Transcript

2.5.26 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Greetings missus Kelly Taylor, and I'll be a reader for
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Radio Wized Diary of Science and Nature. We'll have articles
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on those topics, but first a reminder that RADIOI is
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a reading service intended for people who are blind or
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have other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material.
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We'll start with Scientific American and an article dated January
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twenty sixth why freezing rain can be so much more
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dangerous than snow. This past weekend's winter storm blanketed huge
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swaths of the country in snow, with up to two
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feet falling in some areas, But the widespread power or
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outages that came with the storm, and estimated one million
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people from Texas to Kentucky had lost power by Sunday afternoon,
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had less to do with the snow and much more
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to do with the point five to one inch of
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ice that built up as a result of freezing rain.
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Here's why freezing rain can end up being so much
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more damaging to infrastructure than snow. First, it helps to
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know what freezing rain is in a winter storm. The
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temperature of different layers of the atmosphere determines what kind
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of precipitation falls when the atmosphere is below freezing from
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the surface upward, snow falls. But if there is a
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layer of warm air between higher levels of the atmosphere
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and the surface what is called a temperature inversion, that
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snow melts into rain, And if there is a deep
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enough layer of freezing air below the inversion, the falling
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rain refreezes into hard pellets called sleet. If it's not
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deep enough, however, the rain stays liquid but freezes on
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contact with cold surfaces, especially exposed ones such as bridges,
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tree branches, and power lines. For a large part of
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the southern US, the latter scenario is exactly what came
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to pass with this storm, as warm moist air from
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the Gulf of Mexico was pulled into the weather system,
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melting the snow and turning it into freezing rain that
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hardened into ice on the ground. The reason that ice
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can cause power outages is essentially that quote. The freezing
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rain sticks and the snow doesn't, says Seth Gukima, a
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civil and environmental engineer at the University of Michigan. Though
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a small air of snow can collect on top of
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some surfaces, wind will often blow it off. Meanwhile, ice
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can accrete on both the top and underside of branches
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and power lines that ice exerts enormous weight. Ice can
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add five hundred pounds of weight to power lines, according
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to the Air Force Safety Center. Power outages occur when
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ice breaks power lines or other infrastructure, but they primarily
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happen when ice breaks treeliums that then take out the
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power lines. When power lines are above ground rather than
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buried underground, there is often more damage and that can
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have socioeconomic implications. Research shows that underground lines are more
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prevalent in areas where there are bigger, higher value, and
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newer homes. Gukima says people in poorer areas who are
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subjected to more outages are also less likely to have
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their own electric generators as a backup. Quote, there's a
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real disparity in how people can deal with this, Gukama says.
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The regions affected by this past weekend's storm also underscored
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its effect. Quote. Keep in mind that most of the
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areas impacted by this ice are rural in nature, so
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this is a pretty incredible number of outages, and as
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you can see, many counties and parishes in the impacted
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area have more than half of their populace without power,
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wrote Allan Gerard meteorol just in CEO of Balanced Weather.
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How long the outages last will depend on several factors,
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including how widespread they are, what the degree of damage is,
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and how fast crews can access sites in need of repair.
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Outages can last longer in winter than they do after
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summer thunderstorms because crews have to contend with icy roads
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and snow, and the damage to the power system can
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be worse, even requiring rebuilding. There's just so much of
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it that it's going to take time, says Gukuma. Now
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we go to Smithsonian Magazine. The penguins that thrive and
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the ones left behind as are Antarctica warms. This is
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from January twenty third. The ink dark seas were glassy
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and the conditions mild in one of the most rapidly
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warming environments on Earth. Here live the humpbacks and orcas, seals, penguins, albatrosses,
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and ice fish, disparate species bound together by cold water,
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seasonal ice, and the narrow margins of survival at the
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bottom of the world. The engine of our zodiac, a
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small but sturdy boat with a rigid hull and rubber
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pontoons emits a steady hum as we move toward a
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towering mountain, gliding past icebergs sprinkled with penguins, and the
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soft percussive poofs of humpback whale blows in the distance.
