Ice drains from the Greenland down deep narrow fjords. This photo is taken from BBC.

Nuuk, Greenland (BBN) - Scientists have produced a stunning visualisation of Greenland – without its ice cover.

It is made from decades of survey data that show the position and shape of the territory’s bedrock, and the surrounding seafloor, reports BBC.

This is critical information needed to understand how the huge island might respond to a warming world.

Were all the ice on Greenland to melt, it would raise global sea-levels by 7.42m (24.34ft).

This is one of the refined statistics to come out of the new compilation of data.

It is a simple calculation: if you know the elevation of the top of the ice sheet and you subtract from that the height of the bedrock - you get a volume: 2.9 million cubic km.

"It gives us seven cm more of sea-level potential - a little bit more than we thought, but not a whole lot more," explained Dr Mathieu Morlighem from the University of California at Irvine, US.

"And the reason for that is that although we do find deeper fjords and deeper valleys, they're very narrow and constrained along the sides of the ice sheet. The interior hasn't change a lot, however."

Greenland is currently losing about 260 billion tonnes of ice to the ocean every year. It sounds a lot - and it is, but no-one is expecting an immediate collapse - not for centuries, at least.

Nonetheless, some of the answers as to how fast changes may come will be in this map's data.

"If you're trying to model an ice sheet, the single most important input is ice thickness," said Prof Jonathan Bamber. "Why's that? Because velocity is proportional to the fourth power of thickness. So differences in thickness make for huge differences in the velocity of the ice in our models; and to things like thermodynamics, because thick ice is warmer than thin ice, and so on," the Bristol University, UK, glaciologist told BBC News.

The colourful map is being distributed here at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the largest annual gathering of Earth and planetary scientists.

It is a dramatic rendering of an initiative called BedMachine which has sought to pull together everything we know about what lies under and around the giant ice sheet.

Scientists working on this project published a summary of their findings in a paper in Geophysical Research Letters last month, and now the British Antarctic Survey's (BAS) mapping department, at the request of Prof Bamber, has put the data in a visually understandable form.

Interesting features to peruse include the channelled terrain feeding the mighty Jakobshavn Glacier in the west.

Jakobshavn spews countless icebergs into the North Atlantic, and is responsible for draining 6.5% of the ice sheet.

Look at the spine of Greenland and you will see the mega-canyon that runs northwards towards another of the territory's big iceberg exporters - Petermann Glacier.

In studying the hidden landscape, scientists are now pretty confident that both ice streams sit on top of valley systems that were cut by rivers that flowed across Greenland long before there was an ice sheet. And it is clear also that meltwater continues to run down these valleys, under the glaciers, lubricating their flow.

The data for the map comes from three principal sources - from airborne radar that is able to penetrate the ice sheet to see the shape of the bed below; from ships surveying offshore, using sonar to map sea-bottom depths; and then there is a degree of modelling in some of the hard-to-reach places in fjords, explains BAS map-maker Dr Peter Fretwell.

"Around the coast it can be very difficult to get radio echo soundings (radar) because the surface is often crevassed and the radio waves won't penetrate through that. So in some fjords and bays, modelling is used, based on the speed of the glaciers. From their speed, you can estimate their thickness," he said.

Wherever possible, though, scientists have endeavoured to get up the fjords to acquire direct data.

This has been the imperative of the US-led OMG (Oceans Melting Greenland) project that is surveying large sections of the coastline.

OMG is finding that many of the glaciers terminating in fjords are so thick they are at risk of melting from the intrusion of warm ocean water at depth.

Dr Kelly Hogan, a BAS co-author on the BedMachine paper, found a similar picture when she joined an expedition to study Petermann.

"Most of the losses for Petermann Glacier, for sure, about 80%, are the result of warm ocean water getting under the glacier and melting it from below - not from iceberg calving," she said. "But if you get increased melting from below, you can get big channels forming on the underside of the floating front of the glacier and this can lead to thinning and fracturing that then make the glacier potentially more predisposed to breaking up."

