Antes de mais, Bom ano 2021! Não, não é uma piada. Haja esperança e coragem! Não podemos deixar-nos vencer pelos tempos difíceis provocados pela pandemia Covid-19 provocados pela pandemiaCovid-19 e suas variantes.
Há que cumprir rigorosamente as regras sanitárias propostas pela DGS e WHO e o confinamento proposto em cada país.
Eis-nos de volta! Embora as escolas tenham encerrado por 15 dias e as universidades estejam a funcionar em regime de ensino à distância.
As restantes notícias não são muito animadoras dado que o aquecimento do planeta continua a fazer-se sentir, e os pólos desrretem, apesar dos confinamentos a nível mundial.
credits: NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Este gráfico ilustra a mudança na temperatura global da superfície em relação às temperaturas médias de 1951-1980.
Feita esta introdução, falemos do Top de Posts mais lidos 2020. Um ano menos activo devido aos confinamentos, ao mal estar geral da população. Difícil de gerir.
Embora com menos regularidade, continuamos a propor alguns temas relativos ambiente na Antárctida e no Árctico.
Happy Year 2021! Hope all our readers are well. Looking back 2020 we are coming up with a roundup of what's been the best posts of our green blog Geração Polar Portugal.
We are respecting lockdown sinceDecember. Yes, like the most of European countries and all over the world. Not easy to survive without seeing family and friends. And no culture at all. Just some pedestrian randonée near home.
Well, we must face all together this cruel pandemic time, thinking about for better days.
Some bad news. Global warming continues. 2020 was not only the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was also the year of intensifying climate change: high temperatures, floods, droughts, storms, wildfires and even locust plagues. Even more worryingly, the world is heading for at least a 3°C temperature rise this century.
"We are facing a devastating pandemic, new heights of global heating, new lows of ecological degradation and new setbacks in our work towards global goals for more equitable, inclusive and sustainable development."
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General, in The State of the Planet
“The last seven years have been the warmest seven years on record, typifying the ongoing and dramatic warming trend,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. “Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important — the important things are long-term trends. With these trends, and as the human impact on the climate increases, we have to expect that records will continue to be broken.”
GISS Director Gavin Schmidt, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)
As we did in 20152016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, here the Top of posts of 2020, #semester1.
Steven Kazlowski/Barcroft Media, via Getty Images
via New York Times
Looking back at 2020, we have come up with our roundup of what's been most-read, #semester1 on ourBlog Geração Polar. The selection is based on page views or most interesting subjects of the most read posts:
Our crush semester 1? The Wild Photographer of he Year 2019. We don't resist sharing with you some amazing photographs of wildlife. This time fromThe Wild Photographer of he Year 2019. Awesome photographers. Such great photos. Beautiful wild animals! We need lovely things. And animals are just lovely. We must care about them.
Agora, após a descoberta de sete planetas fora do Sistema Solar e com características semelhantes à Terra, anunciada ontem pela NASA, Google associou-se à celebração com um Doodle interactivo. A animação mostra a Terra e a Lua a entusiasmarem-se ao olhar por um telescópio ao descobrirem os sete planetas ‘terrestres' a acenar. Querem um sistema de 7 planetas mais divertido?
Pois bem!Uma equipa internacional de astrónomos descobriu um sistema planetário com sete planetas muito semelhantes à Terra. Três deles estão na zona habitável da sua estrela, ou seja, têm condições para a existência de água (e de vida) mas há escassas informações sobre o mais distante.
An artist's fantasy of the surface of TRAPPIST-1e.
A estrela, TRAPPIST – 1, fica a 39,5 anos-luz da Terra (posição relativa na constelação de Aquário) e é uma anã vermelha muito mais fria e pequena que o nosso Sol (tipo de estrelas mais comum na nossa galáxia do que as semelhantes ao Sol).
O facto de os planetas que a orbitam estarem a uma distância curta, criam as tais condições terrenas.
Agora, os cientistas querem ir em busca de vida: “Já não é uma questão de ‘se’. É uma questão de ‘quando’”.
Michael Gillon, NASA
Levantam-se várias questões. Sendo a mais importante: Há vida como a conhecemos fora do nosso planeta?
Os referidos planetas encontram-se na chamada 'zona habitável' da respectiva estrela, o que significa que a distância a que se encontram do astro lhes permite a existência de água no estado líquido à superfície, condição essencial à existência de vida como a conhecemos.
