Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer. Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure

Some companies were ending home insurance in California due to wildfires, says Allianz SE board member. He says that without insurance, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate.

The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.

Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company’s investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management.

 

The core business of the insurance industry is risk management and it has long taken the dangers of global heating very seriously. In recent reports, Aviva said extreme weather damages for the decade to 2023 hit $2tn, while GallagherRE said the figure was $400bn in 2024. Zurich said it was “essential” to hit net zero by 2050.

Thallinger said: “The good news is we already have the technologies to switch from fossil combustion to zero-emission energy. The only thing missing is speed and scale. This is about saving the conditions under which markets, finance, and civilisation itself can continue to operate.”

Nick Robins, the chair of the Just Transition Finance Lab at the London School of Economics, said: “This devastating analysis from a global insurance leader sets out not just the financial but also the civilisational threat posed by climate change. It needs to be the basis for renewed action, particularly in the countries of the global south.”

 

“The insurance sector is a canary in the coalmine when it comes to climate impacts,” said Janos Pasztor, former UN assistant secretary-general for climate change.

The argument set out by Thallinger in a LinkedIn post begins with the increasingly severe damage being caused by the climate crisis: “Heat and water destroy capital. Flooded homes lose value. Overheated cities become uninhabitable. Entire asset classes are degrading in real time.”

“We are fast approaching temperature levels – 1.5C, 2C, 3C – where insurers will no longer be able to offer coverage for many of these risks,” he said. “The math breaks down: the premiums required exceed what people or companies can pay. This is already happening. Entire regions are becoming uninsurable.” He cited companies ending home insurance in California due to wildfires.

Thallinger said it was a systemic risk “threatening the very foundation of the financial sector”, because a lack of insurance means other financial services become unavailable: “This is a climate-induced credit crunch.”

“This applies not only to housing, but to infrastructure, transportation, agriculture, and industry,” he said. “The economic value of entire regions – coastal, arid, wildfire-prone – will begin to vanish from financial ledgers. Markets will reprice, rapidly and brutally. This is what a climate-driven market failure looks like.”

 

No governments will realistically be able to cover the damage when multiple high-cost events happen in rapid succession, as climate models predict, Thallinger said. Australia’s disaster recovery spending has already increased sevenfold between 2017 and 2023, he noted.

The idea that billions of people can just adapt to worsening climate impacts is a “false comfort”, he said: “There is no way to ‘adapt’ to temperatures beyond human tolerance … Whole cities built on flood plains cannot simply pick up and move uphill.”

At 3C of global heating, climate damage cannot be insured against, covered by governments, or adapted to, Thallinger said: “That means no more mortgages, no new real estate development, no long-term investment, no financial stability. The financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.”

The only solution was to cut fossil fuel burning, or capture the emissions, he said, with everything else being a delay or distraction. He said capitalism must solve the crisis, starting with putting its sustainability goals on the same level as financial goals.

Many financial institutions have moved away from climate action after the election of the US president, Donald Trump, who has called such action a “green scam”. Thallinger said in February: “The cost of inaction is higher than the cost of transformation and adaptation. If we succeed in our transition, we will enjoy a more efficient, competitive economy [and] a higher quality of life.”

 

Global Sea Ice Hits a New Low. The data comes after researchers reported that the past 10 years have been the 10 hottest on record.

 

Ice floes off Nuuk, Greenland, this month.Credit...Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 

 

By Austyn Gaffney

 

Earth is missing a lot of sea ice this year. Enough to cover the entire United States east of the Mississippi.

That was announced by researchers at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center on Thursday, who said the amount of sea ice on the planet had reached the lowest level ever recorded in March.

The record comes days after the World Meteorological Organization reported that the past 10 years have been the 10 hottest on record, with 2024 the hottest year. The global rise in temperatures is tied to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

“Warming temperatures drive melting ice across the globe, and because we’re seeing such high temperatures, it’s not surprising that this year we’re seeing the least amount of ice coverage,” said Linette Boisvert, an ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

 

The center has been compiling data for almost 50 years, primarily through a Department of Defense satellite program. The global sea ice extent includes measurements taken in both the Southern Hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere, which experience opposite seasons.

