Permafrost alone holds back Arctic rivers — and a lot of carbon

As the Arctic thaws, expanding rivers could unleash carbon equal to millions of cars.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

 

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DARTMOUTH RESEARCHERS SET OUT TO UNDERSTAND WHY ARCTIC WATERSHEDS TEND TO HAVE LESS RIVER AREA THAN WATERSHEDS IN WARMER CLIMATES. FIRST AUTHOR JOANMARIE DEL VECCHIO (PICTURED) CONCEIVED OF THE STUDY WHILE CONDUCTING FIELDWORK IN ALASKA AFTER SHE HIKED UPHILL FROM HER RIVERSIDE WORKSITE AND BEHELD A VISTA OF SHEER MOUNTAIN SLOPES UNBROKEN BY RIVERS OR STREAMS.

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CREDIT: MULU FRATKIN

New research from Dartmouth provides the first evidence that the Arctic’s frozen soil is the dominant force shaping Earth’s northernmost rivers. Permafrost, the thick layer of soil that stays frozen for two or more years at a time, is the reason that Arctic rivers are uniformly confined to smaller areas and shallower valleys than rivers to the south, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But permafrost also is an increasingly fragile reservoir of vast amounts of carbon. As climate change weakens Artic permafrost, the researchers calculate that every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) of global warming could release as much carbon as 35 million cars emit in a year as polar waterways expand and churn up the thawing soil.

"The whole surface of the Earth is in a tug of a war between processes such as hillslopes that smooth the landscape and forces like rivers that carve them up," said first author Joanmarie Del Vecchio, who led the study as a Neukom Postdoctoral Fellow at Dartmouth with her advisers and study co-authors Marisa Palucis, an assistant professor of earth sciences, and engineering professor Colin Meyer.

"We understand the physics on a fundamental level, but when things start freezing and thawing, it's hard to predict which side is going to win," Del Vecchio said. "If hillslopes win, they're going to bury all that carbon trapped in the soil. But if things get warm and suddenly river channels start to win, we're going to see a large amount of carbon get released into the atmosphere. That will likely create this warming feedback loop that leads to the release of more greenhouse gases."

The researchers set out to understand why Arctic watersheds — the total drainage area of a river and its connected waterways — tend to have less river area than watersheds in warmer climates, which can have extensive tributaries that spread over the landscape. Del Vecchio, now a visiting scholar at Dartmouth and an assistant professor at the College of William and Mary, conceived of the study in 2019 while conducting fieldwork in Alaska. She hiked uphill from her riverside worksite and beheld a vista of sheer mountain slopes unbroken by rivers or streams.

"It seemed like the hillslopes were winning and the channels were losing," Del Vecchio said. "We wanted to test whether it was temperature shaping this landscape. We're very lucky to have had the amount of surface and digital elevation data that's been produced in the past few years. We couldn't have done this study a few years ago."

The researchers examined the depth, topography, and soil conditions for more than 69,000 watersheds across the Northern Hemisphere — from just above the Tropic of Cancer to the North Pole — using satellite and climate data. They measured the percentage of land each river's channel network occupies within its watershed, as well as the steepness of river valleys.

Forty-seven percent of the analyzed watersheds are shaped by permafrost. Compared to temperate watersheds, their river valleys are deeper and steeper and about 20% less of their surrounding landscape is occupied by channels. These similarities are despite any differences in glacial history, background topographic steepness, annual precipitation, and other factors that would otherwise govern the push and pull of water and land, the researchers report. Arctic watersheds are shaped by the one thing they have in common — permafrost.

"Any way we sliced it, regions with larger, more plentiful river channels are warmer with a higher average temperature and less permafrost," Del Vecchio said. "You need a lot more water to carve valleys in areas with permafrost."

Permafrost's power to limit the footprint of Arctic rivers also allows it to store vast amounts of carbon in the frozen earth, according to the study. To estimate the carbon that would be released from these watersheds due to climate change, the researchers combined the amount of carbon stored in permafrost with the soil erosion that would result as the ground thaws and is washed away as Arctic rivers spread.

