Thursday, October 19, 2023

Green groups target TotalEnergies over Tanzania, Uganda projects

ByAFP

Envrironmental groups once again have TotalEnergies in their sights over an African piopeline - Copyright AFP Munir UZ ZAMAN

Margaux BERGEY et Guillaume DAUDIN

Four environmental groups have taken legal action against French giant TotalEnergies on claims of “climaticide” over a controversial oil project in Tanzania and Uganda, their lawyers said Monday.

The groups — Darwin Climax Coalitions, Sea Shepherd France, Wild Legal and Stop EACOP-Stop Total — filed their action on September 22, saying that TotalEnergies “must no longer continue to knowingly, freely and with impunity fuel climate change”, lawyers William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth said.

“It is time to hold the company responsible for its activities,” they said, adding that the court action is unprecedented by seeking a criminal Judgment “for facts resembling a climaticide, which until now had their place only before civil courts”.

The groups say that with its East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), TotalEnergies is liable for charges including destruction, damage or deterioration of property belonging to others likely to create a danger to persons, and failing to deal with a disaster.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) in July urged a halt to the project after TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation last year signed a $10 billion deal to develop Ugandan oilfields and ship crude through a 1,445-kilometre (900-mile) pipeline to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port of Tanga.

Rights activists and environmental groups have slammed a deal that has also faced criticism in the European Parliament.

TotalEnergies says an estimated 100,000 people displaced by the project have been fairly compensated, and measures have been taken to protect the environment.

The project involves drilling around 400 oil wells in Murchison Falls Nature Park, a biodiversity reserve and Uganda’s largest national park.

The company said Monday that it was unaware of the latest legal action and what it hoped to achieve, telling AFP that it “conducts operations in accordance with its operating standards and with laws and regulations”.

A French civil court earlier this year dismissed on procedural grounds a landmark case against the firm over the project after several NGOs filed a suit seeking to suspend it.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has vowed to proceed, syaing the landlocked poverty-riven country will enjoy an economic boost from the project.

In the latest allegations, the associations say the pipeline would entail “a major impoverishment of local populations” and severely impact the local environment.

French NGO Les Amis de la Terre launched a first judicial broadside against the project in 2019.

Saying that the pipeline did not respect the 2015 Paris accord on cutting global carbon emissions, the lawyers in the latest case warned of “chaos” resulting from rising temperatures if such projects went ahead.

They urged French authorities to “force TotalEnergies to radically change its investment strategy to drastically reduce fossil investments and massively develop renewable energies”.

Netherlands halts extraction from Europe’s biggest gas field

By AFP

The local population had been experiencing low-magnitude, near-surface quakes - Copyright AFP JOHN THYS

The Netherlands halted extraction from Europe’s biggest gas field on Sunday, which was resulting in earthquakes that have shaken local residents for decades and threaten to persist.

Authorities are keeping 11 extraction wells open at the Groningen gas field for another year, however, in case of a severe winter, before shutting its gates for good against a backdrop of geopolitical tensions.

People living near the site, which opened in the early 1960s, have complained for more than 20 years of being terrorised by quakes directly attributed to drilling operations.

The local population had been experiencing low-magnitude, near-surface quakes caused by vacuum pockets formed during gas extraction, which caused widespread damage to homes and other buildings.

Residents welcomed the news in 2018 that the field would be closed, but have been warned by experts that the earthquakes could continue for years.

Although gas extraction from the field has been almost cut to zero over the last few years, the government kept the site operational due to the global energy uncertainties prompted largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“An enormous number of people in the province are suffering psychological problems due to the extraction of gas,” Jan Wigboldus, president of an association representing local people, told AFP.

Many have also been caught in bureaucracy, receiving only a trickle of compensation.

A report by a parliamentary commission in February accused the Dutch authorities of having paid “barely any attention to the long-term risks” while extraction was successful, adding that the government had a moral obligation to remedy the situation.

Around 2,300 billion cubic metres (81,223 billion cubic feet) of gas have been extracted from the field over the years, according to Shell.

