North Pole Temperature Reaches 20°C Above Average

Temperatures in the North Pole on Sunday reached 20 degrees Celsius above the average set between 1991 and 2020, after reaching 18 degrees higher than the average on Saturday.

With the rise, the temperature in the North Pole surpassed the point of freezing, or 0 degrees Celsius. One reading measured the temperature at 0.5 degrees Celsius, and the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service measured temperatures above -1 degree Celsius as far up as the 87th parallel in the Arctic.

“This was a very extreme winter warming event,” Mika Rantanen, a scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, told The Guardian. “Probably not the most extreme ever observed, but still at the upper edge of what can happen in the Arctic.”

According to Rantanen, the temperature could be between 20 to 30 degrees Celsius warmer than average, but the exact difference is difficult to judge in such a remote location.

“This was a very extreme winter warming event,” said Mika Rantanen, a scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. “Probably not the most extreme ever observed, but still at the upper edge of what can happen in the Arctic.” #Arctic @mikarantane.bsky.social

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— Aarne Granlund (@aarnegranlund.bsky.social) February 4, 2025 at 1:53 PM

EU Copernicus Climate Change Service scientist Julien Nicolas told The Guardian that warmer air was flowing toward the North Pole because of a low-pressure system over Iceland as well as rising ocean temperatures in the Atlantic.

A study by Rantanen and colleagues published in 2022 found that the Arctic has been warming much faster than the rest of the world, an event known as Arctic amplification. Data and modelling revealed that the Arctic could be warming as much as four times faster than the rest of the world. The study authors noted that some areas within the Arctic are even warming up to seven times faster than the pace of average global warming.

According to data from the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service, the Arctic has warmed by around 3.3 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, compared to about 1.3 degrees Celsius of warming globally.

The rapidly increasing temperatures of the Arctic, even in the winter, have scientists concerned over ice melt, rising sea levels and emissions. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic sea ice has been decreasing at a pace of 13% per decade since 1979.

A 2023 study, co-authored by Dirk Notz, a climate scientist at the University of Hamburg, determined that the Arctic could experience completely ice-free summers, even in low emissions scenarios, as soon as the 2030s.

“There is no negotiating with this fact, and no negotiating with the fact that the ice will disappear more and more as long as temperatures keep rising,” Notz told The Guardian. “We expect the Arctic Ocean to lose its sea-ice cover in summer for the first time over the next two decades. This will probably be the first landscape that disappears because of human activities, indicating yet again how powerful we humans have become in shaping the face of our planet.”

Already, the rising temperatures have lead the Arctic to become a source of carbon emissions, rather than a carbon sink, for the first time in 2024, according to a recent report from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

These problems are mirrored in the Antarctic, which recently reached alarmingly low ice levels and a heat wave, with temperatures over 10 degrees Celsius higher than average, over the Southern Hemisphere’s winter of 2024.

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USDA and Forest Service Ordered to Remove Climate Change References From Websites

According to internal guidelines obtained and reviewed by various sources including Politico, The Hill and The Guardian, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has begun removing references to climate change on its webpages and sites, including the U.S. Forest Service website.

As The Guardian reported, the internal memo stated that the department must “identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” and record all instances of references in a spreadsheet by Friday for further review.

Trump orders USDA to take down websites referencing climate crisis

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— The Guardian (@theguardian.com) January 31, 2025 at 5:30 PM

At the time of this writing, some of the pages and sites are still online, including the Climate Hubs page and a general information page on climate change adaptation in agriculture. However, one Forest Service webpage on climate change that The Hill had pointed out as being online as of 6 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 31 has since been removed. Now, visiting that link prompts a message that reads, “You are not authorized to access this page.”

Many of the former USDA pages and sites mentioning climate change provided important information regarding wildfires and climate resiliency in agriculture, Politico reported. A webpage with information on vulnerability assessments for wildfires is also gone, despite the recent deadly wildfires that blazed around Los Angeles.

The removal of climate change references on official government websites follows executive orders from President Donald Trump that have targeted sustainability goals and actions as well as what content departments and agencies can share on government websites.