Prof Bamber cautions, however, that there is a lot of complexity bound up in the new map.

Some of the mouths to the deep fjords, he says, have tall ridges, or sills, that act as barriers to the invasion of warm bottom-water.

"What we're starting to understand is that adjacent marine-terminating glaciers that are experiencing the same changes in forcing - in other words, the same changes in the ocean - can respond in very different ways, depending on the geometry of the fjord in which they lie.

"So, the better we can constrain these geometries, the better we will be able to model the interaction between the ice sheet and the ocean. At AGU, there are lots of sessions on this interaction. It's kind of the big thing at the moment," the Bristol scientist told BBC News.

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2,000 delegates gathered at La Seine Musicale for the One Planet Summit (Pic: Flickr/Daniel Engelvin)

Paris, France (BBN) - President Emmanuel Macron sought to inject some urgency into international climate efforts on Tuesday with an announcement-packed summit in Paris.

Shifting finance flows from dirty energy to clean was a major theme, with moves from the World Bank and investor networks responsible for $26 trillion of assets worldwide, reports Climate Home News.

More than 60 heads of state showed up, forming coalitions to drive action in various sectors. These included phasing out coal, cutting emissions from shipping and building back stronger from Caribbean hurricanes.

Macron reminded delegates that two years after countries adopted the Paris climate agreement, the world was on course for more than 3C of warming. That exceeds the goal of holding temperature rise “well below 2C” and is projected to wipe some small island states off the map.

Donald Trump’s plan to pull the US out “weakened” the agreement, he admitted. “What we have to do in the coming hours is very tangibly, each one of us, explain the firm commitments we’re making to change what seems to be an unavoidable destiny…
“We are here not for words but for deeds because we are facing an ongoing emergency.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres emphasised the importance of getting money flowing towards climate-friendly infrastructure, saying: “Finance is the difference between winning and losing the war.”
The World Bank’s Jim Kim credited Macron for motivating one of the biggest reveals of the summit: a pledge to stop financing oil and gas drilling projects from 2019 (with a caveat for “exceptional circumstances”).
That showed “true leadership”, said Shelagh Whitley, climate and energy expert at the Overseas Development Institute. “There is now global consensus that energy access for the poor is best provided through clean energy and that shared prosperity can only be assured through ambitious action on climate change.”
In the private sector, 225 investors launched Climate Action 100+, a campaign to bring the world’s 100 biggest corporate climate polluters in line with the Paris goals.
The announcement followed a day after Exxon Mobil bowed to shareholder pressure and agreed to publish analysis of how its oil and gas assets will fare in a 2C world.
CARBON NEUTRALITY: 14 countries including Germany, Ethiopia and Costa Rica promised to develop plans to slash or offset their emissions entirely by 2050
COAL: an alliance led by the UK and Canada to phase out coal announced new members including Sweden, California and EDF, taking the total to 26 countries, 8 sub-national governments and 24 companies
SHIPPING: 34 countries including Canada, France and the Marshall Islands (which has the world’s second largest flag registry) called on the International Maritime Organization to curb shipping emissions in line with the Paris agreement
RESILIENCE: Caribbean leaders, in partnership with development banks, revealed an $8bn investment plan for the region to build back stronger from hurricanes
The “One Planet Summit” was a major political project for Macron, defending the Paris agreement’s legacy from Trump. It got a mixed reception.
Climate policy veteran Paul Bledsoe, who served in Bill Clinton’s White House, praised Macron’s attention to the climate science and willingness to keep the issue high on the international agenda.
“I really think that Macron recognises that climate protection is the single most important economic and security issue today. He has the opportunity to inspire a new generation of leaders,” Bledsoe told Climate Home News.
Critics found the endless procession of speeches left little room for dialogue – or developing country priorities.
“This summit is very important as a signal of progression of the Paris Agreement,” said Congolese climate negotiator Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, “but it is a little bit too scripted, it is a little bit too antiseptic.”
In the run-up to the event, poorer countries hoped for new money to support their struggle with the impacts of climate change.
The UK brought £140bn ($186bn) to fight illegal logging of tropical forests and boost resilience to climate-related disasters. The EU said €9bn ($11bn) of its “external investment plan” for Africa and neighbouring countries was targeted at sustainable projects.
But nobody volunteered to plug the $2bn gap in the Green Climate Fund left by Trump axing the US contribution. And there was little visibility of the path to the $100bn of annual climate finance the developed world has promised to mobilise by 2020.
Mpanu Mpanu told Climate Home News many projects that vulnerable communities needed were simply not attractive to the private sector. “We know that public finance will not be sufficient and it needs to be used to leverage where the real money is,” he said. “But for some of us developing countries, where we don’t have a strong business environment for private investment, having clarity on levels of public finance is what gives us comfort.”
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A Google data centre. US researchers expect power consumption to triple in the next five years as one billion more people come online in developing countries. Photo: Google/Rex

