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, July 06, 2020
Heat waves have become more frequent and intense in most of the world since 1950s: study
The study comes as parts of the US face record heat over the holiday weekend
Heat waves are increasing in intensity and frequency in most parts of the world since the 1950s, a new study has found.
Published on Friday in the journal Nature Communications, researchers found over the past 70 years, the total number of heat wave days worldwide was increasing and that all heat waves were getting longer.
“The time for inaction is over,” Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, the study's lead author who works at the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes, told The Guardian. “The dramatic region-by-region change in heat waves we have witnessed, and the rapid increase in the number of these events, are unequivocal indicators that global heating is with us and accelerating.”
Last week, parts of London were hit with record-breaking warmth. Scientists are increasingly alarmed about very high temperatures in the Arctic. A July 4th heat wave is set to pummel a huge swath of the United States, according to meteorologists. Heat waves have become more frequent and intense over the last 70 years, a new study reveals. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
“The first half of July looks to have well-above-normal temperatures, at pretty high probabilities, beginning around the Fourth of July or slightly before,” Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch at the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, told NBC News.
The blast of heat could create a “ring of fire” pattern, in which storms circulating the edges of the heat dome spawn powerful thunderstorms, particularly over the northern Plains, Gottschalk told the network.
According to The Guardian, the most severe heat wave to hit the Mediterranean was in the summer of 2003, when it is believed that there were 70,000 deaths in Europe due to extreme heat. That season also led to billions of dollars in damage to forests and agriculture.
Palestinians file ICC complaint against Trump, Kushner and Netanyahu over annexation
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP TALKS WITH ISRAEL PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU AND JARED KUSHNER IN JERUSALEM, MAY 22, 2017. (PHOTO: KOBI GIDEON/GPO) A prominent Canadian human rights lawyer has submitted a request to the International Criminal Court ICC to investigate senior U.S. and Israeli officials for alleged war crimes committed against the Palestinian people.
William Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University in London, filed a lengthy Article 15 communication with the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor, or OTP on Tuesday asking for an investigation of the architects of the so-called “deal of the century,” also known as the Trump peace plan. The scheme would result in a nominally independent but effectively disjointed Palestinian “state” that would be established through land swaps with Israel and Israeli annexation. It would leave Palestinians cut off from each other in what some have called a “Swiss cheese state” and other have called “modern-day Bantustans.”The new complaint, filed on behalf of four Palestinians from the West Bank, names President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who was placed in charge of brokering the deal despite having no experience in foreign policy or the Middle East. The four Palestinians named in the filing are: Ahmad al-Khaldi, Gassan Khaled, Hasan M. Masan and Abderrahman F. Zaidan.
Palestine’s leaders and people have roundly rejected the U.S. plan. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called it the “slap of the century,” while chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called it the “fraud of the century.”
“The threatened annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel is an international crime defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” Schabas said at a virtual press conference announcing the new filing. “It is intricately linked to the war crime of changing the population of an occupied territory.” Schabas added that ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda “needs to address this as part of her ongoing investigation, casting the net beyond the Israeli leaders to their partners and accomplices in Washington, including Trump, Pompeo and Kushner.”
Under Article 15 of the ICC Rome Statute, any person or organization can send information regarding alleged war crimes to the OTP. The ICC prosecutor then determines whether the situation warrants a formal investigation. The new Article 15 communication asserts that the proposed U.S. plan will lead to an increase in crimes which the OTP is currently investigating. The new complaint states there is credible evidence that Trump, Pompeo, Kushner and other senior U.S. officials are complicit in what could be war crimes under international law, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies.”
A PALESTINIAN BEDOUIN LEAVES AN AREA FENCED OFF BY ISRAELI SETTLERS IN THE WEST BANK VILLAGE OF TUBAS, NEAR THE JORDAN VALLEY, ON NOVEMBER 9, 2010. (PHOTO: WAGDI ESHTAYAH/APA IMAGES)Since illegally occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in Palestine and the Golan Heights in Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War, over 200 Jews-only settlements have been built in the West Bank. There are currently more than 600,000 Israelis living in these settlements, in which Arabs cannot reside or often even enter, and which are also illegal under international law.
