UPDATED ANTARCTICA HEAT MELTING GLACIER

Antarctica shock: Bizarre ‘heat source’ coming from three miles below ice revealed

ANTARCTICA
 SDcientists were stunned when they recorded a bizarre "heat source" coming from three miles below the ice, leading scientists to drill down and find out more.

The discovery was made at the southern Pole of Cold, on the icy continent’s East Antarctic Ice Sheet, near Russia’s scientific research station. Scientists drilled almost three miles into the ice after radars spotted an anomaly, discovering what is now known as Lake Vostok.

 The drills stopped just before they hit the water, due to concerns over spoiling what could be a “pristine” ecosystem.

But, they still made some remarkable finds, Amazon Prime’s “Forbidden Mysteries” revealed.

Narrator David Taylor said in 2018: “In the Seventies, via airborne radar, Russia began to suspect that they had inadvertently built their base at the tip of a large sub-glacial lake.

“In the years since orbital radar mapping, combined with surface seismological measurements have confirmed that Lake Vostok, under two miles of solid ice, is the largest lake discovered in the last 100 years.

“Roughly the size of Lake Ontario, but much deeper in places, more than 3,000 feet, and about four times the volume.

"The lake, which is still liquid and not frozen, has been isolated under the ice sheets since anywhere from 13,000 to 14 million years ago, depending on who you talk to.

“The water in the lake, determined by surface thermal scans ranges from 10C to 18C, clearly indicating a subterranean heat source.”

Mr Taylor went on to detail exactly what they found in the drilled hole.

He added: “In addition, the whole lake is covered by a sloping air dome several thousand feet high that’s formed from the hot water melting the overlying ice just above the lake surface.

Clearly indicating a subterranean heat source David Taylor

These new exotic lifeforms raised concerns among the environmental lobby David Taylor
"The lake, which is still liquid and not frozen, has been isolated under the ice sheets since anywhere from 13,000 to 14 million years ago, depending on who you talk to.

“The water in the lake, determined by surface thermal scans ranges from 10C to 18C, clearly indicating a subterranean heat source.”

Mr Taylor went on to detail some of the finds.

He added: “In addition, the whole lake is covered by a sloping air dome several thousand feet high that’s formed from the hot water melting the overlying ice just above the lake surface.

“Core samples taken by the Russians have revealed the presence of microbes, nutrients and various gases like methane embedded in the clear refrozen lake water just above the dome.

“Such items are typical signatures of biological processes, the lake, therefore, has all the ingredients of an incredible scientific find – a completely isolated ecosystem, water, heat, respired gases and current biological activity.

“As the actual scope and composition of the lake became clear, NASA began to see it as an ideal testbed for its plans to drill through the ice and search the oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa.”

But, Mr Taylor explained why the mission was cancelled.

He added: “JPL received NASA grants to develop unique sterile drilling technology, conduct drilling and probe experiments in other terrestrial environments and to prepare a plan to enter the lake.

“But, according to Scientific American, the National Science Foundation suddenly cancelled plans to penetrate the lake over concerns for environmental contamination.

“Core samples returned from the ice refrozen just 100 yards above the lake contained a plethora of microorganisms of various categories, including some never seen before.

“These new exotic lifeforms raised concerns among the environmental lobby that exploration of Lake Vostok might contaminate an otherwise pristine ecosystem.”

Alarming Discovery in Antarctica Serves as Warning Signal for Sea-Level Rise

TOPICS:AntarcticaClimate ChangeClimate ScienceGlacierNew York UniversityOceanography

By NEW YORK UNIVERSITY FEBRUARY 9, 2020

Researchers digging out the drill site after a three-day storm with winds reaching 50 knots. Drifts of snow accumulated up to five feet. Credit: David Holland, NYU and NYU Abu Dhabi

Scientists Find Record Warm Water in Antarctica, Pointing to Cause Behind Troubling Glacier Melt

A team of scientists has observed, for the first time, the presence of warm water at a vital point underneath a glacier in Antarctica—an alarming discovery that points to the cause behind the gradual melting of this ice shelf while also raising concerns about sea-level rise around the globe.

“Warm waters in this part of the world, as remote as they may seem, should serve as a warning to all of us about the potential dire changes to the planet brought about by climate change,” explains David Holland, director of New York University’s Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and NYU Abu Dhabi’s Center for Global Sea Level Change, which conducted the research. “If these waters are causing glacier melt in Antarctica, resulting changes in sea level would be felt in more inhabited parts of the world.”

The recorded warm waters—more than two degrees above freezing—flow beneath the Thwaites Glacier, which is part of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet. The discovery was made at the glacier’s grounding zone—the place at which the ice transitions between resting fully on bedrock and floating on the ocean as an ice shelf and which is key to the overall rate of retreat of a glacier.

Thwaites’ demise alone could have significant impact globally.

Working in the isolated conditions of Antarctica, researchers from NYU and NYU Abu Dhabi operate a borehole winch to lower a turbulence device in the ocean cavity on Thwaites Glacier.

It would drain a mass of water that is roughly the size of Great Britain or the state of Florida and currently accounts for approximately 4 percent of global sea-level rise. Some scientists see Thwaites as the most vulnerable and most significant glacier in the world in terms of future global sea-level rise—its collapse would raise global sea levels by nearly one meter, perhaps overwhelming existing populated areas.

While the glacier’s recession has been observed over the past decade, the causes behind this change had previously not been determined.

“The fact that such warm water was just now recorded by our team along a section of Thwaites grounding zone where we have known the glacier is melting suggests that it may be undergoing an unstoppable retreat that has huge implications for global sea level rise,” notes Holland, a professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

NYU graduate student Aurora Basinski carries a turbulence measuring device to the borehole on Thwaites Glacier. Credit: David Holland, NYU and NYU Abu Dhabi

The scientists’ measurements were made in early January, after the research team created a 600-meter deep and 35-centimeter wide access hole and deployed an ocean-sensing device to measure the waters moving below the glacier’s surface. This device gauges the turbulence of the water as well as other properties such as temperature. The result of turbulence is the mixing of fresh meltwater from the glacier and salty water from the ocean.

It marks the first time that ocean activity beneath the Thwaites Glacier has been accessed through a bore hole and that a scientific instrument measuring underlying ocean turbulence and mixing has been deployed. The hole was opened on January 8 and 9 and the waters beneath the glacier measured January 10 and 11.

Aurora Basinski, an NYU graduate student who made the turbulence measurement, said, “From our observations into the ocean cavity at the grounding zone we observed not only the presence of warm water, but also its turbulence level and thus its efficiency to melt the ice shelf base.”

Another researcher, Keith Nicholls, a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, added, “This is an important result as this is the first time turbulent dissipation measurements have been made in the critical grounding zone of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.”