California, US (BBN) - The communications industry could use 20% of all the world’s electricity by 2025, hampering attempts to meet climate change targets and straining grids as demand by power-hungry server farms storing digital data from billions of smartphones, tablets and internet-connected devices grows exponentially.

The industry has long argued that it can considerably reduce carbon emissions by increasing efficiency and reducing waste, but academics are challenging industry assumptions, reports The Guardian.

A new paper, due to be published by US researchers later this month, will forecast that information and communications technology could create up to 3.5% of global emissions by 2020 – surpassing aviation and shipping – and up to 14% 2040, around the same proportion as the US today.

Global computing power demand from internet-connected devices, high resolution video streaming, emails, surveillance cameras and a new generation of smart TVs is increasing 20% a year, consuming roughly 3-5% of the world’s electricity in 2015, says Swedish researcher Anders Andrae.

In an update to a 2016 peer-reviewed study, Andrae found that without dramatic increases in efficiency, the ICT industry could use 20% of all electricity and emit up to 5.5% of the world’s carbon emissions by 2025. This would be more than any country except the US, China and India.
He expects industry power demand to increase from 200-300 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity a year now, to 1,200 or even 3,000TWh by 2025. Data centres on their own could produce 1.9 gigatonnes (Gt) (or 3.2% of the global total) of carbon emissions, he says.
“The situation is alarming,” said Andrae, who works for the Chinese communications technology firm Huawei. “We have a tsunami of data approaching. Everything which can be is being digitalised. It is a perfect storm. 5G [the fifth generation of mobile technology] is coming, IP [internet protocol] traffic is much higher than estimated, and all cars and machines, robots and artificial intelligence are being digitalised, producing huge amounts of data which is stored in data centres.”
US researchers expect power consumption to triple in the next five years as one billion more people come online in developing countries, and the “internet of things” (IoT), driverless cars, robots, video surveillance and artificial intelligence grows exponentially in rich countries.
“There will be 8.4bn connected things in 2017, setting the stage for 20.4bn internet of things devices to be deployed by 2020,” says the leading internet analyst firm Gartner.
The industry has encouraged the idea that the digital transformation of economies and large-scale energy efficiencies will slash global emissions by 20% or more, but the scale and speed of the revolution has been a surprise.
Global internet traffic will increase nearly threefold in the next five years says the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index, a leading industry tracker of internet use.
“More than one billion new internet users are expected, growing from three billion in 2015 to 4.1bn by 2020. Over the next five years global IP networks will support up to 10bn new devices and connections, increasing from 16.3bn in 2015 to 26bn by 2020,” says Cisco.
A 2016 Berkeley laboratory report for the US government estimated the country’s data centres, which held about 350m terabytes of data in 2015, could together need over 100TWh of electricity a year by 2020. This is the equivalent of about 10 large nuclear power stations.
Data centre capacity is also rocketing in Europe and Asia with London, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam expected to add nearly 200MW of consumption in 2017, or the power equivalent of a medium size power station.
“We are seeing massive growth of data centres in all regions. Trends that started in the US are now standard in Europe. Asia is taking off massively,” says Mitual Patel, head of EMEA data centre research at global investment firm CBRE.
“The volume of data being handled by such centres is growing at unprecedented rates. They are seen as a key element in the next stage of growth for the ICT industry”, says Peter Corcoran, a researcher at the university of Ireland, Galway.
