It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, February 17, 2020
Last month was hottest January on record, US scientists say
In this Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020 file photo, people stand on a balcony during flooding in Girona, Spain. A storm caused rivers to overflow and sea waters to inundate vast agricultural areas in eastern Spain. On Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020, scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the previous month was the hottest January on record since experts began keeping temperature tallies in 1880. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Last month was the hottest January since scientists began keeping temperature records in 1880, U.S. government forecasters said Thursday.
The global average land and ocean surface temperature in January was 2.05 degrees Fahrenheit (1.14 degrees Celsius) above the average January temperatures for the 20th century, because of the changing climate, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
In parts of Russia, Scandinavia and eastern Canada, temperatures exceeded the old averages by 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 C).
Warmer temperatures mean melting snow and ice. The extent of Arctic sea ice was 5.3% below the average from 1981-2010, and Antarctic sea ice was 9.8% below the average.
The hottest January after the second hottest year on record "is one of those indications that things are warming dramatically," said University of Illinois climate scientist Don Wuebbles.
In this Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020 file photo, smoke from a fire at Batemans Bay, Australia, billows into the air as strong winds and high temperatures were forecast to spread flames. On Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020, scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the previous month was the hottest January on record since experts began keeping temperature tallies in 1880. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
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In this Sunday, Jan. 12, 2020 file photo, people sit on docks in the Charles River Esplanade park in Boston during unseasonably warm weather as temperatures climbed into the low 70s in many places in the state. On Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020, scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the previous month was the hottest January on record since experts began keeping temperature tallies in 1880. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Delta Air Lines to invest $1 bn to reduce emissions
Delta Air Lines has also pledged to voluntarily cap its emissions at 2012 levels and stepped up its recycling efforts
Delta Air Lines said Friday it plans to invest $1 billion over the next decade to reduce its emissions, the first major airline to make such a commitment.
"There's no challenge we face that is in greater need of innovation thanenvironmental sustainability, and we know there is no single solution," Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in announcing the move.
The investment aims to reduce emissions across all of the US airline's operations worldwide, starting in March and lasting for 10 years.
Delta says it will invest in technologies to reduce airline CO2 emissions and waste, though it does not specify if technologies like carbon capture and removal are among the innovations it will targeting.
The aviation industry accounts for about two percent of global carbon emissions, according to Delta.
As concern grows over climate change, air carriers are aiming to drastically reduce their carbon footprint and be carbon neutral from 2020 even as air travel is expected to increase sharply in the coming years.
Airlines have taken measures like cutting out single-use plastic items like packaging, utensils, straws and cutlery, while investing in biofuels.
They also are buying newer aircraft made of lighter materials and seen as more fuel efficient, and pushed for the development of single-engine aircraft, which they believe can reduce their emissions by between one and two percent a year.
Delta has been offering its customers carbon offsets for more than two years and is committed to voluntarily capping its own emissions at 2012 levels, while recycling the aluminum cans, plastic bottles and cups and paper waste it generates.
The United Nations recently announced that the decade between 2010 and 2019 was the warmest on record.
Under pressure from activists, many companies including Microsoft and BP, have made commitments to reduce their carbon footprint.
Major shareholders, such as the US asset management company BlackRock, have made similar promises.
provided a visible image of rOn Feb. 14, the MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite pe-formed Tropical Cyclone Francisco heading for landfall in east-central Madagascar. Credit: NASA/NRL
The low-pressure area that had once been Tropical Cyclone Francisco has been lingering in the Southern Indian Ocean since Feb. 6 when it weakened below tropical cyclone status. Since then, Francisco's remnants moved into an area of warm waters and low wind shear allowing the low-pressure area to re-organize, consolidate and re-form. NASA's Aqua satellite provided forecasters with a visible image of the zombie storm.
On Feb. 14, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite provided a visible image that showed the storm had re-developed a rounded shape with bands of thunderstorms spiraling into the low-level center. A more rounded shape of a tropical cyclone indicates it is becoming a more organized storm. Satellite imagery shows a compact system with strong thunderstorms persisting over the low-level circulation. In addition, satellite microwave imagery indicates deep convective banding of thunderstorms over the western semicircle wrapping into the north and east quadrants of a defined low-level circulation center.
On Feb. 14 at 4 a.m. EST (0900 UTC), the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) noted that Francisco's maximum sustained winds powered back up to 40 knots (46 mph/74 kph). Francisco re-formed near latitude 19.0 degrees south and longitude 49.3 east, approximately 114 nautical miles east of Antananarivo, Madagascar. Francisco has tracked southwestward.