This research was supported by a $2.1 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation (PLR-1739003). The grant is part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), headed by the United Kingdom’s Natural Environment Research Council and the National Science Foundation, which has been deploying scientists to gather the data needed to understand whether the glacier’s collapse could begin in the next few decades or centuries. Other members of the field team included researchers from Penn State, Georgia Tech, and the British Antarctic Survey.

Antarctica melting: Climate change and the journey to the 'doomsday glacier'

By Justin Rowlatt Chief Environment correspondent  28 January 2020


The images are murky at first.

Sediment sweeps past the camera as Icefin, a bright yellow remotely operated robot submarine, moves tentatively forward under the ice.

Then the waters begin to clear.

Icefin is under almost half a mile (600m) of ice, at the front of one the fastest-changing large glaciers in the world.


Suddenly a shadow looms above, an overhanging cliff of dirt-encrusted ice.

It doesn't look like much, but this is a unique image - the first ever pictures from a frontier that is changing our world.

Icefin has reached the point at which the warm ocean water meets the wall of ice at the front of the mighty Thwaites glacier - the point where this vast body of ice begins to melt.

Image copyright BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY


The 'doomsday' glacier

Glaciologists have described Thwaites as the "most important" glacier in the world, the "riskiest" glacier, even the "doomsday" glacier.

It is massive - roughly the size of Britain.
It already accounts for 4% of world sea level rise each year - a huge figure for a single glacier - and satellite data show that it is melting increasingly rapidly.

There is enough water locked up in it to raise world sea level by more than half a metre.


And Thwaites sits like a keystone right in the centre of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet - a vast basin of ice that contains more than 3m of additional potential sea level rise.

Yet, until this year, no-one has attempted a large-scale scientific survey on the glacier.

The Icefin team, along with 40 or so other scientists, are part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a five-year, $50m (£38m) joint UK-US effort to understand why it is changing so rapidly.

The project represents the biggest and most complex scientific field programme in Antarctic history.



You may be surprised that so little is known about such an important glacier - I certainly was when I was invited to cover the work of the team.

I quickly discover why as I try to get there myself.

Snow on the ice runway delays my flight from New Zealand to McMurdo, the main US research station in Antarctica.

This is the first of a whole catalogue of delays and disruptions.

It takes the science teams weeks just to get to their field camps.

At one stage, the entire season's research is on the point of being cancelled because storms stop all flights to West Antarctica from McMurdo for 17 consecutive days.

Why is Thwaites important

West Antarctica is the stormiest part of the world's stormiest continent.

And Thwaites is remote even by Antarctic standards, more than 1,000 miles (1,600km) from the nearest research station.

Only four people have ever been on the front of the glacier before and they were the advance party for this year's work.

But understanding what is happening here is essential for scientists to be able to predict future sea level rise accurately.

The ice in Antarctica holds 90% of the world's fresh water, and 80% of that ice is in the eastern part of the continent.


The ice in East Antarctica is thick - more than a mile thick on average - but it rests on high ground and only creeps sluggishly to the sea.

Some of it has been around for millions of years.

Western Antarctica, however, is very different. It is smaller but still huge, and is much more vulnerable to change.

Unlike the east it doesn't rest on high ground. In fact, virtually the whole bed is way below sea level. If it weren't for the ice, it would be deep ocean with a few islands.



I've been in Antarctica five weeks before I finally board the red British Antarctic Survey Twin Otter that takes me to the front of the glacier.

I will be camping with the team at what is known as the grounding zone.

They are camped on the ice above the point where the glacier meets the ocean water, and have the most ambitious task of all.

They want to drill down through almost half a mile of ice right at the point where the glacier goes afloat.

No-one has ever done that on a glacier this big and dynamic.

They will use the hole to get access to the sea water that is melting the glacier to find out where it is from and why it is attacking the glacier so vigorously.



They do not have long.

All the delays mean there are just a few weeks of the Antarctic summer left before the weather starts to get really bad.

As the members of the drilling team set up their equipment, I help out with a seismic survey of the bed beneath the glacier.


Dr Kiya Riverman, a glaciologist at the University of Oregon, drills down with an ice auger - a large spiral stainless-steel drill bit - and sets small explosive charges.

The rest of us dig holes in the ice for the "georods" and "geophones" - the electronic ears that listen to the echo of the blast that bounces back from the bedrock through the layers of water and ice.



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The reason the scientists are so worried about Thwaites is because of that downward sloping submarine bed.

It means the glacier gets thicker and thicker as you go inland.

At its deepest point, the base of the glacier is more than a mile below sea level and there is another mile of ice on top of that.

What appears to be happening is that deep warm ocean water is flowing to the coast and down to the ice front, melting the glacier.

As the glacier retreats back, yet more ice is exposed.


It is a bit like cutting slices from the sharp end of a wedge of cheese.

The surface area of each one gets bigger and bigger - providing ever more ice for the water to melt.

And that is not the only effect.

Gravity means ice wants to be flat. As the front of the glacier melts, the weight of the vast reservoir of ice behind it pushes forward.

It wants to "smoosh out," explains Dr Riverman. The higher the ice cliff, she says, the more "smooshing" the glacier wants to do.

So, the more the glacier melts, the more quickly the ice in it is likely to flow.

"The fear is these processes will just accelerate," she says. "It is a feedback loop, a vicious cycle."



Doing science of this scale in such an extreme environment is not just about flying a few scientists to a remote location.

They need tonnes of specialist equipment and tens of thousands of litres of fuel, as well as tents and other camping supplies and food.

I camped on the ice for a month, some of the scientists will be out there for far longer, two months or more.

It took more than a dozen flights by the US Antarctic programme's fleet of huge ski-equipped Hercules cargo planes just to get the scientists and some of their cargo to the project's main staging post in the middle of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Then smaller planes - an elderly Dakota and a couple of Twin Otters - ferried the people and supplies on to the field camps, hundreds of miles down the glacier towards the sea.

The distances are so great they needed to set up another camp halfway down the glacier so the planes could refuel.


The British Antarctic Survey's contribution was an epic overland journey that brought in hundreds of tonnes of fuel and cargo.


Two ice-hardened ships docked alongside an ice cliff at the foot of the Antarctic Peninsula during the last Antarctic summer.

A team of drivers in specialist snow vehicles then dragged it more than a thousand miles across the ice sheet through some of the most inhospitable terrain and weather on earth.

It was tough going, the top speed was just 10mph


Drilling through the ice

The scientists at the grounding zone camp plan to use hot water to drill their hole through the ice.

They need 10,000 litres of water, which means melting 10 tonnes of snow.

Everyone sets to work with spades, hefting snow into the "flubber" - a rubber container the size of a small swimming pool.

"It'll be the most southerly jacuzzi in the world," jokes Paul Anker, a British Antarctic Survey drilling engineer.

