Latest news with #LittleIceAge
Time Magazine
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Time Magazine
Trump's War on Education Is Driving Academics Like Me Abroad
On a recent flight back to the U.S., I wondered if I would be stopped at passport control. It was at this moment when I thought it may be time to consider leaving America. I was returning from Marseille, France after participating in a workshop in March that I co-organized at the Iméra research institute on climate change and religious conflict during the Little Ice Age. The topic is now effectively banned from federal funding after the Trump Administration stripped support for scientific research that mentions the word 'climate,' amid a broader purge of 'woke' keywords in the federal government. Iméra leaders had asked me to attend a meeting with university administrators and government ministers on the broad crisis in research and provide an American perspective. The event was much bigger than I had imagined, and there was a press conference, where I shared my criticisms of the Trump Administration's assault on research and higher education. For months, I have watched coordinated attacks on the National Endowment for the Humanities, Smithsonian Institution, Institute for Museum and Library Services, Fulbright Program, Woodrow Wilson Institute, U.S. Institute of Peace, Kennedy Center, USAID, Department of Education, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and other federal agencies that support academic research and education. Read More: Inside the Chaos of Trump's Foreign-Aid Freeze I personally know many colleagues and former students who have had research funds and grants frozen or terminated, while others have lost jobs or contracts. Academic grant competitions and peer review processes are being politicized and disrupted, effectively censoring the types of research that can be pursued. When politicians—rather than professionals—can select which types of research can be funded and how that money can be spent based on their own preferences, the entire pursuit of knowledge is corrupted. So when Aix-Marseille Université (amU) decided to launch a 'Safe Place for Science' program, I became one of the 298 researchers who applied. After all, I was already due to spend one year there as a visiting professor, and the initiative promises three years of research funding. The university has invested €15 million for the program and is lobbying the French government to match that amount, so it can double its planned hires to 39 people. The program comes amid a wider European push to attract American and international researchers who are based in the U.S. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has unveiled a €500 million program to make the continent a 'safe haven' for researchers, and France has committed another €100 million. There is certainly interest state-side, as the surge in applicants for amU's program showed. Data analyzed by Nature also found that the number of applicants in the U.S. looking for jobs in Canada has climbed by 41%, in Europe by 32%, and in China by 20% compared to a year earlier. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has even called the Trump Administration's attacks on research a 'once-in-a-century brain gain opportunity.' It's a stunning development, considering that the U.S. has long been a place of refuge for researchers and academics. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler consolidated power in Germany, leading scientists such as Albert Einstein fled the country. Later, during the Second World War, other intellectuals and artists fled occupied Europe, including Hannah Arendt, who notably escaped through Marseille with the help of American journalist Varian Fry. Ever since, American research universities and laboratories have relied on an open system of international recruitment of the best and brightest from across the globe. The federal government has supported the development of this system by providing visas for faculty and students, as well as billions in funding through competitive, peer reviewed grants. Read More: The Trump Administration Is Pausing Student Visa Interviews at Embassies That approach helped turn the U.S. system of higher education into a model of excellence for the entire world. These research universities have been informally linked with a broader network of regional state universities and small private colleges that often provide higher education to the public at relatively low cost for middle- and working-class Americans. The GI Bill of 1944, the expansion of regional state universities in the 1960s, and the evolution of community colleges since the 1970s have dramatically boosted access to higher education, becoming a key form of upward social mobility for millions of Americans. These institutions have also served as a key plank in the civil rights movement and other forms of protest, meaning an assault on them will undermine free speech and assembly, as well as other democratic principles. For now, I am on the shortlist at amU's 'Safe Place for Science.' Whether I am ultimately selected for a position or not, I foresee conducting research collaborations with French academics with French or E.U. funding in the coming years, considering that the entire U.S. sector has been thrown into disarray. Packing up and relocating to France, or any other country, will be an adjustment. But it is clear that an era of U.S. brain drain is beginning, as researchers and scientists seek opportunities in places where academic freedom and research are still valued.
