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Aerosol instrument starts measurement campaign in European airspace

by SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research

Electrical Engineer Rob Wolfs (left) and Software Engineer Jens Johanson (right) in front of the Falcon-20 research airplane in Toulouse. Credit: SRON

SRON's aerosol instrument SPEX Airborne is spreading its wings again. On October 2, it will start a series of measurement flights across Europe onboard a Falcon-20 research aircraft. SPEX Airborne will measure aerosols in the atmosphere—tiny dust particles that can disrupt measurements of the greenhouse gas CO2. In time, SPEX is intended to go into space as part of the European SCARBO mission.

Europe is committed to measuring CO2 emissions from space in order to achieve the European Green Deal targets. In addition to the future CO2 space mission CO2M, the European Commission is funding a collaboration of 10 organizations, including SRON, that are working on a constellation of smaller satellites called the Space CARBon Observatory (SCARBO). A new miniature CO2 measuring instrument, nanoCarb, has been developed for SCARBO in France. The Dutch SPEX Airborne is part of SCARBO, intended to correct the CO2 measurements for disturbances caused by aerosols. Before these instruments go into space, they first perform a series of measurement flights from Toulouse on the Falcon-20.

A team of SRON engineers has already arrived in Toulouse to install SPEX Airborne in the Falcon-20 aircraft. "After the installation, one or two test flights will be carried out over France," says Martijn Smit from SRON. "Then it gets exciting, because we'll see whether everything functions properly. If the test flight goes well, the real work begins."

There will be flights over Poland and Germany above a number of power plants with high CO2 emissions. The aircraft will also fly across Northern Italy and Southern Spain—regions with often increased concentrations of aerosols.

Credit: SRON

This campaign will be the first time that CO2 and aerosol are measured simultaneously.

The SCARBO consortium is led by Airbus Defense and Space in France. The project draws funding from the Horizon 2020 program of the European Commission. SRON and Airbus Defense and Space Netherlands are also currently developing the spectropolarimeter SPEXone for the NASA satellite mission PACE, which will be launched in 2023.


Explore further SPEX project gets wings: first measurements SPEX airborne published

Provided by SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research

40,000 years of adapting to sea-level change on Alor Island

by Australian National University

Marine shell and coral fishing (at left) and ornamentation (at right) technologies from Makpan. Credit: Australian National University

Early people were rapidly adapting to climate change as they made their way towards Australia tens of thousands of years ago, new research shows.


Shells, fish bones and fishhooks found on the Indonesian island of Alor show how people lived and adapted to the environment more than 40,000 years ago.

Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) led the team which excavated a cave—called Makpan—on Alor's south-west coast.

Their findings also confirm Alor's position as a "stepping stone" between the larger islands of Flores and Timor.

According to Dr. Shimona Kealy from ANU, analysis of artifacts found at Makpan show how inventive and adaptive its early residents were.

"This provides further insights into early modern human movements between the islands and shows how responsive people were to challenges such as climate change," Dr. Kealy said.

"Once people began to move into the islands they did so very quickly, and rapidly adjusted to their new island homes."

Makpan witnessed a series of massive sea level highs and lows during its 43,000 years of human occupation, largely due to the climactic extremes of the last Ice Age.

"When people first arrived at Makpan, they came in low numbers," Dr. Kealy said.

A fish trap on the reef edge of Alor Island. Credit: Marko Reimann/Alamy Stock

"At this time the cave was close to the coast—as it is today—and this early community lived on a diet of shellfish, barnacles and sea urchin, with sea urchins in particular eaten in large numbers."

Shortly after their initial arrival, sea levels began to fall. This increased the distance from the site of Makpan to the coast, and likely encouraged people to broaden their diet to include a variety of land-based fruits and vegetables.

As the last Ice Age began to wane about 14,000 years ago, Makpan was once again within 1km of the coast.

Professor Sue O'Connor says around 12,000 years ago people were enjoying a "smorgasbord of seafood."

"It is no surprise the site sees significant evidence for fishing at this time, not just the bones of a wide variety of fish and shark species, but also in the form of shell fishhooks in different shapes and sizes," Professor O'Connor said.

Alor Island. Credit: Dr Shioma Kealy

Makpan was abandoned around 7,000 years ago, before a final occupation phase around 3,500 years ago.

"We don't know why Makpan was abandoned at this time," Dr. Kealy said.