The principle is simple - you heat the water with a bank of boilers to just below boiling point and then spray it onto the ice, melting your way down.


But drilling a 30cm hole through almost half a mile of ice at the front of the most remote glacier in the world is not easy.

The ice is about -25C (-13F) so the hole is liable to freeze over and the whole process is dependent on the vagaries of the weather.

By early January, the flubber is full and all the equipment is ready but then we get a warning that yet another storm is on its way.

Antarctic storms can be very intense. It is not unusual to have hurricane force winds as well as very low temperatures.

This one is relatively mild for Antarctica but still involves three days of wind gusting up to 50mph. It blows huge drifts of snow into the camp, swamping the equipment, and all the work stops. 

We sit in the mess tent playing cards and drinking tea and the scientists discuss why the glacier is retreating so rapidly.

They say what is happening here is down to the complex interplay of climate, weather and ocean currents.

The key is the warm seawater, which originates on the other side of the world.

As the Gulf Stream cools between Greenland and Iceland, the water sinks.

This water is salty, which makes it relatively heavy, but is still a degree or two above freezing.

This heavy salty water is carried by a deep ocean current called the Atlantic conveyor all the way down to the south Atlantic

Shifting winds

Here it becomes part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, flowing deep - a third of a mile (530m) - below a layer of much colder water.

The surface water in Antarctica is very cold, just above -2C degrees, the freezing point of salt water.

The deep warm circumpolar water travels all the way around the continent but has been increasingly encroaching on the icy edge of West Antarctica.

This is where our changing climate comes in.

The scientists say the Pacific Ocean is warming up and that is shifting wind patterns off the coast of West Antarctica, allowing the warm deep water to well up over the continental shelf.

"The deep Antarctic circumpolar water is only a handful of degrees warmer than the water above it - a degree or two above 0C - but that's warm enough to light this glacier up," says David Holland, an oceanographer with New York University and one of the lead scientists at the grounding zone camp.



I was supposed to leave Antarctica at the end of December but all the delays mean the drilling only begins on 7 January.

That is when the satellite phone call comes from the United States Antarctic Program HQ in McMurdo.

We are told we cannot delay our flights off the continent any longer and must leave on the supply plane that is due to arrive at the camp in an hour or so.

It is very frustrating to be forced to leave before the hole is finished and the instruments have been deployed, especially given how long it took to get here.

We say our goodbyes and board the plane.

I look back and see the wheel at the top of the drill turning, the black hose spooling out steadily.

They are almost half way down through the ice.

The plane flies up over the camp and directly north, out towards the ocean.

The scientists had told me that we had been camped on what is basically a small bay of ice protected by a horseshoe of raised ground.

As we fly out over the front of the glacier, I realise with a shock just how fragile a fingerhold it is.


There is no mistaking the epic forces at work here, slowly tearing, ripping and shattering the ice.

In some places the great sheet of ice has broken up completely, collapsing into a jumble of massive icebergs which float in drunken chaos.

Elsewhere, there are cliffs of ice, some of which rise up almost a mile from the sea bed.

The front of the glacier is almost 100 miles wide (160km) and is collapsing into the sea at up to two miles (3km) a year.

The scale is staggering and explains why Thwaites is already such an important component of world sea level rise, but I am shocked to discover there is another process that could accelerate its retreat even more

Melt rates are increasing

Most glaciers that flow into the sea have what is known as an "ice pump".

Sea water is salty and dense which makes it heavy. Melt water is fresh and therefore relatively light.

As the glacier melts, the fresh water therefore tends to flow upwards, drawing up the heavier warmer sea water behind it.

When the sea water is cold, this process is very slow, the ice pump usually just melts a few dozen centimetres a year - easily balanced by the new ice created by falling snow.

But warm water transforms the process, according to the scientists.

Evidence from other glaciers shows that if you increase the amount of warm water that is reaching the glacier the ice pump works much faster.

"It can set glaciers on fire," says Prof Holland, "increasing melt rates by as much as a hundred-fold."

The small plane takes us to the camp in the middle of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet but more bad weather means more delays and it is nine days before a Hercules comes to take us back to McMurdo.
By then we have been joined by some of the scientists.

It has been a very successful season.

They have confirmed that the deep circumpolar warm water is getting under the glacier and have collected huge amounts of data.

Icefin, the robot submarine, has managed to make five missions, taking a host of measurements in the water beneath the glacier and recording some extraordinary images.

It will take years to process all the information the team has gathered and incorporate the findings into the models that are used to project future sea level rise.

Rising sea levels

Thwaites is not going to vanish overnight - the scientists say it will take decades, possibly more than a century.

But that should not make us complacent.

A metre of sea level rise may not sound much, particularly when you consider that in some places the tide can rise and fall by three or four metres every day.

But sea level has a huge effect on the severity of storm surges, says Prof David Vaughan, the director of science at the British Antarctic Survey.

Take London



An increase in sea level of 50cm would mean the storm that used to come every thousand years will now come every 100 years.

If you increase that to a metre then that millennial storm is likely to come once a decade.

"When you think about it, we shouldn't be surprised by any of this," says Prof Vaughan as we are preparing to board the plane that will take us back to New Zealand and then home.

Ever-increasing carbon dioxide levels are putting a lot more heat into the atmosphere and the oceans.

Heat is energy, and energy drives the weather and ocean currents.

Increase the amount of energy in the system, he says, and inevitably big global processes are going to change.

"They already have in the Arctic," says Prof Vaughan with a sigh. "What we are seeing here in the Antarctic is just another huge system responding in its own way."

Research and graphics by Alison Trowsdale, Becky Dale Lilly Huynh, Irene de la Torre. Photographs by Jemma Cox and David Vaughan.

Additional research provided by Professor Andrew Shepherd, Leeds University.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/01/temperatures-at-florida-size-glacier-in.html
Temperatures at a Florida-Size Glacier in Antarctica Alarm Scientists

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/first-ever-footage-of-underside-of.html
First ever footage of the underside of the 'doomsday' Thwaites glacier has been sent back by a robotic yellow submarine dubbed Icefin.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=ANTARCTICA

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=THWAITE

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=GLACIER

UN: Antarctic high temp records will take months to verify

In this undated file photo, a lonely penguin appears in Antarctica during the southern hemisphere's summer season. The temperature in northern Antarctica hit nearly 65 degrees (18.3 degrees Celsius), a likely heat record on the continent best known for snow, ice, and penguins. The reading was taken Thursday, Feb. 5, 2020 at an Argentine research base and still needs to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Jana, File)

Record high temperatures reportedly measured in Antarctica will take months to verify, the U.N. weather agency said Sunday.

A spokesman for the World Meteorological Organization said the measurements made by researchers from Argentina and Brazil earlier this month have to undergo a formal process to ensure that they meet international standards.