Already, the new administration has removed climate change-related information from official WhiteHouse.gov and other official websites. For instance, the Department of Homeland Security’s webpage on addressing climate change now shows that it has been archived. 

Searching the official White House website for the term “climate change” currently produces four results, including an order on “Unleashing American Energy” (which includes reversing the EV mandate and promoting fossil fuels, among other actions) and “Putting America First In International Environmental Agreements” (which withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement for a second time).

The removal of climate change and sustainability references on U.S. government websites is not a surprise, as this happened the first time that Trump held office.

But the censorship by the new administration is extensive, with additional orders given for governmental staff in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) told to remove pronouns from their email signatures and disband gender resource groups, The Guardian reported.

Information on contraceptives, support for transgender and non-binary schoolchildren and National Transgender HIV Testing Day, among several other details related to health and safety, have also been removed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, The Guardian reported.

Federal health agencies have also been ordered to pause communications, Axios reported, and Trump withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization.

Experts are concerned over how these actions will affect health in the face of extreme weather events and disease spread, all of which is worsened by climate change.

“In my lifetime, in the United States I don’t know of another situation where researchers have been this concerned about losing access to data that they’ve had access to their whole career. It’s dire,” Jonathan Gilmour, a data scientist researching the impacts of climate change on human health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told The Journalist’s Resource. “It’s really important to understand that we can’t have a full picture of what’s going on in the United States and around the world if we stop making data available. I don’t want to start thinking about or listing the risks if we don’t have this data, because it imperils our way of life.”

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Microplastics in Human Placentas Linked to Premature Births

A new study presented as part of the annual Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine meeting has revealed a link between microplastic bioaccumulation in the human placenta to preterm, or premature, births.

In the study, researchers analyzed 175 placentas collected at both term and preterm, or under 37 weeks of pregnancy, and measured the amounts of 12 different microplastics and nanoplastics, including polyethylene (PE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyurethane (PU) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), using highly sensitive mass spectrometry.

The results showed that preterm placentas had much higher levels of polycarbonate (PC), PVC and nylon 66 (N66) compared to placentas from term pregnancies. The findings suggested that despite shorter gestation periods, the placentas in preterm scenarios with higher levels of microplastics were accumulating those microplastics earlier in the gestation period.

“The finding of higher placental concentrations among preterm births was surprising because it was counterintuitive to what you might expect if it was merely a byproduct of the length of time of the pregnancy,” said Dr. Enrico Barrozo, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

While microplastics in the placenta have not been named as a cause of preterm births in the study, the researchers noted that the association warrants further research to better understand potential impacts on reproductive health. 

In the study, the research team determined that microplastic levels in the placentas were nearly 122 times higher than the amount of microplastics that have been previously detected in human blood.

“Our study hints at the possibility that the accumulation of plastics could be contributing to the occurrence of preterm birth,” said Dr. Kjersti Aagaard, senior author of the study, the Gulf Coast Division medical director and maternal-fetal medicine physician at HCA Healthcare and research professor at Boston Children’s Hospital, as reported by The Guardian. “Combined with other recent research, this study adds to the growing body of evidence that demonstrates a real risk from exposure to plastics on human health and disease.”

In addition to the link between microplastics and preterm births, another study published in 2024 revealed that one in 10 premature births in the U.S. could be linked to parental exposure to phthalates, chemicals commonly used in plastic production to make plastics more flexible.

More and more studies are unveiling risks of microplastics, especially in regard to how they can accumulate in human and animal bodies. In a separate study published this month, researchers found that microplastics ingested by mice were blocking the blood vessels and blood flow in the animals’ brains. While the researchers of that study noted that human and mice brains are different enough that the findings cannot conclusively be applied to humans, they did raise concerns over how microplastics could be impacting our brains.

Microplastics have also been detected in human testicular tissue, blood and lungs, but researchers are still working to understand how these chemicals can affect our health. 

In the meantime, there are ways to reduce microplastic exposure, including by not microwaving food in plastic containers, filtering drinking water, limiting seafood consumption and avoiding plastics containing phthalates.

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Amazon Deforestation Is Down, but Degradation Spiked Nearly 500% in 2024

A recent analysis of the Amazon Rainforest has revealed that while deforestation declined in 2024, the level of degradation from factors like wildfires and logging increased 497% in the same time period.

