No bread, no circuses: The Olympics and climate change
Perhaps downhill and cross-country skiers don't face the fate of potters, typesetters and saddlers, but their situation is certainly unclear.
18 October, 2020
Adam Pretty/Getty Images
Global warming is making it difficult to organize sporting tournaments, but it's an even greater threat to small local clubs. Meanwhile, Big Sport is taking the lead in climate hypocrisy.
<p>This is a good time for last year's snow. Not long ago, this term was used to describe something that has no meaning, that doesn't concern us, that has no value. As the temperature has risen, the situation has changed. The 2014 Olympics in Sochi didn't happen on the freshest of snow, nor did countless World Cups in alpine, freestyle and cross-country skiing, and ski jumping. We're getting better and better at preserving last year's snow; snowfarming is helping winter sports and the resorts that live off of skiers and snowboarders to hang on. But only to hang on.</p><p>Since 1924, the Winter Olympics have been held in 21 cities. Scientists are sounding the alarm that even with a reduction in greenhouse gases, by 2050 eight of them will be unable to host the event. It's not just about the games themselves. Organizing an event once every four years isn't a problem. But who's going to compete if there's no place to train? When mass schussing and trekking on skis becomes impossible, the number of professionals will drop. Perhaps downhill and cross-country skiers don't face the fate of potters, typesetters and saddlers, but their situation is certainly unclear. "You can essentially kiss winter sports goodbye in the not-too-distant future," said Niclas Svenningsen of the UN. "You can basically only have winter sports in high-altitude alpine regions for a very limited period of time in the year."</p><p>So the sports business is one of the victims of the climate catastrophe. But at the same time, they're not doing much to counteract it.</p>
<h3>The poorest will pay first</h3><p>"It's clear that the 2020 games shouldn't be held in the middle of summer," Professor Makoto Yokohari of Tokyo University said a few months ago. After the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the world's largest sporting event was postponed for a year, but was still planned for late July and early August. So Yokohari's objection remains relevant.</p><p>It's still possible to attempt to understand the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) choice of Tokyo as the athletes' destination: it made the decision in 2013, when climate awareness was lower. But since then, knowledge has increased – along with the temperature. Nobody considered changing the dates, even though already six decades ago it was clear that Tokyo is too hot and humid in the summer. That's precisely why, in 1964, the Olympics in the Japanese capital were held in October. The difference is that back then the IOC wasn't as dependent on money from television, and America's NBC (which is paying $7.75 billion for the rights to broadcast the games in 2020–2032) didn't want to hear about a change in the date. Because in October, the NFL's American football season is in full swing, and Major League Baseball is reaching the climax of the season, both of which would definitely hit viewership. But in the summer, the games don't have any competition.</p><p>So the Olympic authorities are concentrating on limiting the risk of tragedy. That's no exaggeration, considering that last year in late July and early August the average temperature in Tokyo was 33°C (topping 40° on the hottest days), and humidity reached 80%. In just those two weeks, 200,000 people ended up in hospital as a result of the heat, of whom 70 died.</p><p>The gravity of the situation is best shown by how the marathons and walking events have been moved to Sapporo, Japan's capital of winter sports. But it's not clear why these competitions were chosen, while those sentenced to compete in the heat include long-distance swimmers (the water temperature in Tokyo Bay exceeds 30° in August), kayakers, golfers and all others who compete outdoors. After last year's junior kayaking world championships – held in the same place where the Olympics will be – several competitors ended up being treated for heatstroke. "That was the warmest race I've ever done," said the Tunisian Oussama Mellouli, a three-time Olympic medallist in swimming. "It felt good for the first two kilometres, then I got super overheated."</p>
<p>The weather during those events was also a threat to the fans, which is why the IOC has earmarked as much as $92 million to fight the effects of the heat. That will pay for water curtains and cooling tents next to the venues. The fans were to receive head coverings and bottles of water to take into the stands. That's new; earlier it was banned because of the risk of terrorism.</p><p>Let's say it again: the Olympics are a party, so every four years people think something up, clench their teeth and introduce extraordinary measures. In fact, the IOC has announced that when choosing the next host of the games, it will take into account the changes caused by the climate catastrophe. Paris, which will welcome the athletes in 2024, and Los Angeles (2028) have time to prepare. Later organizers will be required not just to ensure the competitors have stadiums, fields, arenas and swimming pools, but also to guarantee something as basic as conditions for competing.