"A formal decision on whether or not this is a record is likely to be several months away," said Jonathan Fowler, the WMO spokesman.

Scientists at an Argentine research base measured a temperature of 18.3 degrees Celsius (nearly 65 degrees Fahrenheit) Feb. 6 on a peninsula that juts out from Antarctica toward the southern tip of South America. The previous record there was 17.5 degrees celsius (63.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in March 2015.

Last week, researchers from Brazil claimed to have measured temperatures of 20.75 degrees Celsius on an island off the peninsula —beating the record for the entire Antarctic region of 19.8 Celsius in January 1982.

Fowler said both of the new measurements would need to be transmitted to Prof. Randall Cerveny, a researcher at Arizona State University who examines reported temperature records for WMO.

Cerveny then shares the data with a wider group of scientists who "will carefully evaluate the available evidence (including comparisons to surrounding stations) and debate the merits and problems of the observation," said Fowler.

The evaluation normally takes six to nine months, after which Cerveny would "formally either accept or reject the potential extreme," giving official WMO approval to the new record, he said.

Climate change is causing the Arctic and the Antarctic to warm faster than other parts of the planet.

Explore furtherAntarctica appears to have broken a heat record

© 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Antarctica broke two temperature records in a week

“We have never seen anything like this."

By Umair Irfan Updated Feb 13, 2020

Argentina’s Esperanza base in Antarctica reported a record high temperature this week. Vanderlei Almeida/AFP via Getty Images

The Antarctic region has set another stunningly high temperature record: 69.35 degrees Fahrenheit (20.75°C).

Brazilian scientists detected the balmy temperature on February 9 on Seymour Island, just off the tip of the Trinity Peninsula, the section of Antarctica closest to South America, first reported by The Guardian.

“We are seeing the warming trend in many of the sites we are monitoring, but we have never seen anything like this,” said Carlos Schaefer, a Brazilian government scientist who studies the Antarctic, told The Guardian.

The new record came less than two days after a temperature of 64.9 degrees F (18.3°C) was recorded on the continent — which broke the previous record set in 2015.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that Esperanza, Argentina’s research base on the Trinity Peninsula, detected the previous balmy temperature spike on February 7. The record prior to that, 63.5 degrees, in 2015.

Esperanza Base at the Northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula reported a daily high temperature of 18.3 °C (65 °F).

If confirmed, then this will be a new all-time record high temperature ever observed anywhere in the continent of Antarctica.https://t.co/MUtjvFTeBa pic.twitter.com/5X26B1is5s— Robert Rohde (@RARohde) February 7, 2020

“The record appears to be likely associated (in the short term) with what we call a regional ‘foehn’ event over the area: a rapid warming of air coming down a slope/mountain,” said Randall Cerveny, WMO’s weather and climate extremes rapporteur, in a statement.

Animation of T850 in °C (temperature at 850hPa) showing this heat wave over the Antarctic Peninsula. This will be followed tomorrow by an interesting foehn event according to GFS. https://t.co/IbZ2KFKuxM pic.twitter.com/J195ZAw1lY— Xavier Fettweis (@xavierfettweis) February 7, 2020

Shortly after the heat spike, the European Space Agency reported that a 120 square mile chunk of ice had broken off the the Pine Island Glacier, one of the continent’s most endangered glaciers.

❄️ The Pine Island glacier calving event was captured by #Sentinel2 ️ in true colour yesterday, 11 February, where many large icebergs are clearly visible.

Further cracks seemed to have appeared since the last update from 09 February. pic.twitter.com/04D1jwcrxJ— Copernicus EU (@CopernicusEU) February 12, 2020

“Pine Island glacier, like its neighbouring Thwaites Glacier, has been dramatically losing ice over the last 25 years,” according to the WMO.

It’s currently summer in the southern hemisphere, and even icy Antarctica starts to warm up as it receives uninterrupted sunlight through the season. However, temperatures usually don’t get much higher than 50 degrees.

On this rapidly warming planet of ours, the polar regions are heating up faster than the rest. Earth has warmed up by just over 1.8 degrees on average since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, when humans began spewing heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. But the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 5.4 degrees in just the last 50 years.

That rising heat is particularly worrying because it’s fueling loss in the world’s largest reservoir of ice: the Antarctic ice sheets. If all the ice in Antarctica were to melt, it would raise global sea levels by 190 feet. It’s hard to know exactly how much Antarctica’s ice is contributing to global sea-level rise right now, but several estimates show that this ice could add upward of 16 inches of sea-level rise by the end of the century based on current rates.

The latest science also shows an acceleration in ice melt. Between 1979 and 2017, the annual rate of ice loss increased sixfold. This cold freshwater flowing into the ocean in turn is influencing weather patterns around the world in ways that scientists are still trying to understand.

Last month, 50-year-old climate activist Lewis Pugh swam in a river formed beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet to highlight the impacts of warming.

The opposite end of the world is also warming rapidly. In 2018, the Arctic experienced its heat wave in winter for the third year in a row. Together, these events show that a lot more heat and change are in store for the coolest parts of the world.

Antarctica registers record temperature of over 20 C 

Glaciers are pictured in Antarctica's Chiriguano Bay in November 2019

Scientists in Antarctica have recorded a new record temperature of 20.75 degrees Celsius (69.35 Fahrenheit), breaking the barrier of 20 degrees for the first time on the continent, a researcher said Thursday.

"We'd never seen a temperature this high in Antarctica," Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer told AFP.

He cautioned that the reading, taken at a monitoring station on an island off the continent's northern tip on February 9, "has no meaning in terms of a climate-change trend," because it is a one-off temperature and not part of a long-term data set.

But news that the icy continent is now recording temperatures in the relatively balmy 20s is likely to further fuel fears about the warming of the planet.

The reading was taken at Seymour Island, part of a chain off the peninsula that curves out from the northern tip of Antarctica.

The island is home to Argentina's Marambio research base.

Schaefer, a soil scientist, said the reading was taken as part of a 20-year-old research project on the impact of climate change on the region's permafrost.

The previous high was in the 19s, he said.

"We can't use this to anticipate climatic changes in the future. It's a data point," he said.

"It's simply a signal that something different is happening in that area."

Glaciers are pictured at Chiriguano Bay at night in Antarctica in November 2019

Map of Antarctica locating Seymour Island which recorded its hottest ever temperature on February 9.

A Half Moon Island iceberg is pictured in Antarctica in November 2019

Still, he added, a temperature that high had never been registered in Antarctica.

Accelerating melt-off from glaciers and especially ice sheets in Antarctica is helping drive sea level rises, threatening coastal megacities and small island nations.

The news came a week after Argentina's National Meteorological Service recorded the hottest day on record for Argentine Antarctica: 18.3 degrees Celsius at midday at the Esperanza base, located near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula.