According to Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (Imazon), a nonprofit and research institute based in Brazil, deforestation, or the complete clearing of vegetation, declined by 7% in 2024 compared to 2023. This marked the second consecutive year of declining deforestation numbers.

However, over 36,379 square kilometers of the rainforest were degraded last year, compared to the 6,092 square kilometers affected by land degradation in 2023. Degradation in 2024 was the highest since 2009, Imazon reported.

Forest fires were a major contributor to land degradation, according to Imazon. The Rainforest Foundation reported that 2024 had the highest number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon since 2005, burning an area of land larger than the state of California.

As Mongabay reported, extreme drought over two years made some areas more prone to burning, and ongoing effects of climate change could continue to impact precipitation patterns and damage the rainforest ecosystem. 

Experts expect some relief from fires over the winter, when higher rainfall will keep degradation from wildfires at bay. But they also emphasize a need for more conservation areas to reduce other degradation factors, such as logging.

“At the beginning of 2025, we recommend that managers take advantage of the rainy season, known as the ‘Amazon winter,’ to organize the strengthening of actions to protect the Amazon, since the tendency is for deforestation to return as soon as the rains reduce,” Carlos Souza, coordinator for Imazon’s Amazon Monitoring Program, said in a statement. “In addition to monitoring measures and punishing illegal deforesters, it is essential to allocate public lands that do not yet have a defined use for conservation, a measure to combat land grabbing.”

While degradation increased sharply, data provided by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in November 2024 showed that deforestation fell 30.6% from July 2023 to July 2024, reaching a low not seen since 2015, Reuters reported.

But deforestation, even when in decline, remains a major problem for the Amazon. According to Imazon, the amount of land affected by deforestation in 2024 still totaled 3,739 square kilometers, which equated to more than 1,000 football fields of forest lost each day. In some areas of Brazil, deforestation even increased last year. 

Pará had 3% more land lost in 2024 compared to 2023, and the state had the highest amount of deforestation in Brazil for the ninth year in a row. Pará also led the country for the highest amount of forest degradation for 2024.

The extensive damage through degradation and deforestation has experts concerned that the Amazon could soon reach a tipping point, described by Carbon Brief as a time when the Amazon experiences enough stress to trigger major vegetation die-offs that turn the ecosystem into a dry savannah, permanently.

“The fires and drought experienced in 2024 across the Amazon Rainforest could be ominous indicators that we are reaching the long-feared ecological tipping point,” Andrew Miller, advocacy director at Amazon Watch, told The Associated Press. “Humanity’s window of opportunity to reverse this trend is shrinking, but still open.”

Degradation and forest loss is not only a concern in the Amazon Rainforest. Globally, land degradation is increasing by about 1 million square kilometers per year, roughly the size of Egypt, according to a recent report from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Already, PIK has warned that original forest cover globally is at about 60%, but the safe planetary boundary requires about 75% of original forest cover.

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Chemicals in Pet Flea Treatments Are Leading to Songbird Deaths, Report Finds

In a new study, scientists are raising concerns over the ways that flea treatment chemicals for pets can leach into the environment and harm local wildlife. In light of the study, experts are calling on veterinarians to minimize preventative flea treatments to protect songbirds and insects impacted by the chemicals in these treatments.

Scientists from the University of Sussex published a study revealing that nests lined with fur were exposing blue tit and great tit songbirds to chemicals found in common veterinary drugs. The team tested for 20 total chemicals, of which they found 17 present, across 103 different nests.

The most common chemicals included fipronil, found in 100% of the nests, as well as imidacloprid (found in 89.1% of nests) and permethrin (also found in 89.1% of the samples).

Further, the research also revealed that nests with higher number of insecticides, higher concentrations of insecticides, or higher concentrations of fipronil, imidacloprid or permethrin specifically also had higher numbers of unhatched eggs or dead offspring.

“No nest was free from insecticides in our study, and this significant presence of harmful chemicals could be having devastating consequences on the UK’s bird populations,” Cannelle Tassin de Montaigu, lead author of the study and a research and associate fellow at the University of Sussex, said in a statement.

