Latest news with #TongjiUniversity
Hospitality Net
03-06-2025
- Business
- Hospitality Net
Modena by Fraser Wujiaochang Opens in Shanghai
Modena by Fraser Wujiaochang Shanghai offers a well-balanced lifestyle for business travellers and academics, blending inspiration, connectivity, and community in one of the city's most bustling neighbourhoods. Located in the heart of Yangpu District, in close proximity to the Wujiaochang commercial hub, Modena by Fraser Wujiaochang Shanghai is situated close to global tech companies, premium shopping centres, and top educational institutions, Fudan University and Tongji University. The property soft opened on 20 May 2025 and offers 307 fully furnished studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments with sizes ranging from 23 to 66 sqm. Designed to enhance productivity and relaxation, the property features a range of thoughtfully curated facilities - from a tranquil landscaped garden at the entrance and a serene relaxation room to a yoga studio and gym equipped with state-of-the-art smart mirrors. Guests can host business and social events in versatile meeting spaces and the stylish Common Room with amphitheatre seating. For gourmet meals, the property's restaurant serves up a delectable mix of Cantonese and local Shanghai cuisine promising a rich culinary experience. Within easy access to multiple bus routes and Metro Lines 10 and 18, the residence fuses the energy of a creative academic community with exceptional urban convenience. Hotel website
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA satellites show Antarctica has gained ice despite rising global temperatures. How is that possible?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Antarctica has gained ice in recent years, despite increasing average global temperatures and climate change, a new study finds. Using data from NASA satellites, researchers from Tongji University in Shanghai tracked changes in Antarctica's ice sheet over more than two decades. The overall trend is one of substantial ice loss on the continent, but from 2021 to 2023, Antarctica gained some of that lost ice back. However, this isn't a sign that global warming and climate change have miraculously reversed. Picture a long ski slope with a small jump at the end. That's what a line through the Antarctic ice sheet data looks like when plotted on a graph. While there have been some recent ice gains, they don't even begin to make up for almost 20 years of losses. Most of the gains have already been attributed to an anomaly that saw increased precipitation (snow and some rain) fall over Antarctica, which caused more ice to form. Antarctica's ice levels fluctuate from year to year, and the gains appear to have slowed since the study period ended at the beginning of 2024. The levels reported by NASA thus far in 2025 look similar to what they were back in 2020, just before the abrupt gain. Related: What's hiding under Antarctica's ice? The ice sheet covering Antarctica is the largest mass of ice on Earth. Bigger than the whole of the U.S., the sheet holds 90% of the world's fresh water, according to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, an environmental non-governmental organization. Antarctica is also surrounded by sea ice (frozen ocean water), which expands in the winter and retreats to the Antarctic coastline in the summer. This latest study, published March 19 in the journal Science China Earth Sciences, analyzed data from NASA's Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On satellites that have been monitoring this ice sheet since 2002. Studying changes to the sheet is important because any melt releases water into the ocean, which is a major driver of rising sea levels. The satellite data revealed that the sheet experienced a sustained period of ice loss between 2002 and 2020. The ice loss accelerated in the latter half of that period, increasing from an average loss of about 81 billion tons (74 billion metric tons) per year between 2002 and 2010, to a loss of about 157 billion tons (142 billion metric tons) between 2011 and 2020, according to the study. However, the trend then shifted. The ice sheet gained mass from 2021 to 2023 at an average rate of about 119 billion tons (108 metric tons) per year. Four glaciers in eastern Antarctica also flipped from accelerated ice loss to significant mass gain. "This isn't particularly strange," said Tom Slater, a research fellow in environmental science at Northumbria University in the U.K. who wasn't involved in the study. "In a warmer climate the atmosphere can hold more moisture — this raises the likelihood of extreme weather such as the heavy snowfall which caused the recent mass gain in East Antarctica," he told Live Science in an email. A 2023 study documented Antarctica's unprecedented mass gain between 2021 and 2022. That study, written by many of the same authors behind the new study, found that a high precipitation anomaly was responsible for the gain in ice. The latest study suggests that the trend continued until at least 2023. Slater noted that researchers expect the ice gains to be temporary. "Almost all of Antarctica's grounded ice losses come from glaciers elsewhere which are speeding up and flowing into the warming ocean," Slater said. "This is still happening — while the