Meteo Madagascar issued a Red Vigilance Advisory for heavy rain over central and eastern Madagascar that includes Toamasina, Brickaville, Mahanoro, and the Vatomandry Districts.
The JTWC forecast said the system is expected to make landfall later today over the southeast coast of Atsinanana Region, close to Vatomandry City. That is far to the south of the coastal city of Toamasina. Francisco is expected to weaken steadily as it tracks inland and dissipate sometime on Feb. 15 over land.
NASA's Aqua satellite is one in a fleet of NASA satellites that provide data for hurricane research.
Tropical cyclones/hurricanes are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.
Wildlife need to move to survive: to find food, reproduce and escape wildfires and other hazards. Yet as soon as they leave protected areas like national forests or parks, they often wind up on a landscape that is very fragmented in terms of natural boundaries and human ones.
To help create more corridors for wildlife movement, a team led by Washington State University graduate student Amanda Stahl have developed a way to map not only the vegetation but also the types of legal authority governing the landscape. In a paper published online in the journalConservation Biologyon Feb. 14, the researchers apply their new mapping system to the areas next to streams in Okanogan County in northeastern Washington.
"I am a scientist. I didn't come to this research expecting to study law, but I realized that all the questions I was asking were about how we can address this problem now without making any new laws," said Stahl, the lead author on the paper. "If we want to create a network of corridors for wildlife, you have to deal with the question of who has legal authority to act on every single parcel of land."
Stahl and her co-authors, WSU Associate Professor Alexander Fremier and University of Idaho Law Professor Barbara Cosens, studied habitat maps and dozens of legal documents applying to Okanogan County stream areas. They developed two weighted scales for each area of land, giving them a rating based on the naturalness and another based on the strength of the legal authority governing it. For example, if there were only voluntary recommendations in place to restore the habitat next to the stream that would be a weaker legal authority rating in comparison to wetlands that are protected through mandatory permitting and reporting under the Clean Water Act.
The idea was to use the overlapping values to find a path of least resistance in creating new wildlife corridors. The maps can help organizations prioritize conservation projects and reveal potential areas of coordination to maximize the impact of restoration.
"There are places where if you make the habitat better, you will not only improve that area but also help build a longer corridor," said Stahl.
The potential of this kind of mapping is already being recognized, and the researchers are in talks with conservation groups and planning officials about mapping larger regions, including the entire state of Washington.
Okanogan County was a good test case, Stahl said, because it stretches from the Rocky Mountain foothills to the Cascades and wildlife, such as black bears and lynx, could benefit from better connectivity between them. The county also has many different types of landowners, including the federal, state and tribal governments as well as private landowners.
The researchers focused on streams since many existing laws already regulate the areas around them, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and Washington State's Shoreline Management Act and Growth Management Act.
Streams are also good targets for conservation because restoring streamside habitat has advantages not just for terrestrial mammals but for salmon who benefit from shaded water, migratory birds who use riparian areas and for humans who benefit from improved water quality and potentially increased property values on land located on scenic river corridors.
More information: Amanda T. Stahl et al, Mapping legal authority for terrestrial conservation corridors along streams, Conservation Biology (2020). DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13484
Australian bushfires extinguished, but climate rows rage on
by Andrew Beatty
Dozens of families have lost loved ones in the bushfires, thousands of homes and farms have been gutted and swathes of the east coast are scarred charcoal-blackAustralia's "black summer" of devastating bushfires is finally coming to a close, but bitter arguments over how to tackle climate-fuelled disasters are raging on.When firefighters announced this week that all blazes in the hard-hit state of New South Wales were under control for the first time since September, the relief was palpable.
In other regions, a few fires are still being contained, but most Australians can finally abandon the grim rituals of the last half-year—morning checks of smog monitors and "Fires Near Me" apps, deciding whether the kids can play outside, whether to flee or defend their homes.
But the after-effects will endure, and national soul searching has already begun.
"We know events like these can challenge the way we think about the world, undermine our perceptions of safety, and rupture social bonds," said disaster response expert Erin Smith.
Dozens of families have lost loved ones, thousands of homes and farms have been gutted, swathes of the east coast are scarred charcoal-black and millions have had their sense of security shaken.
"It will likely take years and a great deal of imagination for us to figure out where we go from here," said Smith.
The question of what is next for Australia is already being asked, most of all of political leaders, and it is being met mostly with finger-pointing and recrimination.
'Heads above the parapet'
While scientists agree climate change created favourable conditions for the blazes, politicians of all stripes are acutely aware how sensitive the issue is in Australian politics.
