Sunday 26 March 2017

Union and its Territory Part 1 Indian Constitution

Part I                                                              By- Digvijay Padhiyar

Part I of the Indian Constitution (Article 1-4)


  • S. K. Dhar  (Linguistuic Provinces Commission)
June,1948   -   (appointed by GoI)
Dec,1948    -   (submitted report)

Recommended

- Reorganisation of states on the basis of administrative convenience
- Rather than linguistic factor.


  • JVP Committee (Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Pittabhi Sittaramaiya)

Dec,1948    -   (appointed by Congress itself)
April,1949   -   (submitted its report)

Formally rejected language as the basis of reorganisation of states


  • Andhra State (First linguistic state)
Oct,1953    -   Telugu speaking region from Madras state)

  • Fazl Ali Commission

Dec,1953    -   Appointed by GoI
Sept,1955   -   Submitted its report


Broadly accepted the language as a basis for RoS.
But rejected the theory of 1 language -1 state.
Suggested 4 major factors to be taken into account in any scheme of RoS.

Recommended 16 states and 3 Centrally Administered Territories


GoI accepted recommendations with minor modifications.
By,
1. State Reorganisation Act
2. 7th CAA (1956)
On Nov 1,1956; 14 states and 6 UTs were created.


* The Evolution of further disintegration of States


  • 1956
15th state = Gujarat (separated from Bombay).............................(15 + 6 UTs)



  • 1961
Dadra & Nagar Haveli (10th CAA)................................................(15 + 7 UTs)


  • 1962
Goa, Diu & Daman (12th CAA)....................................................(15 + 8 UTs)


  • 1962
Puducherry (14th CAA)..............................................................(15 + 9 UTs)


  • 1963
16th state = Nagaland (separated from Assam)............................(16 + 9 UTs)


  • 1966
17th state = Haryana (separated from Punjab).............................(17 + 9 UTs)

Chandigarh declared new UT at same time.................................(17 + 10 UTs)


  • 1971
18th state = Himachal Pradesh
(Changed to status of state from UT)...........................................(18 + 9 UTs)


  • 1972
19th state = Manipur (Changed from UT to state status)................(19 + 8 UTs)


20th state = Tripura (converted from UT to State).........................(20 + 7 UTs)


21st state = Meghalaya (separated from Assam)...........................(21 + 7 UTs)

Note : 22nd CAA (1969) regarding autonomous status of Meghalaya state under the Governer of Assam was abolished)


NEFA was created as UT being separated from Assam)...................(21 + 8 UTs)


  • 1975
22nd State = Sikkim.................................................................(22 + 8 UTs)

In 1974,
Sikkim expressed its desire for greater association with India.
Accordingly, the 35th CAA (1974) was enacted by the parliament. This amendment introduced a new class of statehood under the constitution by conferring on Sikkim the status of an ‘associate state’ of the Indian Union. For this purpose, a new Article 2A and a new schedule (Tenth Schedule conseriving the terms and conditions of association) were inserted in the Constitution


In a referendum held in 1975, they voted for the abolition of the institution of Chogyal and Sikkim becoming an integral part of India. Consequently, the 36th CAA (1975) was enacted to make Sikkim a full-fledged state of the Indian Union (the 22nd state). This amendment amended the First and the Fourth Schedules to the Constitution and added a new Article 371-F to provide for certain special
provisions with respect to the administration of Sikkim. It also repealed Article 2A and the Tenth Schedule that were added by the 35th Amendment Act of 1974.


