Southwest Pacific hit by unprecedented marine heat waves in 2024, UN says
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -- Unprecedented heat waves in the Southwest Pacific affected more than 10 percent of the global ocean surface in 2024, damaging coral reefs and putting the region's last remaining tropical glacier at risk of extinction, the UN's weather body said on Thursday.
Average 2024 temperatures in the region -- which covers Australia and New Zealand as well as southeast Asian island states like Indonesia and the Philippines -- were nearly half a degree Celsius higher than the 1991-2020 mean, the World Meteorological Organization said in an annual report.
"Much of the region saw at least severe marine heat wave conditions at some point during the course of 2024, particularly in areas near and south of the equator," said the WMO's Blair Trewin, one of the report's authors.
Extreme heat over the year affected 40 million square kilometers of ocean, and new temperature highs were set in the Philippines and Australia, the report said. Ocean surface temperatures also broke records, while total ocean heat content was the second-highest annual average, behind 2022.
An unprecedented number of cyclones, which experts have attributed to climate change, also caused havoc in the Philippines in October and November.
Sea levels continue to rise more quickly than the global average, an urgent problem in a region where more than half the population lives within 500 meters of the coast, the report added.
The report also cited satellite data showing that the region's sole tropical glacier, located in Indonesia on the western part of the island of New Guinea, shrank by up to 50 percent last year.
"Unfortunately, if this rate of loss continues, this glacier could be gone by 2026 or shortly thereafter," said the WMO's Thea Turkington, another of the report's authors.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
05-06-2025
- Korea Herald
Southwest Pacific hit by unprecedented marine heat waves in 2024, UN says
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -- Unprecedented heat waves in the Southwest Pacific affected more than 10 percent of the global ocean surface in 2024, damaging coral reefs and putting the region's last remaining tropical glacier at risk of extinction, the UN's weather body said on Thursday. Average 2024 temperatures in the region -- which covers Australia and New Zealand as well as southeast Asian island states like Indonesia and the Philippines -- were nearly half a degree Celsius higher than the 1991-2020 mean, the World Meteorological Organization said in an annual report. "Much of the region saw at least severe marine heat wave conditions at some point during the course of 2024, particularly in areas near and south of the equator," said the WMO's Blair Trewin, one of the report's authors. Extreme heat over the year affected 40 million square kilometers of ocean, and new temperature highs were set in the Philippines and Australia, the report said. Ocean surface temperatures also broke records, while total ocean heat content was the second-highest annual average, behind 2022. An unprecedented number of cyclones, which experts have attributed to climate change, also caused havoc in the Philippines in October and November. Sea levels continue to rise more quickly than the global average, an urgent problem in a region where more than half the population lives within 500 meters of the coast, the report added. The report also cited satellite data showing that the region's sole tropical glacier, located in Indonesia on the western part of the island of New Guinea, shrank by up to 50 percent last year. "Unfortunately, if this rate of loss continues, this glacier could be gone by 2026 or shortly thereafter," said the WMO's Thea Turkington, another of the report's authors.
Korea Herald
01-06-2025
- Korea Herald
Trump pulls Musk ally's NASA nomination, will announce replacement
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The White House on Saturday withdrew its nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, abruptly yanking a close ally of Elon Musk from consideration to lead the space agency. President Donald Trump will announce a new candidate soon, said White House spokespersonan Liz Huston. "It is essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump's America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon," she said. Isaacman, a billionaire private astronaut who had been Musk's pick to lead NASA, was due for a much-delayed confirmation vote before the US Senate. His removal from consideration caught many in the space industry by surprise. The White House did not explain what led to the decision. Isaacman, whose removal was earlier reported by Semafor, did not return a request for comment. Isaacman's removal comes just days after Musk's official departure from the White House, where the SpaceX CEO's role as a "special government employee" leading the Department of Government Efficiency created turbulence for the administration and frustrated some of Trump's aides. Musk, according to a person familiar with his reaction, was disappointed by Isaacman's removal and considered it to be politically motivated. "It is rare to find someone so competent and good-hearted," Musk wrote of Isaacman on X, replying to the news of the White House's decision. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was unclear whom the administration might tap to replace Isaacman. One name being floated is retired US Air Force Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast, an early advocate for the creation of the US Space Force and Trump supporter, according to three people familiar with the discussions. Isaacman, the former CEO of payment processor company Shift4, had broad space industry support but drew concerns from lawmakers over his ties to Musk and SpaceX, where he spent hundreds of millions of dollars as an early private spaceflight customer. The former nominee had donated to Democrats in prior elections. In his confirmation hearing in April, he sought to balance NASA's existing moon-aligned space exploration strategy with pressure to shift the agency's focus on Mars, saying the US can plan for travel to both destinations. As a potential leader of NASA's some 18,000 employees, Isaacman faced a daunting task of implementing that decision to prioritize Mars, given that NASA has spent years and billions of dollars trying to return its astronauts to the moon. On Friday, the space agency released new details of the Trump administration's 2026 budget plan that proposed killing dozens of space science programs and laying off thousands of employees, a controversial overhaul that space advocates and lawmakers described as devastating for the agency.
