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‘Simply mind-boggling’: world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe

On 18 March, 2022, scientists at the Concordia research station on the #east #Antarctic #plateau documented a remarkable event.
They recorded 💥the #largest #jump in #temperature ever measured at a meteorological centre on Earth. 💥

According to their instruments, the region that day experienced a rise of 38.5C above its seasonal average: a world record.
This startling leap
– in the coldest place on the planet
– left polar researchers struggling for words to describe it.
“It is simply mind-boggling,” said Prof Michael Meredith, science leader at the British Antarctic Survey.
“In sub-zero temperatures such a massive leap is tolerable but if we had a 40C rise in the UK now that would take temperatures for a spring day to over 50C – and that would be deadly for the population.”

This amazement was shared by glaciologist Prof Martin Siegert, of the University of Exeter.
“No one in our community thought that anything like this could ever happen. It is extraordinary and a real concern,” he told the Observer.
“We are now having to wrestle with something that is completely unprecedented.”

Poleward winds, which previously made few inroads into the atmosphere above Antarctica, are now carrying more and more warm, moist air from lower latitudes
– including Australia
– deep into the continent, say scientists,
and these have been blamed for the dramatic polar “heatwave” that hit Concordia.
Exactly why these currents are now able to plunge so deep into the continent’s air space is not yet clear, however.

theguardian.com/environment/20

The Guardian · ‘Simply mind-boggling’: world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe By Robin McKie

A massive #BirdOfPrey soared over #Australia about 60,000 years ago.
According to the #researchers at #FlindersUniversity who led #study - it was the #largest #eagle to ever live on the continent & likely the largest of all eagles worldwide.
#DynatoaetusFaffae had a #wingspan of up to 9.8-foot (three meters) wide & powerful #talons capable of grabbing a small kangaroo or koala.

interestingengineering.com/sci

Interesting EngineeringExtinct 10-foot-long Australian eagle could grab kangaroos and koalasBy Mrigakshi Dixit

#Winnipeg #AssiniboineForest can sometime feel like a Disney scene.
It is the #largest #UrbanForest in #Canada at 285 hectares & home to a variety of wildlife, dozens of songbirds & hundreds of plants, some rare.
But it might have ended up looking like any other suburban area in the city, if not for the #StockMarketCrash in 1929.

cbc.ca/amp/1.6778373

CBCThe neighbourhood that never was: How Winnipeg's Assiniboine Forest was almost a paved-over paradiseBy Darren Bernhardt

The #largest #genome of any insect, seven times the size of the #HumanGenome, was recently #discovered in a grasshopper. In a #study published in #PLOSONE, researchers from the #GermanLeibnizInstitute for the #Analysis of #Biodiversity Change & #CzechAcademyOfSciences #prove wrong the idea of #insect genomes being comparatively small/less complex.

Speckled buzzing #grasshopper (#BryodemellaTuberculata ).

phys.org/news/2023-03-scientis

Phys.orgScientists discover giant insect genomeBy Science X