Tonga volcano: Plume reached half-way to space


Jonathan Amos - BBC Science Correspondent
Sat, January 22, 2022,

Volcanic eruption plume

An indicator of the great power of last Saturday's volcanic eruption in Tonga is the height reached by its plume.

UK scientists examining weather satellite data calculate it to be around 55km (35 miles) above the Earth's surface.

This is at the boundary of the stratosphere and mesosphere layers in the atmosphere.


Dr Simon Proud, from RAL Space, said these were "unheard-of altitudes" for a volcanic plume.

The most powerful eruption in the second half of the 20th Century came from Mount Pinatubo in 1991. Its plume is thought to have climbed to roughly 40km.

However, it's possible today's more accurate satellites would have given a higher altitude for the Philippines event, cautioned Dr Proud, who is affiliated to the UK National Centre for Earth Observation.

The spreading ash was visible from the International Space Station

To work out the position in the sky of the plume from Tonga's Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai volcano, data from three weather satellites - Himawari-8 (Japan) GOES-17 (USA) and GK2A (Korean) - was used.

"Because they're all at different longitudes, we can use the parallax between their views of the eruption to determine altitude. This is a pretty well established technique for storm cloud heights, and should actually work better here as the altitude [and hence parallax] is greater," Dr Proud told BBC News.

Only a small part of the cloud is seen to get to 55km. This is most likely water vapour, rather than ash, that was pushed upward at the head of the updraft. The main umbrella of the plume is at 35km. A lower plume feature is evident in the lowest layer of the atmosphere - the troposphere.

The so-called Kármán line, which is often quoted as the atmospheric boundary with outer space, is at 100km.

Tonga's deadly tsunami

VISUAL GUIDE: How volcano's impact spread so widely


ANALYSIS: Scientists explain explosion's ferocity


VIDEO: The radio station bringing worried Tongans together


VOICES: How the Mormons helped Tongans after disaster


HEALTH: Warnings over danger of volcanic ash

US space agency scientists calculated the explosive force to be equivalent to 10 megatons of TNT, which would have made the Tonga event 500 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War Two.

Prof Shane Cronin, from Auckland University, New Zealand, believes a special set of conditions came together at the underwater volcano to drive a big explosion.

A key factor, he said, was the depth below the ocean surface at which gas-rich magma came into contact with seawater - at just 150-250m.

"When the magma came out, there was not much pressure on it [from the water above]," he told the BBC's Science In Action programme on World Service Radio.

"The gases expanded and blasted the magma apart. And then, as those little fragments of hot magma at 1,100 degrees encountered the cold seawater at 20 degrees, it flashed the seawater around those particles into steam. And when you do that, when you flash water into steam, you basically expand the volume by 70 times. So you supercharge your eruption."

Eruptions can cool the climate. The Tonga event is unlikely to do that

Early data suggests the Tonga event could have measured as high as five on the volcanic explosivity index (VEI). This would certainly make it the most powerful eruption since Pinatubo, which was classified at six on the eight-point scale.

The Philippines volcano famously dropped Earth's average global temperature by half a degree for a couple of years. It did this by injecting 15 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. SO2 combines with water to make a haze of tiny droplets, or aerosols, that reflect incoming solar radiation.

However, Dr Richard Betts, the head of climate impacts at the UK Met Office, said Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai would not have the same effect.

"Pinatubo did have a noticeable effect, but the Hunga-Tonga volcano's emissions were more than 30 times smaller at less than half a million tonnes of sulphur dioxide, so we don't expect that to have a cooling effect, even though it made a huge bang when it went off," he explained.

Here's What Scientists Know About the Tonga Volcano Eruption

Henry Fountain

Wed, January 19, 2022,

While residents of Tonga struggle to recover from a devastating volcanic explosion that smothered the Pacific island nation with ash and swamped it with water, scientists are trying to better understand the global effects of the eruption.

They already know the answer to one crucial question: Although it appeared to be the largest eruption in the world in three decades, the explosion of the Hunga volcano on Saturday will very likely not have a temporary cooling effect on the global climate, as some past enormous eruptions have.

But in the aftermath of the event, there may be short-term effects on weather in parts of the world and possibly minor disruptions in radio transmissions, including those used by global positioning systems.

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The shock wave produced by the explosion, as well as the unusual nature of the tsunamis it generated, will have scientists studying the event for years. Tsunamis were detected not just in the Pacific, but in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Mediterranean as well

“Not that we weren’t aware of volcanic explosions and tsunamis,” said Lori Dengler, an emeritus professor of geophysics at Humboldt State University in California. “But to witness it with the modern array of instruments we have is truly unprecedented.”

The explosion of the underwater volcano, which is formally known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga-Haʻapai, rained hazardous ash over the region, including the Tongan capital, Nuku’alofa, about 40 miles south. The capital also experienced a 4-foot tsunami and higher wave heights were reported elsewhere.

The government called the eruption an “unprecedented disaster,” although the full scope of the damage has been difficult to determine because the explosion destroyed undersea telecommunications cables and ash has forced Tonga’s airports to shut down.

Beyond Tonga, though, the enormousness of the explosion was readily apparent. Satellite photos showed a cloud of dirt, rock, volcanic gases and water vapor several hundred miles in diameter, and a narrower plume of gas and debris soared nearly 20 miles into the atmosphere.

Some volcanologists drew comparisons to the catastrophic explosion of Krakatau in Indonesia in 1883 and to the most recent huge eruption, of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, in 1991.

Pinatubo erupted for several days, sending about 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide gas into the stratosphere, or upper atmosphere There, the gas combined with water to create aerosol particles that reflected and scattered some of the sun’s rays, keeping them from hitting the surface.

