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Leopards are one step closer to extinction

May 5, 2016 by David Morelo Leave a Comment

A research conducted by 14 scientists from 15 universities and organizations suggests that leopards have lost as much as three-fourths of their historical territory.

The study published in the journal PeerJ is the first to take a closer look the leopard’s global population. The researchers have studied 6,000 records from 2,500 locations and over 1,300 sources, reports Immortal News. This makes it the most comprehensive worldwide study of leopards.

The historical range the leopards used to roam has decreased by 63-75%, with only about 17% of it being legally protected. This caused a near extinction of the big cats on much of the Arabian Peninsula and China as well as a great decline in West and North Africa. Their once vast range of 13.5 million square miles now measures just 3.3 million square miles.

An author on the study, Andrew B. Stein, explains that the reclassification of leopards as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature should spark conservation efforts.

The reclusive nature of leopards has contributed to the lack of attention they have received from scientists and researchers, who considered them to be plentiful in the wild. “Leopards’ secretive nature, coupled with the occasional, brazen appearance of individual animals within megacities like Mumbai and Johannesburg, perpetuates the misconception that these big cats continue to thrive in the wild—when actually our study underlines the fact that they are increasingly threatened,” said Luke Dollar, a co-author and the program director of the National Geographic Society’s Big Cats Initiative.

Their main enemies seem to be various human activities, such as farming, hunting, poaching, and, in some areas, trophy hunting.

Apart from their cultural and historical value, the leopard occupies a key ecological role as the top carnivore, which makes them that much more important. “Biologists have to start picking up and be ready to invest a lot of sweat into counting these cats to show the world how rare they have become,” said Philipp Henschel, lion program survey coordinator for Panthera.

The US will face unprecedented drought this century, predicts NASA and NOAA

Feb 18, 2015 by William Harper Leave a Comment

Southwest and Central Plains in the USA might suffer “Unprecedented drought conditions” in the later part of this century, say researchers. California recently experienced drought. However, the upcoming calamity will be far worse that might last for years. Scientists believe that the megadrought will be the worst in past 1000 years.

“Nearly every year is going to be dry toward the end of the 21st century compared to what we think of as normal conditions now,” said study lead author Benjamin Cook, a NASA atmospheric scientist. “We’re going to have to think about a much drier future in western North America.”

NASA researcher observed the average temperature in the country. Last year the country witnessed highest average temperature, following the trends there are more than 80 percent chances that south-west states of US will suffer drought that will last for more than 35 years. Scientists also took account on ever increasing carbon emission and conducted several complex simulations for the research.

The study found that groundwater recharge will decrease by nearly 5 percent each year due to thinning of forests that will also play a crucial role in the upcoming calamity. Drought will not only reduce ground water recharge but will also decrease surface water supplies, forcing the people to draw more water from the ground.

The drought will affect the agriculture severely resulting in food price rise. “Our cities will survive, our industries will survive, but our agricultural systems are going to be devastated. And probably, unless we’re smart, our ecosystems will be devastated,” says Peter Gleick, president and co-founder of the Pacific Institute, which focuses on water-resource issues.

Researchers warned that if some aggressive steps including reducing carbon emission, water harvesting, restoring forests, etc. to prevent the drought aren’t executed now then the megadrought would affect the economy badly.

Geoengineering methods to restore normal temperature of Earth by cutting CO2

Feb 11, 2015 by William Harper Leave a Comment

There have been several manmade activities that have caused near instant destruction planetary scale destruction. Climates are changing very fast; hotter regions are even hotter and cold regions getting worse. To overcome these climatic changes people are emphasising cut in greenhouse gases emission. However, a new research claims it to be inefficient and says that we need geoengineering approaches to control our planet’s climatic changes.

“I, for one, am concerned with the continuing rise in CO2 concentrations without clear efforts to reduce emissions,” said Joyce Penner, one of the researchers, in a new release. “The widespread impacts from these increases are readily apparent, and the cost of climate change impacts is likely to be high. We may need to employ some of these climate interventions techniques to avoid a catastrophe such as the loss of the Antarctic ice sheets, or even to remain below levels of climate change that are considered dangerous in the political arena.”

The geoengineering approach promotes restoration of forests to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. Apart from it, iron could be seeded in the oceans to promote growth of microorganisms that will eventually absorb CO2. However, dumping iron in the oceans also has its negative; it may affect the environment adversely. Thus, more investigation is needed before this method can be applied. We can also avoid sunlight reflecting approaches called “albedo modification.”

“U.S. agencies may have been reluctant to fund this area because of the sense of what we call ‘moral hazard’-that if you start down the road of doing this research you may end up relying on this or condoning this as a way of saving the planet from the cost of decreasing CO2 emissions,” said Penner. “But we’ve stated that decreasing emissions must go hand in hand with any climate intervention efforts.

According to another research, the average temperature of the Earth has increased by more than 1 degree Celsius in past five decades. Applying these methods can significantly reduce earth’s temperature in coming few years.