The United Nations has issued the latest warning that global warming is having an increasingly serious impact on mankind. With the approach of irreversible climate disaster, the global impact of climate change is entering an unknown area of destruction, countries have failed to effectively deal with climate change, and the world is moving in the wrong direction.

The report, entitled “Uniting in Science”, was compiled by the World Meteorological Organization and coordinated by many institutions, bringing together the latest research, impacts and countermeasures of climate change. According to the report, the number of deaths caused by climate disasters has decreased in recent years, but its economic cost has risen sharply. In the past five years, climate-related disasters have increased fivefold, resulting in an average of 115 deaths and a daily loss of $202 million, and the consequences will be further aggravated.

The report quoted data collected by many UN agencies and partners as saying that the past seven years (2015 -2021) were the hottest period on record. The global average temperature from 2018 to 2022 (as of June 2022) is estimated to be 1.17 degrees Celsius (0.13 degrees Celsius) higher than the average from 1850 to 1900.

After a temporary decline during the blockade of the COVID-19 epidemic, fossil fuel emissions have now returned to the pre-epidemic level, and the concentration of greenhouse gases has also risen to a record high. Preliminary data show that the global carbon dioxide emissions from January to May 2022 were 1.2% higher than the same period in 2019, which was mainly due to the increase in emissions from the United States, India and most European countries.

As the concentration of greenhouse gases continues to hit a new high, and the global efforts to slow down climate change are insufficient, it is difficult to achieve the goal of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the Paris Agreement. From 2022 to 2026, the global average temperature is expected to be 1.1-1.7 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial level. In the next five years, the probability of global temperature rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius is 48%. In the next five years, there is a 93% chance that the world will experience a record high temperature.

At last year’s United Nations Global Climate Summit, nearly 200 participating countries made commitments on methane gas pollution, deforestation and coal financing. However, according to the latest United Nations report, the scale of emission reduction commitments in 2030 must be quadrupled to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, and to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, it needs to be increased sevenfold.

In a video released at the same time as the report, UN Secretary-General Guterres quoted Pakistani floods, heat waves in Europe, droughts in China, the Horn of Africa and the United States, saying that the scale of these disasters is not a natural phenomenon, but the price of human addiction to fossil fuels. “This year’s report shows that the impact of climate is developing towards unknown areas of destruction … However, even if more and more indicators have a rapidly deteriorating impact, our dependence on fossil fuels is still increasing year by year.

According to a study published in Science magazine last week, if the goal of controlling global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius cannot be achieved, when most climate changes become irreversible, a series of “tipping points” may be triggered, such as the disappearance of ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica and the death of coral reefs.

The United Nations report on Tuesday also said that about 90% of the accumulated heat in the earth system is stored in the ocean, and the ocean heat content from 2018 to 2022 is higher than that in all five years in history, and the ocean warming rate has shown a particularly strong growth in the past 20 years. This report points out the importance of early warning system. More than ever, the international community needs to take greater action, not only to reduce emissions, but also to adapt to climate change. Early warning system is an effective adaptive measure, which can save lives, reduce losses and damages, and is cost-effective.

At present, 3.3 billion to 3.6 billion people live in an environment that is extremely vulnerable to climate change. However, less than half of countries have multiple disaster early warning systems, especially in Africa, least developed countries and small island States.

Last week, the World Meteorological Organization put forward a plan to ensure that everyone can get early warning services in the next five years, and it is expected that a specific action plan will be launched at COP27 in October. The organization said in a press release that the primary task of the international community is to ensure that everyone on the planet is protected by multiple disaster early warning systems in the next five years, which requires cooperation between different participants and innovative financing solutions.

Early warning system has been recognized as an effective and feasible climate adaptation measure, which can save lives and provide a ten-fold return on investment. The initiative was first put forward by UN Secretary-General Guterres, who said on World Meteorological Day on March 23rd this year that “early warning can save lives”.

James Webb Space Telescope turned its attention from the depths of the universe back to the solar system, and captured the details of Neptune and its rings with the latest technology. This is the clearest related image in more than 30 years.

On September 21st, NASA released these images, which clearly showed the beautiful rings of Neptune. It only took Webber a few minutes to get a close-up of Neptune, and it took another 20 minutes to get a wider view. From this perspective, the image also shows countless cosmic galaxies in the background.

Neptune from a broader perspective photographed by Weber
Neptune is the farthest planet from the sun. It is called the “ice giant” together with Uranus, and its interior is composed of chemicals denser than the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. Its distance from the sun is about 30 times that of the earth, and it orbits a distant and dark area of the solar system. According to NASA, Neptune is so far away from the sun that its brightness at noon is like a dim dusk on the earth.

In 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 probe flew over Neptune on its way out of the solar system, and no spacecraft has visited it since. This glimpse 30 years ago aroused the interest of astronomers, who were eager to know more about this ice giant.

The latest photos of Neptune taken by Weber.
In the images taken before the Hubble Space Telescope, Neptune looks dark blue because there is methane in its atmosphere. However, the near-infrared wavelength captured by Weber’s main imager, NIRCam, shows that the planet is gray with Leng Yun flow on its surface.