recent snowfall has temporarily offset these losses, they haven't stopped so it's not expected this is a long-term change in Antarctica's behaviour." Climate change doesn't mean that everywhere on Earth will get hotter at the same rate, so a single region will never tell the whole story of our warming world. Historically, temperatures over much of Antarctica have remained relatively stable, particularly compared to the Arctic, which has cooked four times faster than the rest of the globe. Antarctica's sea ice has also been much more stable relative to the Arctic, but that's been changing in recent years. RELATED STORIES —Antarctica 'pyramid': The strangely symmetrical mountain that sparked a major alien conspiracy theory —'We didn't expect to find such a beautiful, thriving ecosystem': Hidden world of life discovered beneath Antarctic iceberg —Massive Antarctic icebergs' split from glaciers may be unrelated to climate change In 2023, Antarctic sea ice hit record lows, which researchers concluded was extremely unlikely to happen without climate change. Meanwhile, global sea ice cover is consistently dropping to record lows or near-record lows, while global temperatures are consistently at record or near-record highs. In 2015, world leaders signed the Paris Agreement, an international treaty promising to limit global warming to preferably below 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) and well below 3.6 F (2 C). However, that first promise is on the line: April 2025 was the 21st out of the last 22 months to breach the 2.7 F limit, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Daily Mail
07-05-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Shocking Antarctica discovery sends climate change deniers into mass celebration
Scientists have made a shocking discovery in Antarctica that has climate change deniers claiming there's now proof global warming is just a hoax. Researchers from Tongji University in Shanghai found the frozen continent suddenly reversed its decades-long trend of catastrophic melting and actually gained record amounts of ice in recent years. Although the Antarctic Ice Sheet had been losing ice at an alarming rate for nearly two decades, between 2002 and 2020, that trend sharply changed in 2021. From 2021 through 2023, the study found unusually 'intense snowfall' in Antarctica helped build up layers of fresh ice, an event that also caused sea level rise to slow as well. The world's sea levels have been growing in height as ocean temperatures rise and more glaciers melt due to global warming, threatening to flood major coastal cities worldwide. Overall, scientists found that this three-year climate reversal cut the annual rise in global sea level rise by nearly 15 percent, a significant difference. Before this recent change in Antarctica, the study calculated that the ice sheet lost about 120 billion tons of ice per year over the previous two decades. Between 2021 and 2023, the continent gained roughly 108 billion tons of ice each year. While the researchers noted that the surprising results only reflect a temporary change in Antarctica's weather patterns that could eventually change back, climate change skeptics quickly pounced on the findings on social media. 'Ice grew in Antarctica! Climate change is a hoax!' one person said on X. 'LOL, climate crisis my butt. Antarctica has more ice now than ever before,' another climate skeptic wrote. 'Climate Crisis?' You mean that there is too much ice building in Antarctica?' a sarcastic X user added. The scientists who made the discovery found that, between 2021 and 2023, abnormal weather patterns brought more moisture to the continent, especially the Eastern half of Antarctica. These patterns were likely caused by shifts in winds or storms, possibly influenced by climate changes, but the study authors made sure to note that this change was an 'unprecedented' event. Despite the historic gains in ice growth throughout Antarctica from 2021 to 2023, the study revealed that the continent suffered a net loss of 1.848 trillion tons of ice over the last two decades. This ice loss added about 5.99 millimeters (roughly a quarter of an inch) to global sea levels by February 2020. The connection between snow melting and sea level rise has real consequences. Rising sea levels can flood coastal cities, erode beaches, and harm ecosystems. Recent studies have argued that climate change is the major driving factor for flooding problems in major cities like New Orleans, which is now sinking as that entire Gulf Coast area erodes. In fact, climate scientists have warned that the rising sea levels triggered by melting Antarctic glaciers has now put over two dozen cities at higher risk of sinking over the next three decades. Despite the evidence that climate change is doing widespread damage, a University of Cambridge professor said skeptics still have a valid argument about so-called 'climate alarmists.' Mike Hulme told that climate alarmists have created so much distrust and ill will among the public by blaming almost all of society's issues on the climate emergency. 'Climate change is cited as the sole explanation for everything going wrong in the world. Drought, famine, flooding, wars, racism – you name it. And if it's bad, it's down to global warming caused by humans,' Professor Hulme said. 