-
Chief scientist says dangerous heatwaves, which are getting more likely, ‘bring home the implications of climate change’
The month of June was the hottest in England on record, driven by a searing heatwave in the final days of the month, which for the first time had red heat alerts for three days, according to Met Office data.
The Met Office said provisional statistics showed Wales and the UK as a whole had recorded their second-warmest June since 1884.
Continue reading...
-
An eight-month expedition will set off soon from Norway on a mission to find new species before the climate crisis and pollution changes the northern ocean for ever
Six scientists and six crew will travel next month to Kirkenes, a remote Arctic town in Norway near the Russian border, to begin an odyssey to one of the most inhospitable, inaccessible and least-studied regions on Earth. There, they will climb onboard a futuristic, floating laboratory – the French-built Tara polar station.
They will enter a harsh and isolating environment: months of complete darkness and temperatures as low as -50C (-58F). Arriving in Norway on 14 August, they will await good conditions and an icebreaker to open a route for them before setting off on an eight-month voyage, overwintering through long, intense polar nights onboard a 26-metre-long, 16-metre-wide vessel built to be frozen into the pack ice, which will drift slowly over the north pole to Greenland.
Continue reading...
-
If we don’t know the source, not only do humans remain at risk but wildlife can suffer needlessly via retaliation
While virologists and public health departments were palpitating over the news of an Andes virus infectious disease outbreak on a cruise ship (13 cases, three deaths), in the Democratic Republic of the Congo the Bundibugyo virus, the root of the current Ebola outbreak (currently more than 1,250 cases and at least 362 deaths), was smouldering under the radar.
Bundibugyo virus is a horrifying, highly fatal pathogen. Symptom onset is sudden and includes headaches, diarrhoea, malfunctioning kidneys and liver, and, less frequently, internal and external bleeding (hence the term “haemorrhagic disease”). Grimly, contagiousness remains after death, meaning the family and loved ones of the deceased can be exposed when they wash and clothe the body in preparation for the funeral.
Continue reading...
-
New study on fluazinam’s neurotoxicity comes up with different findings from earlier report based on manufacturer’s data
Researchers who re-ran a crucial fungicide study on neurotoxicity have come up with significantly different findings, and campaigners argue that the substance should now be withdrawn from the market.
In 2005, a study conducted by Huntingdon Life Sciences on behalf of ISK, the manufacturer of fluazinam, on the development of neurotoxicity of fluazinam in pregnant rats concluded there were no statistically significant effects in relation to brain development in the rats’ offspring.
Continue reading...
-
We’re asking people from around the world to nominate their favourite spineless species for our third Invertebrate of the Year competition
Step aside World Cup heroes, there’s a bigger global competition in town. The whistle has been blown to launch the third Invertebrate of the Year contest.
We want you to nominate your favourite spineless creature for the hugely popular annual Guardian jamboree which celebrates the wonder and importance of the world’s invertebrates.
Continue reading...
-
Many seabirds are starving to death as a marine heat wave lingers off California and fish seek deeper, cooler waters
Within minutes of walking on a San Diego beach, marine ornithologist Tammy Russell found the feathered carcasses – one after another.
Some were mixed in with washed up kelp. Others were under rocks.
Continue reading...
-
Poaching and wildfires have driven the country’s jaguar population to a critical level, and until now even rescued animals faced life in captivity
A tentative paw emerged from a steel cage on to the sandy riverbed deep in the Bolivian rainforest. Then, another. Slowly, the female jaguar looked right, left and right again, as if waiting to cross a busy road. Then, muscles stiff from the long journey, it strolled away and disappeared into the undergrowth.
Yaguara had been in captivity since August 2024, after being orphaned as an eight-month-old cub amid Bolivia’s worst recorded wildfire season. As the fires raged, burning more than 10% of the country’s surface area, authorities handed the cub over to a team of veterinarians from the Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi (CIWY), a wild-animal rescue centre.
Continue reading...
-
Study shows falling dust levels are making clouds more reflective, an effect not taken into account in climate models
Cleaner clouds are helping to slow the rate of global heating, a study shows. Falling levels of dust in the atmosphere are making clouds more reflective. This previously unidentified effect is not being taken into account by current climate models, which may mean they are slightly overestimating the projected rate of global heating.
Researchers analysed satellite observations of high clouds in the northern hemisphere and assessed the ratio of ice crystals to liquid droplets over the period 2008 to 2018. Their findings, published in Geophysical Research Letters, show that clouds have become less icy over that time. Weakening surface winds (due to climate change) have resulted in less dust being whipped up into the atmosphere over the last two decades. Dust particles help to seed ice crystals, so less dust means fewer ice crystals in clouds. The effect is not observed in southern hemisphere clouds because there is far less dust in the southern hemisphere atmosphere in the first place.
Continue reading...
-
After a recent study found New Orleans is at a ‘point of no return’ amid the climate crisis, some locals say they will ‘only leave if forced to’. But what would it take to stay?
When a study in May concluded that New Orleans had hit a “point of no return” due to the climate crisis that would require people to eventually retreat from their storied yet ultimately doomed city, the local reaction was swift and fiery.
The onward march of rising seas around a sinking city was unsettling, but the study was “more focused on generating publicity and clickbait headlines” than coming up with solutions, said Helena Moreno, New Orleans’s mayor. There was flooding in Miami, and wildfires and earthquakes near San Fransisco, Moreno pointed out, “yet no serious movement exists to declare those cities lost causes”.
Continue reading...
-
Despite contamination at Malkins Bank in Cheshire, it is deemed suitable for golf … and now a children’s play area
One morning in Sandbach, a neighbour appeared at Graham Warner’s door with a large folder: a delivery, she said, from an unidentified source.
“I think you’ll find this very interesting. Happy reading,” she said.
Continue reading...