Using renewable energy sounds good but no one else benefits from what will be generated, and it skews national attempts to reduce emissions
Ireland, which with Denmark is becoming a data base for the world’s biggest tech companies, has 350MW connected to data centres but this is expected to triple to over 1,000MW, or the equivalent of a nuclear power station size plant, in the next five years.
Permission has been given for a further 550MW to be connected and 750MW more is in the pipeline, says Eirgrid, the country’s main grid operator.
“If all enquiries connect, the data centre load could account for 20% of Ireland’s peak demand,” says Eirgrid in its All-Island Generation Capacity Statement 2017-2026 report.
The data will be stored in vast new one million square feet or larger “hyper-scale” server farms, which companies are now building. The scale of these farms is huge; a single $1bn Apple data centre planned for Athenry in Co Galway, expects to eventually use 300MW of electricity, or over 8% of the national capacity and more than the daily entire usage of Dublin. It will require 144 large diesel generators as back up for when the wind does not blow.
Pressed by Greenpeace and other environment groups, large tech companies with a public face , including Google, Facebook, Apple, Intel and Amazon, have promised to use renewable energy to power data centres. In most cases they are buying it off grid but some are planning to build solar and wind farms close to their centres.
Greenpeace IT analyst Gary Cook says only about 20% of the electricity used in the world’s data centres is so far renewable, with 80% of the power still coming from fossil fuels.
“The good news is that some companies have certainly embraced their responsibility, and are moving quite aggressively to meet their rapid growth with renewable energy. Others are just growing aggressively,” he says.
Architect David Hughes, who has challenged Apple’s new centre in Ireland, says the government should not be taken in by the promises.
“Using renewable energy sounds good but no one else benefits from what will be generated, and it skews national attempts to reduce emissions. Data centres … have eaten into any progress we made to achieving Ireland’s 40% carbon emissions reduction target. They are just adding to demand and reducing our percentage. They are getting a free ride at the Irish citizens’ expense,” says Hughes.
Eirgrid estimates indicate that by 2025, one in every 3kWh generated in Ireland could be going to a data centre, he added. “We have sleepwalked our way into a 10% increase in electricity consumption.”
Fossil fuel plants may have to be kept open longer to power other parts of the country and the costs will fall on the consumer, he says. “We will have to upgrade our grid and build more power generation both wind and backup generation for when the wind isn’t there and this all goes onto people’s bills.”
Under a best case scenario, says Andrae, there will be massive continuous improvements of power saving, renewable energy will become the norm and the explosive growth in demand for data will slow.
But equally, he says, demand could continue to rise dramatically if the industry keeps growing at 20% a year, driverless cars each with dozens of embedded sensors, and cypto-currencies like Bitcoin which need vast amounts of computer power become mainstream.
“There is a real risk that it all gets out of control. Policy makers need to keep a close eye on this,” says Andrae.
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The Thomas fire has the potential to be one of the worst in California's history

California, US (BBN) - The most destructive wildfire raging in southern California has expanded significantly, scorching an area larger than New York City.

The Thomas fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties has consumed 230,000 acres in the past week, reports BBC.

Fanned by strong winds, it has become the fifth largest wildfire in recorded state history after it grew by more than 50,000 acres in a day.

Residents in coastal beach communities have been ordered to evacuate.