'I disagree with the doom-mongers. Climate change is not like a comet approaching Earth. There is no good scientific or historical evidence that it will lead to human extinction or the collapse of human civilization,' the professor of human geography added. To Hulme's point, the new study revealed a much more complicated picture of what's happening at the South Pole. While this study and others have uncovered trends linked to climate change, such as ice melting speeding up and oceans becoming hotter, the same research can find wild swings where temperatures drop and appear to debunk those trends. From 2021 through 2023, scientists said the main reason Antarctica was able to rebuild so much of its ice was because of 'large precipitation anomalies' - or massive snow totals that can't be counted on year after year. Just like in other regions that get snow throughout the world, blizzards don't strike every single year like clockwork, which is why the scientists believe this reversal may be a temporary event. While climate deniers are taking a victory lap right now, the study published in Science China Earth Sciences still showed a concerning trend developing throughout the 21st century. The study noted that the second decade of the 21st century (2011-2020) saw twice as much ice loss compared to the first (2002-2010). This dramatic increase in melting was driven by ice loss in West Antarctica and increasing losses in East Antarctica's Wilkes Land and Queen Mary Land. Meanwhile, the stunning turnaround between 2021 and 2023 was driven by massive snowfalls in East Antarctica, particularly in areas like Dronning Maud Land and Enderby Land. This also helped driven down sea level rise to 5.10 millimeters by 2023. Despite gaining ice overall, West Antarctica actually continued to lose ice due to warm ocean water melting glaciers from below - contributing to sea level rise. The study estimated that if all the ice in East Antarctica's Wilkes Land melted, it could raise sea levels by over 171 feet. Even smaller losses, like those from the continent's Totten glacier (12.8 feet of potential rise), could have major impacts around the world.
New York Post
06-05-2025
- Science
- New York Post
Surprise! Ice is rebounding at BOTH poles — climate is more complex than we know
When it comes to climate change, to invoke one of Al Gore's favorite sayings, the biggest challenge is not what we don't know, but what we know for sure but just isn't so. Two new studies show that the Earth's climate is far more complex than often acknowledged, reminding us of the importance of pragmatic energy and climate policies. One of them, led by researchers at China's Tongji University, finds that after years of ice sheet decline, Antarctica has seen a 'surprising shift': a record-breaking accumulation of ice. Advertisement The paper takes advantage of very precise measurements of Antarctic ice mass from a series of NASA satellites called GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment). Since the first GRACE satellite was launched in 2002, Antarctica has seen a steady decline in the total mass of its glaciers. Yet the new study found the decline reversed from 2021 to 2023. Advertisement Melting Antarctic ice contributes to global sea-level rise, so a reversal of melting will slow that down. Understanding the dynamics of ice mass on Antarctica is thus essential. The recent Antarctica shift makes only a small dent in the overall ice loss from 2022, but comes as a surprise nonetheless. A second new paper, a preprint now going through peer review, finds a similar change at the opposite end of the planet. Advertisement 'The loss of Arctic sea ice cover has undergone a pronounced slowdown over the past two decades, across all months of the year,' the paper's US and UK authors write. They suggest that the 'pause' in Arctic sea ice decline could persist for several more decades. Together, the two studies remind us that the global climate system remains unpredictable, defying simplistic expectations that change moves only in one direction. In 2009, then-Sen. John Kerry warned that the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free by 2013: 'Scientists tell us we have a 10-year window — if even that — before catastrophic climate change becomes inevitable and irreversible,' he said. Advertisement Today, six years after that 10-year window closed, catastrophic climate change has not occurred, even as the planet has indeed continued to warm due primarily to the combustion of fossil fuels. Partisans in the climate debate should learn from Kerry's crying wolf. On one side, catastrophizing climate change based on the most extreme claims leads to skepticism when the promised apocalypse fails to occur on schedule. On the other side, studies like the two surprising polar-ice papers reveal climate complexities, but don't prove climate change isn't real and serious. Policy-makers today appear to be embracing energy realism over a myopic rush to net zero at all costs. But their newfound pragmatism should still embrace decarbonizing the economy, as well as reducing the costs of energy, expanding global energy access and ensuring secure and reliable energy supplies. These multiple objectives are not always in concert, which is why energy policy is so challenging. We know that humans