From Antarctica to Brussels, hunting climate clues in old ice
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- South China Morning Post
Switzerland's glaciers face record melting amid climate change concerns
Switzerland's glaciers are melting at an alarming rate this year, with scientists warning that the loss of ice cover began weeks earlier than usual due to a lack of snowfall in winter. Researchers in Switzerland observe Glacier Loss Day (GLD) annually. This day marks the point when a glacier has lost all the snow and ice it accumulated during the winter. This year, GLD occurred as early as late June or early July, depending on the specific glacier. 'In some regions in northeastern Switzerland, we've never had such a small amount of snow on the glaciers at the end of winter,' said researcher Andreas Bauder of ETH Zurich of the mountain conditions going into the summer months. 'As long as there is snow on the ground, the ice won't melt. But this year, the snowmelt began at the end of May and continued rapidly throughout June and into July,' he said. In Switzerland, snow and ice cover are measured in detail every spring and autumn on about 20 of the country's roughly 1,400 glaciers. Between 10 and 15 of those are also monitored during the summer. These observations are used to determine the GLD. Glacier Loss Day arrived earlier than usual, highlighting the impact of climate change. Photo: Reuters Among Switzerland's largest glaciers are the Aletsch and Gorner glaciers. Looking back to last year, the summer began with much larger snow reserves than this year, according to Bauder. Even so, glaciers still lost more mass in 2024 than they gained during the winter, leading them to shrink. 'In the past, GLD usually came at the end of August or early September – but we haven't seen that in the past 20 years,' said Bauder. Due to climate change, Switzerland has not experienced a single year of glacier growth in more than two decades. According to the glacier monitoring network Glamos, Switzerland's glacier volume has practically halved since 1950: from 92.3 to 46.5 cubic kilometres as of last year. One cubic kilometre is equivalent to an ice cube with 1,000-metre sides, or put another way, a billion ice cubes, each one metre in size. Even a cold August with snowfall at high altitudes is unlikely to change the outlook, Bauder said, because summer snow isn't as dense as winter snow and melts quickly. 'A glacier is like a viscous mass of honey on a sloped surface. It flows downward,' he explains. When there's not enough snow feeding it from above, too little flows down. The glacier tongue at the bottom can no longer sustain itself and recedes.
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- South China Morning Post
US speeds up plans for nuclear reactor on moon amid space competition with China
Nasa's acting administrator Sean Duffy plans to accelerate the construction of a nuclear reactor that could be used on the moon and alter the way the agency will partner with industry to replace the ageing International Space Station. Advertisement The plans, outlined in directives distributed inside Nasa and seen by Bloomberg on Monday, mark the first major policy changes by Duffy after US President Donald Trump appointed him to the role as acting head of the space agency. One of the directives, first reported by Politico, would aim to speed up the development of a nuclear fission reactor that could be used to generate power on the moon one day and inform future designs for a powerplant that could be used on Mars. The idea of a nuclear reactor on the moon is not new. Russia proposed the concept years ago and Nasa has recently stepped up its own research. Nasa previously awarded contracts to commercial companies to come up with designs for small nuclear fission reactors, but Duffy's directive instructs Nasa to put a call out to industry to create a more powerful reactor, with the goal of having technology ready for launch as early as 2030. The plan comes against the backdrop of intensifying competition with China, which is aiming to launch its first crewed moon mission around the same time.
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- South China Morning Post
Deadly floods sever Nepal-China trade, exposing the cost of climate-vulnerable infrastructure
Floods that damaged hydropower dams in Nepal and destroyed the main bridge connecting the country to China show the vulnerability of infrastructure and the need for smart rebuilding in a region bearing the brunt of a warming planet, experts say. The flooding of the Bhotekoshi River on July 8 also killed nine people and damaged an inland container depot that was being built to support increasing trade between the two countries. The 10 damaged hydropower facilities, including three under construction, have a combined capacity that could power 600,000 South Asian homes. Another smaller flood in the area on July 30 damaged roads and structures, but caused less overall destruction. Nepal's location in the Himalayan mountains makes it especially vulnerable to heavy rains, floods and landslides because the area is warming up faster than the rest of the world due to human-caused climate change. Climate experts say the increasing frequency of extreme weather has changed the playbook for assessing infrastructure risks while also increasing the need for smart rebuilding plans. 'The statistics of the past no longer apply for the future,' said John Pomeroy, a hydrologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. 'The risk that goes into building a bridge or other infrastructure is generally based on historical observations of past risk, but this is no longer useful because future risk is different and often much higher.' While damage estimates from the July floods in the Rasuwa region are still being calculated, past construction costs give a sense of the financial toll. The Sino-Nepal Friendship Bridge alone, for example, took US$68 million to rebuild after it was destroyed by a 2015 earthquake that ravaged Nepal.
