AFP UK

A European Vega rocket lifted off Monday night from French Guiana carrying an Earth observation satellite and four miniature “cubesats”.

It was the second launch this year of the Vega, a crucial component of European ambitions to compete with rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the booming commercial aerospace market.

The rocket blasted off from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou at 10:47 pm (0147 GMT), successfully delivering the satellites in just under two hours.

Its main cargo was a high-resolution satellite, the second of four for a new Earth observation constellation operated by Airbus. The first was put in orbit in April by a Vega rocket.

The Pleiades Neo constellation will offer high-resolution imaging of Earth for military or civilian uses such as disaster response, according to Airbus.

Vega’s operator Arianespace is a subsidiary of the ArianeGroup, of which Airbus owns half.

The latest Vega also carried four miniature satellites known as “cubesats”.

One of them will become part of a constellation of satellites being developed by French start-up Unseenlabs, which specialises in maritime traffic monitoring.

The remaining three cubesats are from the European Space Agency for scientific and technology demonstration purposes.

Monday’s launch was the second Vega sent up by Arianespace this year, and the 19th since the rocket’s first flight in 2012. 

The two 2021 launches are a boost to the Vega programme — an effort involving 10 European countries — which suffered a setback in November last year when the rocket failed minutes after liftoff and disintegrated.

Its bell tower and yellow walls a sharp contrast with Haiti’s blue tropical sky, the historic Immaculee Conception church was the pride of Les Anglais, until it was destroyed by an earthquake Saturday, burying several faithful inside.

On August 14, at exactly 8:29 am (1229 GMT), a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck southern Haiti, reducing the church’s facade and steeple to a pile of rubble in seconds.

At least 17 people were crushed to death by the collapsing wall and roof.

“I had just finished celebrating the 6:30 am morning mass and had entered the presbytery to have coffee before returning to celebrate baptisms” when the quake struck, said parish priest Wilson Exantus Andre.

“The oldest of the deceased was 24 years old. What is hard is that a woman who has only two children, 18 years old and 3 years old, lost them both,” the priest, still in shock, told AFP on Monday.

The bodies of all of the victims were pulled out of the ruins of the church.

The massive quake killed more than 1,400 people across Haiti, according to a preliminary official toll reported on Monday.

– Just seconds –

“It was a beautiful church with very beautiful architecture,” said the priest. “It was part of the national heritage, it was the pride of the people of Les Anglais, who never missed an opportunity to talk about it.”

But in just a few seconds, the church, built in 1907, was destroyed.

Only part of the nave and the corrugated iron roof withstood the earthquake and its incessant aftershocks. Some of the church’s wooden benches were covered in piles of stones that used to be the steeple.

Two people trapped under the rubble were rescued with help from heavy equipment rushed in by workers with a Taiwanese construction company that happened to be working nearby, the priest said.

The survivors were taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Port-a-Piment.

Stunned residents of the coastal hamlet exchanged stories of what they lost in the quake outside the church ruins on Monday.

“It’s a tragedy really, we can’t believe how it all fell so quickly,” one of them said.

They each spoke of relatives killed during the disaster, as nearby a lone child’s shoe, black in color but now covered in white dust, lay in the church square.

Its bell tower and yellow walls a sharp contrast with Haiti’s blue tropical sky, the historic Immaculee Conception church was the pride of Les Anglais, until it was destroyed by an earthquake Saturday, burying several faithful inside.

On August 14, at exactly 8:29 am (1229 GMT), a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck southern Haiti, reducing the church’s facade and steeple to a pile of rubble in seconds.

At least 17 people were crushed to death by the collapsing wall and roof.

“I had just finished celebrating the 6:30 am morning mass and had entered the presbytery to have coffee before returning to celebrate baptisms” when the quake struck, said parish priest Wilson Exantus Andre.

“The oldest of the deceased was 24 years old. What is hard is that a woman who has only two children, 18 years old and 3 years old, lost them both,” the priest, still in shock, told AFP on Monday.