The methane ice cloud on Neptune’s surface rises high above it for several days. Patrick Irwin, a planetary physicist at Oxford University, said that so far, no one really knows what these things are. They look a bit like cirrus clouds on the earth. Future observations of the Webb telescope can reveal how they were formed and their composition.

Mark McCaughrean, a senior scientific adviser to the European Space Agency, said that Weber’s unprecedented infrared imaging capability provided a new perspective for observing Neptune’s atmosphere. The Weber telescope removed all glare and background, which provided support for scientists to start combing Neptune’s atmospheric composition. “This was unimaginable five years ago.”

This latest photo taken by Weber is also the first time to see Neptune’s ring from an infrared perspective. Heidi Hamel, an interdisciplinary scientist of the Weber Project, said in a statement: “It has been three years since we last saw Neptune rings, and this is the first time we have seen them in infrared light.” .

Klaus Pontoppidan, a Weber project scientist at the Institute of Space Telescope Science, said that the most prominent thing in Weber’s field of vision is Neptune ring, which can be seen to surround Neptune in a slightly inclined way due to its orientation with the Earth. The new image can reveal the size and composition of the halo, which may be ice and other debris. Weber will enable astronomers to measure the reflectivity of the ring, providing an unparalleled opportunity to learn more about it.

In addition, the latest photos make astronomers pay more attention to Neptune’s North Pole. NASA said in a statement that the latest photos show an “interesting brightness” near the top of Neptune. Because Neptune is the farthest planet from the sun, it takes 164 years to go around the sun, and it is tilted away from the earth. So far, astronomers have not had a chance to observe its North Pole carefully.

Neptune and seven of its 14 known satellites, including Triton (upper left).
In addition, Weber discovered seven of Neptune’s 14 known satellites. In an enlarged photo, Neptune has a faintly visible and very bright spiky star on the upper left. It is one of the largest moons of Neptune, brighter than Neptune itself. Scientists suspect that it was captured by Neptune’s gravity in the early solar system.

Weber’s future observations should reveal the surface composition of Triton and may show the changes of geological activities. Weber project scientist Hamel said that Triton is a geologically active world. When Voyager 2 flew 30 years ago, it witnessed the eruption of a low-temperature volcano. So with the passage of time, its surface chemical composition may have changed.

Mark McCaughrean of the European Space Agency pointed out that the significance of observing ice giants like Neptune is to ensure that we have the ability to pay attention to other ice giants. Astronomers are looking for other planets similar to the earth in the universe. In the process, they found that ice giants such as Neptune and Uranus are the most common in the Milky Way.

Weber is the most powerful space telescope ever. It was first launched in December last year and has been releasing photos of deep space since July this year, providing a lot of unprecedented data. According to Weber’s observation of Neptune and Triton, it is expected to be carried out next year, which scientists hope will herald a new era of discovery.

The scene of an asteroid hitting the earth and threatening human survival has been staged many times in Hollywood movies.

In order to prevent the plot in the movie from becoming a reality, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) conducted an impact test on September 26, local time, and let a spaceship hit an asteroid in an attempt to change the orbit of the asteroid.

This is also the first attempt in human history to change the motion of natural celestial bodies in space.

At present, the impact has been successfully completed, and it will take weeks or months to observe whether the asteroid’s orbit can be successfully changed.

According to official website news of NASA, after 10 months of space flight, NASA’s spacecraft carrying out the “Double Asteroid Redirect Test” (DART) mission successfully hit an asteroid named “Dimorphos” at 7: 14 pm EST on 26th.

The project was launched in November 2021 with an investment of 325 million US dollars, which was jointly implemented by NASA and the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University.

When it hit Dimorfos, the speed of the NASA spacecraft reached 22,500 km/h, and the camera carried on the spacecraft sent back the last picture before the impact.

After the spacecraft signal disappeared, the ground staff cheered and celebrated, and the project team announced that the impact mission was successful. Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Department, said that this mission has opened a new era for mankind, an era when humans may be able to prevent asteroids from hitting the Earth.

Katherine Calvin, chief scientist and senior climate consultant of NASA, also pointed out that dinosaurs had no space plan to prevent asteroids from hitting the Earth, but now “we have”. Scientists speculate that the impact of the “Hicksulubo” asteroid on the earth 65 million years ago led to the extinction of dinosaurs.

The asteroid “Dimerforth” that was hit this time is 160 meters in diameter, about the size of a football field, and it runs around another asteroid “Didymus” with a diameter of 780 meters. At the time of impact, the two asteroids were 11 million kilometers away from the earth and did not pose a threat to the earth.

It takes 11 hours and 55 minutes for “Dimorphos” to go around “Dimorphos”. NASA hopes that the impact will shorten the running time of Dimorphus by 1%, about 10 minutes. At present, it is uncertain whether the impact has successfully changed the orbit of the binaural bat, and it will take weeks or months to accurately measure the orbit change.

However, NASA firmly believes that due to the small weight of the spacecraft, the impact will not have a devastating impact on Dimorfors. The NASA spacecraft weighs 579 kilograms, while the Gemini weighs 5 billion kilograms. The researchers described it as hitting the pyramid with a golf cart.