That had the effect of cooling the atmosphere by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (about half a degree Celsius) for several years. (It is also the mechanism of a controversial form of geoengineering: using planes or other means to continuously inject sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to intentionally cool the planet.)

The Hunga eruption “was matching the power of Pinatubo at its peak,” said Shane Cronin, a volcanologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who has studied earlier eruptions at the volcano.

But the Hunga eruption lasted only about 10 minutes, and satellite sensors in the days that followed measured about 400,000 tons of sulfur dioxide reaching the stratosphere. “The amount of SO2 released is much, much smaller than, say, Mount Pinatubo,” said Michael Manga, an earth sciences professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

So unless the Hunga eruption resumes and continues at a similarly strong level, which is considered unlikely, it won’t have a global cooling effect.

Cronin said the power of the eruption was in part related to its location, about 500 feet underwater. When superhot molten rock, or magma, hit seawater, the water instantly flashed into steam, expanding the explosion many times over. Had it been much deeper, water pressure would have dampened the explosion.

The shallower depth created perfect “almost Goldilocks” conditions, he said, to supercharge the explosion.

The blast produced a shock wave in the atmosphere that was one of the most extraordinary ever detected, said Corwin Wright, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Bath in England. Satellite readings showed that the wave reached far beyond the stratosphere, as high as 60 miles up, and propagated around the world at more than 600 mph.

“We’re seeing a really big wave, the biggest we’ve ever seen in the data we’ve been using for 20 years,” Wright said. “We’ve never seen anything really that covers the whole Earth like this, and certainly not from a volcano.”

The wave resulted when the force of the blast displaced huge amounts of air outward and upward, high into the atmosphere. But then gravity pulled it down. It then rose up again, and this up-down oscillation continued, creating a wave of alternating high and low pressure that moved outward from the blast source.

Wright said that although the wave occurred high in the atmosphere, it may potentially have a short-term effect on weather patterns closer to the surface, perhaps indirectly by affecting the jet stream.

“We don’t quite know,” he said. “We’re looking to see what happens over the next few days. It could just sort of ripple through and not interact.”

Wright said that because the wave was so high, it could also potentially have a slight effect on radio transmissions and signals from global positioning systems satellites.

The atmospheric pressure wave may have also played a role in the unusual tsunamis that occurred.

Tsunamis are generated by the rapid displacement of water, usually by the movement of rock and soil. Large underwater faults can generate tsunamis when they move in an earthquake.

Volcanoes can cause tsunamis as well. In this case, the underwater blast, and the collapse of the volcano’s crater, may have caused the displacement. Or one flank of the volcano may have become unstable and collapsed, with the same result.

But that would only account for the local tsunami that inundated Tonga, scientists said. Ordinarily, said Gerard Fryer, an affiliate researcher at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who formerly worked at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. “You’d expect that energy to decay away with distance,” Fryer said.

But this event generated tsunamis of roughly the same size of the local one, and over many hours, in Japan, Chile and the West Coast of the United States, and eventually generated small tsunamis in other basins elsewhere around the world.

That’s a sign that as it traveled through the atmosphere, the pressure wave may have had an effect on the ocean, causing it to oscillate as well.

It will take weeks or months of analyzing data to determine if that’s what happened, but some researchers said it was a likely explanation.

“We know that the atmosphere and the ocean are coupled,” Dengler said. “And we see the tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean. It didn’t go around the tip of South America to get there.”

“The evidence is very clear that the pressure wave played a role. The question is how big a part.”

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After mega-quake, there won’t be much time before tsunami waves reach Olympic Peninsula


Craig Sailor
Fri, January 21, 2022

Last weekend’s undersea volcanic explosion near Tonga devastated the island nation and sent small tsunami waves to Washington’s ocean coast. Those waves took about 12 hours to reach the state and gave residents plenty of time to prepare if they had been bigger.

Those same residents would have only 10 minutes to evacuate for waves up to 100-feet-high that would hit them following a massive earthquake in the Cascadia subduction zone. Some might not get that much time. Ground sinking below their feet might flood during a magnitude 9 quake.

That’s what computer modeling shows, according to a report released Jan. 10 by the Washington Geological Survey. The report illustrates what would happen to cities, river mouths, beaches and other low-lying areas on the Olympic Peninsula. Previously, the Geological Survey released maps for the southwest Washington coast, San Juan islands and Puget Sound.

The report includes detailed maps from just north of Grays Harbor to Port Townsend. The goal is to prepare both officials charged with community protection as well as to warn the public of potential hazards.

THE BIG, LONG SHAKE

The modeling used for the report assumes the Big One hits in the subduction zone, 80-100 miles off Washington’s coast, where the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate is sliding under the North American plate. The “full rip” event would run along the fault’s entire length from northern California to north of Vancouver Island.

It’s been 322 years since that last happened and only a matter of time before it happens again.

“There’s lots of geologic evidence that these quakes and tsunamis have happened many times,” said Corina Allen, chief hazards geologist for the Geologic Survey.

There would be no sleeping through this quake. The strong ground shaking would likely last between three and six minutes and serve as an immediate call to seek higher ground.

“The earthquake is your warning,” Allen said. “Get to high ground.”

By comparison, the region’s last major temblor, 2001’s Nisqually Quake, lasted about 45 seconds.

It’s during the earthquake itself, Allen said, when coastal Washington will drop in relationship to areas west of the fault. The change in sea level would flood vulnerable areas up to five feet, modeling shows.

It’s happened before, as evidence from the Copalis River ghost forest shows. Trees killed by a saltwater inundation from the 1700 earthquake still stand along the river and helped geologist Brian Atwater prove that the quake was responsible.

In the 1700 quake, a tsunami struck Japan and killed thousands of people. Its source remained a mystery until Atwater made the connection.

