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This story was originally published by High Country News a nd appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

On July 20, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spoke at a closed-door meeting of conservative state legislators and lobbyists, raising questions about his stated goals of transparency in federal government. Zinke, a former Montana congressman, spoke in Denver at the annual meeting for the American Legislative Exchange Council, an industry organization backed by Koch Industries and ExxonMobil and devoted to "limited government, free markets and federalism."

ALEC, whose initiatives include a push for state control over federal lands, provides model bills for state legislatures and influences bills going through Congress. Because of the group's funding sources and its interest in states holding public lands, conservationists see Zinke's association with the group as problematic.

Throughout his congressional confirmation process for the Department of Interior position, and in the early months of his job, Zinke has reiterated that he does not favor land transfers. "The things that Zinke has claimed he stood for, in terms of public lands, ALEC are the ones driving against that all these years," says Aaron Weiss, media director at the Center for Western Priorities.

After the election of Donald Trump, ALEC published a triumphant missive touting the increased influence that would come thanks to "the incoming presidential administration's focus on rolling power back to the states and the sheer number of ALEC alumni in the new administration." Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now the Secretary of Energy, and Vice President Mike Pence both spoke at ALEC's 2016 conference.This year's meeting featured high-profile speakers like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and others. While the majority of the speakers were in a recorded forum, Zinke's speech was not; neither are there transcripts of it. According to tweets from ALEC's Twitter account, vaguely confirmed by the Interior Press Secretary Heather Swift, Zinke focused on the development of U.S. energy sources and the importance of states' roles in regulation. "We aim to always bring high profile speakers from all sectors who support limited governments, free markets and federalism to our meetings," Taylor McCarty, a spokeswoman for ALEC, says. (In fact, there are no other examples in recent years of Cabinet members attending ALEC meetings.)

While there is no public list of legislators who are members, ALEC says nearly a quarter of the nation's state legislators hold membership, as well as "alumni" that push its agenda in Washington. With Republicans in control of Congress and the presidency, ALEC is working with an administration that favors its agenda much more so than in years past. That has big implications for the West, especially in relation to the long-standing GOP platform plank that explicitly seeks state control of public lands. Indeed, Zinke's ongoing review of national monuments to examine whether states had enough say is predated by ALEC model bills critiquing the Antiquities Act dating back to 2000.

ALEC's model legislation, which advances conservative, pro-industry policies, often finds its way into state legislatures. Due to a lack of transparency, it is difficult to come up with a comprehensive list of state lawmakers who are members of the group.

According to Common Cause, a nonpartisan organization that tracks ALEC, Bill Cadman, the former president of Colorado Senate, served as state chair and national board member for the group. "ALEC's current Colorado state chairs are Sen. Kevin Grantham, R-2nd District, and Rep. Lori Saine, R-63rd District," Common Cause says in a recent report. "ALEC also has influence in Colorado's congressional delegation; U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican, and Reps. Scott Tipton (R-3rd District), and Rep. Doug Lamborn (R- 5th District) are all alumni of ALEC."

Among other prominent Western supporters are Arizona State Sen. Deb Lasko, who is also the state chair for ALEC. Lasko led a delegation of 19 state legislators to this year's conference- a third of the state's legislators-with all expenses paid by ALEC, according to Arizona Central. Earlier this year, she sponsored a bill to break up the 9th Circuit Court, often criticized by conservatives for its decisions on the kinds of environmental cases that are adjudicated in the West.

Another prominent ALEC supporter is Utah Rep. Ken Ivory, past chairman of ALEC's Federalism Task Force. Ivory is a vigorous advocate for the transfer of federal lands to the states. He founded the American Lands Council in 2012 to promote the land transfer movement through county commissioners, successfully passing a law that seeks the transfer of 30 million acres of federal land to the state of Utah. (He has also been critical of Zinke, calling him a "very bad pick" because of his unwillingness to pick up the land transfer cause, according to emails released by the Western Values Project, a public lands conservation advocacy group.) Another Utahn, State Sen. Wayne Niederhauser, is both president of the Utah Senate and a member of ALEC's Board of Directors. Niederhauser co-sponsored Utah's resolution to rescind Bears Ears National Monument.

The effects of an administration so closely tied to ALEC may take some time to be seen. "When ALEC starts in on something, you don't see results for months or years," says Weiss, who thinks ALEC and other Koch-funded initiatives like the Heritage Foundation, may gain more mainstream steam with national lawmakers. "During the Obama administration, ALEC turned towards state legislatures; is that going to change now?"

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Ryan Zinke revealed Trump's plans for the American west...to the Koch brothers...in secret

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This story was originally published by High Country News a nd appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On July 20, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spoke at a closed-door meeting of conservative state legislators and lobbyists, raising questions about his stated goals of transparency in federal government.

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Aloysia J

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Our environment is constantly changing. There is no denying that fact. However, as our environment changes, so does the need to become increasingly aware of the problems that surround it. With a massive influx of natural disasters, warming and cooling periods, different types of weather patterns and much more, people need to be aware of what types of environmental problems our planet is facing.

Global warming has become an undisputed fact about our current livelihoods; our planet is warming up and we are definitely part of the problem. However, this isn't the only environmental problem that we should be concerned about. All across the world, people are facing a wealth of new and challenging environmental problems every day. Some of them are small and only affect a few ecosystems, but others are drastically changing the landscape of what we already know.

The Earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.

~ John Paul II

"Environmental issues are defined as problems with the planet's systems (air, water, soil, etc.) that have developed as a result of human interference or mistreatment of the planet." - Your Dictionary

Our planet is poised on the brink of a severe environmental crisis. Current environmental problems make us vulnerable to disasters and tragedies, now and in the future.

We are in a state of planetary emergency, with environmental problems piling up high around us. Unless we address the various issues prudently and seriously, we are surely doomed for disaster. Current environmental problems also require urgent attention.

20 Major Current Environmental Problems

1. Pollution

There are 7 key types of pollution - air, water, soil, noise, radioactive, light and thermal and these are primary causes that affect our environment in many ways. All these types of pollution are interlinked and influence each other. Therefore we need to tackle all of them together.

Pollution of air, water and soil requires millions of years to recoup. Industry and motor vehicle exhaust are the number one pollutants. Heavy metals, nitrates and plastic are toxins responsible for pollution.

While water pollution is caused by oil spill, acid rain, urban runoff, air pollution is caused by various gases and toxins released by industries and factories and combustion of fossil fuels; soil pollution is majorly caused by industrial waste that deprives soil from essential nutrients.

2. Soil Degradation

Globally, food security depends on the factor whether or not soils are in good condition to produce crops. According to UN estimates, about 12 million hectares of farmland a year get seriously degraded.

Soils get damaged due to many reasons. Such reasons include erosion, overgrazing, overexposure to pollutants, monoculture planting, soil compaction, land-use conversion and many more.

Nowadays, a wide range of techniques of soil conservation and restoration exist, from no-till agriculture to crop rotation to water-retention through terrace-building.

3. Global Warming

Climate changes like global warming are the result of human practices like the emission of greenhouse gases. Global warming leads to rising temperatures of the oceans and the earth' surface causing natural disasters that include flooding, melting of polar ice caps, rise in sea levels and also unnatural patterns of precipitation such as flash floods, hurricanes, wildfires, drought, excessive snow or desertification.

4. Overpopulation

The population of the planet is reaching unsustainable levels as it faces a shortage of resources like water, fuel and food. Population explosion in less developed and developing countries is straining the already scarce resources.

Intensive agriculture practiced to produce food damages the environment through the use of chemical fertilizer, pesticides and insecticides. Overpopulation is also one of the crucial current environmental problems.

5. Natural Resource Depletion

Another crucial current environmental problem is the depletion of Natural resources. We, humans, use so many natural resources that it would need almost 1.5 Earths to cover all our needs.

This will further increase in the future due to massive industrialization in Asian countries like India and China. Increased use of natural resources leads to a number of other environmental issues, such as industrialization, population growth and air pollution.

Over time, natural resource depletion will lead to an energy crisis. The chemicals emitted from many natural resources contribute to climate change. Fossil fuel consumption results in the emission of greenhouse gases, which is primarily responsible for global warming and climate change.

Globally, people are making efforts to shift to renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, biogas and geothermal energy. As such, the cost of installing the infrastructure and maintaining these sources has plummeted in recent years.

6. Generating Unsustainable Waste

The huge production of waste due to our hyperconsumption is a major threat to the environment. As per the study, the average person produces 4.3 pounds of waste per day, and the US alone accounting for 220 million tons a year.

This hyperconsumption results in non-biodegradable trash in the form of plastic packaging, toxic e-waste, and harmful chemicals that leach into our waterways.

When this waste ends up in landfills, it generates enormous amounts of methane, which ranks as one of the worst greenhouse gases because of its high potential for global warming. It creates severe explosion hazards.

Since modern technology allows us to access digital environments, many things that you need can be fulfilled in the cloud. Consider your purchases carefully.

7. Waste Disposal

The overconsumption of resources and the creation of plastics are creating a global crisis of waste disposal. Developed countries are notorious for producing an excessive amount of waste or garbage and dumping their waste in the oceans and less developed countries.

Nuclear waste disposal has tremendous health hazards associated with it. Plastic, fast food, packaging and cheap electronic wastes threaten the well being of humans. Waste disposal is, therefore, one of the urgent current environmental problems.

8. Deforestation

Our forests are natural sinks of carbon dioxide and produce fresh oxygen, as well as helps in regulating temperature and rainfall. At present, forests cover 30% of the land, but every year tree cover is lost, amounting to the country of Panama due to the growing population demand for more food, shelter and cloth. Deforestation simply means clearing of green cover and make that land available for residential, industrial or commercial purposes.

9. Polar Ice Caps

The issue of the melting of polar ice caps is a contentious one. Although NASA studies have shown that the amount of ice in Antarctica is increasing, however, this increase is only one-third of what is being lost in the Arctic.

There is enough evidence that shows sea levels are rising, and the melting of Arctic ice caps is a major contributor. Over time, the melting of polar ice caps could lead to extensive flooding, contamination of drinking water and major changes in ecosystems.

10. Loss of Biodiversity

Human activity is leading to the extinction of species and habitats and loss of biodiversity. Ecosystems, which took millions of years to perfect, are in danger when any species population is decimating.

Balance of natural processes like pollination is crucial to the survival of the ecosystem, and human activity threatens the same. Another example is the destruction of coral reefs in the various oceans, which support the rich marine life.