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A small charcoal colored sea bird with a narrow white
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strip at the base of its tail, skims over the ocean,
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its feet pitter pattering along the surface, seeming to walk
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on water. A Wilson's storm petrel tom hart acknowledges through
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a gentle gap tooth smile. I love those, but heart
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penguinologist is most interested in the lightless black and white
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birds quintessential to Antarctica's landscape. Our boat threads its way
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through a mosaic of ice amid the archipelago fringing the
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Antarctic Peninsula. On one of the first days of twenty
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twenty six, Thunderous rumbles the sound of glaciers shifting and
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settling roll through the air, giving a sense of landscape
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that's very much alive. Jagged mountains loom at a scale
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that defies comprehension. It feels as if you could never
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open your eyes or ears widely enough to take it all.
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In across one craggy peak. Dark scenes slice through snow
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and stone, intersecting in the shape of an X that
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seems to mark the spot of our destination. The penguin
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colony at its base. A cacophony of braying calls and
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guttural squawks pours from the gin twos as we draw nearer,
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ricocheting off the rock and ice, Heart, a conservation biologist
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at Oxford Brooks University, and his colleague Peter Long, unload
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a small drone from its case, checking its batteries and
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the wind conditions. As Heart prepares to launch the device,
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he emphasizes precision over spectacle. Quote. We're trying to collect
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as much information as possible while leaving no trace, he says.
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The drone rises to map the colony from above, one
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more data point in a growing archive. Its aerial imagery
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will be folded into Penguin Watch, a major citizen science
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project that Heart founded more than fifteen years ago to
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track penguin populations via drones and time lapsed cameras placed
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across Antarctica. Now those cameras have produced the most comprehensive
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long term record of penguin breeding ever assembled in a
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new decade long study published in the Journal of Animal
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Ecology on Monday. Hart and his colleagues used this network
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of seventy seven cameras to track breeding patterns across thirty
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seven penguin colonies on the Antarctic Peninsula and Subantarctic islands.
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The results show that penguins are arriving at nesting sites
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almost two weeks earlier on average than they did just
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ten years ago, adjusting their life cycles in response to
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rapidly warming conditions. The changes uncovered by Heart and his
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team are not unfolding evenly across Antarctic's three sentinel species.
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Over the past decade, Adelaide and chin strap penguins shifted
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their breeding earlier by ten days on average. Gen two
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penguins meanwhile, started their nesting season an average of thirteen
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days earlier, the fastest shift in the timing of life
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cycle events ever recorded in a bird. Adelaides and chin straps,
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Antarctic specialist species that evolved alongside sea ice and feed
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almost exclusively on krill, are increasingly constrained by the warming
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conditions and unstable food supplies. Gent two penguins, by contrast,
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are ecological generalists. They nest on rocky surfaces remain near
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their colonies year round and can switch to hunting fish
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when krill are scarce. Even small changes in temperature appear
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to be driving that shift. Quote one degree makes a
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huge difference in what's suitable for a Gentoo versus An
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Adelaide Park says it can mean the difference between snow
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and ice and if fundamentally changes the landscape here. Quote.
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As a result, Gentoo colonies have been able to expand
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into regions once dominated by their more ice counterparts. Gentoo
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numbers on the Peninsula have surged over the past three decades,
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more than tripling at many sites, while chin strap and
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adelie populations have for a Deli I'm sorry, a Deli
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populations have declined sharply by as much as seventy five
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percent at some of the same colonies. Quote we're roughly
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gaining one Gentoo for each chin strap and a Deli
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that we lose parts is quote. The pattern is not universal.
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In East Antarctica, where warming has been slower, ice dependent
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species are faring far better, but here they're doing really poorly.
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The dramatic scale of Gentoo movement caught the researchers off
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guard using a combination of modeling and genetic data. Heathered Lynch,
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a quantitative ecologist at Stonybrook University and a co author
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of the paper, estimates it roughly seventeen percent of all
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gent two penguins on the Antarchic Peninsula are now breeding
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at the southernmost colonies. Numbers a few experts anticipated from
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a species long thought to return to the same breeding
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sites each year. Quote, We've got this exploding population and
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a site faithful species that suddenly on the move, Lynch says,
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they're just not behaving the way we thought they would.