affect the climate system in many ways — greenhouse gas emissions in part, but also through land management, air pollution and vegetation dynamics. Advertisement At a planetary scale the net effect of these changes is a warming of the planetary system. Yet anticipating regional and local consequences is far more difficult, and irreducible uncertainties mean that adapting to climate variability and change comes down to risk management as we balance competing objectives. Fortunately, pragmatic energy policy has plenty of low-hanging fruit — expanding nuclear power and accelerating the retirement of coal are good places to start. Advertisement The surprises revealed by the two new papers about polar ice also remind us that we need to be prepared for unexpected behavior of the climate system, regardless of the underlying causes of change. History tells us that climate can shift abruptly, with profound consequences for society. For instance, the 1870s saw a wide range of climate extremes across the planet, by some estimates contributing to the deaths of 4% of global population. More recently, the climate extremes of the 1970s led to many new US government programs focused on monitoring and researching climate, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Advertisement Such efforts are crucially important because we can't always anticipate the results of research. If we could, we wouldn't need data and science. Perhaps the most important lesson to take from the new polar-ice findings is that ongoing efforts in Washington, DC to gut climate data and research are deeply misguided. The global climate system has more surprises in store for us — and we ignore them at our peril. Roger Pielke Jr. is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who writes at The Honest Broker on Substack.
The Star
06-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
China's dying EV batteries, solar cells are powering a circular economy in new-energy era
One man's waste is Ma Long's treasure. And in the new-energy era, his map leads to exhausted lithium-ion batteries – veritable troves of reusable resources that are supercharging profits at Ma's company, a maker of solid-waste-recycling equipment in central China. Pricey components such as lithium – a silvery-white alkali metal aptly nicknamed 'white gold' – along with other materials such as cobalt and nickel, hold their value beyond the life of the batteries powering China's massive electric-vehicle (EV) industry. 'There is huge potential in the business of new-energy waste, because new energy is where China and the world are going,' said the sales manager at a subsidiary of Henan Hairui Intelligent Technology in Zhengzhou, Henan province. Speaking at a recent trade fair for environmental technologies in Shanghai, Ma said 70% of his company's business is dedicated to machines for recycling batteries and solar panels. As more and more batteries and solar panels reach the end of their life cycle in China – a global leader in renewable-energy deployment – Chinese businesses like Ma's are embracing a circular economy, where materials are reused and reintroduced into new products, reducing waste and conserving resources. And with valuable metals comprising essential components in many of today's fast-growing, clean-energy technologies, the cycle is especially meaningful in terms of improving China's mineral independence as it navigates intensifying global trade tensions, according to some analysts. 'The recycling of minerals is largely for the sake of resource security,' said Du Huanzheng, a professor specialising in circular economy at Shanghai's Tongji University. 'China is also seeking new economic growth by strengthening recycling efforts, which, in the past, were more driven by the need to solve pollution issues,' he said. [China] is facing more difficulty in buying from allies of the US, such as Australia and Canada The large-scale equipment upgrades and trade-in of consumer goods, two initiatives launched a year ago to boost domestic demand in a slowing Chinese economy, have pushed up demand for recycling and represent the potential for a new round of economic growth, he said. In response to that rising demand, a new state-owned giant was created directly under the State Council last year. The China Resources Recycling Group aims to build an offline resource recycling network covering waste ranging from durable consumer goods, such as electronic products, to retired wind power and photovoltaic equipment, according to an official announcement in October. After about a decade of rapid growth in the use of EVs, whose battery life is set at an upper limit of eight years, China has already started seeing the 'large-scale retirement of car batteries', according to an official readout of a State Council meeting in February. The weight of retired car batteries in China is expected to exceed 4 million tonnes a year by 2028, and the annual output value of the waste-battery-recycling industry will be more than 280bil yuan (US$38.5bil), according to the state-run Economic Daily, citing estimates by the China Electronics Energy Saving Technology Association. Meanwhile, with their longer service life but having been deployed earlier, photovoltaic modules from China's vast solar power system are expected to begin retiring this year, and that retirement wave will intensify over the next half-decade, according to a report from the China Association of Circular Economy in 2023. Unlike fossil fuels, which are gone once burned, the metals in these new-energy products can be recycled, and this is of critical importance amid a worsening trade war between China and the United States, said a Beijing-based professor of environmental economics who declined to be named as he was not authorised to talk to the media. 