Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Abstract in video format for the paper titled: "Global changes in oceanic mesoscale currents over the satellite altimetry record", Martinez Moreno, J., Hogg, A. McC., England, M. H., Constantinou, N. C., Kiss, A. E., and Morrison, A. K. (2021) Global changes in oceanic mesoscale currents over the satellite altimetry record, 22 Apr 2021. Video: Martinez Moreno, et al., 2021 / Nature Climate Change

Changes to giant ocean eddies could have “devastating effects” globally – Scientists find “a global-scale reorganization of the ocean’s energy over the past three decades”

By Graham Readfearn 22 April 2021 (The Guardian) – Twirling and meandering ocean currents that help shape the world’s climate have gone through a “global-scale reorganisation” over the past three decades, according to new research. The amount of energy in these ocean currents, which can be from 10km to 100km across and are known as […]

Covid-19 cases in India during the first and second waves, June-Sep 2020 and Feb-Apr 2021. Data: India Ministry of Health and Welfare. The rise in case numbers has been exponential in the second wave. On 18 June 2020, India recorded 11,000 cases and in the next 60 days, it added 35,000 new cases on average every day. On 10 February 2021, at the start of the second wave, India confirmed 11,000 cases - and in the next 50 days, the daily average was around 22,000 cases. But in the following 10 days, cases rose sharply with the daily average reaching 89,800. Graphic: BBC News

India health system cracks under strain of exponential surge in coronavirus cases – Oxygen supply disruption kills 22 patients – “A tsunami has indeed hit us now”

By Jeffrey Gettleman, Suhasini Raj, and Hari Kumar 21 April 2021 NEW DELHI (The New York Times) – India’s health care system shows signs of buckling under the strain of a second wave of coronavirus infections, as the authorities reported nearly 300,000 new cases on Wednesday and an accident at a Covid-19 hospital killed more […]

A forest defender counts the rings in a recently cut old-growth cedar tree in the mountains above the Caycuse watershed Cowichan Lake west of Duncan, British Columbia. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Guardian

“War in the woods”: activists blockade Vancouver Island in bid to save ancient trees – “If we want our planet to be sustainable, we have to protect these ecosystems”

By Jesse Winter 9 April 2021 (The Guardian) – Hundreds of activists are digging in at logging road blockades across a swath of southern Vancouver Island, vowing to stay as long as it takes to pressure the provincial government to immediately halt cutting of what they say is the last 3% of giant old growth […]

Deep water underneath the Thwaites ice shelf front is lighter than water outside the ice shelf. (A) Map of trough T3 showing the AUV path color coded by latitude. Shaded region indicates the ice shelf front, and black contours are depth contours. (B) Conservative temperature θ (in degrees Celsius) versus absolute salinity SA (in grams per kilogram) for the AUV data points shown in (A), colors as in (A). Contours show potential density (9) relative to 900 m, and blue arrow indicates isopycnal mixing, i.e., water that has the same density but different temperatures and salinities. Green circles in (A) and (B) show the dense saline deep water found in trough T3 discussed in the main text. (C) Absolute salinity SA (in grams per kilogram) as a function of depth for the AUV data in trough T3 and the CTD data (colors indicate station as in Fig. 3). (D) Potential density (in kilograms per cubic meter) as a function of depth for the AUV data in trough T3 and the CTD data (colors indicate station as in Figs. 3 and 4). Red and blue arrows indicate the two deep water masses discussed in the main text from Pine Island Bay and Thwaites Trough. Dissolved oxygen versus θ and SA is shown in fig. S6. Graphic: Wåhlin, et al., 2021 / Science Advances

Exploration of ocean currents beneath the “Doomsday Glacier” by an autonomous underwater vehicle – Net melting of 75 cubic km of ice per year means “the glacier is not stable over time”

9 April 2021 (University of Gothenburg) – For the first time, researchers have been able to obtain data from underneath Thwaites Glacier, also known as the “Doomsday Glacier”. They find that the supply of warm water to the glacier is larger than previously thought, triggering concerns of faster melting and accelerating ice flow. With the […]