Israeli settlers continue to illegally seize land, expel inhabitants and destroy their homes. Settlers sometimes attack and brutally murder Palestinians, including children, who stand in their way. Palestinian movement is restricted by Jews-only roads, ubiquitously oppressive Israeli military checkpoints and a separation barrier — known to Palestinians as the apartheid wall — that cuts Palestinians off from each other, their land and their livelihoods.
Prominent international critics have called the ongoing Zionist colonization of Palestine an act of ethnic cleansing and the exclusively Jewish settlements a form of apartheid.
Last December, after years of delays and backtracking, the OTP announced it would investigate alleged war crimes committed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops against Palestinian civilians, including intentionally launching disproportionate attacks, willful killing and injury of Palestinians, intentionally attacking Red Cross and other medical personnel and facilities, unlawful transfer of Israeli civilians into illegally occupied Palestinian territory and construction and expansion of illegal Jewish-only settlements. In announcing its decision to investigate, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she believed that “war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.”
Netanyahu responded to the announcement by saying that the ICC “has no jurisdiction in this case” because the court “only has jurisdiction over petitions submitted by sovereign states,” and that “there has never been a Palestinian state.” Israel has not joined the ICC but the Palestinian Authority — which has limited autonomy under Israeli military occupation — is a member.
The Israeli government is pushing ahead with its own plan to annex up to 30 percent of the West Bank with or without coordinating with Washington. However, despite suggestions from Netanyahu that the imminent annexation would occur on July 1, the plan has apparently been delayed. “It seems unlikely to me that this will happen today,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told reporters on Wednesday.
Aside from the United States, most of the world opposes Israel’s annexation plan. A group of 47 experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council recently accused Israel of “profound human rights violations,” calling the annexation plan “a vision of 21st century apartheid.” Amnesty International condemned what it called Israel’s “cynical disregard for international law.” Last week, the Belgian parliament overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for punitive measures, including sanctions, against Israel if it annexes more of Palestine.
Meanwhile, President Trump continues to attack the ICC over its March decision to open an investigation into war crimes committed by all sides during the 19-year war in Afghanistan, including alleged torture, rape and other crimes by U.S. troops and intelligence agents. Last month, the Trump administration announced it would sanction ICC officials involved in probing U.S. crimes, imposing a travel ban on them and their families. The administration also said it would launch a counter-investigation into alleged ICC corruption.
Sunday, July 05, 2020
Texas Mayors Hit Back At Trump’s Claim That 99% Of COVID-19 Cases Are ‘Harmless’
YES THE IDIOT SAID THAT
HOUSTON, TEXAS - November 1, 2017: Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner at Houston City Hall. (Photo by Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Washington Post via Getty Images) By Summer Concepcion | July 5, 2020
The mayors of two Texas metropolitan areas on Sunday expressed their dismay with President Trump’s false claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless.”
Texas is currently considered a coronavirus hotspot, along with Florida and Texas, as it recently recorded six straight days of confirmed new cases above 5,000. The Lone Star state reported a record daily increase of 8,258 coronavirus cases and 7,890 hospitalizations on Saturday.
On Thursday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued a statewide rule requiring masks to be worn in public, marking a whiplash-inducing reversal after he long resisted taking the firm measures that other COVID-ravaged states adopted in light of surges in coronavirus cases.
During a Fourth of July event at the White House South Lawn on Saturday, the President claimed, without evidence, that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” thanks to testing almost 40 million people for the viral disease.
When pressed on Trump’s baseless claim the day before, the mayors of Houston and Austin highly disagreed with the President’s assertion.
Here’s what the Texas mayors had to say: Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner
When asked whether the President’s baseless claim that 99% of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless” holds up in Houston, Turner told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan that “no, that’s not the case.”