11. Climate Change

Climate change is yet another environmental problem that has surfaced in the last couple of decades. It occurs due to the rise in global warming, which happens due to the increase in temperature of the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and the release of harmful gases by industries.

Climate change has various harmful effects but not limited to the melting of polar ice, change in seasons, occurrence of new diseases, frequent occurrence of floods and change in overall weather scenario.

12. Ocean Acidification

It is a direct impact of excessive production of CO2. 25% of total atmospheric CO2 is produced by humans. The ocean acidity has increased by the last 250 years, but by 2100, it may shoot up by 150%. The main impact is on shellfish and plankton in the same way as human osteoporosis.

13. The Nitrogen Cycle

We often ignore the effects of the use of nitrogen by humans. Nitrogen is a crucial component of all life. Problems occur when the nitrogen cycle is not balanced.

A process through which it is converted or 'fixed' to a more usable form is called fixation. The fixation happens biologically and through lightning, or it can be done Industrially. People have learned to convert nitrogen gas to ammonia (NH3-) and fertilizers that are nitrogen-rich to supplement the amount of nitrogen fixed naturally.

It is estimated that agriculture may be responsible for about 50% of the nitrogen fixation on earth through the cultivation of nitrogen-fixing crops and the production of human-made fertilizers. When nitrogen is used more than plant demand, it can leach from soils into waterways and contributes to eutrophication.

Excess levels of nitrogen in water can hamper marine ecosystems, through overstimulation of plant and algae growth. This blocks the light from getting into deeper waters, thus damaging the rest of the marine population.

The problem can also occur during nitrification and denitrification. Nitrous oxide (N2O) can be formed when the chemical process is not completed. N2O is a potent greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.

14. Ozone Layer Depletion

The ozone layer is an invisible layer of protection around the planet that protects us from the sun's harmful rays. The depletion of the crucial Ozone layer of the atmosphere is attributed to pollution caused by Chlorine and Bromide found in Chloro-fluoro carbons (CFCs). Once these toxic gases reach the upper atmosphere, they create a hole in the ozone layer, the biggest of which is above the Antarctic.

CFCs are banned in many industries and consumer products. The ozone layer is valuable because it prevents harmful UV radiation from reaching the earth. This is one of the most important current environmental problems.

15. Acid Rain

Acid rain occurs due to the presence of certain pollutants in the atmosphere. Acid rain can be caused due to combustion of fossil fuels or erupting volcanoes or rotting vegetation which releases sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere.

Acid rain is a known environmental problem that can have a serious effect on human health, wildlife and aquatic species.

16. Water Pollution

Clean drinking water is becoming a rare commodity. Water is becoming an economic and political issue as the human population fights for this resource.

One of the options suggested is using the process of desalinization. Industrial development is filling our rivers, seas and oceans with toxic pollutants, which are a major threat to human health.

17. Overfishing

Overfishing affects natural ecosystems severely and leads to an imbalance of ocean life. Around 63% of global fish stocks are estimated to be overfished. Overfishing caused fishing fleets to migrate to new waters that would further deplete the fish stocks.

Moreover, it has negative effects on coastal communities that rely on fishing to support their living.

18. Urban Sprawl

Urban sprawl refers to the migration of population from high-density urban areas to low-density rural areas, which results in the spreading of the city over more and more rural land.

Urban sprawl results in land degradation, increased traffic, environmental issues and health issues. The ever-growing demand for land displaces the natural environment consisting of flora and fauna, instead of being replaced.

19. Public Health Issues

The current environmental problems pose a lot of risk to the health of humans and animals. Dirty water is the biggest health risk in the world and poses a threat to the quality of life and public health.

Runoff to rivers carries with it toxins, chemicals and disease-carrying organisms. Pollutants cause respiratory diseases like Asthma and cardiac-vascular problems. High temperatures encourage the spread of infectious diseases like Dengue.

20. Genetic Engineering

Genetic modification of food using biotechnology is called genetic engineering. Genetic modification of food results in increased toxins and diseases as genes from an allergic plant can transfer to the target plant. Genetically modified crops can cause serious environmental problems as an engineered gene may prove toxic to wildlife.

Another drawback is that increased use of toxins to make insect resistant plants can cause resultant organisms to become resistant to antibiotics.

The need for change in our daily lives and the movements of our government is growing. Since so many different factors come into play, such as voting, governmental issues, the desire to stick to a routine, many people don't consider that what they do will affect future generations.

If humans continue moving forward in such a harmful way towards the future, then there will be no future to consider. Although it's a fact that we cannot physically stop our ozone layer from thinning (and scientists are still having trouble figuring out what is causing it exactly), there are still so many things we can do to try and put a dent in what we already know.

By raising awareness in your local community and within your families about these issues, you can help contribute to a more environmentally conscious and friendly place for you and your future generations to live.

About Rinkesh

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20 Current Environmental Problems That Our World is Facing - Conserve Energy Future

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Our environment is constantly changing. There is no denying that fact. However, as our environment changes, so does the need to become increasingly aware of the problems that surround it. With a massive influx of natural disasters, warming and cooling periods, different types of weather patterns and much more, people need to be aware of what types of environmental problems our planet is facing.