Following a mega quake on the Cascadia fault, simulations show that the tiny town of La Push would get hit first by a tsunami, 10 minutes after shaking started.

Those Hollywood depictions of a giant wave rising from the sea are inaccurate, Allen said. Think wall of water instead. And it comes very fast.

“In deep water it travels about the speed of a jet plane,” she said. “When it gets close to land it slows down.”

Within 30 minutes, many parts of the coast would be hit by waves. Wave heights can vary but they’re predicted to be 30 feet or higher. Most Pacific coast beaches and campgrounds would be under 60 feet of water.

The report said waves of 60 feet or higher could hit the Hoh Indian Reservation, Queets, Taholah on the Quinault Indian Reservation, Moclips, Pacific Beach, Iron Springs, Copalis Beach and Ocean City.

The mouth of the Hoh River could be flooded to a depth of 100 feet.

Within an hour, a 20-foot-high wave would hit Port Angeles. The U.S. Coast Guard Air Station there would be under 15 feet of water a little more than an hour after the quake.

Waves would continue to hit for eight hours and be a hazard for a full day after the quake.

Messaging to coastal residents on Saturday following the volcanic eruption near Tonga that the first wave might not be the biggest holds true for all tsunamis, Allen said. Flood levels can also vary depending on tidal levels.

That holds true in Puget Sound where modeling shows the fourth wave to hit Olympia would likely be the biggest.

“We have such a complicated waterway in the Puget Sound,” she said. “As this wave travels through, there’s lots of sloshing going on. (The) wave is bouncing off of our islands and our peninsulas and our inlets.”

The speed and depth of tsunami waves make them dangerous, along with potential debris the waves might be pushing.

“At inundation depths greater than 6 feet, survival is unlikely for persons out in the open or within or on most conventional structures,” the report said. “Fortunately, survival remains highly likely within or on a reinforced and specially designed building, such as a vertical evacuation structure.”

One such structure is currently under construction on the Shoalwater Bay Indian Reservation at Willapa Bay.

For some people caught in the open, climbing to the upper story or roof of a sturdy building could be a last resort. Even climbing a tree is better than being out in the open, the report said.

It’s not just earthquakes that can cause tsunamis, as last weekend showed. Landslides and even a meteor strike could cause one. Tsunami forecasting was made more difficult Saturday due to the lack of modeling using an undersea volcano as a tsunami source.

“A volcanic eruption in Tonga was not on my radar as a tsunami event to be thinking about,” Allen said.

EPA Union Urges Virginia Lawmakers To Reject Trump’s Former EPA Chief


Chris D'Angelo
Thu, January 20, 2022

Andrew Wheeler is a former coal lobbyist who served as President Donald Trump's second EPA chief. Employees described his tenure as

Federal employees at the Environmental Protection Agency are fighting to keep Andrew Wheeler, Donald Trump’s controversial second head of the Environmental Protection Agency and a former coal lobbyist, from becoming Virginia’s top environmental official.

Earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) announced Wheeler as his pick to serve as secretary of natural resources. The choice outraged state Democrats and environmental groups, who described Wheeler as “the absolute worst pick” for the post.

​​AFGE Council 238, a union that represents more than 7,500 EPA employees nationwide, has joined the effort to block Wheeler’s nomination. In a letter to Virginia state senators on Thursday, Marie Owens Powell, the union’s president and a longtime EPA employee, wrote that Wheeler “destroyed or weakened dozens of environmental safeguards at EPA, with the sole intention of bolstering polluting industries’ profit margins.”

They warned that Virginia could expect the same of him.

“There are few who understand more acutely the threat Mr. Wheeler poses to [the Virginia Department of Natural and Historic Resources] and the natural environment that Virginians cherish than those of us who saw first-hand the impact of Mr. Wheeler’s misguided leadership at the EPA,” the letter reads.

Public backlash to Youngkin’s nominee sets the stage for what is likely to be a contentious confirmation process. Democrats maintain a 21-19 majority in Virginia’s state Senate. As The Hill reported, two key moderate Democrats have signaled that they are unlikely to support Wheeler for the job.

Wheeler served as the EPA’s deputy administrator before taking over for his scandal-plagued predecessor, Scott Pruitt, in 2019. Wheeler helped spearhead the Trump administration’s industry-friendly agenda, dismantling numerous pollution rules and other clean air and water safeguards to the benefit of the extractive industries that he once represented as a lobbyist. Along the way, he repeatedly downplayed the threat of global climate change and sidelined scientific advisory committees.

Owens Powell, who has been with the EPA for nearly three decades and works as an underground storage tank inspector in its Philadelphia office, said the work environment at the federal agency during Wheeler’s tenure was “extremely hostile.”

“The simple rejection of scientific principles was just so demoralizing to our staff,” she said.

It’s mind-boggling how I have to see him again, at my back door this time.Sharon Bethune, Virginia resident and former EPA employee

During Wheeler’s tenure, the EPA scrubbed climate change language from the agency’s website. And Wheeler questionedthe results of a sobering federal climate assessment, saying some of its findings were “based on the worst-case scenario.”

Owens Powell was surprised that Youngkin tapped Wheeler for the job given what she felt was a clear and well-documented record at the EPA. If he’s confirmed, she fears he will not only cause similar damage in Virginia, but negatively impact the EPA’s ability to collaborate with the state agency, ultimately making it more difficult to confront climate change and other environmental threats.

“I couldn’t imagine that anyone would have thought he would be a good idea for this position,” she told HuffPost by phone. “It’s ​​AFGE Council 238’s sincere hope that someone in a position of authority will stand up for sound science and the enforcement of corresponding environmental laws and reject this nomination.”