“I will tell you, a month ago one in 10 people were testing positive. Today, it’s one in four,” Turner said. “The number of people who are getting sick and going to the hospitals has exponentially increased. The number of people in our ICU beds has exponentially increased.”
Turner added that “if we don’t get our hands around this virus quickly,” Houston’s hospital system could be “in serious trouble” in about two weeks.
Watch Turner’s remarks below:
Houston Mayor Mayor Sylvester Turner says Trump's claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are "harmless" is "not the case” pic.twitter.com/uNproW8dLw
Pressed on Trump’s false claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “completely harmless” during an interview on CNN, Adler said that the President’s remark “makes me angry” and that it’s “dangerous not to be sending a clear message to Americans.”
“We have the July 4 weekend, and we need everybody wearing masks,” Adler said. “And when they start hearing that kind of ambiguous message coming out of Washington, there are more and more people that won’t wear masks, that won’t social distance, that won’t do what it takes to keep a community safe.”
Adler argued that the President’s messaging is “wrong” and “dangerous.”
“I just have to hope that people aren’t going to listen to that, and they will stay focused on what they’re hearing here more locally,” Adler said, before adding that Austin is “standing ready” for another stay-at-home order due to being on a trajectory showing that intensive care units could be inundated within the next week.
Watch Adler’s remarks below:
Austin Mayor Steve Adler says Trump's claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are "harmless" makes him "angry" pic.twitter.com/7wDN5UoGXl
FDA Chief Won’t Refute Trump’s Claim That 99% Of Coronavirus Cases
Are ‘Harmless’
Stephen Hahn, commissioner of food and drugs at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), wears a protective covering during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on Jun... MORE By Summer Concepcion | July 5, 2020 10:08 a.m. FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn on Sunday wouldn’t push back on President Trump’s baseless claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” during a Fourth of July event at the White House South Lawn. On Saturday, the President said, without evidence, that due to testing almost 40 million people for the coronavirus, “we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless.” When CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Hahn on Trump’s comment the following morning, Hahn acknowledge the surging coronavirus cases in the country, but said that “it’s too early” and won’t “speculate on what the causation is there.” After Hahn said that “the way out of this” is for all Americans is to follow the CDC and the White House Coronavirus Task Force’s guidelines, Bash circled back to the question of how Hahn feels about Trump’s baseless claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” as a member of the task force. “I totally support the CDC and the information that they’re putting out with respect to this pandemic. I think it’s, again, really important,” Hahn said. “The guidelines that we’ve emphasized, the data that we have — again, it’s a rapidly evolving situation and we’re going to have more data. But we absolutely must take this seriously. We must institute these public health measures. We cannot back off from those. It’s a critically important for Americans to follow those guidelines and to protect the most vulnerable.”
Pressed again on Trump’s false claim, Hahn responded that he’s “not going to get into who is right and who is wrong.” “What I’m going to say, Dana, is what I’ve said before: it’s a serious problem that we have,” Hahn said. “We’ve seen the surge in cases. We must do something to stem the tide, and we have this in our power to do this by following the guidance from the task force and the CDC.” When Bash asked Hahn why he won’t say whether Trump’s claim was true or false, Hahn said that the White House Coronavirus Task Force has data showing “this is a serious problem” that “people need to take it seriously.”
Watch Hahn’s remarks below:
FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn won't say Trump is wrong when he claimed that 99% of coronavirus cases are "totally harmless" pic.twitter.com/GKaTnTdEnt
Summer Concepcion is a newswriter for TPM based in New York. She previously covered the 2016 election for Fusion, conducted investigative research for The Nation Institute, and has written for NBC Chicago and the Chicago Reader.
Experts say coronavirus is spreading through ‘airborne transmission’ — and there could be major implications Virginia Tech expert Linsey Marr said, “we’ve known since 1946 that coughing and talking generate aerosols.”