Groningen gas generated some 429 billion euros ($450 billion), adjusted for inflation, between 1963 and 2020, 85 percent of which went into state coffers.

For months, mountains of debris of old pipes have littered the site from sections of the field already dismantled.

Many houses in the Groningen area have now been renovated or rebuilt to incorporate earthquake-resistant structures.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday during a visit to the site that there were tens of thousands of children living in a terrible situation in the region, according to Dutch agency ANP.

Bangladesh dengue deaths top 1,000 in worst outbreak on record

By AFP

Patients receive treatment for dengue fever in Dhaka's Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital. More than 1,000 people have died this year in Bangladesh's worst outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease -

Mohammad MAZED

More than 1,000 people in Bangladesh have died of dengue fever since the start of the year, official figures showed, in the country’s worst recorded outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease.

Dengue is a disease endemic to tropical areas and causes high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain and, in the most serious cases, bleeding that can lead to death.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that dengue — and other diseases caused by mosquito-borne viruses such as chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika — are spreading faster and further due to climate change.

Figures from Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Health Services published on Sunday night said 1,006 people had died, among more than 200,000 confirmed cases.

The agency’s former director Be-Nazir Ahmed told AFP Monday that the number of deaths so far this year was higher than every previous year combined since 2000.

“It’s a massive health event, both in Bangladesh and in the world,” he said.

The new figures dwarf the previous highest total from 2022, when 281 deaths were recorded for the full year.

Among the dead are 112 children aged 15 and under, including infants.

– Repeat infections –

Scientists have attributed this year’s outbreak to irregular rainfall and hotter temperatures during the annual monsoon season that have created ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes.

Bangladesh has recorded cases of dengue from the 1960s but documented its first outbreak of dengue haemorrhagic fever, a severe and sometimes fatal symptom of the disease, in 2000.

The virus that causes the disease is now endemic to Bangladesh, which has seen a trend of worsening outbreaks since the turn of the century.

Most cases are recorded during the July-to-September monsoon season, the months which bring the vast majority of the country’s annual rainfall, along with occasional floods and landslides.

However, in recent years, hospitals in Bangladesh have also begun to admit patients suffering from the disease during winter months.

Those with repeat infections are at greater risk of complications.

Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, a doctor at Dhaka’s Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College, said most patients admitted at his hospital were suffering their second or third cases of dengue.

“When people have dengue for the second, third or fourth time, the severity is increased. The number of deaths are also higher,” he told AFP.

“Many are coming to us when it’s already late in their illness,” he said. “Then it’s really complicated to treat them.”

Dengue wards in Dhaka’s major hospitals are filled with bedridden patients lying beneath mosquito nets, under the watchful and worried eyes of family members.

– ‘Canary in the coal mine’ –

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in September the outbreak was “putting huge pressure on the health system” in Bangladesh.

The agency’s alert and response director, Abdi Mahamud, said the same month that such outbreaks were a “canary in the coal mine of the climate crisis”.

He said a combination of factors, including climate change and this year’s El Nino warming weather pattern, had contributed to severe dengue outbreaks in several areas, including Bangladesh and South America.

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa such as Chad have also recently reported outbreaks, he said.

Rebates can offer solutions to California's groundwater woes, say scientists

by Elisa Smith and Tove Sharp, University of California - Santa Cruz

Many aquifers in California and around the world are being drained of their groundwater because of the combined impacts of excess pumping, shifts in land use, and climate change. However, a new study by scientists at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley, published on Oct. 18 in Nature Water, may offer a solution.

The study describes the development and operation of a novel incentive program that uses water rebates to pay for some of the costs of getting stormwater runoff into the ground. The program is called recharge net metering (ReNeM).

Although California satisfies about 40% of freshwater demand with groundwater during "normal years," many parts of the state are highly or entirely reliant on groundwater, especially during droughts.

The Central Coast hydrologic region, extending from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara, is especially dependent on groundwater, lacking significant snowpack that generates spring flows, does not have major rivers or reservoirs behind dams, and is not significantly involved in intrastate water transfers.

