General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - December 2018

Dec 2018

Dec 26, 2020

Ladakh's Tso Kar Now a Wetland of International Importance

India has added Tso Kar Wetland Complex in Ladakh as its 42nd Ramsar site, the second one in the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh.
The Tso Kar Basin is a high-altitude wetland complex, consisting of two principal water bodies--Startsapuk Tso, a freshwater lake of about 438 hectares to the south, and Tso Kar itself, a hypersaline lake of 1,800 hectares to the north, situated in the Changthang region of Ladakh, India.
It is called Tso Kar, meaning white lake, because of the white salt efflorescence found on the margins due to the evaporation of highly saline water.

Dec 23, 2020

Giant Iceberg A68a Shatters into Large Fragments

The giant iceberg that has been drifting through the South Atlantic looks to have experienced a major break-up.
The latest satellite imagery reveals major fissures in the tabular berg known as A68a, with huge blocks of ice starting to separate and move away from each other.
A68a, which calved from Antarctica in 2017, has been floating off the coast of South Georgia Island.
Experts have been watching to see if it might ground in shallow water.
Were that to happen — and parts of the berg still could — it might cause problems for the British Overseas Territory's penguins and seals as they go about foraging for fish and krill.

Dec 22, 2020

Australia to Fund 'Ecological Arks' to Save Great Barrier Reef

The Australian government has announced a plan to save islands in the Great Barrier Reef, located off the coast of Queensland state, from the effects of climate change.
As per report, the government will spend A$5.5 million ($4.2 million) building ecological arks across the iconic coral reef.
Sussan Ley, the Minister for the Environment, said that the survival of the reef was at a critical juncture.
A report published earlier this month by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said that a third (33 per cent) of natural World Heritage sites are threatened by climate change, including the world's largest coral reef, the Great Barrier Reef, assessed as having a critical outlook for the first time.

Gujarat to Feature World's Largest Zoo

The Reliance Industries Limited is going to build one of the world's largest zoos in Gujarat's Jamnagar.
The world's tallest statue is in Gujarat (Statue of Unity in Kevadiya). Now, one of the world's biggest zoos, in terms of number and species of animals at one place, is coming up very shortly in Jamnagar.
The zoo will be called 'Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Kingdom' and will be spread over 250.1 acres.

Leopard Population in India Grows

India now has 12,852 leopards, 60 per cent more since their previous estimate in 2014, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said while releasing the 'Status of Leopards in India 2018' report.
The minister said that the rise in leopard numbers following similar reports on tigers and lions show the country was protecting its ecology and biodiversity well.
According to the report, India's leopard population in 2018 was estimated at 12,852, with Madhya Pradesh leading the pack at 3,421 followed by Karnataka 1,783 and Maharashtra 1,690.

Dec 21, 2020

Govt. Plans to Measure Depth of Himalayan Glaciers

As global warming affects the Himalayas, the Ministry of Earth Sciences is planning to measure the depth of glaciers in the region to assess their volume and gauge the water available in them.
The project will start next summer, sometime in June-July 2021.
Ravichandran, the Director of the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), which will execute the project, said that the country's remote and high-altitude research centre, Himansh, is also studying the Himalayan climate.
The centre was established in 2016.
The plan is to first study seven glaciers in the Chandra river basin.

Dec 20, 2020

Water Limitations in the Tropics Offset Carbon Uptake from Arctic Greening

More plants and longer growing seasons in the northern latitudes have converted parts of Alaska, Canada and Siberia to deeper shades of green. Some studies translate this Arctic greening to a greater global carbon uptake. But new research shows that as Earth's climate is changing, increased carbon absorption by plants in the Arctic is being offset by a corresponding decline in the tropics.
Plant productivity in the frigid Arctic landscape is limited by the lengthy periods of cold. As temperatures warm, the plants in these regions have been able to grow more densely and extend their growing season, leading to an overall increase in photosynthetic activity, and subsequently greater carbon absorption in the region over the 35-year time span.

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