On Sunday, firefighters reported that 15% of the blaze had been contained but were forced to downgrade that to 10% as it continued to spread.
"This is a menacing fire, certainly, but we have a lot of people working very diligently to bring it under control," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.
The other fires hitting California are largely controlled, but 200,000 people have evacuated their homes and hundreds of buildings have been destroyed since 4 December.
Evacuation orders were issued overnight on Sunday for parts of Carpinteria close to Los Padres National Forest, about 100 miles (160km) northwest of Los Angeles.
Forecasters said wind speeds were expected to increase throughout the day, before dying down again overnight.
The local fire department tweeted pictures of a wall of flames advancing on homes on the outskirts of Carpinteria early on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, actor Rob Lowe, who lives in Santa Barbara, a city of close to 100,000 people, tweeted that he was praying for his town as fires closed in.
"Firefighters making brave stands. Could go either way. Packing to evacuate now," Lowe added.
California has spent the past seven days battling wildfires. Six large blazes, and other smaller ones, erupted on Monday night in southern California.
The Thomas Fire - named according to where it started, near the Thomas Aquinas College - is by far the largest of the fires.
They swept through tens of thousands of acres in a matter of hours, driven by extreme weather, including low humidity, high winds and parched ground.
The authorities issued a purple alert - the highest level warning - amid what it called "extremely critical fire weather", while US President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency.
On Saturday, California Governor Jerry Brown described the situation as "the new normal" and predicted vast fires, fuelled by climate change, "could happen every year or every few years".
Several firefighters have been injured, but only one person has died - a 70-year-old woman who was found dead in her car on an evacuation route.
There are also fears the blaze will seriously hit California's multi-million dollar agricultural industry.
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Photo: NDTV

New Delhi, India (BBN) - The national capital experienced a cold day on Saturday with the minimum temperature dropping to 7.6 degrees Celsius, a notch below the season's average.

The maximum temperature was recorded at 27.2 degrees Celsius, three notches above normal, said a Met department official, reports NDTV.

The humidity oscillated between 84 and 31 per cent.

The Met office has forecast clear skies along with mist and shallow fog for today.
"Maximum and minimum temperatures are expected to hover around 26 and 10 degrees Celsius respectively," the weatherman said.

The maximum and minimum temperatures on Friday settled at 25.2 and 9.4 degrees Celsius.
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Satellite imagery shows the vast Thomas Fire, north of Los Angeles, which has spread as far as the Pacific coast. Photo: NASA/EPA

California, US (BBN) - Devastating wildfires fuelled by climate change are "the new normal", California's governor has said.

Jerry Brown said vast fires, such as the ones that have ravaged southern California in recent days, "could happen every year or every few years", reports BBC.

"We're facing a new reality in this state," he said. Mr Brown made the comments after surveying the damage in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles.

Thousands of firefighters have been battling the fires since Monday.
Mr Brown, a Democrat who has attacked the Trump administration's stance on climate change, said: "We're facing a new reality in this state, where fires threaten people's lives, their properties, their neighbourhoods, and of course billions and billions of dollars.

"With climate change, some scientists are saying southern California is literally burning up."
The largest wildfire - known as the Thomas Fire - burned close to 150,000 acres, an area of land roughly the size of Chicago, Reuters reported.
On Saturday, firefighters began to make progress in containing the blaze.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Six large wildfires, and some smaller blazes, erupted on Monday night in southern California. Fanned by high winds, they swept through tens of thousands of acres in a matter of hours.
The fires have been driven by extreme weather, including low humidity and parched ground.
Authorities issued a purple alert - the highest level warning - amid what it called "extremely critical fire weather".
The largest of the blazes, the Thomas fire in Ventura County, spread as far as the Pacific coast and swept across 180 square miles (466 sq km).
About 5,700 firefighters were brought in to battle the brushfires, with some drafted in from neighbouring states to help.
US President Donald Trump issued a state of emergency to "help alleviate the hardship and suffering that the emergency may inflict."
HOW MUCH DAMAGE IS THERE?
Hundreds of buildings have been destroyed and vast areas of land have been badly scorched.
Three firefighters were injured and one death was reported after a 70-year-old woman was found dead in her car on an evacuation route.
Nearly 200,000 residents were evacuated from their homes, with many forced to flee in the middle of the night as the flames rapidly spread.
There are fears the blaze will seriously hit California's multi-million dollar agricultural industry.
About 90% of US avocados are grown in California, and much of the state's crop has been wiped out.
WHAT NEXT?
The strong winds subsided on Saturday and firefighters finally made some progress in containing the fires.
But forecasters expect the winds to pick up again on Sunday meaning they are under pressure to extinguish them quickly.
"We continue to make real good progress on all of these fires. But we're far from being out of the woods on any of them," fire department director Ken Pimlott said.
Elsewhere, several evacuation orders have been lifted and residents are beginning to return home to assess the damage.
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Mount’s Bay looking towards Penzance. The town’s plastic-free status was confirmed after the council voted to support the scheme. Photograph: Alamy