In an arid nation whose economic strength is intimately tied to the mining and export of fossil fuels, at least four prime ministers have been ousted in part over their climate policies.
In recent weeks, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has seen his ruling conservative coalition threatened by members in rural constituencies demanding funding for more coal-fired power plants.
At the same time, the centrist wing of his party has criticised his climate targets as inadequate.
Meanwhile rebel members of opposition Labor met secretly to steer the centre-left party's leadership toward a more overtly pro-coal stance.
The party's deputy leader awkwardly refused to rule out more coal subsidies, months after vowing they should end.
"They don't want to stick their heads above the parapet, at least when it comes to suggesting substantive policy," said Matt McDonald, an expert in climate politics from the University of Queensland.
One reason, he explained, is that while the hot and dry Australian continent is uniquely susceptible to the impact of climate change, it is also a world-beating source of coal.
Coal accounts for around 75 percent of Australia's electricity generation and exports of the fossil fuel are worth Aus$60 billion a year, the country's largest export after iron ore.
People in affluent suburbs may call for emissions cuts and green energy, but coal accounts for thousands of jobs in election-deciding districts of Queensland and New South Wales, and many more in the related aluminium smelting business.
Independent MP Zali Steggall—a former barrister and Olympic medal-winning skier—who ousted climate-sceptic former prime minister Tony Abbott from his Sydney seat at the last election, wants to take some heat out of the debate.
She has introduced a bill that would reduce Australia's carbon emissions to zero by 2050 and divert some contentious issues to an independent expert body.
"The debate has been very divisive," in part because of the blame game, Steggall told AFP. "There was a certain defensiveness in the early days of this debate because the finger was so squarely pointed at coal and fossil fuels."
"You have to think about a generation that worked really hard at building Australia's prosperity on fossil fuels. You have to be very careful in the debate about apportioning blame. It's not like it was done on purpose."
"It's about recognising and being thankful for that contribution, but acknowledging that we do need to evolve," she added. "We're all going to get there in the end."
With bushfires projected to get ever more deadly and the next season a little over six months away, the risk, Steggall says, is that politicians take so long to reach consensus "it will be too late to do anything".
"Believing things that aren't true when it comes to health can be not just bad for us, but dangerous," said Dan Gillmor, co-founder of the News Co/Lab at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. "Journalists have a special duty to avoid being fooled, and they can help us learn to sort out truth from falsehood ourselves." Credit: Arizona State University
For all the benefits in the expansion of the media landscape, we're still struggling with the spread of misinformation—and the damage is especially worrisome when it comes to information about science and health.
"Believing things that aren't true when it comes to health can be not just bad for us, but dangerous," said Dan Gillmor, co-founder of the News Co/Lab at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. "Journalists have a special duty to avoid being fooled, and they can help us learn to sort out truth from falsehood ourselves."
Gillmor will discuss his work, which focuses on improving media literacy, during a panel presentation on Feb. 15 as part of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Seattle, Washington.
His presentation is anchored by warnings from security experts, aimed at media consumers and journalists who may sometimes unwittingly amplify bad information. Those experts label journalism as an "attack surface" for those who are looking to intentionally spread misinformation.
His discussion is particularly timely as the country moves into the 2020 election season, when the stakes become higher on local and national levels.
"We need to get better ourselves at sorting out what we can trust, and understanding our roles as part of a digital ecosystem in which we're sharers and creators as well as consumers," Gillmor said.
The News Co/Lab, which has received support from the Facebook Journalism Project, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Democracy Fund, Rita Allen Foundation and News Integrity Initiative, collaborates with a number of partners to find new ways to increase public understanding of the news. Research suggests expertise in the area is sorely needed.
A report released by the News Co/Lab and the Center for Media Engagement at The University of Texas at Austin revealed that nearly a third of media consumers with a college education could not identify a fake news headline. And, consumers with negative attitudes about the news media were less likely to be able to spot fake news or distinguish opinion from analysis or advertising.
Gillmor's presentation will pivot on the need for a better understanding of news and the media, how journalists can prepare for and respond to misinformation, and how consumers can learn to parse what they read and watch so that they don't unknowingly traffic information that was intentionally designed to be misleading. For its part, the News Co/Lab recently received a grant for a new media literacy project that will include outreach events across the U.S., a massive online open course on digital media literacy, and digital and social media content.
Explore furtherNew Facebook project aims to fight the spread of 'fake news' More information: Gillmor will formally discuss concerns and solutions related to misinformation during his presentation, "Detecting, Combatting and Identifying Dis- and Mis-Information."
