If human societies don’t sharply curb emissions of greenhouse gases, Greenland’s rate of ice loss this century is likely to greatly outpace that of any century over the past 12,000 years, a new study concludes.
The research will be published on Sept. 30 in the journal Nature. The study employs ice sheet modeling to understand the past, present and future of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Scientists used new, detailed reconstructions of ancient climate to drive the model, and validated the model against real-world measurements of the ice sheet’s contemporary and ancient size.
The findings place the ice sheet’s modern decline in historical context, highlighting just how extreme and unusual projected losses for the 21st century could be, researchers say.
“Basically, we’ve altered our planet so much that the rates of ice sheet melt this century are on pace to be greater than anything we’ve seen under natural variability of
Greenland is on track to lose more ice this century than it has at any other point in the Holocene, the 12,000-year period in which human civilization has flourished, an alarming new study has found.
The study, published today in the journal Nature, offers the latest evidence that Earth’s northernmost ice sheet, which contains enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by 24 feet, has entered a period of rapid decline and may melt away entirely if humanity continues burning fossil fuels at current levels. The research also puts to rest the notion that Greenland’s recent deterioration might be part of a natural cycle, by showing just how fast the current meltdown is compared with the ups and downs of the geologic past.
“We have confidence now that this century is going to be unique in the context of natural variability of the last 12,000 years,” says lead
A system Google set up to promote competition on Android has left some smaller search engines having trouble gaining traction, fueling rivals’ complaints about the tech giant’s compliance with a European Union antitrust decision ahead of potential U.S. charges.
Since March, Alphabet Inc.-owned Google has been showing people in Europe who set up new mobile devices running the company’s Android operating system what it calls a “choice screen,” a list of rival search engines that they can select as the device’s default. The system is part of Google’s compliance with a 2018 decision that found the company used Android’s dominance to strong-arm phone makers into pre-installing its search engine.
But some small search engines that are relatively popular in Europe failed to win spots in large European countries in the latest round of auctions to appear on the choice screen, according to people familiar with the results. The results, which
The Financial Times reported this weekend that the US Commerce Department has sent a letter to companies warning of an “unacceptable risk” that exports to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation could be used for military purposes.
It’s not entirely clear whether that letter means that official restrictions on SMIC have gone into effect. The FT reported that the firm had been “hit by US sanctions.” Reuters similarly reported that the US is tightening controls on exports to SMIC, citing the letter.
But the US Commerce Department has not yet added the Chinese firm to its Entity List, which would require US companies
Nikola founder and executive chairman Trevor Milton.
Massimo Pinca/Reuters
Nikola’s stock price has been in freefall since a short-seller report accused the company of misleading investors.
Steve Kalayjian of Ticker Tocker thinks there could be further pain for the “broken stock” and it could crash to $5, from around $19.50, where it currently trades.
The stock received its first sell-rating from Wedbush this week after Nikola CEO Trevor Milton has stepped down.
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Shares in electric truck maker Nikola have been on a roller-coaster journey this month, ever since a scathing short-seller report complained the company had misled investors and one strategist is predicting the stock could lose another 75% in value.
Steve Kalayjian, chief strategist and co-founder of trading platform Ticker Tocker told Business Insider: “Looking at Nikola’s stock chart. It’s a broken stock. I would avoid it. It could possibly go
The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world:
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The Houston Cougars are again without a season-opening football game after North Texas had to cancel Saturday’s scheduled game because of several positive COVID-19 tests.
It is the third different expected opponent in the last two weeks unable to play the Cougars.
North Texas said there were four positive tests week, which combined with contact tracing left the Mean Green unable to field a team. The school didn’t specify any particular position group or how many additional people needed to self-isolate because of contact tracing.
Houston was scheduled to play last Friday at Memphis, but the American Athletic Conference put off that game a week in advance because of a virus outbreak among the Tigers. That game was replaced by a hastily arranged reunion with former Southwest Conference rival Baylor last Saturday, but the Bears
Most wild animals show a suite of predator avoidance behaviors such as vigilance, freezing, and fleeing. But these are quickly reduced after the animals come into contact with humans through captivity, domestication, or urbanization, according to a study led by Benjamin Geffroy from MARBEC (Institute of Marine Biodiversity, Exploitation and Conservation), publishing September 22nd in the open-access journal PLOS Biology.
The international team of researchers analyzed the results of 173 peer-reviewed studies investigating antipredator traits (behavioral and physiological) in 102 species of domesticated, captive, and urbanized mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and molluscs, while taking into account their position in the Tree of Life.
The scientists found that contact with humans led to a rapid loss of animals antipredator traits, but simultaneously the variability between individuals initially increases and then gradually decreases over the generations in contact with human. The authors suppose that this two-step process is caused by reduced
Newly released documents obtained by American Oversight show that Amazon produced nearly $3.9 billion in revenue and $1.6 billion in profit for the USPS in the fiscal year of 2019.
USPS delivered 1.54 billion packages for Amazon during that time, or roughly 30% of the technology company’s total volume.
While President Donald Trump has been critical about USPS doing business with Amazon, the numbers make it clear that the retail giant is generating much-needed profit for the Post Office.
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Recently released documents show that Amazon accounted for a good chunk of the money the USPS brought in just one year ago.
A slew of financial statements and emails obtained by American Oversight show that Amazon accounted for nearly $3.9 billion in revenue and $1.6 billion in profit for the postal service in the fiscal year of 2019, the Washington Post reported.
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