(a) Estimated distances animals can travel during the Phocine distemper virus (PDV) latent and infectious period (1 week, 2 weeks, and 4 weeks) illustrating the areas where viral transmission could occur, based on median travel speeds calculated for satellite-tagged bearded seals (green circles), spotted seals (orange), Steller sea lions (blue), and northern fur seals (purple). (b) Recorded tracks of a PDV seropositive bearded seal followed in July 2009 and a seropositive northern fur seal followed in November 2010 shown with sympatric PCR positive spotted seals, ribbon seals, and northern fur seals sampled 2009–2010. Sea ice is shown at its minimum extent in September (panel a) and retreating the following July after reaching a maximum winter extent (panel b). Graphic: VanWormer, et al., 2019 / Scientific Reports

Deadly virus spreads among marine mammals as Arctic sea ice melts – Scientists fear the virus, once found only in European waters, could spread to the U.S. West Coast

By Sarah Gibbens 7 November 2019 (National Geographic) – When sea otters in Alaska were diagnosed with phocine distemper virus (PDV) in 2004, scientists were confused. The pathogen in the Morbillivirus genus that contains viruses like measles had then only been found in Europe and on the eastern coast of North America. “We didn’t understand how a […]

Aerial view of severely flooded areas of Fond du Lac, Minnesota, shown on 24 June 2012. Photo: Matthew Schofield / U.S. Coast Guard / Reuters

What the climate’s “new normal” is doing to Lake Superior

By Ron Meador 1 November 2019 Minnesota has shoreline on only one Great Lake, but it happens to be the greatest: largest, clearest, coldest and, until recently, seemingly least vulnerable to various environmental afflictions elsewhere in the five-lake basin. The world’s biggest lake by surface area, Superior happens to hold one-tenth of the fresh water […]

Aerial view of Runit Dome, in Enewetak Atoll, the Marshall Islands, where more than 3.1 million cubic feet of U.S.-produced radioactive soil and debris, including lethal amounts of plutonium, are buried. The so-called “Tomb” now bobs with the tide, sucking in and flushing out radioactive water into nearby coral reefs, contaminating marine life. Video: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

How the U.S. betrayed the Marshall Islands, kindling the next nuclear disaster – “More than any other place, the Marshall Islands is a victim of the two greatest threats facing humanity: nuclear weapons and climate change”

By Susanne Rust 10 November 2019 MAJURO, Marshall Islands (Los Angeles Times) – Five thousand miles west of Los Angeles and 500 miles north of the equator, on a far-flung spit of white coral sand in the central Pacific, a massive, aging and weathered concrete dome bobs up and down with the tide. Here in […]

Graphs showing change in global human activities from 1979 to the present. Graphic: Ripple, et al., 2019 / BioScience

More than 11,000 scientists issue warning of climate emergency – “An immense increase of scale in endeavors to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis”

5 November 2019 (BioScience) – Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to “tell it like it is.” On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth […]

Cars block a street during a protest against a rise in gasoline prices, in the central city of Isfahan, Iran, Saturday, 16 November 2019. Demonstrators angered by a 50 percent increase in government-set gasoline prices blocked traffic in major cities and occasionally clashed with police Saturday after a night of demonstrations punctuated by gunfire. Photo: AP Photo

Protests grip major Iran cities over gas prices – Internet access sees disruptions and outages – “The ongoing disruption is the most severe disconnection tracked in any country in terms of its technical complexity and breadth”

By Jon Gambrell 16 November 2019 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Protesters angered by Iran raising government-set gasoline prices by 50 percent blocked traffic in major cities and occasionally clashed with police Saturday after a night of demonstrations punctuated by gunfire, in violence that reportedly killed at least one person. The protests put renewed […]

A woman is silhouetted as she walks toward a flooded St. Mark’s Square, during historic flooding in Venice, Italy, 12 November 2019. Photo: Luca Bruno / AP Photo

Venice sees record third exceptional tide – Priceless artwork threatened – “It is a long-term issue. It is not the issue of one flood, we restore, and we go back to normal.”

By Colleen Barry and Luca Bruno 17 November 2019 VENICE, Italy (AP) – Venice was hit Sunday by a record third exceptional tide in the same week while other parts of Italy struggled with a series of weather woes, from rain-swollen rivers to high winds to an out-of-season avalanche. Stores and museums in Venice were […]

Aerial view of smoke from bushfires blanketing mountain ranges, as seen during a commercial flight over northern New South Wales, 16 November 2019. Photo: Tracy Nearmy / Reuters

Devastating bushfire conditions to worsen in Australia – “Until we get significant rainfall, the fires will not go out”

By Lidia Kelly 17 November 2019 MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Rising temperatures, lightning strikes and erratic winds are set to fan wildfires in Australia in the week ahead, officials said on Sunday, with emergency crews already working day and night to contain more than 130 blazes. The state of New South Wales, where 367 homes have […]

Projected (a) mean winter (Oct-April) soil temperature, (b) mean winter air temperature, (c) mean leaf area index (July-August), (d) annual gross primary productivity (GPP), (e) mean non-summer (NS; September - May) unfrozen soil moisture, (f) mean summer soil moisture (June-August), and (g) cumulative summer precipitation (June-August) for the northern permafrost region from 2018 through 2100 under RCP 4.5 (blue) and 8.5 (red) based on ESM ensemble outputs. Graphic: Natali, et al., 2019 / Nature Climate Change

Arctic shifts to a carbon source due to winter soil emissions – “The warmer it gets, the more carbon will be released into the atmosphere from the permafrost region, which will add to further warming”

By Samson Reiny 8 November 2019 (NASA) – A NASA-funded study suggests winter carbon emissions in the Arctic may be adding more carbon into the atmosphere each year than is taken up by Arctic vegetation, marking a stark reversal for a region that has captured and stored carbon for tens of thousands of years. The […]

A view of the Red Hills reservoir, the main source of drinking water to Chennai city, 6 November 2019. Lakes and reservoirs are slowly filling up due to north east monsoon rains. Photo: B Jothi Ramalingam / The Hindu

Chennai water reservoirs to reach full capacity for the first time since 2015

By K. Lakshmi 6 November 2019 (The Hindu) – With the storage in city’s major lakes steadily increasing, Chennai Metrowater on Tuesday announced that the city is no longer reeling under water crisis. Chennai is officially out of water shortage, the water agency tweeted from its official handle. Senior officials of Metrowater said the five […]

Screenshot showing the moment when Chlöe Swarbrick, a member of the New Zealand Parliament, shut down a heckler by saying, “OK, Boomer” during her speech on landmark climate legislation on Tuesday, 5 November 2019. She went on to say, “How many world leaders for how many decades have seen and known what is coming but have decided that it is more politically expedient to keep it behind closed doors? My generation and the generations after me do not have that luxury.” Photo: New Zealand Parliament

Video: 25-year-old NZ lawmaker shuts down heckler during climate speech with a quick, “OK, Boomer”

By Reis Thebault 5 November 2019 (The Washington Post) — The 25-year-old lawmaker was just 40 seconds into her speech about the dire importance of stricter climate change policy when a heckle rang through the mostly empty hearing room. “In the year 2050, I will be 56 years old; yet, right now, the average age […]

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