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air; air pollution; air contamination; indoor air pollution; industrial air pollution; air quality; pollutants; indoor air quality; indoor air pollutants; outdoor air pollution; air pollution monitoring; urban air quality; smog; photochemical smog; car pollutants; airborne pollutants; reducing air pollution; prevent air pollution; energy efficiency; solar energy; wind power; nuclear energy; radioactive waste; alternative energy; alternative fuels; bioenergy; biodiesel; biofuels; non-renewable energy; conserve electricity; energy efficient home; renewable energy source; hazardous waste; hazardous waste treatment; sludge; solvents; wastewaters; wastewater; toxic waste; pcb; mercury; cyanide; sulfide; phenol; chlorinate aliphatics; toxic gases; mining; mines; mining engineering; rainforest; rain forest; rainforests; tropical rainforests; rain forest destruction; tropical deforestation; rainforest deforestation; environmental engineering; climate change; endangered; recycle; waste; micro organisms; earthworms; wet lands; coastal; subsidence; earth science

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Environmental science news. Learn about current research into rainforest deforestation, sustainable development, energy use, air quality monitoring, mining processes and hazardous waste disposal. Updated daily.

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Arctic sea ice is not merely a passive responder to the climate changes occurring around the world, according to new research.

Scientists at Yale University and the University of Southampton say the ongoing Arctic ice loss can play an active role in altering one of the planet's largest water circulation systems: the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

AMOC has a lower limb of dense, cold water that flows south from the north Atlantic, and an upper limb of warm, salty water that flows north from the south Atlantic as part of the Gulf Stream. AMOC plays a major role in regional and global climate, affecting the Atlantic rim countries -- particularly those in Europe -- and far beyond. It was featured in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow."

"Conventional thinking has been that if ocean circulation weakens, reducing the transport of heat from low to high latitudes, then it should lead to sea ice growth. But we have found another, overlooked, mechanism by which sea ice actively affects AMOC on multi-decadal time scales," said professor Alexey Fedorov, climate scientist at the Yale Department of Geology and Geophysics and co-author of a study detailing the findings in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The first author of the paper is Florian Sévellec, a former Yale postdoctoral researcher in Fedorov's lab who is now an associate professor at the University of Southampton. Wei Liu, a Yale postdoctoral associate, is another co-author of the study.

Earlier this year, a different Yale-led study cautioned that the AMOC system was not as stable as previously thought. That study said the possibility of a collapsed AMOC under global warming conditions is being significantly underestimated.

"We've now found this new connection between sea ice and AMOC," Liu said. "Sea ice loss is clearly important among the mechanisms that could potentially contribute to AMOC collapse."

The researchers based their findings on a combination of comprehensive climate model simulations and novel computations of the sensitivity of ocean circulation to fluctuations in temperature and salinity at the ocean's surface over time.

"In our experiments we saw a potential loss of 30% to 50% of AMOC's strength due to Arctic sea ice loss. That is a significant amount, and it would accelerate the collapse of AMOC if it were to occur," Fedorov said.

In the short-term, changes in the subpolar North Atlantic have the greatest impact on AMOC, the researchers found; but over the course of multiple decades, it was changes in the Arctic that became most important to AMOC, they said.

"We suggest that Arctic changes on a multi-decadal timescale, such as the decline in sea ice cover that we are currently experiencing, is the most efficient way to weaken the large-scale ocean circulation of the North Atlantic, which is responsible for the oceanic transport of heat from the equator to high latitudes," Sévellec said.

Grants from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Natural and Environmental Research Council UK supported the research.

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global warming; climate; geography; oceanography; ice ages; environmental awareness; snow and avalanches; environmental issues

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Loss of Arctic sea ice impacting Atlantic Ocean water circulation system

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Arctic sea ice is not merely a passive responder to the climate changes occurring around the world, according to new research. Scientists say the ongoing Arctic ice loss can play an active role in altering one of the planet's largest water circulation systems: the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

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While diving off the coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia, one diver captured video of a frogfish taking a stroll along the ocean floor. In the more than 1,000 dives that hobbyist diver Atsushi Sadaki claims to have been on, he says he's seen a few frogfish but never any moving in this way.

In the video, the frowny-faced fish can be seen hobbling forward on two front fins that splay out from the side of the animal's body. Frogfishes are "sit-and-wait" predators that pounce on unsuspecting smaller fish swimming past. Different species can be found throughout the world, but most tend to blend into their surroundings, meaning they don't really on speed or agility to find prey.

In an email with National Geographic, author of the book Frogfishes Around the World Ted Pietsch noted the frogfish in the video is likely a striated frogfish, which are commonly found throughout Indonesia but rarely seen thanks to their exceptional camouflage.

While the appendages may appear feet-like, they're actually fins. A 2012 study of the evolution of frogfish co-written by Pietsch and published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution noted that the fish accomplishes this type of locomotion by moving forward on pectoral fins and relying on the water's buoyancy to affectively bounce forward.

Before frogfish had been widely studied, it was believed they were amphibious and able to use this walking motion to move about on land. A 1734 study of the creature classified them as frogs, giving them the centuries-long misnomer.

However, the 2012 study found this to not be true writing, "A living frogfish removed from an aquarium and placed on a flat surface cuts a rather poor figure, its body more or less immobile and spreading out pancake-like under its own weight."

The study identified approximately 63 species existing in oceans around the world that have different methods of camouflage. Some have even been found to mimic sea sponges and urchins.