</p><p>Everyday sporting life is a much greater challenge. That's true here and now, not in some undefined future. In recent months, Hurricane Ciara caused the cancellation of football matches in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and England; heat forced the shortening and cancellation of bicycle races and interrupted tennis matches; floods destroyed pitches. Today, this last problem affects small stadiums, where amateurs or semi-professionals play. But first, such problems are adding up, and second, the destruction can be so great that it threatens the clubs' very existence, which is important for their local communities. Tadcaster Albion from northern England, who play in the seventh league, estimated the costs of repairing its flooded field at close to £40,000. The club couldn't afford it, and was threatened with bankruptcy. Its fans came to the rescue, organizing a crowdfunding campaign. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and other football corporations with turnovers of hundreds of millions of euros wouldn't even feel the costs of rebuilding a flooded pitch. And they'll certainly be able to afford to defend against the effects of global warming. Here, sport reflects a more widespread phenomenon: according to a recent UN report, the consequences of the climate disaster will be felt fastest and most deeply by the poorest.</p>
<h3>No plastic, but planes</h3><p>At the start of the year, Olympique Lyon's official Twitter account posted a picture of players boarding a plane that was to carry them to a match with Paris-Saint Germain. Lyon is barely 400 kilometres from the French capital, just two hours by train. French Green MEP Karima Delli described the clubs as: "The only ones who do not feel concerned by the climate emergency!"</p><p>And that's not even the most drastic example. Parisian footballers also flew to a match with Dijon (300 kilometres, 1.5 hours by train). At the same time, the club's bus drove that route empty – to pick them up from the airport. Real Madrid's players have even flown to matches 200 kilometres away in Salamanca and Valladolid, emitting 2.7 tonnes of CO2 each time. If they had taken the train, it would have been 0.35 tonnes.</p><p>The clubs explain that they choose to fly because that gets the players to their destination in the best form. They cite the decade-old example of how the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption meant that Barcelona had to travel by bus to Milan for the Champions League semi-final with Inter. After 13 hours on the road, they lost 1:3. But this example contains more magical thinking than rational argument. That journey was organized at the last minute; if they had decided on ground transport earlier, it would certainly have been possible to ensure comfort for the players. Nobody is demanding that clubs give up air travel overnight, but they could significantly reduce it.</p><p>That's important, because footballers spend almost as much time travelling as they do on the pitch. In recent decades, footballing authorities have been guilty of immoderation, increasing the number of games without considering the limitations of the human body and the calendar. In the early 1990s, there were eight teams in the group phase of the Champions League; now there are 32. The European Championships had eight teams; today, as many as 24. The World Cup brought together 24 teams; in 2026 there will be twice (!) as many. This has long since ceased making sporting sense, but the more matches, the more money from television, and the more participants there are, the happier the national associations are. And a happy association will gladly vote to re-elect the current authorities.</p>
<p>But organizing these bloated tournaments is hard, as demonstrated by the next European Championship (also postponed to next year), planned in 12 cities from Baku to Dublin, from Saint Petersburg to Rome. In the first phase alone, a Polish fan would have to travel at least 6000 kilometres (Warsaw-Dublin-Bilbao-Dublin). If they advance to the knockout stage, Jerzy Brzęczek's players could end up in Budapest (another 2300 kilometres). The rulers of European football say that in flying here and there the players, fans and VIPs will produce 425,000 tonnes of CO2. But after the tournament ends, UEFA will pay to plant more than 10,000 trees in the host countries. Still, bearing in mind that the last tournament, held only on French pitches, was responsible for 517,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions, the estimates for next year's event are, to put it lightly, optimistic, and according to climate activists, not credible. "Planting trees is great, but planting trees and then leaving does not resolve the problem," said Andrew Welfle from the University of Manchester.</p><p>The championships spread out over a dozen European countries are one of many examples of football authorities' thoughtlessness and lack of imagination. They're capable of adopting pro-climate solutions only by chance.</p><p>Take the next World Cup in Qatar, which will be different from all previous ones. The first one on the Persian Gulf, the first one planned for November-December, and finally the first in such a small space. The longest distance between two stadiums is measured in the tens of kilometres, and they're all connected by Metro lines, so this will be the first World Cup that's not only plane-less, but also car-less. But it's not like the satraps of football chose this location out of concern for the climate. They got millions in bribes from the Qatari authorities. (Thanks to investigations by German and British journalists, there isn't the slightest doubt about this.) In fact, at the start they even insisted that the tournament would happen in the summer. They gave up on that only when it turned out that neither the fans nor the players could survive Qatar's summer temperatures, which approach 50°C.