Research suggests that the Arctic has warmed by more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels, or roughly since 1850, Del Vecchio said. Scientists estimate that a gradual thawing of Artic permafrost could release between 22 billion and 432 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2100 if current greenhouse gas emissions are reined in — and as much as 550 billion tons if they are not, she said. The International Energy Agency estimates that energy consumption in 2022 spewed more than 36 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, an all-time high.

The Arctic has been adapted to the cold for so long that scientists have little idea of how much, or how fast, carbon will be released if permafrost thaws on an accelerated timescale, said Palucis, whose research group uses the Arctic as a stand-in for Mars to study the Red Planet's surface processes. "While the Arctic has experienced warming in the past, the scary thing is how rapidly it's occurring now. The landscape must respond quickly and that can be traumatic," she said.

Palucis recalled a research trip to the Arctic when she saw a chunk of bedrock the size of a small building break off from a cliff. The culprit of the cleaving was a small stream of water that had seeped into the rock and weakened it.

"This is a landscape that is adapted to colder conditions, so when you change it, even a small amount of water flowing through rock is sufficient to cause substantial change," Palucis said.

"Our understanding of Arctic landscapes is more or less where we were with temperate landscapes 100 years ago," she said. "This study is an important first step in showing that the models and theories we have for temperate watersheds just can't be applied to polar regions. It's a whole new set of doors to go through in terms of understanding these landscapes."

Sediment cores collected from the Arctic have shown extensive soil runoff and carbon deposits roughly 10,000 years ago, suggesting a much warmer region than exists now, Del Vecchio said. Today, areas such as Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic United States that are just south of the farthest reach of the Ice Age glaciers portend the modern Arctic's future.

"We have some evidence from the past that a lot of sediment was released into the ocean when there was warming," Del Vecchio said. "And now we have a snapshot from our paper showing the Arctic will get more water channels as it gets warmer. But none of that is the same as saying, 'This is what happens when you take a cold landscape and turn up the temperature real fast.' I don't think we know how it will change."

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2307072120 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Imaging analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Permafrost extent sets drainage density in the Arctic

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Feb-2024

 

Why are people climate change deniers?

University of Bonn and IZA study reveals unexpected results

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BONN

 

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MORE DROUGHT, MORE HOT WEATHER, MORE TORRENTIAL RAIN AS IN THE PICTURE DEPICTING THE AHR VALLEY FLOOD IN GERMANY IN 2021: DESPITE THESE SIGNS, MANY PEOPLE QUESTION THE EXISTENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE OR REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT IT IS CAUSED PRIMARILY BY HUMAN ACTIVITY.

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CREDIT: PHOTO: VOLKER LANNERT/UNIVERSITY OF BONN

Do climate change deniers bend the facts to avoid having to modify their environmentally harmful behavior? Researchers from the University of Bonn and the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) ran an online experiment involving 4,000 US adults, and found no evidence to support this idea. The authors of the study were themselves surprised by the results. Whether they are good or bad news for the fight against global heating remains to be seen. The study is being published in the journal Nature Climate Change. STRICTLY EMBARGOED: Do not publish before Friday, February 02, 11 a.m. CET!

A surprisingly large number of people still downplay the impact of climate change or deny that it is primarily a product of human activity. But why? One hypothesis is that these misconceptions are rooted in a specific form of self-deception, namely that people simply find it easier to live with their own climate failings if they do not believe that things will actually get all that bad. “We call this thought process ‘motivated reasoning,’” says Professor Florian Zimmermann, an economist at the University of Bonn and Research Director at IZA.

Motivated reasoning helps us to justify our behavior. For instance, someone who flies off on holiday several times a year can give themselves the excuse that the plane would still be taking off without them, or that just one flight will not make any difference, or—more to the point—that nobody has proven the existence of human-made climate change anyway. All these patterns of argument are examples of motivated reasoning. Bending the facts until it allows us to maintain a positive image of ourselves while maintaining our harmful behavior.

Self-deception to preserve a positive self-image

But what role does this form of self-deception play in how people think about climate change? Previously, there had been little scientific evidence produced to answer the question. The latest study has now closed this knowledge gap—and has thrown up some unexpected results. Zimmermann and his colleague Lasse Stötzer ran a series of online experiments, using a representative sample of 4,000 US adults.

