Yeah I remember as a kid about it, usually the stories were the Russians were controlling the weather
It's Climate Change I tell'ya!! IT'S CLIMATE CHANGE!!
- Thread starter B00Mer
- Start date
Same process is is used to supress hail. I've seen it happen. After a thunderhead is dive bombed the once fluffy storm looks like a massive ice cream cone melting in a microwave.
Earth has overshot key 'planetary boundaries,' scientists warn
Author of the article:Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Eric Roston
Published Sep 11, 2024 • 3 minute read
Human activity is imperiling eight of the planet’s critical life-support systems and seven of them have already passed into a danger zone, according to a massive review of Earth science conducted jointly by more than 60 researchers and published Wednesday in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Looking at necessities of a livable Earth — including the climate, freshwater systems, biodiversity and soil nutrients — the researchers find almost all have crossed crucial thresholds. The only global system yet to breach safe limits is aerosols, even as small-particle air pollution contributes to 8 million deaths a year.
The new paper updates a scientific project that began in 2009 to assess “planetary boundaries” (since renamed “Earth-system boundaries”) and how transgressing them will pose risks to human society and nature around the world.
Researchers assessed each of these systems on two factors. One was safety, or how long until the system may no longer perform in the way people have relied on it to. The other was justice, or “the risk of significant harm” to people alive today and those not yet born.
They conclude that to avoid further destabilization, countries should keep at least half of the planet’s ecosystems intact, limit groundwater extraction and set hard limits on use of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers.
The new work offers a way for countries, businesses and cities to begin to define their own responsibilities, based on efforts such as the Science Based Targets initiative, which helps companies set climate goals, and the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, which set down guidelines for assessing climate risk and communicating it to shareholders and others.
What’s pushing systems past their limits is no surprise: Economic activity. The authors write that “radical” societal changes, including redistributing wealth, are necessary to keep the planet habitable.
“We are not arguing that we need to do a ton of things we’ve never done before,” said co-author Diana Liverman, retired Regents Professor of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona. “A lot of the transformations are already underway. They’re just not happening at scale or fast enough.”
Although the paper cites recent writing that questions economic orthodoxy, the founder of planetary boundaries research, Johan Rockström, says the world “cannot wait for a completely new economics” to restore Earth to safety: “You cannot say, ‘OK, capitalism is a problem, so we need something else,’” said Rockström, who is director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-chair of the Earth Commission, the international group of scientists that conducted the study.
The boundaries approach has long stirred debate among scientists. Erle Ellis, an environmental scientist at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County who was not involved with the research, questioned how actionable the recommendations are. He also criticized the controlling metaphor — that there’s a “safe space” and an increasingly dangerous one, with a line separating them.
“It’s an illusion to think that there’s this line that you cross and now you’re in a danger zone,” he said.
Rockström said that not all of the boundaries have hard and fast limits to them. Most, like biodiversity loss, air pollution and fertilizer pollution, have no strict levels. The rest of them, he said, are drifting into danger rather than facing a physical cliff — but they all are critical in keeping the whole system healthy.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Eric Roston
Published Sep 11, 2024 • 3 minute read
Human activity is imperiling eight of the planet’s critical life-support systems and seven of them have already passed into a danger zone, according to a massive review of Earth science conducted jointly by more than 60 researchers and published Wednesday in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Looking at necessities of a livable Earth — including the climate, freshwater systems, biodiversity and soil nutrients — the researchers find almost all have crossed crucial thresholds. The only global system yet to breach safe limits is aerosols, even as small-particle air pollution contributes to 8 million deaths a year.
The new paper updates a scientific project that began in 2009 to assess “planetary boundaries” (since renamed “Earth-system boundaries”) and how transgressing them will pose risks to human society and nature around the world.
Researchers assessed each of these systems on two factors. One was safety, or how long until the system may no longer perform in the way people have relied on it to. The other was justice, or “the risk of significant harm” to people alive today and those not yet born.