  • 1987
23rd state = Mizoram (From UT of NEFA to State status)................(23 + 7 UTs)

24th state = Arunachal Pradesh (From UT of NEFA to State status)..(24 + 7 UTs)

25th state = Goa (From UT of Goa, Diu & Daman).........................(25 + 7 UTs)


  • 1992
Status of Delhi was changed from UT to National Capital Territory Region     (69th CAA)

  • 2000
26th State = Chhattisgarh (From MP)

27th State = Uttarakhand (From UP)

28th State = Jharkhand (From Bihar)



  • 2013
29th State = Telangana (Separated from Tamil Nadu)

I get it, you knew.
Yes, its Andhra.


note :

As you can see there were only few amendments made in creating the States.
Why?

wrote by - Digvijay Padhiyar

Monday 20 March 2017

How Are Hurricanes and Typhoons Named?


The practice of naming storms has a long history. Before the 20th century, notable tropical cyclones (also called typhoons or hurricanes, depending on geography) were generally identified by the time when they occurred or the location where they struck. Thus, the San Mateo Hurricane of 1565—which, by decimating a French fleet on its way to attack the Spanish settlement in St. Augustine, helped doom France’s efforts to control Florida—got its name because it made landfall on September 22, the day after the feast of St. Matthew. Meanwhile, the hurricane that devastated Galveston, Texas, in 1900, killing 6,000–12,000 people, is remembered as the Great Galveston Hurricane.
The practice of giving storms personal names appears to have originated with Clement Wragge, an Australian meteorologist who in the 1890s entertained himself by naming storms after women, mythical figures, and politicians that he didn’t like. The modern system of using personal names developed during World War II, when meteorologists began using women’s names—often those of wives or girlfriends—instead of cumbersome designations based on latitude and longitude. Short and quickly understood, names were easier to transmit over the radio and easier to keep straight if there was more than one storm in a given area. The system was formalized in 1953 when the National Weather Service put together an alphabetical list of female names to be used for storms in the Atlantic basin. Male names were added to the list in 1979 when women’s groups pointed out the sexism of using only female names.
So how are names picked today? A special committee of the World Meteorological Organizationmaintains lists of names to be used for tropical cyclones. The names on the list must be short, distinctive, and relevant to their cultural and geographic areas so that they are easy for people to remember. For the Atlantic basin there are six alphabetical lists of 21 names each, and the lists cycle yearly. So it is very likely, for example, that many of the names on the 2018 list, which starts with Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, and Ernesto, will recur in 2024. The letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z are not used because there are not enough available names. If there are more than 21 named storms, Greek letters are used. For the Western Pacific/South China Sea basin, where there are a wider variety of languages spoken, names on the lists are contributed by countries in the region. So one list begins with Nakri (Cambodia), Fengshen (China), Kalmaegi (North Korea), and Fung-wong (Hong Kong). If a hurricane or typhoon is especially destructive, that name is retired from the list. Some recent names to have been retired are Katrina (2005), Sandy (2012), and Haiyan (2013).

Thursday 16 March 2017

Freaky Fluorescent Frog Found

A team of Argentine and Brazilian scientists have found a tree frog that naturally fluoresces, the first known amphibian to do so. The polka-dot tree frog (Hypsiboas punctatus) is a small frog about 3 cm (1.2 inches) in length that lives in the Amazon basin. Its coloration is a drab green, with reddish, white, or yellow spots or stripes, but under ultraviolet light it glows a bright fluorescent green.
In fluorescence, light is absorbed and then re emitted. Many sea creatures fluoresce, but among land animals, only some parrots and scorpions do this. (Creatures such as fire flies are bio luminescent and generate their own light through photochemical reactions without having to absorb it first.)
Interestingly, the molecules that the polka-dot tree frog fluoresces with have been previously seen only in plants, and the frog is quite bright in fluorescence, shining about 18 percent as bright as the full moon. The scientists plan to study the frog’s eyes to see if it can detect its own fluorescence and other related species of frogs to see if they have the same ability.

