Endangered species list grows by 2,000. Climate change is part of the problem

MICHAEL PHILLIS
Mon, December 11, 2023 






 A spotted newt crawls in the rain on Aug. 1, 2003, in Unity, N.H. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, the leading tracker of global biodiversity, released their new Red List of Threatened Species on Monday, Dec. 11, 2023, at the United Nations climate conference in Dubai. Amphibians are particularly at risk, with 41% under threat of extinction.

(AP Photo/Jim Cole/File)

Climate change is worsening the planet's biodiversity crises, making environments more deadly for thousands of species and accelerating the precipitous decline in the number of plants and animals on Earth, according to an international organization that tracks species health.

Species of salmon and turtles are among those facing a decline as the planet warms.

Atlantic salmon isn’t yet threatened with extinction, but its population dropped by nearly a quarter from 2006 to 2020, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which tracks biodiversity around the globe, said on Monday. It’s now considered near threatened. They live in fewer places and face human-created hazards like dams and water pollution. Climate change is making it harder for the fish to find food and easier for alien species to compete, according to the group. Although there are some signs of hope: their numbers ticked up in Maine this past year.


The news was announced at the United Nations climate conference in the United Arab Emirates on Monday. Leaders of the IUCN updated their Red List of Threatened Species, a tracker of biodiversity around the globe. It was mainly bad news. The list includes information on 157,000 species, about 7,000 more than last year's update.

The IUCN said just over 44,000 species are threatened with extinction. That's roughly 2,000 more than last year.

“Species around the world are under huge pressure. So no matter where you look, the numbers of threatened species are rising,” said Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the Red List unit at the IUCN.

Climate change is worsening conditions for about 6,700 species threatened with extinction.

The Central South Pacific and East Pacific green turtle is at greater risk because of climate change, for example. Fewer turtles hatch as higher seas inundate nests. Warming waters can harm its food supply of seagrasses.

The update includes the first broad assessment of the health of freshwater fish species. One-quarter of species — just over 3,000 — face an extinction risk. As climate change raises sea levels, salt water is traveling further up rivers, for example. And these species already face tremendous threats from pollution and overfishing, the IUCN said.

Frogs, salamanders and other amphibians are suffering the most. About 41% of these species are under threat.

“They are climate captives because of higher temperatures, drought — whatever happens amphibians cannot move out of harm's way and are directly impacted by climate change,” said Vivek Menon, deputy chair of the IUCN's species survival commission.

There was a bit of good news. Two antelope species are fairing better, although they still have a long way to go before their long-term survival is stabilized. For example, the scimitar-horned oryx, a light-colored animal with curved horns, had previously been categorized as extinct in the wild but is now endangered. It faced a lot of threats: poaching, drought and car accidents all played a role in largely eliminating the species by the turn of the century. But recent efforts to reintroduce the species in Chad have helped and there are now at least 140 adults and more than twice as many calves on a large nature reserve.

IUCN's director general Grethel Aguilar said it's clear humans need to act to protect biodiversity and when conservation is done right, it works. To combat the threat posed by climate change, she said fossil fuels need to be phased out, a contentious focus of this year's COP28 negotiations.

“Nature is here to help us, so let us help it back," she said.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Study identifies Florida’s potential invasive species threats

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

 

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CREDIT: UF/IFAS

In a first-of-its-kind study for North America, scientists accumulated a list of potential invasive species for Florida, and researchers deemed 40 pose the greatest threat.

A team of experts, led by University of Florida scientists, evaluated terrestrial, aquatic and marine species with characteristics that make them particularly adept at invasion. Their list includes 460 vertebrates, invertebrates, algae and plants.

“Invasive species management tends to be reactive, instead of preventative,” said Deah Lieurance, who led the project as the then-coordinator of the UF/IFAS Assessment of Non-Native Plants and is now an assistant professor of invasive species biology and management at Penn State University. “This was the reason behind this project: to protect Florida’s natural areas, while also saving the money and effort that would go into management strategies.”

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services estimated that the annual cost for invasive species management globally in 2019 was $423 billion, and that cost is estimated to quadruple every decade.

Florida is “ground zero” for invasions in the United States, says Matthew Thomas, the director of the UF/IFAS Invasion Science Research Initiative, which was created in 2022 to address the state’s unique challenges.

Lieurance and the working group of experts from academia, state and federal agencies, and non-profits conducted what is known as a horizon scan, or the systematic examination of information by experts to identify emerging issues, opportunities and unknown risks to inform policy and decision-making.

Each species evaluated was given a score based on the likelihood of arrival, likelihood of establishment and spread, and their potential ecological, economical and human health impacts. The group of experts then met to form a consensus on ranking the species by risk level. Based on these scoring parameters, some of the most likely invaders were determined to be alewife, zebra mussel, crab-eating macaque and red swamp crayfish.

Validating the priority rankings of the highest risk species was the small population of red swamp crayfish that was detected and eradicated in Clay County in 2022, Lieurance said.

“The one that wasn’t even on my radar was the macaque,” Lieurance said. “But they’re already in the state in captivity, and as their name says, they’re good at eating crabs. This means they would have an impact on our native biodiversity. Plus, their relative, the rhesus macaque, is already established in the state, and these crab-eating macaques also are likely to host the same [herpes B] virus found in the Silver Springs State Park populations.”

The experts also considered potential pathways that could bring these invaders to Florida, finding that arrivals by escape from confinement (pet and aquarium releases) and transportation (stowaways and contaminants) were most likely.

“Something that came up in the time since we convened this group was the yellow-legged hornet, a species that wasn’t evaluated in this study,” Lieurance said. The predatory species was found just across the border, in Savannah, Georgia, this past August. “It’s likely that’s one species that would appear as high risk for invasion to Florida, if the horizon scan was done today.”

