers," the report said.
Conflicts involving mining, agribusiness, hydroelectric dams and logging are behind most of the killings, which average more than three a week, it added.
Those who oppose such projects are "finding themselves in the firing line of private security companies, state forces and a thriving market for contract killers," Global Witness said.
The 50 environmental defenders killed in Brazil is nearly double the number slain in the country in 2014. Most of the killings occurred in the Amazon states of Maranhao, Para and Rondonia, where "agribusiness companies, loggers and landowners hire hit men to silence local opposition to their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA">projects</a>," the report said.
Brazil's Justice Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Marcio Astrini, public policy coordinator for Greenpeace in Brazil, attributed the killings to a lack of government presence in areas where land conflicts and deforestation are taking place.
"We are in a bad situation in which unfortunately we are champions in this shameful ranking," Astrini said. "I believe that we will continue leading this ranking until the government solves the problems in the region.
"Threats against defenders of the environment and those who represent rural workers and indigenous people will continue to grow, and I fear more will be murdered," he said.
© 2016 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.

Killings of environmental advocates up 60% in 2015

Killings of environmental advocates up 60% in 2015. A London-based...

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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



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.

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



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.

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

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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



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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



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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



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Tracking changes in Earth's water cycle

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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



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Mysterious "spoke season" captured on Saturn

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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



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Plants help remove heavy metals from contaminated soil

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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



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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



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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



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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



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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



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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



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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

[sendtonews key="JrMLDXHmjl-1911953-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

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

[sendtonews key="u0TYxxqfF7-2186404-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from NASA’s...

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