'While China is intensifying efforts in looking for mines of critical minerals domestically, it is facing more difficulty in buying from allies of the US, such as Australia and Canada. 'Business with other [mineral] suppliers, such as Congo and Chile, may also be affected as the administration of Donald Trump pressures trading partners to isolate China,' he added. China relies heavily on imports for many key minerals, especially those for new-energy and high-end manufacturing, such as cobalt, nickel and lithium. On the other hand, the US and Europe are also warning against their dependence on China, as most of the intermediate links of refining and finished products are controlled by the latter. China's ongoing campaign for renewals of consumer goods and upgrades of equipment is expected to add nearly 500,000 tonnes of resources that can recover non-ferrous metals, Li Yusheng, deputy secretary general of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, said at a press conference in January. As leading battery manufacturers and carmakers, such as Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) and BYD, have been perfecting their layout in battery recycling in recent years, smaller businesses are also flocking to this potential market in hopes of carving out a piece of the pie. Yu Zhongkai, a senior manager with Tianli Technology, a recycling-machine maker in Zhejiang province, said the company started developing battery-recycling equipment not long ago and now has a quarter of its business coming from this field. 'But we're still experimenting, because there are no industry-wide standards yet, and the market is still unclear,' he said. China is still in its infancy in recycling new-energy waste, but the practice is not particularly advanced anywhere in the world, noted the Beijing professor. The European Union leads in recycling standards and systems, and China enjoys the incomparable advantage of a complete industrial chain and a large-scale market, he noted. Du, the Shanghai professor, noted that it is an emerging sector that has attracted many investors but lacks regulation and technological breakthroughs. 'Businesses are showing great enthusiasm, but large-scale recycling has yet to come, and a mature recycling system has yet to be formed,' he said. China currently adopts a white-list policy to standardise the battery-recycling market and avoid safety accidents and environmental pollution. A total of 156 companies have been selected so far for the list. At February's State Council meeting, it passed an action plan aimed at improving the recycling system of car batteries, vowing to build a standardised, safe and efficient recycling system. This followed a December directive from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which said enterprises must establish a quality-assurance mechanism with product traceability and accountability, increasing mandatory standards for recycled products. One of the companies in the white list, Guangdong Brunp Recycling Technology, a subsidiary of CATL, said it was capable of recovering 99.3% of the nickel, cobalt and manganese in a retired battery, and 91% of the phosphorus and lithium. This helps China form a complete closed loop in new-energy development, said its CEO, Li Changdong, during the country's annual parliamentary gathering in March. 'It ensures that the batteries go where they came from, and it improves the resilience of the new-energy industry's supply chain,' he said. Lithium-ion batteries contain heavy metals that can leach into the soil and water if not disposed of properly, and recycling them can be hazardous, as cutting in the wrong place may result in it combusting or releasing toxic fumes. However, most of the retired batteries now end up in small illegal workshops in underdeveloped regions, said Chen Liwen, an environmental activist who has more than a decade of experience in waste disposal. There is also the urgent need for regulation in the treatment of retired photovoltaics, which have spread to every corner of China after 20 years of development, she warned. 'Many rural households installed small photovoltaics two decades ago. Now, with the first batch retired, some are even being directly thrown into trash bins,' she said. Against such a backdrop, legal recyclers are struggling to receive enough waste to be processed, resulting in overcapacity, said Ma, the Zhengzhou sales manager. He expected that the issue would ease as regulation matures and a peak period for battery retirement comes in a couple of years, as many auto brands, including Chinese ones, are speeding up their shift to pure electric cars amid the EU's ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035. 'So, overall, this is a big track to follow in the next few decades,' he said. – South China Morning Post