Lieurance says this research serves as a starting point for future horizon scans, which she suggests should be done every five years or so.

“Now that we have a list, the process next time would involve reviewing what’s there and seeing what new things are coming in, or have the potential to appear,” she said.

But the methods employed for this study are already leading to new approaches nationwide.

“A team from the United States Geological Survey took part in this project, evaluating one of the taxonomic groups,” Lieurance explained. “They took their experience back to their superiors and now at a federal level, the Department of Interior is using bipartisan infrastructure money to fund other horizon scans using this same framework as a part of their National Framework for Early Detection and Rapid Response. This is just one example of how we can already see this project expanding.”

Currently, Lieurance is leading ongoing horizon scan projects for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well.

“As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Lieurance said. “The majority of prevention efforts are initiated when the species has already been detected and often when it's too late. This project strives to keep concerning species out and truly protect Florida's biodiversity, unique ecosystems, socioeconomic infrastructure, and human well-being.”

The study, “Identifying invasive species threats, pathways, and impacts to improve biosecurity,” was funded by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the UF/IFAS Dean for Research. It is published in the journal Ecosphere: doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4711.

  

Zebra mussels

CREDIT

Dave Britton/USFWS

Alewife

CREDIT

Ryan Hagerty/USFWS

Crayfish

CREDIT

USGS

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JOURNAL

Ecosphere

DOI

10.1002/ecs2.4711 

ARTICLE TITLE

Identifying invasive species threats, pathways, and impacts to improve biosecurity

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Dec-2023

Colombia confirmed as host of next UN biodiversity talks

AFP
Fri, December 15, 2023 

Colombia's Environment Minister Susana Muhamad smiles during a press conference to announce that some of the 166 hippopotamuses belonging to slain cocaine baron Pablo Escobar will be euthanized (Juan BARRETO)

Colombia was officialy confirmed Friday as the host of the the UN's next biodiversity summit to be held in late 2024 after Turkey backed out.

The COP16 biodiversity summit would follow up on a landmark deal at the last talks in 2022 in Montreal which promised to preserve 30 percent of the planet's land and seas by 2030.

It comes as climate change threatens an increasing number of species, with 25 percent of the world's freshwater fish species at risk of extinction, according to the latest red list assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Meanwhile invasive plant and animal species introduced intentionally and unintentionally by humans in new ecosystems are exacerbating the extinction crisis and causing global economic losses of hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Susana Muhamad, Colombia's minister of environment and sustainable development, said: "This is going to be a great opportunity for one of the most biodiverse nations in the world," adding it "sends a message from Latin America to the world about the importance of climate action and the protection of life."

The Montreal summit also raised pledges to commit $30 billion a year for developing countries to halt human-caused extinction of threatened species.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which formally approved Colombia's bid, had been urgently seeking a host for the talks that are scheduled from 21 October to 1 November 2024.

David Cooper, the Convention's acting executive secretary, said: "The Secretariat is delighted to have the Government of Colombia as host of COP 16.

"Colombia is home to tremendous biodiversity, is an inspiring example of how to engage with indigenous peoples and local communities and is at the forefront of the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity."

Unlike the climate COP, the biodiversity COP -- which stands for Conference of Parties -- takes place every two years.

Turkey, which pulled out of hosting duties citing the need to recover from earthquakes, has offered to hold climate talks in 2026.

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Training a new generation of ‘climate doctors’

Caleb Hellerman, Global Health Reporting Center
Mon, December 11, 2023 


For Dr. Aaron Hultgren, the wake-up call was Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when the young emergency physician returned from an overseas trip and found his hospital without power, its doors closed to the public.

Dr. Lakshmi Balasubramanian, an oncologist in Austin, Texas, signed up to study climate medicine after the death of a patient who was trapped in her home during a freak winter storm two years ago.

Dr. Paul Charlton, a physician with the Indian Health Service in northwest New Mexico, was motivated by 2023’s summer heat wave, when temperatures cracked 100 degrees Fahrenheit for nearly a week straight in July, setting all-time records.

Hultgren, Charlton and Balasubramanian traded these stories in early November as they gathered in College Station, Texas, midway through a first-of-its-kind diploma program that will mint them as certified experts in “climate medicine.” The course is the brainchild of Dr. Jay Lemery, director of the Climate and Health Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

“This is our first foray into training a climate-savvy health care workforce,” Lemery said. “We need credible, knowledgeable and effective leaders, and we want to send a message to clinicians that these are critically important skills for mitigating climate-driven health effects.”

This past weekend, at the UN climate conference in Dubai, 123 countries signed an acknowledgment that climate change is having a major impact on human health, along with announcements of nearly half a billion dollars in funding commitments to bolster health systems and reduce overall harms to human health.

Lemery, who was at the meeting, says, “We just saw huge pledges and initiatives to double down on resiliency and decarbonisation, and yet no one has been trained to do this.”

Awareness of climate’s harms has been building, especially since 2009, when the journal The Lancet called climate change the “biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” Warming temperatures extend the range of disease-carrying pests like mosquitoes. Heat and drought disrupt crop cycles, leading to food shortages. Between 2030 and 2050, according to a World Health Organization report in October, climate change will cause an extra 250,000 deaths per year just from malnutrition, malaria, diarrheal disease and heat stress.

Warnings like this are a growing part of US medical education. Since 2019, the number of US medical schools requiring coursework on the effects of climate change has more than doubled. Universities and public health graduate programs offer majors and concentrations, but the Colorado diploma program goes a step further and aims to turn working medical professionals into leading experts on climate and health.

“It’s specifically designed for working clinicians who are seeking a ‘heavyweight’ credential,” said Lemery, an emergency physician by training. “We wanted to build a program that has real gravitas.”

Lemery’s program offers five separate certificate programs, each of which satisfies requirements for continuing medical education credits.