Já há um site oficial Trapist-1com todas as explicações e até extras, como posters que ilustram graficamente a descoberta. Um deles, com um 'aspecto futurista', considera este sistema com sete planetas parecidos com a terra o 'melhor destino' numa zona habitável. Ler Novo Sistema Planetário já tem oficial (e posters)
Google is so happy! The Google Doodle teamcould hardly contain its excitement. Today's animated Doodleshows earth peering through a telescope to find its seven friendly neighbors, just 235 trillion miles away.
Google Doodle Seven Earth-size Exoplanets Discovered
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.
Artist's concept shows what each of the TRAPPIST-1 planets may look like, based on available data about their sizes, masses and orbital distances.
"What exactly does this new solar system TRAPPIST-1 mean for our universe? Well, three of these newly discovered planets land smack-dab in the middle of what scientists call the habitable zone, or the distance from the star it orbits “where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.” Though scientists have some serious studying to do before we can definitively say whether any of the new TRAPPIST-1 planets are habitable, the potential is very promising."
The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water – key to life as we know it – under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.
“This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life,”
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington
“Answering the question ‘are we alone’ is a top science priority and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal.” Read more on NASA website
We are so excited as Doodle team! Let's find more!
Foi hoje, dia 28 Outubro 2016 concluido um acordo histórico sobre a maior reserva marinha do mundo de vida selvagem Antárctida.
O Mar de Ross é um dos últimos ecossistemas marinhos intactos do mundo. É o habitat de pinguins, focas e baleias. Uma zona crucial para os cientistas estudarem os ecossistemas e compreenderem os impactos das mudanças climáticas no oceano.
A maior reserva marinha do mundo para proteger a vida selvagem da Antárctida vai ser finalmente criada, após o acordo alcançado hoje, disseram responsáveis governamentais.
O acordo, concluído durante a reunião anual da Comissão para a Conservação dos Recursos Vivos Marinhos da Antárctida na sua reunião anual em Hobart, Austrália, vai permitir a criação de uma enorme área marinha protegida pelos Estados Unidos e pela Nova Zelândia, no Mar de Ross.
A área protegida vai ter 1,55 milhões de quilómetros quadrados, afirmou o ministro dos Negócios Estrangeiros da Nova Zelândia, Murray McCully.
Segundo o director do projecto Aliança do Oceano Antártico, Mike Walker, pela primeira vez os países puseram de lados as suas diferenças para proteger uma grande área do Oceano Antárctico e das águas internacionais.
O Mar de Ross é um dos últimos ecossistemas marinhos intactos do mundo e é lar de pinguins, focas e baleias.
Today, the largest marine protected area in the world was created in the Ross Sea, off the coast of Antarctica. This is a huge victory for the whales, penguins, and toothfish that live there and for the millions of people standing up to protect our oceans.
After years of negotiations, twenty-four countries and the EU have agreed to create the world’s largest marine park in the Antarctic Ocean.
Meeting in Hobart, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources said the 1.55 million square kilometre Ross Sea marine park would be protected from commercial fishing for three to five years.
Scientists say the marine park will also allow a greater understanding of the impact of climate change.
The Ross Sea sanctuary becomes the biggest marine protected area in the world, covering 1,550,000km2 (which is roughly the size of three Texases, two Spains, or one Mongolia), almost three quarters of which will be a fully-protected.
Known as ‘the Last Ocean’, the Ross seahas been identified by scientists as the most pristine shallow ocean left on earth.
The sea comprises only 2% of the Southern Ocean but is thought to be home to more than 10,000 species including seabirds, colossal squid, 38% of the world's Adelie penguins, 30% of the world's Antarctic petrels and about 6% of the world's population of Antarctic minke whales.
Image captionUN oceans patron, Lewis Pugh, engaged in "speedo diplomacy" to push for a dealcredits: Kelvin Trautmanhttp://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/
"I'm absolutely overjoyed," said Lewis Pugh, the UN Patron for the Oceans, and someone who has campaigned for years in support of this new MPA.
"This is the biggest protected area on the land or the sea, this is the first large scale MPA on the high seas, they are largely unprotected."
The ocean advocate and swimmer drew attention to the Ross Sea with a series of swims in the icy waters - and for two years he has engaged in a series of meetings, dubbed "speedo diplomacy" with Russian officials to convince them of the value of the MPA.
To finally get agreement to protect the Ross Sea a time clause of 35 years was included, which means that in 35 years CCAMLR members will again need to decide on its future. Marine protection, to be truly effective, needs to be long lasting so we have all those years ahead of us to make sure when the Ross Sea sanctuary is up for renewal, there is no resistance to making it permanent. We’re pretty confident that by 2051 it will be a simple decision!
