Ripples In A Teacup

 Unexpectedly, January 2025 has been declared the world's warmest January on record . Scientists had anticipated some cooling of global temperatures due to the end of the most recent El Niño event which is known to boost the amount of heat in the atmosphere. However, this was not the case. Western Europe , as well as parts of Italy, Scandinavia, the Baltic countries, Alaska, Canada, central and eastern Russia, eastern Australia, southeastern Africa, and southern Brazil had “wetter-than-average conditions” in January 2025, marked by “heavy precipitation” and flooding in some regions. On the other hand, drier than average conditions were recorded in the northern UK and Ireland, eastern Spain and north of the Black Sea. But southwestern United States, northern Mexico, northern Africa, the Middle East, across Central Asia and in eastern China, southern Africa, southern South America and Australia had drier-than-average conditions. January 2025 was 1.75°C above pre-industrial levels...

  I’m not meant to be blogging, since my final Board exams are almost upon me, but when Sunita Willams, who’s been stuck on the International Space Station for over 10 months, performed a spacewalk in order to replace a planar reflector 260 miles above the South Pacific Ocean , I had to. The spacewalk done on January 16 th was Sunita’s first spacewalk in 12 years , and the eighth in her career .   NASA has scheduled a second spacewalk on January 23 , from 8:15 a.m. onwards. During the second mission, Sunita and Nick Hague will remove a radio frequency group antenna assembly from the station's truss, and collect samples of surface material for analysis from the Destiny laboratory and the Quest airlock to see whether microorganisms may exist on the exterior of the orbital complex. They will also prepare a spare elbow joint for the Canadarm2robotic arm in the event it is needed for a replacement. Looks like I was panicking over Sunita unnecessarily. In case you m...

I was planning to take a break from blogging and focus on my final exams which are less than five weeks away, but the wildfires in LA make it impossible for me to do so. I always thought wildfires are a summer-time hazard and we are in the midst of what’s meant to be winter! Some learnings for me: A combination of high temperatures, dryness, and high winds give rise to conditions ripe for fires. We are not meant to have these conditions in the middle of winter, but we do now. And when we do, the smaller spark can set off a large-scale wildfire. In 2024, Southern California had an exceptionally hot summer . In the past, a hot summer is usually followed by fall and early winter rains. This year, the rains went missing and left the landscape parched and ready to burn. Southern California experienced two consecutive years of above-average rainfall prior to this dry spell , leading to an overgrowth of vegetation, which, when dried out, became highly flammable fuel. Wildfires are getti...

NASA has now announced that Sunita Williams will return to earth only by late March or April in 2025. Williams   had flown to the International Space Station aboard a Boeing Starliner in June for what was originally meant to be a 7-to-10-day mission. The expected short stay has turned out to be a months-long ordeal when the Boeing Starliner developed safety glitches and was deemed unfit to return them to Earth. At first, Williams’ stay was initially extended until February 2025. Now, NASA has announced a further delay to late March or April next year . Williams   and Butch Willmore are to return to Earth along with astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who will form part of a four-member Crew-10 mission going to ISS. The Crew-10 mission is expected to take off in late March2025. Originally slated to launch in February, the Crew-10 mission’s launch has been delayed to late March since more time is needed to prepare the new (Dragon) spacecraf...

There has been a regime change in Syria. The Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is not an ideal choice to lead the country , but they are in power now, whether we like it or not. It is unclear to me if they were supported by Turkiye or any other country. What’s even more unclear to me is the fate of the women in Syria. It was well-known that Bashar al-Assad’s regime was cruel and despotic and now the atrocities that have come to light make it very clear that Assad was even more cruel than what people outside Syria knew . However, the Assads, father and son, were relatively secular and did not deny women in Syria basic freedoms, such as the freedom to wear attire of their choice or to work outside their households. When the Taliban recaptured power in Afghanistan a few years ago , women were suddenly in a very dark place. Will the same happen in Syria? Hopefully, No. Just a day after capturing Syria’s capital Dec. 8, the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) felt compelle...

  Our planet has been warming up at an unprecedented rate . For the record, last year was the warmest. Ever. Scientists have been scrambling to understand exactly why. We know that the extraordinary heat is fueled by the burning of fossil fuels and El Niño . However, these are not sufficient to explain the unusually rapid temperature rise. Now a new study  published in the journal Science says it has identified one more culprit, namely, the absence of clouds. Clouds reflect sunlight back into space and the fewer clouds results in more sunlight reaching the earth. “Albedo” is the fraction of lightthat a surface reflects . If all the light is reflected, the albedo is equal to 1. If 30% is reflected, the albedo is 0.3. The albedo of Earth's surface (atmosphere, ocean, land surfaces) determines how much incoming solar energy, or light, is immediately reflected back to space. This can have an impact on climate.  Apparently, this recent rapid surge in warming is be...