They conclude that to avoid further destabilization, countries should keep at least half of the planet’s ecosystems intact, limit groundwater extraction and set hard limits on use of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers.
The new work offers a way for countries, businesses and cities to begin to define their own responsibilities, based on efforts such as the Science Based Targets initiative, which helps companies set climate goals, and the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, which set down guidelines for assessing climate risk and communicating it to shareholders and others.
What’s pushing systems past their limits is no surprise: Economic activity. The authors write that “radical” societal changes, including redistributing wealth, are necessary to keep the planet habitable.
“We are not arguing that we need to do a ton of things we’ve never done before,” said co-author Diana Liverman, retired Regents Professor of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona. “A lot of the transformations are already underway. They’re just not happening at scale or fast enough.”
Although the paper cites recent writing that questions economic orthodoxy, the founder of planetary boundaries research, Johan Rockström, says the world “cannot wait for a completely new economics” to restore Earth to safety: “You cannot say, ‘OK, capitalism is a problem, so we need something else,’” said Rockström, who is director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-chair of the Earth Commission, the international group of scientists that conducted the study.
The boundaries approach has long stirred debate among scientists. Erle Ellis, an environmental scientist at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County who was not involved with the research, questioned how actionable the recommendations are. He also criticized the controlling metaphor — that there’s a “safe space” and an increasingly dangerous one, with a line separating them.
“It’s an illusion to think that there’s this line that you cross and now you’re in a danger zone,” he said.
Rockström said that not all of the boundaries have hard and fast limits to them. Most, like biodiversity loss, air pollution and fertilizer pollution, have no strict levels. The rest of them, he said, are drifting into danger rather than facing a physical cliff — but they all are critical in keeping the whole system healthy.
Earth has overshot key 'planetary boundaries,' scientists warn
Human activity is imperiling eight of the planet’s critical life-support systems, according to a massive review by more than 60 researchers.
Yup, scare everyone some more based on what? Stupidity? Political agendas? Science? LMAO!!!Earth has overshot key 'planetary boundaries,' scientists warn
Author of the article:Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Eric Roston
Published Sep 11, 2024 • 3 minute read
Human activity is imperiling eight of the planet’s critical life-support systems and seven of them have already passed into a danger zone, according to a massive review of Earth science conducted jointly by more than 60 researchers and published Wednesday in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Looking at necessities of a livable Earth — including the climate, freshwater systems, biodiversity and soil nutrients — the researchers find almost all have crossed crucial thresholds. The only global system yet to breach safe limits is aerosols, even as small-particle air pollution contributes to 8 million deaths a year.
The new paper updates a scientific project that began in 2009 to assess “planetary boundaries” (since renamed “Earth-system boundaries”) and how transgressing them will pose risks to human society and nature around the world.
Researchers assessed each of these systems on two factors. One was safety, or how long until the system may no longer perform in the way people have relied on it to. The other was justice, or “the risk of significant harm” to people alive today and those not yet born.
They conclude that to avoid further destabilization, countries should keep at least half of the planet’s ecosystems intact, limit groundwater extraction and set hard limits on use of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers.
The new work offers a way for countries, businesses and cities to begin to define their own responsibilities, based on efforts such as the Science Based Targets initiative, which helps companies set climate goals, and the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, which set down guidelines for assessing climate risk and communicating it to shareholders and others.
What’s pushing systems past their limits is no surprise: Economic activity. The authors write that “radical” societal changes, including redistributing wealth, are necessary to keep the planet habitable.
“We are not arguing that we need to do a ton of things we’ve never done before,” said co-author Diana Liverman, retired Regents Professor of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona. “A lot of the transformations are already underway. They’re just not happening at scale or fast enough.”
Although the paper cites recent writing that questions economic orthodoxy, the founder of planetary boundaries research, Johan Rockström, says the world “cannot wait for a completely new economics” to restore Earth to safety: “You cannot say, ‘OK, capitalism is a problem, so we need something else,’” said Rockström, who is director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-chair of the Earth Commission, the international group of scientists that conducted the study.