To earn a diploma, students complete all five, over a period of more than two years. The most recent module was designed to help participants prepare for and simulate a response to a major weather disaster.

Following readings and class discussions — over Zoom, since participants live in all corners of the country — course directors Dr. Terry O’Connor and Dr. Bhargavi Chekuri booked two days at a unique training facility. “Disaster City” is sprawled across 52 acres near the Texas A&M campus, where visitors will find upside-down train cars, smashed cars and buses and pile after pile of concrete rubble. Physicians are not the usual clientele; firefighters, EMTs and disasters come for the facility’s world-renowned search-and-rescue training.

The November training didn’t include any rubble piles, but the climate medicine students ran through tabletop simulations posing challenges like: What does your hazard vulnerability assessment need to include? How do you convince hospital administrators to pay for expensive, disaster-proofing upgrades that may never be used? If your hospital’s backup generator runs out, do you evacuate all the patients?

Lemery says the simulations cut straight to the essence of medical training. “Practice makes perfect. We can’t possibly be good at something unless we flex those muscles, go through the paces and learn how to make it better. When disasters hit, we want our medical teams and hospitals to say, ‘Don’t worry, we got this.’ We don’t want them pacing around wondering where we keep the emergency action plan.”

The federal government and states have strict requirements for hospitals to avoid catastrophic power failures, but as the simulation exercise made clear, that may not be enough. Generators flood. Evacuation routes may be blocked.

Dr. Karen Glatfelter, a physician from Lawrence, Massachusetts, told the group that supply chain issues are common.

“After Hurricane Maria, hospitals across the country ran into IV saline shortages that took months to work through,” she said.

Arien Hermann, who oversees a regional hospital coordinating center in southern Illinois, noted that not all electrical outlets are connected to a generator. At one hospital in Hermann’s network, this included the entire kitchen.

“So if you lost power, you weren’t going to have a microwave; you weren’t going to have refrigeration; you weren’t going to have electric stoves; you weren’t even going to have lights.”

Feeding patients and staff, the group agreed, would be a problem.

Hurricane Sandy underscored the vulnerability of many major hospitals. The storm killed at least 147 people and caused $82 billion in damage, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Even Sandy faded into a mere tropical storm, a massive storm surge flooded 51 square miles of New York City, put much of Lower Manhattan underwater, led six hospitals to close and forced the evacuation of 6,500 patients. Hultgren, like many others, was utterly unprepared. “I never in a million years imagined that we would even lose power. It was a complete shock.”

Since Sandy, the number of weather disasters causing $1 billion or more in damage has soared; this year alone has seen 23 such events. But a changing climate is only one reason. A major factor is the higher cost of rebuilding, due to inflation, coupled with increased housing density in flood-, fire- and storm-prone areas. As a 2022 report from NOAA points out, “Much of the growth has taken place in vulnerable areas like coasts, the wildland-urban interface, and river floodplains.”

But recent years have also seen an apparent rise in storms like Hurricane Harvey, which dropped nearly 60 inches of rain on Houston while barely moving for five days, and Hurricane Idalia, which shocked forecasters in September by growing into a Category 4 storm nearly overnight. Such storms put an additional premium on planning and flexibility.

Unpredictable hurricanes aren’t the only threat from climate change, but they are part of what many people describe as climate “weirding,” new weather patterns that upend patterns of sickness and health.

Charlton, the Indian Health Service physician, whose home base of Gallup, New Mexico, sits at 6,500 feet of elevation, says he never imagined he would see the kind of extended heat that baked the town this summer. “Until now, we haven’t had to have cooling centers.”

Dr. Hilary Ong, a pediatric emergency physician from San Francisco, says doctors are taught to expect a cold and flu season that lasts from October to February. “Now, what I see in the pediatric emergency room is that respiratory season is lasting from September up to August. There was no break.”

Ong regularly cares for young patients who are dehydrated from extreme heat or struggling with asthma flare-ups after being exposed to wildfire smoke. She wonders, “Why am I seeing kids with asthma exacerbations all year ‘round?”

Being “climate-informed” helps clinicians do their daily jobs better, Chekuri says. She offers the example of a patient who comes in with a nagging cough. “A climate-informed physician might be aware of the fact that our pollen seasons are longer, sometimes more intense” and unpredictable. “If you’re not thinking about that change in the environment, then you can’t ask whether someone has had allergies before.”

Most doctors don’t think about climate on a day-to-day basis.“The realization about climate impacts on everyday patients was slow to come to me,” said Dr. Joanne Leovy, a physician from Las Vegas who is pursuing the climate medicine diploma. “People come into the office all the time with climate-related disease that we don’t recognize. And until you learn about the connections, you’re not going to see it.”

Many of the first doctors to focus on climate were emergency physicians or disaster relief workers. Those specialties are well represented in the Colorado program, but the group at Disaster City also includes three oncologists, a psychiatrist, an infectious disease specialist, a pediatrician, a family practitioner, two nurses and Hermann, a paramedic, Marine Corps veteran and hospital system administrator. Several students are already deeply involved in efforts to reduce waste and reduce the carbon footprint of the hospitals where they work; they point out that the US health care system is responsible for nearly 9% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Glatfelter pushed her hospital to switch out the standard gases used for anesthesia - replacing desflurane, the use of which in hospitals produces greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to a million cars - with a less-harmful alternative.

Dr. Elizabeth Cerceo, a hospitalist who chairs the “green team” at Cooper University Hospital in southern New Jersey, says there’s a laundry list of improvements that most hospitals can make, from re-examining their supply chains to simply replacing standard light bulbs with LEDs. Often, she says, it’s simply inertia that blocks change.

Dr. Katie Lichter, an oncology resident at the University of California, San Francisco, co-founded the GreenHealth Lab at UCSF, which generates research reports about the environmental impact of health care practice and “how climate change may reduce patient access to essential care.”

