“After nuclear war, human- induced global warming is the greatest threat to human life on the planet. Today’s 7.5 billion human beings are already the most predatory species that ever existed, yet the global population has yet to peak and may reach 10 billion people, with dire implications absent a fundamental change in human behavior.”
A series of missions will set a new bar for humankind’s technological achievements as NASA and ESA aim to bring samples back from Mars Jezero Crater that once held a lake and contains an ancient preserved river delta. The rocks in the area will have preserved information about the Red Planet’s long and diverse geologic history and its stark, dramatic climate change through the eons.
The “Planet Earth Report” connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, people and events changing our planet and the future of the human species.
According to a team of atmospheric researchers, sea-ice retreat and the accompanying increased activity of atmospheric waves are creating a significant, ozone-amplified warming of the polar stratosphere. Since the low polar temperatures form the jet stream’s motor, the rising temperatures in the stratosphere are causing it to falter. In turn, this weakening of the jet stream is now spreading downward from the stratosphere, producing weather extremes.
Scientists propose that a supernovae eight-million years ago created atmospheric ionization that triggered an enormous upsurge in cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, igniting forest fires around the globe. These infernos could be one reason ancestors of homo sapiens developed bipedalism—to adapt in savannas that replaced torched forests in northeast Africa leading proto-humans to walk on two legs, “eventually resulting in homo sapiens with hands free to build cathedrals, design rockets and snap iPhone selfies.”
