Deckhands aboard the crab boat Arctic Hunter in the Bering Sea off Alaska separate male and female snow crab, March 21, 2013. There will be no Bering Sea red king crab or snow crab harvests this year.Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times/TNS
Signed-in readers now can bookmark stories to read later.
Last week, there was mass confusion as to why Alaskan snow crabs have disappeared.
This week, there may be a plausible answer as to why crab legs will be so hard to get your hands on.
According toYahoo, climate change may be the prime suspect in a mass die-off of Alaska’s snow crabs, experts say, after the state took the unprecedented step ofcanceling their harvest this seasonto save the species.
Here’s the thing.
There’s an annual survey of the Bering Sea floor carried out…
Clockwise from top left: a frog from Panama; a close-up of coral; hand-pollinating pear trees in China; pest-eating ants; and an Indian white-rumped vulture.Photograph: Alamy, Getty Images, Shutterstock
Seven ways in which our destruction of the natural world has led to deadly outcomes
1.As Indian vultures decline, the number of rabies cases rise
In the early 1990s, vultures across India started dying inexplicably. Long-billed, slender-billed and oriental white-backed vultures declined to the brink of extinction, with the number of India’s most common three vulture species falling by more than97% between 1992 and 2007. Six other species were in sharp decline too. Scientists started testing the dead birds and worked outthey had been exposed to diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug routinely given to cattle in south Asia…
One of the largest volcanoes on Venus is the 2-mile-tall Maat Mons, which has lava flows spilling for hundreds of miles around it.(Image credit: NASA/JPL)
Massive global volcanism that covered 80% of Venus’ surface in lava may have been the deciding factor that transformed Venus from a wet and mild world into the suffocating, sulfuric, hellish planet that it is today.
The surface temperature onVenusis a sweltering 867 degrees Fahrenheit (464 degrees Celsius), hot enough to melt lead, and there’s a crushing pressure of 90 atmospheres underneath the dense clouds of carbon dioxide laced with corroding sulfuric acid. Often decried asEarth‘s “evil twin,”…
Planet Earth, sun and stars Getty images/NASA/egal
The Permian–Triassic extinction event, also called The Great Dying, has certainly earned its nickname. It was the largest mass extinction in the geological record, wiping out between 83 and 97 percent of all species living on Earth. Although the exact cause is debated, extreme volcanic activity that perhaps cooked the planet has been fingered as the main culprit.
But somehow, despite being pummeled by asteroids and space radiation, life on this planet has kept on keeping on for almost four billion years. As our planet enters a Sixth Mass Extinction, driven by a wave of human activity that has wiped out thousands of species, the question of how this works — particularly, how the Earth seems to bounce back from large-scale disasters, or extreme changes in atmosphere or climate — becomes even more pressing.
It turns out the answer may, in part, be even stranger than anyone imagined. New research in the journal Science Advances suggests that Earth can self-regulate its temperature over hundreds of thousands of years. In other words, there are large-scale geologic processes that seem to absorb carbon dioxide over huge time scales. However, the time scales involved are far, far too long to correct for the sudden spike in carbon dioxide caused by fossil fuel combustion, meaning that the mechanism won’t save us from climate change.
“You have a planet whose climate was subjected to so many dramatic external changes. Why did life survive all this time?”
Constantin Arnscheidt and Daniel Rothman, two researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, crunched the data from multiple datasets documenting the global temperature for the last 66 million years. These paleoclimate records include ice cores from Antarctica and the chemical makeup of prehistoric marine fossils, which can tell us a lot about what Earth’s atmosphere was like in the distant past.
“This whole study is only possible because there have been great advances in improving the resolution of these deep-sea temperature records,” Arnscheidt said in a statement. “Now we have data going back 66 million years, with data points at most thousands of years apart.”
The two MIT scientists found a strong pattern suggesting that Earth employs feedback loops to keep its temperatures within a range where life can thrive. However, this happens on a timescale over hundreds of thousands of years, so while it implies our planet will bounce back from anthropogenic climate change, it won’t happen soon enough to save us.
Related video: WION Climate Tracker: UN Climate talks in disarray
deal. The loss and damage fund has been a hot topic at this year’s
Loaded: 9.20%Play
Current Time 0:09
/
Duration 9:46LQCaptionsFullscreen
WION Climate Tracker: UN Climate talks in disarrayUnmute
“One argument is that we need some sort of stabilizing mechanism to keep temperatures suitable for life,” Arnscheidt said. “But it’s never been demonstrated from data that such a mechanism has consistently controlled Earth’s climate.”
The finding has big implications for our understanding of the past, but also how global heating is shaping the future of our homeworld. It even helps us better understand the evolution of planetary temperatures that can make the search for alien-inhabited exoplanets more fruitful.