The boundaries approach has long stirred debate among scientists. Erle Ellis, an environmental scientist at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County who was not involved with the research, questioned how actionable the recommendations are. He also criticized the controlling metaphor — that there’s a “safe space” and an increasingly dangerous one, with a line separating them.
“It’s an illusion to think that there’s this line that you cross and now you’re in a danger zone,” he said.
Rockström said that not all of the boundaries have hard and fast limits to them. Most, like biodiversity loss, air pollution and fertilizer pollution, have no strict levels. The rest of them, he said, are drifting into danger rather than facing a physical cliff — but they all are critical in keeping the whole system healthy.
Earth has overshot key 'planetary boundaries,' scientists warn
Human activity is imperiling eight of the planet’s critical life-support systems, according to a massive review by more than 60 researchers.
I guess...this seems to what they want. What about them? Are the elitists who want to do this to everyone else exempt?
I was being facetious. I thought the Bender pic would have indicated my sarcasm/cynicism.
Researchers sound alarm over lean polar bears in Hudson Bay
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
By Seth Borenstein
Published Sep 24, 2024 • Last updated 19 hours ago • 5 minute read
ON HUDSON BAY — Searching for polar bears where the Churchill River dumps into Canada’s massive Hudson Bay, biologist Geoff York scans a region that’s on a low fat, low ice diet because of climate change.
And it’s getting lower on polar bears.
There are now about 600 polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay, one of the most threatened of the 20 populations of the white beasts. That’s about half the number of 40 years ago, says York, director of research at Polar Bears International. His latest study, with a team of scientists from various fields, shows that if the world doesn’t cut back more on emissions of heat-trapping gases “we could lose this population entirely by the end of the century,” he says.
More than polar bears are threatened in this changing gateway to the Arctic, where warmer waters melt sea ice earlier in the year and the open ocean lingers longer. For what grows, lives and especially eats in this region, it’s like a house’s foundation shifting. “The whole marine ecosystem is tied to the seasonality of that sea ice cover,” University of Manitoba sea ice scientist Julienne Stroeve said.
When the sea ice melts earlier it warms the overall water temperature and it changes algae that blooms, which changes the plankton that feed on the algae, which changes the fish, all the way up the food web to beluga whales, seals and polar bears, scientists say.
“What we’re seeing is a transformation of an Arctic ecosystem into more of a southern open ocean,” York says in August from the bobbing up-and-down edge of a 12-foot Zodiac boat. “We’re seeing a transformation from high-fat plankton that leads to things like beluga whales and polar bears to low-fat plankton that end up with the final part of the food chain being jellyfish.”
Here, fat is good.
“To live in the Arctic you need to be fat, or live fat, or both,” said Kristin Laidre, a University of Washington marine mammal scientist who specializes in Arctic species.
The polar bear — the symbol of both climate change and an area warming four times faster than the rest of the world — is the king of fat. When mother polar bears nurse their young — as an Associated Press team witnessed on rocks outside of Churchill, Manitoba, the self-proclaimed polar bear capital of the world — what comes out in the milk is 30% fat, York says.
“If you think of the heaviest of heavy whipping cream, it would be just like drinking that,” York says. “This why you can have cubs that are born the size of my fist in January emerge in March at 20 to 25 pounds.”
Fewer of these cubs are being born or survive the first year because their mothers aren’t fat enough or strong enough to even get pregnant, York says.
Polar bears feed like crazy in the ice-covered spring. They use the sea ice platforms as bases to hunt their favourite prey, high-fat seals, especially baby seals.
In the Hudson Bay, unlike other areas where polar bears live, sea ice naturally disappears in the summer. So the polar bears lose their food supply. This has always happened, but now it’s happening earlier in the year and the ice free area is lasting longer, say York and Stroeve.
So most polar bears go hungry. Recent studies have shown that even hunting on land — caribou, birds, human trash — takes so much energy that bears that do it don’t really gain any more calories than those that just sit and starve.
