Extreme weather fueled by climate change affected 62 million people last year
As extreme weather worsens around the globe, a growing number of people can expect to be affected by extreme weather fueled by climate change, says the United Nations’ weather agency. Last year, 35 million people were impacted by flooding and another 9 million by droughts. In total, extreme weather affected 62 million people.
Carbon dioxide levels reached a record high in 2018 and the last four years have been the four hottest years on record. Extreme weather in 2019 continues with the devastating flooding in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi and in the Midwestern U.S.
Something on Mars is emitting methane usually produced by living things on Earth
Scientists have confirmed that methane is emitted on Mars, an idea once believed to be implausible. Reported this week in Nature Geoscience, scientists with the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter detected methane within Gale Crater, a huge depression near the Martian equator. At the same time, NASA’s Curiosity rover measured a rise of methane air in the region that lasted two months.
It is the first independent confirmation of a methane detection on Mars. Methane decays quickly, so scientists point out that any methane detected had to have been created near the time of detection. A process known as serpentinization, in which rock undergoes metamorphosis by heat and water, may have created the methane, or it may be a product of life on the Red Planet.