At the center of the experiments was a donation worth $20. Participants were allocated at random to one of two groups. The members of the first group were able to split the $20 between two organizations, both of which were committed to combating climate change. By contrast, those in the second group could decide to keep the $20 for themselves instead of giving it away and would then actually receive the money at the end. “Anyone keeping hold of the donation needs to justify it to themselves,” says Zimmermann, who is also a member of the ECONtribute Cluster of Excellence, the Collaborative Research Center Transregio 224 and the Transdisciplinary Research Area “Individuals & Societies” at the University of Bonn. “One way to do that is to deny the existence of climate change.”

As it happened, nearly half of those in the second group decided to hold on to the money. The researchers now wanted to know whether these individuals would justify their decision retrospectively by repudiating climate change. The two groups had been put together at random. Without “motivated reasoning,” therefore, they should essentially share a similar attitude to human-made global heating. If those who kept the money for themselves justified their actions through self-deception, however, then their group should exhibit greater doubt over climate change. “Yet we didn’t see any sign of that effect,” Zimmermann reveals.

Climate change denial: a hallmark of one’s identity?

This finding was also borne out in two further experiments. “In other words, our study didn’t give us any indications that the widespread misconceptions regarding climate change are due to this kind of self-deception,” says Zimmermann, summing up his work. On the face of it, this is good news for policymakers, because the results could mean that it is indeed possible to correct climate change misconceptions, simply by providing comprehensive information. If people are bending reality, by contrast, then this approach is very much a non-starter.

Zimmermann advises to be cautious, however: “Our data does reveal some indications of a variant of motivated reasoning, specifically that denying the existence of human-made global heating forms part of the political identity of certain groups of people.” Put another way, some people may to an extent define themselves by the very fact that they do not believe in climate change. As far as they are concerned, this way of thinking is an important trait that sets them apart from other political groups, and thus they are likely to simply not care what researchers have to say on the topic.

Institutions involved and funding secured:

The University of Bonn and the Institute on Behaviour and Inequality (briq) were involved in the study. briq is now part of the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA). The work was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

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JOURNAL

Nature Climate Change

DOI

10.1038/s41558-023-01910-2 

ARTICLE TITLE

A Representative Survey Experiment of Motivated Climate Change Denial

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Feb-2024

 

Regulation makes crypto markets more efficient

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

First-of-its-kind research on cryptocurrency finds that the most regulated coins create the most efficient markets.

That crypto regulation, often provided by cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, can also help protect investors by providing reliable, public information.

“Both small and institutional investors should know, if they invest in coins without any regulation, they may suffer from price manipulation or a severe lack of insider information,” said Liangfei Qiu, a University of Florida professor of business and one of the authors of the new study.

“Instead, they may want to invest in coins listed with platforms that provide some vetted information, which serves as a kind of minimal regulation that protects investors and makes markets more efficient,” he said.

The study is the first to look at how regulation affects the efficiency of cryptocurrency markets. Researchers analyzed a suite of cryptocurrency offerings – from essentially unregulated ICOs, or initial coin offerings, to exchanges setting and enforcing their own rules – and compared the digital currencies to traditional stock exchanges, which are highly regulated by government.

Unregulated ICOs were the least efficient. But initial exchange offerings, another crypto offering known as IEOs, were nearly as efficient as traditional stock initial public offerings, or IPOs. In IEOs, the exchanges set minimum standards and rules and commit to providing investors with trustworthy information about the value of the cryptocurrency.

The exchange-based regulation is entirely voluntary, but could provide guidance to lawmakers who are increasingly interested in providing some crypto regulation to the still-emerging markets.

“If policymakers want to make sure that the market runs well, they need to provide some structure to promote regulation,” Qiu said.

To assess the efficiency of the stocks and cryptocurrencies, Qiu’s team analyzed their variance ratios, a measure of how predictable the future price of an asset is. Economists have long held that future prices of assets are essentially unpredictable – so long as everyone has the same information about the underlying value of those assets. Market inefficiencies, such as insider knowledge, can start to distort the prices, usually at the expense of investors who are out of the loop.