</p><p>In many ways, the 2026 World Cup will be at the opposite end of the scale. The event has never been held over such a large area. The tournament in Canada, the US and Mexico will generate as much as 3.6 million tonnes of CO2. FIFA chose the hosts in mid-2018, when you had to be exceptionally knowledge-resistant not to notice what was happening.</p><p>It's worth keeping an eye on football, because it sets the trends, and other sports copy its solutions unthinkingly. In the 21st century, the European championships have swelled in volleyball, handball and basketball. Tournaments organized everywhere and nowhere have become a regular occurrence. Strewn across four countries from Finland to Turkey and from France to Latvia, they force air travel, though there's no reason not to organize these events in a smaller number of countries, over a smaller area.</p><p>To be clear: neither football nor sport in general is responsible for the climate disaster. Even if footballers, basketballers and volleyballers didn't exist, the situation would be tragic. The point is the hypocrisy. The football corporations – starting with UEFA and FIFA, down to local clubs – have calculated that the fight against global warming is good for their image, so every so often they announce that they maintain pitches using water-conserving techniques, they don't sell food in plastic packaging at their stadiums, they equip the players with green tops to remind us of the environment. Then they pack them into planes to fly to a match just down the road.</p>
<h3>Bailing out with a teaspoon</h3><p>In the Pyrenees, they say they've swung it. The authorities of Luchon-Superbagnères, which lies just above the Spanish border and a bit below Toulouse, sent helicopters to fight the climate catastrophe. Last winter, there was so little snow on the slopes (it would have been difficult with the temperature hovering around 10°C), that the resort had lost its reason to exist. When the school vacation season was approaching, local authorities rented a helicopter to bring 50 tonnes of snow to the summit. In the local budget, the operation will look like a great deal: the cost came in at €6000; without snow, the losses would have been tens of times higher.</p><p>Ecologist Patrick Jimena wrote on Facebook that this calls to mind bailing out a boat with a teaspoon during a tsunami. But this <em>bon mot</em> doesn't communicate the essence of the matter, which is that sending a helicopter with an internal combustion engine into the mountains will mean that in a few years it will have to fly even higher to find snow. And someday snow won't be found, even on the highest peak.</p><p>The way of thinking found in Luchon-Superbagnères is also in effect at the highest echelons of the sporting business. There are those who count on outdoor disciplines surviving thanks to air-conditioning. They completely fail to notice that cooling equipment only worsens the situation.</p><p>Others count on artificial snow saving winter sports. Of course, we're better and better at making it; we don't even need temperatures below freezing, but we do need water. And that's also running out, on a micro and a macro scale. Today, Poland is one of the countries with the lowest water resources in the EU; according to <em>Science</em>, in 2050 as many as five billion people may have difficulty accessing drinking water.</p><p>It's just as naive to count on bringing all winter sports indoors. There are plenty of covered ski slopes, in Dubai, Madrid, New Jersey and in Druskininkai near the Polish border. The greatest number has been built in China, which is preparing to organize the next Winter Olympics. But they're all still just a curiosity; they won't rescue professional competition.</p><p>So once again, it turns out that sport is no better and no worse than the environment in which it functions. Awareness of the ongoing climate disaster is widespread; we feel its effects every day. But nothing is changing: we're putting more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere; in the centre of Europe, elections are being won by groups that pretend the problem doesn't exist; in the autumn, a climate denier may be elected for a second term as US president. The sporting authorities – regardless of whether we're talking about football, the Olympics or basketball – are also at the stage of 'it'll work out somehow'. And actually, nobody knows what more would have to happen for this 'somehow' to turn deadly. Not just for athletes, trainers and fans, but also for the organizers themselves.</p><p><em>Translated from </em><a href="https://przekroj.pl/spoleczenstwo/ani-chleba-ani-igrzysk-andrzej-kula" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>the Polish</em></a><em> by Nathaniel Espino</em></p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a href="https://przekroj.pl/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Przekrój</a>. Read the <a href="https://przekroj.pl/en/society/no-bread-no-circuses-andrzej-kula" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
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New model explains Saturn’s hexagon shaped storm
The solar system has some strange stuff in it. Learning how it ended up that way can tell us where we're going.