Lichter’s big moment of clarity came during the first days of her residency training at UCSF. Just a few months after she moved to San Francisco in 2020, Northern California was struck with a string of severe wildfires that sent a heavy blanket of smoke across the region. Locals still refer to “orange-sky day,” when the thick smoke generated its most surreal views.

Lichter had just admitted a patient into the ICU with Covid-19 as well as worsening cancer and lung disease. “He had missed weeks of crucial chemo and radiation because he couldn’t travel because of the wildfires,” she said. Pulling off her mask and gloves and home that night, she had an epiphany: “Climate change was going to impact my patients directly. This would be part of my career in medicine.”

Indeed, Lichter’s published research shows that cancer patients treated during times of wildfires have worse outcomes. Although cancer isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when it comes to climate change, Lichter says it shows how climate’s effects ripple through everything the health system touches.

“It’s the whole continuum of care,” she said. “Climate change increases exposure to carcinogens through air pollution and increased exposure to viral causes of cancer. And with screening, climate disasters impact access, like a patient’s ability to go get a mammography.”

The ability to access treatment, too.

Balasubramanian, the Austin-based oncologist, can’t say for sure that a winter storm killed her patient, but the woman had been fine a few days earlier. “She was thriving and doing very well,” the doctor recalls. “She was an avid volunteer and an advocate for pets and other women with breast cancer.”

The Colorado team encourages participants in the diploma program to be advocates on climate-related issues. Says Ong, “That’s really my motivation [for taking this course], to learn about this kind of medicine, to be a better physician and in order to lead and advocate and educate my peers and colleagues.”

Lemery points out that even after the height of the Covid pandemic, doctors and nurses typically rank high as trusted sources of information. “It’s important to bring the best science forward with candid-evidence based risk assessments. Our job is to train practitioners to be confident and proficient in doing just that.”

Mike Bethel, a nurse in Fresno, California, says he feels a duty “to speak out, as that trusted source, about things we know are true. We know that climate change is happening, and we know that it’s impacting our health negatively. When we don’t speak out about that as a profession, I think we do a disservice.”

Bethel says air pollution blocks views of the coastal mountain range that were visible almost every day when he was a Boy Scout roaming the mountains not far from where he lives today. He goes on to list other ominous signs. In Fresno, he says, “summers are longer. Summers are hotter. Our wildfire seasons have extended; they’re starting earlier and ending later. I mean, we’re already beyond a point of no return. There’s some damage that is irreparable, and if we continue, we’re going to damage the planet to the point where maybe it’s just not habitable.”

This dark view is shared by many here, but it’s tempered by a strong streak of idealism. Hultgren, who was an elementary school teacher before going to medical school, says he’s excited about forging a new path.

“As an emergency medicine physician, you always want to be at the front line, and I feel like I am at the front line, really trying to do something. We’re trying to change and hopefully impact our future for the better.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Disaster City is located near the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas.

Something Dreadful Thawing Out of the Permafrost, Scientists Warn

Victor Tangermann
Fri, December 15, 2023

Gas Leak

Fossil fuel companies drilling into the Norwegian permafrost may be unleashing a hidden monster.

After analyzing 18 hydrocarbon exploration wells in Svalbard, an archipelago located between Norway and the North Pole, researchers discovered that half of them had struck accumulations of previously trapped methane gas.

Allowing much of this gas to escape into the atmosphere could send carbon emissions skyrocketing, the scientists are now warning, further accelerating the melting of permafrost, which would in turn release more methane in a terrifying vicious cycle.

"Methane is a potent greenhouse gas," explained Thomas Birchall of the University Center in Svalbard, lead author of a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science, in a statement. "At present, the leakage from below permafrost is very low, but factors such as glacial retreat and permafrost thawing may 'lift the lid' on this in the future."

The Great Escape

It's not just drilling operations that could be releasing this gas. Some geographical features of the permafrost in Svalbard could allow gas to escape as well.

Studying how the methane moves below this thick slab of ice, however, can prove difficult.

Wells being bored by fossil fuel-prospecting companies are now allowing scientists to get a better sense of how this gas behaves and where it accumulates.

Some of the wells Birchall and his colleagues examined showed big deposits of methane gas trapped at the base of the permafrost. Other wells had no gas present, suggesting it had already migrated elsewhere.

"One anecdotal example is from a wellbore that was drilled recently near the airport in Longyearbyen," Birchal recalled in the statement. "The drillers heard a bubbling sound coming from the well, so we decided to have a look, armed with rudimentary alarms designed for detecting explosive levels of methane — which were immediately triggered when we held them over the wellbore."

While these methane deposits sound like a ticking time bomb, scientists still have work to do until they fully understand how the gas moves below the ice.

But if there's one certainty, it's that global warming could soon give the gas even more opportunities to get free — risking the escape of a dangerous environmental monster.

More on permafrost: Melting Glaciers Are Releasing Methane Into the Atmosphere

Huge solar flare, strongest since 2017, disrupts Earth radio communications

Doug Cunningham
Fri, December 15, 2023 

A huge solar flare, the largest since 2017, disrupted radio communications o nEarth Thursday afternoon. A medium-sized (M2) solar flare and a coronal mass ejection (CME) is depicted on July 14, 2017. NASA/UPI

Dec. 15 (UPI) -- A huge solar flare, the biggest since 2017, disrupted radio communication for two hours on Earth Thursday. It was detected by a NASA telescope.

"This is likely one of the largest solar radio events ever recorded," the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center said in a statement. "Radio communication interference with aircraft were reported by multiple NWS Center Weather Service Units co-located at FAA facilities.

"These impacts were felt from one end of the Nation to the other. Additionally, SWPC is analyzing a possible Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) associated with this flare."