The excavation site at Makpan. Credit: Dr Shimona Kealy

"Perhaps final sea level increases made other areas around Alor island more attractive settlement locations."

The study has been published in Quaternary Science Reviews.


Explore further  

Archaeologist finds world's oldest funereal fish hooks
More information: Shimona Kealy et al. Forty-thousand years of maritime subsistence near a changing shoreline on Alor Island (Indonesia), Quaternary Science Reviews (2020). 

DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106599
Journal information: Quaternary Science Reviews


Provided by Australian National University

Conservation success or pests? 

Seals spark passionate debate

by Patrick Whittle and Michael Casey

A grey seal swims in Casco Bay, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, off Portland, Maine. Seals, especially grey seals, are being blamed for attracting sharks and for stealing from commercial fishermen. Critics say the increased seal population will hurt the economy and scare off tourists. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Nick Muto has fished up and down the New England coast and there is nothing that gets his blood boiling more than the sight of a seal.


Muto, whose two boats fish for groundfish such as skate and monkfish as well as lobster, is among a growing group of anglers, beach goers and local officials who are quick to blame everything from disease to depleted fisheries to increased shark sightings on the exploding seal population.

"Areas that we used to traditionally fish that were as close to guarantees as you could get have been strip mined of fish, and the fish have been driven out of there by seals," Muto said. "They have eaten fish out of our nets. They have been caught in our nets. They are everywhere."

The debate over seals was reignited after the death in July of a swimmer killed by a great white off Harpswell, Maine. Seals are often shark prey, and experts believe Julie Dimperio Holowach may have been mistaken for a seal.

No one questions that seal and shark numbers are on the rise, mostly due to federal protections. It's estimated there are as many as 50,000 grey seals in New England waters plus a lesser number of harbor seals. The animals were almost eliminated through hunting and bounties decades ago.

But experts maintain there is not enough science to determine whether the current population is too big and little basis for culling the marine mammals. Even suggesting seals are destroying fisheries or are solely to blame for shark attacks is not supported by hard evidence. Experts say warming waters and other factors also could be playing a role. The Gulf of Maine, which stretches from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, has been heating up faster than 99% of the world's oceans.

A grey seal moves across rocks on a small island in Casco Bay, Thursday, July 30, 2020, off Portland, Maine. Seals are thriving off the northeast coast thanks to decades of protections. Many scientists believe the increased seal population is leading to more human encounters with white sharks, who prey on seals. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

"We get into this question of how many grey seals there are. The next question is how many seals should there be, which is kind of where people are going to go next with that, which is a very challenging thing," said David Johnston, a marine ecologist at Duke University who has done grey seal population estimates using Google Earth and tagged seals to demonstrate how their feeding behavior changes due to sharks in the Northwest Atlantic.

Seal population rise has prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to propose guidelines for deterring marine mammals, including physical barriers to keep seals away from fishing gear.


"Frustration by fishermen and property owners stemming from conflicts with marine mammals has increased," notes NOAA's proposal. The agency is taking comments until Oct. 30.

But Johnston and Stephanie Wood, a University of Massachusetts Boston seal biologist currently surveying seals in the Boston Harbor, said the public should view seals as a conservation success story, rather than a problem to be managed.

Hunted almost into extinction by the 1900s, seals were given federal protection in 1972 by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Seals began returning to New England waters in the 1980s and 1990s from Nova Scotia and have thrived ever since—often raising pups on federally protected islands once home to hunting and fishing camps. They also disperse widely and have benefited from a wide-ranging diet, including fish, crustaceans and squid.

"Habitat opened up for seals, which is sort of the opposite story that we hear about a lot of other populations struggling to recover," said Wood, noting that other marine mammals such as whales and monk seals "haven't recovered in the same way."

A harbor seal pokes its head out of the water in Casco Bay, Thursday, July 30, 2020, off Portland, Maine. Seals are thriving off the northeast coast thanks to decades of protections. While many fishermen are complaining about the increased seal population, some guides say the growth of seals has contributed to ecotourism and it would be silly to try to reverse that now. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Trying to reduce the numbers of seals is more complicated than opening up a hunt for an abundant species such as deer, said Kristina Cammen, a marine mammal scientist with University of Maine. Bounties on seals in the 20th century reduced their populations by as many as 135,000, and marine mammal protections are designed to prevent that kind of population loss again, Cammen said.