Dr. Boisvert compared the freezing and melting of sea ice between winter and summer to the heartbeat of the planet. The pulses between the winter maximum and summer minimum used to be shorter. But with more sea ice melting away, the distance between pulses has grown larger.

“It’s like the heartbeat of the planet is slowing down,” Dr. Boisvert said. “It’s not good.”

 

Sea ice plays many important roles for the global climate: Its white surface can reflect energy back into space, helping the planet cool. It also acts like a blanket for the ocean, insulating it and preventing ocean heat from reaching the atmosphere. Less sea ice means more heat goes in Earth’s systems, warming the atmosphere and the oceans.

The extent of sea ice isn’t the only measurement scientists are tracking. The thickness of the ice also matters and, since the 1980s, Arctic sea ice has become thinner.

 

While thicker sea ice tends to survive the summer melt, nowadays most of the sea ice completely melts during the summer, preventing it from thickening year after year. More open ocean means more dark surfaces to absorb more heat from the sun, which in turn melts more ice. The melting becomes its own positive feedback loop.

Changes in remote polar regions affect the rest of the globe, including changes to ocean currents and weather patterns.

“It’s really important to have scientists’ eyes on the data,” Dr. Boisvert said. “It would be really detrimental not to have funding for this type of work.”

Melting sea ice also has negative implications for marine life, tourism in polar regions and global shipping. It’s important for military activities, Indigenous communities in Alaska and the fishing industry, according to Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, a research organization at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The trend of decreasing sea ice in the Arctic is an increasingly clear indicator of global warming, he said.

“We’re seeing something that’s pretty unprecedented, at least on scales of human society for thousands of years,” Dr. Meier said.

 

Under the Trump administration, scientific agencies monitoring weather and climate data have been under threat. In March, NASA fired its chief scientist and eliminated more than a dozen other senior positions. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which collects global climate data, fired hundreds of probationary employees in February and officials said officials they had plans to shrink its work force by nearly 20 percent. Projects focused on polar regions lost managers who oversee research when the National Science Foundation laid off about a tenth of its work force.

When asked about the cuts, Dr. Meier noted that groups in Europe and Japan also monitor global sea ice.

“It’s not like there’s not going to be any knowledge of what’s going on in the Arctic, regardless of what happens in the U.S.,” he said

“But I, and I think all of us here at N.S.I.D.C., are focused on the data and our research and doing our best to serve the public by keeping people informed on what’s happening in the polar regions.”

 

Ningaloo and Great Barrier Reef hit by ‘profoundly distressing’ simultaneous coral bleaching events

 Footage shows coral bleaching on Ningaloo reef as Great Barrier Reef hit at the same time – video

 Scientists say widespread damage to both world heritage-listed reefs is ‘heartbreaking’ as WA reef accumulates highest amount of heat stress on record

 Graham Readfearn

Great Barrier Reef

 Ningaloo
 

 

Australia’s two world heritage-listed reefs – Ningaloo on the west coast and the Great Barrier Reef on the east – have been hit simultaneously by coral bleaching that reef experts have called “heartbreaking” and “a profoundly distressing moment”.

Teams of scientists on both coasts have been monitoring and tracking the heat stress and bleaching extending across thousands of kilometres of marine habitat, which is likely to have been driven by global heating.

 

On the Great Barrier Reef, bleaching is being detected from around Townsville to the tip of Cape York, a distance of about 1,000km.

On Western Australia’s famous Ningaloo reef, waters have accumulated the highest amount of heat stress on record during an extended marine heatwave that has hit coral reefs all along the state’s vast coastline.

Paul Gamblin, the chief executive of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said history would “record this profoundly distressing moment” when two world famous reefs both suffered widespread damage at the same time.

Corals begin to bleach at about 4DHW, and 8DHW can kill heat-sensitive corals. Scientists say levels up to 16DHWs have been detected on the Ningaloo coast. Photograph: David Juszkiewicz/Curtin University

Dr Zoe Richards, an associate professor and coral scientist at Curtin University, spent 10 days monitoring the health of Ningaloo reefs and the neighbouring Exmouth Gulf earlier this month.

She said in shallower areas known for their clear waters, which are popular with tourists, she had seen up to 90% of corals bleached and evidence of corals dying. Even slow-growing corals that were hundreds of years old were bleaching, she said.

Ningaloo last experienced widespread bleaching only three years ago.