The World Health Organization was warned in an open letter sent by 239 scientists from 32 countries that COVID-19 is being spread through airborne transmission, The New York Times reported Saturday.
“If airborne transmission is a significant factor in the pandemic, especially in crowded spaces with poor ventilation, the consequences for containment will be significant. Masks may be needed indoors, even in socially distant settings. Health care workers may need N95 masks that filter out even the smallest respiratory droplets as they care for coronavirus patients,” the newspaper explained. “Ventilation systems in schools, nursing homes, residences and businesses may need to minimize recirculating air and add powerful new filters. Ultraviolet lights may be needed to kill viral particles floating in tiny droplets indoors.”
The debate is largely over the distinction between respiratory droplets or aerosols. “The World Health Organization has long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets that, once expelled by infected people in coughs and sneezes, fall quickly to the floor,” the newspaper explained.
“Even in its latest update on the coronavirus, released June 29, the W.H.O. said airborne transmission of the virus is possible only after medical procedures that produce aerosols, or droplets smaller than 5 microns,” The Times explained. “Proper ventilation and N95 masks are of concern only in those circumstances, according to the W.H.O. Instead, its infection control guidance, before and during this pandemic, has heavily promoted the importance of handwashing as a primary prevention strategy, even though there is limited evidence for transmission of the virus from surfaces.”
The newspaper interviewed nearly 20 scientists for the story.
“Whether carried aloft by large droplets that zoom through the air after a sneeze, or by much smaller exhaled droplets that may glide the length of a room, these experts said, the coronavirus is borne through air and can infect people when inhaled,” the newspaper explained.
In Lebanon, single-concert festival serenades empty ruins
Issued on: 05/07/2020
Maestro Harout Fazlian conducts rehearsals ahead of the Sound of Resilience concert inside the Temple of Bacchus at the historic site of Baalbek in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, on July 4, 2020 - AFP
Beirut (AFP)
A philharmonic orchestra performed to spectator-free Roman ruins in east Lebanon Sunday, after a top summer festival downsized to a single concert in a year of economic meltdown and pandemic.
The Baalbek International Festival was instead beamed live on television and social media, in what its director called a message of "hope and resilience" amid ever-worsening daily woes.
The night kicked off with the Lebanese philharmonic orchestra and choir performing the national anthem.
They are expected to play a mix of classical music and tunes by composers ranging from Lebanon's Rahbani brothers to Beethoven.
The 150 musicians and chorists were scattered inside the Temple of Bacchus.
Festival director Nayla de Freige told AFP most artists were performing for free at the UNESCO-listed site.
The concert represents "a way of saying that Lebanon does not want to die. We have an extremely productive and creative art and culture sector," she said.
"We want to send a message of civilisation, hope and resilience."
Lebanon is known for its summer music festivals, which have in past years drawn large crowds every night and attracted performers like Shakira, Sting and Andrea Bocelli.
Other festivals have not yet announced their plans for this year.
Lebanon has recorded just 1,873 cases of COVID-19 including 36 deaths.
But measures to stem the spread of the virus have exacerbated the country's worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.
Since economic woes in the autumn sparked mass protests against a political class deemed irretrievably corrupt, tens of thousands have lost their jobs or part of their income, and prices have skyrocketed.
Banks have prevented depositors from withdrawing their dollar savings, while the local currency has lost more than 80 percent of its value to the greenback on the black market.
Muti conducts Syria musicians in memorial concert amid ruins LIKE DURING THE SIEGE OF LENINGRAD
MUTI IS A GREAT CONDUCTOR FILE - In this Jan. 1, 2018 file photo, Italian Maestro Riccardo Muti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra during the traditional New Year's concert at the golden hall of Vienna's Musikverein, Austria. Nine musicians from the Syrian diaspora in Europe are playing in the 24th friendship concert conducted by Riccardo Muti, this year at the Paestum archaeological site in southern Italy, but the coronavirus pandemic blocked others from arriving directly from Syria. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, File)
RAVENNA, Italy (AP) — Nine musicians from the Syrian diaspora in Europe are playing Sunday in the 24th friendship concert conducted by Riccardo Muti, this year at the Paestum archaeological site in southern Italy, but the coronavirus pandemic blocked others from arriving directly from Syria.