Learning to coexist with the growing seal population makes far more sense, even if it contributes to more shark sightings in coastal waters, she said. "A healthy ecosystem has sharks, seals and humans and they all have a place in that ecosystem."

Some species of sharks have rebounded because there are protections for them, not just because there are more seals to eat, said Andrea Bogomolni, chair of Northwest Atlantic Seal Research Consortium, based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

"Communicating that message of conservation success entails more than just a single species," Bogomolni said.

But seal critics call seals a public safety and ecological crisis and warn there will be more shark attacks if nothing is done. Tourism, too, will suffer, they said.

Some who are alarmed by the seal population burst are advocating culls while others are proposing some form of birth control. One group wants to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act to allow delisting of species covered— similar to what's allowed under the Endangered Species Act. The first step, they argue, would be a study to determine what's a healthy population of seals for the region.

A grey seal lounges on a small island in Casco Bay, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, off Portland, Maine. Grey seals were nearly killed off from New England's waters but the population has rebounded in recent years. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

"Doing nothing is not acceptable to me and not acceptable to other residents of Cape Cod," Barnstable County Commissioner Ron Beaty said, adding that seals are the "core problem."

"The quality of life here and our ability to make a living and our economy will go down the toilet," he said. "I have respect for wildlife and respect for those that believe seals and sharks need to come back. But we have a right to survive and exist as well."

The shark attack in Maine that killed Holowach in July took place about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 meters) off the shore of Bailey Island. Kayakers took Holowach to shore, but not in time to save her.

Despite the attack, few people are blaming the seals. Longtime Maine whale watch guide Zack Klyver said the growth of seals has contributed to ecotourism.

"I'd prefer that we adapt and we not demand that everything adapt to us," Klyver said. "And there's a lot of interest in seals, in seeing them."


Explore further  As numbers of gray seals rise, so do conflicts

© 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Wildfires raze dozens of homes in New Zealand

Up to 50 homes were destroyed by a wildfire which swept through the picturesque New Zealand village of Lake Ohau

Wildfires have destroyed up to 50 homes in New Zealand, authorities announced Monday, saying it was a miracle no one was hurt as "a wall of orange" razed most of a remote South Island village.

The blaze began in a mountain forest early Sunday morning and, fanned by strong winds, swept through the village of Lake Ohau, forcing residents to flee for their lives.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) said the unpredictable winds made fighting the fire "challenging" and by Monday afternoon it had burned 4,600 hectares (18 square miles) of land.

Waitaki District mayor Gary Kircher said the tiny Lake Ohau community had been devastated.

"Of the 60 or 70 houses, we believe that the majority have gone," he told Radio New Zealand.

"The reality is that it's a minor miracle no one has been harmed. If it had been another 15-20 minutes it would have been a very different story."

Kircher described how residents awoke to find an inferno bearing down on them.

"I talked to a gentleman who got up to his dog (barking) in the early hours, opened his door and there was this wall of orange," he said.

"He was the one that set off the town fire alarm and helped to wake people... there's certainly some scary tales about how close it came to being an absolute disaster with fatalities."

Wildfires are relatively common on the South Island at this time of the year but the scale and intensity of the Ohau fire have been unusual.

Map of New Zealand locating the village of Lake Ohau where wildfires have destroyed dozens of homes, according to authorities on Monday.

'War zone'

Village resident Hugh Spiers, who lost his home, said the ferocious blaze was "surreal" and more akin to the huge bushfires that regularly erupt in Australia than a regular New Zealand blaze.

"The wind was so strong and the flames and the smoke and the sparks and the embers, it was just like what you see in the bush fires in Australia," he told TVNZ.

By Monday afternoon the fire front had moved far enough from the village to allow evacuated residents a brief trip back to assess the damage.

Civil Defence Minister Peeni Henare, who accompanied them, described seeing burned out cars and gutted homes.

"The term I've heard used to describe it is a war zone," he told reporters.


"It's clear to me that there's no rhyme or reason when it comes to fire, one house is affected, the neighbour isn't... you can feel a sense of loss."

FENZ said 11 helicopters and eight fire crews were attempting to contain the flames.

Wildfires are relatively common on the South Island at this time of the year but the scale and intensity of the Ohau fire have been unusual

It said investigators were examining the cause of the blaze, amid reports it was ignited by an electrical arc from overhead power lines.