 

The WA government, which is coordinating monitoring across reefs there, said bleaching had also been reported at Kimberley, Ashmore Reef, Rowley Shoals, Barrow Island, Dampier Archipelago, inshore Pilbara and Exmouth Gulf.

Richards said: “This isn’t isolated to Ningaloo – this is happening across the entire north-west shelf. There has never been this scale of impacts in WA. I am not aware of this ever happening before. Climate change has definitely caught up with the reefs in WA.”

Corals lose the algae that give them their colour and most of their nutrients if ocean waters get too warm. If bleaching is not severe, corals can recover, but studies show they are less able to reproduce and are more susceptible to disease.

Coral reef experts use a metric known as degree heating weeks (DHW) to show how much heat corals have accumulated. Generally, corals begin to bleach at about 4DHW, and 8DHW can kill heat-sensitive corals.

Dr Jessica Benthuysen, an oceanographer at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims), first saw signs of heat accumulating in WA last August. By the end of December, she said, some areas had sea surface temperatures 4C hotter than normal.

Benthuysen said levels up to 16DHWs had been detected on the Ningaloo coast, which were the highest on record.

Bleaching at Lakeside Reef Front, Ningaloo. Paul Gamblin of the AMCS says scientists have warned of widespread damage from underwater heatwaves and cyclones to both reefs ‘for decades’. Photograph: Zoe Richards/Curtin University

Coral bleaching at Mesa Back Reef at Ningaloo in WA. Photograph: Chris Fulton/Australian Institute of Marine Science

The US government’s Coral Reef Watch says DHWs between 12 and 16 are enough to cause coral death across multiple species.

The federal government’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has coordinated monitoring flights over northern reefs, finding low to high levels of bleaching on most reefs. Underwater checks found bleaching at 24 of 30 reefs surveyed.

Bleaching was worse farther north – there is no concern for reefs in the park’s southern section.

Last summer was the worst bleaching event on record for the reef and the fifth major outbreak in eight years, hitting all across the marine park.

Dr Neal Cantin, a coral reef biologist at Aims who was on the monitoring flights, said bleaching was generally worse closer to shore but there was “high to medium” bleaching on reefs from Cairns to the far north. He said in the far north, heat stress was between six and 13DHWs, which was “capable of causing mortality”.

Dr Roger Beeden, the chief scientist at the authority, said detailed analysis of the data from the flights was still being analysed, but he said the lack of recovery time for corals between major events was worrying.

“It’s the frequency as well as the severity that makes us most concerned,” he said.

Dr Emily Howells, a coral scientist from Southern Cross University who has been at the Australian Museum’s research station on Lizard island since February, said this was now the sixth summer in a row that bleaching had been seen there.

The island, in the north of the reef, was badly hit by bleaching last summer and scientists at Aims who visited in subsequent months said the area had lost one-third of its live corals due to the heat.

Howells said there was less coral mortality this year, “but that’s because a lot of the sensitive corals died last summer”.

“There just isn’t enough opportunity for these coral communities to bounce back. It’s heartbreaking,” she said.

“We’re making it more and more challenging for the corals. The solution is having stronger action on climate change. The longer we wait, the worse it will get.”

 

Northern parts of the Great Barrier Reef have also been heavily affected by flooding from torrential rains. James Cook University’s TropWATER group has recorded flood waters carrying sediments and nutrients in a plume across 700km of the coast and extending as far as 100km offshore.

Jane Waterhouse, a reef water quality expert at TropWATER, said major flood events appeared to be happening more often and flood plumes were reaching farther offshore.

“River discharge carries pollutants, sediments and nutrients,” she said. “You get muddy water that cuts the light that seagrass and corals need to grow, and that nutrient also allows algae to grow.”

Gamblin said the widespread damage from underwater heatwaves and cyclones to both reefs was “what our world-renowned scientists have been warning us about for decades”.

He said fossil fuel companies were “doubling down” to get more mega projects running, pointing to areas around Scott Reef in WA being targeted for expansion by Woodside.

He said: “More mega polluting projects up at places like Scott Reef will make a tragic situation worse. What will our children say to us?”