The concert Sunday by the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra founded by Muti, part of the Ravenna Festival summer series, is dedicated to Syrian archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad and Kurdish-Syrian politician Hevreen Khalaf, both of whom were slain during Syria’s ongoing civil war.
“These concerts give to Ravenna the possibility to be an important ambassador of peace and brotherhood from Italy,” Muti told The Associated Press earlier this month in Ravenna. Khalaf was killed by Syrian fighters trained by Turkey 2019, and al-Asaad was beheaded in 2015 by fighters of the Islamic State group after he refused to aid their destruction of the ancient Roman city at Palmyra, a U.N. world heritage site.
Muti launched the Roads of Friendship concert series in 1997 in Sarajevo, shortly after Bosnia’s 1992-1995 civil war ended, and has since traveled to cities wounded by war, including Beirut, as well as in ancient and historic sites to “reestablish ties” with places that have made history, including the ancient Roman amphitheater in the southern Syrian city of Bosra.
“We can build bridges between civilizations, between people, with music,” said Karoun Baghboudarian, a cellist living in the Netherlands who is playing in Sunday’s concert and who sang in the chorus during the 2004 concert in Bosra — before Syria devolved into war, a period when she said musicians’ lives flourished.
Her brother, Missak Baghboudarian, conducts the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra and had hoped to travel to Italy to conduct a concert in Ravenna and attend the Paestum concert of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, known as the “Heroic,” but was unable to travel because of travel restrictions imposed by the coronavirus. Instead, the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra streamed Beethoven’s “Heroic” from Damascus on July 2.
Karoun Baghboudarian said she hoped the concert would renew attention on Syrians’ suffering.
“We hope that Syria will come through the war and all the difficult situations as heroes, and that they can live normally,” she said by phone from Paestum.
Looters target Myanmar temple treasures in tourist slump
Issued on: 06/07/2020 -
A squad of gun-toting police patrol Myanmar's sacred site of Bagan under the cover of night, taking on plunderers snatching relics from temples forsaken by tourists due to coronavirus restrictions Ye Aung THU AFP
Bagan (Myanmar) (AFP)
A squad of armed police patrol Myanmar's sacred site of Bagan under the cover of night, taking on plunderers snatching relics from temples forsaken by tourists due to coronavirus restrictions.
Each evening as dusk falls, about 100 officers fan out across the plain of Bagan measuring 50 square kilometres (19 square miles), sweeping torches over the crumbling monuments to scour for intruders.
"Our security forces are patrolling day and night," Police Lieutenant Colonel Sein Win tells AFP.
"We have it under control for the moment, but it's a challenge."
The central Myanmar city is strewn with more than 3,500 ancient monuments — stupas, temples, murals and sculptures — and was finally added to the prestigious UNESCO world heritage list last year.
But the pandemic has stymied plans to capitalise on Bagan's new-found status.
The dearth of visitors means temples and hotels lie empty, crushing the livelihoods of locals and opening doors to opportunistic burglars.
In a spate of break-ins across the holy site in early June, robbers looted 12 different temples, swiping a range of relics, including copper stupas, ancient coins and jade jewellery.
The 35th Battalion regional police squad have been deployed to bolster local tourism police and firefighters, the teams ranging across the site by jeep, motorbike and foot.
"It's not easy to patrol as the area is so big," one police officer says through his face mask, worn by all on duty to protect against COVID-19.
They also need to be on their guard against the area's numerous venomous snakes, he adds, asking not to be named.
- Temple curse? -
For now, the extra security seems to have thwarted any break-ins at the most prestigious temples.
Some of the relics date back to the 11th-13th century, an era when Bagan was the capital of a regional empire.