With light rain forecast for the next 24 hours, there were hopes it would be under control by Tuesday night.

New Zealand this year experienced its warmest winter on record, which government science body NIWA said was consistent with a long-term trend of rising temperatures linked to climate change.

University of Auckland environmental science expert, professor George Perry, said it was difficult to attribute a specific event such as the Lake Ohau fire to climate change.

But he said New Zealand had experienced more large wildfires that usual in recent years, pointing to changes in the three main factors affecting wildfires—fuel, climate and ignition sources.

"We would expect more such events under climate change especially as conditions become warmer and drier, and we see more droughts," he told AFP.


Explore further Wildfires rip through California wine country, thousands flee homes

Search underway for murder hornets nest in Washington state (Update)

by Nicholas K. Geranios

In this May 7, 2020, file photo, Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist Chris Looney displays a dead Asian giant hornet, a sample brought in from Japan for research in Blaine, Wash. Washington state agriculture workers have trapped their first Asian giant hornet. The hornet was found July 14 in a bottle trap set north of Seattle near the Canadian border, and state entomologists confirmed its identity Wednesday, July 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, Pool, File)

Agricultural officials in Washington state said Friday they are trying to find and destroy a nest of Asian giant hornets—also known as murder hornets—amid concerns they could kill honey bees crucial for pollinating raspberry and blueberry crops.


Evidence of six of the hornets were found over the last week near the town of Blaine in Whatcom County, the Washington state Department of Agriculture told reporters.

The number of hornets found—nearly double the previous number discovered in the state—would indicate a nest has been established in the area, the agency said. One of the hornets was trapped alive, a first for the agency, spokeswoman Karla Salp said.

"We believe we are dealing with a nest,'' said Sven-Erik Spichiger, a department entomologist. "We hope to locate the nest in a couple of weeks and eradicate it."

The Asian giant hornet—the world's largest at 2 inches (5 centimeters)—can decimate entire hives of honeybees and deliver painful stings to humans. Farmers in the northwestern U.S. depend on those honey bees to pollinate many crops.

The invasive insect found in China, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam and other Asian countries was first documented in Washington state late last year. Officials have said it's not known how it arrived. Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia are the only places the hornets have been found in North America.

In this Sept. 30, 2020, photo provided by the Washington State Department of Agriculture, a researcher holds a live Asian giant hornet with a tracking device affixed to it near Blaine, Wash. Agricultural officials in Washington state said Friday they are trying to find and destroy a nest of Asian giant hornets believed to be near the small town amid concerns the hornets could kill honey bees crucial for pollinating raspberry and blueberry crops. (Karla Salp/Washington State Department of Agriculture via AP)

There have been reports from Asia of the hornets stinging people so often they have died.

Despite their name, the hornets kill at most a few dozen people a year in Asia, and experts say it is probably far less. Hornets, wasps and bees typically found in the United States kill an average of 62 people a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.

The real threat from the hornets is their devastating attacks on honeybee hives, and the time of year when they attack those hives is nearing, Spichiger said. He called it the "slaughter phase."

A state scientist managed to trap one live Asian giant hornet near Blaine in recent days and officials tried to glue a radio tag to it so they could follow the hornet back to its nest, Spichiger said.

But the glue did not dry fast enough, the radio tag fell off and the hornet ultimately could not fly, Spichiger said. Scientists hope to capture another live hornet and try again.

In this Sept. 30, 2020, photo provided by the Washington State Department of Agriculture, a researcher holds a live Asian giant hornet with a tracking device affixed to it near Blaine, Wash. Agricultural officials in Washington state said Friday, Oct. 2, 2020 they are trying to find and destroy a nest of Asian giant hornets believed to be near the small town amid concerns the hornets could kill honey bees crucial for pollinating raspberry and blueberry crops. (Karla Salp/Washington State Department of Agriculture via AP)

In this Sept. 30, 2020, photo provided by the Washington State Department of Agriculture, a researcher works to attach a tracking device to a live Asian giant hornet near Blaine, Wash. Agricultural officials in Washington state said Friday, Oct 2, 2020 they are trying to find and destroy a nest of Asian giant hornets believed to be near the small town amid concerns the hornets could kill honey bees crucial for pollinating raspberry and blueberry crops. (Karla Salp/Washington State Department of Agriculture via AP)