 

 

Brasil perdeu 3% da superfície de água nos últimos 40 anos, mostram dados de satélite. Pantanal, o bioma mais afetado, está 60% mais seco do que a média histórica

 

Rio Paraguai em trecho que passa por Corumbá (MS) durante seca em 2024; o curso d'água é o mais importante do pantanal - Clovis Neto - 09.out.24/Folhapress  

 Everton Lopes Batista

 

São Paulo

A área do Brasil coberta por água teve nova redução em 2024, segundo dados do MapBiomas obtidos por satélites. O total de 17,9 milhões de hectares registrados no ano passado é cerca de 2,2% menor do que a superfície de água anotada em 2023 (18,3 milhões) e aproximadamente 3,2% abaixo da média da série histórica (18,5 milhões), iniciada em 1985.

É o segundo ano seguido com queda na lâmina hídrica no país, de acordo com a análise da plataforma colaborativa, que une universidades, ONGs e empresas para fazer o monitoramento. Em 2023, o valor já havia apresentado queda de aproximadamente 2,6% em relação ao total de 2022.

Pantanal

Pantanal

Na última década, ocorreram 8 dos 10 anos mais secos de toda a série histórica do MapBiomas sobre a cobertura hídrica no Brasil, que completa 40 anos de análises.

Nos últimos 15 anos, apenas 2022 ficou acima da média histórica de superfície de água, com 18,8 milhões de hectares. Para comparação, todos os primeiros 15 anos da série (de 1985 a 1999) tiveram valores acima da média.

"Temos um histórico recente de muitos anos secos, seguidos de uma recuperação pontual em 2022. Se olharmos os últimos 25 anos, o cenário é preocupante e crítico, pois a superfície de água permanece na média da série histórica ou abaixo dela", diz Juliano Schirmbeck, coordenador técnico do MapBiomas Água.

"Nunca mais atingimos o patamar de disponibilidade hídrica que tivemos entre 1989 e 1999, uma década de maior abundância de água no país", completa.

 O pantanal é o bioma que mais perdeu cobertura de água no país. Foram 366 mil hectares computados em 2024, número mais de 60% abaixo da média histórica para a região.

"No começo da série, o pantanal ficava meio ano inundado, o que era normal para aquele ecossistema. Hoje o período de inundação é muito mais curto, durando apenas dois ou três meses inundados, quando ocorrem", afirma Schirmbeck.

Segundo o pesquisador, em 2024, o bioma passou todos os meses com valores de superfície de água próximos dos mais baixos já registrados desde 1985.

A amazônia concentra mais da metade da superfície hídrica brasileira (61%), seguida da mata atlântica (13%), pampa (10%), cerrado (9%) e caatinga (5%). O pantanal é o bioma com a menor cobertura de água do país (2%).

 

Apesar da queda nacional, caatinga, cerrado e mata atlântica registraram em 2024 uma cobertura de água acima da média da série histórica.

O cerrado já possui mais superfície de água artificial, como reservatórios e represas, do que natural, como rios e lagos. A lâmina artificial de água já é 60% do total no bioma. Em todo o país, a chamada água antrópica (com ação humana) aumentou 54% em relação a 1985, de acordo com o MapBiomas.

Essas estruturas que reservam água estão localizadas, principalmente, em áreas com maior população, como mata atlântica, pampa, caatinga e cerrado.

De acordo com os dados, em 2024 os corpos d’água naturais apresentaram uma redução de 15% em relação a 1985.

 

"Esse dado é alarmante, porque, ao observarmos o ambiente natural, vemos que ele está secando. Se o ambiente natural tem pouca água, logo não teremos água suficiente chegando aos reservatórios. Estamos ficando sem água, mesmo que estejamos armazenando", conclui Schirmbeck.

As mudanças climáticas trazem alertas adicionais. "A maior parte do Brasil tem previsão de redução dos padrões de precipitação, e isso já nos preocupa diante do cenário atual", destaca o pesquisador.

Para Schirmbeck, a adoção de soluções baseadas na natureza, priorizando a proteção de nascentes de rios e a valorização de áreas úmidas, que atuam como reservatórios nas secas e sumidouros em períodos de cheias, pode ser um caminho para contornar os efeitos causados por eventos climáticos extremos, cada vez mais frequentes.

 

 

The European towns that give away free chickens. Towns in France and Belgium have been giving out free chickens for years to combat food waste – could the idea catch on elsewhere?