As The Guardian reported, some of the chemicals detected in the study have been banned in the UK and the EU, but not for use in veterinary drugs. Fipronil is banned for agricultural use in the UK and EU, and imidacloprid’s use for plant protection is banned in the EU and could soon be banned in the UK for agricultural use. 

In the meantime, experts, including veterinarians, are calling on reduced usage of veterinary drugs for flea and tick prevention. Neither experts nor the study authors are telling pet owners to forgo flea and tick treatments. As recommended by the British Veterinary Association, pet owners should skip year-round, blanket treatments of these chemicals and only use them as needed. 

“We are a nation of pet lovers and bird lovers, and it is extremely concerning to see the alarming levels of toxic pesticides in bird nests from veterinary drugs,” said Sue Morgan, chief executive of SongBird Survival, a charity that funded the study. “Pet owners will be upset to hear that in trying to do the right thing to support their pets with fleas and ticks, they could be harming our ecosystem, resulting in dead newborn chicks and unhatched eggs. As pet owners, we need to have confidence that we are keeping our pets well, without devastating impacts on our wildlife.” 

A goldfinch gathers cat fur from a rosemary bush. Andi Edwards / iStock / Getty Images Plus

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), pet owners can prevent and treat fleas through other methods, such as regularly combing pet fur with a fine-tooth comb, and washing pets with warm water and common soaps that are pet-safe, which together can kill fleas without the added chemicals. The organization also recommended that pet owners regularly clean areas where pets sleep and rest, such as their beds or sofas, and minimize fleas by applying nematodes in yards and gardens.

The researchers and SongBird Survival are also calling on governmental agencies to conduct more risk assessments on how veterinary drugs impact the environment, and establish policies to address those risks.

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Microplastics Block Blood Flow in Mice Brains, Study Shows

As microplastics become more and more prevalent, even showing up in seafood, clouds and human testicular tissue, scientists are working to further understand how these plastic particles could impact ecosystems and human health. Based on a new study, scientists are now concerned about how microplastics could affect our brains after finding that the particles can block blood flow in mice brains in the lab.

The study, published in Science Advances, involved the tracking of fluorescent polystyrene in mice blood and brains. The polystyrene, which is common in packaging like clear food containers and insulated beverage cups, was mixed with water and given to the mice. The researchers used miniature two-photon microscopy on mice to track the movement of the microplastics through clear screens placed in their skulls.

The researchers observed that the microplastics accumulated in immune cells, which then created blockages “like a car crash in the blood vessels,” Haipeng Huang, a biomedical researcher at Peking University in Beijing, said in a statement.

Sometimes, these blockages, which were similar to blood clots according to the research team, would clear on their own. However, other blockages remained for four full weeks.

Whether they lasted short-term or for the entire duration of the observation period, mice with microplastic blockages experienced reduced blood flow and moved slower and with less coordination compared to control mice, Yale Environment 360 reported.

The research team has also observed microplastic blockages in mice hearts and livers, but those studies have not yet been published.

The scientists also cautioned that while these results can bring up concerns over how microplastics may affect human health, the findings cannot conclusively be applied to humans because of the differences in blood circulation volume and vessel sizes between humans and mice. However, they did note that the research could provide foundational information for future studies.

“The potential long-term effects of [microplastics] on neurological disorders such as depression and cardiovascular health are concerning,” the authors stated. “Increased investment in this area of research is urgent and essential to fully comprehend the health risks posed by [microplastics] in human blood.”

According to a separate study published in April 2024, ingested microplastics were found to move from the human gut to the brain. Another study published in August 2024 further found microplastics in human livers, kidneys and brains, with alarming levels of these particles in the human brain samples.
In yet another recent study published this month, scientists determined that microplastics could pose risks to various human functions outside of the brain, including the respiratory system, the digestive tract and the reproductive system.

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Scientists Predict Top Crops of the Future for the UK Based on Climate Change

In a new study, scientists analyzed UK crops and how the country’s agriculture could be affected by climate change and predicted what could be the top crops by 2080.

Led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) in collaboration with the University of East Anglia (UEA), the study determined that a changing climate could mean that the UK will become more suitable for growing crops like soy, chickpeas, grapes, oranges and okra.