The previous record stood at 17.5 degrees on March 24, 2015, it said. It has been recording Antarctic temperatures since 1961.

The past decade has been the hottest on record, the United Nations said last month, with 2019 the second-hottest year ever, after 2016.

And 2020 looks set to continue the trend: last month was the hottest January on record.

Argentine Antarctica has hottest day on record

UN assesses if Antarctica temperature reading is record high

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The U.N. weather agency said Friday that an Argentine research base on the northern tip of Antarctica is reporting a temperature that, if confirmed, could be a record high for the icy continent.

World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis, citing figures from Argentina's national weather service, said the Esperanza base recorded 18.3 degrees C elsius ( 64.9 Fahrenheit) on Thursday—topping the former record of 17.5 degrees tallied in March 2015.

The WMO's committee that draws on the agency's weather and climate archives is now expected to verify whether the reading would amount to a new record.

"Everything we have seen thus far indicates a likely legitimate record but we will of course begin a formal evaluation of the record once we have full data from SMN and on the meteorological conditions surrounding the event," said WMO's Weather and Climate Extremes rapporteur, Randal Cerveny, referring to the acronym for Argentina's weather service.

"The record appears to be likely associated (in the short term) with what we call a regional 'foehn' event over the area," Cerveny said, defining it as a rapid warming of air coming down a slope or mountain.

WMO says the Antarctic Peninsula, on the continent's northwest tip near South America, is among the fastest warming regions on Earth—at almost 3 degrees Celsius over the last half-century.

Some 87 percent of glaciers along the west coast of the peninsula have retreated over that 50-year span, with most showing "an accelerated retreat" over the last 12 years, WMO said.Argentine Antarctica has hottest day on record

It’s T-Shirt Weather in Antarctica as Temperature Breaks Record

Laura Millan Lombrana

(Bloomberg) -- The temperature at one research base in Antarctica reached a record-breaking 18.3 degrees Celsius (65 Fahrenheit) on Thursday, almost a full degree above the previous high set five years ago.

© Getty Retreating snow cover exposes barren rock near 

Cape Folger on the Budd Coast on January 11, 2008 in 

the Australian Antarctic Territory.

Argentine scientists on the Esperanza base who confirmed the reading said that wasn’t the only record broken this week. The nation’s Marambio site registered the highest temperature for the month of February since 1971. Thermometers there hit 14.1 Celsius, above the previous February 2013 reading of 13.8 Celsius.


The reports are shocking, but not surprising, said Frida Bengtsson, who is leading a expedition to the Antarctic for the environmental group Greenpeace.

“We’ve been in the Antarctic for the last month, documenting the dramatic changes this part of the world is undergoing as our planet warms,” she said in an email. “In the last month, we’ve seen penguin colonies sharply declining under the impacts of climate change in this supposedly pristine environment.”

Antarctica is among the fastest-warming regions in the planet, with the Antarctic Peninsula, where the Argentine bases are located, warming particularly quickly, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Average temperatures on the continent have risen almost 3 degree Celsius over the past 50 years, and during that time glaciers along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated.

WMO experts will now investigate whether the warm event recorded by Argentine scientists is a weather phenomenon known as foehn. That is a common event in Alpine regions that often involves high winds at altitude and the rapid warming of air as it heads down slopes or peaks, driven by significant air pressure differences, the WMO said in a statement.

The WMO will also determine whether the temperature extreme is a new record for the entire Antarctic landmass. The Signy island in the Antarctic region, which includes everywhere south of 60 degrees latitude, recorded an all-time high temperature of 19.8 Celsius in January 1982. The average annual temperature ranges from about -10 Celsius on the Antarctic coast to -60 Celsius at the highest points of the interior.

(Updates with ongoing research by the World Meteorological Organization.)

Antarctica appears to have broken a heat record

by Christina Larson

In this undated file photo, a lonely penguin appears in Antarctica during the southern hemisphere's summer season. The temperature in northern Antarctica hit nearly 65 degrees (18.3 degrees Celsius), a likely heat record on the continent best known for snow, ice, and penguins. The reading was taken Thursday, Feb. 5, 2020 at an Argentine research base and still needs to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Jana, File)

The temperature in northern Antarctica hit nearly 65 degrees (18.3 degrees Celsius), a likely heat record on the continent best known for snow, ice and penguins.

The reading was taken Thursday at an Argentine research base and still needs to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization.

"Everything we have seen thus far indicates a likely legitimate record," Randall Cerveny, who researches records for the organization, said in a statement. He added that he is waiting for full data to confirm.

The research base, called Esperanza, sits on a peninsula that juts up toward the southern tip of South America. The peninsula has warmed significantly over the past half century—almost 5.4 degrees (3 C), according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Cerveny said the unusually high temperature was likely due, in the short term, to a rapid warming of air coming down from a mountain slope.

The previous record of 63.5 degrees (17.5 C) was set in March 2015.

Climate change is heating up Antarctica and the Arctic—the Earth's polar regions—faster than other regions of the planet.

The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the globe, according to an annual report published in December by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There is no similar yearly report for Antarctica.

UN assesses if Antarctica temperature reading is record high

Global warming to blame for hottest day in Argentine Antarctica

Global warming to blame for hottest day in Argentine Antarctica

At Argentina's Esperanza military base, pictured in March 2014, temperatures reached the highest on record

Global warming is to blame for Argentine Antarctica recording its hottest day since readings began, Greenpeace said on Friday.

Temperatures climbed to 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.9 degrees Fahrenheit) at midday Thursday at the research station Esperanza base, the highest temperature on record since 1961, according to the National Meteorological Service.

The previous record stood at 17.5 degrees on March 24, 2015.

The new record is "of course shocking but unfortunately not surprising because Antarctica is warming up with the rest of the planet," said Frida Bengtsson, marine environment specialist for Greenpeace, in a statement.

At Marambio, another Argentine base in Antarctica, temperatures reached 14.1 degrees Celsius on Thursday, the hottest temperature for a day in February since 1971.

The news comes after a decade of record temperatures on the planet and a 2019 that was the second hottest year since registers have been kept.

And the new decade has begun along the same tendency, with last month the hottest January on record.

The effects of global warming have already seen ocean levels rise due to melting ice caps.

The two largest ice caps on the planet, in Antarctica and Greenland, have already lost an average of a combined 430 billion tons a year since 2006.

According to UN climate experts, the oceans rose 15 centimeters during the 20th century.

It's a threat to coastal towns and small islands the world over.

One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is the Thwaites glacier, which is the size of Britain.

Scientists say that if it melted it would raise sea levels by 65 centimeters.

"Over the last 30 years, the amount of ice melting off Thwaites and adjacent glaciers has nearly doubled," said the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration group of scientists in a statement.