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That expansion is being amplified by the timing shifts revealed
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by the new research. Gentoo penguins are advancing their arrival
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at breeding sites faster than the other species, are weakening
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the long standing staggered breeding schedule that once reduced competition
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between penguins. As warming shrinks sea ice and altars krill availability,
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Gentoo's flexible diet intolerance for less icy conditions may give
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them an edge, allowing them to arrive earlier claim nest
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sites and compete more directly with the other penguins for
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adelis and chin straps. Finally tuned over millions of years
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to occupy a narrow Antarctic niche, the pace of environmental
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change may simply be too fast. Quote They've evolved to
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become the perfect Antarctic species, heart says, but the potinsula
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is changing so quickly they can't adapt to it. A
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threshold crossed on the Antarkic Peninsula, Antarctica is no stranger
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to loss. As the planet warms and the freezing line
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creeps forward, winter weather is beginning to loosen its grip
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on landscapes once locked in ice. The polar regions are
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heating more than three times faster than the rest of
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the world, about point six degrees celsius per decade, and
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along the Antarcic Peninsula that pace quickens again. Their temperatures
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have climbed by nearly three degrees celsius over the past
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half century, warming several times faster than the continental average.
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If you were to hold your hand in a thud
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ums up position, Antarctica would be the broad palm and fingers,
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while the Antarkic Peninsula would be the thumb itself, a
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long narrow reach of land extending north towards South America
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and along its western edge, climate change is unfolding fastest.
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That narrow finger of land and archipelago has become one
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of the most rapidly warming places on Earth. Quote It's
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an entirely different system when it's frozen versus when it's unfrozen,
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says Ken Mankof, senior scientific programmer and climate science contractor
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at NASA, who is not involved in the study. Quote.
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The Antartic Peninsula is crossing that threshold. As ice is lost,
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you see more mass loss and more fresh water entering
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the ocean, which in turn altars ecosystems and ocean circulation.
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For penguins nesting along the antiar Peninsula, those environmental changes
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are unfolding at an extraordinary pace. The research team's temperature
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log shows that colony sites are warming roughly four times faster,
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about zero point three degrees celsius per year than the
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continental average of point seven degrees, even as that warming
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puts some penguins at risk. However, Lynch notes that what's
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emerging is not necessarily a simple story of collapse, but
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one of transition. As conditions warm, Subantarctic species such as
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gentoo king and Macaroni penguins are thriving in places once
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dominated by Antarctic specialists like Adelis. The shift raises difficult
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ethical questions about what it means to conserve an ecosystem
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in flux, whether success should be measured by the preservation
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of historical communities or by the persistence of life itself.
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Lynch speculates that numerically, total penguin numbers in parts the
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region may not even be declining. Gains in adaptable species
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could be offsetting losses of more vulnerable ones. The continent
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isn't becoming empty. Quote. We are seeing a big transition
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from an Antarctic avian community to a Subantarctic avian community,
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and it's happening really quickly. To heart that speed and
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the shift, it signals it matters as much as the
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numbers themselves. Quote you have crashes in two species and
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an increase in one. It's a fundamental change in an
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entire ecosystem. Quote. Now, let's go to a scientific American.
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On January twenty seventh, they published this article. NASA pushes
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ahead with wet dress rehearsal for Artemis two Moon mission.
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NASA is gearing up to launch Artemis two, the agency's
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highly anticipated first Crewe di mission to the Moon in
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more than a half century. A crucial step is Artemis
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two's wet Dress rehearsal, a major test of the Space
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Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule that will house
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the missions for astronauts at Florida's Kennedy's Space Center. Engineers
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will attempt to fuel the rocket and simulate a countdown
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to launch as soon as January thirty first. If all
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goes smoothly, the agency's plan to slingshot four astronauts around
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the Moon and back will go ahead, with a launch
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day coming as early as the first week of February.