California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires more than 100 groundwater basins around the state to bring their aquifers into balance by 2040. It has proven challenging to get more water into the ground when available. More urbanization leads to more rainfall running off the landscape, as do more intense storms.

"ReNeM helps to incentivize projects and participants to collect stormwater runoff generated during big winter rain events and percolate that water into aquifers," said Molly Bruce, lead author of the new paper and a Water Fellow at UC Berkeley's Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment (CLEE).

"This approach can help agencies to meet SGMA requirements. It is a similar approach to what the power industry has done with solar panels and 'net energy metering,' paying for excess electricity that is shared on the grid."

ReNeM is a market-based incentive program developed by a team from UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) and the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County (RCD) and implemented in collaboration with the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency (PVW). UCSC and RCD personnel help to find good locations for ReNeM projects, get sites tested for suitability and raise funds for construction. They also monitor performance and report results to the water agency, which issues rebates based on the infiltration benefit created by each project each year.

"ReNeM recognizes that putting water into the ground provides system services," said ReNeM co-developer and paper co-author Andrew Fisher, a professor at UC Santa Cruz.

"Some of that water may be pumped out later and used for crops, and some of that water may flow elsewhere in the aquifer and support aquatic conditions in nearby streams. ReNeM recognizes these benefits, and this paper does a detailed assessment of how ReNeM compares to alternative ways to sustain water supplies."

"Every basin and water agency has to make choices," says Michael Kiparsky, the director of CLEE's Wheeler Water Center and co-author of the study. "This work adds up the costs and benefits of the ReNeM program, and the results show that in this region, these costs are competitive compared to alternative water supplies."

The ReNeM program is highly adaptable and unique in many respects. It can work on public or private land, and it can generate benefits to water quality as well as water supply. Payments are made in the form of a rebate that offsets fees charged for pumping groundwater.

Benefits from ReNeM can accrue to the groundwater basin overall, not just for those that recharge the water (in this way, ReNeM differs significantly from "water banking"). ReNeM is a distributed program that allows projects to be spread across a region, and different methods can be used to collect water and route it into an aquifer.

More information: Molly Bruce et al, Recharge net metering (ReNeM) is a novel, cost-effective management strategy to incentivize groundwater recharge, Nature Water (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s44221-023-00141-1

Journal information: Nature Water

Provided by University of California - Santa Cruz How California could save up its rain to ease future droughts as epic atmospheric river rainfall drains into the Pacific

EU opens disinformation probes into Meta, TikTok

DOING WHAT THE U$ CAN'T, WON'T

by Raziye AKKOC

The EU sent formal requests for information to Meta and TikTok in what is a first procedure launched under a new law — The EU sent formal requests for information to Meta and TikTok in what is a first

The EU announced probes Thursday into Facebook owner Meta and TikTok, seeking more details on the measures they have taken to stop the spread of "illegal content and disinformation" after the Hamas attack on Israel

The European Commission said it had sent formal requests for information to Meta and TikTok respectively in what is a first procedure launched under the EU's new law on digital content.

The EU launched a similar probe into billionaire mogul Elon Musk's social media platform X, formerly Twitter, last week.

The commission said the request to Meta related "to the dissemination and amplification of illegal content and disinformation" around the Hamas-Israel conflict.

In a separate statement, it said it wanted to know more about TikTok's efforts against "the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech".

The EU's executive arm added that it wanted more information from Meta on its "mitigation measures to protect the integrity of elections".

Meta and TikTok have until October 25 to respond, with a deadline of November 8 for less urgent aspects of the demand for information.

The commission said it also sought more details about how TikTok was complying with rules on protecting minors online.

The European Union has built a powerful armory to challenge the power of big tech with its landmark Digital Services Act (DSA) and a sister law, the Digital Markets Act, that hits internet giants with tough new curbs on how they do business.

The EU's fight against disinformation has intensified since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine last year and Russian attempts to sway European public opinion.

The issue has gained further urgency after Hamas' assault on October 7 on Israel and the aftermath which sparked a wave of violent images that flooded the platforms.

The DSA came into effect for "very large" platforms, including Meta and TikTok, that have more than 45 million monthly European users in August.

