Tag: heat wave

2020 Arctic sea ice minimum 2nd lowest on record

On September 15, 2020, Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum extent, the 2nd-lowest on record. The Arctic region in general is warming 3 times faster than the rest of the planet. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/arctic-sea-ice-2020-minimum-2nd-lowest-on-record…

Temperature in Death Valley Today: 130 Degrees, Earth’s Highest Since at Least 1931

The Washington Post reports:
In the midst of a historic heat wave in the West, the mercury in Death Valley, California surged to a searing 130 degrees on Sunday afternoon, possibly setting a world record for the highest temperature ever observed during the month of August. If the temperature is valid, it would also rank among the top three highest temperatures ever…

Great Barrier Reef Suffers Its Most Widespread Mass Bleaching Event On Record

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: Surveys conducted by scientists at Australia’s James Cook University and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority show that a summer of extreme heat has caused the reef, which is a World Heritage Site, to suffer a mass bleaching of unprecedented scale. Corals from the far north to the southern tip…

Heat wave signals the growth of a stellar embryo

An international research team with the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) participating has detected a propagating heat wave near a massive protostar. It confirms the scenario that such objects grow in bursts. This wave became visible by observing naturally generated microwave lasers, whose spatial arrangement changed unexpectedly rapid. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-01-growth-stellar-embryo.html…

Will Australia’s Wildfires Change the Country Forever?

Australia’s wildfires have already burned at least 12 million acres, reports NBC News, with more than 100 blazes still active. “And the season has yet to reach its peak.”
The ability of animals to recover from Australia’s wildfires is also a concern. Scientists are estimating that more than half a billion animals have already died in the fires, a figure that Stuart…

What climate change in the Arctic means for the rest of us

Air temperatures in the Arctic are increasing at least twice as fast as the global average. What worries climate scientists about the Arctic summer of 2019? And why does it matter for the rest of the world? Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/climate-change-warming-arctic-means-for-the-rest-of-us…

The Arctic is burning and Greenland is melting, thanks to record heat

A heat wave is melting Greenland’s ice and fueling blazes across the Arctic that are pumping record amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/arctic-burning-greenland-melting-thanks-record-heat4…