NDTV
06-07-2025
- Science
- NDTV
Explained: Why Himalayan Glaciers Are Melting Faster Than Expected
The Himalayan region is facing a critical problem of glaciers melting at an exceptional rate, posing risks to India's water resources and downstream communities, with experts urging immediate action plans to mitigate the issue. A recent report by the United Nations highlighted that the rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers has increased the vulnerability of Himalayan grazers' livelihoods. "The changes in snow and glaciers adversely affect herders at their summer residences and winter camps in the Himalayas," the report, released on World Glacier Day, noted. Who is at risk? The accelerated melting, caused by rising global temperatures due to climate change, would impact water security as nearly two billion people living downstream of rivers originating in the Himalayan ranges may face water shortages. Such changes in glacier meltwater-fed rivers could impact agriculture, hydropower and drinking water. There will also be an increased risk of glacial lake outburst floods, avalanches and flash floods. What are the possible reasons for glacier melt? Rising temperatures are causing glaciers to lose ice at a rate higher than the average rate over past centuries. The Hindu Kush Himalaya could lose up to 75 per cent of its glaciers by the year 2100 if global temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the latest study published by the Science journal revealed. "Glaciers are good indicators of climate change because their retreat allows us to see with our own eyes how the climate is changing. However, since they adjust over longer timescales, the situation for glaciers is actually far worse than visible in the mountains today," Dr Lilian Schuster, at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and co-lead author, said as quoted by The Guardian. Schuster further said that it was "not too late to act now because this study shows every tenth of a degree less of global warming matters". The glaciers ending in lakes are melting faster than those ending inland due to the warming effects of the lakes. The number and size of these lakes are increasing, contributing to continued mass loss. Natural debris: Glaciers with significant natural debris are l osing mass more quickly, contributing around 46.5% of total volume loss despite making up only about 7.5% of the total number of glaciers. Carbon: Black carbon particles settling on glaciers absorb sunlight, accelerating melting. This phenomenon is particularly concerning, as it affects not only the glaciers but also regional water resources and climate patterns. Several geographical factors are also responsible, as the eastern regions of the Himalayas, including eastern Nepal and Bhutan, are experiencing faster glacier melting due to differences in geographical features and weather patterns. A study, Accelerated mass loss of Himalayan glaciers since the Little Ice Age, published in 2021 in the journal Scientific Reports analysed long-term fluctuations of mountain glaciers. Dr Jonathan Carrivick, corresponding author and Deputy Head of the University of Leeds School of Geography said: "Our findings clearly show that ice is now being lost from Himalayan glaciers at a rate that is at least ten times higher than the average rate over past centuries. This acceleration in the rate of loss has only emerged within the last few decades, and coincides with human-induced climate change."
Time Magazine
03-07-2025
- Science
- Time Magazine
How Has The Climate Changed Since the First 4th of July?
The Founding Fathers who gathered in Philadelphia to adopt the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 picked a nice day to do their work. It was a Thursday, and the temperature at 6:00 a.m. was 68°F, going up to a warmish but still pleasant 76°F at 1:00 p.m., according to daily records kept by Virginia's Thomas Jefferson. The planetary metabolism at the time was set more for such balmy days than it was for the increasingly suffocating summers we experience in the 21st century. It was in 1867 that scientists would first define the epoch that includes the late 1700s as the Holocene—a period that began 11,700 years ago and is still ongoing. The Holocene was originally temperate, with atmospheric carbon levels measuring about 280 parts per million (ppm)—enough to keep the Earth warm but not stifling. About a billion acres of North America—or 46% of the continent—were covered in carbon-absorbing trees, further helping to regulate the climate. If anything, the planet was calibrated for cold. The first Independence Day occurred during the period known as the Little Ice Age, which ran from 1300 to 1850 and saw temperatures in North America falling 1°C to 2°C (1.8° F to 3.6°F) below thousand-year averages. 'It was quite a bit colder [than average] in the 17th century,' says Kyle Harper, professor of classics and letters at the University of Oklahoma and a faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. 'The 18th century is a little less extreme, but it's still part of the Little Ice Age. The 19th century starts to get even colder for a little bit. And then, of course, it turns around.' That turnaround—a wholesale reshaping of our world's climate—has been attributable in large measure to humans, and it's what makes today's Independence Day so different from the one 249 years ago. The Little Ice Age that preceded the majority of climate-altering human activity was caused largely by clusters of volcanic eruptions, which released a sun-shielding haze into the atmosphere, along with four solar minimums—or periods of reduced solar activity—occurring on and off from 1280 to 1830. 'The sun is not a totally constant star,' says Harper. 'The power of the solar dynamo itself is changing.' Those factors helped lead to a shift in the Atlantic current, which furthered the cooling. Cool temperatures were not constant during the Little Ice Age, of course. As always, day to day weather is very different from decade to decade or century to century climate, and there were plenty of scorchers in America's early years. 'Some of those summers in the 1770s and 1780s were still really hot,' says Harper. 'In 1787 when they were drafting the Constitution in Philadelphia it was hellishly hot.' Humanity would make that heat more common—and more intense. In 1760, the Industrial Revolution—a period of explosive factory-building and carbon-burning—began in Europe and North America, pouring greenhouse gasses into the sky and countering the natural forces keeping the Earth relatively cool. At the same time, great swaths of forested land around the world were being cleared and put to the torch to make room for agriculture. That practice, known as slash-and-burn farming, actually began 12,000 years ago, though it didn't get started in earnest in North America until 1500 when European settlers arrived. Since then more than 25% of the continent's forestland has disappeared. In the Amazon, the figure is about 20%. Not only does that take hundreds of millions of acres of carbon-absorbing trees out of circulation, it also pumps more carbon into the skies as unwanted trees and surrounding brush are incinerated. 