Plus, the most distant star just recorded; when flight attendants walked; riding the world’s largest waves; and this week's Nat Geo News Quiz
| Wednesday, March 30, 2022 | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM YUNGEL, NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY | | The world’s seas already are rising faster every year. Against that backdrop, any news of massive ice melts from Antarctica worries scientists--like the unexpected collapse of a New York City-size ice shelf in Antarctica earlier this month.
The collapse, the first in East Antarctica, won't itself drive appreciable sea level rise, but it highlights the risks posed by other ice shelf collapses, which could speed polar melting. Any extra meltwater may eventually affect the 110 million people living where coastal flooding already occurs regularly during high tides. Earlier this year, NOAA predicted seas would rise a foot by 2050 on U.S. coasts—and two feet by the end of the century.
Warmer West Antarctica poses a more immediate threat. An ice shelf (pictured above) that is already two-thirds collapsed protects the enormous Thwaites Glacier, which itself holds enough ice to raise global sea levels at least two feet. “It’s not a question of if seas will rise two feet, it’s when,” sociologist A.R. Siders tells Nat Geo. “We just have to make the decision [to adapt], even with some uncertainty.”
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| California fire season: The first two months of the year were the driest in the state’s modern history, sparking large wildfires in Northern and Southern California this month. The Jim Fire in Orange County and the Flanagan Fire near Redding have both moderated in intensity, but the typical wildfire season is lengthening. Indicators suggest another active wildfire season. (Pictured above, in this long-exposure image from 2014, the foreground is light-painted with a headlamp as a firefighting aircraft circles over a wildfire in Sequoia National Forest.)
For more: Meet some of the women fighting flames in California
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY RUBEN SALGADO ESCUDERO FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC | | Mask or not mask? Mandates have fallen as COVID cases have dropped—and so have most of the masks. But some people still cover their faces in supermarkets, office buildings, schools, and theaters. Should you? If nothing, keep those masks handy, Jaimie Meyer of Yale Medicine advises. Here’s some advice from her and other physicians on when it’s safe to ditch the mask—and when you should bring it back. (Above, Nat Geo Explorer Ruben Salgado Escudero photographed these masked revelers in Berlin in August.)
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 | | ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANDREW FAZEKAS | | A close encounter: As night falls without a moon in the sky this week, look for the Big Dipper to point the way to two bright galaxies, Messier 81 and 82. M81, a giant spiral galaxy that is tilted toward us, is the brighter of the two, and appears as a fuzzy oval patch of light under high magnification. M82 is a cigar-shaped galaxy and another easy binocular target. The two islands of stars are separated by 130,000 light years, and both lie about 12 million light years from Earth. On Monday and Tuesday, early risers can catch a close encounter between the faint planets Mars and Saturn low in the eastern sky, with superbright Venus and Jupiter nearby. Global Astronomy Month starts Friday, so check out a retinue of cosmic events around the world. — Andrew Fazekas
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 | | If you see an opportunity, take it. But even if there is no opportunity–make one. | | | Dominique Gonçalves
| Ecologist, Nat Geo Explorer
Advice to aspiring scientists
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY VITOR ESTRELINHA | | Ride the waves: Or just admire them. No one attempted to ride the giant swells of Nazaré, Portugal (pictured above) until surfer Garrett McNamara in 2011. He rode a record-breaking 78-foot-tall behemoth in the fishing village now known as surfing's Everest. Staying atop some of the world’s tallest and bumpiest waves obviously isn’t easy. Surfers are towed out on a motorized watercraft. They must wear special gear to survive the cold, the falls, and being pinned under waves. “The energy and the power that the waves have is something from another world,” says surfer António Laureano. Read Eve Conant’s story and see a monster winter wave here.
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This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, Monica Williams, and Jen Tse. Have an idea, a link, a wild surfing story? We'd love to hear from you. | |
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