In this Sept. 30, 2020, photo provided by the Washington State Department of Agriculture, a live Asian giant hornet flutters but is unable to fly away as a tracking device placed by a researcher dangles behind near Blaine, Wash. Agricultural officials in Washington state said Friday, Oct. 2, 2020 they are trying to find and destroy a nest of Asian giant hornets believed to be near the small town amid concerns the hornets could kill honey bees crucial for pollinating raspberry and blueberry crops. (Karla Salp/Washington State Department of Agriculture via AP)

In this Sept. 30, 2020, photo provided by the Washington State Department of Agriculture, a researcher holds a live Asian giant hornet with a tracking device affixed to it near Blaine, Wash. Agricultural officials in Washington state said Friday, Oct. 2, 2020 they are trying to find and destroy a nest of Asian giant hornets believed to be near the small town amid concerns the hornets could kill honey bees crucial for pollinating raspberry and blueberry crops. (Karla Salp/Washington State Department of Agriculture via AP)

In this Sept. 30, 2020, photo provided by the Washington State Department of Agriculture, a researcher works to attach a tracking device to a live Asian giant hornet near Blaine, Wash. Agricultural officials in Washington state said Friday, Oct 2, 2020 they are trying to find and destroy a nest of Asian giant hornets believed to be near the small town amid concerns the hornets could kill honey bees crucial for pollinating raspberry and blueberry crops. (Karla Salp/Washington State Department of Agriculture via AP)


People living in the Blaine area have been reporting sightings of the hornets to agricultural officials.

There is also evidence that the giant hornets are also attacking native wasps and hornets, Spichiger said.

Fifteen of the hornets have been found since they were first seen in the state in 2019, the agriculture department said.


Explore further Another Asian giant hornet found in northwestern Washington

© 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Introducing third legal gender option popular with majority of trans and non-binary people, research shows

by University of Exeter

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Introducing a third legal gender option is popular with the majority of trans and non-binary people, research suggests.

The study, which is exploring possible reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, found people would be more likely to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) if there was an additional option for legal gender. A total of 88 percent of trans and non-binary people were in favor of a third additional gender option for a GRC, followed by a multi-gender system (59.4 percent) and removing the system by ceasing to record sex at birth (49.6 percent). Introducing an additional third option was particularly popular with non-binary people, notably with zero non-binary people opposed to this proposal.

The statistics were collected as part of the Gender Recognition and Reform (GRR) Project at the University of Exeter Law School, which is a Ph.D. project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. A total of 276 transgender and non-binary people completed a survey about the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and 21 non-binary people were also interviewed.

Last week the Government ruled out changes to the Gender Recognition Act, but announced ways the process of applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate would be modernized.

The study also found that trans and non-binary people would be more likely to apply for a GRC if the current requirement of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria from an approved medical practitioner didn't exist. This measure was retained by the Government as part of recent reform announcements this week and is particularly unpopular with non-binary people. Half, 50.7 percent, of trans people who took part in a survey opposed the gender dysphoria requirement compared with 80.7 percent of non-binary people. Non-binary participants were more than two times more likely to report that removing the gender dysphoria requirement would make them more likely to apply for a GRC.

Respondents said they had had poor experiences with medical professionals, found the need for a mental diagnosis stigmatizing and didn't agree that legal gender should be defined according to a medical model.

Mollie Gascoigne, Ph.D. Candidate at Exeter Law School, who is leading the research said:

 "The Government's proposals to reduce the application fee is welcome as the current cost has posed a significant barrier to many people hoping to access legal gender recognition. However, to substantively increase the number of people applying for legal gender recognition and to make the system more accessible particularly for non-binary people, these findings suggest that further reform is still needed to address the current lack of non-binary gender recognition and the requirement of gender dysphoria."


Explore further The neurobiological basis of gender dysphoria

Provided by University of Exeter

Sexual, gender minorities much likelier to be crime victims

by Astrid Galvan

Rates of violent victimization among LGBT and non-LGBT people in the U.S. Credit: The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law

 

The first study of its kind found that people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer or gender non-confirming are nearly four times as likely to be victims of violent crime than those outside such communities.

Although other research has long shown that LGBTQ people and gender minorities are disproportionately affected by crime, the study published in Science Advances, a multidisciplinary journal, on Friday looked at data that has only been collected since 2016, making for the first comprehensive and national study to examine the issue.