Frogfish aren't the only type of fish found "walking." In June, a diver also swimming off the coast of Indonesia filmed a stingfish performing a nimbler "walk" across the ocean floor. Unlike frogfish, stingfish have pectoral fins that are separated and more apt at movement. ( Read why the video had experts stumped.)

Both stingfish and frogfish can be found in benthic zones, or the bottom of a body of water, where they lay in wait for prey.

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Why This Fish 'Walks' Along the Ocean Floor

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While diving off the coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia, one diver captured video of a frogfish taking a stroll along the ocean floor. In the more than 1,000 dives that hobbyist diver Atsushi Sadaki claims to have been on, he says he's seen a few frogfish but never any moving in this way.

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A Running List of How Trump Is Changing the Environment

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The Trump administration has promised vast changes to U.S. science and environmental policy-and we're tracking them here as they happen.

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Antarctica

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Antarctica is melting, and scientists now have a better idea why. They are fairly confident that most of the heat shrinking the South Pole's glaciers is actually coming from below the ocean surface.

The cause is believed to be something called "Circumpolar Deep Water." This is a layer of warm salty water that lies below a very cold water layer closer to the ocean surface. Though warm is a relative term, as the water is only slightly above the freezing point.

The idea is that this Circumpolar Deep Water has been sneaking up onto the continental shelves around Antarctica and lapping at the bases of glaciers, melting them from below.

Subsea Robots No Match For Seals

From a scientific angle, this is a very difficult phenomena to observe. To see it, scientists have to travel hundreds of meters under Antarctica's freezing ocean surface. This is not a task very well suited for humans, not even when they have extremely expensive ocean vessels equipped with subsea robots.

A new study in Geophysical Research Letters, though, documents a new and clever way of solving this problem. Scientists are getting help from deep-diving marine mammals, turning them in effect into animal scientists.

The research team was led by Ph.D. student Xiyue Zhang of Caltech. They turned to something called Marine Mammals Exploring the Oceans Pole to Pole (MEOP). The program has installed non-invasive instruments, called tags, on southern elephant seals and other marine mammals in the Arctic and Antarctic. The result is 300,000 measurements of key ocean factors, and dozens of scientific publications.

Environmental Monitors

The program is part of a much broader trend toward using animals as monitors of the environment. This trend has been enabled by technological advances that have led to improved sensor technologies. New technology has modernized the study of animal movement, one researcher wrote in the journal Science. Last year, the journal published two articles about using animals as observing systems.

For the current research, the seals are outfitted with tiny sensors atop their heads. The sensors are so small that they do not interfere with the seals' normal swimming behavior. They record information about the depth, temperature and salt level of the ocean waters. After the animals moult, or shed their old skin, the sensors fall off.

Southern elephant seals are amazing creatures. They can stay underwater for as much as two hours and dive to depths of more than a mile. At the seafloor of Antarctic continental shelves, they collect food, living off of fish and squid. They spend the majority of their lives in and under the water.

What Lies In The Underwater Canyon

The current study used nearly 20,000 dive measurements to study the water in the Bellingshausen Sea near the Antarctic Peninsula. Many of the measurements were taken in winter, when the region is especially difficult for humans to observe.

Beneath the surface, the Bellingshausen Sea is home to a feature called the Belgica Trough. This extremely deep underwater canyon was dug into the seabed long ago by a vast stream of ice.

When the ice retreated, it left behind a subsea landscape that reaches depths of more than a kilometer. That is more than deep enough for Circumpolar Deep Water to enter the trough. Once it does, it can travel toward the base of ice shelves and glaciers along the Bellingshausen coast. The Venable Ice Shelf, for example, has been observed to be melting steadily of late.

Sure enough, the study found that in general, Circumpolar Deep Water rests offshore between 400 and 800 meters (437 and 874 yards) below the ocean surface. However, it was also making its way into the Belgica Trough. The research found that the warm water entered the trough on its eastern side, forming a large and swirling undersea cyclone as it mixed with cooler water. It then traveled toward the icy coast. Then it traveled back again and exited on the western side.

Tracking The Trend

"What we found is that near the ice shelf ... the water is as warm as about 1 degree Celsius beneath the surface," Zhang said. "This is already about 3 degrees warmer than the melting point of ice in that region. So this tells us that the heat of the ocean is able to melt the ice shelf in the region."

Overall, then, the study certainly validates - thanks to seals - the idea that warm water can get near the marine glaciers of the Bellingshausen Sea. Granted, in a region where little about the ocean is known, there is much more to discover. In particular, one key thing the study could not show was whether there was a trend, over time, in the waters' behavior.

But for more research, well, there's plenty more information from the seals.

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Elephant seals are key to discovering how Antarctic waters are warming

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Antarctica is melting, and scientists now have a better idea why. They are fairly confident that most of the heat shrinking the South Pole's glaciers is actually coming from below the ocean surface. The cause is believed to be something called "Circumpolar Deep Water."

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How to Throw Away a Phone Without Ruining the Environment

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VICE toured Artex Environment to see how the electronics recycling plant dismantles smartphones without harming the environment or putting private info at risk.

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In recent years, it has become increasingly common to frame the climate change problem as a kind of countdown - each year we emit more carbon dioxide, narrowing the window for fixing the problem, but not quite closing it yet. After all, something could still change. Emissions could still start to plunge precipitously. Maybe next year.