09 October, 2020
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute – Public Domain
- A new model of Saturn's atmosphere might finally explain how a bizarrely shaped storm developed there.
- The model produced a polygonal storm system similar, but not identical to, that observed on Saturn.
- The findings may shed light on the formation of the solar system.
<p> The Solar System has some strange stuff in it. Uranus rotates on its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Axial_tilt" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">side</a>, Venus turns <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus#Orbit_and_rotation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">backward</a>, Mercury is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet)#Mariner_10" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">shrinking</a>, Neptune radiates away far more heat than it gets from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune#Internal_heating" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sun</a>, and Saturn has a hexagonal shaped storm at its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn%27s_hexagon" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">n</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn%27s_hexagon" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">orth </a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn%27s_hexagon" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">p</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn%27s_hexagon" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ole.</a> <br> <br> In their never ending attempt to understand the cosmos, scientists have dedicated a fair amount of time to these topics. Now, after years of speculation, a new <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/117/25/13991" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">article</a> published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences may finally explain the source of Saturn's bizarrely shaped storm. </p>
<p> First noticed in the 1980s by the passing Voyager spacecraft and later observed by the Cassini–Huygens mission, the storm is an estimated 29,000 km (18,000 mi) wide with sides 2,000 km (1,200 mi) longer than the diameter of the Earth. It has been known to change color, from blue to gold, and rotates with the same period as Saturn's natural radio emissions. No similarly shaped storm exists at the south pole, though a storm vortex has been seen there. <br> <br> No similar storm is known to exist anywhere. </p><p>To determine how the storm takes on its unique shape, Harvard Professor and Jeremy Bloxham and research associate Rakesh K. Yadav created a model of Saturn's atmosphere that simulates the planet's outer layer. Running the simulation for a month, they found that the movement of heat could cause massive polar storms and a robust eastward jet stream. When these phenomena combine, they form the peculiar shape in an attempt to share the same space.</p><p>The study's lead author Rakesh K. Yadav explained what is happening to <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-10-d-formation-hexagon-storm-saturn.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Phys.org</a>: <br> <br> "This jet is going around and around the planet, and it has to coexist with these localized [smaller] storms. Imagine we have a rubber band and we place a bunch of smaller rubber bands around it and then we just squeeze the entire thing from the outside. That central ring is going to be compressed by some inches and form some weird shape with a certain number of edges. That's basically the physics of what's happening. We have these smaller storms and they're basically pinching the larger storms at the polar region and since they have to coexist, they have to somehow find a space to basically house each system. By doing that, they end up making this polygonal shape."<br> <br> Their model also suggested that the storms are forming very deep in Saturn's atmosphere, a potential reason why it has endured as long as it has without a significant change in shape or intensity. Debate continues on how far down the storm goes. While this study does lend weight towards the stance that it extends very far, perhaps thousands of kilometers, into the Saturnian atmosphere, the model was limited to simulating surface and near-surface <a href="https://www.iflscience.com/space/new-simulations-may-explain-why-saturn-has-a-hexagonal-storm-on-its-north-pole/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">activity</a>. </p><p> Further refinement of the model will be needed to settle this debate.</p><p>It must also be pointed out that what the model created wasn't a hexagon but a nine-sided polygon (a nonagon) that rotated at a different rate than the storm on Saturn. Despite this, the scientists argue that this is a proof of concept which supports the central thesis on how such a strangely shaped storm can come into existence and endure for longer than four decades. </p>
Why this matters on Earth
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7e7df6b85fb3b8a7883f31d905d6c2fa"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DB08Hhldg5s?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p> Figuring this out can also help shed light on Saturn's formation as, by extension, the formation of the solar system. As Yadav <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-10-d-formation-hexagon-storm-saturn.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">explains</a>:</p><p>"From a scientific point of view, the atmosphere is really important in determining how quickly a planet cools. All these things you see on the surface, they're basically manifestations of the planet cooling down and the planet cooling down tells us a lot about what's happening inside of the planet. The scientific motivation is basically understanding how Saturn came to be and how it evolves over time."<br> </p><p>Understanding how the solar system came into being can help us not only understand how other star systems might work but also help us determine how our solar system, including Earth, will change in the future. So even if you don't have to worry about a hexagonal storm anytime soon, you may someday benefit from the attempt to understand how such a thing could ever exist. </p>
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Study links 'sun-seeking behavior' to genes involved in addiction
A large-scale study from King's College London explores the link between genetics and sun-seeking behaviors.