“Our climate is expected to change substantially over coming decades at a time when there will be rising demand for food due to population growth,” John Redhead, a spatial ecologist at UKCEH, said in a statement. “It is therefore essential that arable farming becomes more resilient; one possible solution is growing different crops that are more suited to the new local conditions.”

At the same time, the region could become less suitable to growing its current crops, including oats, wheat, onions and strawberries, meaning agriculture could face significant challenges and high costs to adapt to growing different crops.

Scientists explored how suitable 160 different crops — both currently grown in the UK and ones that would be new to the area — could be under two different scenarios: 2 degrees Celsius warming and 4 degrees Celsius warming compared to pre-industrial levels.

Under the 2-degree scenario, strawberries and onions would become less suitable to growing in the UK, while in the 4-degree scenario, strawberries, onions, wheat, oats, and apples could see declining suitability for growing in various parts of the UK.

Some current UK crops would become more suitable in both scenarios, including maize and broad beans. New crops that could become more suitable for growing include sorghum, okra, horseradish, chickpeas, soy beans and even avocado (in a 4-degree scenario). The scientists published their findings in the journal Climate Resilience and Sustainability.

As the study pointed out, introducing more crops and diversifying local agriculture could improve soil health and lead to improved natural pest and disease control; plus, high suitability for proteins like soy beans and chickpeas could reduce meat consumption and related emissions. 

However, the team explained that introducing non-native crops could also lead to reverse effects, meaning these new plantings could lead to risks of new pests, disease outbreaks and negative impacts to pollinators. Transitioning to planting different crops would also come with high economic costs.

“Clearly, it’s unlikely to be feasible just to switch large-scale food production from Britain’s agricultural heartlands of southeastern England to Scotland, for example,” Redhead explained. “However, climate change is happening now, and its impacts will increase by 2080, so whatever action is taken will involve big challenges in terms of where our food comes from and the way our agricultural landscapes are managed.”

Already, extreme weather events linked to climate change are affecting agriculture in the UK and around the world. From October 2022 to March 2024, the UK recorded the wettest 18 months on record, as reported by Yale Climate Connections. According to UK’s House of Parliament, extreme levels of rainfall and flooding over the past two years could lead to decreased crop yields, including for staples like broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes and carrots, in 2025.

In February 2023, major supermarkets in the UK had to ration some produce, including tomatoes, lettuce and peppers, due to low supplies from extreme weather. The weather included higher-than-usual snow and rainfall in countries that UK sources some of its fruits and vegetables from in the winter months.

Depleted vegetable shelves at a supermarket in Manchester, Britain on March 2, 2023. Jon Super / Xinhua via Getty Images

In fall 2024, the UK reported its second-worst harvest season ever recorded, with crops like wine grapes, wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape all experiencing declining yields because of periods of flooding and drought throughout the year.

It’s uncertain what the future of farming in the UK will look like, but with impacts from climate change already affecting crops, the agriculture industry will need to consider ways to build resiliency in the face of these changes.

“Major changes to agricultural systems and diets can take decades to implement and so our long-term projections provide important information well ahead of time for farmers, supermarkets, researchers, policymakers and the public on the opportunities, challenges and trade-offs involved in adapting to the impacts of climate change,” said Rachel Warren, co-author of the study and professor at UEA’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

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Scientists Identify Bacteria That Can Break Down Some PFAS and Their Byproducts

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have taken on the nickname “forever chemicals” for their inability to break down in the environment. These chemicals, which are found in everything from food packaging to camping gear, are popular for their stain-, moisture- and grease-resistant properties, but they have been found to accumulate in the environment and in human bodies. 

But now, researchers may have cracked a way to break down these chemicals and even some of their byproducts, which can be toxic, by using strains of bacteria.

A team of scientists led by University of Buffalo researchers found that the bacteria Labrys portucalensis F11 was effective at breaking down at least three types of PFAS, including the most common forever chemical, perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), as well as 5:3 fluorotelomer carboxylic acid (FTCA) and 6:2 fluorotelomer sulfonate (FTS).