 

Lucy Sherriff

 

Around Easter in 2015, the French town of Colmar started handing out free chickens to its residents. The aim of this experimental new scheme, launched by the waste collection department in the town in north eastern France, was to reduce food waste.

The project had been in the works for some time. The then-president of Colmar Agglomération (a role similar to a mayor), Gilbert Meyer, had been reelected in 2014 with the slogan "one family, one hen", which aimed to encourage residents to adopt a chicken. The following year the operation was launched, in partnership with two nearby chicken farms. Residents were encouraged to think of the free eggs – the effort put into raising a chicken would pay off quickly.

More than 200 homes in four municipalities signed up and were given two chickens each – either red chickens (Poulet Rouge) or Alsace chickens, an old and local breed.

Each household signed a pledge committing to raising the chickens, with the understanding that the waste department could conduct welfare spot checks on the animals at any time. Henhouses were not provided; it was up to the residents to build or buy their own. The department ensured that each home had enough space for the hens – between 8 and 10 sq m (86 and 108 sq ft).

 

The scheme was a success – and is still underway. "Over the years, other municipalities have joined and since 2022 all 20 municipalities of the agglomération have participated," says Eric Straumann, current president of the Colmar Agglomération.

To date, 5,282 hens have been distributed to local residents, and applications are currently open for the next round of distribution in June 2025. Not only have the residents received a plentiful supply of free eggs, but food waste has also been averted from landfill as chickens are fed kitchen scraps which would otherwise be thrown away.

"Considering that a hen has a life expectancy of four years on average and that she consumes 150g (5.3oz) of bio-waste per day, we estimate that we have avoided 273.35 tonnes of bio-waste [since 2015]," says Straumann.

The small French village of Colmar has been handing out free chickens to its residents since 2015 (Credit: Getty Images)

 Food waste contributes more methane emissions to the atmosphere than any other landfilled materials, due to its quick decay rate. In the US, around 58% of methane emissions released into the atmosphere from waste landfills are from food waste. Although shorter-lived in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2), methane has a global warming impact more than 80 times higher than CO2 over a 20-year period.

 

Around one third of food produced for humans is lost or wasted globally, amounting to 1.3 billion tonnes per year. Food loss and waste account for 8-10% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions – which is nearly five times the total emissions from the aviation sector.

Even though chicken owners in the UK have been advised to avoid to feeding the birds kitchen scraps due to concerns about spreading disease, it's perfectly legal to do so elsewhere in the world, and it can have a meaningful impact on reducing food waste – and kickstart a cycle that benefits everyone.

"Proposed with the aim of reducing food waste, chickens make it possible to promote traditional circular economy practices that are still relevant today, particularly in villages, and which are now developing even in urban areas: chickens fed on our food waste in return provide us with fresh eggs," says Straumann.

An additional benefit is that the chickens can teach children in Colmar about animals and the importance of protecting the natural world, he adds.

 

Colmar is not the only town to hand out free birds – nor was it the first to do so. In 2012 in another a small north-western French town called Pincé, ­two chickens were offered to each household to help them cut down on organic waste. "To begin with it was a joke, but then we realised it was a very good idea," Lydie Pasteau, the mayor of Pincé, told local media at the time. A total of 31 families were given chickens, along with a bag of feed, with Pasteau calling the scheme a "surprising" success. 

In Belgium, chickens have been handed out in the cities of Mouscron and Antwerp and the province of Limburg, although residents had to sign an agreement not to eat the chickens for at least two years. More than 2,500 families adopted hens in one year alone in Limburg, according to some reports, while in Mouscron, 50 pairs of chickens were given out in the second round of the scheme, after the initial giveaway was a success. Residents, who had to prove they had sufficient space in their gardens to keep the birds, were given basic instructions on chicken keeping.

Colmar residents have been left with a plentiful supply of eggs since 2015 (Credit: Alamy)

In theory, the scheme seems like a good idea, especially in parts of the world where eggs are either in shortage or very expensive. In California or New York, for example, a dozen eggs cost around $9 (£7). As some chicken breeds can lay up to 300 eggs every year, one chicken could lay up to $225 (£178) worth of eggs each year.