Penzance , UK (BBN) - A Cornish town has become the first community in the UK to be awarded “plastic-free” status after dozens of residents and business people backed a grassroots scheme aimed at helping clean up oceans and beaches.

As part of a campaign being run by the marine conservation charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), Penzance has been given “plastic-free coastlines approved” status, reports The Guardian.

Shops, cafes and visitor attractions have reduced single-use plastics and children and adults have taken part in beach cleans. The town’s status was confirmed after the town council voted to support the initiative.

Another 100 communities across the UK are taking part in SAS’s plastic-free coastlines scheme and working towards the status, which has been inspired by the fair trade and transition town schemes.

Rachel Yates, an SAS regional representative in Penzance, said she had been impressed by how keen people were to take part.
UK considers tax on single-use plastics to tackle ocean pollution
Among those who have signed up to Plastic Free Penzance is the Cornish Hen Deli. Owner Sarah Shaw said she was using biodegradable pots, wooden cutlery, paper straws and cornstarch plates for outside catering jobs.
She said: “It’s hugely important because one of the reasons a lot of people live down here is the connection to the sea and the elements. You’re so much more aware of what’s going on that the thought of not doing something about it is awful.”
Flo Gibson, manager of the Jubilee open-air pool cafe, said reducing plastics was becoming easier. She said: “People are becoming more aware of plastic and the negative effects. Suppliers are also a lot more aware.”
Plastic Free Penzance’s next moves include setting up a plastic-free clinic to spread the word further and speaking to holiday home owners. They will also lobby local supermarket managers, although the emphasis is on changing behaviour on a local level and leaving national campaigning to SAS leaders.
To win the plastic free coastlines approved status, Penzance had to complete five objectives set out by SAS such as setting up a steering group and organising beach cleans. Its status was confirmed after Penzance town council passed a motion on Monday pledging to support all plastic-free initiatives in the area and to lead by example through removing single-use plastics from their own premises.
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The leatherback turtle is the largest turtle on the planet. David Attenborough travels to Trinidad to meet a community trying to save these giants. Photo: Gavin Thurston

Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago (BBN) - The world’s oceans are under the greatest threat in history, according to Sir David Attenborough.

The seas are a vital part of the global ecosystem, leaving the future of all life on Earth dependent on humanity’s actions, he says, reports The Guardian.

Attenborough will issue the warning in the final episode of the Blue Planet 2 series, which details the damage being wreaked in seas around the globe by climate change, plastic pollution, overfishing and even noise.

Previous BBC nature series presented by Attenborough have sometimes been criticised for treading too lightly around humanity’s damage to the planet. But the final episode of the latest series is entirely dedicated to the issue.