Youngkin’s office did not respond to specific questions Thursday, instead referring HuffPost to an interview the governor did with WTVR-TV in Richmond last week in which he called Wheeler “the most qualified person for this job.”

A former private equity executive, Youngkin is the first Republican governor of Virginia since 2009. One of his first actions after being sworn in Jan. 15 was to sign an executive order aimed at withdrawing Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a program that several states joined to slash greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.

It’s a move that Wheeler, who defended Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the historic Paris climate agreement, would no doubt approve of, and one Owens Powell suspects Wheeler’s fingerprints are on. Wheeler was a member of Youngkin’s transition team.

Youngkin is sworn in as Virginia's governor on the steps of the state Capitol in Richmond on Jan. 15. A former private equity executive, he is the state's first Republican governor since 2009. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images)

The EPA union’s letter comes less than a week after more than 150 former EPA staffers urged Virginia state lawmakers to vote down Wheeler’s nomination. In their own letter, the group said the Trump official “sidelined science” at the EPA and “pursued an extremist approach, methodically weakening EPA’s ability to protect public health and the environment, instead favoring polluters.”

Sharon Bethune is a Virginia resident, longtime former EPA employee and past vice president for civil rights at AFGE Local 3331. She shares her former colleagues’ concerns. She told HuffPost that during Trump’s term, morale at the EPA was shot, and the “destruction” Wheeler caused factored into her decision to retire in 2019 after nearly four decades at the agency.

“It’s mind-boggling how I have to see him again, at my back door this time,” Bethune said. “Right here at my back door.”

“I’m thinking about the fact that my grandchildren may not be able to benefit from some of the things I benefit from, all because we put the wrong man in office.”

Read the letter below.
61e9bb5ae4b0c5eb3aa8064b.pdf (google.com)




Trump EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler Tapped For Virginia's Top Environmental Post

EPA ECOCIDE

US, Colorado reach proposed settlement in 2015 mine spill



People kayak in water colored from a mine waste spill at the Animas River near Durango, Colo., on Aug. 6, 2015. Colorado, the U.S. government and a gold mining company have agreed to resolve a longstanding dispute over who’s responsible for cleanup at a Superfund site that was established after a massive 2015 spill of hazardous mine waste. The proposed settlement announced Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, would direct $90 million to cleanup at the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Denver-based Sunnyside Gold Corp (Jerry McBride/The Durango Herald via AP, File)

JAMES ANDERSON
Fri, January 21, 2022

DENVER (AP) — Colorado, the U.S. government and a gold mining company have agreed to resolve a longstanding dispute over who’s responsible for continuing cleanup at a Superfund site that was established after a massive 2015 spill of hazardous mine waste that fouled rivers with a sickly yellow sheen in three states and the Navajo Nation.

The proposed settlement announced Friday would direct $90 million to cleanup at the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site in southwest Colorado, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Denver-based Sunnyside Gold Corp.

The agreement must be approved by a federal judge after a 30-day public comment period.

Sunnyside, which owns property in the district, and the EPA have been in a long-running battle over the cleanup. The EPA has targeted Sunnyside to help pay for the cleanup, and the company has resisted, launching multiple challenges to the size and management of the project.

An EPA-led contractor crew was doing excavation work at the entrance to the Gold King Mine, another site in the district not owned by Sunnyside, in August 2015 when it inadvertently breached a debris pile that was holding back wastewater inside the mine.

An estimated 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of wastewater poured out, carrying nearly 540 U.S. tons (490 metric tons) of metals, mostly iron and aluminum. Rivers in Colorado, New Mexico, the Navajo Nation and Utah were polluted. Downstream water utilities shut down intake valves and farmers stopped drawing from the rivers.

The spill resulted in lawsuits against the EPA and prompted the agency to create the Bonita Peak Superfund district.

Sunnyside operated a mine next to Gold King that closed in 1991. A federal investigation found that bulkheads to plug that closed mine led to a buildup of water inside Gold King containing heavy metals. The EPA contractor triggered the spill while attempting to mitigate the buildup.

Under the agreement, Sunnyside and its parent, Canada-based Kinross Gold Corp., will pay $45 million to the U.S. government and Colorado for future cleanup. The U.S. will contribute another $45 million to cleanup in the district, which includes the Gold King Mine and abandoned mines near Silverton.

Monies will be used for water and soil sampling and to build more waste repositories. The EPA said in a statement Friday it has spent more than $75 million on cleanup work “and expects to continue significant work at the site in the coming years.”

Sunnyside admitted no fault in the new agreement. The company said it has spent more than $40 million over 30 years cleaning up its property in the Superfund district.

The proposed consent decree follows Sunnyside settlements with New Mexico and the Navajo Nation last year. In December, Sunnyside said it had agreed to pay Colorado $1.6 million to resolve its liability for natural resource damage related to the Gold King Mine spill.

“The Gold King spill is a vivid reminder of the dangers associated with the thousands of abandoned and unclaimed hard rock mines across the United States, particularly in the West,” Tommy Beaudreau, deputy secretary of the Interior Department, said in a prepared statement.

The statement added: “Mining companies should be held accountable for these sites that put communities and tribal lands at risk of disastrous pollution.”

Sunnyside said Friday's agreement “recognizes the federal government’s responsibility for its role in causing environmental contamination” within the Superfund site, according to a statement from Gina Myers, the company's director of reclamation operations.

Israeli general turned lawmaker emerges as settler critic

Israel Maverick Lawmaker Israeli Deputy Minister of Economy and Industry Yair Golan, a legislator with the dovish Meretz party, poses during an interview with The Associated Press at his office at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. Golan spent a significant part of his military career serving in the occupied West Bank, protecting Jewish settlements. Today, he is one of their most vocal critics. His comments, highlighted by his recent description of violent settlers as “subhuman,” have rattled Israel’s delicate governing coalition.