Eukaryotic Cell Found That Lacks Mitochondria

Eukaryotic cells make up complex organisms like humans and trees and can exist as single-celled organisms such as amoebas and paramecia. These cells contain a nucleus by definition as well as a number of organelles (”little organs”) that carry out specific functions for the cell, like protein synthesis. Although all eukaryotes were thought to contain organelles known as mitochondria, which serve as “powerhouses” and produce an essential energy-carrying molecule known as ATP, scientists have discovered a single-celled eukaryote that lacks these critical mitochondria—an unprecedented finding.
While sequencing the genome for Monocercomonoides, a group of organisms related to Giardia and Trichomonas, scientists were surprised to find no evidence of mitochondrial DNA nor of the proteins necessary for the mitochondria to exist. These organisms live in low-oxygen environments, and it seems that they have been able to survive without mitochondria, thanks to an energy system used by bacteria. The discovery raises fascinating questions about the evolution of these unique eukaryotes and rewrites previous assumptions about the requirements for eukaryotic life.

Ozone Layer Recovering


One of the most-anticipated questions in environmental science may have been answered last week. Earth’s long-beleaguered ozone layer, which has been much reduced by industrial chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), is starting to show evidence of recovery. Scientists have long suspected that the ozone layer would recover on its own after governments signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987 and its follow-up amendments, but they did not know when this would happen. Scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom, who have examined the data set of ozone-layer information since 2000, believe they have seen the first real proof of the ozone layer’s healing.
The ozone layer is the region of the upper atmosphere, between roughly 15 and 35 km (9 and 22 miles) above Earth’s surface, containing relatively high concentrations of ozone molecules (O3). During the 1970s and ’80s, scientific studies revealed that CFCs, halons, and other chlorine-containing chemicals released by industry were reacting chemically with ozone, stripping away single oxygen atoms and reducing the thickness of the layer. The ozone layer blocks much of the incoming ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, and its thinning (which has resulted in the development of “ozone holes” over the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica during each region’s coldest months) has been linked to increasing rates of skin cancer, eye cataracts, and genetic and immune-system damage. The Montreal Protocol, initially signed by 46 countries and later adopted by nearly 200 signatories, was the treaty that guided the rapid systematic phaseout of ozone-depleting chemicals (ODCs).
With ODC production halted, the world waited for signs of recovery. It wasn’t until 2014 that scientists observed the first small increases in stratospheric ozone in more than 20 years; however, a study published in June 2016 was confident enough to announce proof of the good news. The study, which tracked the evolution of the size of the ozone hole over Antarctica, observed that the Antarctic ozone hole had declined by half the size of the continental U.S. between 2000 and 2015. On a planet plagued by a host of environmental problems, this announcement offered hope—hope that the ozone layer would one day return to normal (perhaps sometime between 2040 and 2070) and hope that governments could set aside their differences to solve a serious environmental problem.

Philippines Successfully Challenges China’s “Historical Claims” to Areas of the South China Sea


On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration issued a ruling in a case brought by the Philippines against China regarding each country’s claims in the South China Sea. It found in favor of the Philippines.


The area of the South China Sea that is in dispute is home to important shipping routes, fishing grounds, and potential deposits of oil and gas. Several countries have competing claims in the area. Both the Philippines and China claim sovereignty over several reefs and surrounding waters in the sea, with the Philippines citing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as the basis for its claim and China citing what it considers its historic rights to the area contained within the boundaries of its “nine-dash line,” which had been used on Chinese maps to delineate Chinese territory in the sea since the late 1940s. In 2013 the Philippines filed a case with the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
The court’s unanimous ruling was in favor of the Philippines. Among its findings were that there was “no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources” and that China had “violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights” and had caused “severe harm to the coral reef environment and violated its obligation to preserve and protect fragile ecosystems and the habitat of depleted, threatened, or endangered species.”
Although the decision is legally binding, the court has no way to enforce it, and even before the ruling was issued, China said that it would not accept the findings of the court. It remains to be seen how China and other countries with a stake in the region will react to the recent developments.