In practice though, Paul Behrens, a professor at the University of Oxford focusing on food systems, says there are some hurdles in the way: "I'm sure it could be done in the UK but I'm not sure it's a good idea," he says. "Bird flu is an ever-present worry. Current regulations mean you have to keep birds in fenced areas or indoors – this may again be a problem for animal welfare, or even disease spread if people don't do this."

The idea wouldn't work well in the US either, says Mark Bomford, director of Yale University's sustainable food programme. "I love chickens, but I don't love the sound of this, especially in the US," Bomford says.

The US is currently experiencing an egg shortage due to an outbreak of bird flu – and as a result egg prices have skyrocketed 36% compared to 2023 – but handing out free chickens would not be an "appropriate" response, Bomford says.

"Economically, steep inflation for a basic grocery item like eggs hurts the poor far more than it hurts the rich. To care for chickens you need feed, water, housing, space and free time," he says. "Most people with lower incomes don't have access to these things. By the time you have factored in all these costs, chickens are rarely 'free' and few people realise any net cost savings on eggs."

 

Rising egg prices in the US spark chicken rental trend in New Hampshire

 

One couple, however, did come up with a unique solution – renting chickens. Christine and Brian Templeton of Rent The Chicken in New Hampshire provide hens, feed and support for six months, allowing customers to collect fresh eggs at home. Business, the couple reports, is booming.

It's important to temper egg expectations though, warns Behrens – industrial birds lay far more eggs than a home-kept healthy bird would. "Common and modern egg-laying birds are often in huge pain their entire lives, partly due to their genetics which are centred on providing as much 'output' as possible," he says. "If you use older breeds and allow them to live a long, healthy life then you can avoid many of the most egregious animal welfare issues."

"But people should then understand the tradeoff and expectations around that, you are having a much healthier bird in return for fewer eggs," he says.

And from a food waste perspective, the ideal thing is to simply not waste the food in the first place – some researchers believe that composting can actually increase food waste.

"They think 'oh, it's okay as we compost'," says Behrens. "Which is better than nothing but much worse than not wasting things in the first place. It could be even worse with chickens because you are getting eggs from them. People might waste even more than if they composted."

 

But one unexpected benefit that was observed in Colmar – that had nothing to do with eggs or food waste – was the community the chickens created. Residents would bond over raising the chickens and would work with neighbours to care for the chickens when they went on holiday. "Residents have welcomed this operation since its launch," says Straumann. "And that's why all the municipalities in Colmar still participate in our programme today."

--

Correction: This article originally referred to Colmar as a small village. The story was updated on 19 March as Colmar is better described as a town.

 

 

 

 

'The ice melted beneath our feet': The huskies that revealed the rapid shrinking of Greenland's ice

 

Isabelle Gerretsen

 

In 2019, climate scientist Steffen Olsen took a startling photo of huskies appearing to walk on water. The photo quickly went viral as it revealed the reality of Greenland's rapidly melting ice.

In June 2019, a striking image of husky dogs apparently walking on water in Greenland stunned the world and quickly went viral.

The photo was taken by Steffen Olsen, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute and lead of Blue Action, a European project which investigates the effect of a changing Arctic on weather and climate.

"The reaction surprised me," says Olsen. "It surprised me that so many people saw this as a beautiful photo. I saw it as a scary situation."

That's because the dogs were in fact wading through ankle-deep meltwater on top of sea ice in Inglefield Bredning, an 80km-long (49.7 miles) system in northwestern Greenland.

 

"I learned to see the photo as an illusion. People don't see sea ice, but dogs walking on water," Olsen says. 

Olsen captured the photo while travelling with a team of scientists who were monitoring sea and ice conditions near the town of Qaanaaq, one of the world's most northerly towns. They were retrieving scientific instruments they had deployed during the winter. 

"We had been travelling for some hours and it became clear that the melting was very extreme… [the ice] more or less melted beneath our feet while we were travelling on it," says Olsen. "The local hunters and I were very surprised… we were searching for dry spots to get the dogs and the sleds out of the water and there were none in sight. We turned around and made it back to the coast."

It surprised me that so many people saw this as a beautiful photo. I saw it as a scary situation

The dogs are typically very hesitant to get their paws wet, says Olsen. "Usually when we meet water, it's because there are cracks in the sea ice and the dogs have to jump over the water…they hate it. But it was actually very warm so I think they were happy to have cold feet," he says, adding that temperatures reached 14C (57F) on the day.

