A team of American scientists has flown to the Mount Everest region to study how pollution has impacted the Himalayan mountains and glaciers which are melting due to global warming.
The team led by John All of Western Washington University plans to spend the next two months in the region and climb the world's highest peak in May while they collect samples and study the ice, snow and vegetation.
Mar 27, 2019
India's Carbon Dioxide Emissions Up
According to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), India emitted 2,299 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2018, a 4.8% rise from last year.
India's emissions growth this year was higher than that of the United States and China, the two biggest emitters in the world, and this was primarily due to a rise in coal consumption.
China, the United States and India together accounted for nearly 70% of the rise in energy demand.
India's per capita emissions were about 40% of the global average and contributed 7% to the global carbon dioxide burden.
The United States, the largest emitter, was responsible for 14%.
As per its commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, India has promised to reduce the emissions intensity of its economy by 2030, compared to 2005 levels.
It has also committed to having 40% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030 and, as part of this, install 100 GW of solar power by 2022.
Mar 26, 2019
Greenland Glacier Growing Again
A new NASA study has found that a major Greenland glacier that was one of the fastest shrinking ice and snow masses on Earth is growing again.
The Jakobshavn Glacier around 2012 was retreating about 1.8 miles and thinning nearly 130 feet annually. But it started growing again at about the same rate in the past two years.
Mar 24, 2019
Tyrannosaurus Rex Found in Canada is World's Biggest
A team of paleontologists said that the towering Tyrannosaurus rex discovered in western Canada in 1991 is the world's biggest, following a decades-long process of reconstructing its skeleton.
Nicknamed Scotty for a celebratory bottle of scotch consumed the night it was discovered, the T. rex was 13 meters (yards) long and probably weighed more than 8,800 kg (19,400 pounds), making it bigger than all other carnivorous dinosaurs.
Mar 16, 2019
Global Ocean is Absorbing More Carbon
The global ocean absorbed 34 billion metric tonnes of carbon from the burning of fossil fuels from 1994 to 2007, a four-fold increase to 2.6 billion metric tonnes per year when compared to the period starting from the Industrial Revolution in 1800 to 1994.
A new research finds carbon dioxide emissions have increased in the atmosphere, the ocean has absorbed a greater volume of emissions.
Though the volume of carbon dioxide going into the ocean is increasing, the percentage of emissions, about 31 per cent, absorbed by it has remained relatively stable when compared to the first survey of carbon in the global ocean published in 2004.