Professor Diana Aga, the study’s corresponding author, says the bacteria could one day be deployed to break down PFAS in wastewater treatment plants. Meredith Forrest Kulwicki / University at Buffalo

The bacteria was the most effective at breaking down PFOS, a chemical that was designated as hazardous by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2024. It degraded more than 90% of the compound over a 100-day exposure and removed up to 96% of the PFOS after 194 days. During the first 100 days, the bacteria broke down as much as 58% of FTCA and 21% of FTS. The scientists published their findings in the journal Science of The Total Environment.

“The bond between carbon and fluorine atoms in PFAS is very strong, so most microbes cannot use it as an energy source,” Diana Aga, corresponding author of the study, said in a statement. “The F11 bacterial strain developed the ability to chop away the fluorine and eat the carbon.”

In addition to breaking down the PFAS, the bacteria also broke down the metabolites that occur after the PFAS degradation, with Labrys portucalensis F11 even breaking down or fully removing fluorine in some of the study results. 

“Many previous studies have only reported the degradation of PFAS, but not the formation of metabolites. We not only accounted for PFAS byproducts but found some of them continued to be further degraded by the bacteria,” explained Mindula Wijayahena, first author of the study and a Ph.D. student in Aga’s lab.

Mindula Wijayahena, the study’s first author, analyzed the samples containing PFAS and the bacteria following incubation in Portugal. Meredith Forrest Kulwicki / University at Buffalo

This particular bacteria strain has been previously revealed to degrade fluorobenzene, a flammable and hazardous compound sometimes found in insecticides.

The discovery offers a novel method for cleaning up PFAS; other methods have primarily focused on adsorbing and removing the PFAS, but the bacteria could help break down these chemicals and minimize the amount of time they spend in the environment.

A 2024 study uncovered a way to track PFAS contamination to the source, and a separate study published in 2023 a potential water treatment that would use adsorbing materials and electro- and photochemical processes to destroy PFAS contaminants in drinking water supplies. Yet another separate study published in 2022 found a plant-based material that could help adsorb PFAS, which would then be digested by fungus.

The study authors using Labrys portucalensis F11 for PFAS metabolization will continue their research, noting that although the bacteria did break down the PFAS, it took nearly 200 days, and that was without other food sources present.

“We want to investigate the impact of placing alternative carbon sources alongside the PFAS. However, if that carbon source is too abundant and easy to degrade, the bacteria may not need to touch the PFAS at all,” Aga said. “We need to give the F11 colonies enough food to grow, but not enough food that they lose the incentive to convert PFAS into a usable energy source.”

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World’s Largest Iceberg, A23a, Is Moving Toward South Georgia Island, Threatening Wildlife

The biggest iceberg on Earth is once again on the move, on a path that could cause it to collide with South Georgia, an island in the South Atlantic Ocean.

As the BBC reported, the iceberg could ground and break into smaller pieces if it hits the island. As of the morning of Jan. 23, the iceberg is about 173 miles (280 kilometers) from South Georgia. If the iceberg hits and breaks down, it could disrupt feeding access and become deadly for local wildlife.

As the world’s largest iceberg, A23a measures around 1,500 square miles and weighs nearly one trillion metric tons. The iceberg previously broke free from its anchored location between South America and Antarctica in November 2023. Prior to that, it had broken off from the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in 1986 before becoming stuck near Antarctica.

However, in August 2024, the iceberg became trapped inside an ocean vortex before floating free again by December 2024, Smithsonian Magazine reported.

Now, it is on track to cause some disruptions on South Georgia. While there is no permanent human population on the island, it is a biodiverse hub of marine life, tundra plants, penguins, seals, reindeer, and other animals, Britannica reported. The area is also important for fishing and scientific research.

“South Georgia sits in iceberg alley so impacts are to be expected for both fisheries and wildlife, and both have a great capacity to adapt,” marine ecologist Mark Belchier told the BBC.

While the iceberg could potentially impact wildlife, scientists can still learn from its movements and are currently investigating how the A23a iceberg can affect both land and sea, including how its ice melt influences oceanic carbon cycles.

“This isn’t just water like we drink. It’s full of nutrients and chemicals, as well as tiny animals like phytoplankton frozen inside,” Laura Taylor, a Ph.D. researcher at the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Cambridge Department of Earth Sciences, told the BBC.