Lichen Trinity Discovered

lichen plants on rock

It has long been thought that lichens consist of a single fungus species and a single photosynthetic partner, usually a species of green algae or cyanobacteria. However, a new study of macrolichens (the most abundant kind) from six continents has found that many of these organisms also feature specific basidiomycete yeasts in their cortex, meaning the symbiosis involves not one but two fungi! This groundbreaking research, published in Science, changes the paradigm of lichen biology and may explain several lingering mysteries surrounding these organisms. Scientists have struggled with the taxonomy of the group, as lichens with seemingly the same alga and fungus often look vastly different from each other. These morphological variations may be explained by differences in the overlooked cortex yeast, and researchers hope genetic analyses will now give insight into the muddled classifications. Additionally, although these organisms are ubiquitous in nature, scientists have had difficulty growing them in laboratory settings. Algae and fungi routinely fail to form the expected lichens in the lab, and this is likely due to the fact that the needed yeasts were missing.

New Antibiotic Substance Isolated from Human Nose Bacteria


Colorized scanning electron micrograph of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria, magnified 4,780 times. The bacteria are spherical.

In an unexpected discovery, scientists in Germany have isolated a novel antibiotic substance from a species of bacteria that lives inside the human nose. The substance, known as lugdunin, is produced specifically by a nasal strain of Staphylococcus lugdunensis, a normal component of the human microbiome. In laboratory experiments, the researchers found that lugdunin effectively blocked the growth of S. aureus, a common disease-causing agent. In rats, they showed that nasal colonization with S. aureus was significantly reduced by intranasal inoculation with lugdunin-producing bacteria.
The scientists made their discovery while trying to figure out why the majority of human noses do not harbor S. aureus. They isolated some 90 different types of human nasal bacteria and investigated the ability of each to block the growth of S. aureus. Only S. lugdunensis succeeded. Further experiments showed that the antibiotic effect of S. lugdunensis was due to lugdunin, which turned out to also prevent the growth of multiple other strains of disease-causing bacteria, including a type of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). The rise of such antibiotic-resistant strains of organisms—which are capable of evading all but only a handful of available antibiotics—is a major public health concern.

Green House Gases

Greenhouse gases are a hot topic (pun intended) when it comes to global warming. These gases absorb heat energy emitted from Earth’s surface and reradiate it back to the ground. In this way, they contribute to the greenhouse effect, which keeps the planet from losing all of its heat from the surface at night. The concentrations of various greenhouse gases in the atmosphere determine how much heat is absorbed by the atmosphere and reradiated back to the surface. Human activities—especially fossil-fuel combustion since the Industrial Revolution—are responsible for steady increases in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The five most significant gases are presented here.

Water vapor

The Earth’s water is constantly recycled. It falls on the land as rain and snow, is carried by rivers or groundwater to the oceans, rises as water vapor, and travels inland again. This process is called the water cycle.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Water vapor is the most potent of the greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere, and it’s sort of a unique player among the greenhouse gases. The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere cannot, in general, be directly modified by human behavior—it’s set by air temperatures. The warmer the surface, the greater the evaporation rate of water from the surface. As a result, increased evaporation leads to a greater concentration of water vapor in the lower atmosphere capable of absorbing infrared radiation and emitting it downward.

Carbon dioxide

The emissions released from the exhaust systems of cars contribute to air pollution.
© Sergiy Serdyuk/Fotolia
Of the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most prominent. Sources of atmospheric CO2 include volcanoes, the combustion and decay of organic matter, respiration by aerobic (oxygen-using) organisms, and the burning of fossil fuels, clearing of land, and production of cement by humans. These sources are balanced, on average, by a set of physical, chemical, or biological processes, called "sinks," that tend to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Plant life, which takes up CO2 during the process of photosynthesis, is an important natural sink. In the oceans, marine life can absorb dissolved CO2, and some marine organisms even use CO2 to build skeletons and other structures made of calcium carbonate (CaCO3).