Qiu collaborated with fellow UF Warrington College of Business professors Mahendrarajah Nimalendran and Praveen Pathak and his former doctoral student Mariia Petryk, now a professor of business at George Mason University. Their study is forthcoming in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Informational Efficiency of Cryptocurrency Markets

 

US prescription drug prices are 2.78 times those in other wealthy nations

US pays more for name-brand drugs, less for generics

Reports and Proceedings

RAND CORPORATION

Prescription drug prices in the U.S. are significantly higher than in other nations, with prices in the U.S. averaging 2.78 times those seen in 33 other nations, according to a new RAND report.

 

The gap between prices in the U.S. and other countries is even larger for brand-named drugs, with U.S. prices averaging 4.22 times those in comparison nations. 

 

The RAND study found that prices for unbranded generic drugs -- which account for 90% of prescription volume in the U.S. -- are about 67% of the average cost in the comparison nations.

 

The new report updates findings from earlier RAND analysis about U.S. drug prices. That analysis compared 2018 manufacturer gross drug prices in the U.S. with other nations using a price index approach.

 

The new report uses updated information through 2022. It also includes additional analysis that focuses on price comparisons for biosimilars and changes in price comparison results over time.

 

“These findings provide further evidence that manufacturers’ gross prices for prescription drugs are higher in the U.S. than in comparison countries,” said Andrew Mulcahy, lead author of the study and a senior health economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “We find that the gap is widening for name-brand drugs, while U.S. prices for generic drugs are now proportionally lower than our earlier analysis found.”

 

The RAND analysis provides the most up-to-date estimates of how much higher drug prices are in the U.S. compared to other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

 

Researchers calculated price indexes under a wide range of methodological decisions. While some sensitivity analyses lowered the differences between U.S. prices compared to those in other nations, under all the scenarios examined overall prescription drug prices remained substantially higher in the U.S.

 

The analysis used manufacturer gross prices for drugs because net prices -- the amounts ultimately retained by manufacturers after negotiated rebates and other discounts are applied -- are not systematically available. Even after adjusting U.S. prices downward to account for these discounts, U.S. prices for brand name drugs remained more than  three times higher than those in other countries.

 

RAND researchers compiled their estimates by examining industry standard IQVIA MIDAS data on drug sales and volume for 2022, comparing the U.S. to 33 OECD nations. The data include most prescription drugs sold in the U.S. and comparison countries.

 

Across all 33 comparison countries, U.S. drug prices ranged from 1.72 times the prices in Mexico to 10.28 times prices in Turkey.

 

Researchers estimated that across all of the OECD nations studied, total drug spending was $989 billion in 2022. The U.S. accounted for 62% of sales, but just 24% of the volume.

 

Recent estimates are that prescription drug spending in the U.S. accounts for more than 10% of all health care spending. Retail prescription drug spending in the U.S. increased by 91% between 2000 and 2020, and that spending is expected to increase by 5% annually through 2030.

 

The study was sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

 

The report, “International Prescription Drug Price Comparisons Estimates: Using 2022 Data,” is available on the website of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and on www.rand.org.  

 

Other authors of the report are Daniel Schwam and Susan L. Lovejoy.

 

RAND Health Care promotes healthier societies by improving health care systems in the United States and other countries. 

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DOI

10.7249/RRA788-3 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

International Prescription Drug Price Comparisons Estimates Using 2022 Data

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Feb-2024

 

Prehistoric mobility among Tibetan farmers, herders shaped highland settlement patterns, cultural interaction, study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS

 

IMAGE: 

SIMULATED “MOBILITY HIGHWAYS” OF FARMER-HERDER INTERACTIONS OVERLAID WITH THE GEOLOCATED ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES DATED BETWEEN CA. 3600 AND 2200 BEFORE PRESENT (CREDIT: X. CHEN)

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CREDIT: XINZHOU CHEN

The 1 million-square-mile Tibetan Plateau — often called the “roof of the world” — is the highest landmass in the world, averaging 14,000 feet in altitude. Despite the extreme environment, humans have been permanent inhabitants there since prehistoric times.

Farming and herding play major roles in the economy of the Tibetan Plateau today — as they have throughout history. To make the most of a difficult environment, farmers, agropastoralists and mobile herders interact and move in conjunction with one another, which in turn shapes the overall economy and cultural geography of the plateau.  