“For years we thought the oceans were so vast and the inhabitants so infinitely numerous that nothing we could do could have an effect upon them. But now we know that was wrong,” says Attenborough. “It is now clear our actions are having a significant impact on the world’s oceans. [They] are under threat now as never before in human history. Many people believe the oceans have reached a crisis point.”
Attenborough says: “Surely we have a responsibility to care for our blue planet. The future of humanity, and indeed all life on Earth, now depends on us.”
BBC executives were reportedly concerned about the series appearing to become politicised and ordered a fact-check, which it passed. The series producer, Mark Brownlow, said it was impossible to overlook the harm being caused in the oceans: “We just couldn’t ignore it – it wouldn’t be a truthful portrayal of the world’s oceans. We are not out there to campaign. We are just showing it as it is and it is quite shocking.”
Brownlow said much of the footage shot of albatross chicks being killed by the plastic they mistake for food were too upsetting to broadcast. The programme also filmed on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016, witnessing the worst bleaching event in its history.
Climate change is causing ocean temperatures to rise, bleaching the corals vital as nurseries for ocean life, and waters are warming rapidly in Antarctica too. Jon Copley, from the University of Southampton and one of many scientists appearing in the final episode, says. “What shocks me about what all the data shows is how fast things are changing here [in Antarctica]. We’re headed into uncharted territory”
Carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning also dissolves in seawater, making it more acidic. Prof Chris Langdon, at the University of Miami, says it is “beyond question” that the problem is manmade. “The shells and the reefs really, truly are dissolving. The reefs could be gone by the end of the century.”
The noise from shipping, tourism, and fossil fuel exploration is also revealed as harming sea life. Steve Simpson, at the University of Exeter, who works on coral reefs in southeast Asia, says: “There is a whole language underwater that we are only just getting a handle on. They use sound to attract a mate, to scare away a predator. You hear pops and grunts and gurgles and snaps.” He shows the noise of motorboats distracting saddleback clownfishes from warning against a predator attack.
The Blue Planet 2 team found plastic everywhere they filmed, even in the most remote locations such as South Georgia island, an important breeding site for wandering albatrosses. There, Lucy Quinn from the British Antarctic Survey says many chicks are killed by plastic fed to them by their parents, including one young bird whose stomach was punctured by a plastic toothpick.
Overfishing, which remains prevalent around the world, is also addressed. “Every night thousands of miles of fishing lines laden with hooks are set – there is enough, it is said, to wrap twice around the world,” says Attenborough. But the programme also highlights some success stories, such as the revival of sperm whales off Sri Lanka and herring stocks off Norway after bans or restrictions were put in place.
Attenborough also visits Trinidad, where the conservationist Len Peters has transformed the prospects of the giant leatherback turtles who come to the island to lay their eggs and whose numbers have fallen catastrophically in recent decades. “I grew up in a house where turtle meat was normal,” says Peters. But his work to end turtle hunting and encourage tourism has seen numbers rise from 30-40 to more than 500.
Quinn says the oceans are of vital importance for the whole world: “The oceans provide us with oxygen, they regulate temperature, they provide us with food and energy supplies. It is unthinkable to have a world without a healthy ocean.”
Daniel Pauly, who leads the Sea Around Us programme at the University of British Columbia in Canada, and was not involved in Blue Planet 2, endorsed its stark conclusion. He said vast, subsidised fishing fleets were scraping the bottom of the barrel and that ocean acidification could be terminal for many species.
Pauly also warned of the dangers of plastic attracting toxic chemicals and then being eaten: “They become poison pills.” Pauly said the question facing humanity now was simple: “Are we going to fight for the oceans or not?”
The final episode of Blue Planet 2 is at 8pm on BBC1 on 10 December in the UK. The full series will then be available online via the iPlayer, including in ultra HD and high dynamic range, the first time the BBC has provided such content.
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Air pollution levels expected to rise again in Delhi and surrounding regions. Photo: Times Now

New Delhi, India (BBN) - The national capital since last week has witnessed a sharp drop in temperature in the wake of the winter season, but unfortunately, the city's air pollution levels continue to rise.

It has been learnt that the air quality in Delhi continues to linger in the 'very poor' category, with prominent pollutants remained above normal standards at most locations on Sunday, reports Times Now.

The information was shared by the Delhi Traffic Police Twitter team.