This is the first time in decades the site has been so seriously targeted, says Myint Than, deputy director of Bagan's archaeological department, as he shows at one stupa how the looters scaled the walls to enter from the roof.
"When there were tourists here, there were no burglaries," he explains, adding he believes this is the work of outsiders.
Even if locals' livelihoods have been devastated by the tourist downturn, he says he does not believe they would "betray their heritage".
Times are hard in an area dependent on tourism.
Bagan welcomed nearly half a million visitors in 2019, while this year the figure was 130,000 up until the country's New Year festival in April and much of the area has been closed to tourists since.
Hotels and restaurants lie shuttered while the hawkers and tuk-tuk drivers not lucky enough to clinch rare construction or farming work wait in vain for customers among the deserted lanes connecting the temples.
Souvenir seller Wyne Yee, 46, says the money she makes in April alone usually keeps food on her family's table for the following six months.
"But this year we have no money left," she says wistfully.
She says she is saddened by the desecration of the temples but — like others in the area — is convinced a curse will see the crooks receive their comeuppance.
"The Bagan temples will not tolerate it," she says. "The robbers will be dealt with."
Cause of abnormal groundwater rise after large earthquake
How a mountain aquifer affected the local hydrological environment after a large earthquake
KUMAMOTO UNIVERSITY
IMAGE:
PRIOR TO THE EARTHQUAKE, KUMAMOTO CITY AREA GROUNDWATER HAD BROAD STABLE ISOTOPIC COMPOSITIONAL FEATURES THAT INCLUDED LOW ELEVATION MOUNTAIN SPRINGS, RECHARGE AREA SOIL WATERS, AND SHIRAKAWA RIVER WATERS (BLACK FRAME... view more
CREDIT: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR TAKAHIRO HOSONO
Increases in groundwater levels and volumes after large earthquakes have been observed around the world, but the details of this process have remained unclear due to a lack of groundwater data directly before and after an earthquake strikes. Fortunately, researchers from Kumamoto and Kwansei Gakuin Universities (Japan) and UC Berkley (US) realized that they had a unique research opportunity to analyze groundwater level changes around Kumamoto City after large earthquakes struck the area in 2016 .
Changes in the hydrological environment after an earthquake, like ponds or wells drying-up, the sudden appearance of running water, or a rise in water levels have been recorded since Roman times. Various theories have been proposed for the cause of such changes, such as fluctuations in pore water pressure (the pressure of groundwater held in the pores or gaps of rocks and soil), increased water permeability, and water movement through new cracks. To identify the actual cause, data must be collected from observation sites in wells, water sources, and rivers. However, especially in the case of inland earthquakes, it is generally rare for these sites to be spatiotemporally arranged in an area where a large earthquake has occurred. Additionally, it is even rarer to have enough data to compare before and after the disaster. These difficulties have been a roadblock to obtaining a clear picture of how hydrological environments change after earthquakes.
Kumamoto City, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, is famous for its water. Nearly 100% of the city's drinking water is sourced from groundwater in the area so there are many observation wells in the area that continuously record water level and quality data. In the early morning (Japan time) of April 16, 2016, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the city which resulted in a wealth of groundwater data both before and after the earthquake. Kumamoto University researchers recognized this unique opportunity to assess how earthquakes can change hydrological environments in more detail than ever before, so they established an international collaboration to study the event.
An abnormal rise in groundwater level occurred after the main shock and was particularly noticeable in the recharge area of the groundwater flow system. The water levels peaked within a year after the main shock at around 10 meters and, although it has calmed down thereafter, water levels were still high more than three years later. This was thought to be due to an inflow of water from a place not part of the pre-earthquake hydrological cycle, so researchers attempted to determine the sources by using stable isotope ratios of water.
The stable isotope ratios of water on Earth's surface change slightly with various processes (evaporation, condensation, etc.) so they become unique marker values depending on location. These markers make it possible to determine the processes that affected a water sample as well as its source.
