Temperature

• Johnsonville's National Temperature Check is a new national survey of 2,060 U.S. adults conducted online by The Harris Poll from Feb. 29 - March 4.
• The data shows Americans are finding it harder to have fun with people, and generally hanging out together less.
• Other key findings from Johnsonville's National Temperature Check survey include:
  It should come as no surprise, but Americans are exhausted, especially by what they see in the media.
• Johnsonville's National Temperature Check found that 80% of adult Americans expressed they are exhausted by the anger and negativity in America.

• At the end of the southern summer, Antarctica’s sea ice hit its annual minimum.
• By at least one measure, which tracks the area of ocean that contains at least 15% of sea ice, it was a little above the record low of 2023.
• But something has changed in how the Southern Ocean works and the area covered by sea ice has decreased dramatically.

The southernmost shelf sea

• The annual freeze-thaw cycle of Antarctic sea ice is one of the defining properties of our planet.
• Time to take our medicine

  The voyage was led by a team of scientists who coordinate Italy’s longstanding research in the Southern Ocean.

• Continental shelf seas around Antarctica are special because of the presence of sea ice – but this varies in space and time.
• It shows that by the end of summer, the Ross Sea region holds only a few patches of sea ice.
• The region is the southernmost open water on the planet and acts as a gateway to seawater flowing in and out under the largest (by area) ice shelf on the planet – the Ross Ice Shelf.

The state of sea ice

• This reinforced our understanding of the importance of the spatial variability of sea ice.
• At the late-summer sea-ice minimum, the Ross Sea is largely free of ice, while the Weddell Sea stays filled with ice.

• They took me beyond anything imagined from data and models.
• However, it is clear that Antarctic ocean data collection systems need to expand when and where they collect information.

The future is robotic

• We deployed 11 relatively simple Argo floats that will drift around the region for years, surfacing to send back data on temperature, salinity and in some cases oxygen.
• We also sent three robotic ocean gliders on their data-collecting missions independent of the ship.

• The data provide evidence of warmer water lying just beneath the edge of the continental shelf, highlighting the fragility of the system.
• There is a growing sense that the Ross Sea sector will become more important in the coming decade.

• Craig Stevens receives funding from the New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), Antarctica New Zealand Antarctic Science Platform (ASP-ANTA1801), MBIE Strategic Science Investment Fund and the New Zealand Royal Society Te Apārangi Marsden Fund.
• The observations and collaboration described here were made possible through long-term funding for the work from both the Italian PNRA (Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide) and the NZ Antarctic Science Platform.

• Such a phase-out requires international cooperation to restrict the supply of fossil fuels, including coal, oil and gas.
• If such cooperative efforts are pursued alongside ambitious action to tackle the demand for fossil fuels, it could lead to environmental and economic benefits.
• Some countries are already taking unilateral action to restrict fossil fuels, by, for instance, banning new oil and gas exploration or extraction.
• While no international agreement on limiting the supply of fossil fuels yet exists, there are precursors which have tended to take two different forms.

Who’s in? Who’s out?

• They would be followed by countries that have low reserves and low profits from fossil fuels, such as Argentina, Brazil, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico and Turkey.
• Our data suggests that petrostates such as Russia and Saudi Arabia would be the most reluctant to join because fossil fuel production is so central to their economies.

• We acknowledge that our scenarios for international efforts to phase out fossil fuels are not necessarily aligned with geopolitical realities.
• For one, there is the shaky relationship between key countries such as the US and China to consider.
• A club of like-minded countries could pave the way for a wider coalition, but major fossil fuel producers would need to join eventually for it to succeed.

Economic consequences

• Fossil fuel prices will inevitably rise as their supply is squeezed by a phase-out.
• Only phasing out oil may result in higher economic costs, due to its ubiquity in global supply chains and production processes.
• International cooperation will be crucial, especially to lessen the economic impact on developing countries that are heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels.

• Lauri Peterson received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no.
• Panagiotis Fragkos received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no.

• PITTSBURGH, March 20, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Coherent Corp. (NYSE: COHR), a leading provider of high-performance optical networking solutions, today introduced its versatile I-temp 100G ZR QSFP28 digital coherent optics (DCO) transceiver.
• Designed for deployment in outdoor street cabinets and pole-mount physical plants in edge and access networks, the Coherent I-temp 100G ZR QSFP28-DCO transceiver is ideal for customers who need transceivers that support a wider operating temperature range.
• These transceivers can be installed directly onto already deployed access network equipment with QSFP28 ports.
• “The Coherent 100G ZR QSFP28-DCO platform is built on our internally developed 100G digital signal processor.