'Trees are a huge carbon stock,' says Harper. 'You take something that was alive and had a lot of carbon in it and you burn it and that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The percentage of trees that we've cumulatively cut down definitely affects the Earth system.' Across the arc of the past two and a half centuries, those slash-and-burn practices, along with fossil fuel-burning factories and internal combustion engines have released an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of CO2 into the air, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). That has swamped the skies, with CO2 levels rising from 280 ppm in Colonial times to 422.8 ppm in 2024, according to NOAA. In turn, temperatures have soared. Last year, the Earth was 2.65°F (1.47°C) warmer than it was when formal record-keeping began in the late 1800s, according to NASA and NOAA—and the problem is only forecast to get worse. 'What does one degree mean? What does two degrees mean?' asks Harper. 'Two degrees, when you're talking about a global average, is a massive change. And beyond that, you talk about four degrees—it's really like a different planet.' Nearly 250 years ago, a small group of men on a little patch of that planet raised the flag of a new country. Today, that country—and the 194 others around the globe—face an existential peril the American colonists could not have foreseen.
Daily News Egypt
14-04-2025
- Science
- Daily News Egypt
Olive oil at risk: Climate change threatens Mediterranean's ‘liquid gold'
Olive oil, a staple of Mediterranean culture and cuisine, is facing an unprecedented environmental threat. A new scientific study published this month in Communications Earth & Environment reveals that growing water stress and a projected decline in solar activity could severely undermine olive production across the Mediterranean—home to more than 98% of the world's supply. The research, led by an international team of scientists, used 8,000 years of fossil pollen records to reconstruct the history of olive tree productivity and examine the long-term factors shaping yields. The findings suggest that changes in temperature, rainfall, and solar radiation will reduce the resilience of olive groves—especially in arid and semi-arid regions—posing serious challenges to farmers and economies that depend on olive cultivation. 'Most studies focus on short-term climate variability. What we're showing is that there are long-term climatic rhythms—including solar cycles—that have shaped olive productivity over millennia. These cycles are now being disrupted,' said lead author Samuel Luterbacher, a climate scientist at the University of Giessen in Germany. Olive Groves on the Edge The study identifies three key climatic drivers of olive productivity: photosynthesis, water availability, and solar irradiance. These factors collectively determine the trees' ability to flower and bear fruit. Researchers found that historical periods of drought and low solar activity were strongly correlated with sharp declines in olive pollen—used as a proxy for fruit yield. Drawing on data from across the Mediterranean—including Syria, Palestine, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Spain—the team modelled past climate impacts and projected them into the future. The results are sobering: as global temperatures rise and precipitation patterns shift, olive trees will likely face increased water stress, particularly during sensitive stages like flowering and fruiting. Adding to the concern, the study warns that the sun may be entering a new 'grand solar minimum'—a prolonged period of reduced solar radiation. The last such event, the Maunder Minimum in the 17th century, coincided with the Little Ice Age, a time of global cooling and agricultural disruption. A decline in solar activity would reduce energy available for photosynthesis, further affecting olive yields. This combination of environmental stressors—drought and diminished sunlight—creates what researchers call a 'perfect storm' that could devastate olive agriculture across the region. A Cultural and Economic Crisis in the Making The implications extend well beyond agriculture. Olive oil is not only a nutritional cornerstone but also an economic lifeline in countries like Spain, Italy, Greece, and Tunisia. According to the International Olive Council, over 6.7 million families depend on olive farming for their livelihoods. Egypt, while not yet among the top producers, has expanded olive cultivation in recent years—particularly in desert reclamation zones. However, experts warn that this strategy may be at risk if water resources become more strained under a changing climate. 'This research underscores the urgency of adapting our agricultural practices,' said Mohamed Dawood, an Egyptian agricultural engineer specializing in arid land farming. 'In Egypt, many of our new olive plantations are in marginal lands where water efficiency is already a challenge. If the climate becomes drier and solar radiation declines, yields will suffer unless we change how we manage irrigation and soil health.' The study urges a fundamental rethink in olive grove management. Among the key recommendations: investing in drought-resilient cultivars, enhancing soil moisture retention strategies, and reassessing where olives can viably be grown in the future. The Climate Clock Is Ticking This research arrives amid mounting climate disruptions. Across the Mediterranean, extreme heatwaves and shifting rainfall patterns have already begun to impact crop yields. In 2023, Spain—one of the world's largest olive oil producers—suffered a 50% drop in production due to severe drought. 'This is not just a warning about the distant future,' said co-author Ines Álvarez of the University of Jaén in Spain. 'We are already seeing the effects of climate change on olive groves. What our study adds is a deeper understanding of the natural cycles that have supported olive production for thousands of years—and how these cycles are being thrown off balance.' The authors argue that national and regional policies must urgently support sustainable water use, biodiversity preservation, and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to safeguard the future of olive production. For Egypt—positioning itself as a future hub for olive oil production and exports—this could be a pivotal moment to embrace climate-smart agriculture. As olive trees across the Mediterranean quietly signal distress, the message is clear: the region's liquid gold is in danger, and time is running out.