 (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

TIA GOLDENBERG
Thu, January 20, 2022

JERUSALEM (AP) — Retired general Yair Golan spent a significant part of his military career serving in the occupied West Bank, protecting Jewish settlements. Today, he is one of their most vocal critics.

Golan, a former deputy military chief, is now a legislator with the dovish Meretz party, where he has repeatedly spoken out against settler violence against Palestinians.

His comments, highlighted by his recent description of violent settlers as “subhuman,” have rattled Israel’s delicate governing coalition, and his opponents have labeled him a radical. He joins a cadre of former security personnel who, after not speaking up while in uniform and positions of influence, have in retirement sounded the alarm over Israel’s five-decade-long military rule of the Palestinians.


“You can’t have a free and democratic state so long as we are controlling people who don’t want to be controlled by us,” Golan told The Associated Press in an interview at his office in the Knesset this week. “What kind of democracy are we building here long term?”

Golan has emerged as a rare critical voice in a society where the occupation is largely an accepted fact and where settlers have successfully pushed their narrative through their proximity to the levers of power. Most members of Israel's parliament belong to the pro-settlement right wing.

Golan, 59, had a long military career, being wounded in action in Lebanon and filling key positions as head of the country’s northern command and as commander of the West Bank, among others.

Along the way, he gained a reputation as a maverick for decisions that sometimes landed him in hot water. At one point, he reached an unauthorized deal to remove some settlers from the West Bank city of Hebron. He was reprimanded and a promotion was delayed after he permitted the use of Palestinian non-combatants as human shields during arrest raids, a tactic the country’s Supreme Court banned.

At the same time, he was credited with permitting thousands of Syrians wounded in their country’s civil war to enter Israel for medical treatment.

As the deputy military chief, he was passed over for the top job after comparing what he saw as fascistic trends in modern-day Israel to Nazi Germany. He believes the speech cost him the position.

A few years after retirement, he was elected to parliament and eventually joined Meretz, a party that supports Palestinian statehood and is part of the current coalition headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Meretz has been one of the few parties to make ending Israel’s occupation a top priority. But since joining the coalition, which has agreed to focus on less divisive issues to maintain its stability, most of its members have appeared to tone down their criticism.

Golan has not. Earlier this month, he caused a firestorm when he lashed out against settlers who vandalized graves in the Palestinian West Bank village of Burqa.

“These are not people, these are subhumans,” Golan told the Knesset Channel. “They must not be given any backing.”

His remarks angered Bennett, a former settler leader, and sparked criticism from others within the coalition.

Golan acknowledged his choice of words was flawed but said he stands by the spirit of his remarks.

“Is the problem the expression that I used or is the problem those same people who go up to Burqa, smash graves, damage property and assault innocent Palestinians?” he said.

Such statements have turned him into a poster boy for what far-right nationalists describe as dangerous forces in the coalition challenging Israel’s role in the West Bank. The Palestinians seek the area, captured by Israel in 1967, as the heartland of a future state.

Some on Israel’s dovish left also have been hesitant to embrace Golan, who continues to defend the army’s actions in the West Bank.

Golan always saw his duty in the territory as primarily combatting Palestinian militants, and he continues to believe that most settlers are law-abiding citizens. The international community overwhelmingly considers all settlements illegal or illegitimate, and the Palestinians and many left-wing Israelis see the military as an enforcer of an unjust occupation.

Breaking the Silence, a whistleblower group for former Israeli soldiers who oppose policies in the West Bank, called for action, not just words, against settler violence.

“Yair Golan knows full well what settler violence looks like and what our violent control over the Palestinian people looks like. That’s why his criticism is valuable, but it's not enough,” the group said in a statement.

Golan said he always saw Israeli control over Palestinian territories as temporary. He said separating from the Palestinians is the only way to keep Israel a democratic state with a Jewish majority.

In 2006, Golan commanded the violent evacuation of the Amona settlement in the West Bank, which was built on privately owned Palestinian land.

“I can’t come to terms with the idea that someone Jewish who holds Jewish values supports the theft of someone else’s lands,” he said.

In recent months, as violence between settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank has ticked up, videos have emerged of soldiers standing by as settlers rampage. Golan said he never would have allowed such a thing under his command.

“These people don’t accept the essence of Israel and abide by the law only when it’s convenient for them,” he said.

His comments about settlers aren’t the first to rankle the establishment. In a 2016 speech marking Israel's Holocaust memorial day, Golan, then deputy military chief, said he was witnessing “nauseating processes” in Israeli society that reminded him of the fascism of Nazi-era Germany.

He said the remarks were sparked by the fatal shooting of a subdued Palestinian attacker by a soldier. The soldier was embraced by nationalist politicians, including then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Golan said the shooting was nothing short of an execution.

Next to his desk, Golan keeps a photo of Netanyahu arriving for his corruption trial at a Jerusalem courthouse, surrounded by his Likud Party supporters as he rants against police and prosecutors.

Golan said the image is a reminder of what he is fighting against — and for.

“I served the country in uniform for so many years, I really gave it my life,” Golan said. Pointing to the photo, he said: “I didn’t endanger my life countless times for these people.”

Five do battle for top UN labour job

The race is on to succeed British former trade unionist Guy Ryder when he reaches the end of his second five-year term (AFP/Fabrice COFFRINI)

Agnès PEDRERO
Thu, January 20, 2022, 7:10 PM·4 min read

Five candidates battling to take the helm of the United Nations' labour agency completed two days of hearings Friday where they set out their visions for the organisation's future.