It found that members of such communities, referred to as sexual and gender minorities, experienced a rate of 71.1 violent victimizations per 1,000 persons a year, compared with 19.2 per 1,000 a year among non-sexual and gender minorities.

But it was the fact that sexual and gender minorities are victims of such a variety of crimes at such disparate rates—and who they're victimized by—that surprised researchers, said lead author Andrew R. Flores, an assistant professor at American University.

For example, researchers found that such a population is much more likely to be victimized by someone they know well than a person who is a non-sexual and gender minority.

The fact that sexual and gender minorities are victimized by people close to them at such higher rates "does kind of raise questions hopefully future research can address about the nature of these incidents and the nature of these relationships," Flores said.

"There are certain socializations that goes in that. I think many people are socialized and have a certain disdain for trans and queer people," said Tori Cooper of the Human Rights Campaign, a national organization that advocates for the LGBTQ community. Cooper is the director of community engagement for the organization's Transgender Justice Initiative.

Rates of violent victimization according to the relationship between victim and offender. Credit: The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law

A survey of more than 12,000 LGBTQ teens around the country released in 2018 by the Human Rights Campaign found that 67% report they've heard family members make negative comments about LGBTQ people.

Cooper said transgender people are particularly vulnerable, especially by partners or people close to them. The HRC has documented the killings of at least 30 transgender or non-gender conforming people in 2020 alone. The majority were Black and Latina transgender women.

"There's an incalculable amount of transphobia ... that plays into these relationships," Cooper said.

The new study didn't have a large enough sample of surveys by transgender people to come to a conclusion about their specific victimization rates, but Flores said other research has shown they are particularly vulnerable.

The study also found that sexual and gender minorities are burglarized at twice the rate of other households, and that they're more likely to be victims of other types of property theft.

The study is based on a national crime survey conducted by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, which until 2016 had not asked respondents about their sexual orientation and gender identity. Researchers examined responses to the 2017 survey, which was released last year.

But it may be a while before researchers can look at the data in this way again. The Trump administration, without seeking public comment, announced that it was moving the sexual orientation and gender identity questions from the general demographic section of its national crime survey to a part of the survey only pertaining to victims. This will limit what researchers can learn about crime disparities because asking only victims about their sexual or gender identification makes it impossible to compare those rates of violence to the general population.

Explore furtherAsking patients about sexual orientation, gender identity

More information: A.R. Flores at American University in Washington, DC el al., "Victimization rates and traits of sexual and gender minorities in the United States: Results from the National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017," Science Advances (2020).

 

advances.sciencemag.org/lookup … .1126/sciadv.aba6910

Journal information: Science Advances


© 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Damage uncovered on Antarctic glaciers reveals worrying signs for sea level rise

by Lily Roberts, Earth Institute at Columbia University

Crevasses observed on Pine Island Glacier. These open fractures are a sign of structural weakening. Credit NASA

A new study into the structural damage of two major Antarctic glaciers reveals that ice shelf weakening has rapidly evolved in recent years. Multi-satellite imagery identified damage areas, sparking concerns that structural weakening could lead to major ice shelf collapse in the decades to come. This collapse, in turn, reduces the glaciers' ability to hold back major sections of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet from running into the ocean.

Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier are located in the Amundsen Sea Embayment. The fastest-changing outlet glaciers in the region, they account for Antarctica's largest contribution to global sea level rise. Scientists have anticipated for at least 20 years that these glaciers will be the first to respond to climate change, Jessica O'Reilly, an environmental anthropologist at Indiana University, told GlacierHub.

If the ice shelves of these two glaciers collapse, it could trigger large-scale disintegration of the nearby West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which holds enough ice to raise global sea level by about 10 feet. The glaciers provide a natural buffering system that is holding back the enormous ice sheet upstream, but if structural damage is weakening the ice shelves, rapid outflow into the ocean could occur in the coming years.

The study results reveal that since 2016, damage in the shear zone of Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers has rapidly developed. The shear zone is located where the glacier meets the ice shelf, which acts as a braking system that slows the downstream flow of the glaciers towards the sea. Due to the resistive forces and stresses, ice breaks in this zone where the two meet, as seen in the image above. Parallel crevasses have formed perpendicular to the direction of flow, tearing apart the ice. Satellite imagery shows that for Pine Island, the south shear zone has been torn apart and fragmented, and for Thwaites, damage is accelerating upstream in its shear zone.