18 September, 2020
Credit: Grisha Bruev on Shutterstock
- There are a number of physical and mental health benefits to sun exposure, such as boosted vitamin D and serotonin levels and stronger bones.
- Addictions are multi-step conditions that, by definition, require exposure to the addictive agent and have also been proven to have a genetic factor. Countless people are exposed to addictive things, but not all become addicted. This is because of the genetic component of addiction.
- This large-scale study explores the link between sun-seeking behaviors and the genetic markers for addiction.
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The benefits of sunlight
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQyMjI1Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzk0NDUxNH0.lbYbZidJkNXPUcWM6m8cucuzAFOANkqPaIVfJdqkJ4Q/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C52%2C0%2C52&height=700" id="d5fcd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f44fcc9a31393c8102803eb50d01a19a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="woman sitting on dock in the sunlight" />The mental and physical health benefits of sunlight have been heavily researched.
Credit: eldar nurkovic on Shutterstock
<p>The benefits of sunlight have been widely discussed for many years. In fact, there are a number of physical and mental health benefits to sun exposure.</p><p><strong>Sunshine (and the lack of) impacts your hormone levels. </strong></p><p>Sunlight (and alternatively, the lack of sunlight) triggers the release of certain hormones in your brain. Exposure to sunlight is thought to increase serotonin, which is associated with boosting your mood and helping you feel calm and focused. </p><p>Alternatively, dark lighting triggers melatonin, a hormone that is helpful in allowing you to rest and fall asleep. Without enough sunlight, your serotonin levels can dip - and low serotonin levels have been associated with a higher risk of major depression with seasonal pattern (formerly known as seasonal affective disorder).</p><p><strong>Sunlight can build strong bones. </strong></p><p>Exposure to the ultraviolet-B radiation in the sun's rays can interact with your skin, causing it to create vitamin D. <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">According to NHS</a>, vitamin D helps regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body. A lack of vitamin D can lead to bone deformities or bone pain. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2290997/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A 2008 study</a> has shown that even 30 minutes in sunlight (while wearing a bathing suit) can boost vitamin D levels. </p><p><strong>Can sunlight actually prevent cancer? </strong></p><p>Although heavy exposure to sunlight has been proven to contribute to certain skin cancers, a moderate amount of sunlight has actually been shown to have preventative benefits.</p><p><a href="https://cjasn.asnjournals.org/content/3/5/1548.full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">According to a 2008 study</a> from the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, those who live in areas with fewer daylight hours are more likely to have some specific cancers (including but not limited to colon cancer, ovarian cancer, and prostate cancer) than those who live in areas with increased daylight hours.</p><p><strong>Additionally, sunlight has been shown to help people with skin conditions such as psoriasis. </strong></p><p><a href="http://www.who.int/uv/faq/uvhealtfac/en/index1.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">According to the World Health Organization</a>, sun exposure may also be able to help treat skin conditions such as psoriasis, eczema, jaundice, and acne. <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/benefits-sunlight#benefits" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Some research</a> has also indicated the sun benefits people who struggle with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus, and inflammatory bowel disease. </p>Can you be addicted to the sun?
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQyMjI1Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NjI2NzMwOX0.rB2IFcqqFIwqCn1TF-Upv9_O3KlmI_H4MtYx6L7bTqI/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=31%2C0%2C32%2C0&height=700" id="eb0cc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="384e08fdcd535ed2b792eef419af9e2c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="hands holding up the sun" />The large-scale study examines the link between addiction and sunlight, with some surprising results...