A new study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Sichuan University in China, published Feb. 2 in Scientific Reports, traces the roots of the longstanding cultural interactions across the Tibetan Plateau to prehistoric times, as early as the Bronze Age.  

The researchers used advanced geospatial modeling to compare environmental and archaeological evidence that connects ancient mobility and subsistence strategies to cultural connections forged among farmers and herders in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Their findings show that these strategies influenced the settlement pattern and the transfer of ceramic styles — such as the materials used, characteristics and decorative features of the pottery — among distant prehistoric communities across the plateau.

The research was an enormous undertaking made possible thanks to advances in geospatial data analysis and high-resolution remote sensing, according to Michael Frachetti, a professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences at WashU and corresponding author of the study.

First, the researchers generated simulations of the optimal pathways of mobility used by prehistoric farmers and herders based on land cover and capacity of the environment to support the needs of their crops or herds. For example, highland herders typically move across zones with rich grass resources toward the more limited arable niches on the plateau. Repeated patterns emerging from these simulations were shown to statistically correlate with the geographic location of thousands of prehistoric sites across the Tibetan Plateau.

To test how these routes may have affected social interaction, the team compiled a large database of published archaeological findings from Bronze and Iron Age sites throughout Tibet and generated a social network based on shared technologies and designs of the ceramics found in these sites. The resulting social network suggests that even distant sites were well connected and in communication thousands of years ago across the Tibetan landmass. 

“When we overlay the mobility maps with the social network, we see a strong correlation between routes for subsistence-oriented mobility and strong ties in material culture between regional communities, suggesting the emergence of ‘mobility highways’ over centuries of use,” Frachetti said. “This not only tells us that people were moving according to needs for farming and herding — which was largely influenced by environmental potential — but that mobility was key for building social relationships and the regional character of ancient communities on the Tibetan Plateau.” 

Their findings also revealed an interesting caveat: The western part of Tibet did not match these patterns as well as the east. According to the authors, this suggests an alternative cultural orientation toward Central Asia, where similar mobility patterns connected prehistoric communities to the west. These east/west differences have been observed in other archaeological studies, they said.

“Archaeologists have been seeking to understand how and why ancient human communities build social relationships and cultural identities across the extreme terrain in Tibet for decades,” said lead author Xinzhou Chen, who earned his doctorate from WashU in 2023 and now works at the Center for Archaeological Sciences at Sichuan University. “This research provides a new perspective to explore the formation of human social cohesion in archaeology.”

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Geospatial modelling of farmer-herder interactions maps cultural geography of Bronze and Iron Age Tibet, 3600-2200 BP

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Feb-2024

Centuries-old texts penned by early astronomers Copernicus and Sacrobosco find new home at RIT

Valued at more than $1 million, texts will be used for student research and exploration

Business Announcement

ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

The ancient astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was the first scientist to document the theory that the sun is the center of the universe in his book, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres). That first edition book, along with a delicate manuscript from astronomer Johannes de Sacrobosco, that is contrary to Copernicus’ groundbreaking theory, has now found a permanent home at Rochester Institute of Technology.

The texts were donated to RIT’s Cary Graphic Arts Collection, one of the world’s premier libraries on graphic communication history and practices. The donor is Irene Conley, on behalf of her sister Ethel Harris, and in memory of her late brother, Martin Harris, and Ethel’s late husband, Joel Cohen, one of the original owners of the texts.

“My family, including my sister Rochelle Wynne, agreed that we wanted the precious texts to live somewhere they would be actively studied and used, rather than sold to a private collector,” said Conley, whose late brother attended RIT in the mid-1960s. “When the books arrived at RIT, I was so pleased to learn that students were carefully unwrapping them and that the plan is to use them for advanced work and research.”

The Copernicus text, published in 1543, is one of only 276 copies that survived through the centuries.

Originally written in the 13th century, Sacrobosco’s De sphaera mundi (On the Sphere of the World) followed the Ptolemaic model of the universe with the Earth as the center of the universe. This 15th-century copy of the manuscript is also a palimpsest, in which there are traces of an earlier text that was erased. As part of an ongoing project, RIT imaging science students will work to uncover and decipher the original writings.