 The scientists managed to retrieve their instruments a few days later once the water had drained away through small cracks in the ice sheet. "Then you have a short period of time when you can then travel again before the ice collapses and breaks up," says Olsen.

On average, Greenland loses 234 billion tonnes of ice per year (Credit: Alamy)

 

Olsen says he was extremely surprised by the rapid melting he witnessed when he took the photo on 13 June 2019. He has only experienced such an extreme event once during his 15 years carrying out research in Greenland. It's unusual for melting to occur that quickly, Olsen explains.

"It requires a sudden onset of warm air while you still have fresh snow on the ice and solid sea ice. So it's an example of an extreme event developing early in the season... The local community have told me: 'you will have to wait 100 years to see [such an event] again'." 

Melting events such as the one Olsen witnessed would normally not occur until later in the season, in late June and July, but in 2019 melting started in mid-April, around six to eight weeks before the 1981-2020 average, and affected roughly 95% of Greenland's ice sheet, according to the US' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

Such early melting events can have a "snowball effect" and lead to more melting as there is less snow and ice to reflect the Sun's rays back into space and keep the surface cool, explains Bianca Perren, a paleoclimatologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who studies sediment cores from polar regions to understand the long-term variability of the climate. 

More like this:

• Antarctica's upside-down ice-scape we had no idea existed

• The 'mind bomb' photos that changed the whaling industry

• Why polar bears are no longer the poster image of climate change

Greenland experienced record ice loss in 2019, shedding a total of 532 billion tonnes from its giant ice sheet, according to a 2020 study. On average, Greenland loses 234 billion tonnes of ice per year – enough to pack into 6,324 Empire State Buildings.

"2019 was a really unusually warm year, but so was 2012," says Kelly Hogan, a marine geophysicist at BAS who studies the impacts of Greenland's melting ice sheet. In 2012, the summer period (June-August) was more than 2C (4F) warmer than the average for 1981-2010, and more than 1.5C (3F) warmer for the entire ice sheet. "Those extremes are coming round more frequently than we had thought they would. They're happening every few years," says Hogan.

"What's really distinctive about Greenland is how much melting you get on the surface in the summer, because you don't get anywhere near as much as that in Antarctica," says Hogan. "When you see huge volumes of water [on the ice], it is really shocking."

 But it's rare to see "giant pools of water" on the surface like in Olsen's photo, says Perren, as usually the water seeps through cracks in the ice. "It basically pops the ice sheet up and floats it out to the coast. So often you don't have this pooling of water, but instead you have warm water that's being sent down into the bowels of the Greenland ice sheet, basically warming the whole thing," she says.

Greenland's melting ice sheet is threatening local community's way of life (Credit: Getty Images)

The rapid melting of the ice is already affecting local communities' way of life. "They are having to adapt the way they hunt and fish," says Olsen.

If the ice is unsafe to travel on, it also makes it more difficult for scientists to carry out their research, Olsen adds. "We will have to adapt and rely more on automatic instruments instead of community-based monitoring." 

Safety is already a concern, says Perren, adding: "I have promised my son that I will not step foot on the ice sheet because it's so dangerous."

 

It looks like the dogs are skating on something without a bottom… it feels like they could just sink at any moment – Kelly Hogan

The photo has helped raise awareness of Greenland's vulnerability to climate change, says Olsen. "I have definitely found that you can get a lot of attention for the problem with a photo… so it has been very efficient.

"But I've also been challenged by people saying: 'how can you take a photo of climate change?' And I agree, you cannot take one photo and call it climate change, because that is something that unfolds over a longer time period," says Olsen. "We need to explain the photo and provide the right context."

Photos are useful tools for starting conversation about the environment and explaining scientific phenomena, says Perren. "Science has a communication problem," she says.

"When I first saw it in 2019 I remember thinking: 'oh my gosh, this is such a shocking image,'" adds Perren. "It's a symbolic image of what climate change looks like in Greenland. But there's also a scientific side to it: maybe this is unprecedented but it also [paints] a very good, kind of emblematic picture of what the future would look like."