Methane

Cows on farm. dairy livestock cow cattle. Hompepage blog 2009, science and technology, history and society, agriculture
© Photos.com/Jupiterimages
Methane (CH4) is the second most important greenhouse gas. It is more potent than CO2, but exists in far lower concentrations in the atmosphere. CH4 also hangs around in the atmosphere for a shorter time than CO2—the residence time for CH4 is roughly 10 years, compared with hundreds of years for CO2. Natural sources of methane include many wetlands, methane-oxidizing bacteria that feed on organic material consumed by termites, volcanoes, seepage vents of the seafloor in regions rich with organic sediment, and methane hydrates trapped along the continental shelves of the oceans and in polar permafrost. The primary natural sink for methane is the atmosphere itself; another natural sink is soil, where methane is oxidized by bacteria.
As with CO2, human activity is increasing the CH4 concentration faster than it can be offset by natural sinks. Human sources (rice cultivation, livestock farming, the burning of coal and natural gas, biomass combustion, and decomposition in landfills) currently account for approximately 70 percent of total annual emissions, leading to substantial increases in concentration over time.

Surface-level ozone

Smog hovers over the skyline of Santiago, Chile.
Johnny Stockshooter—age fotostock/Imagestate
The next most significant greenhouse gas is surface, or low-level, ozone (O3). Surface O3 is a result of air pollution; it must be distinguished from naturally occurring stratospheric O3, which has a very different role in the planetary radiation balance. The primary natural source of surface O3 is the subsidence of stratospheric O3 from the upper atmosphere toward Earth’s surface. In contrast, the primary human-driven source of surface O3 is in photochemical reactions involving carbon monoxide (CO), such as in smog.

Nitrous oxides and fluorinated gases

The use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in aerosol-spray propellants was banned beginning in the late 1970s in places such as the United States, Canada, and Scandinavia.
© Mikael Damkier/Shutterstock.com
Additional trace gases produced by industrial activity that have greenhouse properties include nitrous oxide (N2O) and fluorinated gases (halocarbons). The latter includes sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and perfluorocarbons (PFCs). Nitrous oxides have small background concentrations due to natural biological reactions in soil and water, whereas the fluorinated gases owe their existence almost entirely to industrial sources.

Scientists Identify Four Species of Giraffes

In general, new plants, animals, and other forms of life are discovered in two ways, either by being stumbled across in the wild (or somewhere else “outside”) or through laboratory work that results in reshuffling standing species classifications. News of a freshly minted species discovered in the wild tends to be a bit more exciting than those discovered in a laboratory; however, when laboratory work involves what ecologists call “charismatic megafauna” and the research results in a dramatic shift in our understanding, the news can be very exciting.
Take the humble giraffe—the towering, long-necked, cud-chewing, African hoofed mammal of Africa. For many people, the giraffe was one of the first animals they recognized as a child. Was it the giraffe’s awkward form that first entranced us, or was it the unusual blotchy pattern of its coat?
Historically, most scientists have placed all giraffes into one species, Giraffa camelopardalis, and nine officially recognized subspecies; however, a new genetic study released this week conducted by German and Namibian scientists has separated these animals into four species. The researchers examined DNA strands in giraffe mitochondria from the nine formal subspecies as well as the Nubian giraffe. Their analysis revealed that the lack of breeding between various groups of giraffes over the past 1.25 million to 2 million years produced genetic differences between them. The researchers identified four distinct giraffe clades (biological groupings of taxa, each of which includes all of the descendants of one common ancestor), and they considered each clade a distinct species.
As one might expect, the four different species of giraffes were also separated from one another by geography. 
  1. Northern giraffes (G. camelopardalis) are found in pockets from northern Cameroon and southern Chad to South Sudan and western Ethiopia.
  2. southern giraffes (G. giraffa) live across large swaths of Namibia, northern Botswana, southern Zimbabwe, and the northern fringe of South Africa.
  3. Masai giraffes (G. tippelskirchi) are found in East Africa from southern Kenya to eastern Zambia.
  4. reticulated giraffes (G. reticulata) are primarily concentrated in Kenya.