The bodies of all of the victims were pulled out of the ruins of the church.

The massive quake killed more than 1,400 people across Haiti, according to a preliminary official report out Monday.

– Just seconds –

“It was a beautiful church with very beautiful architecture,” said the priest. “It was part of the national heritage, it was the pride of the people of Les Anglais, who never missed an opportunity to talk about it.”

But in just a few seconds, the church, built in 1907, was destroyed.

Only part of the nave and the corrugated iron roof withstood the earthquake and its incessant aftershocks. Some of the church’s wooden benches were covered in piles of stones that used to be the steeple.

Two people trapped under the rubble were rescued with help from heavy equipment rushed in by workers with a Taiwanese construction company that happened to be working nearby, the priest said.

The survivors were taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Port-a-Piment.

Stunned residents of the coastal hamlet exchanged stories of what they lost in the quake outside the church ruins.

“It’s a tragedy really, we can’t believe how it all fell so quickly,” one of them said.

They each spoke of relatives killed during the disaster, as nearby a lone child’s shoe, black in color but now covered in white dust, lay in the church square.

During last week’s heatwaves in Italy and Spain, meteorologists in both countries announced provisional data suggesting temperature records had been set there.

But such claims need to be verified by the United Nations before being confirmed or rejected — a process that can take months of careful scientific checking.

The UN’s World Meteorological Organization is responsible for signing off on temperature records around the planet.

The Geneva-based agency maintains a global weather and climate extremes archive, which logs records for temperature, pressure, rainfall, hail, aridity, wind, lightning and weather-related mortality.

Here is how the WMO validates record claims, and what the records can tell us:

– Months of evaluation –

Confirming a claimed heat record takes several months.

The WMO first contacts the national weather service of the country concerned, and the specific organisation that captured the supposed record in order to get the raw data. That includes details on the exact location of the reading, the equipment used, its calibration, and the regional weather conditions at the time.

An initial assessment is carried out by the WMO Commission for Climatology and by Randall Cerveny, the organisation’s rapporteur of weather and climate extremes, who heads up the records archive.

An international panel of atmospheric scientists then reviews the raw data and provides Cerveny, a geographical sciences professor at Arizona State University, with recommendations for his final verdict.

A decision typically takes six to nine months after the panel is convened.

Since the process was set up, “no findings of any WMO extremes evaluation committee have been overturned”, he told AFP.

– Database started in 2007 –

In 2005, while watching US news coverage of Hurricane Katrina’s trail of destruction in New Orleans, Cerveny was struck by TV presenters repeatedly calling it the worst hurricane of all time.

He knew otherwise: while Katrina caused 1,800 deaths, a tropical cyclone in 1970 killed an estimated 300,000 people in what is now Bangladesh.

Cerveny co-wrote a scientific article calling for an official global records database.

And in 2007, the WMO asked him to set one up, to keep world, hemispherical and regional records for particular extreme weather events.

– Measuring climate change –

A new report this month by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed unequivocally that the climate is changing faster than previously feared, and because of human activity.

Knowing the existing weather and climate extremes is critical in determining exactly how much and how fast the world’s climate is changing, said the WMO, identifying that as the most important reason for holding the database.

The information is also important for health and civil engineering planning, Cerveny said in a WMO bulletin: Architects needed to know, for example, the maximum possible wind speed when designing a bridge.

Another reason given for maintaining the records database was to advance science — and help the media to put weather events in perspective.

– All-time heat record overturned –

The WMO also re-examines records from before 2007, and sometimes delists them.

Perhaps the best-known case is that of the long-standing world record temperature of 58 C (136 F) measured in 1922 in El Azizia, in what is now Libya.

Following a two-year investigation conducted in dangerous conditions during the Libyan revolution of 2011, the record was invalidated due to five major concerns, including potentially problematic instrumentation and “a probable new and inexperienced observer”.

Since then, the 56.7 C (134.1 F) registered on July 10, 1913 in Furnace Creek, in Death Valley in the United States has held the world heat record.