“Here on Hudson’s Bay, we know from the long term research that the bears today are spending up to a month longer on shore than their parents or grandparents did. That’s 30 days longer without access to food, and that’s on average,” York says.
Some years the bears get near the starvation threshold of 180 days. Polar bears can fast for less than that and do well, mostly because they are so good at gathering and storing fat for these lean periods, York says. During that lean time period, researchers monitoring bears found that 19 out of 20 of them lost 47 pounds in just three weeks, about 7% of their body weight.
Sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by about 13% per decade — falling in large steps and plateaus — since 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. While Arctic sea ice hit its fourth lowest extent on record for late August, in Western Hudson Bay unusual winds have meant longer lasting ice than usual, but it’s a temporary and very localized respite.
A peer-reviewed study this year from Stroeve and York looked at sea ice levels, that 180-day hunger threshold and climate simulations based on different levels of carbon pollution. The researchers found that once Earth warms another 1.3 or 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.3 to 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) from now, the polar bears likely will cross that point of no return. Bears will be too hungry and this population likely dies out.
Studies, including those by the United Nations, that look at current efforts to curb carbon dioxide emissions project warming of about 1.5 degrees to 1.7 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 3.1 degrees Fahrenheit) from now by the end of the century.
“The populations will definitely not make it,” Stroeve said.
There’s about 4,500 polar bears in the three Hudson Bay populations and 55,000 beluga whales. Together, that’s more than 141 million pounds of fat large mammals. That seems huge, but those white beasts are losing a battle to an even larger weight: the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide the world spews into the air.
It’s 154 million pounds every minute.
It’s not just polar bears.
University of Washington’s Laidre said some scientists think the smallest water zooplankton called copepods are the most important animals in the Arctic. They’re fat heavy and the staple of bowhead whales.
But copepods live on the smaller plant plankton that’s changing. The timing of when copepods can prosper is changing and new species are moving in, “and they are not as lipid rich,” Laidre said.
“It’s not that nothing lives out there,” York says while gazing on the Bay. “It’s that the things that are living in the North are changing and looking a lot more like the South.”
What’s happening in the Hudson Bay is a preview of what will hit further north, Stroeve said.
An ice scientist, Stroeve says there is just something about polar bears that is so special.
“It really just makes you so happy to see them, to see an animal living in such a harsh environment,” Stroeve said. “And somehow they have survived. And are we going to make it so that they can’t survive? That makes me sad.”
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
By Seth Borenstein
Published Sep 24, 2024 • Last updated 19 hours ago • 5 minute read
ON HUDSON BAY — Searching for polar bears where the Churchill River dumps into Canada’s massive Hudson Bay, biologist Geoff York scans a region that’s on a low fat, low ice diet because of climate change.
And it’s getting lower on polar bears.
There are now about 600 polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay, one of the most threatened of the 20 populations of the white beasts. That’s about half the number of 40 years ago, says York, director of research at Polar Bears International. His latest study, with a team of scientists from various fields, shows that if the world doesn’t cut back more on emissions of heat-trapping gases “we could lose this population entirely by the end of the century,” he says.
More than polar bears are threatened in this changing gateway to the Arctic, where warmer waters melt sea ice earlier in the year and the open ocean lingers longer. For what grows, lives and especially eats in this region, it’s like a house’s foundation shifting. “The whole marine ecosystem is tied to the seasonality of that sea ice cover,” University of Manitoba sea ice scientist Julienne Stroeve said.
When the sea ice melts earlier it warms the overall water temperature and it changes algae that blooms, which changes the plankton that feed on the algae, which changes the fish, all the way up the food web to beluga whales, seals and polar bears, scientists say.
“What we’re seeing is a transformation of an Arctic ecosystem into more of a southern open ocean,” York says in August from the bobbing up-and-down edge of a 12-foot Zodiac boat. “We’re seeing a transformation from high-fat plankton that leads to things like beluga whales and polar bears to low-fat plankton that end up with the final part of the food chain being jellyfish.”