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The wet dress rehearsal will see NASA technicians load up
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the uncrewed spacecraft's rocket with more than seven hundred thousand
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gallons of cryogenic fuel, specifically liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen
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before running through a countdown to launch. The test could
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result in the SLS and Orion being wheeled back from
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the launch pad for further tinkering. However, that's what happened
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in twenty twenty two when the uncrewed Artemus I mission
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sprung multiple liquid hydrogen fuel leaks on the launch pad
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and during testing, a recurring problem that delayed its launch significantly.
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Aside from Artemis two's coming wet dress rehearsal, NASA is
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also testing the water systems on board Orion to make
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sure its water is fit to drink. Quote. Initial samples
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showed higher levels of total organic carbon than expected, the
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agency said in an update on Monday. Officials have also
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made adjustments to the emergency exit system at the pad.
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The system is made up of a series of gondola
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gondola like baskets that are meant to carry the crew
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and launch pad's staff to safety should something go wrong.
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Weather conditions could also affect the time of Artemis two's launch.
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Temperatures at the Space Center hit the low forties at
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fahrenheit on Tuesday, but are expected to rise going into
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the weekend. The agency is taking steps to prepare for
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the colder than usual temperatures, NASA said in the same statement.
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And now we look at a publication called Yale Environment
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three sixty, obviously from Yale University. This is an analysis
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article written by Fred Pierce on January twenty eighth. The
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title is Overshoot. The World is hitting point of no
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return on climate. The world is poised to overshoot the
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goal of limiting average global warming to one point five
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degrees celsius as for the first time a three year
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period ending in twenty twenty five has breached the threshold,
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and climate scientists are predicting devastating consequences, just as the
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world's governments appear to have lost their appetite for tackling
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the emissions that are causing a warming. The one point
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five degree target was set at the Paris Climate Conference
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a decade ago at the insistence of more vulnerable nations
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to forestall severe weather impacts and potential runaway warming that
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could lead to exceeding irreversible planetary tipping points. The climate
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scientists say that ten years of weak action mean that
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nothing can now stop the target being breached. Quote. Climate
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policy has failed. The twenty fifteen landmark Paris Agreement is dead,
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says atmosphere chemists Robert Watson, former chair of the United
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Nations Arbiters of Climate Science, the inter Governmental Panel on
19:48
Climate Change the IPC s Meanwhile, a picture of what
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lies ahead is becoming clearer. In particular, there is a
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growing fear that climate change in the future won't as if,
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as until now happen gradually, it will happen suddenly as
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formerly stable planetary systems transgress tipping points, thresholds beyond which
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things cannot be put back together again. Quote. We are
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rapidly approaching multiple Earth system tipping points that could transform
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our world with devastating consequences for people and nature, says
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British Global systems researcher Tim Linton of the University of Exeter.
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If he and other scientists are right, then hopes currently
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being expressed of a temperature reset by reducing emissions after
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overshoot may be fanciful. Before we know it, there may
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be no way back. The effects of imminent one point
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five degree overshoot are already apparent in a rising tide
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of weather catastrophes, soaring heatstroke deaths in India, Africa and
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the Middle East, unprecedented wildfires in the United States, and
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relating property damage and floods from tropical storms and extreme precipitation.
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Last year, Valing Lee of NASA's Goddard Spacelight Center disclosed
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that her agency held unpeer reviewed data showing a dramatic
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increase the intensity of the world's weather in the past
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five years. Meanwhile, the International Chamber of Commerce reported that
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extreme weather linked to the changing climate had cost the
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global economy more than two trillion dollars in the past
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decade and damaged the lives and livelihoods of a fifth
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of the world's population. But that is just the start.
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Climate change is gathering pace. The last three years have
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been the hottest on record, with both both twenty twenty
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three and twenty twenty five nearly reaching one and a
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half degrees above pre industrial levels, and twenty twenty four
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hitting one point five to five degrees. A three year
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breach of one point five degrees does not mean we
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have broken the Paris limit, which is framed as a
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long term average. Conventionally, scientists measure this over twenty years
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to smooth out year on year aberrations caused by natural
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cycles such as El Nino. Using this method, it will
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be several more years before researchers can say for certain
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if warming has reached one point five degrees, but according
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to two studies published last year, the world has likely
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already surpassed this critical threshold. Without an abrupt change, of course,
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the warming will only accelerate. James Hansen, Columbia University climatologists
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who first put climate change on the world's front pages
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in nineteen eighty eight believes we could hit two degrees
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C as soon as twenty forty five, a forecast based
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on several climate models under a high emission scenario. The
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reason for the escalation is that climate system. The climate
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system is in a insured grip. First emissions of planet
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warming gas has remained stubbornly high. Then second, natural carbon
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sinks are weakening. The result is an accelerating rise in
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atmospheric concentrations of CO two. Twenty twenty four saw the
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biggest jump ever. The faltering natural sink is perplexing scientists.