The coldest temperature on record is the minus 89.2 C (minus 128.6 F) recorded on July 21, 1983 at Russia’s Vostok research station on Antarctica.

In July this year, the WMO recognised a new record high temperature for the Antarctic continent, confirming a reading of 18.3 C (64.9 F) made last year at Argentina’s Esperanza research station on the Antarctic Peninsula on February 6, 2020.

But the WMO rejected an even higher temperature reading of 20.75 C (69.35) reported on February 9 last year at a Brazilian automated permafrost monitoring station on nearby Seymour Island.

It found an improvised radiation shield led to a demonstrable thermal bias error for the permafrost monitor’s air temperature sensor, making its reading ineligible as a record.

A huge reservoir that supplies water to tens of millions of people in the Western United States is at such low levels that populations it feeds must reduce their useage next year, the government said Monday.

A chronic drought has left huge swathes of the country parched, as man-made climate change forces shifts in the pattern of rainfall.

That has left Lake Mead, the largest US artifical reservoir which is fed by the mighty Colorado River, worryingly low — at just a third of its capacity.

“Like much of the (US) West, and across our connected basins, the Colorado River is facing unprecedented and accelerating challenges,” said Tanya Trujillo, an official with the federal water resources agency.

“The only way to address these challenges and climate change is to utilize the best available science and to work co-operatively across the landscapes and communities that rely on the Colorado River.”

That means starting in January, places downstream of Lake Mead — formed in the 1930s by the building of the Hoover Dam — will receive less water.

Arizona’s water supply will drop by almost a fifth, compared with a normal year, while Nevada will get seven percent less and Mexico will see a five percent reduction.

According to a study released last year by the US Geological Survey (USGS), the Colorado River’s flow has declined by an average of 20 percent over the past century.

At least half of that decline can be attributed to rising temperatures in the area. 

Global warming caused by human activity -– mostly the burning of fossil fuels -– has pushed up Earth’s average surface temperature 1.1 degrees Celsius (2.0 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to mid-19th century levels. Most of that increase has occurred in the last 50 years.

A UN draft climate report obtained by AFP says these rising temperatures will cause water shortages around the world.

“Globally, 800 million people are projected to experience chronic water scarcity due to drought cause by two degrees Celsius of warming,” it says.

Some 73 percent of people now believe that Earth’s climate is approaching abrupt and irreversible “tipping points” due to human activity, according to  a global opinion poll released Tuesday.

The survey, conducted before the publication of a bombshell UN climate science report last week, showed that more than half (58 percent) of respondents in G20 nations feel very or extremely concerned about the state of the planet. 

Scientists are increasingly concerned that some feedback loops in nature — such as irreversible melting of icesheets or permafrost — may be close to being triggered as mankind’s mind-boggling carbon emissions show no signs of slowing, despite a pandemic.

The IPCC report warned that Earth is on course to be 1.5C hotter than pre-industrial times around 2030 — a full decade earlier than it projected just three years ago. 

It said that “low likelihood, high impact” tipping points, such as the Amazon degrading from a carbon sink to source, “cannot be ruled out”.

Tuesday’s survey, conducted by the Global Commons Alliance and Ipsos MORI, found four out of five respondents wanted to do more to protect the planet.

“The world is not sleepwalking towards catastrophe. People know we are taking colossal risks, they want to do more and they want their governments to do more,” said Owen Gaffney, the lead author of a report based on the poll’s findings. 

Tuesday’s survey showed that people in developing nations were more likely to be willing to protect nature and the climate than those in richer countries. 

Ninety-five percent of respondents in Indonesia, and 94 percent in South Africa, said they would do more for the planet, compared with just 70 percent and 74 percent in Germany and the United States, respectively.

And although 59 percent of people surveyed said they believed in the need for a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, just eight percent acknowledged the need for large-scale economic shifts this decade. 

Gaffney said the survey showed “people really want to do something to protect nature, but report that they lack information and face financial constraints to what they can do.”