Korea Herald
28-05-2025
- Korea Herald
SpaceX Starship launched on ninth test flight after last two blew up
STARBASE, Texas (Reuters) — Starship, the futuristic SpaceX rocket vehicle on which Elon Musk's ambitions for multiplanetary travel are riding, roared into space from Texas on Tuesday on its ninth uncrewed test launch, flying farther than the last two attempts that ended in explosive failure. The two-stage spacecraft, consisting of the Starship vessel mounted atop a towering SpaceX Super Heavy rocket booster, blasted off at about 7:36 p.m. EDT from the company's Starbase launch site on the Gulf Coast of Texas near Brownsville. A live SpaceX webcast of the liftoff showed the rocketship rising from the launch tower into the early evening sky as the Super Heavy's cluster of powerful Raptor engines thundered to life in a ball of flame and billowing clouds of exhaust and water vapor. SpaceX launched the Starship system with a previously flown Super Heavy booster for the first time, aiming to achieve a key demonstration of its reusability. As expected, the 71-meter first-stage rocket separated from the upper-stage Starship vehicle several minutes after launch and headed back toward Earth. But SpaceX controllers lost contact with the booster during its descent before it presumably plunged into the sea instead of making the controlled splashdown the company planned. The upper-stage Starship vehicle continued to climb to space, reaching its planned suborbital trajectory about nine minutes into the flight. In one test-flight mishap, Starship's payload doors failed to open in order to release a group of simulated satellites. Plans called for Starship to complete its experimental flight of less than 90 minutes with a controlled descent and splashdown in the Indian Ocean. But about a half-hour after launch, SpaceX said its flight team had lost attitude control over Starship, leaving the vehicle in a spin as it continued to head for atmospheric re-entry. "We will not be aligned as we wanted it to be aligned for re-entry," a SpaceX commentator said during the livestream. "Our chances of making it all the way down are pretty slim." Federal regulators granted SpaceX a license for Starship's latest flight attempt just four days ago, capping a mishap investigation that had grounded Starship for nearly two months. Its last two test flights — in January and March — were cut short moments after liftoff as the vehicle blew to pieces on its ascent, raining debris over parts of the Caribbean and disrupting scores of commercial airline flights in the region. The Federal Aviation Administration expanded debris hazard zones around the ascent path for Tuesday's launch. The previous back-to-back failures occurred in early test-flight phases that SpaceX had easily achieved before, dealing a striking setback to a program that Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who founded the rocket company in 2002, had sought to accelerate this year. Musk, the world's wealthiest individual and a key supporter of US President Donald Trump, was especially eager for a success after vowing in recent days to refocus his attention on his various business ventures, including SpaceX, following a tumultuous foray into national politics and his attempts at cutting government bureaucracy. Musk is counting on Starship to fulfill his goal of producing a large, multipurpose next-generation spacecraft capable of sending people and cargo to the moon later this decade and ultimately flying to Mars. Closer to home, Musk also sees the 122-meter-tall Starship as eventually replacing the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as the workhorse in the company's commercial launch business, which already lofts most of the world's satellites and other payloads to low-Earth orbit. Planned update Musk was scheduled to deliver an update on his space exploration ambitions in a speech from Starbase following the test flight, to be livestreamed under the banner slogan "The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary." He was expected to offer new timelines and development plans for sending cargo and potentially astronauts aboard Starship on voyages to Mars, a tantalizing but still-distant destination for human spaceflight that poses major technical hurdles for SpaceX and NASA. The speech could also offer clues about the trajectory of NASA's human spaceflight strategy. While Musk has been known to make overly ambitious projections about SpaceX's development timelines, he has since amassed significantly more sway over the Trump administration's space agenda. Picked by NASA in 2021 as the vehicle to return humans to the moon's surface this decade for the first time in more than 50 years, Starship is expected to play an even bigger role in the US space program. Trump attended a Starship test launch in November and has publicly promoted Musk's Mars vision. Musk and SpaceX remain influential over US space policy despite his recent shift away from government and signals to cut political spending.