Psychological tests are important instruments used in courts to aid legal decisions that profoundly affect people's lives. They can help determine anything from parental fitness for child custody, to the sanity or insanity of a person at the time of a crime, to eligibility for capital punishment.
While increasingly used in courts, new research shows the tests are not all scientifically valid, and once introduced into a case they are rarely challenged, according to Tess Neal, an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University.
"Given the stakes involved one would think the validity of such tests would always be sound," Neal said. "But we found widespread variability in the underlying scientific validity of these tests."
The problem is made worse because the courts are not separating the good from the bad.
"Even though courts are required to screen out 'junk science,' nearly all psychological assessment evidence is admitted into court without even being screened," Neal said.
Neal was speaking today (February 15) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle. She presented her findings in the talk "Psychological assessments and the law: Are courts screening out "junk science?"
In a two-part investigation, Neal and her colleagues found a varying degree of scientific validity to 364 commonly used psychological assessment tools employed in legal cases. The researchers looked at 22 surveys of experienced forensic mental health practitioners to find which tools are used in court. With the help of 30 graduate students and postdocs, they examined the scientific foundations of the tools, focusing on legal standards and scientific and psychometric theory.
The second part of the study was a legal analysis of admissibility challenges with regard to psychological assessments, focusing on legal cases from across all state and federal courts in the U.S. for a three-year period (2016-2018).
"Most of these tools are empirically tested (90%), but we could only clearly identify two-thirds of them being generally accepted in the field and only about 40% as having generally favorable reviews of their psychometric and technical properties in authorities like the Mental Measurements Yearbook," Neal explained.
"Courts are required to screen out the 'junk science,' but rulings regarding psychological assessment evidence are rare. Their admissibility is only challenged in a fraction of cases (5.1%)," Neal said. "When challenges are raised, they succeed only about a third of the time."
"Challenges to the most scientifically suspect tools are almost nonexistent," Neal added. "Attorneys rarely challenge psychological expert assessment evidence, and when they do, judges often fail to exercise the scrutiny required by law."
What is needed is a different approach. In their open-access paper in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Neal and her colleagues offer concrete advice for solving these problems to psychological scientists, mental health practitioners, lawyers, judges and members of the public interacting with psychologists in the legal system.
"We suggest that before using a psychological test in a legal setting, psychologists ensure its psychometric and context-relevant validation studies have survived scientific peer review through an academic journal, ideally before publication in a manual," Neal explained. "For lawyers and judges, the methods of psychologist expert witnesses can and should be scrutinized, and we give specific suggestions for how to do so."
Invasive bug found feeding on avocado plants in Hawaii
'In this undated photo released by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture shows adults and nymphs of the Avocado Lace Bug, (Pseudacysta perseae). The avocado lace bug was first discovered in Pearl City, Oahu, in Dec. 2019 and was subsequently identified on Hawaii Island and Maui, the state Department of Agriculture said. Department officials have not confirmed the presence of the bug on Kauai. The infested Maui plants located Thursday, Feb. 13 2020 in retail outlets, were destroyed or treated, department officials said.(Hawaii Department of Agriculture via AP) An invasive bug was discovered feeding on avocado leaves across the state of Hawaii and was most recently found on Maui plants in retail outlets, entomologists said.
The avocado lace bug was first discovered in Pearl City, Oahu, in December and was subsequently identified on Hawaii Island and Maui, the state Department of Agriculture said. Department officials have not confirmed the presence of the bug on Kauai.
The infested Maui plants located Thursday in retail outlets, were destroyed or treated, department officials said.
It is unclear how the bug was introduced in Hawaii.
Department experts collaborated with the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources—Cooperative Extension Service to identify the pest.
The lace bug feeds on the leaves of avocado plants extracting nutrients and gradually destroying the plants, experts said. The bug does not feed on the fruit itself.
The bug causes green to yellowish blotches on the leaves and damaged leaves become dry, may curl, drop prematurely and may cause reduction in fruit yields.
The lace bug, scientifically known as pseudacysta perseae, is also known to feed on red bay plants and camphor trees on the Mainland. The bug can also be found in the Caribbean, Central and South America and Portugal.
Adult avocado lace bugs have black heads and mostly black bodies with a black stripe across the width of their lacy wings, and immature bugs can range in color from red to dark brown to black.
Possible infestations should be reported to Agriculture Department's Plant Pest Control Branch.
Storm Dennis wreaks havoc across UK, parts of France by Joe Jackson
A record 594 flood warnings and alerts were in place Storm Dennis swept across Britain
Britain on Monday grappled with the fallout from Storm Dennis, with several major incidents declared due to flooding and hundreds of warnings still in place after it battered the country over the weekend. The second severe storm in a week to hit Britain brought high winds of more than 90 miles (140 kilometres) an hour and more than a month's worth of rain in 48 hours in some places, leading officials to issue rare "danger to life" warnings.