Deer photographed by a remote camera on 11 August 2020 in a forest destroyed by climate change in North Carolina. Sea level rise and saltwater intrusion are killing trees en masse, causing ghost forests. Photo: Emily Ury

Sea level rise is killing trees along the Atlantic coast, creating “ghost forests” that are visible from space

By Emily Ury 6 April 2021 (The Conversation) – Trekking out to my research sites near North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, I slog through knee-deep water on a section of trail that is completely submerged. Permanent flooding has become commonplace on this low-lying peninsula, nestled behind North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The trees growing in […]

Michael Caputo, enigmatic Republican political consultant and international PR man who served as campaign manager for Carl Paladino and fills in as radio talk show host on WBEN. This was in his East Aurora office on Tuesday, 19 January 2016. Caputo also served as propagandist with Oliver North for Ronald Reagan’s illegal war on Central America. Photo: Robert Kirkham / Buffalo News

Trump officials celebrated efforts to change CDC reports on coronavirus, emails show – Political appointees also tried to blunt scientific findings they deemed unfavorable to Trump

By Dan Diamond 9 April 2021 (The Washington Post) – Trump appointees in the Department of Health and Human Services last year privately touted their efforts to block or alter scientists’ reports on the coronavirus to more closely align with President Donald Trump’s more optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to newly released documents from congressional investigators. […]

Global monthly mean atmospheric CO2, 1980-2020. These graphs shows the mean global atmospheric burden of carbon dioxide as analyzed from measurements collected by the NOAA Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. Graphic: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

Despite pandemic shutdowns, carbon dioxide and methane surged in 2020 – Carbon dioxide levels now higher than any time in past 3.6 million years – Largest annual methane increase ever recorded

7 April 2021 (NOAA) – Levels of the two most important anthropogenic greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, continued their unrelenting rise in 2020 despite the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic response, NOAA announced today. The global surface average for carbon dioxide (CO2), calculated from measurements collected at NOAA’s remote sampling locations, was […]

Dozens of vehicles are parked with their lights on at an illegal party at Tonto National Park on the night of 3 April 2021. The U.S. Forest Service estimated that more than 5,000 people gathered illegally. Photo: U.S. Forest Service

More than 5,000 people attended an illegal party at the Tonto National Forest in Arizona – “It’s going to be super destructive”

By Kelsie Smith 7 April 2021 (CNN) – More than 5,000 people attended an unauthorized and illegal event at Tonto National Forest near Phoenix on Saturday, leading to multiple violations and one person being emergency evacuated, officials said. Forest protection officers were patrolling near the Lower Sycamore Creek Recreation Area when they discovered thousands of […]

COVID-19 daily cases per 100,000 population in India, 4 April 2021. On 3 April 2021, the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare confirmed 93,249 new cases, the highest single-day tally since mid-September 2020. The country’s daily case counts have been rising exponentially since early March 2021. Graphic: 91-DIVOC

India sees “alarming rate of growth of COVID-19 cases and deaths” – 47,913 new cases reported in a single day in Maharashtra, “which is more than double its earlier peak”

By Morgan Winsor 5 April 2021 LONDON (ABC News) – India has seen “an alarming rate of growth of COVID-19 cases and deaths” in recent weeks, the prime minister’s office said Sunday. More than 12.3 million people in India have been diagnosed with COVID-19 so far and at least 165,101 of them have died, making India one […]

Aerial view of a leak from the Piney Point reservoir in Manatee County, Florida, on 3 April 2021. Photo: NewsNation / MSNBC

“Imminent” collapse of wastewater reservoir in Florida forces evacuations – 20-foot “wall of water” if reservoir breaches – Workers try to prevent “real catastrophic flood situation”

By Raja Razek and Alaa Elassar 4 April 2021 (CNN) – Response teams in Manatee County Florida are trying to prevent a “real catastrophic flood situation” in the Piney Point reservoir area, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sunday after taking an aerial tour the area. The governor assured the public that the water being discharged to […]

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