Credit: KieferPix on Shutterstock
<p>Addictions are multi-step conditions that, by definition, require exposure to the addictive agent. Due to the increase of serotonin (a chemical in the human body <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/serotonin" target="_blank">that has been proven</a> to help reduce depression, regulate anxiety, and maintain bone health), it's natural that being exposed to prolonged periods of sunlight could become somewhat addictive to the human body and mind. We crave things that make us feel good, and sometimes those cravings become something we depend on. This is the very nature of addiction.</p><p>Countless people are exposed to addictive things (substances, medications, and yes, even the sun), but not all become addicted. This is because of the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3506170/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">genetic component of addiction</a>. </p><p>A large-scale study from King's College in London examines more than 260,000 people to better understand how sun-seeking behavior in humans can be linked to genes involving addiction, behavior traits, and brain function. </p><p><strong>The study included two phases:</strong></p><p>Phase one suggested genetics play a role in sun-seeking behaviors and phase 2 helped pinpoint what those genetic markers are.</p><p>Phase 1: The researchers studied the detailed health information of 2,500 twins, including their sun-seeking behavior and their genetics. Identical twins in a pair were more likely to have similar sun-seeking behavior than non-identical twins, indicating that genetics plays a role here. </p><p>Phase 2: The team of researchers then were able to identify five key gene markers involved in this sun-seeking behavior from further analysis of 260,000 participants. Some of the genes indicated have been linked to behaviors traits that are associated with risk-taking and addiction (including smoking and alcohol consumption).</p><p><strong>What does this study really prove? </strong></p><p>Some may think it's natural to become addicted to something that makes you feel good. The physical and mental health benefits of the outdoors have been heavily studied...so what does this study really mean? </p><p>First and foremost, it means more research needs to be done to examine the link between human conditions and exposure to sunlight. Senior author Dr. Mario Falchi explains to the <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/addicted-to-the-sun-its-in-your-genes" target="_blank">King's College London News Center</a>: "Our results suggest that tackling excessive sun exposure or use of tanning beds might be more challenging than expected, as it is influenced by genetic factors. It is important for the public to be aware of this predisposition, as it could make people more mindful of their behavior and the potential harms of excessive sun exposure."</p><p>Additionally, it could mean alternative treatments, and further research needs to be conducted in terms of how we treat certain conditions that are caused or heavily influenced by human exposure to sunlight. </p>
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NASA detects unexpected lightning storms in Jupiter's upper atmosphere
Some of the most extreme weather in the Solar System just got stranger.
08 August, 2020
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt
- The Juno space probe orbiting Jupiter has observed lightning at impossibly high points in the Jovian atmosphere.
- The findings, combined with other atmopsheric data, led to the creation of a new model of the atmosphere.
- The findings answer a few questions about Jupiter, but create many more.
<p>Since 2016, NASA's <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html" target="_blank">Juno spacecraft</a> has been observing Jupiter's atmosphere, magnetosphere, and gravitational field. It has already managed to take fantastic images, discovered new <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-juno-navigators-enable-jupiter-cyclone-discovery" target="_blank">cyclones</a>, and analyze the gasses that make up the planet in the time it has spent investigating it. </p><p>This week, Juno was able to add another discovery to its name with the unexpected finding of lightning in the upper atmosphere of the Solar System's largest planet. </p>
<p>The findings are described in the study "<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2532-1" target="_blank">Small lightning flashes from shallow electrical storms on Jupiter</a>," published in Nature. Previous missions to Jupiter, including Voyager 1, Galileo, and New Horizons all observed lightning, but without the benefits of the equipment on Juno or more recent developments in models of the Jovian atmosphere.</p><p>In this case, the lighting is notable for how high it is occurring in the atmosphere. While previous observations suggested lightning in water-based clouds deep inside the gas planet, the new data suggests lightning exists in the upper atmosphere in clouds of water and ammonia. This lightning is dubbed "shallow lightning." </p><p>According to a <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2020/08/ammonia-sparks-unexpected-exotic-lightning-jupiter" target="_blank">press release</a> by Cornell University, the ammonia is vital in creating the lightning, as it functions as an "anti-freeze" of sorts to keep the water in the clouds from freezing. The collision of droplets of mixed ammonia and water with ice water particles creates the charge needed for lightning strikes. <br> <br> This is different from any process that creates lightning on Earth.</p><p>That wasn't the only bit of strangeness the probe noticed. While Juno saw plenty of ammonia near the equator and at lower levels of the atmosphere, it was hard-pressed to find much anywhere else. To explain this, researchers developed a new model of atmospheric mixing. They suggest that the ammonia at lower levels of the atmosphere rises into storm clouds, interacts with water to cause the aforementioned lightning, and then falls back down in the form of <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-08-ammonia-rich-hail-jupiter-weather.html" target="_blank">hailstones</a>. </p><p>The scientists gave these ammonia and water ice hailstones the name "mushballs<a href="https://www.inverse.com/science/jupiter-mush-balls" target="_blank"></a>."</p><p>This model explains many things, including why Juno couldn't detect ammonia where it expected to: the mushballs would be more challenging to detect than ammonia or water vapor. The scientists further speculated that the weight of the mushballs pulls the ammonia to lower levels of the <a href="https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-juno-spacecraft-reveals-jupiters-unusual-electrical-storms-shallow-lightning-and-mushballs/" target="_blank">atmosphere</a> where it is detected in more significant amounts. </p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0MjYzNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzk5MTExMX0.LG0dhmlEmQbtVFmdY-s8wIieLt0ldFdtIsBpjNeewfQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="ea706" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="080d254387c43fd4f3210e48cbb6d388" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A NASA designed graphic demonstrating the weather systems theorized to create "mushballs." The liquid water and ammonia rises in the storm clouds until they reach points where the extremely low temperatures cause them to freeze. Freezing into semi-solid "mushballs" causes them to fall where they redistribute ammonia throughout the lower atmosphere.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/CNRS
How can we possibly know all of this?