The storm also pummelled much of France, with some 20,000 people still without electricity on Monday after suffering power cuts in the northwest of the country and rail traffic disrupted.
"This is not yet over," warned James Bevan, chief executive of the Environment Agency, which is responsible for flood protection in England.
"We still have many flood warnings in force and we may still see significant flooding in the middle of this week from larger rivers," he told BBC radio.
Bevan said more than 400 homes in England had been flooded while at least 1,000 agency staff were working around the clock alongside emergency officials "to protect and support those communities which have been hit".
Major incidents declared
More than 600 warnings and alerts—a record number—were issued on Sunday, extending from the River Tweed on the border of England and Scotland, to Cornwall in southwest England.
Flood water surrounds tomb stones at a graveyard in Tenbury Wells, after the River Teme burst its banks in western England
After a day of torrential rain, major flooding incidents were later declared in south Wales and parts of western England.
Some five "severe" warnings—denoting lives could be endangered by the flooding—remained active Monday on two rivers in Worcestershire and Herefordshire in west central England.
Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue service on Sunday airlifted to hospital one man pulled from the River Teme, who was in a stable condition on Monday.
But emergency responders suspended the search overnight for a missing woman also swept away by the floodwater near the town of flood-prone town of Tenbury, according to police.
"The search has continued this morning, including the use of the police helicopter," said Chief Superintendent Tom Harding, from West Mercia Police.
"Sadly, however, due to the circumstances of the length of time in the water and other conditions we believe that this will now be a recovery rather than rescue operation."
Two rivers in south Wales burst their banks, prompting rescue workers to launch operations in several places to evacuate people and their pets trapped in their homes.
Five 'severe' flood warnings remain in place around the River Teme in Worcestershire in western England
Police said a man in his 60s died after entering the River Tawe, north of the Welsh city of Swansea but later clarified that the death was not "linked to the adverse weather".
On Saturday, the coastguard said the bodies of two men were pulled from rough seas off the south coast of England as the storm barrelled in.
One is thought to have been the subject of a search triggered when a tanker reported that one of its crew was unaccounted for.
'More extreme' In northern England, the defence ministry deployed troops in West Yorkshire, which suffered badly from flooding caused by last weekend's Storm Ciara.
There are fears rivers there could burst their banks later on Monday.
Newly appointed environment secretary George Eustice said the government had done "everything that we can do with a significant sum of money" to combat increased flooding.
Thousands of people were without power in France as the storm whipped through northwestern regions including Finistere
"We'll never be able to protect every single household just because of the nature of climate change and the fact that these weather events are becoming more extreme."
France was also affected by the storm, especially northwestern Brittany where the Finistere and Morbihan regions were temporarily placed on orange alert for rain and flooding, according to the national weather service Meteo-France.
Electricity provider Enedis said it had deployed 450 staff to restore power to 30,000 homes in Brittany. Power cuts also hit parts of northern and central France.
The storm interrupted two high-speed TGV train services, one stopped by a fallen tree and the other by a power failure, the national rail company SNCF said.
Recently discovered mineral named for LSU professor
A Louisiana State University geology professor now has a scientific namesake—a newly discovered variety of tourmaline. Barbara Dutrow said she's surprised and thrilled by the honor.
"A lifelong passion has been to discover and decode the geologic information embedded in tourmaline; this recognition is a highlight of our discoveries!" she said in a news release Friday from LSU.
The statement said Italian researchers named dutrowite for her because of her contributions to mineral sciences, especially her research showing that tourmalines—a family of gemstones—hold evidence of their geological history.
Some of Dutrow's articles in scientific journals have had titles such "The tourmaline diaries: An eye-catching mineral and it s many facets," "Tourmaline: A geologic DVD" and "Tourmaline as a petrologic forensic mineral."
The International Mineralogical Association accepted the name in December. Christian Biagioni of the University of Pisa and other researchers in Italy, Sweden and Austria recommended the name in October, papers provided by Dutrow showed.
They cite "her contributions to the understanding of the chemical variability of tourmaline supergroup minerals and staurolite."
Tourmalines come in a wide variety of colors.
Dutrowite was discovered in the Apuan Alps of Tuscany, Italy, near the Grotta del Vento (Cave of the Wind). It formed about 20 million years ago from compression and heating of a volcanic rock called rhyolite during the collision of the African and European tectonic plates, according to the release.