The books will be on display in the new Cary Collection Research Center and will be spotlighted at the library’s reopening celebration scheduled for April 11.

According to Steven Galbraith, curator of the Cary Collection, the books will, indeed, have an active life on campus.

“We are thrilled that Irene Conley and Ethel Harris have bestowed such a significant and profound gift to RIT, which will provide our students and faculty with countless avenues for interdisciplinary research. In addition, the early theories of Copernicus align with RIT’s astrophysical sciences and technology programs, providing our students with inspiration from an essential astronomer and mathematician. Our university is the perfect home for these extraordinary texts.”

 

Did climate change trigger pandemics in antiquity?

Samples from the ocean floor provide the first high-resolution regional climate record and prove a link to pandemics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MARUM - CENTER FOR MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF BREMEN

For their study in Science Advances, the researchers reconstructed temperatures and precipitation for the period from 200 BC to 600 AD, with a resolution of three years. This means that two data points cover a period of three years – an extremely high resolution for paleoclimate researchers. The period extends from the so-called Roman Climatic Optimum to the Late Antique Little Ice Age. This period also includes three major pandemics known from historians’ records: the Antonine Plague (around 165 to 180 AD), the Cyprian Plague (around 251 to 266) and the Justinian Plague (from around 540). 

Each of these pandemics followed a change in climate: the Antonine Plague occurred during a cold spell that followed several decades of cooling and drought. The Cyprian plague coincided with a second phase of severe cooling. Finally, the Justinian Plague followed an extreme cooling in the 6th century. "There was always a parallel," explains first author Prof. Karin Zonneveld from MARUM and the Department of Geosciences at the University of Bremen. "A phase of climate change was followed by a pandemic outbreak."

Zonneveld and her colleagues used so-called dinoflagellates to reconstruct past temperature and precipitation patterns. These unicellular organisms live in the sunlit upper part of the ocean and form cysts that are deposited as fossils on the ocean floor. Dinoflagellates have different preferences for their environment, with some living only in colder waters and others only in warmer waters. Some prefer waters with lots of nutrients, while others can only live in very clean, nutrient-poor waters, explains Zonneveld. "If the conditions in the upper waters change, the composition of the cyst species that accumulate on the seabed also changes." This creates a very high-resolution archive that goes back further than, for example, tree rings in this region can.

Karin Zonneveld and her colleagues took the samples from a core originating from the Gulf of Taranto. Volcanoes regularly erupt in southern Italy – the most prominent example is the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, which destroyed Pompeii. The ash emitted rises into the atmosphere, trickles down onto the water and then sinks to the seabed. There it forms a thin layer of ash, known as a cryptotephra. "Volcanic ash contains many small glass particles that can easily be seen with a polarizing microscope," explains Karin Zonneveld. "The elemental composition of the glass particles in the ash of each volcano is unique and can even be different for individual eruptions of the same volcano. With the help of tiny needles, we were able to pick out individual pieces of glass and analyze their elemental composition in collaboration with the Bremen volcanologist Andreas Klügel." In this way, the deposits could be precisely linked to volcanic eruptions of the Vesuvius and volcanoes on the island of Lipari of which the times of the eruptions was known. This allowed an exact dating of the core sediments.

For the missing piece of the puzzle, a coincidence brought Zonneveld together with her co-author, historian Prof. Kyle Harper from the University of Oklahoma (USA). He, too, had long suspected a causal link between climate and pandemics. Together, they were able to precisely date and compare the climate data as well as glass particle analyses with historical events.

The researchers conclude that climate-related stress could trigger a pandemic outbreak or intensify disease outbreaks - for example, because food is scarce and people become more susceptible for diseases. Harper and Zonneveld agree that this could hold important information for the future: "It's true that we have a completely different society at the moment than in ancient times, mainly because of modern science and everything that goes with it - germ theory, antibiotics, vaccines, clean water. But there are also parallels. Much like in Roman times, climate is still an important factor affecting fundamental aspects that influence our wellbeing. These include agriculture, access to clean water, biodiversity, geographical distribution and migration of organisms. Studying the resilience of ancient societies to climate change and exploring how climate change and the incidence of infectious diseases are linked could give us a better insight into the climate change-related challenges we face today."