The ripples of this new giraffe taxonomy are expected to radiate beyond species classification manuals and into giraffe conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) currently acknowledges a single giraffe species, Giraffa camelopardalis, and considers it a species of least concern. The division of giraffes into four species, combined with reports of the number of giraffes declining from 140,000–150,000 animals to 80,000–90,000 animals within 30 years, suggests that environmental organizations and governments will take notice. Perhaps four species of giraffes could do what only one species could not—that is, give the countries that host giraffe populations reasons to create additional antipoaching laws and to more closely examine threats to giraffe habitat.

Paris Climate Agreement 2016

In science and environmental circles, the first week of October 2016 will be remembered as the decisive time in which the final two milestones that kept the Paris Climate Agreement from becoming a binding international treaty were overcome. Generally speaking, the Paris Agreement was designed to control and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere, with the ultimate goal of providing a legal mechanism with which countries would set stringent GHG emissions targets to keep the temperature of Earth’s lower atmosphere well below the critical threshold of 2 °C (3.6 °F) above preindustrial temperatures.
Just fewer than 200 countries adopted the plan to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which took place in Paris, France, in December 2015. Although that event was heralded as a watershed moment in how human beings interacted with Earth’s atmosphere, it was only the first step in a long process designed to hold countries accountable for their emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases. By adopting the plan in Paris last December, these countries simply agreed to the text. The agreement would only come into effect 30 days after at least 55 countries ratified it and those countries accounted for at least 55% of all GHGs emitted worldwide.
On Earth Day 2016 (that is, April 22nd), United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon held a formal signing ceremony in New York City. There, 174 countries signed the agreement, which signaled their intention to avoid activities that run contrary to the agreement. Of the 55 countries needed to formally ratify the agreement (that is, agree to become formally bound by the treaty [by depositing documents with the United Nations signed by the country’s key national officials]) 15 countries did so on Earth Day. The planet’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, China and the United States, ratified the agreement a few months later on September 3rd, with India (another major emitter) ratifying the agreement on October 3rd, 2016. By October 4th, some 52% of global greenhouse gas emissions had been accounted for, only 3% short of the goal.
The first of the week’s milestones with respect to worldwide emissions accounting took place on October 4th, with representatives from each of the 28 European Union member states voting to ratify the agreement by the overwhelming margin of 610 to 38. The second milestone, the emissions goal, was reached only a few days later on October 5th, when the United Nations’ treaty collection Web site noted that all ratification goals associated with the treaty had been fulfilled. The EU’s vote and ratification brought the country count up to 73—well over the 55 needed. The EU’s actions also meant that the total of world emissions accounted for increased to just under 57%—which surpassed the 55% benchmark, leaving the agreement free to come into force. The Paris Agreement is slated to become fully legal and binding 30 days later, on November 4th, 2016.

Tasmanian Devil Milk Kills Deadly Human Superbugs

WRITTEN BY:  Kara Rogers 
PUBLISHED: 10/18/2016
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According to new research, antimicrobial peptides present in the milk of Tasmanian devil dams are capable of killing antibiotic-resistant human pathogens, including highly problematic strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis (VREF). The powerful microbe-killing abilities of the peptides, known as cathelicidins, likely stems from their native role, via passive transfer in the mother’s milk, in helping Tasmanian devil joeys survive. Joeys are born prior to the development of adaptive immunity and complete their development in the dam’s pouch, where bacteria and other potentially infectious microorganisms abound. Cathelicidins are also expressed in the mother’s pouch lining and skin.
The discovery comes at a critical time in the fight against antibiotic-resistant organisms, popularly known as superbugs, which are spreading worldwide and against which few drugs remain effective. Such drug-resistant organisms, which include certain strains of bacteria, protozoans, and viruses, cause an estimated 700,000 deaths each year. Cathelicidins—six of which were characterized in the new work—are promising candidates for drug development specifically for the fight against potentially deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria and infectious strains of fungi.
WRITTEN BY:  Kara Rogers 
PUBLISHED: 10/18/2016
www.britanica.com

What’s the Difference Between Weather and Climate?



