General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - November 2019

Nov 2019

Jun 27, 2020

Seven Hundred km Bolt in Brazil Sets Lightning World Record

The UN's weather agency announced that the longest lightning bolt on record is a single flash in southern Brazil on October 31, 2018 that cut the sky across 700 km.
It is equivalent to the distance between Boston and Washington, DC, or between London and Basel.
WMO's committee of experts on climate extremes also reported a world record for the duration of a lightning flash, with a single flash that developed continuously over northern Argentina on March 4, 2019 lasting for a full 16.73 seconds.
The previous record for the longest distance for a lightning flash was 321km, measured on June 20, 2007 in Oklahoma, US.
The previous duration record was 7.74 seconds, measured on August 30, 2012 in France.

Tillari Forest Area in Dodamarg and Sawantwadi Range Declared as Conservation Reserve Area

Maharashtra forest department declared the 29.53 square kilometre Tillari forest area in Dodamarg and Sawantwadi range in coastal Sindhudurg district as a conservation reserve area. The Tilari ecosystem breeds tiger population and serves as the source population for the Sahyadri tiger reserve.
This is the 1st conservation reserve in Sindhudurg district, 62nd for the state. It is the 13th such reserve in the western ghats.
Tillari will be the 7th corridor in the state announced as a 'conservation reserve'.
The decision was made considering the ecological, zoological and floral significance of the area, which will play a vital role in wildlife conservation, particularly for the movement of tigers.

Jun 23, 2020

Arctic Circle Sees Highest-ever Recorded Temperatures

Temperatures in the Arctic Circle are likely to have hit an all-time record, reaching a scorching 38C (100F) in Verkhoyansk, a Siberian town.
The record still needs to be verified, but it appears to have been 18C higher than the average maximum daily temperature in June.
Hot summer weather is not uncommon in the Arctic Circle, but recent months have seen abnormally high temperatures.
The Arctic is believed to be warming twice as fast as the global average.
Verkhoyansk sits just inside the Arctic Circle, in remote Siberia. It has an extreme climate with temperatures plunging in January to an average maximum of -42C and then surging in June to 20C.
But a persistent heatwave this year in the Arctic Circle has worried meteorologists. In March, April and May, the Copernicus Climate Change service reported that the average temperature was around 10C above normal.

Jun 21, 2020

One-fifth of Earth's Ocean Floor is Now Mapped

The initiative that seeks to galvanise the creation of a full map of the ocean floor says one-fifth of this task has now been completed.
When the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project was launched in 2016, only 6% of the global ocean bottom had been surveyed to what might be called modern standards.
That number now stands at 19%, up from 16% in just the last year.
Some 14.5 million sq km of new bathymetric (depth) data was included in the GEBCO grid in 2019 - an area equivalent to almost twice that of Australia.
It does, however, still leave a great swathe of the planet unmapped to an acceptable degree.
Today we stand at the 19% level. That means we've got another 81% of the oceans still to survey, still to map.

Jun 17, 2020

New Fish Species Discovered in Arunachal Pradesh

A new species of fish has been discovered in Arunachal Pradesh.
Dr. Keshav Kumar Jha, Associate Professor & Head, Department of Zoology, Jawaharlal Nehru College, Pasighat discovered a new fish species from genus Schizothorax.
The fish species is named as Schizothorax sikusirumensis.
The name of this fish species has been derived from the name of the rivers where it was found.
This fish was collected from the junction of River Siku and Sirum near Gakang area under Mebo circle of East Siang District. The fish inhabits the water logged area of torrential river drainage.

Jun 12, 2020

Rise in Asiatic Lion Population in Gir

According to the 'Poonam Avlokkan' survey the population of the Asiatic lion at the Gir sanctuary in Gujarat has seen a commendable rise to approximately 29% (28.87%) from 27% in 2015, i.e their population went up from 523 in 2015 to 674 in 2020.
Subsequently the distribution area of the lions was also increased by 36% from 22,000sq km in 2015 to 30,000 sq km in 2020.
The 'Poonam Avlokkan' is an observation method carried out monthly and during every full-moon, all the officers and field staff members assess the number of lions for 24 hours across various areas within their respective jurisdictions.
The exercise for the 2020 data included 10 districts where lions have been spotted over the years in 13 forest divisions which are a part of the Lion census.

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