This outlook has allowed, at least for some, for the preservation of a form of climate optimism, in which big changes, someday soon, will still make the difference. Christiana Figureres, the former head of the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change, recently joined with a group of climate scientists and policy wonks to state there are 3 years left to get emissions moving sharply downward. If, that is, we're holding out hope of limiting the warming of the globe to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures, often cited as the threshold where "dangerous" warming begins.

Yet a battery of recent studies call into question even that limited optimism. Last week, a group of climate researchers published research suggesting the climate has been warming for longer than we thought due to human influences - in essence, pushing the so-called "preindustrial" baseline for the planet's warming backwards in time. The logic is clear: If the Earth has already warmed more than we thought due to human activities, then there's even less remaining carbon dioxide that we can emit and still avoid 2 degrees of warming.

Two new studies published Monday, meanwhile, go further towards advancing this pessimistic view which asserts that there's little chance of the world will stay within prescribed climate limits.

The first new study calculates the statistical likelihood of various amounts of warming by the year 2100 based on three trends that matter most for how much carbon we put in the air. Those are the global population, countries' GDP (on a per capita basis), and carbon intensity, or the volume of emissions for a given level of economic activity.

The research finds that the median warming is likely to be 3.2 degrees Celsius, and further concludes that there's only a 5 percent chance that the world can hold limiting below 2 degrees Celsius and a mere 1 percent chance that it can be limited below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). That will come as bad news for vulnerable small island nations in particular, which have held out for a 1.5 degree target, along with other particularly vulnerable nations.

"There is a lot of uncertainty about the future, our analysis does reflect that, but it also does reflect that the more optimistic scenarios that have been used in targets seem quite unlikely to occur," said statistician Adrian Raftery of the University of Washington, Seattle. Raftery conducted the study, which was just published in Nature Climate Change, alongside colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Upstart Networks.

The second new study, meanwhile, takes a different approach, analyzing how much global warming the world has already committed to, since the warming due to some emissions has not yet arrived. Nonetheless, with the planet at a so-called energy imbalance, that warming is inevitably coming, and the study - conducted by Thorsten Mauritsen of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany and Robert Pincus of the University of Colorado, Boulder - finds that it probably pushes us several slivers of a degree beyond where we are now.

The upshot is that we may already have firmly committed to 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming even if emissions were to stop immediately and entirely (which is not going to happen). One scenario presented in the study finds a 13 percent chance that 1.5 degrees is already baked in; another finds a 32 percent chance. And again, the margin for avoiding 2 degrees C narrows accordingly.

So what should we make of all of this?

On Monday I spoke with Glen Peters, a climate policy expert at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, about the two latest papers. Peters is a researcher who is on the record stating that he thinks there's little chance of holding warming to 2 degrees Celsius unless we come up with so-called "negative emissions" technologies that allow us to actively withdraw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere later in the century.

Somewhat surprisingly, though, Peters actually felt that the first new study, finding only a 5 percent chance of staying below 2 degrees, might be a tad too negative. It takes into account past climate policies, he notes, but not the possibility of a major upsurge in global climate action in coming years, unlike what we've seen previously. Indeed, the study notes that "Our forecasting model does not explicitly incorporate future legislation that could change future emissions."

"Less than 2 degrees of warming is unlikely if we don't try," said Peters. "I'm one that says that 2 degrees is not likely anyway - but if we try, at least it's an option that we can get to 2 degrees."

(Raftery, speaking about this aspect of his study, noted to me that "I think it's possible that the future might be completely different, and there'll be a sudden big jump forward, but past data would suggest that's being a bit optimistic.")

However, at the same time Peters also admitted that the study about committed warming reinforced a troubling conclusion, since "it's in a sense impossible that we're not going to emit any more." The upshot is that "We're starting from 1.5 and going up from there in the future emissions that we have," he said.

This again means that negative emissions, based on technologies that don't exist yet at the relevant scale, would probably be required at some point in the future. The new research "emphasizes the importance of removing carbon from the atmosphere," said Peters.

None of this news brings us into the range of the worst-case climate scenarios portrayed in a recent New York Magazine article, whose conclusions - many of which were disputed by many climate scientists - were based on levels of warming far beyond 2 degrees Celsius.

The upshot of all the latest research, however, is that while limiting warming to 2 degrees is seeming unlikely, and 1.5 degrees nearly impossible, staying within something like 2.5 degrees still seems quite possible if there's concerted action. And who knows whether in thirty years, negative emissions may appear much more feasible than they do now, providing the option of cooling the planet back down again at some point.

In sum, climate pessimism has indeed had a strong run lately - but you have to keep in context. It's pessimism that we'll hit our current goals. It's not fatalism, or the idea that we'll accomplish nothing, or that present momentum doesn't matter.

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We only have a 5 percent chance of avoiding 'dangerous' global warming, a study finds

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In recent years, it has become increasingly common to frame the climate change problem as a kind of countdown - each year we emit more carbon dioxide, narrowing the window for fixing the problem, but not quite closing it yet. After all, something could still change. Emissions could still start to plunge precipitously.

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Caitlin Josephine

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Minamata Disease " Sustainability " Boston University

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A catastrophe caused by climate change is seen as the biggest potential threat to the global economy in 2016, according to a survey of 750 experts conducted by the World Economic Forum.