Telegraph
08-04-2025
- Science
- Telegraph
Mini Ice Age may have fuelled collapse of Roman Empire
A 'Little Ice Age' in the sixth century was so intense it may have been the 'primary driver' in the fall of the Roman Empire, scientists believe. Between 536AD and 547AD, three massive volcanic eruptions blocked out the Sun and ushered in a rapid period of cooling which saw average temperatures fall by several degrees. Researchers at the University of Southampton have found that the mini Ice Age was so intense that it moved rocks from Greenland to Iceland. The scientists found smooth rounded rocks known as 'cobbles' on the beaches of Iceland's west coast which must have been carried on icebergs from Greenland. It suggests that the cooling event sparked changes even more widespread and severe than previously thought, causing major climate upheavals in the northern hemisphere that probably played a pivotal role in the collapse of the Roman Empire. 'When it comes to the fall of the Roman Empire, this climate shift may have been the straw that broke the camel's back,' said Prof Tom Gernon, co-author of the new research and an earth science professor at the University of Southampton. 'The climate was particularly cold at the time – cold enough for icebergs to reach and noticeably impact the geology in Iceland,' Prof Gernon added. 'The Roman Empire was likely already in decline when the Little Ice Age began. However, our findings support the idea that climate change in the northern hemisphere was more severe than previously thought. 'Indeed, it may have been a primary driver of major societal change, rather than just one of several contributing factors.' The period of cooling, dubbed the Late Antique Little Ice Age, lasted around 200 to 300 years. It is known to have coincided with a period of widespread social unrest across Europe and Asia, which saw the Roman empire giving way to the Byzantine era. By that time, the Roman empire had shrunk to the Mediterranean and continued to decline because crop failures induced by the cold, famine and plague. As well as the Romans, the huge climate shift also saw Chinese dynasties falling as well as the Eastern Turkic empire. The new findings, published in the journal Geology, show that the climate disruption reached far into the North Atlantic Ocean. Experts had known that the beach rocks on Iceland's west coast did not belong there but were unsure where they had come from until they studied their age and composition. The team found that the rocks came from Greenland by analysing the age and composition of tiny zircon crystals. Zircon is one of the primary minerals used to determine the age of rocks. 'We knew these rocks seemed somewhat out of place because the rock types are unlike anything found in Iceland today, but we didn't know where they came from,' said Dr Christopher Spencer, associate professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and lead author of the research. 'Zircons are essentially time capsules that preserve vital information including when they crystallised as well as their compositional characteristics. 'The combination of age and chemical composition allows us to fingerprint currently exposed regions of the Earth's surface, much like is done in forensics.' The team discovered that the age of the fragments spanned nearly 3 billion years, and were able to trace the rocks back to specific regions of Greenland. 'This is the first direct evidence of icebergs carrying large Greenlandic cobbles to Iceland,' added Dr Spencer. The rocks were once carved out of the landscape by glaciers on Greenland and would have become embedded in ice which was eventually set adrift as icebergs. The ice-rafted rocks were likely deposited during the seventh century, coinciding with a major climate shift when temperatures warmed and the ground slowly rebounded after the heavy ice sheets melted. Prof Gernon added: 'This timing coincides with a known major episode of ice-rafting, where vast chunks of ice break away from glaciers, drift across the ocean, and eventually melt, scattering debris along distant shores.'