Argentina has had a presence in Antarctica for the past 114 years, including several scientific research bases, and is also a signatory of the Antarctic Treaty, which came into force in June 1961 and prohibits any militarization of the continent.

Argentine Antarctica has hottest day on record

• It’s T-Shirt Weather in Antarctica as Temperature ...

How learning about fish can help us save the Amazon rainforest
by Field Museum

Lesley de Souza bringing in an Arapaima she and her team collected with a gill net in the Rupununi. Credit: Lesley de Souza, Field Museum.

Think of the Amazon, and you probably think of jaguars, monkeys, or parrots. But many of the rainforest's secrets can be found hidden in its watery depths, from the fish swimming around its rivers and lakes And because these animals live in a river network that spans the South American continent, studying them helps conservationists understand why connected ecosystems are healthy ecosystems. Scientists from the Field Museum investigated fish populations in the South American country of Guyana, which helped to show why aquatic corridors matter in conservation.Their study, which they published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, makes an important case that protecting one tiny corner of the Guiana Shield can help protect rivers and biodiversity across the Amazon.

"I want to make a case for why this area should be protected, and I can tell that story using fish," says Dr. Lesley de Souza, conservation ecologist at the Field Museum. "We found over 450 species of fish in an area smaller than Connecticut. The entire Mississippi River basin has fewer than 200 species. We're talking about a pretty small area that has a ton of diversity."

In this study, de Souza focused on the lakes, rivers, and streams in the Rupununi region of central Guyana in northeastern South America. The area is inspiration for Pixar's balloon adventure, Up. For this study, De Souza traversed the same rocky outcroppings, breathtaking waterfalls, and lush jungles as the movie's characters, looking for fish. "We made several expeditions to the region and collected fish in a variety of habitats to better understand where they live, and further assess the habitats' conservation value, de Souza says. "We were taking fish out of rocks and caves, fish that live in woody debris in the water, sticking our hands in holes and hollow logs and finding fish. Anywhere there might be a fish, we checked."

A sample of the colorful variety of fishes in the Rupununi

 from cichlids to catfishes Credit: Lesley de Souza, Field Museum.

What de Souza's team found was a wild variety of underwater life. They collected fish that looked like little silver knives. They pulled up their nets and found fish camouflaged as dead leaves. They found Arapaima, a ten-foot-long fish that gulps air at the water's surface in addition to breathing underwater with gills. Her team brought their specimens back to natural history museums (including the Field Museum) and completed the arduous task of identifying each one. The scientists then analyzed the fishes' habitats, and realized that the incredible diversity emerged from the unique environments of the Rupununi Portal.

De Souza calls this region a "portal" because when river levels rise in the rainy season, two river systems that remain separate during the rest of the year are connected by floodwaters, and fish can travel from the Guiana Shield to the heart of the Amazon. As the water recedes, the savannas and wetlands reemerge and the fish separate into their respective river systems again—until the next rainy season.

Conservation programs often overlook freshwater environments, focusing on land habitats instead. If you visited the dry Rupununi savannas outside of rainy season, you'd likely make the same mistake. De Souza's analysis helps show how conservation requires healthy watersheds, too—especially connected ones. "As the water goes up and down," de Souza explains, "the Rupununi acts like a heartbeat that pumps this incredible fish diversity throughout the country. If we don't protect it, that heartbeat stops." Better information about the fish species living in the area can provide evidence for why it needs to be protected.

Lesley de Souza with her team seining for fishes in the 

Rupununi savannas during the dry season. Credit: Lesley de Souza, Field Museum.

And by protecting the lakes and rivers where the fish live, we can help the planet overall. The forests growing around these bodies of water are crucial in absorbing the carbon emissions that have created climate change. Conserving the Rupununi portal will yield long-term benefits for the entire planet.

Conserving the Rupununi portal will yield long-term benefits for the entire Amazon, but de Souza emphasizes the immediate local need for protection. "I focus on fish in this area because they're so important for the people," de Souza says. "Indigenous communities are the primary inhabitants of this region, and they are intimately connected to the forest, the savanna, and the wetlands. Their primary source of protein is fish. In order to maintain fish reproductive cycles and people's livelihoods, the entire system needs to stay intact."

Through this research, de Souza's team discovered a previously unknown portal farther south of the Rupununi portal. De Souza is excited to see what else researchers might discover there: "I have always been intrigued by the mystery of what is below the surface. Fish communities are an indicator of forest health, and they can tell us things we just can't learn on land."Six new species of hideously adorable tentacle-nosed catfish discovered in Amazon

Researchers create new tools to monitor water quality, measure water insecurity

by Northwestern University

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A wife-husband team will present both high-tech and low-tech solutions for improving water security at this year's American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Seattle on Sunday, Feb. 16. Northwestern University's Sera Young and Julius Lucks come from different ends of the science spectrum but meet in the middle to provide critical new information to approach this global issue.

Lucks, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and an internationally recognized leader in synthetic biology, is developing a new technology platform to allow individuals across the globe to monitor the quality of their water cheaply, quickly and easily. Lucks will discuss how advances made at Northwestern's Center for Synthetic Biology are making these discoveries possible in his presentation "Rapid and Low-cost Technologies for Monitoring Water Quality in the Field."

In "A Simple Indicator of Global Household Water Experiences," Young, associate professor of anthropology in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, will discuss the Household Water Insecurity Experiences Scale (HWISE.org), the first globally equivalent scale to measure experiences of household-level water access and use. Young led a large consortium of scholars in the development of the HWISE Scale, which permits comparisons across settings to quantify the social, political, health and economic consequences of household water insecurity. The HWISE Scale is already being used by scientists and governmental- and non-governmental organizations around the world, including the Gallup World Poll.

Both presentations will be presented with representatives from the World Bank and UNESCO as part of the session "Managing Water: New Tools for Sustainable Development" to be held from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 16, at the Washington State Convention Center.

Prior to the 3:30 p.m. panel on Sunday, Young and Lucks will participate in an Expo Stage Debrief: "Managing Water: New Tools for Sustainable Development?" which will be held at 11:30 a.m. in the Expo Hall at the convention center.

New tool provides critical information for addressing the global water crisis

Blame game over 830-mn-euro settlement in VW's German diesel cases

by Yann Schreiber
 

 

Some 400,000 German buyers of VW diesels are pursuing the carmaker in a group lawsuit

Consumer representatives and car giant Volkswagen each blamed the other Friday for a breakdown in talks over a settlement for 400,000 German customers in the firm's "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal.

VW took the first shot, saying it had offered 830 million euros ($900 million) to consumer organisation VZBV but that "disproportionate" fee demands from its lawyers had torpedoed the deal.

In a statement, the sprawling 12-brand group later said it would "offer customers registered as part of the mass lawsuit... the negotiated settlement without support from the VZBV".