Here, fat is good.
“To live in the Arctic you need to be fat, or live fat, or both,” said Kristin Laidre, a University of Washington marine mammal scientist who specializes in Arctic species.
The polar bear — the symbol of both climate change and an area warming four times faster than the rest of the world — is the king of fat. When mother polar bears nurse their young — as an Associated Press team witnessed on rocks outside of Churchill, Manitoba, the self-proclaimed polar bear capital of the world — what comes out in the milk is 30% fat, York says.
“If you think of the heaviest of heavy whipping cream, it would be just like drinking that,” York says. “This why you can have cubs that are born the size of my fist in January emerge in March at 20 to 25 pounds.”
Fewer of these cubs are being born or survive the first year because their mothers aren’t fat enough or strong enough to even get pregnant, York says.
Polar bears feed like crazy in the ice-covered spring. They use the sea ice platforms as bases to hunt their favourite prey, high-fat seals, especially baby seals.
In the Hudson Bay, unlike other areas where polar bears live, sea ice naturally disappears in the summer. So the polar bears lose their food supply. This has always happened, but now it’s happening earlier in the year and the ice free area is lasting longer, say York and Stroeve.
So most polar bears go hungry. Recent studies have shown that even hunting on land — caribou, birds, human trash — takes so much energy that bears that do it don’t really gain any more calories than those that just sit and starve.
“Here on Hudson’s Bay, we know from the long term research that the bears today are spending up to a month longer on shore than their parents or grandparents did. That’s 30 days longer without access to food, and that’s on average,” York says.
Some years the bears get near the starvation threshold of 180 days. Polar bears can fast for less than that and do well, mostly because they are so good at gathering and storing fat for these lean periods, York says. During that lean time period, researchers monitoring bears found that 19 out of 20 of them lost 47 pounds in just three weeks, about 7% of their body weight.
Sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by about 13% per decade — falling in large steps and plateaus — since 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. While Arctic sea ice hit its fourth lowest extent on record for late August, in Western Hudson Bay unusual winds have meant longer lasting ice than usual, but it’s a temporary and very localized respite.
A peer-reviewed study this year from Stroeve and York looked at sea ice levels, that 180-day hunger threshold and climate simulations based on different levels of carbon pollution. The researchers found that once Earth warms another 1.3 or 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.3 to 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) from now, the polar bears likely will cross that point of no return. Bears will be too hungry and this population likely dies out.
Studies, including those by the United Nations, that look at current efforts to curb carbon dioxide emissions project warming of about 1.5 degrees to 1.7 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 3.1 degrees Fahrenheit) from now by the end of the century.
“The populations will definitely not make it,” Stroeve said.
There’s about 4,500 polar bears in the three Hudson Bay populations and 55,000 beluga whales. Together, that’s more than 141 million pounds of fat large mammals. That seems huge, but those white beasts are losing a battle to an even larger weight: the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide the world spews into the air.
It’s 154 million pounds every minute.
It’s not just polar bears.
University of Washington’s Laidre said some scientists think the smallest water zooplankton called copepods are the most important animals in the Arctic. They’re fat heavy and the staple of bowhead whales.
But copepods live on the smaller plant plankton that’s changing. The timing of when copepods can prosper is changing and new species are moving in, “and they are not as lipid rich,” Laidre said.
“It’s not that nothing lives out there,” York says while gazing on the Bay. “It’s that the things that are living in the North are changing and looking a lot more like the South.”
What’s happening in the Hudson Bay is a preview of what will hit further north, Stroeve said.
An ice scientist, Stroeve says there is just something about polar bears that is so special.
“It really just makes you so happy to see them, to see an animal living in such a harsh environment,” Stroeve said. “And somehow they have survived. And are we going to make it so that they can’t survive? That makes me sad.”
Researchers sound alarm over lean polar bears in Hudson Bay
More than polar bears are threatened in this changing gateway to the Arctic.
