Wild weather, warming planet 2020 Replay
Published December 23, 2020
It’s been a year of extremes. Wildfires consumed vast areas of Australia, Siberia and the U.S. West. Flooding in Africa and southeast Asia pushed millions from their homes, while extreme heat and drought hit countries in South America. Cyclone Harold tore through the Pacific, and this year saw an exceptionally intense hurricane season in the Atlantic, including unprecedented back-to-back Category 4 hurricanes that devastated Central American countries in November. And in the Arctic, sea ice shrank back to its second-lowest extent ever recorded.
For years, scientists have warned that climate change will cause increasingly chaotic and extreme weather, and studies are bearing that out. Advances in a field known as “event attribution science” mean researchers are able to assess whether climate change played a role in causing, or worsening, a specific weather event.
The Drinks Business
17 December 2020 By Eloise Feilden
After only two weeks of trading since the last lockdown, hospitality businesses across London have been forced to close yet again, with just over 24 hours’ notice.
Eloise Feilden speaks to four restaurateurs in the UK capital to find out what being moved into tier three will mean for their businesses.
Chef Adam Handling lost four restaurants in the first lockdown
Tier three rules mean that no seated dining is allowed, and restaurants are only able to offer a takeaway and delivery services. Some restaurants have been able to alter their business models in order to deal as best they can with the constantly changing government restrictions, but for others a move into the higher level of coronavirus restrictions means closing up shop and waiting out the storm.
By Rob Woodard
Dec 16, 2020
A humpback whale that washed up on a Martha’s Vineyard beach likely died from fishing gear entanglement.
According to a Vineyard Gazette report, the whale was examined by the island s trustees of reservations.
Normally, scientists from NOAA would come to the Vineyard to perform a necropsy, but were unable to do so this time because of travel conditions.
Trustees director Sam Hart received instruction on the whale inspection process from a video call with a scientist at the IFAW Marine Mammal Rescue and Research Center in Yarmouth.
The whale is still stranded at Norton Point Beach in Edgartown.
A humpback whale that washed up at Norton Point beach 10 days ago likely died from gear entanglement, a preliminary examination has determined.
“We collected skin samples, blubber thickness and some histology samples from abrasions on the mammal that looked like potential entanglement through the mouth,” said Sam Hart, Islands director for the Trustees of Reservations, speaking to the Gazette by phone last week.
Ordinarily in the event of a stranded whale, scientists from NOAA would travel to the Island to do a necropsy but were unable to do so due to weather conditions and Covid restrictions. Mr. Hart said he was instructed through the process via video call by a scientist from the IFAW Marine Mammal Rescue & Research Center in Yarmouth. The humpback, now known to be a small male, 28 feet in length, was found washed up at Norton Point by a passerby on Friday, Dec. 4. The next day a strong northeast storm struck the Vineyard, and the carcass was pushed eastward along the Atlant