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Karin Zonneveld
Marine Palynology
MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences and the Department of Geosciences at the University of Bremen
Phone: + 49 421 218-65797
Email: kzonneveld@marum.de

 

MARUM produces fundamental scientific knowledge about the role of the ocean and the seafloor in the total Earth system. The dynamics of the oceans and the seabed significantly impact the entire Earth system through the interaction of geological, physical, biological and chemical processes. These influence both the climate and the global carbon cycle, resulting in the creation of unique biological systems. MARUM is committed to fundamental and unbiased research in the interests of society, the marine environment, and in accordance with the sustainability goals of the United Nations. It publishes its quality-assured scientific data to make it publicly available. MARUM informs the public about new discoveries in the marine environment and provides practical knowledge through its dialogue with society. MARUM cooperation with companies and industrial partners is carried out in accordance with its goal of protecting the marine environment.

 

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adk1033 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

News article

ARTICLE TITLE

Climate change, society, and pandemic disease in Roman Italy between 200 BCE and 600 CE

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Jan-2024

India aims to raise up to $2.4 billion selling stakes in state-run firms -official

Fri, February 2, 2024 

 A cashier checks Indian rupee notes inside a room at a fuel station in Ahmedabad


By Nikunj Ohri

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's government expects to raise between 180 billion and 200 billion rupees ($2.2 billion to $2.4 billion) through the sale of stakes in state-run firms in the fiscal year ending March 31, a top government official told Reuters on Friday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration moved from the usual practise of setting a stake sale target in its budget announced on Thursday. The government slashed the stake sale target of 510 billion rupees for the current year, and said it would now raise 300 billion rupees through both stake sales and asset monetisation in the fiscal year through March 2024.

Modi's ambition of privatising state-run firms has taken a back seat due to impending elections, but his government has delivered more stake sales than any previous administration.

His government has not set a target for the next fiscal year, ending in March 2025, in a break from usual practice.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the top bureaucrat at the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management said New Delhi would receive another 120 billion rupees through asset monetisation in the current fiscal year.

But the government will not "aggressively" launch minority stake sales just because state-run companies' shares are at new highs, he said in an interview.

Pandey said the government will continue to monitor Life Insurance Corp of India's (LIC) financial and share price performance before pursuing any further share sale.

"LIC shares have just reached its initial public offering (IPO) price and we want retail investors, who subscribed to the IPO, to gain," he said.

The insurer's share price has surged nearly 60% since November, raising expectation of another minority stake sale.

India has been unable to sell its Hindustan Zinc (HZL) shares for the last two years as decisions taken by the company's management have spooked both existing and potential investors, Pandey said.

HZL, in which the state owns a 29.54% stake, had decided to demerge its businesses and that proposal is being currently examined by the government, Pandey said.

The process of privatising state-run companies like Shipping Corp of India and BEML will continue, Pandey said, adding the government plans to list SCI's demerged land company in a month and that will pave the way for privatisation.

($1 = 82.8790 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Nikunj Ohri; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Opinion: Is Narendra Modi's India still a democracy?

Bob Drogin
Fri, February 2, 2024 

One observer called India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi "the high priest of Hinduism," after he starred in the opening ceremonies for a grand new temple to the deity Ram where a Muslim mosque once stood. (Anadolu via Getty Images)

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the consecration of a vast new Hindu temple atop the ruins of a demolished Muslim mosque in the town of Ayodhya in northern India last week, it showed how far he will go to secure his reelection this year.

Not that stoking religious strife is a new tactic for the 73-year-old Modi. He rode to power, and clings to it now, on the back of militant Hindu nationalism and the menace of anti-Muslim violence.

In 2005, Modi, then the top official in the Indian state of Gujarat, became the first and only person ever barred from entering the United States under a little known immigration law that makes foreign officials ineligible for visas if they are responsible for "particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”

Read more: Modi's promised temple set to open — and please Hindu voters — ahead of India's election

U.S. officials had determined that Modi stood by during Hindu riots that killed more than 1,000 Muslims in Gujarat state in 2002. The visa ban was lifted only when he became prime minister in 2014.