The DSA bans illegal online content under threat of fines running as high as six percent of a company's global turnover.

The EU's top tech enforcer, Thierry Breton, sent warning letters to tech CEOs including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok's Shou Zi Chew and Sundar Pichai of YouTube owner Alphabet.

Growing EU fears

Breton, EU internal market commissioner, told the executives to crack down on illegal content following Hamas' attack.

Meta said last week that it was putting special resources towards cracking down on illegal and problematic content related to the Hamas-Israel conflict.

On Wednesday, Breton expressed his fears over the impact of disinformation on the EU.

"The widespread dissemination of illegal content and disinformation... carries a clear risk of stigmatization of certain communities, destabilization of our democratic structures, not to mention the exposure of our children to violent content," he said.

AFP fact-checkers have found several posts on Facebook, TikTok and X promoting a fake White House document purporting to allocate $8 billion in military assistance to Israel.

And several platforms have had users passing off material from other conflicts, or even from video games, as footage from Israel or Gaza.

Since the EU's tougher action on digital behemoths, some companies, including Meta, are exploring whether to offer a paid-for version of their services in the European Union.

EU warns TikTok over 'illegal content and disinformation'

What to know about the EU’s landmark digital content act

By AFP
October 19, 2023

Tech giants have been targeted by the EU for a number of allegedly unfair practices

Daniel Aronssohn

The EU’s milestone legislation, known as the Digital Services Act, demands digital giants crack down on illegal and problematic content.

Brussels is bearing its teeth, launching investigations into X, formerly Twitter, as well as Facebook parent Meta and TikTok following Hamas’ assault on Israel on October 7 and its aftermath.

The DSA is a mammoth law that will force digital giants to aggressively police content online in the European Union and could see them hit with major fines.

Here are the regulation’s key elements:

– Rules for all platforms –

The law kicks in for all platforms from February 17, 2024, but since August it already applies for very large platforms with more than 45 million active monthly users.

Among their obligations, all platforms must quickly remove illegal content or make access to it impossible as soon as they are aware of the issue.

The companies must also rapidly inform the authorities when they suspect a criminal offence that threatens people’s lives or the safety of others.

Every year the platform must publish a report that provides details about actions taken on content moderation and how long they took to respond after notification of illegal content. They will also report on the decisions taken in disputes with users.

The law also tells platforms to suspend users who frequently share illegal content such as hate speech or fake ads, while online shopping sites must verify the identities of users and block repeat fraudsters.

There are also tougher rules on targeted advertising, with a ban on such ads for children aged 17 and under.

The EU also wants users to see how their data is used. The law bans targeted advertising based on sensitive data, such as ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.

The law does not apply to very small companies.

– Extra rules for large platforms –

The EU has named 19 “very large” platforms including Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Microsoft, Snapchat, TikTok and clothing retailer Zalando.

Amazon and Zalando have launched legal challenges to their designations.

These large platforms must assess the risks linked to their services with regards to the spread of illegal content and privacy infringements.

And they must also set up structures internally to mitigate such risks, such as improved content moderation.

The platforms must also give regulators’ access to their data so officials can see whether they are complying with the rules.

This access will also be shared with approved researchers.

They will be audited once a year by independent organisations — at their own expense — to ensure compliance, and also establish an independent internal supervisor that will keep an eye on whether the platforms are in line with the rules.

– EU, national coordination –

Under the law, the EU’s 27 member states must assign a competent authority that has the powers to investigate and sanction any violation.

These authorities must work with each other and with the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to enforce the regulation from February.

If a digital platform provider is located in one member state, that country must enforce the rules except for very large platforms which will come under the commission’s supervision.

– Complaints, penalties –

The DSA wants to make it easier for users’ complaints to be heard.

Users will be able to lodge a complaint claiming a platform is in violation of the DSA with their competent national authority.

Online shopping sites may be held responsible for any damage from products bought by users that are non-compliant or dangerous.

Violations can be met with fines that could go up to six percent of a company’s global turnover, and for repeated non-compliance, the EU can even decide to ban offending platforms from Europe.