After NASA completes the impact mission, the European Space Agency plans to launch a spacecraft to Dimorphos in 2024 and investigate the impact crater and geology of Dimorphos in 2027.

For many years, scientists have been tracking near-earth objects that may pose a threat to the earth. It is estimated that there are about 25,000 NEOs with a diameter of 140 meters in space, but at present, NASA has only observed 40% of them.

In 2026, NASA will launch a near-earth object observation project to track celestial bodies in the solar system that may pose a threat to the earth.

Against the background of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the persistent epidemic in COVID-19, the climate crisis and the intensified energy crisis, the 2022 Nobel Prize will be announced on October 3rd.

Two years ago, affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, the traditional award ceremony and dinner were cancelled, and the award process was changed to live online and TV. Only the Norwegian Nobel Committee held a small peace prize awarding ceremony in Oslo, Norway last year.

This year, traditional ceremonies will be fully returned. In December, the winners of the 2022 Nobel Prize and the winners of 2020 and 2021 will be invited to attend the award ceremony and dinner in Stockholm, Sweden.

From October 3rd to 7th, the Nobel Committee will announce the prizes in physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. Among them, the Peace Prize was promulgated by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

On the 10th, the committee will announce the final prize of economics. This year’s prize is 10 million Swedish kronor (about 6.41 million yuan) for each award. If more than one person wins the prize, the prize money will be distributed equally.

Except for the final winner, the Committee does not publish the list of candidates to the public. Before the final results are announced, predicting who will win the prize has become an annual activity of the media and gaming companies.

Compared with the unknown prize in physiology or medicine, physics prize and chemistry prize, literature prize and peace prize are popular prizes for prediction and betting every year.

Among them, the literary prize is recognized as the most unpredictable award. Goellner, winner of last year’s literature prize, didn’t even appear on the odds list of British bookmaker Nicerods.

In this year’s European edition of Nicer Odds, the top three are French writer Michel Houellebecq, Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Indian-born British and American writer Salman Rushdie.

Among them, Rushdie was attacked while attending an activity in new york in August this year, and was stabbed in the neck and other places. His novel The Satanic Verses caused great controversy. Rushdie himself was hunted by Iran and is still regarded as a sworn enemy by radical religious figures.

China writers Yu Hua and Can Xue made the list again, and Can Xue ranked 20th in the EU list.

But for this year’s Peace Prize, the better odds did not publish the odds list. The website only says that this year’s Peace Prize is the most competitive since the establishment of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1895.

According to the statistics of the Nobel Committee, there are 343 candidates for this year’s Peace Prize, of which 251 are individuals and 92 are institutions. This is also the year with the second largest number of candidates since the establishment of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The largest number of applicants was in 2016, with 376 people. There were 329 candidates for the Peace Prize last year, the second highest in history before this year.

It is widely predicted by the media that this year’s peace prize will be related to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which may also cause the most controversy, given that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues to affect the whole world.

Several members of the European Parliament demanded that the Peace Prize be awarded to Ukrainian President Zelenski. However, dan smith, director of the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, pointed out that the tradition of the Peace Prize is to reward those who end conflicts, not wartime leaders.

Smith predicted that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or organizations and individuals fighting climate change are more likely to win the Peace Prize. In the context of the stalemate in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the award of the International Atomic Energy Agency can highlight the voice against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and also recognize the agency’s efforts to ensure the safety of the Zaborozh nuclear power plant, Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant.

Besides, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Russian opposition leader Nawani and Belarusian opposition leader Tikhanov Skaya are all popular candidates.

Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winners were Filipino journalist Maria Reza and Russian journalist Muratov.

Historically, the Nobel Committee has also suspended the awarding of peace prizes. During World War I and World War II, the Committee did not award the Peace Prize, but only awarded it to the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1917.

In the physiology or medicine prize to be awarded on the 3rd, nervous system diseases, cancer science and mRNA vaccine technology are considered to be popular award-winning fields.

Other popular candidates include Mary-Claire King, an American geneticist who discovered the role of BRCA1 gene mutation in breast cancer and ovarian cancer; Stuart H. Orkin, an American researcher, discovered the genetic changes behind various types of thalassemia; Li Minyi, a Chinese-American scholar who has contributed to the study of neurodegenerative diseases.

Among the physics awards, the past awards mainly focused on four fields, particle physics, astrophysics, condensed matter physics, atoms and molecules and photophysics. This year’s hot predictions involve quantum physics, carbon nanotube technology and optics.

The prediction around the chemistry prize focuses on genetics, gene sequencing technology, semiconductor polymers and so on. Bao Zhenan, a Chinese-American scientist who has made flexible “electronic skin” semiconductor polymers, is regarded as one of the popular candidates.

From 1901 to 2021, a total of 947 people and 28 organizations won the Nobel Prize, some of which won many awards. The youngest winner is the 2014 Peace Prize winner, Pakistani girl Yusuf Zai, who was 17 years old at that time; The oldest person is Goodnow, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, at the age of 97.