For his part, VZBV director Klaus Mueller told reporters in Berlin that the talks "failed because of VW's lack of openness to enable a transparent, trustworthy and secure system" to actually pay out the cash.

"We cannot in any way support a settlement that isn't trustworthy or that has impossible to predict consequences for consumers," he added.

The mass lawsuit is one of the biggest legal hangovers from VW's 2015 admission to fitting 11 million vehicles worldwide with software to make the engines appear less polluting in regulatory tests than in real driving conditions.

While American diesel buyers have enjoyed generous buy-back and compensation schemes, German drivers have so far gone uncompensated for the impact of the scandal, which has since spread to other carmakers.

Some 400,000 owners had rallied behind the VZBV in the first-of-its-kind grouped proceeding, which opened last September.

Around 70,000 individuals also have open claims against VW, while 55,000 cases have been settled or decided in court.

"We will continue the court case with all our strength," Mueller said, adding that "it's baffling to me that VW broke off talks in this way today."

30 billion euros

Volkswagen said in an online announcement it was ready to pay out between 1,350 and 6,257 euros per vehicle, depending on model and age, so long as it had been purchased before Jan 1, 2016, with the buyer a German resident and still in possession of the car.

So far the fallout from diesel cheating has cost VW more than 30 billion euros worldwide in legal costs, fines and compensation, most of it in the US.

A response from the authorities was slower to come and less painful in Germany, with VW and subsidiaries Audi and Porsche paying a total of 2.3 billion euros in fines in the group's home country.

Meanwhile the company's efforts to polish up its image have prompted bosses to pivot sharply towards offering far more electric vehicles in the coming years than previously planned.

VW's shares fell Friday, but losses were limited because investors thought any final settlement with German drivers would only be a tiny fraction of the total costs of dieselgate so far.

The stock closed at 170.46 euros on the Frankfurt stock exchange Friday, down 1.2 percent, clearly underperforming the DAX blue chip index.

As well as the car owners, investors have also launched mass lawsuits relating to "dieselgate".

They demand compensation for VW shares' loss in value immediately after the scandal broke.

Volkswagen in talks to settle German 'dieselgate' mass lawsuit

US peach farmer wins $265 mln damages over Bayer, BASF herbicide

Farmer Bill Bader claimed the companies encouraged farmers to use the dicamba weedkiller irresponsibly

A US jury has awarded $265 million to a Missouri farmer who blamed herbicide from chemical giants Bayer AG and German rival BASF for destroying his peach orchards, in a case set to bolster 140 other lawsuits.

Jurors in federal court in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, made the ruling on Saturday after peach farmer Bill Bader claimed the companies encouraged farmers to use the dicamba weedkiller irresponsibly.

Bloomberg News reported that the case was the first US trial over dicamba herbicide, which is alleged to have wrecked crops across America's Midwest by drifting onto plants that were unable to resist it.

Much like Roundup, another much-criticised herbicide marketed by Monsanto, dicamba has been on the market many years.

Use of the chemical jumped after Monsanto—which was bought by Germany's Bayer in 2018—introduced seeds that can resist the weed-killer.

But the product has been blamed for polluting around four percent of US soybean fields in 2017. A common complaint is that the herbicide spreads to nearby areas.

The fight over dicamba comes in the wake of a case in which Bayer was ordered by a California jury to pay $290 million for failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that Roundup might cause cancer.

In January, reports suggested Bayer could stump up $10 billion in a settlement with tens of thousands of US plaintiffs suffering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Dicamba herbicide is alleged to have wrecked crops across America's Midwest by drifting onto plants that were unable to resist it

The cancer sufferers say they developed the disease after exposure to glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.

Bayer, which has maintained that dicamba is safe for crops as long as farmers follow instructions, said in a statement it would "swiftly appeal the decision".

Meanwhile BASF said it was "surprised" by the ruling and would "use all available legal resources

US officials face growing pressure over dicamba herbicide use

U.S. peach grower awarded $265 million from Bayer, BASF in weedkiller lawsuit

February 16, 2020


FILE PHOTO: Logo of Bayer AG at a plant of the German 

pharmaceutical and chemical maker in WuppertalMore

(Reuters) - A Missouri jury's $265 million award to peach grower Bill Bader in his lawsuit against herbicide providers Bayer and BASF has raised the stakes for the two companies as at least 140 similar cases head to U.S. courts later this year.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, handed Bader, the state's largest peach farmer, $15 million in actual and $250 million in punitive damages. He sued the companies saying his 1,000-acre orchard was irreparably harmed by herbicide that they produce, which drifted onto its trees from nearby farms.

The three-week trial was the first case in the United States to rule on the use of dicamba-based herbicides alleged to have damaged tens of thousands of acres of U.S. cropland. The herbicide can become a vapor and drift for miles when used in certain weather, farmers have claimed.

Bayer said it was "disappointed with the jury’s verdict," and plans to appeal. BASF also said it was “surprised and disappointed” by the decision and plans to appeal. Both companies said their dicamba-based herbicides are safe when used as directed.

Bayer faces separate multi-billion-dollar litigation over the Roundup weedkiller made by Monsanto, the U.S. firm it took over for $63 billion in 2018. Monsanto made Roundup and dicamba, and Bayer is being sued over both products.

"We believe the evidence presented at trial demonstrated that Monsanto’s products were not responsible for the losses," Bayer said.

Bayer and BASF face other dicamba lawsuits that could begin late his year before the same judge in Missouri, said attorney Billy Randles, whose firm represented Bader and also represents dozens of others with similar claims.

"These are all the same" allegations, said Randles. "They claim negligent design, failure to warn and all allege a joint venture" between Bayer and BASF. The jury found the two equally liable for the damages.

Bader Farms, in southern Missouri near the Arkansas border, said it lost many trees when the herbicide containing dicamba was used on nearby soybean and cotton farms and drifted onto its property.

The farm said repeated dicamba exposure beginning in 2015 killed or weakened the fruit trees.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency imposed restrictions on the use of dicamba in November 2018 over concerns about potential damage to nearby crops.

"As long as dicamba is around, it’s not viable," Randles said of the orchard.

Google mulls licensing deals with news media: industry sources

Google is said to be considering licensing deals with news media groups, which would be a shift in strategy for the internet giant

Google is in discussions on deals to pay media organizations for content, a move aimed at blunting criticism that it unfairly profits from copyrighted news, according to people familiar with the talks.

Negotiations between the internet giant and news outlets were said to be in the early stages, with most of the publishers located in France and other parts of Europe.

Paying for news would diverge from the Alphabet-owned internet titan's practice of freely mining the internet for material it displays in search results.

A licensing deal would likely be welcomed by news organizations that contend Google derives profits from ads alongside their news articles, including "snippets" in search results.

