Rescue plan for the Vaquita:
- The Vaquita (Phocoena sinus) is a rare species of porpoise.
- They are small toothed whales that are very closely related to oceanic dolphins.
- It is endemic to the northern part of the Gulf of California.
- It is the most endangered marine mammal species in the world.
- IUCN status - Critically Endangered.
- International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA) was created by the Mexican Ministry of Environment to eliminate illegal fishing, removing gill nets and relocating remaining Vaquita to a temporary sanctuary and thereby conserving the species.
Habitable exoplanet next to Earth:
- The exoplanets are planets that exist outside Earth's solar system.
- The term “habitable zones” refers to a planet where water could exist in a liquid state on a planet’s surface if there's sufficient atmospheric pressure.
- Astronomers have located the habitable zone "The Wolf 1061", a planetary system that is 14 light years away from the Earth.
- One of the planets in the wolf planetary system, Wolf 1061c, is entirely within the habitable zone.
- It has an atmosphere more similar to Venus.
- But the climate of Wolf 1061c is quite chaotic compared to earth, since the orbit around its star changes at a much faster rate than earth. The earth also experiences climate change due to change in its orbit around the sun which resulted in ice age previously.
- Now the earth is in interglacial period.
Warmest Year:
- The year 2016 was the warmest year since record-keeping began in 1880.
- The global average surface temperature last year was 0.94°C higher than the 20th century average and July was the warmest month ever recorded.
- Two phenomena were responsible for this. One was climate change and other was El Nino.
- Previously 2014 was the warmest year and the record was broken in 2015 and subsequently now in 2016 showing a continuous rise in the earth’s temperature.
- This is only the second time that the annual temperature record has been broken three years in a row. The previous trio was during World War II.
- All 16 years in our current century rank among the 17 warmest on record.