Adding confusion to the politics of climate change and global warming in the press is the assumption that the terms weather and climate are at some level interchangeable. The two terms are confused with one another, presumably because the same elements (solar radiation, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, precipitation, etc.) make them what they are, but there is more to the story. The main difference between weather and climate is duration. Weather and climate relate to one another in much the same way that an inning in a baseball game compares with the whole game.
The weather is the set of conditions in the atmosphere in one location for a limited period of time—such as throughout the day, at night, or at any particular point during the day. When your local meteorologist says that today will be partly sunny and 80 ⁰F with 10-mile-per-hour southwesterly winds and high humidity, he or she is talking about the weather conditions for some portion of a given day. Climate, however, describes the average condition of the atmosphere over a long period of time, such as across spans of 30 years or more, for a given location. Moreover, weather conditions change from hour to hour and even moment to moment for a single point, neighborhood, town, or city on Earth’s surface. Climate conditions, on the other hand, are far less volatile, and they are often used to describe larger areas—such as parts of countries, whole countries, or even groups of countries.
Climate conditions also differ between one part of the planet and another. We know that Africa’s Sahara has a much hotter and drier climate than South America’s Amazon River basin and Alaska’s rocky coast. The forces that shape the atmospheric conditions in each of these parts of the world are vastly different. In the Sahara, high pressure combined with its tropical location allows for more solar radiation to reach the ground and heat it throughout the year. In contrast, the conditions of Alaska’s Pacific coast are governed by the region’s proximity to the ocean, its subarctic location, vast differences in the number of daylight hours between summer and winter, and warm ocean currents that circulate nearby.
It’s easy to see why people who equate weather with climate might not see the problem of climate change as a big deal, since the weather is always changing. When climates change even slightly, however, the consequences can be much more severe than an afternoon of inclement weather. In the wild, specialized plants and animals that have evolved to adapt to one set of climate conditions face the challenge of being thrust suddenly into conditions that do not suit them. In the human sphere, once-predictable climate conditions become more volatile, and crop yields decline because of increased risks from unexpected flooding, drought, or the effects of unseasonable cold snaps.

Saving the “Serengeti of Antarctica”


In what is being hailed as a “milestone for ocean conservation,” an agreement was reached to establish a marine protected area in Antarctica. The reserve will cover 600,000 square miles (nearly 1.6 million square km)—about twice the size of Texas—in the Ross Sea, which has been called the “Garden of Eden” and the “Serengeti of Antarctica” for its rich wildlife. The pristine waters are home to an estimated 16,000 species, including significant populations of killer whales and Adélie penguins. Other notable inhabitants include emperor penguins, minke whales, and Weddell seals—as well as krill, a crustacean of great importance as food for other animals. Although its remote location has left the sea largely free of humans, environmentalists had worried that it was vulnerable as other waters were depleted of resources. However, as part of the agreement, nearly three-quarters of the reserve will be exempt from commercial fishing.
The landmark deal was made on October 28, 2016, at the international meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, held in Hobart, Australia. It came five years after the United States and New Zealand first proposed a sanctuary to protect “the least altered marine ecosystem on Earth.” It took extremely complex negotiations in order to arrive at a deal—which was approved by 24 countries and the European Union. When it takes effect in December 2017, the Antarctica reserve will become just the second such sanctuary on the high seas; an area in the South Orkney Islands was established in 2009. Buoyed by this success, conservationists hope to add other waters to that list.
WRITTEN BY:  Amy Tikkanen 
PUBLISHED: 10/28/2016
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