Contacted by AFP Friday, Google indicated it is seeking new ways to help publishers.

"We want to help people find quality journalism—it's important to informed democracy and helps support a sustainable news industry," Google vice president of news Richard Gingras said in a statement.

"We care deeply about this and are talking with partners and looking at more ways to expand our ongoing work with publishers, building on programs like our Google News Initiative."

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Friday Google was considering deals for a "premium" news product.

The California tech giant has remained steadfast about not paying for news article links displayed in search results and is not changing that position, people familiar with the matter told AFP.

It has argued that it drives traffic to news websites and thereby helps those publishers get ad revenues.

Google's News Initiative works with publishers to encourage readership and paid subscriptions to their offerings.

Facebook, which has been hit with similar criticism, last year launched a dedicated "news tab" with professionally-produced content—a move by the social network to promote journalism and shed its reputation as a platform for misinformation.

Facebook was expected to pay some of the news organizations, reportedly millions of dollars in some cases.

The move by Google comes amid pressure to comply with a European copyright directive on content in search results.

Google said last year it would not pay European media outlets for using their articles, pictures and videos in its searches in France, the first country to ratify the copyright directive, raising the prospect of legal action against the internet titan.

The tech giant said it would only display content in its search engine results and on Google News from media groups who had given their permission for it to be used for free.

Online platforms' relationship with news media: it's complicated

UAE issues reactor licence for first Arab nuclear power plant

 The Arab world's first nuclear power plant is being built

 by a South Korean-led consortium in a deal worth over $20 billion

The United Arab Emirates said Monday it has issued a licence for a reactor at its Barakah nuclear power plant, the first in the Arab world, hailing a "historic moment".

The national nuclear regulator "has approved the issuance" of the operating licence for the first of four reactors at the plant, said Hamad al-Kaabi, the UAE representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"This is a historic moment for the UAE, making it the first Arab country in the region to operate a nuclear power plant," Kaabi told a press conference.

"This milestone was achieved due to the UAE's vision and its leadership to build a peaceful nuclear energy programme to cater for the future needs of energy in the country."

The Barakah plant, located on the Gulf coast west of the UAE's capital, had been due to come online in late 2017 but faced a number of delays that officials attributed to safety and regulatory requirements.

Abu Dhabi authorities said in January that the plant would start operating within a few months.

"The full operation of Barakah plant in the near future will contribute to the UAE's efforts for development and sustainability," Kaabi said Monday, without giving a new date.

The plant is being built by a consortium led by the Korea Electric Power Corporation in a deal worth over $20 billion.

When fully operational, the four reactors have the capacity to generate 5,600 megawatts of electricity, around 25 percent of the nation's needs. The remaining three reactors are almost ready for operation.

The UAE has substantial energy reserves, but nuclear and renewables are targeted to contribute around 27 percent of its electricity needs by 2021.Qatar signs $470 mn solar deal


Arab World’s First Nuclear Reactor Cleared for Startup

(Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates took a final step toward switching on the Arab world’s first commercial nuclear power plant, even as the country prospers by producing and selling fossil fuels. 

 

© Arun Girija/WAM via AP, File FILE - This undated photograph released by the United Arab Emirates' state-run WAM news agency, shows the under-construction Barakah nuclear power plant in Abu Dhabi's Western desert. South Korean President Moon Jae-in's visit to the United Arab Emirates this week shows the Asian nation's deepening cooperation with the Gulf country, from buying its oil, building the Arabian Peninsula's first nuclear power plant and potentially backing it in war. (Arun Girija/WAM via AP, File)

The U.A.E.’s regulatory watchdog gave long-awaited approval on Monday to the operator of the Barakah reactor, nudging the U.A.E. to the brink of membership in an elite club of 30 countries that make power from smashing atoms.


Built and run by a joint venture with Korea Electric Power Corp., the plant can now start loading fuel and ramp up to full commercial operation within several months. Other Arab countries, notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are also pushing into nuclear power in spite of questions about cost and safety.

“Barakah was meant to be the showcase for the international nuclear industry,” said Mycle Schneider, an independent analyst. “Grid connection is at least three years late, and there is no doubt that it is way over budget.”

Barakah is the first of four civilian reactors that the government plans to fire up by 2023. The plants, located on a sparsely populated strip of desert on the Persian Gulf coast, are estimated to cost $25 billion. The U.A.E. expects them to produce as much as 5.6 gigawatts once they’re fully commissioned, or almost a fifth of the country’s current installed generating capacity.
Earlier Efforts

Arab nations have tried, and failed, in years past to build nuclear capabilities. Iraq under Saddam Hussein had a well-developed program until Israel, an unacknowledged nuclear state, stifled his ambitions by destroying the Osiris research reactor in an air raid in 1981. Non-Arab Iran has operated the Bushehr facility since 2011, but Tehran faces crippling U.S. sanctions over its atomic program.

Barakah marks a new milestone for the region. The U.A.E., third-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is trying to diversify its domestic energy supply and lessen its dependence on oil. Dubai, the country’s business hub, targets meeting 75% of its needs from solar energy and other renewables by 2050.

U.S. Says Saudis Must Forgo Enrichment for Nuclear Sharing Deal

Schneider questions the regional nuclear push. “Nuclear power is now clearly the most expensive form of electricity generation,” the analyst said. While the cost of solar photo-voltaic power on a utility scale has plunged 90% over the past decade, nuclear power costs have risen by 26%, Schneider said.

And while advocates of nuclear energy argue that the technology is becoming safer, opponents point to catastrophic incidents, including the meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima plant in northern Japan in 2011.

Nawah Energy Co. -- the venture between Kepco and state-run Emirates Nuclear Corp. that will operate all four of the U.A.E.’s plants -- waited almost two years after the first one was completed before getting the green light from regulators to load it with fuel.

Nawah Energy “can fulfill all the safety requirements of the U.A.E.,” Christer Viktorsson, head of the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation, said Monday at a news conference in Abu Dhabi.
Training Staff

The U.A.E.’s deep pockets enabled it to build Barakah quickly, said Mark Hibbs, nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program.

“The U.A.E. has to build up a domestic pool of experts in many areas to keep these plants running smoothly and efficiently,” Hibbs said. “That won’t be trivial because when this project got underway virtually all of the expertise was imported from outside.”

A government-sponsored training program has produced 380 Emirati nuclear experts, and 60% of ENEC’s staff are U.A.E. citizens, according to the company.

As of 2017, the U.A.E. had about 30.4 gigawatts in installed power-generating capacity. The vast bulk of it involves the burning of natural gas, making the country’s nuclear program a key component in the plan to diversify its energy supply and lessen its reliance on hydrocarbons.

(Adds subheads and tout line)

ATOMIC POWER NO THANKS