What the fuck is an "ice scientist"?Researchers sound alarm over lean polar bears in Hudson Bay
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
By Seth Borenstein
Published Sep 24, 2024 • Last updated 19 hours ago • 5 minute read
ON HUDSON BAY — Searching for polar bears where the Churchill River dumps into Canada’s massive Hudson Bay, biologist Geoff York scans a region that’s on a low fat, low ice diet because of climate change.
And it’s getting lower on polar bears.
There are now about 600 polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay, one of the most threatened of the 20 populations of the white beasts. That’s about half the number of 40 years ago, says York, director of research at Polar Bears International. His latest study, with a team of scientists from various fields, shows that if the world doesn’t cut back more on emissions of heat-trapping gases “we could lose this population entirely by the end of the century,” he says.
More than polar bears are threatened in this changing gateway to the Arctic, where warmer waters melt sea ice earlier in the year and the open ocean lingers longer. For what grows, lives and especially eats in this region, it’s like a house’s foundation shifting. “The whole marine ecosystem is tied to the seasonality of that sea ice cover,” University of Manitoba sea ice scientist Julienne Stroeve said.
When the sea ice melts earlier it warms the overall water temperature and it changes algae that blooms, which changes the plankton that feed on the algae, which changes the fish, all the way up the food web to beluga whales, seals and polar bears, scientists say.
“What we’re seeing is a transformation of an Arctic ecosystem into more of a southern open ocean,” York says in August from the bobbing up-and-down edge of a 12-foot Zodiac boat. “We’re seeing a transformation from high-fat plankton that leads to things like beluga whales and polar bears to low-fat plankton that end up with the final part of the food chain being jellyfish.”
Here, fat is good.
“To live in the Arctic you need to be fat, or live fat, or both,” said Kristin Laidre, a University of Washington marine mammal scientist who specializes in Arctic species.
The polar bear — the symbol of both climate change and an area warming four times faster than the rest of the world — is the king of fat. When mother polar bears nurse their young — as an Associated Press team witnessed on rocks outside of Churchill, Manitoba, the self-proclaimed polar bear capital of the world — what comes out in the milk is 30% fat, York says.
“If you think of the heaviest of heavy whipping cream, it would be just like drinking that,” York says. “This why you can have cubs that are born the size of my fist in January emerge in March at 20 to 25 pounds.”
Fewer of these cubs are being born or survive the first year because their mothers aren’t fat enough or strong enough to even get pregnant, York says.
Polar bears feed like crazy in the ice-covered spring. They use the sea ice platforms as bases to hunt their favourite prey, high-fat seals, especially baby seals.
In the Hudson Bay, unlike other areas where polar bears live, sea ice naturally disappears in the summer. So the polar bears lose their food supply. This has always happened, but now it’s happening earlier in the year and the ice free area is lasting longer, say York and Stroeve.
So most polar bears go hungry. Recent studies have shown that even hunting on land — caribou, birds, human trash — takes so much energy that bears that do it don’t really gain any more calories than those that just sit and starve.
“Here on Hudson’s Bay, we know from the long term research that the bears today are spending up to a month longer on shore than their parents or grandparents did. That’s 30 days longer without access to food, and that’s on average,” York says.
Some years the bears get near the starvation threshold of 180 days. Polar bears can fast for less than that and do well, mostly because they are so good at gathering and storing fat for these lean periods, York says. During that lean time period, researchers monitoring bears found that 19 out of 20 of them lost 47 pounds in just three weeks, about 7% of their body weight.
Sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by about 13% per decade — falling in large steps and plateaus — since 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. While Arctic sea ice hit its fourth lowest extent on record for late August, in Western Hudson Bay unusual winds have meant longer lasting ice than usual, but it’s a temporary and very localized respite.
A peer-reviewed study this year from Stroeve and York looked at sea ice levels, that 180-day hunger threshold and climate simulations based on different levels of carbon pollution. The researchers found that once Earth warms another 1.3 or 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.3 to 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) from now, the polar bears likely will cross that point of no return. Bears will be too hungry and this population likely dies out.
