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☆ Two of Ken Griffin's biggest donations sit on opposite sides of the spectrum
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Griffin, who founded Wall Street giants Citadel and Citadel Securities, donated $300 million to Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). However, it's interesting to see how two of his biggest contributions — DeSantis and Harvard — seem to operate on opposite ends of the spectrum. Click her to read our profile on Ken Griffin's rise to the top of Wall Street. Wall Street is drying out wells to drive up returns in California. Click here for more on the water woes created by Wall Street.

☆ Rising Antarctic ice melt will dramatically slow global ocean flows, study finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( David Stanway | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Natalie Thomas/SINGAPORE, March 29 (Reuters) - Rapidly melting Antarctic ice is dramatically slowing down the flow of water through the world's oceans, and could have a disastrous impact on global climate, the marine food chain and even the stability of ice shelves, new research has found. The "overturning circulation" of the oceans, driven by the movement of denser water towards the sea floor, helps deliver heat, carbon, oxygen and vital nutrients around the globe. But deep ocean water flows from the Antarctic could decline by 40% by 2050, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. Ocean overturning allows nutrients to rise up from the bottom, with the Southern Ocean supporting about three-quarters of global phytoplankton production, the base of the food chain, said a second study co-author, Steve Rintoul. Reporting by David Stanway; Additional reporting by Gloria Dickie in London; Editing by Alex RichardsonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ The sun is getting more active than it has for a decade — and it could lead to power outages, grounded flights, and stunning auroras
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

That motion, called convection, is what creates strong magnetic fields at the poles and smaller, local magnetic fields at the surface of the sun. That instability causes havoc in the magnetic fields at the surface of the sun, which become much more active. NASA/Solar Dynamics ObservatoryAs the magnetic fields become more confused, bigger sun spots can appear on the surface of the sun. As the sun's local magnetic fields get more tangled and crash into each other, they can explode. "The aurora oval that sits up over the northern and southern poles is a result of currents flowing in the Earth's atmosphere," Owens said.

☆ I'm a travel influencer who's sailed to Antarctica 3 times. It's a notoriously treacherous journey — but it's so worth it.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Fortesa Latifi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Drake Passage is an ocean passage ships take to Antarctica. Alyssa Ramos, a travel influencer, has crossed it three times back and forth — and keeps going back. As a travel influencer, I've always had those bucket list destinations that are just dreams to me. The Drake Passage is a body of water between the southern edge of South America and the lonely continent of Antarctica. You just have to accept that you're going to throw up and be prepared with anti-nausea medications.

☆ The sun is about to get more active than it has for a decade — and it could lead to power outages, grounded flights, and stunning auroras
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

That motion, called convection, is what creates strong magnetic fields at the poles and smaller, local magnetic fields at the surface of the sun. That instability causes havoc in the magnetic fields at the surface of the sun, which become much more active. As the sun's local magnetic fields get more tangled and crash into each other, they can explode. The worst solar storm we've seen happened in 1859. But as SpaceX and NASA aim to ramp up missions in coming years, they will need to prepare for solar storms.

☆ The world is on track to overshoot 1.5 degrees of warming, so it's time to study reflecting sun away from the Earth, UN says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

With the world not responding to climate change urgently enough, a "speculative group of technologies" to reflect sunlight back away from the Earth have been getting more attention recently, UNEP said in a written statement accompanying the report. This category of technologies is often called solar radiation modification (SRM) or more broadly solar geoengineering. So solar geoengineering could be considered a one-time shot to mitigate extreme suffering and death caused by climate change. "Even as a temporary response option, large-scale SRM deployment is fraught with scientific uncertainties and ethical issues. In addition to needing rigorous scientific study, the report added there needs to be a globally coordinated governance strategy for any potential use of solar-geoengineering technology.

☆ Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have been publicly criticizing each other for years — but now Meta is mirroring Twitter
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( Hallam Bullock | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

With the launch of Meta Verified, Mark Zuckerberg is appearing more like Elon Musk by the day. Now, let's look at why people are starting to say that Zuckerberg "idolizes Elon Musk." With the announcement of Meta Verified, Meta's new verification subscription service for Facebook and Instagram, many have drawn comparisons between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Schilsky added: "I think it's clear that Mark Zuckerberg idolizes Elon Musk." Black VCs like Beta Boom's Kimmy Paluch are addressing long-standing diversity, equity, and inclusion issues in the industry head-on.

