Mont Blanc samples will be 'kept on ice' in Antarctica

Samples of ice from Mont Blanc are to be sent to Antarctica where they will be preserved for future research because glaciers in the French Alps are melting at an accelerating rate.

Generations of scientists will be able to study climate change and the impact of pollution by using air bubbles trapped in the ice.

The samples, which will be kept at the Concordia Research Station, a French-Italian Antarctic base, will constitute "an invaluable scientific legacy", said Jean Jouzel, a climatologist.

Researchers will drop by helicopter some 4300m up on the Col du Dome glacier next month and will spend two weeks drilling to collect three samples up to 140m-long.
One will stay in a freezer in France and the others will go to the South Pole as "property of the international community".

The core samples will provide a record of how the composition of the air and ice changed over the past 150 years, revealing levels of sulphur and nitrogen dioxide pollution as well as the effect of specific events such as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.

The cores will be airlifted in isothermal containers and stored under 10m of Antarctic snow, at around -54C, to avoid the risk of a freezer breakdown or power cut were they to remain in France.

It is hoped this will preserve them for centuries.

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Tiger mauls woman to death in Chinese wildlife park in classic Darwin Award stupidity

A woman was mauled to death and another seriously injured after they jumped out of a car in a tiger enclosure at a Chinese safari park.

Dramatic video footage captures the middle-aged woman flouting the warnings by getting out of the car, and she was killed instantly after she followed the younger woman out of the car at the Badaling Wildlife World, near the Great Wall of China.

Both had ignored repeated warnings to stay inside the vehicle, according to local media.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11680514

Drones to collect samples from southern right whales

 

Flying high-tech drones close enough to southern right whales to catch some of the bugs they blow out will help tell scientists more about the effects climate change is having on the planet.

An international team of scientists, led by Otago University marine biologist Professor Steve Dawson, this week leaves for the wild and windy subantarctic islands for a month-long expedition to shed more light on the nutrition of the big ocean mammals.

What insights they gain will help them discover more about how the species is faring here and around the world, along with how a warming world is affecting one of the most sensitive parts of the globe.

From small boats off the cold and stormy Auckland Islands, about 465km south of Stewart Island, Dawson and his colleagues will use drones mounted with cutting-edge photogrammetric camera technology.

The drones, fitted with a specially developed laser range-finder to measure altitude, will take images of whales precise enough to take highly detailed measurements from.

"This is really state-of-the-art stuff," Dawson said.

"But it's also going to be a very challenging part of the world to use this approach in, because it's extremely windy, wet and cold, and drones don't like any of those things."

At the same time, they're hoping the drones will be able to collect samples of the whales' blow as they exhale.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/climate-change/news/article.cfm?c_id=26&objectid=11676249

Hawaii’s Endangered False Killer Whales Are Still Waiting for Protection

Conservationists are headed to court to get some long overdue protection for a rare population of false killer whales.

False killer whales, who are members of the dolphin family, can be found throughout the world’s oceans in tropical waters. The Hawaiian om/causes/hawaiis-endislands are home to a genetically distinct population who stay near shore year round.

 

Sadly, their population has declined dramatically over the past two decades. There are estimated to be only 150 of them left in existence.

http://www.care2.c

angered-false-killer-whales-are-still-waiting-for-protection.html

Buddhist monks buy dozens of lobsters - and return them to the ocean

A group of Buddhist monks from Canada have saved the lives of a large number of lobsters, buying them from various vendors around Eastern Canada's Prince Edward Island.
 
While the crustaceans had been destined for the cooking pot, the monks, from the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society, instead took them back out to sea.

A spokesman for the monks, Venerable Dan, told CBC News that the lobster rescue mission was not intended as a comment on people's dietary choices, but rather was about compassion.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11672964

Frightened lions hide in tree after being charged by angry elephants

 

The pride of Lions in a very picturesque African tree after being spooked by a herd of Elephants.Photo/Zhayynn James via Caters News

A wildlife photographer has captured the dramatic moment a pride of lions bolted up a tree after they were spooked by a herd of elephants.

The sheepish cats were relaxing in the bush but sought refuge in the tree's branches when they were startled by the leader of the herd.

  The protective elephant charged at the frightened lions as they scrambled up the tree to safety in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania.

Photographer Zhayynn James, from India, was in the right place at the right time when he captured the incredible scene.

 

Even the clouds altered by climate change, says study

Clouds, which act as thermal regulators for Earth, have altered in character and global distribution due to climate change, and could in turn make warming worse, a study said.

A trawl of satellite images has revealed reduced cloudiness in Earth's temperate mid-latitude zones, which lie between the poles and subtropics in both hemispheres, accompanied by a poleward expansion of the subtropical dry zones.

The tops of clouds everywhere rose higher, according to data that stretched over more than two decades from the early 1980s.

"These cloud changes enhance absorption of solar radiation by the Earth and reduce emission of thermal radiation to space," said a statement from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, which took part in the study.

"This exacerbates global warming caused by increasing greenhouse gas concentration."

Clouds regulate Earth's temperature by reflecting some solar radiation back into space before it can hit the ground, while also acting as a blanket to limit heat loss from the planet at night.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11672845