News Update Times

(NUT DESK) Summers in the Northern Hemisphere could last nearly six months by the year 2100 if global warming continues unchecked, according to a recent study that examined how climate change is affecting the pattern and duration of Earth’s seasons.
The study, published last month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that climate change is making summers hotter and longer, while shrinking the three other seasons. Scientists say the irregularities could have a range of serious implications, affecting human health and agriculture to the environment.
“This is the biological clock for every living thing,” said the study’s lead author, Yuping Guan, a physical oceanographer at the State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “People argue about temperature rise of 2 degrees or 3 degrees, but global warming changing the seasons is something everyone can understand.”
Guan and his colleagues combed through daily climate data from 1952 to 2011 to pinpoint the start and end of each season in the Northern Hemisphere. They found that over the nearly 60-year period, summers grew from an average of 78 to 95 days long.
Winters, on average, shortened from 76 to 73 days, and the spring and autumn seasons similarly contracted. On average, the spring seasons shrank from 124 days to 115 days, and autumns shortened from 87 days to 82 days.
The scientists used the findings to build a model to project how the seasons might change in the future. They discovered that if the pace of climate change continues unmitigated, summers in the Northern Hemisphere could last nearly six months, while winters could span less than two months.
In their study, Guan and his colleagues measured the start of summer based on the onset of temperatures in the hottest 25 percent during that time period. Winter was defined as the onset of temperatures in the coldest 25 percent, they said.
Previous research has shown that climate change is having a profound impact on the planet’s seasons — making summers hotter and longer and winters shorter and warmer — but Guan said he was surprised by the dramatic results of his team’s future projections.
“We first looked at 2050 and then calculated the change for 2100, and it was a big number,” Guan said. “For human well-being, I was really hoping these results were wrong.”
Changes to Earth’s seasons carry risks for the environment and human health. Warmer and longer summers, for instance, mean mosquitos and other disease-carrying pests could expand their range and persist in areas where they are not typically found.
“You could get to a point where insects like malarial mosquitos that are normally kept out of high-elevation areas because they can’t survive overnight could potentially survive longer and at higher altitudes,” said Scott Sheridan, a climate scientist at Kent State University in Ohio, who was not involved with the study.
And because seasons dictate the life cycles of plants and animals, climate change could disrupt species’ ability to adapt.

NUT (DESK) In a recent interview discussing Bill Gates’ recent book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster“, the Microsoft and Breakthrough Energy founder (and the world’s third wealthiest man) advocated for citizens of the richest countries in the world to switch to diets consisting entirely of what he called synthetic meat in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Gates’ call is being met by startups and public companies hailing from everywhere from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv, London to Los Angeles, and Berkeley to… um… Chicago.
Indeed, two of the best funded companies in the lab-grown meat market hail from The Netherlands, where Mosa Meat is being challenged by a newer upstart, Meatable, which just announced $47 million in new financing.
The company aims to have its first product approved by European regulators by 2023 and notching commercial sales by 2025.
Meatable has a long road ahead of it, because, as Gates acknowledged in his interview with MIT Technology Review (ed. note: I’m available for a call, too, Bill), “the people like Memphis Meats who do it at a cellular level — I don’t know that that will ever be economical.”
Beyond the economics, there’s also the open question of whether consumers will be willing to make the switch to lab-grown meat. Some companies, like the San Francisco-based Just Foods and Tel Aviv’s Supermeat are already selling chicken patties and nuggets made from cultured cells at select restaurants.
These products don’t get at the full potential for cellular technology according to Daan Luining, Meatable’s chief technology officer. “We have seen the nugget and the chicken burger, but we’re working on whole muscle tissue,” Luining said.
The sheer number of entrants in the category — and the capital they’ve raised — points to the opportunity for several winners if companies can walk the tightrope balancing cost at scale and quality replacements for free-range food.
“The mission of the company is to be a global leader in providing proteins for the planet. Pork and beef and regularly eaten cuts have an impact on environmental and land management,” Luining said. “The technology that we are using allows us to go into different species. First we’re focused on the animals that have the biggest impact on climate change and planetary health.”