El Niño's changing patterns: Human influence on natural variability

by University of Innsbruck

Two recent scientific studies led by Dr. Paul Wilcox from the Department of Geology at the University of Innsbruck provide new insights into Earth's climate dynamics, with a particular focus on the El Niño phenomenon. The results show how El Niño responds to natural factors over extended periods, while highlighting the increasing role of human activities in shaping this climatic phenomenon in the modern era.

El Niño signifies the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), one of the most crucial climate phenomena widely covered in the media due to its association with catastrophic weather events. It involves the warming of ocean waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Conversely, La Niña represents cooling in the eastern equatorial Pacific.

ENSO encompasses the cyclical variations in sea-surface temperatures, oscillating between warm El Niño and cold La Niña phases in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. In the face of ongoing environmental changes, understanding El Niño's response to both natural and human-induced factors becomes increasingly crucial for predicting and managing climate variability on a global scale.

Unraveling El Niño's response

In the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Paul Wilcox from the Quaternary Research Group led by Christoph Spötl sought to comprehend how El Niño responds to natural influences over extended periods. To achieve this, they analyzed cave deposits, known as speleothems, from southeastern Alaska. These speleothems preserved climate records spanning 3,500 years.

The results of the study suggest that the controlling processes of El Niño variability have changed since the 1970s. "Until about 50 years ago, changes in solar radiation played a significant role in shaping El Niño patterns. From the 1970s onwards, however, we see clear signals that can only be attributed to the consequences of man-made climate change," explains Wilcox.

New concept: The Walker switch

In the second study, published in The Innovation Geoscience, Wilcox turned his attention to examining climate shifts in southeastern Alaska over an extensive period of 13,500 years. The team utilized speleothems as invaluable records to investigate the cause of rapid, short-term climate changes that occurred during ice ages.

Despite its high northern latitude, southeastern Alaska displayed a climate pattern reminiscent of the equatorial Pacific during the end of the last ice age and the Holocene period. This contradicts the well-established "bipolar seesaw mechanism," which places the North Atlantic as the primary source for global climate variability. In lieu of this conventional mechanism, Wilcox and his team introduced the concept of the "Walker switch."

This mechanism, triggered by changes in solar radiation (insolation), instigates swift adjustments in sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, subsequently influencing climate patterns in high northern latitudes, including Alaska and the North Atlantic. Wilcox elaborates, "The 'Walker switch' concept helps us better explain the complex interplay of factors that have shaped climate dynamics in these regions."

The results of both studies reveal a shift in El Niño patterns, where human activities are now overprinting natural factors to shape its behavior. "Climate change may have led to a climatic tipping point being crossed in the 1970s with the initiation of a more permanent El Niño pattern. Simultaneously, the introduction of the 'Walker switch' concept provides an alternative explanation for historical climate variations," explains Wilcox.

Triggered by alterations in solar radiation, the "Walker switch" influences climate patterns across the globe, including high northern latitudes. These findings underscore the dynamic complexity of Earth's climate system, emphasizing the need for ongoing research to deepen the understanding of climate processes.

More information: Paul S. Wilcox et al, Solar Forcing of ENSO on Century Timescales, Geophysical Research Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1029/2023GL105201

Paul S. Wilcox et al, A Walker switch mechanism driving millennial-scale climate variability, The Innovation Geoscience (2023). DOI: 10.59717/j.xinn-geo.2023.100026

Journal information: Geophysical Research Letters

Provided by University of Innsbruck El Niño likely to develop this summer, says scientists

Fossilized bat skull adds vital piece to evolution puzzle

by Lachlan Gilbert, University of New South Wales

Holy bat skull! Fossil adds vital piece to bat evolution puzzle — Graphical abstract. Credit: *Current Biology* (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.043

Of all the mammals, bats have one of the poorest fossil records, with paleontologists estimating that about 80% of it is missing.

This has made it difficult to pinpoint exactly when they first began to fly, or began roosting in caves, or developed their unique way of 'seeing' their surroundings in the dark using sound—called echolocation.