“You have a planet whose climate was subjected to so many dramatic external changes. Why did life survive all this time? One argument is that we need some sort of stabilizing mechanism to keep temperatures suitable for life,” Arnscheidt said. “But it’s never been demonstrated from data that such a mechanism has consistently controlled Earth’s climate.”
Many scientists have proposed that Earth has self-regulated its temperature throughout history, but this has been difficult to prove. In the 1960s, the late inventor and environmentalist James Lovelock applied Darwinian processes to the entire planet, rather than a single organism, to explain how such a complex system evolved. He called this the Gaia hypothesis, which explains how Earth and its biological systems formed feedback loops that keeps our planet favorable for living organisms.
It also helped explain the Faint-Sun Paradox, first proposed by astronomers Carl Sagan and George Mullen in 1972. Essentially, our Sun used to be a lot smaller and colder 4.5 billion years ago. Back then, based on our current understanding of the life cycle of stars, the Sun would have been about 30 percent dimmer than it is today. This in turn would have made Earth too cold for liquid water, preventing life from forming — yet obviously this happened. So how did our rocky world pull this off?
The answer seems to lie in how carbon is cycled through the planet. A prominent theory is that when our planet first formed, it had an atmosphere chock full of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas, that allowed it to absorb heat, even though the Sun was colder.
“On the one hand, it’s good because we know that today’s global warming will eventually be canceled out through this stabilizing feedback. But on the other hand, it will take hundreds of thousands of years to happen, so not fast enough to solve our present-day issues.”
A complex process known as silicate weathering then removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and buries it at the bottom of the ocean. Over time, this cools the planet. Then, something like major volcanic eruptions or humans driving cars, pumps more carbon dioxide in the air, warming the planet again. Over the eons, Earth seems to be balancing between too cold and too hot, explaining why some call Earth a Goldilocks Planet.
The MIT study helps match existing data with this long-held theory, which helps us better understand our past and the consequences of unchecked climate change. And it would make sense that if these feedback loops exist on our planet, they may also exist in other galaxies, informing the hunt for extraterrestrial life.
“On the one hand, it’s good because we know that today’s global warming will eventually be canceled out through this stabilizing feedback,” Arnscheidt said. “But on the other hand, it will take hundreds of thousands of years to happen, so not fast enough to solve our present-day issues.”
However, Arnscheidt’s model was unable to account for this balance on timescales longer than one million years, so random chance may have also played an outsized role in life’s success on this rock.
“There are two camps: Some say random chance is a good enough explanation, and others say there must be a stabilizing feedback,” Arnscheidt said. “We’re able to show, directly from data, that the answer is probably somewhere in between. In other words, there was some stabilization, but pure luck likely also played a role in keeping Earth continuously habitable.”
It may have been a mix of randomness and feedback loops like silicate weathering that influenced Earth’s temperature in the past. But in humanity’s future, it will be free will —our policy, our consumption, our choices — that determines the temperature of the planet going forward. And we may just overwhelm these natural systems so much that they won’t be able to balance out, similar to prominent theories about potential life on Mars.
“The heating of the Sun has been slow enough to allow life to evolve, a process which takes millions of years. Unfortunately, the Sun is now too hot for the further development of organic life on Earth,” Lovelock wrote in his 2019 book “Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence.” “The output of heat from our star is too great for life to start again as it did from the simple chemicals of the Archean Period between 4 billion and 2.5 billion years ago. If life on Earth is wiped out, it will not start again.”
SPALDING TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WLUC) – A Menominee County hunter was found cold but not injured in Spalding Township.
Menominee County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to River Road and Sand Road on the morning of Nov. 15. The hunter had been in the woods since the night before.
Deputies used terrain association and audio signals to locate the hunter. Menominee County Sheriff’s Office was assisted by Hannahville Police Department, Michigan DNR, Menominee County Central Dispatch and Gene’s Towing.
Authorities say the 27-year-old man from Waupaca was being treated at a hospital for hypothermia after firefighters rescued him from the Fond du Lac River.
FOND DU LAC, Wis. — A deer hunter whose kayak capsized Saturday morning in an eastern Wisconsin wildlife area was rescued after spending about an hour in icy waters.
Authorities say the 27-year-old man from Waupaca was being treated at a hospital for hypothermia after Lamartine firefighters used an inflatable rescue sled to pull him from the Fond du Lac River north of the Mascoutin Valley State Park Trail. His condition is not known, but he was able to give details to law enforcement.
The bear was noticed in October when a biologist and others observed three bear cubs with a sow who was having difficulty walking. One of the cubs was later abandoned by the sow and had to be euthanized by the Department of Fish and Game after having multiple seizures. A necropsy revealed no signs of trauma, so additional tests were required to rule out canine distemper or rabies.