Today Modi’s brand of militant Hindu supremacy has replaced political pluralism as India’s dominant ideology, threatening the nation’s status as a secular republic.

As a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, I saw the beginnings of India's anti-democratic slide on a sunny day in December 1992, on contested ground in Ayodhya.

Thousands of Hindu pilgrims, white-bearded priests, dhoti-clad holy men and other devotees who had gathered for a political rally suddenly stormed the historic Babri mosque, built in the 16th century by Babur, the first Mughal emperor, on the site of the supposed birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram.

Read more: Documentary : Scrambling for Safety Amid a Merciless Mob : No one was spared as Hindu militants stormed a mosque in India. 'No camera!' they screamed before attacking journalists.

The Hindu mob tore the mosque apart, brick by brick, with pikes, pickaxes and their bare hands. They pulled down guard towers with grappling hooks and climbed barefoot over barbed wire barricades. Foreign journalists were chased and clubbed. I was whacked with bamboo and hit with a brick.

The destruction of the mosque set off some of its worst religious pogroms in India since independence in 1947. Entire Muslim neighborhoods were torched and families slaughtered. Anti-Hindu riots broke out in response in Pakistan and Bangladesh, India’s Muslim neighbors. A Newsweek cover famously warned of “Holy War” on the subcontinent; its rival Time deemed the communal violence an “Unholy War.”

Three-plus decades later, much of India came to a standstill Jan. 22 to watch as Modi consecrated Ram Mandir, a richly decorated $220-million temple built over the destroyed Babri mosque. In many Indian states, it was a public holiday. Stock markets and most schools and offices were closed. Government offices shut for half a day.

Nonstop TV coverage showed the prime minister placing a lotus flower by the jet-black Ram idol in the temple’s inner sanctum, prostrating himself before it and all but declaring Hinduism a state religion. An Indian air force helicopter dropped flower petals outside, priests blew conches and chanted, but Modi was the star.

Read more: News Analysis: The inconvenient truth that haunted Indian Prime Minister Modi's White House visit

"Ram is the faith of India, the foundation of India,” he told a rapt crowd in Hindi, according to the Times of India. "Ram is the thought of India, Ram is the law of India. … Ram is the policy [of India].”

Modi has become the “high priest of Hinduism,” the prime minister’s biographer, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, told the Indian website Rediff.com after the ceremony. “We are very close to becom[ing] a theocratic state."

Such a notion would be anathema to India’s once revered founding leaders, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Government should embrace all religions, not impose one over the others, they argued. Those secular values are enshrined in the Indian constitution.

But secularism has waned as Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party has steadily gained power by blurring the lines between Hinduism and the state. Muslims have their own countries, Modi’s supporters argue. Why shouldn’t we?

Here’s why: Although 80% of India’s 1.4 billion people identify as Hindu, 200 million Muslims and tens of millions of Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and others do not. Human rights groups say non-Hindus are increasingly treated like second-class citizens.

Read more: Can Rahul Gandhi and his 2,175-mile march save democracy in India?

Modi’s "government has adopted laws and policies that discriminate against religious minorities, especially Muslims,” Human Rights Watch warns on its website. “This … has emboldened Hindu nationalist groups to target members of minority communities or civil society groups with impunity.”

In the days since Modi presided over the the temple rituals in Ayodhya, Hindu mobs rampaged in several cities and towns. News reports tallied the damage: Muslim-owned shops destroyed in Mumbai, Muslim students beaten in Pune, a Muslim graveyard burned in Bihar and so on.

Modi doesn’t need to inflame anti-Muslim prejudice to win reelection. He has a 76% approval rating in the latest polls and is on track to become the first Indian prime minister since Nehru to win three consecutive terms.

But the danger of more clashes is growing.

Hindu nationalists have filed lawsuits to remove hundreds of Mughal-era mosques that they claim were erected over other ancient Hindu temples. Their top targets include a mosque supposedly built over the birthplace of Krishna, the Hindu god of compassion, and a second in Varanasi, said to be the sacred abode of Shiva, Hindu god of destruction.

“People will always remember this date, this moment,” Modi said in Ayodhya last week, hailing the start of a "new era."

I fear he may be right.

Bob Drogin is a former reporter and editor for the Los Angeles Times. 

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