Issuing promises around social dialogue, the right to strike and more diversity, the five, including three former government ministers, presented their cases for becoming the next head of the International Labour Organization.

Two women are in the running to succeed British trade unionist Guy Ryder when he completes his second five-year term, in a post only ever held by men.

"I would like to be the first female director-general of the ILO in more than 100 years," Muriel Penicaud, a former French labour minister, said during her presentation.

Founded in 1919, the ILO is the oldest specialised UN agency, with 187 member states, which are, uniquely in the UN system, represented by governments, employers and workers.

Headquartered in a vast 1960s-designed rationalist rectangular block, the ILO aims to promote rights at work, encourage good employment opportunities, enhance social protection and strengthen dialogue on work-related issues.

Besides Penicaud, the candidates are Togo's former prime minister Gilbert Houngbo, South Korea's ex-foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha, entrepreneur Mthunzi Mdwaba of South Africa, and ILO deputy Greg Vines of Australia.

Whoever wins, a change is on the cards: the ILO's 10 chiefs so far have all been men from Europe or the Americas.

- Hats in the ring -

Thursday and Friday's live-streamed "dialogues" with the candidates will be followed by a private round of hearings in mid-March before an election on March 25.

The new director-general will take office on October 1.

Penicaud, 66, was France's labour minister from 2017 to 2020, initiating some of President Emmanuel Macron's major social reforms, including unemployment insurance, promoting apprenticeships, gender equality and changing the labour laws.

"We are seeing the development of new forms of work which raise questions about the protection of workers, and they must be addressed," she said.

Kang was South Korea's first female foreign minister, in post from 2017 to February last year.

She does not have prior labour experience, but has highlighted her broad UN career, having served as deputy human rights chief, deputy emergency relief coordinator and senior policy advisor to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

"I am from the outside perhaps, but I think it's time for the ILO to have some fresh input in terms of leadership," the 66-year-old said, insisting she could be an "impartial player".

Vines meanwhile has been an ILO deputy director-general since 2012. Before that, he represented Australia at the ILO and chaired the Timor Leste civil service taskforce.

"It is my driving passion that everyone should get a fair go, and the dignity that comes with a decent job," he said Friday, stressing his support for the right to strike.

- Focus on Covid changes -

Houngbo, who has the support of African countries, was the prime minister of Togo from 2008 to 2012, before spending four years as a deputy director-general at the ILO headquarters. He is currently the president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Driven by a resolve for better social justice, he called for a "new global social contract", saying that "decent work remains a big dream for millions of workers".

Mdwaba runs various companies in Africa and has held several senior positions in employers' organisations.

He called himself an "entrepreneur who's had to mix things with Karl Marx".

Besides producing global labour statistics, the ILO also sets international labour standards on matters such as working hours, forced labour, domestic workers, maternity protection, night work, unemployment and workplace harassment.

The ILO convention banning the worst forms of child labour in 2020 became its first convention ever to be universally ratified.

It calls for the prohibition and elimination of child slavery, forced labour and trafficking and bans the use of children in warfare, prostitution, pornography, illegal activities such as drug trafficking, and in hazardous work.

Recently the ILO has turned its focus on work during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has triggered economic crises around the world and seen millions shift to working from home.

apo-rjm/nl/ah

A professor said her students think average Americans make six figures. That's a long way off.


A student leaves the Wharton School of Business on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Charles Mostoller - RC17946552A0

Timothy Bella
Thu, January 20, 2022,

The question asked by Nina Strohminger to her students at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania was straightforward: What did they think the average American makes in annual wages?

Some of the answers, however, were not what the professor of legal studies and business ethics could have expected from one of America's most prestigious business schools, she said.

"I asked Wharton students what they thought the average American worker makes per year and 25% of them thought it was over six figures," she tweeted late Wednesday. "One of them thought it was $800k."

As she estimates the real answer is around $45,000 a year, Strohminger has a hard time wrapping her head around what some Wharton students believed was an average wage.

"Really not sure what to make of this," she wrote.

Neither did the Internet.

Strohminger's tweet set off a range of reactions from experts and observers wondering if this classroom interaction accurately reflected what future business leaders think about the state of wages in the United States.

"People tend to believe that the typical person is closer to themselves financially than what it is in reality," Ken Jacobs, the chair of the University of California at Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education, told The Washington Post. "It is an odd notion in America that people think of $200,000 or $100,000 as a typical wage when it is quite a bit above."

Others took the chance to compare the Wharton students who think the average American makes more than $100,000 to Lucille Bluth, the "Arrested Development" character played by the late Jessica Walter, who once guessed that a banana costs $10.

"Not shocking if it were, say, middle school students," tweeted journalist Soledad O'Brien. "But Wharton?"

Neither Strohminger nor a Wharton spokesperson immediately responded to requests for comment on Thursday.

According to the Social Security Administration, the average U.S. annual wage last year actually was $53,383, with the median wage at $34,612. The Labor Department reported that median weekly earnings in the fourth quarter of last year were $1,010, which comes out to an annual wage of $52,520, according to MarketWatch.

The debate comes as the latest surge of coronavirus cases from the highly-transmissible omicron variant has exacerbated the country's persistent labor shortages and potentially complicated the labor market's push toward pre-pandemic employment levels. Approximately 8.8 million workers reported not working between Dec. 29 and Jan. 10 because they were infected with covid-19 or caring for someone who had the virus, according to data from the Census Bureau.

There's also the concern surrounding rising inflation and the direct impact it has on Americans' wallets. While wages are rising, unemployment is low and the stock market is healthy, 2021 was the worst year for inflation since 1982, according to a report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week. Inflation, which is driven in part by supply chain issues and shortages overseas, is wiping out wage gains made by many workers last year, and has caused prices to increase 7 percent over the 12-month period that ended in December.