The CME is an outburst of plasma from the sun. This eruption happened in the northwest section of the sun.

NASA said in a statement, "The sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 12:02 p.m. EST, on Dec. 14, 2023. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event."

An intesne solar flare Thursday was classified as an X2.8 flare. X is used by NASA to denote the most intense flares. This image, shows an X1.0 class solar flare flashes in the center of the Sun, captured Oct. 28, 2021, by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. NASA/UPI

NASA said solar flares are powerful bursts of energy that can affect not just radio communications, but electric power grids, and navigation signals while also posing potential hazards to spacecraft and astronauts.

The flare was classified as an X2.8 flare. X class is used by NASA to describe the most intense solar flares.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captures images of a significant solar flare – as seen in the bright flash on the left – peaking at 6:11 p.m. EDT on May 5, 2015. Each image shows a different wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights a different temperature of material on the sun. By comparing different images, scientists can better understand the movement of solar matter and energy during a flare. Photo by NASA/SDO/Wiessinger/UPIMore

The Solar Dynamics Observatory used extreme ultraviolet light to record the flare. The observatory was launched in 2010 and is in an extremely high orbit around Earth, constantly monitoring the sun.

The sun has an approximately 11-year solar cycle, with maximum sunspot activity predicted in 2025.

In February 2022, a solar storm knocked out 40 of 49 SpaceX Starlink broadband communications satellites.

Strongest Solar Flare in Years Disrupts Radio Signals in U.S.

Alex Nguyen
Fri, December 15, 2023

NASA

A massive solar flare captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on Thursday afternoon disrupted radio communication across the world for about two hours. Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy from the sun that can impact radio signals, electric power grids, and navigation systems. NASA classified Thursday’s incident as a X2.8 flare, belonging to the most intense class. The U.S. government’s Space Weather Prediction Center stated that the solar flare was the largest it recorded in six years and multiple pilots complained about communication difficulties. CBS News reported that the sun is currently in a maximum phase where it is experiencing higher activity. This will make phenomena such as the northern lights, which occur when a solar flare erupts toward Earth, more likely to be visible.

The Sun emitted a strong solar flare on Dec. 14, 2023, peaking at 12:02 ET. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an image of the event, which was classified as X2.8. https://t.co/4INrRFqIg7 pic.twitter.com/2dJ1YMkiXS

— NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) December 14, 2023



Biggest solar flare in years temporarily disrupts radio signals on Earth
WGN - Chicago
Fri, December 15, 2023



A NASA telescope has captured the biggest solar flare in years, which temporarily knocked out radio communication on Earth. READ MORE: https://wgntv.com/science/ap-biggest-solar-flare-in-years-temporarily-disrupts-radio-signals-on-earth/

Massive solar flare erupts from sun, may bring northern lights 

The solar flare is likely the most powerful since 2017.

A Massive Solar Flare Just Knocked Out Radio Communications Back on Earth

Victor Tangermann

Fri, December 15, 2023


Flare Gun

The Sun is entering the most active part of its 11-year cycle, unleashing powerful solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and streams of energetic particles in every direction — including toward our own humble Earth. Just earlier this month, a massive hole opened up in the Sun's atmosphere, allowing copious amounts of solar wind to escape.

And on Thursday, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory encountered the biggest solar flare recorded since at least 2017, which was powerful enough to knock out radio communication here on Earth for two hours in parts of the US and other locations around the world, the Associated Press reports.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center, it's "likely one of the largest solar radio events ever recorded."
Knockout Punch

Scientists have long warned that powerful solar storms could wreak havoc with electric equipment on Earth. They can cause train signals to go haywire, mess with entire power grids, and even kill satellites in Earth's orbit.

Earlier this year, professor of physics and astronomy at George Mason University Peter Becker went as far as saying that a particularly intense solar storm could trigger an "internet apocalypse," potentially plunging the globe into a "worldwide recession."

Scientists are predicting that the Sun will hit the apex of its 11-year cycle, or solar maximum, sometime in 2025, suggesting that we're in for many more solar flares like it in the near future.

More on solar flares: The Sun Just Blasted the Earth With an Enormous Solar Flare

Is humanity prepared for contact with intelligent aliens?

Leonard David
Fri, December 15, 2023

Spot-lit satellite dishes on an arid landscape point skyward ere the backdrop of a starry night.

A new study calls for humanity to prepare for an encounter with extraterrestrial intelligence and examines the possible social consequences of such contact.

First of all, the consequences of first contact strongly depend on the way it takes place. The paper offers the view that first contact with alien life poses considerable risks for humanity. Additionally, a first contact event could also take place without being culturally recognized.

The intriguing new research paper is led by Andreas Anton of the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany.

Related: The search for alien life

Scenarios

Anton and colleagues serve up a set of scenarios:

The signal scenario is the basis of SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) programs, in which radio astronomers search for signs of alien civilizations. It assumes that radio telescopes can pick up artificial signals from the far reaches of space.

The technosignature scenario envisions that future powerful telescopes will find evidence of past or present extraterrestrial technology.

The artifact scenario assumes that one day, somewhere in our solar system (or even on Earth itself), we will come across the material remains — such as a space probe — of an extraterrestrial civilization.

The encounter scenario involves the appearance of an alien spacecraft in near-Earth space that can be assumed, based on its flight maneuvers or other actions, to be controlled by intelligence, either biological or artificial.
Biological beings or artificial intelligence?

The prospect of an encounter scenario, the paper points out, raises an important question: Whether the alien technology is controlled by a biological life form or an artificial intelligence.

"A biological life form, we suspect, could potentially cause greater anxiety, as the immediate question would be what 'they' want here. It also has an inbuilt assumption that they have a relatively nearby base or have superfast travel (maybe faster than light) and would thus be very far ahead of us technologically," Anton and co-authors write in their paper.