Studies, including those by the United Nations, that look at current efforts to curb carbon dioxide emissions project warming of about 1.5 degrees to 1.7 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 3.1 degrees Fahrenheit) from now by the end of the century.
“The populations will definitely not make it,” Stroeve said.
There’s about 4,500 polar bears in the three Hudson Bay populations and 55,000 beluga whales. Together, that’s more than 141 million pounds of fat large mammals. That seems huge, but those white beasts are losing a battle to an even larger weight: the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide the world spews into the air.
It’s 154 million pounds every minute.
It’s not just polar bears.
University of Washington’s Laidre said some scientists think the smallest water zooplankton called copepods are the most important animals in the Arctic. They’re fat heavy and the staple of bowhead whales.
But copepods live on the smaller plant plankton that’s changing. The timing of when copepods can prosper is changing and new species are moving in, “and they are not as lipid rich,” Laidre said.
“It’s not that nothing lives out there,” York says while gazing on the Bay. “It’s that the things that are living in the North are changing and looking a lot more like the South.”
What’s happening in the Hudson Bay is a preview of what will hit further north, Stroeve said.
An ice scientist, Stroeve says there is just something about polar bears that is so special.
“It really just makes you so happy to see them, to see an animal living in such a harsh environment,” Stroeve said. “And somehow they have survived. And are we going to make it so that they can’t survive? That makes me sad.”
Researchers sound alarm over lean polar bears in Hudson Bay
More than polar bears are threatened in this changing gateway to the Arctic.
Severe summer weather cost $7 billion in most destructive season on record
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Published Sep 24, 2024 • Last updated 19 hours ago • 1 minute read
The Insurance Bureau of Canada says summer of 2024 is now Canada’s most destructive season on record for insured losses due to severe weather events.
The bureau estimates the damages for a group of storms and wildfires at a combined $7 billion in insured losses, topping the $6.2 billion cost of the Fort McMurray, Alta., wildfire in 2016.
That’s 10 times higher than the average $701 million a year for severe weather losses between 2001 and 2010.
IBC president Celyeste Power says wildfire in Jasper, Alta., flooding in southern Ontario and Quebec, and an Alberta hailstorm resulted in about 228,000 insurance claims, which is up 406 per cent compared with a two-decade average.
The agency is asking provincial and federal governments to respond to climate change as a crisis and collaborate in reducing disaster risk.
The bureau says severe weather in 2023 caused more than $3.1 billion in insured damage across Canada.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Published Sep 24, 2024 • Last updated 19 hours ago • 1 minute read
The Insurance Bureau of Canada says summer of 2024 is now Canada’s most destructive season on record for insured losses due to severe weather events.
The bureau estimates the damages for a group of storms and wildfires at a combined $7 billion in insured losses, topping the $6.2 billion cost of the Fort McMurray, Alta., wildfire in 2016.
That’s 10 times higher than the average $701 million a year for severe weather losses between 2001 and 2010.
IBC president Celyeste Power says wildfire in Jasper, Alta., flooding in southern Ontario and Quebec, and an Alberta hailstorm resulted in about 228,000 insurance claims, which is up 406 per cent compared with a two-decade average.
The agency is asking provincial and federal governments to respond to climate change as a crisis and collaborate in reducing disaster risk.
The bureau says severe weather in 2023 caused more than $3.1 billion in insured damage across Canada.
Severe summer weather cost $7 billion in most destructive season on record
The Insurance Bureau of Canada says summer of 2024 is now Canada's most destructive season on record for insured losses.
Is it the most destructive on record (?) or the most expensive? There is a difference.
A $2 pack of no name, pork hotdogs is now $5. Are they different? Are they more no name pork hotdogs than they were two years ago (?) or are they just more expensive?
More news speak. Notice its wasnt climate that cost an alleged $7B but weather did?
I suppose these could be two different plea’s of comments in the same story, unrelated…CTV style…& the reader is supposed to figure that out themselves?