A comparison of the before-and-after sets of stable isotope ratios revealed that, prior to the earthquake, groundwater in the Kumamoto City area came mainly from low-elevation mountain aquifers, soil water in recharge areas, and seepage from the central Shirakawa river area. After the earthquake, the researchers believe that seismic fractures on the west side of Mt. Aso increased the permeability of the mountain aquafer which released groundwater toward the recharge area of the flow system and increased water levels. Furthermore, groundwater levels in the outflow area that had dropped immediately after the main shock were nearly restored within just one year.
"Our research is the first to capture the hydrological environment changes caused by a large earthquake in detail," said study leader Associate Professor Takahiro Hosono. "The phenomenon we discovered can occur anywhere on Earth in areas with climate and geological conditions similar to Kumamoto. We hope our research will be useful both for academics and the establishment of guidelines for regional water use in a disaster."
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This research was posted online in Nature Communications on 2 June 2020.
[Source]
Hosono, T., Yamada, C., Manga, M., Wang, C.-Y., & Tanimizu, M. (2020). Stable isotopes show that earthquakes enhance permeability and release water from mountains. Nature Communications, 11(1). doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16604-y
In the Arctic, spring snowmelt triggers fresh CO2 production
The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world and snowmelt is speeding it up with rapid soil warming and increased CO2 in the air
SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY
IMAGE: ECOSYSTEM ECOLOGIST AND POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW KYLE ARNDT CHECKING ON THE MEASUREMENT EQUIPMENT SET UP BY SDSU IN UTQIAGVIK (FORMERLY BARROW), ALASKA. NEW RESEARCH FINDS THAT WATER FROM SPRING SNOWMELT INFILTRATES... view more
CREDIT: SDSU
Studies have shown the Arctic is warming roughly twice as fast as the rest of the world, and its soil holds twice the amount of carbon dioxide as the atmosphere. New research from San Diego State University finds that water from spring snowmelt infiltrates the soil and triggers fresh carbon dioxide production at higher rates than previously assumed.
This is in addition to trapped carbon escaping from the soil, which means an acceleration in warming that is not quite accounted for in current measurement techniques.
SDSU post-doctoral fellow Kyle Arndt and ecosystem ecologist Donatella Zona spent several years assessing the situation on the ground in Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska and analyzing their findings once they returned to San Diego.
The cold season is an essential component of the annual carbon balance, and it was assumed to have a negligible impact on carbon production.
By analyzing soil core samples, what they found was that it wasn't just trapped greenhouse gases that were escaping but also likely increasing fresh production of carbon during the spring thaw.
Published June 30 in Global Change Biology, their study discovered that cold thaw accounts for nearly half of carbon emissions which can offset the summer uptake or absorption of carbon dioxide by vegetation. Their findings fill a gap in data that has long existed because harsh winters and springs made the Arctic difficult to access to conduct studies.
"Earlier we didn't have this data, but now that we do, we are seeing that these ecosystems are rapidly warming," Arndt said. "Many models already predict the Arctic will turn into a CO2 source, but they may be underestimating the size of the source if this spring process is not taken into account."
Arndt, first author of the paper, began visiting Utqiagvik in summer 2016 to maintain equipment set up by SDSU ecologist Walter Oechel, who has been working for nearly 40 years in these Arctic sites.
Using eddy covariance, a technique to measure carbon dioxide movement between the soil and atmosphere as well as ground and air temperatures, ground heat flux and snow depth, Arndt measured fluxes.
Heat flux is the energy transferred per unit of surface area for a given period of time, and it's challenging to collect it during the freeze. Arndt "came up with the idea of measuring it during spring snow melt, building on the need to fill a gap in data on the cold season Arctic heat fluxes," Zona said.
Arndt also worked with SDSU microbiologist David Lipson who collected soil core samples, which helped him and Zona understand the physical properties of the soil during the spring and fall season.
Arndt ascertained that fresh CO2 production was happening when "we found air pockets in the middle of the soil core that allowed for the melted snow to rush in. The snowmelt is rich in oxygen which helps with the production of carbon dioxide."