"However, the question of whether the encounter is with a biological life form or the emissaries of a machine civilization could remain unresolved for a long time," they add.

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Be prepared

The paper concludes by acknowledging that the more we know about the universe and the further we penetrate into the cosmos through our own research activities, "the more likely it is that we will be confronted with alien civilizations, their signals or their legacies."

That being the case, the researchers suggest, humanity needs to be prepared as a global society for this scenario.

"In the political sphere, the question of how to deal with this discovery and possible communication with extraterrestrial civilizations would lead to a global discourse," they write in the paper. "International cooperation would be essential to develop a unified approach to dealing with this new reality."

This research paper, titled "Meeting extraterrestrials: Scenarios of first contact from the perspective of exosociology," is available here.

 It's Been 2 Months. Why Can't NASA Open the Asteroid Sample Container?

Passant Rabie
Fri, December 15, 2023 

NASA curation team members along with Lockheed Martin recovery specialists removing the canister lid.

In September, fragments of a near-Earth asteroid were carefully dropped off in the Utah desert. The space rocks hold clues to the origin of the solar system and can possibly answer crucial questions about how our planet came to be—if only we can get to them first.
NASA has been struggling to open the canister containing rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu ever since the container landed on Earth. The space agency now anticipates that the asteroid sample canister will be opened sometime in early 2024, as engineers fashion new tools to help crank it open while still preserving the pristine rocks.

The curation team for the OSIRIS-REx mission has been having trouble opening up TAGSAM, which is being carefully handled by members of the team through a specialized glovebox under the flow of nitrogen to prevent contamination. Two of the 35 fasteners on the TAGSAM head could not be removed with the current tools approved for use in the OSIRIS-REx glovebox, preventing them from extracting the sample inside.

Debris from asteroid Bennu on the outside of the OSIRIS-REx sample collector.

The team did manage to collect some material from outside the TAGSAM head. When the aluminum lid to the sample canister was first removed, team members found black dust and debris on the avionics deck of the canister. They also removed some of the material from inside the canister with tweezers or a scoop while holding down the TAGSAM head’s mylar flap.

The extra bits collected so far have exceeded NASA’s goal of collecting 60 grams from the surface of Bennu, so the space agency already has material to work with. In October, NASA gave the public a first look at the asteroid samples that had been collected so far. The total amount of the asteroid sample is an estimated 8.8 ounces of rock and dust (250 grams).

Even with the bonus sample outside of TAGSAM, the $1.16 billion OSIRIS-REx mission has already proven its worth. Scientists performed an early analysis of the asteroid sample and found an abundance of carbon and water molecules, supporting the theory that the building blocks of life may have made their way to Earth via asteroids. One can only imagine what more Bennu can offer once scientists get to the bulk of its sample.

Since November, NASA has stopped trying to fidget with the sample canister, but the space agency hasn’t lost hope. Instead, NASA is currently in the process of developing and testing new tools to open up the canister.

“Design, development, and testing of new tools made of contamination-compliant materials is in [the works] to safely complete sample retrieval from the TAGSAM head in the pristine glovebox,” a NASA spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email. “Depending on the timing of building and testing, we anticipate it will be opened in the first quarter of 2024.”

The TAGSAM head may be stubborn, but the space agency is also hellbent on getting those precious space rocks into the hands of scientists around the world for analysis. The priority, of course, is to extract the sample while still protecting it from Earthly contamination that could mess with the data.

Bennu is a small near-Earth asteroid that makes a close pass to Earth every six years or so. Scientists believe Bennu might have broken off from a much larger carbon-rich asteroid about 700 million to 2 billion years ago, and drifted much closer to Earth since then.

The plan is for the curation team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center to extract and weigh the sample, create an inventory of what’s inside, and distribute pieces of Bennu to international teams of scientists. Hopefully NASA will be able to crack that baby open, giving us a better chance of learning about the origins of our star system.

Voyager 1 Is in Serious Trouble, NASA Says

Noor Al-Sibai
Thu, December 14, 2023 


Gen X

NASA's Voyager 1 probe has been cruising into distant space for 46 years old — and some of that advancd age is apparently showing.

As NASA explained in a blog update, one of the pioneering probe's computers, known as its flight data system (FDS), is "not communicating properly." Because of these translation issues, the craft launched during the dawn of space travel is currently unable to send any information back to Earth.

With so many incredible Earth-made crafts currently floating around in space, it's easy to forget that the probes launched in the Voyager mission are still out there collecting and transmitting data from the outer reaches of our Solar System.

Voyager 1's specific mission for the past four-odd decades, for instance, has been to collect and transmit back to Earth "data on the transition between the heliosphere — the region of space dominated by the Sun’s magnetic field and solar field — and the interstellar medium," NASA notes in an explainer.
Ground Control

Normally, the probe — which, oddly, was launched about a month after Voyager 2, making it the second of the two-craft mission to launch despite its numerical name order — sends its scientific readings about interstellar space and its engineering updates in what's known as a "package" of easily-translatable binary code.

Over the past few months, however, the probe has been "stuck" transmitting repetitive patterns of ones and zeroes that are the binary equivalent of gobbledygook. While the Earth-bound Voyager team was able to target which instrument was behind the malfunction, they haven't yet been able to adequately troubleshoot it back into working order.

"This past weekend the team tried to restart the FDS and return it to the state it was in before the issue began," NASA said in the statement, "but the spacecraft still isn’t returning useable data."

It may take the agency's engineers "several weeks" to figure out how to fix the probe.

"Finding solutions to challenges the probes encounter often entails consulting original, decades-old documents written by engineers who didn’t anticipate the issues that are arising today," NASA pointed out. "As a result, it takes time for the team to understand how a new command will affect the spacecraft’s operations in order to avoid unintended consequences."