It must be noted that the Air Quality Index in the national capital had improved significantly after the AAP government imposed certain measures to curb the emergency situation declared by the Indian Medical Association earlier.

However, the pollution levels are slowly rising again, in line with the predictions shared by the weather department on November 30.
While the rise in PM2.5 and PM10 levels were again observed on the last days of November, it again started to ascend rapidly starting December.
On December 1, the concentration of suspended particulate matter PM10 climbed to 412 micrograms per cubic metre (ug/m3) during the day. PM2.5 was recorded at 200 ug/m3.
The last time the level of PM10 was this high was on November 14, when Delhi had just come out of a week-long spell of emergency levels of pollution.
The 24-hour safe averages of these ultrafine particulates are 60 (PM2.5) and 100 (PM10).
The CPCB attributed the rise in the air pollution level to calm conditions marked by a fall in wind speed and the incursion of moisture in the air, conditions which favour accumulation of particulates.
The air quality index (AQI) of CPCB for Delhi was in the 'very poor' category with a score of 343 on a scale of 500.
The Centre-run pollution monitoring and forecasting agency SAFAR predicted that concentration of PM2.5, more harmful owing to its extremely tiny size, and PM10 may rise over the weekend.
However, weather scientists have emphasised that the city is not likely to witness another emergency spell of pollution in the near future as external factors such as stubble burning are hardly playing a role anymore.
A "very poor" AQI essentially means that people may suffer from respiratory illness on prolonged exposure to such air. On further dip in air quality, the AQI will turn "severe" and "emergency" when it goes off-scale.
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The Toba caldera was the site of a massive super-eruption 75,000 years ago. Photo: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

Bristol, UK (BBN) - After analysing a database of geological records dated within the last 100,000 years, a team of scientists from the University of Bristol has discovered the average time between so-called volcanic super-eruptions is actually much less than previously thought.

Volcanoes and bolides, such as asteroids, are geohazards powerful enough to be destructive on a global scale, reports ScienceDaily.

One recent assessment described them as capable of returning humanity to a pre-civilisation state.

The largest explosive eruptions are termed 'super-eruptions', and produce in excess of 1,000 gigatons of erupted mass, enough to blanket an entire continent with volcanic ash, and change global weather patterns for decades.

The team from the University of Bristol's Schools of Earth Sciences and Mathematics estimated how often the largest explosive eruptions happen. Their analysis indicates that the average time between super-eruptions is only slightly longer than the age of our civilization -- dating from the Agricultural Revolution 12,000 years ago.
Jonathan Rougier, Professor of Statistical Science, said: "The previous estimate, made in 2004, was that super-eruptions occurred on average every 45 -- 714 thousand years, comfortably longer than our civilization.
"But in our paper just published, we re-estimate this range as 5.2 -- 48 thousand years, with a best guess value of 17 thousand years."
According to geological records, the two most recent super-eruptions were between 20 and 30 thousand years ago.
Professor Rougier added: "On balance, we have been slightly lucky not to experience any super-eruptions since then.
"But it is important to appreciate that the absence of super-eruptions in the last 20 thousand years does not imply that one is overdue. Nature is not that regular.
"What we can say is that volcanoes are more threatening to our civilisation than previously thought."
Our civilization will change in unimaginable ways over the next thousand years, and there are many other ways in which it might suffer a catastrophic blow well before the next super-eruption.
On that basis, Professor Rougier says there is little need to plan now for a super-eruption, especially with many other pressing issues to address, which will affect the current and the next generation of humans. But large eruptions, which are much more frequent, can still be devastating for communities and even countries, and careful planning is a crucial part of disaster risk reduction.
Regarding the paper, Professor Rougier explained: "As well as improving our understanding of global volcanism, our paper develops relatively simple techniques to analyse incomplete and error-prone geological and historical records of rare events.
"These difficulties are ubiquitous in geohazards, and we expect our approach will be used for reappraising other types of hazard, such as earthquakes."
BBN/MMI/ANS