☆ George Santos's elaborate lies has seen the Congressman compared with a 19th-century huckster. History bears that out.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Allegra Rosenberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

My obsession is summed up pretty well by a tweet from @blagojevism: "George Santos is essentially a 19th-century character. Media depicting these characters found inspiration from real life: in a time before digital records and facial recognition, opportunity was everywhere. George Santos's brand of full-throated scammery is particularly American, something that belongs to this country as much as Abraham Lincoln and apple pie. The phrase "and if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you" comes from his legendary real-life method. But Santos, so far, has avoided jail time, giving him at least one leg up over the Yellow Kid.

☆ Ukraine’s Troops Came From Concert Halls and Antarctic Labs, and It Still Needs More Fighters
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( Alistair Macdonald | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

BAKHMUT, Ukraine—A scientist who swapped Antarctica for Bakhmut, a famed ballet dancer and the actor who dubbed Captain America into Ukrainian all left stellar careers to fight on the front-line. All three ended up hospitalized or dead, highlighting that while ordinary Ukrainians are committed, fighting with an improvised army poses danger not only for combatants but also for Ukraine’s prospects on the battlefield as it mobilizes fresh volunteers and conscripts.

☆ The most dangerous cruise routes, ports, and destinations are in parts of the world where conditions are unpredictable — and help is nowhere nearby, travel analysts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

But some cruise destinations and routes are prone to dangerous conditions and risky activity. These are some of the most dangerous cruise locations around the world. AntarcticaThe world's southernmost continent is among the most beautiful — and dangerous — cruise destinations, according to Chiron and Klein. Cruise passengers during a lifeboat drill in the Northwest Passage near Nunavut, Canada. National Park Service via APCruise lines avoid dangerous portsWhile rough seas and high winds can make ocean travel dangerous, uncertainties on land pose their own risks for visitors.

[1/3] An Icefin is seen in the water as scientists work in the field at the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica in this undated handout picture obtained by Reuters on February 14, 2023. Becka Bower/Cornell University/Handout via REUTERSMEXICO CITY, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Scientists studying Antarctica's vast Thwaites Glacier - nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier - say warm water is seeping into its weak spots, worsening melting caused by rising temperatures, two papers published in Nature journal showed on Wednesday. As part of the International Thwaites Glacier collaboration - the biggest field campaign ever attempted in Antarctica - a team of 13 U.S. and British scientists spent about six weeks on the glacier in late 2019 and early 2020. "Warm water is getting into the weakest parts of the glacier and making it worse," Schmidt told Reuters. Scientists have previously depended on satellite images to show the behavior of the ice, making it difficult to get granular details.

☆ ‘The Ship Beneath the Ice’ Review: Endurance Found
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Michael O Donnell | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

One of the best adventure books ever written begins with a failure. “The order to abandon ship was given at 5 p.m.” So opens Alfred Lansing’s “Endurance” (1959), the definitive account of Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 attempt to sail to Antarctica and cross it on foot. The eponymous ship was trapped in ice for nine months and eventually sank after being crushed by the pack. But in the Antarctic—here was a burden which challenged every atom of his strength.” His leadership and willpower kept the men’s resolve intact through months of suffering, yet his optimism faltered after the loss of the Endurance. In his diary, Shackleton recorded the ship’s sinking and then the simple line, “I cannot write about it.”

☆ Spate of passenger deaths aboard Antarctic cruises prompts Coast Guard to investigate as the 'treacherous' destination rises in popularity and access
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Coast Guard is assisting with probes into four deaths on Antarctic cruise ships last year. The small boat capsized with six passengers onboard near Elephant Island in Antarctica, the Coast Guard said. Portugal is leading the investigation while the Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board conduct a marine casualty probe into the deaths. Another American was injured in an inflatable zodiac while traveling with Norway's Viking Polaris near Damoy Point, Antarctica, according to the Coast Guard. Norway is heading both investigations stemming from the Viking Polaris, the Coast Guard said.

