Page 12 - aruba-today-20200922

A12 SCIENCE
TUESDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2020
Warming shrinks Arctic Ocean ice to 2nd lowest on record

a Siberian heat wave last
spring and a natural Arc-
tic climate phenomenon
were at play as well as the
warming from the burning
of coal, oil and natural gas.
Temperatures for much of
the year were 14 to 18 de-
grees (8 to 10 degrees Cel-
sius) above normal in the
Siberian Arctic.
"Absolutely we're seeing
climate change at work
because the warm sum-
mers become warmer
and the cold winters aren't
as cold as they were," he
said, noting there's been
a downward trend over
the last decade, with slight
jumps up and down due to
natural forces.
Studies show that the warm-
ing of the Arctic and the
melting of sea ice change
weather further south, by
altering the jet stream and
other waves that move
weather systems. It's been
connected to increased
winter storminess in the
Eastern United States, said
climate scientist Jennifer
Francis of the Woodwell
Climate Research Center
in Woods Hole, Massachu-
setts. "What happens in the
Sea ice breaks apart as the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica traverses the Northwest Passage through the Victoria Strait in the Ca- Arctic, as we say, doesn't
nadian Arctic Archipelago in a Friday, July 21, 2017 file photo. stay in the Arctic," Penn-
Associated Press sylvania State University
climate scientist Michael
By SETH BORENSTEIN ocean at the North Pole ice reaches its low point in Ice Data Center, which Mann wrote in an email.
Ice in the Arctic Ocean and extending further south September and its high in has been keeping satellite "We see the impact of Arc-
melted to its second low- to Alaska, Canada, Green- March after the winter. records since 1979. In the tic warming in the form
est level on record this sum- land and Russia reached This year's melt is second 1980s, the ice cover was of unprecedented heat
mer, triggered by global its summertime low of 1.4 only to 2012, when the ice about 1 million square miles waves, floods, droughts,
warming along with natural million square miles (3.7 shrank to 1.3 million square (2.7 million square kilome- wildfire that we are now
forces, U.S. scientists report- million square kilometers) miles (3.4 million square ki- ters) bigger than current contending with here in the
ed Monday. last week before starting lometers), according to summer levels. Data center U.S. and around the rest of

The extent of ice-covered to grow again. Arctic sea the National Snow and director Mark Serreze said the world."q

Scientists combat anti-Semitism with artificial intelligence

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER time," said Matthias Becker, a linguist and proj- combination of qualitative and AI-driven ap-
Associated Press ect leader from the Technical University of Ber- proaches will allow for a more comprehensive
BERLIN (AP) — An international team of scien- lin. search, the scientists think.
tists said Monday it had joined forces to com- The team also includes researchers from King's The problem of anti-Semitism online has in-
bat the spread of anti-Semitism online with the College in London and other scientific institu- creased, as seen by the rise in conspiracy myths
help of artificial intelligence. tions in Europe and Israel. accusing Jews of creating and spreading CO-
The project Decoding Anti-Semitism includes Computers will help run through vast amounts VID-19, groups tracking anti-Semitism on the in-
discourse analysts, computational linguists and of data and images that humans wouldn't be ternet have found.
historians who will develop a "highly complex, able to assess because of their sheer quantity, The focus of the current project is initially on
AI-driven approach to identifying online anti- the foundation said. Germany, France and the U.K., but will later be
Semitism," the Alfred Landecker Foundation, "Studies have also shown that the majority of expanded to cover other countries and lan-
which supports the project, said in a statement anti-Semitic defamation is expressed in implicit guages.
Monday. ways – for example through the use of codes The Alfred Landecker Foundation, which was
"In order to prevent more and more users from ("juice" instead of "Jews") and allusions to cer- founded in 2019 in response to rising trends of
becoming radicalized on the web, it is impor- tain conspiracy narratives or the reproduction populism, nationalism and hatred toward mi-
tant to identify the real dimensions of anti-Sem- of stereotypes, especially through images," the norities, is supporting the project with 3 million
itism — also taking into account the implicit statement said. euros ($3.5 million), the German news agency
forms that might become more explicit over As implicit anti-Semitism is harder to detect, the dpa reported.q