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For as long as we know, nature has been quietly
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mitigating our damage to the climate by soaking up around
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half of all the CO two we put into the air.
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Trees have grown faster in a warmer climate, capturing carbon
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in the process. Oceans have been absorbing excess atmospheric CO two,
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burying it in the depths. But now oceans are becoming
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more stratified, reducing their ability to remove CO two, and
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trees are succumbing to heat and drought. A string of
23:54
recent research papers has reported an unprecedented weakening of natural
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land based car carbon sinks. In twenty twenty three to
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twenty four, triggered in part by an epidemic of extreme wildfires,
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which have doubled globally in the past two decades. African rainforests,
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previously responsible for around a fifth of the take up
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of CO two, recently turned from a long term carbon
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sink to a source. Looking forward, the predicted death of
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the Amazon rainforest would load billions of tons of CO
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two in the atmosphere, and the melting of Arctic permafrost,
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which is already underway, will unlock huge volumes of frozen methane,
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a potent greenhouse gas. Researchers last year concluded that this
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methane will have a critical role in amplifying climate change
24:46
under overshoot scenarios, making a comeback from that overshoot significantly harder.
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We are seeing cracks in the resilience of the Earth's systems,
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concluded U. Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for
25:03
Climate Impact Research, quote Nature, so far ballast our abuse.
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This is coming to an end. Researchers say coral reefs
25:14
may have already crossed a tipping point for tending mass dieback.
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Studies suggest they may all be dead by mid century,
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with massive repercussions for wider marine ecosystems and fish stocks,
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which are heavily dependent on reefs as nurseries and feeding
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grounds near the poles. Some ice sheets may already have
25:35
been irreversibly destabilized. Greenland is losing thirty million tons of
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ice every hour. The current best assessment, Watson says, is
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that this melting could become unstoppable at around one point
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five degrees. The Giant Arctic Islands estimated twenty eight hundred
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twenty eight thous I'm sorry, twenty eight hundred trillion tons
25:58
of ice would take cunt centuries to melt into the ocean,
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but that would eventually raise sea levels globally by around
26:06
twenty three feet. The West Antarctic ice sheet faces a
26:10
similar fate. Likewise, ocean circulation systems could be approaching breakdown.
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These currents move vast amounts of heat around the globe,
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dictating much of the weather over adjacent land. Most at
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risk modelers suggest is the Atlantic meridianal overturning circulation, the AMOC,
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which currently warms Europe and the eastern coast of North
26:36
America with the Gulf Stream. Hanson has argued that shut
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down of the AMOC is likely within the next twenty
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to thirty years unless actions are taken to reduce global warming.
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Other studies suggest it is unlikely this century, or that
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we may soon pass a tipping point beyond which it
26:55
is inevitable. A twenty twenty five global tipping Points said
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AMOC's failure would plunge Northwest Europe into prolonged severe winters.
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A modeling study of a range of potential tipping points
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by researchers at the Potsdam Institute found that if the
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world did not get back to one point five degrees
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by the end of the century, there was a one
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in four chance at least one major global threshold. It
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listed the collapse of AMOC, Amazon reinforce ecosystem, or the
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Greenland or West antarcticais sheeet would be crossed. Quote. If
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we were to also surpass two degrees sea of global warming,
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tipping risks would escalate even more rapidly. There are also
27:44
fears of a domino effect, in which crossing one tipping
27:48
point triggers the exceeding of another. Well, that will be
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all for today's Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader
27:57
was Kelly Taylor. Now stay tuned for further pro programming
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on RADIOI