An A23a iceberg infographic created in Ankara, Turkiye on Jan. 23, 2025. Omar Zaghloul / Anadolu via Getty Images

A23a’s path toward South Georgia is likely to be one of many icebergs to float around the area in the future. While scientists don’t attribute the initial break of A23a from Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf to climate change, these massive icebergs breaking free from ice sheets could become more common as atmospheric and oceanic temperatures rise, Smithsonian Magazine reported. How the icebergs will impact the ecosystems they pass through is still to be determined.

“We know that these giant icebergs can provide nutrients to the waters they pass through, creating thriving ecosystems in otherwise less productive areas,” Taylor said in a statement. “What we don’t know is what difference particular icebergs, their scale, and their origins can make to that process.”

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Geoengineering Technology to Remove Methane From Atmosphere Deemed Ineffective in New Study

A type of geoengineering technology designed to oxidize atmospheric methane is not effective enough to reduce the impact of emissions, a new study has revealed.

Atmospheric scientists at the University of Utah were not convinced of a recent proposal to put hydrogen peroxide into the atmosphere as a way to oxidize methane emissions and improve air quality. 

To test whether this method could work, the scientists used GEOS-Chem, a global chemical-transport 3D model, to model the use of aerosolized hydrogen peroxide, which would be sprayed from 50 600-meter-tall towers around North America.

Researchers modeled what would happen if each tower sprayed 612 grams of the hydrogen peroxide per second for 10 hours daily over the course of one year, a scenario based on a real proposal by an unnamed company.

However, the models showed that this scenario did not make much of a dent in the methane levels, and the technology could even lead to higher amounts of particulate matter pollution in areas that already had poor winter air quality. The scientists published their findings in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

“This proposed solution just won’t remove any meaningful amount of methane from the atmosphere. It’s not going to solve global warming. At most, we found 50 towers could reduce 0.01% of annual anthropogenic methane emissions,” Jessica Haskins, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at University of Utah, said in a statement. “You’d need about 352,000 of them to remove 50% of anthropogenic methane. It’s an insane number. And if you did 50 high-emission towers, you’d still need about 43,000.”

As Haskins explained, the hydrogen peroxide would break down in the presence of sunlight and produce hydroxyl radicals (OH), which speed up the conversion of methane into carbon dioxide. While carbon dioxide emissions are also a concern for climate change, methane has a greater warming potential of up to 84 times compared to carbon dioxide, according to the European Commission.

But in the environment, the researchers explained that the hydroxyl radicals tend to react more to common double-bonded compounds found in the atmosphere, rather than the single-bonded methane molecules.

“OH doesn’t react fast with methane,” Haskins explained. “It’s reacting with so many other things.”

According to the study, multiple companies and organizations are exploring geoengineering to oxidize methane and other greenhouse gas emissions, primarily through iron-salt aerosols and hydrogen peroxide.

However, more research is being done to reveal how these potential technologies could actually impact the atmosphere and climate change.

A separate study, pre-printed in December 2024, also used modeling to explore how using tropospheric hydroxyl radicals (OH) or chlorine (Cl) in the atmosphere could decrease greenhouse gas emissions, including methane. The author concluded that using hydrogen peroxide was likely not feasible based on the amount needed to actually decrease atmospheric methane levels. Further, the research showed that all geoengineering methods analyzed in the study led to an increase in particulate matter pollution, which even exceeded air quality standards in some locations.

“We could buy ourselves about 50 years and avoid some of the immediate impacts of climate change if we did this, but no one had actually previously done any side-effects studies to see what was going to happen,” Haskins said. “This is very first paper to assess any air quality side effects of such geoengineering solutions.”

The study authors are not completely discrediting these technologies, but they do warn that more research and consideration is necessary before actually executing these methods.

“There’s potential that future research could show that the air quality impacts of placing these towers close to methane point sources is minimal if they’re activated at certain times of the year, and far from large population centers,” said Alfred Mayhew, co-author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher with the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy at University of Utah. “If that’s the case, then this technology (or similar approaches) could play a very small role in combatting warming, but it’s clear from our work that the air-quality side effects should be placed as a central consideration for any proposed real-world implementation of technology like this.”

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