The question surrounding what is considered middle-class in America has popped up in recent years. A majority of Americans consider themselves to be middle-class, but many are still having a hard time figuring out what it means. The Post calculated in 2017 that the country's middle-class ranges from $35,000 to $122,500 in annual income.

"The bottom line is: $100,000 is on the middle-class spectrum, but barely," The Post's Heather Long wrote at the time. "75 percent of U.S. households make less than that."

Among the thousands who responded to the Wharton tweet was Stefanie Stantcheva, a professor of economics at Harvard University. Stantcheva co-authored a paper in 2020 that looked at how well people understand their social position relative to others in society. One of her findings, she tweeted, was "what you think others make very much depends on your own income."

"Lower income people think everyone else is lower income too," she wrote. "Rich people think everyone else is richer too."

Jacobs told The Post that an American pretense about how there are not major differences in class has helped fuel misconceptions, like the ones from the Wharton students. He noted that some people "way overestimate the ability for financial mobility in the United States."

"Where this becomes a problem is that people in the spaces that have more political power have a skewed understanding of the typical person, based on their own set of social relations," he said. "That can lead to policy outcomes that perpetuate the current inequalities that we have."

Many on social media agreed, with some saying that the Wharton students who think people make a six-digit salary believe "the average American is an investment banker at Deutsche Bank." One of them was Brady Quirk-Garvan, who works in asset management and financial planning in South Carolina.

"Remember those setting economic policy are more likely to be Wharton (or similar) grads than have worked multiple minimum-wage jobs," Quirk-Garvan wrote.

The Wharton School was ranked as the second-best business school in the nation this year by U.S. News and World Report. Tuition for the school is about $80,000 a year. Some critics noted how the average annual income for those living in West Philadelphia, where Wharton is located, was reportedly around $34,000.

James Martin, a Jesuit priest who is a Wharton alum, tweeted that he was not surprised about the Wharton professor's message, saying "there was a relentless focus on the bottom line, and zero encouragement in understanding the poor" when he was in school. He reflected on a time when he was invited to speak at the school about vocation and how some students told him "they had never been encouraged to think about what they might be called to do, or how to contribute to the common good, but only how to land the highest-paying job."

"I'm a capitalist (yes), but capitalism isn't perfect," wrote Martin, who is also an editor-at-large at America magazine. "One of its many flaws lies in its inability not only to factor in the need to care [for] the 'least among us,' but also its built-in propensity to enable the privileged to avoid contact with their brothers and sisters in need."

On Thursday morning, Strohminger awoke and realized her tweet was the top trending topic on Twitter. She explained she had asked students the question about average wages because she wanted to see if they were as biased as other people had been in previous studies on the topic.

But she stopped short of saying the beliefs that a few students have on average wages in the U.S. reflects on them as a whole.

"A lot of people want to conclude that this says something special about Wharton students - I'm not sure it does," she wrote. "People are notoriously bad at making this kind of estimate, thinking the gap between rich and poor is smaller than it is."

Eli Rosenberg contributed to this report.

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Strike at Kroger's King Soopers ends after deal with union


 Kroger's King Soopers workers in Colorado go on strike for better pay


Fri, January 21, 2022, 6:08 AM·2 min read

(Reuters) -More than 8,000 workers at nearly 80 Kroger Co-owned King Soopers stores called off their strike on Friday after reaching a tentative deal with the U.S. retail giant, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union said.

The details of the contract would be made public to the union members after a voting by workers beginning Monday, the union said.

"You have seven days to return to work. Contact your store manager to be placed on the schedule," the union told https://bit.ly/33Ep6iP the workers on Twitter.

The workers went on a strike on Jan. 12 after rejecting at least two offers from the grocery chain. The union had rejected a $170 million offer made last week by Kroger, which termed it as the "last, best and final offer".

The offer proposed wage increases of up to $4.50 per hour depending on job classification and tenure, with the starting rate of pay increased to $16 per hour. The union, however, sought raises of at least $6 per hour for everyone.

Rising COVID-19 infections and inflation have pushed U.S. workers to demand better working conditions and higher pay, with employees at Deere & Co and Kellogg Co's cereal plants recently securing better deals after weeks of strike.

The latest deal comes after a lot of difficult negotiation, in which Kroger accused the union of refusing to bargain in good faith, while the union alleged a few King Soopers representatives displayed "unprofessional" and "outrageous" behavior.

A U.S. court earlier this week had granted King Soopers a temporary restraining order against its striking workers, prohibiting picketing in groups of over 10 people, interfering with anyone within 20 feet of the individual or standing in front of store entrances or vehicles.

(Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Deborah Sophia; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

More surprises await scientists at Antarctica's "Doomsday Glacier"



Andrew Freedman
Fri, January 21, 2022

Researchers like David Holland, an atmospheric scientist at New York University, are in a race to understand the fate of a massive glacier in West Antarctica that has earned a disquieting nickname: "The Doomsday Glacier."

Why it matters: Studies show the Thwaites Glacier (its official name) could already be on an irreversible course to melt during the next several decades to centuries, freeing up enough inland ice to raise global sea levels by at least several feet.

Driving the news: Speaking via satellite phone Thursday aboard an icebreaker navigating through thick sea ice near West Antarctica, Holland said his research team aims to gain a better understanding of what is taking place near the glacier's grounding line. That is where the glacial ice meets the seafloor, or where floating ice meets land ice.

The big picture: The conditions there will help scientists model the glacier's likely future.

The topography of West Antarctica's seafloor is such that if the ice shelf were to significantly melt or even collapse, warm water could flow well inland, melting land-based ice.