But a near-perfectly preserved bat's skull discovered by French paleontologists in a cave that dates back about 50 million years has shed new light on what we thought we knew about this ancient, hypothetical creature.

Emeritus Professor Sue Hand from UNSW Sydney's School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences is a leading paleontologist with expertise in bat evolution. She led an analysis of the skull, published in the journal Current Biology, that involved Dr. Jacob Maugoust and Professor Maeva Orliac from University of Montpellier in France, and Professor Robin Beck from the University of Salford, UK.

Prof. Hand says prior to the discovery of this skull—which was among 23 separate fossilized individuals found in the cave belonging to the extinct species Vielasia sigei—only fragments or completely flattened skeletons of early bats had existed in the fossil record.

"We don't know very much about the beginnings of bats because we don't have the missing links like we do, say, between dinosaurs and modern birds," she says.

"The oldest bat fossil is about 57 million years old, and it's a single tooth from a site in Portugal—that's all we know about it. The first bats are all just known from fragmentary fossils, mostly teeth. When bats appear in the fossil record a little later, about 52 million years ago, some are wonderfully complete bats, but they're flattened."

While these flattened specimens are, in Prof. Hand's words, "beautifully preserved," the fact that they've been flattened by layers of rock deposited over millions of years makes it difficult to decide with conviction, the exact positioning of bones in their three-dimensional anatomy. And when it comes to determining whether a fossil is from a species of bat that is already using echolocation, detailed and precise anatomy of the skull is crucial.

"In modern bats, between the voice box and the ear, there are some bones called the hyoid bones. In all modern bats that echolocate, one of these bones directly contacts the middle ear bones and appears to be involved in transmitting high frequency sound.

"But in the flattened fossils, while we can see these various bones, there is a question about their precise relationships to each other. This has led to a lot of debate among scientists about whether or not a species used echolocation."

Uncrushed skull

But in the case of Vielasia sigei, not only is the skull almost entirely intact, but it has been preserved in limestone in its original three-dimensional shape which the scientists describe as "uncrushed."

"In this particular bat, we can see more directly what's going on deeper, in the inner ear," Prof. Hand says.

"We took fine measurements of that inner ear bone and compared it with that in the bats that do echolocate today and bats that don't, and it sits in the middle of the ones that echolocate."

Not all bats echolocate, Prof. Hand explains. Flying foxes regularly seen in the Sydney night sky around the Botanical Gardens, Centennial Park and the Royal National Park rely on their very good eyesight to navigate and find fruit, without echolocation. Meanwhile, Sydney microbats such as the Eastern Bentwing Bat, Gould's Wattled Bat and the Chocolate Wattled Bat, are well known for navigating and catching insects using feedback from the high frequency sound they emit.

While Prof. Hand stops short of concluding that Vielasia sigei used echolocation with 100% certainty, she says the new evidence is compelling.

"It's very convincing that the type of echolocation some of these early bats used was indistinguishable from what many echolocating bats use today, and at 50 million years ago, this is well ahead of whales developing this ability.

"Prior to this find, we were only really certain that echolocation developed in the modern families of bats."

Back to the bat cave

In all, there were 400 fossil bones and teeth discovered by the French team in the cave in south-western France, which represented 23 individuals. Vielasia—which is not a direct ancestor of today's bats but may have been closely related to it—was only a small bat, with the uncrushed skull measuring only 1.8 cm long.

"There were 23 of these wonderful little bats living in a cave, which also makes it the oldest cave-dwelling bat in the world that we know of," says Prof. Hand.

"We didn't think that these early bats actually lived in caves. The information had been that they lived in trees around lakes and in forests which stretched right up to both poles because the Earth was very warm at this time."

But when these greenhouse conditions started to deteriorate later in the early Eocene period—around 50 million years ago and about the same time that this bat was living—there were much more wildly fluctuating changes in temperature.

"So it could be that this bat lived in a cave because this is much more stable environment."

Whether or not the analysis of the uncrushed Vielasia skull has settled the echolocation debate about early bats, Prof. Hand hopes that it will inspire further exploration of the fossil record.