<p>Juno relies on several pieces of equipment. The most relevant in this case is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_Radiometer_(Juno)" target="_blank">microwave radiometer</a>. This device uses microwaves to measure the Jovian atmosphere's composition. When microwaves hit water or ammonia particles, they begin to heat up. By hitting the planet with microwaves and then looking for changes in the particles' observed temperature, the probe can determine what chemicals are present.</p><p>The findings of these studies demonstrate that Jupiter's atmosphere is more complicated than previously thought. Given how we already knew about the storms larger than <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Red_Spot" target="_blank">Earth</a>, temperatures that swing between extremes in different layers of the atmosphere, and winds that blow at 100 meters per <a href="http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~showman/publications/ingersolletal-2004.pdf" target="_blank">second</a>, that is saying something.</p>
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Study: Reflecting sunlight to cool the planet will cause other global changes
Solar geoengineering ideas could weaken storms in both hemispheres, scientists find.
22 June, 2020
JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images
How can the world combat the continued rise in global temperatures? How about shading the Earth from a portion of the sun's heat by injecting the stratosphere with reflective aerosols?
<p> After all, volcanoes do essentially the same thing, albeit in short, dramatic bursts: When a Vesuvius erupts, it blasts fine ash into the atmosphere, where the particles can linger as a kind of cloud cover, reflecting solar radiation back into space and temporarily cooling the planet.</p><p>Some researchers are exploring proposals to engineer similar effects, for example by launching reflective aerosols into the stratosphere — via planes, balloons, and even blimps — in order to block the sun's heat and counteract global warming. But such solar geoengineering schemes, as they are known, could have other long-lasting effects on the climate.</p><p>Now scientists at MIT have found that solar geoengineering would significantly change extratropical storm tracks — the zones in the middle and high latitudes where storms form year-round and are steered by the jet stream across the oceans and land. Extratropical storm tracks give rise to extratropical cyclones, and not their tropical cousins, hurricanes. The strength of extratropical storm tracks determines the severity and frequency of storms such as nor'easters in the United States.</p>
<p>The team considered an idealized scenario in which solar radiation was reflected enough to offset the warming that would occur if carbon dioxide were to quadruple in concentration. In a number of global climate models under this scenario, the strength of storm tracks in both the northern and southern hemispheres weakened significantly in response.</p><p>Weakened storm tracks would mean less powerful winter storms, but the team cautions that weaker storm tracks also lead to stagnant conditions, particularly in summer, and less wind to clear away air pollution. Changes in winds could also affect the circulation of ocean waters and, in turn, the stability of ice sheets.</p><p>"About half the world's population lives in the extratropical regions where storm tracks dominate weather," says Charles Gertler, a graduate student in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). "Our results show that solar geoengineering will not simply reverse climate change. Instead, it has the potential itself to induce novel changes in climate."</p><p>Gertler and his colleagues have published their results this week in the journal <em>Geophysical Research Letters</em>. Co-authors include EAPS Professor Paul O'Gorman, along with Ben Kravitz of Indiana University, John Moore of Beijing Normal University, Steven Phipps of the University of Tasmania, and Shingo Watanabe of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology</p>
<h3>A not-so-sunny picture</h3><p>Scientists have previously modeled what Earth's climate might look like if solar geoengineering scenarios were to play out on a global scale, with mixed results. On the one hand, spraying aerosols into the stratosphere would reduce incoming solar heat and, to a degree, counteract the warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions. On the other hand, such cooling of the planet would not prevent other greenhouse gas-induced effects such as regional reductions in rainfall and ocean acidification.</p><p>There have also been signs that intentionally reducing solar radiation would shrink the temperature difference between the Earth's equator and poles or, in climate parlance, weaken the planet's meridional temperature gradient, cooling the equator while the poles continue to warm. This last consequence was especially intriguing to Gertler and O'Gorman.