A large calving event on Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf in February 2020, observed from the Corpernicus satellite. Events like these may become all too common in the future, as fracturing and weakening of the ice increases. Credit: European Space Agency

Fracturing in the shear zone structurally weakens the ice front. At the same time, the glaciers have been increasing in downslope velocity, which in turn initiates further shearing and fracturing. This is rendering the ice shelves unstable, paving the way for large calving events while also reducing the shelf's ability to hold back the outflowing glacier.

In February 2020, a large rift developed across Pine Island's shelf due to damage in the shear zone. Satellites observed a huge calving event that caused unprecedented retreat of the ice shelf, further destabilizing it.


Adding to the concerns for these glaciers, warmer ocean waters in the Amundsen Sea is melting the ice shelf from below. Changing atmospheric and oceanic patterns are sweeping warm deep waters towards the floating ice shelves of Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers. Melting from below is making the overlying ice shelf even more brittle and thus susceptible to further shearing and fracturing. Study co-author Bert Wouters told GlacierHub that without ocean warming, we would not be seeing the changes and processes we are observing.

Furthermore, these glaciers are sitting on reverse bed slopes. This means once the glaciers start retreating, they will retreat further and further in a positive feedback loop. "At some point we may reach a point of no return, where collapse will be unstoppable. Once you remove the ice shelves, there is no way of stopping the mass loss of Antarctica," Wouters told GlacierHub.

Thwaites Glacier. Clearly seen are open fractures and a calving front. Although these have been long recognized, scientists are looking to see whether recent changes to the ice front is a distinctive signature of climate change. Credit: NASA/James Yungel

A significant challenge across climate science is to distinguish natural ice behavior from variability caused by human influence, confirms O'Reilly. However, the rapid changes to Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers have been clearly connected to anthropogenic climate change. O'Reilly, who has been following the study of Antarctic glaciology since 2008, tells that great progress has been made in understanding these glaciers. "Teams of scientists have been puzzling over these glaciers since the middle of the last century. This puzzling means a lot of exciting, innovative approaches to learning about the glaciers has emerged."

Although satellite images have long been used as a tool for studying these glaciers, the significance of this study is that the damage now observed is setting up further, and potentially catastrophic, ice loss in Antarctica. These glaciers are the gateway to the continent, and therefore rapidly developing damage to the barrier that is stopping the ice sheet from sliding into the ocean is a critical concern for scientists. But they're not the only ones who should be worried. O'Reilly reminds us that these changes will affect coastal communities, livelihoods and ecosystems globally.

Despite the significance of the new results, Wouters warns that there are still a lot of unknowns. "We keep finding new processes and feedbacks, so there might be others that we are not aware of yet, and those that we know about we don't fully understand yet, nor are these feedbacks incorporated into models."

Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers are endangered, and the current damage is almost impossible to heal. "These are the two key glaciers in West Antarctica that will define global sea level over the coming decades," Wouters told GlacierHub. Although major ice shelf collapse is unlikely to occur in the coming years, we are seeing the processes speed up, so it might be a matter of decades, explained Wouters. If the new predictions for further destabilization and ice loss prove to be accurate, the implications for sea level rise are likely to be severe.


Explore further Antarctica: Cracks in the ice

Provided by Earth Institute at Columbia University

This story is republished courtesy of Earth Institute, Columbia University http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu.

ECO-ENTOMOLOGY

Solving global challenges using insect research

by Institut de recherche pour le développement

Colobathristide bug (ordered Heteroptera), Pilchicocha (Ecuador). Credit: IRD - Olivier Dangles - François Nowicki / Une Autre Terre

IRD researchers and their partners have published a special issue in the Current Opinion in Insect Science journal. Using an interdisciplinary approach and based on examples from international research, they explain how insects can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) identified by the United Nations for 2030.


To achieve food security, to promote peace, to ensure access to quality education and clean water and sanitation, to improve health, to take action to combat climate change, to restore ecosystems and to reduce inequalities: these are some of the 17 SDG identified by the UN to address the global challenges faced by societies.

Research can be used to achieve these interrelated goals, by not only producing reliable knowledge and data, offering innovative solutions and assessing progress but also in providing some perspective on SDGs.

