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Showing posts from January, 2020

Could Humans Go Extinct Within Years?

Above image depicts how humans could go extinct within years. The image was created with NASA LOTI 1880-Dec.2019 data, 0.78°C adjusted to reflect ocean air temperatures (as opposed to sea surface temperatures), to reflect higher polar temperature anomalies (as opposed to leaving out 'missing' data) and to reflect a 1750 baseline (as opposed to a 1951-1980 baseline), with two trends added. Blue: a long-term trend based on Jan.1880-Dec.2019 data. Red: a short-term trend, based on Jan.2009-Dec.2019 data, to illustrate El Niño/La Niña variability and how El Niño could be the catalyst to trigger huge methane releases from the Arctic Ocean. This updates an earlier post with more detail on how the image was created. The image below shows El Niño/La Niña variability going back to 1950 , added to the NOAA monthly temperature anomaly. [ click on images to enlarge ] The image on the right shows how ocean heat has increased over the years (from: from the paper Record-Setting Ocean Warmth

The Australian firestorms: portents of a planetary future

by Andrew Glikson Earth and climate scientist Australian National University Global warming and its disastrous consequences are now truly with us since the second part of 2019. At the moment a change in the weather has given parts of the country a respite from the raging fires, some of which are still burning or smoldering, waiting for another warm spell to flare up. The danger zones include the Australian Capital Territory, from where these lines are written. To date, 18.6 million hectares (186,000 square kilometers) were burnt, including native forests, native animals, homesteads and towns, and 24 people died. The firestorms betray harbingers of a planetary future , or a lack of such, under ever rising temperatures and extreme weather events inherent in fossil fuel driven global warming. Global heating As the atmospheric concentration of the well-mixed greenhouse gases rise (CO₂ > 411.76 ppm;  CH₄ > 1870.5 ppb ; N₂O > 333 ppb plus trace greenhouse gases) land temperatures

News Quiz 2019 - Follow Up

Image credits: Frankie Fouganthin ; Milliped ; SounderBruce ; under Creative Commons license [CC BY-SA 4.0] Activities for reviewing lexis from News Quiz 2019 Some of my followers have already been asking me for follow-up activities, particularly Quizlet sets, for the traditional end-of-year news quiz, which I posted last week. Incidentally, it was the 10th News Quiz I'd posted here, on my blog (you can see all of them HERE ), since I first launched the blog at the end of 2010...  by posting News Quiz 2010 . So, how's that for a #10yearchallenge? I'm actually surprised I've kept at it for so long! As usual, there are lots of activities here aimed at practising and expanding on the vocabulary and a bit of grammar) from the news quiz - about 4-5 pages for each level. These can be spread across and integrated into a series of lessons; some of them can be done at home, others are more suitable for You can download the activities in Word and edit/adapt them as you wich. They