You gotta hand it to NASA: There's little chance that any of the agency's engineers who were there during the launch of the Voyager mission foresaw it lasting anywhere near this long, and the fact that it's still anywhere near functional, all things considered, is pretty epic.

More on NASA's old heads: Space Station Turns 25, Just in Time to Die

China launches secret space plane on 3rd-ever mission
Brett Tingley
Thu, December 14, 2023 

A small space shuttle-like spacecraft in orbit above earth.

China has launched its reusable space plane for the third time.

A Long March 2F rocket lofted China's experimental spacecraft from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Thursday (Dec. 14) to conduct space science experiments and "provide technical support for the peaceful use of space," according to Xinhua news.

The launch comes just seven months after the spacecraft's last mission, a much quicker follow-up compared to the first and second launches which happened 23 months apart, SpaceNews reports.

Hours prior to the secretive spacecraft's launch, SpaceX stood down from the 7th planned liftoff of the U.S. Space Force's own X-37B reusable space plane, and even removed the Falcon Heavy rocket containing it from the Kennedy Space Center launch pad. The mission, known as USSF-52, was scrubbed on Wednesday (Dec. 13) to "perform additional system checkouts." Exact reasons for this delay remain unknown, and a new date has yet to be set for launch.

Related: China's mysterious space plane returns to Earth after 9-month orbital mission

Much like the X-37B, little is known about China's reusable space plane, subbed Shenlong, or "Divine Dragon." From what bits of information are available to the public, though, the spacecraft appears to be used for testing new payloads and orbital operations. It launches vertically atop a rocket, conducts its mission and then lands horizontally on a runway similar to NASA's space shuttle.

— China's reusable experimental spacecraft returns to Earth after two-day mystery mission

— US Space Force's 1st official painting shows military space plane intercepting adversary satellite

The close timing of the two space plane launches is also not coincidental, according to General Chance Saltzman, U.S. Space Force's Chief of Space Operations. Speaking at the Space Force Association's Spacepower Conference this week, Saltzman said China and the U.S. are both very interested in each other's space planes.

"Because it is a capability; the ability to put something in orbit, do some things, and bring it home and take a look at the results is powerful," Saltzman said, according to Air and Space Forces Magazine. "And so these are two of the most watched objects on orbit while they're on orbit. It's probably no coincidence that they're trying to match us in timing and sequence of this."

The last flight of China's robotic space plane lasted 276 days and saw the spacecraft eject an unknown object into orbit. It was speculated at the time that the object was either a small satellite designed to inspect Shenlong or a service module that was no longer needed.

GE's Breakthrough In 'Detonating' Hypersonic Propulsion Is A Big Deal

Joseph Trevithick
Thu, December 14, 2023 

GE Aerospace says that it has demonstrated an advanced propulsion concept the blends a dual-mode ramjet together with rotating detonation combustion.


GE Aerospace says it successfully demonstrated an advanced jet propulsion concept that involves a dual-mode ramjet design utilizing rotating detonation combustion. This could offer a pathway to the development of new aircraft and missiles capable of flying efficiently at high supersonic and even hypersonic speeds across long distances.

A press release that GE Aerospace put out today offers new details about what it says "is believed to be a world-first hypersonic dual-mode ramjet (DMRJ) rig test with rotating detonation combustion (RDC) in a supersonic flow stream." Hypersonic speed is defined as anything above Mach 5. Amy Gowder, President and CEO of the Defense & Systems division of GE Aerospace, previously disclosed this project, but offered more limited information, at this year's Paris Air Show in June.

A rendering of a rotating detonation engine design. USAF/AFRL via Aviation Week

"A typical air-breathing DMRJ propulsion system can only begin operating when the vehicle achieves supersonic speeds of greater than Mach 3," the press release explains. "GE Aerospace engineers are working on a rotating detonation-enabled dual mode ramjet that is capable of operating at lower Mach numbers, enabling the flight vehicle to operate more efficiently and achieve longer range."

"RDC [rotating detonation combustion] enables higher thrust generation more efficiently, at an overall smaller engine size and weight, by combusting the fuel through detonation waves instead of a standard combustion system that powers traditional jet engines today," the press release adds.

To elaborate, in most traditional gas turbines, including turbofan and turbojet engines, air is fed in from an inlet and compressed, and then is mixed with fuel and burned via deflagration (where combustion occurs at a subsonic rate) in a combustion chamber. This process creates the continuous flow of hot, high-pressure air needed to make the whole system run.

A rotating detonation engine (which involves combustion that happens at a supersonic rate) instead "starts with one cylinder inside another larger one, with a gap between them and some small holes or slits through which a detonation fuel mix can be pushed," according to a past article on the general concept from New Atlas. "Some form of ignition creates a detonation in that annular gap, which creates gases that are pushed out one end of the ring-shaped channel to produce thrust in the opposite direction. It also creates a shockwave that propagates around the channel at around five times the speed of sound, and that shockwave can be used to ignite more detonations in a self-sustaining, rotating pattern if fuel is added in the right spots at the right times."

The video below offers a more detailed walkthrough of the rotating detonation engine concept.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG_Eh0J_4_s\u0026t=181s

Experimentation with rotating detonation concepts dates back to the 1950s, but actually creating a workable engine of this type had proved elusive until very recently, at least publicly. In 2020, a team at the University of Central Florida (UCF), working together with the U.S. Air Force's Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), said they had created a first-of-its-kind experimental test rig that demonstrated the concept's practical feasibility. The following year, the researchers at UCF announced they had built a prototype engine capable of producing a sustained detonation wave, said to be another world's first. There have been additional developments with regard to rotating detonation engines elsewhere in the United States and around the world since then.