"We think some of the characteristics of this bat would have also characterized the last common ancestor for modern bats. So it's exciting, and it is actually going to be an important specimen that people will get a lot of information from and use in their own analyses."

More information: Suzanne J. Hand et al, A 50-million-year-old, three-dimensionally preserved bat skull supports an early origin for modern echolocation, Current Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.043

Journal information: Current Biology

Provided by University of New South Wales Egyptian fruit bat found to use echolocation during daylight hours

Scientists discover deepest known evidence of coral reef bleaching

by University of Plymouth

Scientists have discovered the deepest known evidence of coral reef bleaching, more than 90 meters below the surface of the Indian Ocean.

The damage—attributed to a 30% rise in sea temperatures caused by the Indian Ocean dipole—harmed up to 80% of the reefs in certain parts of the seabed, at depths previously thought to be resilient to ocean warming.

However, scientists say it serves as a stark warning of the harm caused in our ocean by rising ocean temperatures, and also of the hidden damage being caused throughout the natural world as a result of climate change.

The findings, highlighted in a study published in Nature Communications, were discovered by researchers from the University of Plymouth.

Dr. Phil Hosegood, Associate Professor in Physical Oceanography at the University of Plymouth and lead on the project, said, "There are no two ways about it, this is a huge surprise. Deeper corals had always been thought of as being resilient to ocean warming, because the waters they inhabit are cooler than at the surface and were believed to remain relatively stable. However, that is clearly not the case and—as a result—there are likely to be reefs at similar depths all over the world that are at threat from similar climatic changes."

Researchers from the University have been studying the Central Indian Ocean for well over a decade, with their work supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation and the Bertarelli Foundation.

A video showing damage to corals on the seafloor 90 meters under the surface of the Central Indian Ocean. This footage was captured during a research cruise by scientists from the University of Plymouth in November 2019, during which they were using remotely operated underwater vehicles equipped with cameras to monitor the coral health below the ocean surface. Credit: University of Plymouth

On their research cruises, they use a combination of in situ monitoring, underwater robots and satellite-generated oceanographic data to understand more about the region's unique oceanography and the life it supports.

The first evidence of the coral damage was observed during a research cruise in November 2019, during which scientists were using remotely operated underwater vehicles equipped with cameras to monitor the coral health below the ocean surface.

Images from the underwater cameras were being transmitted live onto the research vessel, and gave the research team its first glimpse of the corals that had been bleached. Conversely, at the same time as the deeper reefs were bleaching, they observed shallow water reefs exhibiting no sign of harm.

Over the subsequent months, the researchers assessed a range of other data collected during the research cruise and information from satellites monitoring the ocean conditions and temperatures.

It highlighted that while temperatures on the ocean surface had barely changed during the period, temperatures beneath the surface had climbed from 22°C to 29°C due to the thermocline deepening across the equatorial Indian Ocean.

Clara Diaz, the lead author on the study, said, "What we have recorded categorically demonstrates that this bleaching was caused by a deepening of the thermocline. This is down to the regional equivalent of an El Niño, and due to climate change these cycles of variability are becoming amplified. Moving forward, bleaching in the deeper ocean here and elsewhere will likely become more regular."

Dr. Nicola Foster, Lecturer in Marine Biology and study co-author, added, "Our results demonstrate the vulnerability of mesophotic coral ecosystems to thermal stress and provide new evidence of the impact that climate change is having on every part of our ocean. Increased bleaching of mesophotic corals will ultimately lead to coral mortality and a reduction in the structural complexity of these reefs. This will likely result in a loss of biodiversity and a reduction in the critical ecosystem services that these reefs provide to our planet."

Researchers from the University returned to the same areas during planned cruises in 2020 and 2022, and found that large parts of the reef had recovered.

In spite of this, they say, it is critically important to increase monitoring of the seafloor in the deep ocean, even if it is a hugely challenging and complicated undertaking.

With damage to shallow water corals increasing in frequency and severity, it had been expected that mesophotic corals—found between 30–150m under the surface—would plug the gap in terms of delivering ecosystem benefits.

However, this research highlights that may not be the case—and with deep water corals all over the planet remaining largely understudied, similarly damaging incidences of bleaching could be going unnoticed.