“The vast majority of people in the world’s wealthiest countries… are worried about the state of the planet and want to protect it,” said Kenyan environmentalist Elizabeth Wathuti.

“They want to become planetary stewards. This should be a wake-up call to leaders everywhere.”

Some 73 percent of people now believe that Earth’s climate is approaching abrupt and irreversible “tipping points” due to human activity, according to  a global opinion poll released Tuesday.

The survey, conducted before the publication of a bombshell UN climate science report last week, showed that more than half (58 percent) of respondents in G20 nations feel very or extremely concerned about the state of the planet. 

Scientists are increasingly concerned that some feedback loops in nature — such as irreversible melting of icesheets or permafrost — may be close to being triggered as mankind’s mind-boggling carbon emissions show no signs of slowing, despite a pandemic.

The IPCC report warned that Earth is on course to be 1.5C hotter than pre-industrial times around 2030 — a full decade earlier than it projected just three years ago. 

It said that “low likelihood, high impact” tipping points, such as the Amazon degrading from a carbon sink to source, “cannot be ruled out”.

Tuesday’s survey, conducted by the Global Commons Alliance and Ipsos MORI, found four out of five respondents wanted to do more to protect the planet.

“The world is not sleepwalking towards catastrophe. People know we are taking colossal risks, they want to do more and they want their governments to do more,” said Owen Gaffney, the lead author of a report based on the poll’s findings. 

Tuesday’s survey showed that people in developing nations were more likely to be willing to protect nature and the climate than those in richer countries. 

Ninety-five percent of respondents in Indonesia, and 94 percent in South Africa, said they would do more for the planet, compared with just 70 percent and 74 percent in Germany and the United States, respectively.

And although 59 percent of people surveyed said they believed in the need for a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, just eight percent acknowledged the need for large-scale economic shifts this decade. 

Gaffney said the survey showed “people really want to do something to protect nature, but report that they lack information and face financial constraints to what they can do.”

“The vast majority of people in the world’s wealthiest countries… are worried about the state of the planet and want to protect it,” said Kenyan environmentalist Elizabeth Wathuti.

“They want to become planetary stewards. This should be a wake-up call to leaders everywhere.”

Destruction of nature and the rampant use of pesticides are the main drivers behind a rapid worldwide loss of bees and other pollinator species, an international panel of experts reported Monday.

Shifts in land use to mono-crops, expanded grazing for livestock, and the widespread use of chemical fertilisers have also contributed significantly to their collapse, according to a global index of the causes and effects of pollinator decline.

For people everywhere, dwindling pollinator populations has potentially devastating consequences.

Bees, butterflies, wasps, beetles, bats, flies and hummingbirds that distribute pollen are vital for the reproduction of more than three-quarters of food crops and flowering plants, including coffee, rapeseed and most fruits.

“What happens to pollinators could have huge knock-on effects for humanity,” said Lynn Dicks, a professor in Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and lead author of a study in Nature Ecology & Evolution. 

“These small creatures play central roles in the world’s ecosystems, including many that humans and other animals rely on for nutrition,” she added in a statement. 

“If they go, we may be in serious trouble.” 

The world has seen a three-fold increase in pollinator-dependent food production — valued at nearly $600 billion annually — over the last 50 years, according to a major UN report from 2016 to which Dicks contributed.

To get an up-to-date overview of pollinator status and the risks associated with their decline, Dicks worked with 20 scientists and indigenous representatives from around the world.

The causes and impacts of decline varied across regions.

– ‘We feel their loss’ –

Mass die-offs due to disease and so-called colony collapse disorder in industrial beehives and other “managed pollinators” ranked as a high risk in North America, where they play a key role in apple and almond production.

In Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America — regions where poorer rural populations rely on wild-growing foods — the impact of pollinator decline on wild plants and fruits poses a serious risk.

Latin America was viewed as the region with most to lose. 

Insect-pollinated crops such as cashews, soybean, coffee and cocoa are essential to the region’s food supply and international trade. 