Pictures of the University of Central Florida's (UCF) rotating detonation test rig that were released in 2020. UCF

In principle, rotating detonation requires less fuel to produce the same level of power/thrust as combustion via deflagration. The resulting sustained shockwave builds its own pressure, as well, leading to even greater fuel efficiency. Pressure is steadily lost during deflagration.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WvBpuJ0fa98

In addition, rotating detonation typically requires far fewer moving parts than are needed in traditional gas turbines. In theory, this should all allow for rotating detonation engine designs that are significantly smaller, lighter, and less complex than existing types with similar very high power/thrust output.

The potential benefits of such a propulsion system are obvious. A practical rotating detonation engine would offer a way to get higher performance and greater range out of even relatively small aircraft and missile designs. Adapting existing designs to use this kind of propulsion could free up space for more fuel or other payloads. These are all potential benefits that AFRL has very publicly touted in the past, as can be seen in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy8UmhCT43c

Last year, the U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) unveiled a project called Gambit, which is also centered around rotating detonation engine technology. The core goal of this effort is "to develop and demonstrate a novel Rotating Detonation Engine propulsion system that enables a mass-producible, low-cost, high-supersonic, long-range weapon for air-to-ground strike in an anti-access/area denial (A2AD) environment."

Artwork the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has previously released related to the Gambit project. DARPA

In October of this year, Raytheon secured a contract from DARPA to develop and demonstrate a practical rotating detonation engine for the Gambit project.

"Although GE was not selected for the recently revealed DARPA-funded Gambit program—an effort intended to provide a long-range strike missile for fourth-generation fighters leveraging RDE technology—Gowder said, 'We're working with them on some other technology demonstrators.'" Aviation Week reported earlier this year around the Paris Airshow.

A rendering of a notional rotating detonation engine-powered missile that the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has previously released. USAF/AFRL via Aviation Week

The propulsion concept that GE Aerospace says it is now working looks to go a step beyond the basic rotating detonation concept and the benefits that it might offer by blending it together with a dual-mode ramjet design. Ramjets, which are not new, don't work at subsonic speeds and have trouble working reliably even at lower supersonic speeds. As such, platforms that utilize them require some kind of initial boost, typically provided by a rocket motor.

"GE engineers are now testing the transition mode at high-supersonic speeds as thrust transitions from the RDE-equipped turbine and the dual-mode ramjet/scramjet," GE Aerospace's Gowder said in Paris earlier this year, according to Aviation Week.

“We’re looking at both,” Gowder added when asked about her company's continued work on scramjets. “But the RDE offers a very efficient solution because it allows you to shrink the length. Size, in certain applications, could really matter—particularly for some unmanned applications.”

A combined ramjet and rotating detonation concept could be an especially big deal for future missiles, like the ones DARPA's Gambit project is envisioning, and possibly high-speed air vehicles for reconnaissance use. This propulsion arrangement could allow for greater efficiency and lighter (and potentially smaller) airframes, which in turn allow for greater performance — especially in terms of range — and/or payload capacity. If rotating detonation combustion can reduce the minimum speed required to get the ramjet working, this would reduce the amount of initial boost such a system would need at the outset, too. This would mean a smaller overall package. All of this opens doors to new levels of operational flexibility.

This new engine concept could also potentially become one component of what is known as a turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engine arrangement, of which much talk over the years about in recent years. Most TBCC design concepts revolve around combinations of advanced ramjets or scramjets for use at high speeds and traditional turbojet engines that work better a low speeds.

A graphical depiction of a notional turbine-based combined cycle engine arrangement. Lockheed Martin

A practical TBCC concept of any kind has long been a holy grail technology when it comes to designing very high-speed aircraft. A propulsion system that allows for this kind of high and low-speed flexibility would mean an aircraft could take off from and land on any suitable existing runway, but also be capable of sustained high-supersonic or even hypersonic speeds in the middle portion of a flight.

The U.S. Air Force, among others, is therefore unsurprisingly interested in TBCC propulsion systems. The service's shadowy Mayhem program has been tied to TBCC and dual-mode ramjet developments in the past, as has Lockheed Martin's previously proposed SR-72 hypersonic aircraft. Mayhem itself is ostensibly centered on the development of an experimental hypersonic air vehicle capable of carrying various payloads necessary to conduct strike and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.

A rendering of a notional hypersonic air vehicle from Leidos, which is currently leading work on the Air Force's Mayhem project. Leidos

For the U.S. military, future aircraft and missiles capable just of more efficient sustained supersonic speed over long distances could be very valuable for responding to a variety of time-sensitive mission requirements. In particular, any future high-end conflict in the Pacific, such as one against China, would automatically involve all sorts of operational demands across a broad area, much of it covered in water. These are issues The War Zone has explored in detail in the past in the context of the military utility of advanced supersonic aircraft using more traditional propulsion options.

It, of course, very much remains to be seen what will ultimately come of the work that GE Aerospace is conducting now. As already noted, the field of work on practical rotating detonation engines of any type is still in its infancy, though significant developments do seem to be occurring at a steadier rate now.

“The successful development, integration, and demonstration of GE’s unique technologies and capabilities will position us to provide differentiating hypersonic propulsion systems for our customers now and well into the future," Mark Rettig, Vice President & General Manager of Edison Works Business & Technology Development at GE Aerospace, said in a statement in today's press release. “We have assembled the right expertise, with the right capabilities, and invested strategically to ensure we are aligned very closely with the needs of our customers. The significant results we have had to date give us confidence that we are moving in the right direction.”

We have to also note that there has been major investment over many decades in very high-speed sustained atmopsheric flight in the shadows of classified research and development work. Huge sums have migrated into this area of research in recent years with the rise of hypersonic weaponry, so we don't know how much of this capability has been explored in that realm if at all.

All told, it will be very interesting to see what else GE Aerospace discloses about this potentially breakthrough propulsion work utilizing rotating detonation combustion going forward.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com