</p><p>"Storm tracks feed off of meridional temperature gradients, and storm tracks are interesting because they help us to understand weather extremes," Gertler says. "So we were interested in how geoengineering affects storm tracks."</p><p>The team looked at how extratropical storm tracks might change under a scenario of solar geoengineering known to climate scientists as experiment G1 of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP), a project that provides various geoengineering scenarios for scientists to run on climate models to assess their various climate effects.</p><p>The G1 experiment assumes an idealized scenario in which a solar geoengineering scheme blocks enough solar radiation to counterbalance the warming that would occur if carbon dioxide concentrations were to quadruple.</p><p>The researchers used results from various climate models run forward in time under the conditions of the G1 experiment. They also used results from a more sophisticated geoengineering scenario with doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations and aerosols injected into the stratosphere at more than one latitude. In each model they recorded the day-to-day change in air pressure at sea level pressure at various locations along the storm tracks. These changes reflect the passage of storms and measure a storm track's energy.</p><p>"If we look at the variance in sea level pressure, we have a sense of how often and how strongly cyclones pass over each area," Gertler explains. "We then average the variance across the whole extratropical region, to get an average value of storm track strength for the northern and southern hemispheres."</p>
<h3>An imperfect counterbalance</h3><p>Their results, across climate models, showed that solar geoengineering would weaken storm tracks in both Northern and Southern hemispheres. Depending on the scenario they considered, the storm track in the Northern Hemisphere would be 5 to 17 percent weaker than it is today.</p><p>"A weakened storm track, in both hemispheres, would mean weaker winter storms but also lead to more stagnant weather, which could affect heat waves," Gertler says. "Across all seasons, this could affect ventilation of air pollution. It also may contribute to a weakening of the hydrological cycle, with regional reductions in rainfall. These are not good changes, compared to a baseline climate that we are used to."</p><p>The researchers were curious to see how the same storm tracks would respond to just global warming alone, without the addition of social geoengineering, so they ran the climate models again under several warming-only scenarios. Surprisingly, they found that, in the northern hemisphere, global warming would also weaken storm tracks, by the same magnitude as with the addition of solar geoengineering. This suggests solar geoengineering, and efforts to cool the Earth by reducing incoming heat, would not do much to alter global warming's effects, at least on storm tracks — a puzzling outcome that the researchers are unsure how to explain.</p>
<p>In the Southern Hemisphere, there is a slightly different story. They found that global warming alone would strengthen storm tracks there, whereas the addition of solar geoengineering would prevent this strengthening, and even further, would weaken the storm tracks there.</p><p>"In the Southern Hemisphere, winds drive ocean circulation, which in turn could affect uptake of carbon dioxide, and the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet," O'Gorman adds. "So how storm tracks change over the Southern Hemisphere is quite important."</p><p>The team also observed that the weakening of storm tracks was strongly correlated with changes in temperature and humidity. Specifically, the climate models showed that in response to reduced incoming solar radiation, the equator cooled significantly as the poles continued to warm. This reduced temperature gradient appears to be sufficient to explain the weakening storm tracks — a result that the group is the first to demonstrate.</p><p>"This work highlights that solar geoengineering is not reversing climate change, but is substituting one unprecedented climate state for another," Gertler says. "Reflecting sunlight isn't a perfect counterbalance to the greenhouse effect."</p><p>Adds O'Gorman: "There are multiple reasons to avoid doing this, and instead to favor reducing emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases."</p><p>This research was funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Industry and Foundation sponsors of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.</p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a href="http://news.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT News</a>. Read the <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2020/reflecting-sunlight-cool-planet-storm-0602" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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