Iron is one of the many minerals soil contains. Their analysis showed the iron was completely oxidized, which can only happen if fresh oxygen in the soil bonds with and oxidizes the iron. The researchers found a steady rise in CO? emissions during this thawing period further suggesting the occurrence of production at this time.
Simpler models of data analysis may miss the rapid warming that happens due to snowmelt, when there's a rapid introduction of oxygen leading to the warming.
"There's a lot more going on in the soil than we previously thought," Arndt said. "Nature is efficient in that it breaks down lighter compounds preferentially to heavier ones, creating unique isotope signatures, kind of like fingerprints. By looking at isotopes, we can tell how long the compounds have been there and the source of the carbon emitted."
Arndt and Zona are planning to focus on isotopic analysis next, to reconstruct the age of the compounds in the samples, and the longer scale implications of these results.
"We will look for long-term trends in carbon dioxide release and how the heat fluxes have been changing over the last decade," Zona said.
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This research was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA CARVE and ABoVE programs, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration CREST, the Horizon 2020 INTAROS, and the NERC UAMS projects.
New research examines links between religion and parental support from non-family members
UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO
IMAGE: DR JOHN SHAVER, UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO view more
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO
"Be fruitful and multiply" says the Bible, and worldwide religious people tend to have more children than their secular counterparts. New research suggests that this "multiplying" may be the result of the higher levels of support from non-family members that church-going women receive, and that these greater levels of support are also associated with positive developmental outcomes for children.
The report Church attendance and alloparenting: An analysis of fertility, social support, and child development among English mothers, published this month in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, the world's oldest English language journal, explored how church attendance is associated with social support and fertility, and how help from outside the family influences child development.
Lead author and University of Otago Religion programme head Dr John Shaver says the research attempts to resolve a paradox.
"That religious people tend to have more children is relatively well known across the social sciences, but from an evolutionary perspective, religious communities' high fertility is puzzling."
Shaver says that previous studies have found that sibling number is negatively related to a child's cognitive and physiological development, as well as their socioeconomic success in adulthood -because parents have less time, and fewer resources to invest in their development.
"The expectation, based on these findings, would be that due to differences in family sizes, children born to religious parents would exhibit poorer developmental outcomes than children born to secular parents. There haven't really been studies that compare the success of religious and secular children, but the available evidence suggests that children born to religious parents fare just as well as those born to secular parents. We've been interested in explaining this paradox of religious fertility."
Using 10 years data collected from the Children of the 90s health study, the report's authors tested the hypothesis that religious cooperation extends to alloparenting (investment in children by people other than the child's parents), that higher levels of social support for religious mothers was associated with their fertility, and their children's development.
The study found that mothers who received help from members of their congregation had higher fertility over time.
The research also confirmed that children with more siblings scored lower on three cognitive tests: when they entered school (aged 4-5), one year later (aged 5-6), and when they were eight.
"Our study reveals known biases in these and similar cognitive tests - such as that the children of wealthier and better educated mothers scored higher on these tests. We found, though, that a mother's social support and aid from co-religionists were both associated with higher child test scores, particularly at later stages of development. This suggests that women's social networks positively affect her child's cognitive development, and our analyses also suggest that religious women have stronger support networks," Dr Shaver says.
Dr Shaver says while the findings only supported some hypotheses, they were mostly consistent with the idea that religions in modern environments support cooperative breeding strategies: women who receive help from members of their congregation have higher fertility, and this aid, as well as more general forms of social support, were both associated with improved child cognitive development.
"By positively influencing social support, religion in the UK may help some women have more children, without sacrificing the success of these children."
Researching the evolutionary dynamics surrounding religion's influence on family size and child success is not just of interest to the scholarly community.
"Due to its relevance for economic and social development, health, and demographic projections, we expect our project will be of significant interest to governments, NGOs, and public policy officials," he says.