☆ 'The grass does not grow': In Chile's far south, the worst drought in 50 years
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] A view of parched earth as a wetland is drying up, in Punta Arenas, Chile February 2, 2023. In the far south city of Punta Arenas, that has led to a water emergency declared last year. "In 2022 Punta Arenas had its driest year in 52 years," said Nicolas Butorovic, a climatologist from the regional University of Magallanes. "The wind picks up and dries everything and the grass does not grow, that is the drama we're facing," said Hector Garay, a livestock farmer in the region. "If there is no irrigation water, water from rain, the grass does not grow.

☆ EU considers ban on 'forever chemicals', urges search for alternatives
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Ludwig Burger | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

"A ban on PFAS would reduce quantities of PFAS in the environment over the long term. Once the ban is in force, companies will be given between 18 months and 12 years to introduce alternatives to the more than 10,000 PFAS affected, depending on the availability of alternatives, according to the draft proposal. The FPP4EU group of 14 companies that make and use PFAS has said that finding alternatives is a long and difficult process. Within the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), two scientific committees for Risk Assessment and for Socio-Economic Analysis will now review whether the proposal to ban PFAS conforms with wider EU regulation of chemicals known as REACH, followed by a scientific evaluation and consultation with the industry. In August, the United States government said it will propose designating certain forever chemicals as hazardous substances under the U.S. Superfund programme.

☆ Exclusive: Huge chunk of plants, animals in U.S. at risk of extinction
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Brad Brooks | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

REUTERS/Luisa GonzalezFeb 6 (Reuters) - A leading conservation research group found that 40% of animals and 34% of plants in the United States are at risk of extinction, while 41% of ecosystems are facing collapse. Importantly, the report pinpoints the areas in the United States where land is unprotected and where animals and plants are facing the most threats. Nearly half of all cacti species are at risk of extinction, while 200 species of trees, including a maple-leaf oak found in Arkansas, are also at risk of disappearing. The threats against plants, animals and ecosystems are varied, the report found, but include "habitat degradation and land conversion, invasive species, damming and polluting of rivers, and climate change." California, Texas and the southeastern United States are where the highest percentages of plants, animals and ecosystems are at risk, the report found.

☆ As ice recedes, Italian ship makes record journey into Antarctic
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ROME, Jan 31 (Reuters) - An Italian ice-breaker carrying scientists researching in the Antarctic has sailed further south than any ship has done before, the organisers of the voyage said on Tuesday, a further sign of how ice is retreating around the poles. The Laura Bassi vessel reached a point with the coordinates of 78° 44.280 S in the Bay of Whales in the Ross Sea, according to Italy's National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics. The voyage was made possible by an unusual lack of ice in the area, it said. Satellite analysis last year showed that Antarctica's coastal glaciers are shedding icebergs more rapidly than nature can replenish. A previous voyage with a different vessel to the same area in 2017 came up against impenetrable ice, he said.

☆ Scientists unearth megaraptors, feathered dinosaur fossils in Chile's Patagonia
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Marion Giraldo | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 16 (Reuters) - Scientists in Chile's Patagonia region are unearthing the southernmost dinosaur fossils recorded outside Antarctica, including remains of megaraptors that would have dominated the area's food chain before their mass extinction. The specimens, according to University of Chile researcher Jared Amudeo, had some characteristics not present in Argentine or Brazilian counterparts. "The enormous variation we are seeing, the biological diversity, was also responding to very powerful environmental stimuli," Leppe said. "This world was already in crisis before (the meteorite) and this is evidenced in the rocks of the Rio de las Chinas Valley," he said. Reporting by Marion Giraldo; Writing by Sarah Morland, Editing by Alistair BellOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ UN says ozone layer slowly healing, hole to mend by 2066
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

Earth’s protective ozone layer is slowly but noticeably healing at a pace that would fully mend the hole over Antarctica in about 43 years, a new United Nations report says. “In the upper stratosphere and in the ozone hole we see things getting better,” said Paul Newman, co-chair of the scientific assessment. Natural weather patterns in the Antarctic also affect ozone hole levels, which peak in the fall. A third generation of those chemicals, called HFC, was banned a few years ago not because it would eat at the ozone layer but because it is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas. The report also warned that efforts to artificially cool the planet by putting aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect the sunlight would thin the ozone layer by as much as 20% in Antarctica.