Meaning if the ice shelf breaks up, it will open the path for the massive quantities of inland ice that it holds back, like a doorstop or a cork in a wine bottle, to flow faster into the sea.

This would raise sea levels, with potentially catastrophic consequences in coastal cities worldwide. Thwaites Glacier's meltwater already comprises about 4% of global annual sea-level rise.

Some studies have shown that much of West Antarctica may already be on an unstoppable melt pathway, but the specific timing is unclear.

Holland's work is part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a multinational push to urgently gain a better understanding about Thwaites' fate, and with it, that of some of the world's most populated cities, from New York to Mumbai.

How it works: Holland's team of scientists and engineers plans to use hot water drilling to generate boreholes through the ice shelf to observe the water below.

Scientists will also use small, unmanned submarines to take readings under the ice to find out more about the water temperature, salinity and ocean currents in areas that are critical for stabilizing the glacier.

If ocean temperatures just beneath the ice shelf are above freezing, it would melt the ice shelf from below. This has been taking place in parts of Thwaites, based on satellite readings and extensive field studies carried out so far.

Flashback: In December, scientists affiliated with the international research effort Holland is participating in announced they detected new cracks in Thwaites' Eastern Ice Shelf.

They warned parts of that shelf could collapse in as little as five years, accelerating the movement of inland ice to the sea and eventually causing sea levels to rise by several feet.

Between the lines: The eastern Thwaites discovery was an unnerving surprise since it is a part of the ice shelf that was previously thought to be more stable. But the main action is in the western part of the ice shelf, Holland said, where he is now headed.

"Western Thwaites moves faster, it's much deeper and it cuts more into the inland," he said. "It could fall apart quickly, in decades, or it could be centuries. And the only way to really know that is through this research."

The bottom line: "I'm here at the end of the Earth, but I'm not actually very far away from where you are," Holland said. "Everything is connected, and this ice that seems far away is intricately a part of your planet and your life."

Earth's new lightning capital of the world confirmed from space


Earth's new lightning capital of the world confirmed from space

Scott Sutherland
Fri, January 21, 2022, 

A new NASA map reveals how many times you can expect to see lightning flashes from wherever you live on the planet. It has also pinpointed a new lightning capital for the world.

Attached to the outside of the International Space Station, circling the Earth 16 times every day, is a specialized science camera known as the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS). This NASA instrument has been cataloguing lightning strikes in the atmosphere since 2017. It is the second LIS to be launched after the first flew on NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite from 1997-2015. It is also the third dedicated lightning instrument NASA has put into space. The first was the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) on the OrbView-1 satellite, which circled Earth from 1995 to 2000.

Lightning-Imaging-Sensor-ISS-NASA

This artist's rendering shows the location of the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

The Lightning Imaging Sensor's vantage point on the ISS provides far better data than the previous missions. It gives better resolution than OTD did in the 1990s, and it sees far more of Earth's surface than the LIS on TRMM could.

"What is new and notable about the ISS LIS is that it gives us observations that are significantly farther north and south than we got from TRMM," Patrick Gatlin, an atmospheric scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center, said in a NASA Earth Observatory post. "ISS LIS observations extend to latitudes up to 55 North and 55 South, well into Canada and Patagonia."

According to NASA, the new LIS adds an extra dimension to the data.

The two previous lightning sensors, on Orbitview-1 and TRMM, simply logged the location of a lightning flash as a single point on the map. However, when a lightning strike occurs, there can be a substantial distance between where it originates and where it connects with another cloud or a point on the ground. Typically, the start and end points are within a few kilometres of each other, which easily fits within a single pixel on a world map. Some lightning bolts reach significantly farther, though.

On October 31, 2018, a lightning 'megaflash' stretched over 700 kilometres across the southern tip of Brazil.

LightningLocator

To address this problem, researchers Michael Peterson of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Douglas Mach at the Science and Technology Institute of the Universities Space Research Association in Huntsville, AL, and Dennis Buechler from the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, combined all of the lightning data collected from space. Their study turned the old one-dimensional point data into a brand new two-dimensional map that accounts for the horizontal distance a lightning strike can cover.

Lightning Imaging Sensor annual density climate 2020 NASA

This map combines all lightning data from 1995 to 2020 reveals the extent of Earth's lightning, and pinpoints those regions that receive the most lightning per year. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

"Our analysis accounts for the fact that lightning bolts can spread horizontally, not just vertically from clouds to the ground," Peterson told NASA Earth Observatory. "One way to think about this new climatology is that it tells us the frequency that an observer can expect lightning to be visible overhead — regardless of where the flash began or ended."

This new lightning map also confirmed Earth's new lightning capital of the world.

At one time, the spot on Earth with the most lightning strikes was near Lake Kivu, on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. While Africa still has the greatest number of lightning hotspots, in 2016, new research moved the lightning capital over 11,000 kilometres to the west. It is now located at Lake Maracaibo, a large tidal bay in northwestern Venezuela.

"Located in northwest Venezuela along part of the Andes Mountains, it is the largest lake in South America. Storms commonly form there at night as mountain breezes develop and converge over the warm, moist air over the lake," NASA said at the time. "These unique conditions contribute to the development of persistent deep convection resulting in an average of 297 nocturnal thunderstorms per year, peaking in September."

Even with this new, updated analysis, Lake Maracaibo still retains its status.

Maracaibo-NASA-Earth-Observatory

Multiple lightning strikes flash over the dark waters of Lake Maracaibo. Credit: NASA

According to NASA Earth Observatory: "With an average flash rate of 389 per day, Lake Maracaibo in northern Venezuela (shown above) has the highest flash extent density in the world. That region's unique geography fuels weather patterns that make it a magnet for thunderstorms and lightning. The area along Lake Kivu, on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a close second with an average of 368 flashes per day."