"We have brought together researchers from many different countries—Germany, Australia, Burkina Faso, Brazil, China, Columbia, Ecuador, the United States, India, Panama, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam—to present original insect research that falls within the area of Sustainability science," emphasized Olivier Dangles (IRD) and Verónica Crespo-Pérez (Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, PUCE), coordinators of the special issue published in Current Opinion In Insect Science. "These examples show that research on insects has great potential in tackling today's challenges."

An overview of games for entomological literacy: the article considers the use of video games in improving the dissemination of knowledge about major insect-related challenges (pollinator decline, managing vectors of disease).

Insect vectors endosymbionts as solutions against diseases: The authors of this article present new strategies to combat viral diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, in particular a strategy based on the symbiotic bacteria Wolbachia, and how mosquitoes themselves can help us to control the diseases they transmit.

Orienting insecticide research in the tropics: Using a bibliometric analysis of insecticides, the researchers identify the research topics (bioinsecticides and integrated pest management) that should be promoted to ensure the protection of sustainable crops.
Insect-inspired architecture to build sustainable cities: Entomologists describe the functional principles of insect structures, which may inspire the construction of more sustainable cities (particularly in terms of multifunctionality, energy saving and sustainability).

Insects for peace: In countries recovering from conflict, agricultural development should focus on restoring food production by smallholder farmers and improving their socioeconomic position. The authors of the article describe the example of the reintegration of ex-combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia as insect producers for livestock farming.

Moving beyond the distinction between the bright and dark sides of termites: Termites are amongst the main decomposers of matter in tropical ecosystems and have a positive impact on many services for humankind. These insects also act as pests, threatening agriculture and constructions. This article assesses the impact of termites on several sustainable development goals and proposes a reconciliation between the termite's dark and bright sides.

The importance of insects on land and in water: The authors of this article advocate for increased knowledge of the role played by insects in tropical terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, whose diversity and distribution are affected by global changes.
Unsung heroes: fixing multifaceted sustainability challenges through insect biological control. In this article, researchers explain how biological control contributes to food security, poverty alleviation, human well-being and environmental preservation.


Explore further 

Immediate, science-based community action can stop insect decline
More information: Vectors and medical and veterinary entomology. Special Section on Insects and the UN sustainable development goals, Current Opinion in Insect Science, Volume 40, August 2020.
Provided by Institut de recherche pour le développement

Corals have a secret weapon against a warming climate

by Candice Allouch, Florida International University

Staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis). Credit: Wikipedia

Rising ocean temperatures are killing coral reefs, but researchers discovered corals have a secret buried in their genes that just might help them fight off seasonal changes in temperature.

For over two years, FIU Institute of Environment Ph.D. student Javier Rodriguez-Casariego sampled reefs around Culebra Island, Puerto Rico to learn about their responses to the destruction caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. He did this work under the direction of FIU molecular biologist Jose Eirin-Lopez of the institute's CREST Center for Aquatic Chemistry and Environment and the Environmental Epigenetics Lab.

This project, funded by the National Science Foundation and part of a bigger initiative aimed at understanding the effects of hurricanes on coral reefs, catapulted Rodriguez-Casariego to further research the adaptation responses of corals. For 17 months, he collected more than 200 Staghorn coral samples with former CREST undergraduate student Ivanna Ortiz Rivera and former CREST postdoctoral researcher Alex Mercado-Molina.

Together, they studied the corals across all four seasons. What they found was eye-opening. Depending on the season, corals modified the activity of their DNA in order to adapt to changes in temperature and other conditions. These epigenetic changes do not involve a change in DNA itself but can affect how genes are expressed.

Corals are very sensitive to temperature changes. A small change of at least 1 degree Celsius above the average summer maximum temperature is known to trigger deadly bleaching.

"This discovery opens up a research area around leveraging this epigenetic response to prevent coral bleaching under climate change conditions," Rodriguez-Casariego said.

This research was recently published in Frontiers in Marine Science and is the first in a series of publications related to the coral research being conducted in Culebra Island, Puerto Rico.


Explore further Nutrients make coral bleaching worse

More information: Javier A. Rodríguez-Casariego et al. Genome-Wide DNA Methylation Analysis Reveals a Conserved Epigenetic Response to Seasonal Environmental Variation in the Staghorn Coral Acropora cervicornis, Frontiers in Marine Science (2020).

DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2020.560424

Provided by Florida International University