Dr. Hosegood added, "The oceanography of a region is impacted by naturally occurring cycles that are becoming amplified by climate change. Currently, the region is suffering similar, if not worse, impacts due to the combined influence of El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole."

"While there is no way we can stop the thermocline from deepening, what we can do is expand our understanding of the impacts that these changes will have throughout these environments of which we have so little knowledge. In the face of fast-paced global change, that has never been more urgent."

More information: Clara Diaz et al, Mesophotic coral bleaching associated with changes in thermocline depth, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42279-2

Journal information: Nature Communications

Provided by University of Plymou th How clouds protect coral reefs, but will not be enough to save them from us

IAEA team gathers marine samples near Fukushima as treated radioactive water is released into sea

by Mari Yamaguchi

A member of the International Atomic Energy Agency team visiting Fukushima for its first marine sampling since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant started releasing treated radioactive wastewater into the sea said Thursday he does not expect any rise in radiation levels in the fish caught in the regional seas.

The IAEA team watched flounder and other popular kinds of fish being caught off the coast earlier Thursday and brought on boats to the Hisanohama port in southern Fukushima for an auction.

"I can say that we don't expect to see any change starting in the fish," said Paul McGinnity, an IAEA marine radiology scientist.

A small rise in the levels of tritium, which cannot be removed from the Fukushima Daiichi wastewater by the plant's treatment system called ALPS, is possible in locations close to the discharge points, but the levels of radioactivity are expected to be similar to those measured before the discharge last year, he said.

Fukushima Daiichi started releasing wastewater into the sea on Aug. 24. The release, which is expected to continue for decades, has been strongly opposed by fishing groups and neighboring countries including South Korea, where hundreds of people have protested.

China immediately banned all imports of Japanese seafood the day the release began, badly hurting Japanese seafood producers, processors and exporters, and Russia recently joined China in the trade restrictions.

The IAEA has reviewed the safety of the wastewater release and concluded in July that if carried out as planned, it would have a negligible impact on the environment, marine life and human health.

During the Oct. 16-23 visit, the IAEA team also inspected the collection and processing of seawater and marine sediment near the plant, which suffered triple meltdowns following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The IAEA's visit is significant not only because it is the first since the discharge began but also since the IAEA will be able to see firsthand how the fish is sampled and packed, McGinnity said. This will help them better evaluate the results, not just from laboratory testing and data analysis, he said.

IAEA selected six species of fish—olive flounder, crimson sea bream, redwing searobin, Japanese jack mackerel, silver croaker and vermiculated puffer fish—because they are known to have higher levels of radioactivity than other species due to the areas they tend to move around in, McGinnity said.

The Japanese government asked the IAEA to conduct the environmental and fish sampling to build confidence about the data that Japan provides amid skepticism in some IAEA member states, McGinnity said without identifying which countries.

The sample collection team includes two staff from the IAEA Marine Environment Laboratories in Monaco, as well as experts from laboratories in China, South Korea and Canada.

The fish collected Thursday were to be shipped to a Fisheries Agency laboratory in Chiba, near Tokyo, where the IAEA team will inspect them on Friday.

They will send identical samples to about a dozen participating laboratories, including in Japan, China, South Korea and Canada, for comparison and analysis of radioactivity and evaluation, the IAEA said.

The sampling work will be followed by a separate IAEA task force that will review the safety of the treated radioactive water.

Japan's government has set up a relief fund to help find new markets and reduce the impact of China's seafood ban. Measures include the temporary purchase, freezing and storage of seafood and promotion of seafood sales at home.

TEPCO and the government say discharging the water into the sea is unavoidable because the tanks will reach their 1.37 million-ton capacity next year and space at the plant will be needed for its decommissioning, which is expected to take decades, if it is achievable at all.

They say the water is treated to reduce radioactive materials to safe levels, and then is diluted with seawater by hundreds of times to make it much safer than international standards. Some experts say such long-term release of low-dose radioactivity is unprecedented and requires close monitoring.

Chinese scientists join Fukushima water review

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