☆ Map shows the ice sheets and glaciers melting that scientists most fear will be the source of catastrophic rising sea levels
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-01 | by ( Marianne Guenot | Annie Fu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Melting ice that could tip sea level rise into catastrophic levelsSource: NASA Ice ViewerChart: Annie Fu/InsiderWhile it's easier to plan for a steady sea level rise, scientists are very concerned about what would happen if huge chunks of ice collapse and abruptly change sea levels. The Antarctic ice sheet is much bigger than the ice sheet on Greenland. If they were to melt totally, the Greenland ice sheet would contribute about 23 ft to the sea levels, while the Antarctic ice sheet holds enough ice to raise sea levels by 58 feet. Local sea level variationGlobal mean sea level rise is only a snapshot of the whole picture. Because sea levels are influenced by the local environment, the sea level rise can be much higher locally than it is on a global scale.

☆ A man was arrested after his female colleague said he was suffocating her at a National Science Foundation base in Antarctica. Assault and harassment on the bases are considered a problem per a report
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-25 | by ( Hannah Getahun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A man at a National Science Foundation base in Antarctica was charged with assaulting a female colleague. Officials charged Stephen Tyler Bieneman with assault within the maritime and territorial jurisdiction, according to a criminal complaint filed on December 12. Assault, especially sexual assault against women, has been long documented in the remote base of Antarctica. Over 70% of female respondents and nearly 50% of male respondents said sexual harassment is a problem within the US Antarctic Program, while 47% of female respondents and 33% of male respondents said sexual assault is a problem. "Every woman I knew down there had an assault or harassment experience that had occurred on ice," one person said in the report.

☆ Listen to 'the bloop,' a strange noise recorded in the southern Pacific Ocean that stumped scientists for years
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

In 1997, NOAA scientists recorded a haunting, strange sound in the southern Pacific Ocean's depths. These underwater microphones the US Navy originally developed were 2,000 miles apart in the Pacific Ocean. Below, you can listen to the bloop sped up 16 times:Over the years, theories about the mysterious ocean sound's origin abounded. An adult blue whale swimming in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Icequakes occur when glaciers fracture in the ocean, cracking ice.

☆ The Year in Pictures 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +57 min

Every year, starting in early fall, photo editors at The New York Times begin sifting through the year’s work in an effort to pick out the most startling, most moving, most memorable pictures. But 2022 undoubtedly belongs to the war in Ukraine, a conflict now settling into a worryingly predictable rhythm. Erin Schaff/The New York Times “When you’re standing on the ground, you can’t visualize the scope of the destruction. Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 25. We see the same images over and over, and it’s really hard to make anything different.” Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb 26.

☆ Runners brave the cold for Antarctic Ice Marathon
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 16 (Reuters) - Courageous runners braved snow and freezing temperatures this week for the Antarctic Ice Marathon, won by Ireland's Sean Tobin who organisers said clocked a record time on the continent. The event, the 17th of its kind, took place on Wednesday at Union Glacier, with more than 60 competitors from 20 nations taking part. "You just sink (into the snow)... One turn I took, I just went completely legless and hit the ground. Race director Richard Donovan said Tobin had recorded "the fastest marathon ever run in Antarctica". Becca Pizzi, from the United States, won the women's race with a time of 4:24.15.

☆ The Arctic is getting warmer and stormier, and ship traffic is increasing as ice melts
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Martin Leonhard of the East Greenland Ice-Core Project (EastGRIP) operates snow blower putting a new snow floor for the winter-storage weather port tent at EastGRIP camp on August 9, 2022. EastGRIP is an international science station on the Greenland ice sheet, the second-largest ice body in the world after the Antarctic ice cap. The researchers described how hotter air temperatures, melting sea ice, shorter periods of snow cover, increased wildfire and rising levels of precipitation have forced wildlife and Indigenous people in the region to adapt. The Arctic's seven warmest years since 1900 have been the last seven years, and researchers pointed to a slew of signs that the region is undergoing a dramatic shift. Scientists also noted that maritime ship traffic is on the rise in the Arctic as sea ice declines, with the most notable increases in traffic occurring among ships traveling from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait and Beaufort Sea.

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