Indigenous populations also depend heavily on pollinated plants, with some pollinator species such as hummingbirds embedded in oral culture and history.

“This study highlights just how much we still don’t know about pollinator decline and the impacts on human societies, particularly in parts of the developing world,” said co-author Tom Breeze, Ecological Economics Research Fellow at the University of Reading. 

In China and India — increasingly reliant on fruit and vegetable crops that need pollinators — the loss of natural sources means it must sometimes be done by hand.

“Pollinators are often the most immediate representatives of the natural world in our daily lives,” said Dicks. “These are the creatures that captivate us early in life. We notice and feel their loss.”

“We are in the midst of a species extinction crisis, but for many people that is intangible,” she added. “Perhaps pollinators are the bellwether of mass extinction.”

Another potential driver of pollinator decline that is likely to get worse is climate change, the study noted.

Some species of hummingbirds in Latin America, for example, can only collect nectar — and, in the process, pollen — in the shade during evermore frequent heatwaves, making it more difficult to feed themselves, according to one study. 

Firefighters gained ground Monday against a wildfire in central Spain that forced hundreds from their homes, as their colleagues across the border battled a blaze in southern Portugal.

The Spanish teams were helped by falling winds and an easing of what may well be a record-setting heatwave.

But the two Mediterranean countries were only the latest in Europe to face extreme weather and fierce fires, which climate scientists warn will become increasingly common because of manmade global warming.

In Spain, nearly 1,000 firefighters backed by 15 water-dropping aircraft have been battling a blaze burning since Saturday morning in Avila province, that at one point was fed by winds of up to 70 kilometres an hour (54 miles per hour).

Monday’s weaker winds gave them some respite however. Crews achieved “a certain control” of the fire’s perimeter, said Juan Carlos Saurez-Quinones, environment minister of the regional government of Castilla y Leon region.

If the improved weather conditions continued, firefighters should be able to stabilise the blaze on Monday, he told journalists.

The wildfire has so far destroyed 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of land and forced the evacuation over the weekend of nearly 1,000 people from several nearby towns and villages.

Spain has been in the grip of a heatwave since Wednesday which has sparked several fires, as the state meteorological agency (AEMET) recorded what appeared to be record temperatures.

Their provisional data registered a peak of 47.4 degrees Celsius (117.3 Fahrenheit) at around 5:00 pm (1500 GMT) Saturday in the southern city of Cordoba. That is a tenth of a degree higher than the last record, also recorded there, in July 2017.

The heatwave was due to end Monday with the arrival of lower temperatures in all of Spain, except in the southernmost part of the southern region of Andalusia, said AEMET spokesman Ruben del Campo.

The risk of fires nevertheless remained high across the country because “after several days of heatwave the vegetation has dried up more”, he told reporters.

In neighbouring Portugal some 200 firefighters were battling a blaze near Castro Marim in the southern province of Algarve, a European tourism hotspot, local officials said Monday.

European countries such as Greece and Turkey have already experienced heatwaves and devastating wildfires this summer.

Indonesia’s most active volcano Mount Merapi erupted Monday, belching a cloud of ash into the air as red lava flowed down its crater.

The early morning explosions spewed clouds as far as 3.5 kilometres (2 miles) from the rumbling volcano, blanketing local communities in grey ash.

There were no evacuation orders or reports of casualties.

Merapi, close to Indonesia’s cultural capital Yogyakarta on Java island, has been particularly active in recent months and authorities raised its danger level late last year.

Residents were told to avoid the area within a five-kilometre radius of the rumbling volcano, Indonesia’s geological agency said.

“Residents should avoid volcanic ash and they’ve been warned about potential lava flows in the area surrounding Merapi,” it added.

Mount Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed more than 300 people and forced the evacuation of around 280,000 residents from surrounding areas.

That was its most powerful eruption since 1930, when around 1,300 people were killed, while another explosion in 1994 took about 60 lives.

The Southeast Asian archipelago nation has nearly 130 active volcanoes.

Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide.