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10 Covid Cases Detected On Norwegian Cruise Ship Carrying Thousands

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10 Covid cases have been detected among crew members and passengers. (Representational)
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Miami:
Ten Covid-19 cases have been detected among crew members and passengers on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship returning to New Orleans on Sunday with thousands on board, a US health authority said.
"The Norwegian Breakaway departed from New Orleans on Nov. 28 and stopped in Belize, Honduras and Mexico on its voyage," the Louisiana Department of Health tweeted Saturday.
"There are more than 3,200 individuals onboard."
The health department said every individual aboard would be tested for Covid prior to disembarking.
"Those who test positive for COVID-19 will either (1) travel by personal vehicle directly to their personal residence or (2) self-isolate according to current (US Centers for Disease Control) guidelines in accommodations provided by NCL," the health department tweeted.
The global cruise industry has taken a severe hit during the pandemic.
In February 2020, when little was known about the new coronavirus, a cruise ship named "Diamond Princess" was quarantined off Japan.
More than 700 people on board tested positive for Covid-19 and 13 died, with Japanese authorities heavily criticised for insisting passengers and crew stay on the boat, where the virus continued to spread.
Cruise operations in the US were suspended in March 2020 when the CDC issued a "no sail order" to prevent the spread of Covid.
Some cruise ships resumed operations in Europe and elsewhere last year, but the ban remained in place in the United States.
After a year of crippling losses, cruise industry giants resumed trips from the US in May this year when the CDC gave the green light to allow trips with passengers and crew who are vaccinated.
Canada lifted its ban on cruise ships in its waters last month.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-coronavirus-travel-coronavirus-cruise-ship-10-covid-cases-detected-on-norwegian-cruise-ship-carrying-thousands-2638024">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-coronavirus-travel-coronavirus-cruise-ship-10-covid-cases-detected-on-norwegian-cruise-ship-carrying-thousands-2638024</a>

news world 10 Covid Cases Detected On Norwegian Cruise Ship Carrying Thousands

10 Covid cases have been detected among crew members and passengers. (Representational) Miami: Ten Covid-19 cases have been detected am...

UK's New Covid Travel Rules Amid 'Omicron' Variant Scare

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Currently travellers have to take a PCR test within two days of arrival to UK. (File)
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London:
The UK government has announced that those travelling into the country will need to show a negative coronavirus test pre-departure as it reintroduces Covid-19 restrictions due to the Omicron variant.
From 0400 GMT on Tuesday, anyone travelling to the UK will have to show evidence of a negative lateral flow or PCR test taken within the last 48 hours before boarding a flight, the health ministry said late Saturday.
This will apply to travellers aged over 12 from any country. Currently travellers have to take a PCR test within two days of arrival.
The reintroduction of compulsory pre-departure testing prompted an angry response from the travel industry.
The Business Travel Association said that the measure would be a "hammer blow", while the Airport Operators Association said that "pre-departure tests are a devastating blow, as they deter people from travelling".
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab told Sky News that he knew the new measure was a "burden for the travel industry" but stressed the UK needed to act.
"We've got to take the measures targeted forensically to stop the new variant seeding in this country to create a bigger problem."
The government has vowed it "will take further decisive action if necessary to contain the virus and new variant".
The UK earlier banned flights from South Africa and put 10 African countries on its red list, meaning only UK and Irish citizens or UK residents can travel from there to the UK. Nigeria will join the list from Monday.
Experts cautioned that travel restrictions and bans will not halt the virus spread.
Statistician David Spiegelhalter, a University of Cambridge professor who co-authored a history of the pandemic, told Sky News that "travel restrictions at the moment are only going to slow things up a little bit.. but they're not going to stop it (Omicron) and it's going to come in".
England has made masks compulsory again in shops and on public transport in response to the new variant, with 160 Omicron cases confirmed for far in the UK.
The UK has also extended its booster programme to make all adults eligible.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-uk-coronavirus-coronavirus-in-britain-uks-new-covid-travel-rules-amid-omicron-variant-scare-2638012">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-uk-coronavirus-coronavirus-in-britain-uks-new-covid-travel-rules-amid-omicron-variant-scare-2638012</a>

news world UK's New Covid Travel Rules Amid 'Omicron' Variant Scare

Currently travellers have to take a PCR test within two days of arrival to UK. (File) London: The UK government has announced that thos...

Russian Airliner Diverted To "Avoid" NATO Spy Plane: Moscow

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A Russian airliner had to change course to avoid a NATO spy plane. (Representational)
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Moscow:
A Russian airliner had to change course to avoid a NATO spy plane that was crossing its path above the Black Sea, Moscow authorities have said.
The alleged spy plane "descended rapidly" across the planned route for a Tel Aviv-Moscow Aeroflot service with 142 people on board, Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency said late Saturday according to news agency Interfax.
"The direction and altitude of the commercial flight were immediately altered" to avoid a collision, the agency said, adding that the unknown plane did not respond to radio hails from air traffic control.
Interfax reported that the Aeroflot flight had to drop 500 metres (1,600 feet) to keep its distance from the reconnaissance aircraft, which the pilots saw from the cockpit with the naked eye.
A second plane, a private jet flying from the Black Sea resort Sochi to Northern Macedonian capital Skopje, also had to divert to avoid the spy plane, the air transport authority said.
"Increased activity by NATO aircraft near Russia's borders... creates a risk of dangerous accidents involving civilian aircraft," the agency said, adding that it would lodge a diplomatic protest.
Russian authorities did not say which nation had operated the spy plane.
On Friday, Russian fighter jets were sent to escort two American spy aircraft over the Black Sea region, Russian media reported.
Saturday's incident comes as tensions rise between Russia and Western nations, which accuse Moscow of massing troops on its border with Ukraine in preparation for an invasion.
Russia has denied it has any such plans, in turn accusing NATO countries of "provocations" including military exercises near its borders.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/russian-airliner-diverted-to-avoid-nato-spy-plane-moscow-2638006">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/russian-airliner-diverted-to-avoid-nato-spy-plane-moscow-2638006</a>

news world Russian Airliner Diverted To "Avoid" NATO Spy Plane: Moscow

A Russian airliner had to change course to avoid a NATO spy plane. (Representational) Moscow: A Russian airliner had to change course t...

"Love Of Symmetry": How Angela Merkel's Rhombus Hand Gesture Became A Brand

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="'Love Of Symmetry': How Angela Merkel's Rhombus Hand Gesture Became A Brand" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-12/7kbqeddc_angela-merkels-rhombus-hand-gesture-_625x300_05_December_21.jpg" title="'Love Of Symmetry': How Angela Merkel's Rhombus Hand Gesture Became A Brand" /></div>
Angela Merkel's "rhombus" hand gesture was her most recognisable trademark.
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Berlin:
Hands resting in front of the stomach, thumbs and fingertips touching to form a diamond shape -- Angela Merkel's "rhombus" hand gesture was her most recognisable trademark.
The gesture has its own Wikipedia page, its own emoticon, "<>", and the longtime German leader has even been immortalised adopting the pose at London's famous Madame Tussauds waxworks museum.
But the "Merkel-Raute", as it is known in German, became her signature largely by accident -- born from a camera-shy Merkel being unsure how to pose during a photo shoot for Stern magazine in 2002.
Then head of the Christian Democrats (CDU) but still three years away from being elected as chancellor for the first time, Merkel "didn't know what to do with her hands", photographer Claudia Kempf later recalled.
"She let them hang down next to her, which made her look a bit exposed, or she joined them together. I said to her, 'You look too much like a pastor's daughter'," Kempf told the Rheinische Post newspaper in 2009.
A few months before German elections in 2013, Merkel offered her own explanation of how the gesture had come about.
"It's about the question of where to put your arms," said the trained physicist, adding that the rhombus also showed "a certain love of symmetry".
'Personality cult'
At the time of that interview, Merkel was campaigning for a third term in office.
The whole parliament comes up for renewal in German federal elections, but her CDU party had decided on a very personalised campaign.
A billboard 70 metres wide by 20 metres tall (230 feet by 66 feet) was erected near Berlin's central station featuring a giant image of the Merkel rhombus, made up of over 2,000 photographs of hands, with the slogan "Germany's future in good hands".
The rival Social Democrats (SPD) slammed what they called an "empty personality cult" around Merkel, while the Greens lamented: "If this is politics, we have fallen very low."
But the woman affectionately nicknamed "Mutti" (mummy) won the election by a wide margin a few weeks later, with the Merkel rhombus becoming "probably one of the most recognisable hand gestures in the world", according to Britain's Guardian newspaper.
The gesture has also been likened to a bridge, a protective roof, and even a sign made between Illuminati members to identify themselves.
"I believe the Merkel rhombus was initially adopted unconsciously," Jochen Hoerisch, a communications specialist at the University of Mannheim, told AFP.
"But once it had been noticed by the public it was then consciously used by the chancellor as a brand."
Political tool
Even in the twilight of Merkel's political career, the gesture was once again catapulted into the spotlight during this year's election campaign when SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz adopted it on a magazine cover.
Scholz used the gesture in a photo shoot for the Sueddeutsche Zeitung -- part of his strategy to position himself as the true Merkel continuity candidate, as opposed to Armin Laschet, the challenger from Merkel's party.
This claim on Merkel's legacy prompted a backlash from the CDU and even from Merkel herself, who was at pains to point out that there were "enormous differences" between herself and Scholz.
In a debate in parliament, Laschet told Scholz: "You can't go around making rhombus signs and talking like Saskia Esken" -- the co-leader of the SPD, who represents the party's left wing.
But the Social Democrats' plan paid off and Scholz's party secured a shock victory in the election over Merkel's conservatives.
Many older voters in particular defected from the CDU to vote for Scholz, who will be officially elected by parliament on Wednesday to replace her as Germany's next chancellor.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/angela-merkel-germany-angela-merkel-angela-merkel-news-love-of-symmetry-how-angela-merkels-rhombus-hand-gesture-became-a-brand-2637939">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/angela-merkel-germany-angela-merkel-angela-merkel-news-love-of-symmetry-how-angela-merkels-rhombus-hand-gesture-became-a-brand-2637939</a>

news world "Love Of Symmetry": How Angela Merkel's Rhombus Hand Gesture Became A Brand

Angela Merkel's "rhombus" hand gesture was her most recognisable trademark. Berlin: Hands resting in front of the stomach...

Bows, Smiles And Tiara: Japanese Princess Aiko Celebrates Coming Of Age

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Bows, Smiles And Tiara: Japanese Princess Aiko Celebrates Coming Of Age" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-12/le0cbgrg_japanese-princess-aiko_625x300_05_December_21.jpg" title="Bows, Smiles And Tiara: Japanese Princess Aiko Celebrates Coming Of Age" /></div>
Japanese princess Aiko is not eligible to ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne.
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Tokyo:
Japan's Princess Aiko, the only child of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, on Sunday celebrated her coming of age at the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo after turning 20 on Wednesday.
Aiko, who is not eligible to ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne, limited by law to males, bowed and smiled to the press wearing a tiara and a long white dress.
The princess wants to become an adult who can be of service to others, she said in a statement released by the Imperial Household Agency on her birthday.
"I am deeply grateful to all who have been involved in my journey to this day," Aiko said.
It was heartbreaking that many people around the world have died due to COVID-19, she said, expressing hope that "a peaceful and vibrant life" would come to everyone as soon as possible.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/japanese-princess-aiko-news-japanese-princess-news-bows-smiles-and-tiara-japanese-princess-aiko-celebrates-coming-of-age-2637881">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/japanese-princess-aiko-news-japanese-princess-news-bows-smiles-and-tiara-japanese-princess-aiko-celebrates-coming-of-age-2637881</a>

news world Bows, Smiles And Tiara: Japanese Princess Aiko Celebrates Coming Of Age

Japanese princess Aiko is not eligible to ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne. Tokyo: Japan's Princess Aiko, the only child of Emper...

Antarctica was once a rainforest. Could it be again?

Not far from the South Pole, more than half a mile below the ocean in a region that was once covered by ice, a layer of ancient fossils tells a surprising story about the coldest continent on Earth. Today, the South Pole records average winter temperatures of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/10/01/south-pole-coldest-winter-record/">78 degrees Fahrenheit below zero</a>. But roughly 90 million years ago, the fossils suggest, Antarctica was as warm as Italy and covered by a green expanse of rainforest.
“That was an exciting time for Antarctica,” Johann P. Klages, a marine geologist who helped unearth the fossils, told Vox. “It was basically the last time the whole continent was covered by vegetation and probably also wildlife — dinosaurs, and all that.”
Intrepid polar scientists like Klages, who works at the <a href="https://www.awi.de/en/">Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research</a> in Bremerhaven, Germany, are revealing new sides of the Antarctica we know today. In the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2148-5">April 2020 issue of the journal Nature</a>, he and 39 colleagues described networks of fossilized tree roots that they pulled up from the seafloor in 2017. They’re a sign of just how much the polar climate has changed since the “supergreenhouse” of the Cretaceous period — and perhaps how much the climate could change again.
Even since that paper, the Antarctic surprises have kept coming. In October, a Brazilian research team announced that it found <a href="https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/5487">75-million-year-old pieces of charcoal</a> on James Ross Island, hundreds of miles south of South America. In the journal Polar Research, the researchers concluded that “paleofires,” which were common in the rest of the prehistoric world, also scorched the Antarctic Peninsula. “That’s exciting work,” Klages said. “It’s the first evidence for these wildfires.”
As climate change warms Antarctica and shrinks its enormous ice sheet, many scientists are wondering whether history could repeat itself. But relatively few research teams have the tools to work in a place where Titanic-sized icebergs pepper the ocean.
I sat down with Klages at the Falling Walls Science Summit in Berlin to talk about how his team conducted research from the RV Polarstern, a research icebreaker that translates “North Star” and regularly carries around 50 scientists and 50 crew members to the Arctic and Antarctic. He told me about the place where his team drilled into the seafloor — an area where geology somehow brought layers of 90-million-year-old sediment, or “strata,” within reach of their enormous and powerful drill.
The layers, he said, are like the pages in a book. “You walk along the pages; you walk along history,” he said. Our conversation has been edited and condensed.
<h4>Daniel Gross</h4>
Can you tell me a little bit about the 2017 voyage itself?
<h4>Johann Klages</h4>
All Antarctic expeditions I’ve been a part of are extremely exciting because everywhere you go, usually, it’s for the first time. It’s like this white spot on the map. Every time we go there we discover new things.
Polarstern is one of the largest research icebreakers in the world — it can break through thick ice. That makes it possible to reach locations that are usually not reachable for other ships. In the Northern Hemisphere summer, it’s usually in the Arctic, and in the Southern Hemisphere summer, it’s usually in the Antarctic.
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<figcaption>Johann Klages stands aboard the research icebreaker RV Polarstern in inner Pine Island Bay, West Antarctica, in February 2017.</figcaption>
<cite>Courtesy of Johann Klages/AWI</cite></figure>
This particular cruise was exciting because we tried this special seafloor drill rig for the first time. It’s huge. It’s almost 10 tons. It needs seven 20-foot containers of equipment to be shipped. There are only two of them available on the planet right now. They were developed and built in Bremen, Germany, at the Institute for Marine Environmental Sciences.
For this drill rig, you need special conditions. It sits on the seafloor and it’s connected with a long cable, in this case about 1,000 meters, for power supply and a glass fiber cable that ensures the communication. We have 20 HD cameras that are observing each step. We the scientists are standing behind the technicians, because they are the specialists, in the communication container with all the screens that show you what’s going on.
<h4>Daniel Gross</h4>
It must look like a cockpit of an airplane.
<h4>Johann Klages</h4>
Yeah, or like in Houston when rockets go up. It’s very exciting. We know, when we drill, that no one has seen this material before.
It’s also extremely exciting because sea ice drifting toward the ship would be the end of the cable. Canceling the drill takes five to six hours. Therefore, we have a joint collaboration with the German aerospace center, and every day we get high-resolution imagery of the particular location where we drill. Then we have two helicopters on board. We fly around the ship to make sure there is no sea ice.
You need around 30 to 50 hours of operation time on one particular location. So for this time window, you have to make sure that everything runs relatively smoothly.
We had to drill through 25 meters [82 feet] of sandstone, which is always the worst to drill, especially when there’s water involved, because it crumbles and falls apart. It’s really annoying. The drilling crew wanted to cancel the drill because of the sandstone and because ice was coming. We had to decide. I think the ice was eight or nine hours away.
<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1638716458_4624_629737" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23059234,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/l7ThtrBGJF22TSSP1707TcYrqbQ=/0x0:4000x2667/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Qxq6AIGZlbUgzIIl4c-WQ1wguGE=/0x0:4000x2667/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/stMjWexotJxxSNkXV_rc5ZL_KaM=/0x0:4000x2667/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/krpLhxTPk2lqkY_8mdSlyAeONG8=/0x0:4000x2667/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ymglpridBrzAStlgoUCp1jB0Dqw=/0x0:4000x2667/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dw4QdA3sNCLRaj5DQW_CePrmWyw=/0x0:4000x2667/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/izKhxT65ItXtlBtbOxaXqSP9azg=/0x0:4000x2667/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/l7TeSTvTmOEIVep-t07QSaQ3JBc=/0x0:4000x2667/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lzj9tPu8ZAnT10AZLbpHr8bbSVk=/0x0:4000x2667/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="4000" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5XXD-1M5SCwab_BWqogTwuiPKaA=/0x0:4000x2667/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5eElvIHGiYup-zbIuk0o3V0LWDg=/0x0:4000x2667/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/p82sNShSow4g6mv1XK80mf66_TY=/0x0:4000x2667/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/w6ct6Xu-brVmcB1nPJACGpYcqEc=/0x0:4000x2667/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fPOM86ElFlIGiuLgt7hOZ16L814=/0x0:4000x2667/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tQ2HeXJrpitY8anK1lsGTB00teQ=/0x0:4000x2667/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/a-qRyIiFeXYdAaqYz5GwMyzvHR4=/0x0:4000x2667/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CX-Rvi-C7ZI5FOl84tY9EKtyZrA=/0x0:4000x2667/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KacyvbD4-M48MaFhm8ecVN940W4=/0x0:4000x2667/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5JgbtjTi2m4x1mKO0KlnPt-SEJY=/0x0:4000x2667/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4000x2667):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059234/_IMG_2622_T_Ronge.jpg 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>From a container that serves as a control room, two technicians control the drill rig that sits below the ship on the seafloor.</figcaption>
<cite>T.A. Ronge/AWI</cite></figure>
<h4>Daniel Gross</h4>
Why did you drill there?
<h4>Johann Klages</h4>
Because during past expeditions, with geophysical methods looking deep into the seafloor, we saw that the geological strata were kind of tilted.
<h4>Daniel Gross</h4>
And that signals just how old it is.
<h4>Johann Klages</h4>
Exactly. If you have tilted strata, some kind of bigger tectonic process brought it up. Then the ice eroded into it, so that these strata are so close to the surface — just a few meters below the surface.
<h4>Daniel Gross</h4>
Is the drill sort of like a straw, in that it holds the sediment in place as it drills down?
<h4>Johann Klages</h4>
Yeah, you have an inner and outer barrel. At the bottom, you have a diamond drill head.
The seafloor drill rig has two magazines in it — one with empty barrels and one with filled barrels. You pull out the inner barrel every 3.5 meters. We then go and get the material from the technicians. That was the first moment we realized we have something very special because it had a color that we never saw before in Antarctica. Very dark brown, and very fine-grained.
At the surface, every once in a while, you could see these black spots. We were all wondering, what are these black spots about? Must be something organic.
We decided to drill one more section, which means 3.5 meters, and then go away. And in those 3.5 meters, there were those exciting strata. If we hadn’t, there would have been nothing exciting, really. That made the difference.
It’s always a combination of knowledge and good conditions, but then there are two more things: luck and intuition. If you don’t follow them, you shouldn’t go there in the first place.
We came home. The cores came home a couple of weeks later, shipped home on Polarstern. Then we decided to go to a hospital we have a collaboration with that has these human computed tomography (CT) scanners. When we first saw the CT data, that was the moment we realized we have something very special. It was this interconnected network of fossil roots.
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<figcaption>This CT scan shows the fossilized tree roots that Klages and his colleagues found more than 80 feet below the seafloor in Antarctica. The yellow portion is the bottom of a layer of sandstone and the green portion shows the roots.</figcaption>
<cite>Alfred Wegener Institute</cite></figure>
<h4>Daniel Gross</h4>
Was there evidence of plant life in Antartica before you came along?
<h4>Johann Klages</h4>
Yes, but all of that evidence is 1,000 to 1,500 kilometers [about 600 to 900 miles] farther north. There was no evidence from near the South Pole. We reconstructed this environment only 900 kilometers away from the South Pole.
No one really knew what the climate was like during the “supergreenhouse” period near the South Pole. But this is actually what you need when you want to know the severity of a particular climate in Earth’s past. [The poles are currently warming much more quickly than the rest of the planet, and as polar ice melts, global warming accelerates.] This is what we could reveal with this study.
The problem in Antarctica is, right now, is the ice sheet. The particular site where we drilled was covered by grounded ice for millions of years, but since we are in an interglacial period right now, the ice retreated to a point that it just made it possible to get to it and drill into it.
<h4>Daniel Gross</h4>
Could you describe what was happening in the atmosphere at the time that could have created these conditions?
<h4>Johann Klages</h4>
That was the final question we asked ourselves. Such a diverse environment with such mild temperatures — temperatures that today you have in northern Italy, for example. What is necessary to maintain that for a long stretch of time 90 million years ago?
Therefore, we invited some climate modelers into our team. They came up with [a carbon dioxide concentration of] at least 1,100 parts per million CO2, which is four times preindustrial [the CO2 concentration before the Industrial Revolution]. This was needed, at least, to meet the conditions we reconstructed.
We knew this period was the warmest in the last 145 million years. Now we had much better numbers on the CO2 content.
The model still has a problem: It can’t really simulate well enough the gradient between lower latitudes and high latitudes. We now know that the gradient was very shallow.
<h4>Daniel Gross</h4>
So it’s likely that the climate was hotter but more even at the time.
<h4>Johann Klages</h4>
Yeah! This is something that models can’t do right now properly — to simulate this gradient. So there is a bug with the modeling.
This is now what brings it to the significance for the future of the climate, if we drift into a high-CO2 future. We are doing that right now. We are 420 parts per million CO2, something around that. If we go to this high-CO2 future, we know that models struggle. This is a chance to use moments in Earth’s past to calibrate those models, to improve their predictive capabilities for tomorrow.
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<figcaption>The view from RV Polarstern as the ship cruised through sea-ice fields in inner Pine Island Bay in 2017. During the Antarctic summer, the sun doesn’t set for months.</figcaption>
<cite>T.A. Ronge/AWI</cite></figure>
<h4>Daniel Gross</h4>
And the predictions your colleagues are starting to make suggest that it’s very concerning — but the presence of the ice sheet itself could protect us?
<h4>Johann Klages</h4>
Yes. We are quite lucky now that we have ice, and that two big areas of our planet are covered by permanent ice mass: Greenland and Antarctica. You have this self-cooling process. You have a gigantic mirror that sends short-wave radiation that comes in, back into space. If this is gone, this is transformed into heat.
This is something that we should not take for granted. Ice is vanishing. Every year we go there, we see. [We think] “Oh my gosh — it’s really going quickly now.” The rapid changes going on are unprecedented, as far as we know so far from the geological past.
We are doing a big experiment right now. We take fossil fuels from the Earth’s crust that were deposited over millions of years, and usually would have been released back to the atmosphere over millions of years — but we did it within 150 years. Boom. That has never happened before. That has a massive impact.
This is something we need to incorporate when we talk about the future — to start learning what the planet already went through in its history. It’s the only chance we have. It’s not about environmental protection — it’s about human protection. It’s about us.
<h4>Daniel Gross</h4>
When you set out to become a marine geologist, did you ever think you’d end up researching something so pressing — the future of our climate?
<h4>Johann Klages</h4>
No. You drift into things. I was just fascinated by the planet and by its history. We are lucky to be part of it. But this particular discovery — if someone would have told me the story like three years ago, I would have laughed. I never thought it would have such an impact.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22797395/antarctica-was-once-a-rainforest-could-it-be-again">https://www.vox.com/22797395/antarctica-was-once-a-rainforest-could-it-be-again</a>

vox Antarctica was once a rainforest. Could it be again?

Not far from the South Pole, more than half a mile below the ocean in a region that was once covered by ice, a layer of ancient fossils tell...