The annual assessment of risks conducted by the WEF before its annual meeting in Davos on 20-23 January showed that global warming had catapulted its way to the top of the list of concerns.

A failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation was seen as likely to have a bigger impact than the spread of weapons of mass destruction, water crises, mass involuntary migration and a severe energy price shock - the first time in the 11 years of the Global Risks report that the environment has been in first place.

The report, prepared by the WEF in collaboration with risk specialists Marsh & McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group, comes a month after the deal signed in Paris to reduce carbon emissions. The WEF said evidence was mounting that inter-connections between risks were becoming stronger. It cited links between climate change and involuntary migration or international security, noting that these often had "major and unpredictable impacts".

Espen Barth Eide, the WEF's head of geopolitical affairs, said there was a risk of Europe fragmenting as a result of "people on the move".

Speaking at a press conference in London to launch the report, Eide said: "I am concerned about the continued support in national politics for keeping Europe together."

Eide added that if enough countries decided to pursue a non-integrated approach to coping with migration it would have "profound effects on Europe's politics and its economy", and would have a knock-on impact on the rest of the world. "If things unravel at the core, what does it mean in other parts of the world?"

Cecilia Reyes, Zurich's chief risk officer, said: "Climate change is exacerbating more risks than ever before in terms of water crises, food shortages, constrained economic growth, weaker societal cohesion and increased security risks.

"Meanwhile, geopolitical instability is exposing businesses to cancelled projects, revoked licences, interrupted production, damaged assets and restricted movement of funds across borders. These political conflicts are in turn making the challenge of climate change all the more insurmountable - reducing the potential for political cooperation, as well as diverting resource, innovation and time away from climate change resilience and prevention."

The WEF said the broad range of risks - from environmental to geopolitical and economic - was unprecedented.

It added that risks appeared to be rising, with global average surface temperatures increasing by more than 1C over pre-industrial levels for the first time, and the number of forcibly displaced people at 59.5 million - almost 50% more than in 1940, when the second world war was being fought. "Data from the report appears to support the increased likelihood of risks across the board, with all 24 of the risks continuously measured since 2014 having increased their likelihood scores in the past three years," the WEF said.

When asked which risk was most likely to materialise in 2016, respondents chose large-scale involuntary migration. This follows last year's refugee crisis, in which hundreds of thousands of people arrived in Europe fleeing conflicts in the Middle East and north Africa.

This was followed by extreme weather events, climate change, interstate conflict with regional consequences, and major natural catastrophes.

"Events such as Europe's refugee crisis and terrorist attacks have raised global political instability to its highest level since the cold war," said John Drzik, president of Marsh Global Risk and Specialties.

"This is widening the backdrop of uncertainty against which international firms will increasingly be forced to make their strategic decisions. The need for business leaders to consider the implications of these risks on their firm's footprint, reputation and supply chain has never been more pressing."

Drzik said at the press conference: "Most risks are rising. It's a riskier world right now."

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Climate change disaster is biggest threat to global economy in 2016, say experts

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A catastrophe caused by climate change is seen as the biggest potential threat to the global economy in 2016, according to a survey of 750 experts conducted by the World Economic Forum. The annual assessment of risks conducted by the WEF before its annual meeting in Davos on 20-23 January showed that global warming had catapulted its way to the top of the list of concerns.

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On July 31, ministers, senior and local government officials, businesses and representatives from NGOs and development partners will attend the fourth consultation on valuing water in Dhaka.

In the wake of recent water-related disasters in Bangladesh, including water-logging and floods that displaced thousands of families, a high-level consultation in the capital Dhaka on valuing water will look at ways to optimise water use and solutions to water-related problems facing South Asia.

While Bangladesh has been heavily affected, it is hardly alone in grappling with both chronic shortages and overabundance. According to the UN World Water Development Report, critical transboundary rivers such as the Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra have come under severe pressure from industrial development, urbanisation, population growth and environmental pollution.

In India, nearly two dozen cities face daily water shortages; in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, people wait in lines for hours to get drinking water from the city's ancient stone waterspouts; in Pakistan, the Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) warned that the country may run dry by 2025 if authorities didn't take immediate action.

Regional cooperation will be a critical component in solving these interrelated problems. On July 31, ministers, senior and local government officials, businesses and representatives from NGOs and development partners will attend the fourth consultation on valuing water to be held at the BRAC Center in Dhaka.

The consultation is being held as part of a high-level consultation on water called the 'Valuing Water Initiative'.

Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with 160 million people living within 57,000 square miles. Although it has made great strides against poverty in recent years, some 13% of Bangladeshis still lack safe water and 39% lack improved sanitation.

In January 2016, World Bank group president Jim Yong Kim and then UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon convened a high level panel on water (HLPW), involving 11 heads of state and government to accelerate change in the way governments, societies, and the private sector use and manage water.

The members of the panel are heads of state from Australia, Bangladesh, Hungary, Jordan, Mauritius (co-chair), Mexico (co-chair), Netherlands, Peru, Senegal, South Africa and Tajikistan.

According to Global Water Partnership, an organiser of the Dhaka water event, Bangladesh is one of several countries to host a HLPW consultation meeting, which aims at providing the leadership required to champion a comprehensive, inclusive, and collaborative way of developing and managing water resources, and improving water and sanitation-related services.