Hogan says that photo "really drives home the extent of the problem". "It looks like the dogs are skating on something without a bottom… it feels like they could just sink at any moment, which is maybe some sort of metaphor for the ice sheet and the future."

 

Nasa revela aumento 'inesperado' do nível do mar em 2024. Taxa atingiu 0,59 centímetros, índice superior à projeção inicial de 0,43 centímetros anuais.

Segundo a Nasa, o aumento inesperado é atribuído principalmente ao aquecimento dos oceanos. — Foto: Julie G 

A Nasa, a agência espacial norte-americana, revelou nesta quinta-feira (13) que o nível global do mar apresentou uma elevação superior à esperada no ano de 2024, principalmente devido ao aquecimento dos oceanos.

De acordo com a análise conduzida pela agência, a taxa de elevação atingiu 0,59 centímetros, valor consideravelmente superior à projeção inicial de 0,43 centímetros anuais.

 "Os dados que coletamos em 2024 demonstram um aumento além do que nossos modelos previram", explicou Josh Willis, pesquisador especializado em níveis oceânicos do Laboratório de Propulsão a Jato (JPL) da agência. 

 "Embora existam variações anuais, a tendência geral é inequívoca: os oceanos continuam subindo, e a velocidade desse processo está se intensificando progressivamente." 

 

A pesquisa indica uma importante alteração no padrão de contribuição para a elevação do nível do mar.

Tradicionalmente, cerca de dois terços desse aumento eram atribuídos à água proveniente do derretimento de geleiras e camadas de gelo terrestres, enquanto aproximadamente um terço resultava da expansão térmica da água oceânica.

Em 2024, contudo, essa proporção inverteu-se, com dois terços da elevação sendo consequência direta da expansão térmica.

 "O ano de 2024 registrou as temperaturas mais elevadas já documentadas, e os oceanos do planeta respondem diretamente a esse fenômeno, alcançando seus níveis mais altos em três décadas de monitoramento", afirmou Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, responsável pelos programas de oceanografia física e pelo Observatório Integrado do Sistema Terrestre na sede da Nasa em Washington.

Evolução do nível do mar desde 1993, com projeção de aumento acelerado. — Foto: Nasa 

Série histórica da elevação dos oceanos

Desde 1993, quando os registros por satélite foram iniciados, a taxa anual de elevação do nível do mar mais que dobrou.

No acumulado desse período, o nível global dos oceanos subiu aproximadamente 10 centímetros, conforme demonstram os dados coletados por uma sequência ininterrupta de satélites de observação oceânica.

Atualmente, o monitoramento é realizado pelo satélite Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, lançado em 2020 como parte de um par idêntico de equipamentos que permitirá a continuidade dessa série histórica de dados para a próxima década.

O futuro satélite Sentinel-6B da agência dará sequência às medições precisas do nível da superfície marinha para aproximadamente 90% dos oceanos mundiais. 

 

Aquecimento e circulação oceânica

A Nasa explica que transferência de calor para os oceanos, responsável pela expansão térmica da água, ocorre através de diversos mecanismos. Em condições normais, a água marinha organiza-se em camadas determinadas por temperatura e densidade, com água mais quente flutuando sobre camadas mais frias e densas.

Na maior parte dos oceanos, o calor superficial percorre essas camadas muito lentamente até alcançar as profundezas.

Porém, em regiões caracterizadas por ventos intensos, as camadas oceânicas podem sofrer agitação suficiente para provocar mistura vertical.

Grandes correntes, como as presentes no Oceano Austral, têm a capacidade de inclinar essas camadas, facilitando o deslocamento das águas superficiais para regiões mais profundas. 

Moradores caminham por área alagada em Jacarta, onde a elevação do nível do mar e o afundamento do solo agravam inundações em novembro de 2024. — Foto: REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan 

O fenômeno El Niño também contribui significativamente para esse processo, uma vez que o deslocamento de grandes massas de água quente, normalmente localizadas na região oeste do Oceano Pacífico, para as regiões central e leste, resulta em movimentos verticais de calor através das camadas oceânicas.

Por isso, o estudo reforça a crescente preocupação da comunidade científica com os impactos das mudanças climáticas, especialmente para comunidades costeiras que já enfrentam episódios mais frequentes de inundações durante marés altas, como é o caso de diversas regiões da Flórida e da Indonésia.