“The virus that causes HPAI was detected on both nasal and rectal swabs and in brain tissue screening at Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory and Cornell University Animal Health Diagnostic Center, respectively,” ADF&G said in an email. “Detection and identification of the virus as H5N1 was confirmed by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory this week.”
According to the Division of Wildlife, the cub likely developed HPAI after exposure to a dead bird.
Fox Nation host Nancy Grace on the manhunt following the recent murders of four University of Idaho students.
A dog was found filleted and skinned weeks before four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death, leaving some locals to fear that the two crimes are connected, according to a new report.
Buddy, a 12-year-old mini Australian shepherd, was found skinned head to tail Oct. 21 after his owners, Jim and Pam Colbert, let him out in the backyard in Moscow, Idaho, according to the Daily Mail.
“We called the sheriff’s department and the supervisor said that Buddy had been skinned,” his shaken owner, Pam, 78, told the news site.
“It was like a deer that someone had hunted. They cut him around the neck and just skinned him. His little legs had fur and his little face had fur, but the rest of him was just skinned,” she continued.
Moscow police did not have any suspects in custody in the murders of four University of Idaho students as of Friday, Nov. 18, 2022. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital/ Instagram)
The slain dog was found three miles from where Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20, were mysteriously slaughtered Nov. 13 in their off-campus home.
Authorities have not linked the quadruple homicide to Buddy’s killing and did not immediately return a request for comment on the matter Monday.
Pam said Buddy had been cut like a filleted fish: “We found his collar, but we didn’t find the pelt.”
A Latah County Sheriff’s Deputy confirmed to the Daily Mail that Buddy’s killer was human.
Buddy, a 12-year-old Australian shepherd, was found skinned and filleted Oct. 21, 2022 — three miles from the home where four University of Idaho students were slaughtered on Nov. 13, 2022. At right are Buddy and his owner, Jim Colbert.
“Everybody is very nervous and scared,” Pam said of her dog’s killing and the quadruple homicide. “This is something awful and evil.”
The couple, who have lived in their home on 10 acres for 39 years, started locking their doors for the first time after Buddy’s death.
Pam said that after letting Buddy out Oct. 21, he did not return.
‘We let Buddy out and somebody must have been waiting out there,” she said. “Bud never leaves the yard, but this person grabbed Buddy.”
Police have named the four University of Idaho victims of an apparent quadruple homicide as Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Kaylee Goncalves. (Moscow City Police Department/Instagram)
Later that night, Jim, 73, and his friends started searching for the dog and made the grisly find.
“The other side of him was as though they had filleted him like they were about to eat him. It was terrible, unbelievable,” Pam said.
In a press conference Sunday, police said they still have not identified any suspects or persons of interest in the slayings of the Idaho students.
They have ruled out the surviving roommates, the man whom two of the victims called before the murders and the driver who drove two of the slain students home.
University of Idaho victims Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves were close friends. (Instagram/ @kayleegoncalves)
Investigators were combing the woods Sunday surrounding the King Road home where the students were attacked between 3 and 4 a.m., likely with a single knife, according to Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt.
She said they may have been ambushed in their sleep and some of them had defensive wounds.
Investigators were also seen going through a white Chevrolet sedan, which was parked outside the home.
Police initially said that the attack on the students was “targeted” and posed no imminent threat to the community.
They have since walked back the statement, telling the public to remain vigilant as long as the assailant remains at large. Officials also have not zeroed in on a motive yet.
Delegates rest during a break in a closing plenary session at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) —For the first time, the nations of the world decided to help pay for the damage an overheating world is inflicting on poor countries, but they finished marathon climate talks on Sunday without further addressing the root cause of those disasters — the burning of fossil fuels.
The deal, gaveled around dawn in this Egyptian Red Sea resort city, established a fund for what negotiators call loss and damage.
Maisa Rojas, minister of environment of Chile, left, and Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan talk ahead of a closing plenary session at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022, in…
More than 33 million people in Pakistan have been affected by this year’s floods, according to the country’s climate change minister.Photograph: Nadeem Khawar/EPA
Fiona Harveyin Sharm el-SheikhSun 20 Nov 2022 15.43 EST
The world still stands “on the brink of climate catastrophe” afterthe deal reached at the Cop27 UN climate summiton Sunday, and the biggest economies must make fresh commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions, climate experts and campaigners have warned.
The agreement reached in Sharm el-Sheikh early on Sunday morning, after a marathon final negotiating session thatran 40 hours beyond its deadline, was hailed for providing poor countries for the first time with financial assistance…
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/7KT5SMGDHVHLBHS75JUHJDZUY4.jpg)
Exposing the Big Game 