Khondaker Azharul Haq, president of Bangladesh Water Partnership, said that apart from its direct economic value, water has indirect value for environmental protection, religious, cultural and medicinal practices.

This non-economic value is very high because water is declining across the world day by day, both in quality and quantity, he said.

As a lower riparian country, Bangladesh faces multiple water problems each year. The country must depend on the water of trans-boundary rivers, experiencing plenty of water during monsoon and scant water during the dry season.

During this monsoon season, Dhaka and the port city of Chittagong are facing severe water-logging and urban flooding due to the lack of proper storm water drainage systems.

While visiting a water-logged area in the capital last Wednesday, Dhaka north city corporation mayor Annisul Huq expressed frustration, wondering aloud to reporters, "Will any one of you please tell me what the solution to it is?"

During monsoon, water-logging is also a common phenomenon in Chittagong city. But this year, a vaster area of the city than usual has submerged due to heavy rainfall coupled with tidal surges.

Azharul Haq says the "nuisance value" of water is also going up, with a good deal of suffering stemming from these problems. "So water management should be more comprehensive to obtain the [full] potential value of water," he said.

He added that the "nuisance value" of water, along with its economic and non-economic values, will be discussed at the July 31 event.

Experts have long warned that if the authorities here don't take serious measures to address these issues soon, within a decade, every major thoroughfare in the capital Dhaka will be inundated and a majority of neighbourhoods will end up underwater after heavy precipitation.

A 42-mm rainfall in ninety minutes is not unusual for monsoon season, but Dhaka will face far worse in the future due to expected global temperature increases.

"If the present trend of city governance continues, all city streets will be flooded during monsoon in a decade, intensifying the suffering of city dwellers, and people will be compelled to leave the city," urban planner Maksudur Rahman told IPS last year.

He predicted that about 50-60% of the city will be inundated in ten years if it experiences even a moderate rainfall.

Dhaka is home to about 14 million people and is the centre of the country's growth, but it has practically zero capacity to cope with moderate to heavy rains. On September 1st, 2015, for example, a total of 42 mm fell in an hour and a half, collapsing the city's drainage system.

The HLPW's Valuing Water Initiative is a collaborative process aimed at building champions and ownership at all levels, which presents a unique and mutually reinforcing opportunity to meet all 17 of the sustainable development goals.

Freshwater - a finite resource - is under particular pressure from population growth worldwide and other causes, compounding the challenges of extreme climate events like droughts and floods.

Water is essential for human health, food security, energy supplies, sustaining cities and the environment. Valuing water more appropriately can help balance the multiple uses and services provided by water and inform decisions about allocating water across uses and services to maximise well-being.

The main objective of the July 31 water consultation is to obtain views from a wide array of country-level stakeholders on the proposals from the HLPW on the valuing water preamble and principles.

The water meet will encourage governments, business and civil society to consider water's multiple values and to guide the transparent incorporation of these values into decision-making by policymakers, communities, and businesses.

The HLPW consultation will also create awareness and discuss the regional or country level relevance of global perspectives.

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In the wake of recent water-related disasters in Bangladesh, including water-logging and floods that displaced thousands of families, a high-level consultation in the capital Dhaka on valuing water will look at ways to optimise water use and solutions to water-related problems facing South Asia.

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An instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured this image of a curl of moist air licking the coast of Portugal on July 16, 2017.

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

A curling tongue of clouds reaches out to taste the Iberian Peninsula in a new satellite image.

The striking shot comes courtesy the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite and NASA's Earth Observatory, which released the image Tuesday (July 25). It shows a cyclone, or low-pressure system, off the coast of Portugal. The system produced little to no rain, but pulled dry air from over the land into an atmospheric dance with moist ocean air, forming a spiral, Peter Knippertz, a meteorologist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, told the Earth Observatory.

Knippertz told the Earth Observatory that this weather pattern on July 16 occurred during a heat wave, when Portugal and Spain were experiencing temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). The heat contributed to the temperature difference between the continent and the ocean.

The conjunction of land and water often gives rise to strange and beautiful cloud formations. In 2015, the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite (Terra's sister satellite) captured sweeping cirrus clouds off the coast of Chile, sculpted by swift winds in the upper atmosphere. Gravity wave clouds often form off coastlines, as in this 2016 shot off of West Africa; in this instance, dry, cool nighttime air from the desert buoyed moist ocean air upward into the atmosphere, where it condensed, dropped under the influence of gravity, hit the rising dry air and rose again, creating the wave-like pattern.

Off Alaska, ocean winds sometimes sculpt clouds into parallel "streets." And marine upwelling that brings frigid water from deep in the Pacific Ocean up to the surface causes frequent bumpy fog off the coast of Peru when water vapor in the air condenses on contact with the cold ocean surface.

Original article on Live Science.

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Cyclone 'Licks' Portugal Coast in Gorgeous Space Image

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A curling tongue of clouds reaches out to taste the Iberian Peninsula in a new satellite image. The striking shot comes courtesy the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite and NASA's Earth Observatory, which released the image Tuesday (July 25). It shows a cyclone, or low-pressure system, off the coast of Portugal.

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What We Can Learn From the Greening of China's Kubuqi Desert

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Public-private partnership, involving local communities, use of renewable energy. The Kubuqi desert project ticks the boxes.