Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Indian Ocean may play a bigger role in driving climate change

News

• The Indian Ocean played a far greater role in driving climate change during the last ice age than previously believed, and may disrupt tropical climate again in the future.

Importance

• The findings are important because they reveal that the Indian Ocean is capable of driving radical changes in the climate of the tropics and that climate models are able to simulate this complex process.

Findings

• The study by researchers could rewrite established Pacific-centric theories on tropical climate change.
• The scientists investigated changes in the climate of the tropics during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), a period of the last ice age 21,000 years ago when ice sheets covered much of North America, Europe and Asia.
• Today, the Indian Ocean is characterised by uniformly warm and stable rainfall patterns.
• This is because the prevailing winds blow from west to east maintaining warmer waters over the eastern side of the region and bringing rainy conditions over countries like Thailand and Indonesia.
• During the LGM, however, the tropics were struck by dramatic changes, including a reversal of prevailing winds and uncharacteristic changes in ocean temperatures.
• The climate model suggests that as ice sheets advanced over Canada and Scandinavia, sea-levels lowered by as much as nearly 400 feet creating vast continental bridges stretching from Thailand to Australia.
• According to the model, these new land masses reversed the prevailing winds, blowing seawater to the west and allowing cold water to cycle up to the surface in the eastern Indian Ocean.

Post-monsoon wildlife census begins in ATR

News

• The post-monsoon winter season wildlife census to enumerate the population of herbivores and carnivores began in four ranges of Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) near Pollachi in Tamil Nadu which is spread over 958 sq. km.

Beyond News

• The census data will be compiled and submitted to the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
• The census began in the four ranges namely Pollachi, Valparai, Manomboly and Ulandy and 64 line transects have been created for the purpose.
• One team comprising one forest staff, one volunteer and one anti-poaching watcher is in charge of each line transect.
• The teams will perambulate the line transect and look for direct sight or indirect evidence in the form of excreta, pug marks, foot prints and scratch marks on tree barks.
• Data thus generated will be instantly recorded in the ecology app.

Warming leads to water crisis in Himalayas

News

• Climate change is driving glaciers in the Himalayas to melt more rapidly than at any point in the last 10,000 years, and could soon cause water supply shortage in parts of India, Pakistan, and Nepal.

Findings

• Researchers showed that climate change could have devastating effects on vulnerable residents in the Andes mountains and the Tibetan plateau.
• Researchers showed that while water supply is declining, demand is rising because of growing populations.
• The glaciers in Peru supply critically needed water for people, crops and livestock.

The international research team dubbed the plateau the “Third Pole” because it contains the largest stores of freshwater in the world outside of the North and South poles.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

Centre drafts child protection policy

News

• The Ministry of Women and Child Development has placed the draft policy on its website and invited comments from stakeholders.
• This will be the first policy dedicated to the protection of children, an area that until now was only a part of the broader National Child Policy, 2013.

Beyond News

• The Supreme Court had earlier directed the CBI to investigate allegations involving 17 shelter homes for children, destitute women, beggars and senior citizens in Bihar following the case of sexual abuse of more than 30 girls in a shelter home in Muzaffarpur in the State. The Supreme Court had also asked the Centre to consider framing a national policy on protection of children.
• The policy will apply to “all institutions, and organisations (including corporate and media houses), government or private sector”.
• The draft policy recommends that all organisations must have a code of conduct based on “zero tolerance of child abuse and exploitation”. It requires organisations to lay down that employees don’t use language or behaviour that is “inappropriate, harassing, abusive, sexually provocative, demeaning or culturally inappropriate”.
• Institutions should also designate a staff member to ensure that procedures are in place to ensure the protection of children as well as to report any abuse. Any individual who suspects physical, sexual or emotional abuse must report it to the helpline number 1098, police or a child welfare committee.
• Unlike the National Child Policy, 2013, the latest document doesn’t talk about children who may need additional special protection measures: including those affected by migration, communal or sectarian violence, children forced into begging or in conflict with the law, and those infected with HIV/AIDS.
• It also doesn’t talk about the role of the state for ensuring the protection of child rights or addressing local grievances.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Kerala’s captive jumbos get genetic IDs

News

• In a first for India, every one of Kerala’s captive elephants now has a unique DNA-based genetic ID.

Beyond News

• Captive elephants are those that have been captured from the wild and used by humans.
• The Forest Department provided blood samples of captive elephants from across the State to the RGCB for DNA fingerprinting. The method, also referred to as DNA profiling, is a forensic technique that makes it possible to identify individuals people or animals based on unique DNA characteristics called micro-satellites (DNA portions that occur repeatedly), much like fingerprints.
• To conduct DNA fingerprinting, the RGCB’s teams at the Regional Facility for DNA Fingerprinting (RFDF) in Thiruvananthapuram first removed duplicate samples after cross verification, and then isolated DNA from the samples.
• After tests, 11 micro-satellite markers (which help isolate specific micro-satellites) and one sex marker (for gender ID) were selected.
• The database covers all 519 captive elephants.
• This database is now accessible to the Forest Department.
• The RGCB also developed a protocol to DNA fingerprint elephants using dung and tusk samples, which could help solve wildlife crimes, including poaching.
• Unlike the microchip-based ID used so far, DNA fingerprinting provides a unique identity and is more fool-proof, said Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Padma Mahanti.

At 460, India records highest leopard mortality in 2018

News

• With 460 leopard deaths, India in 2018 recorded the highest mortality rate of the particular big cat species across the country in the past four years, Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) said.

Beyond News

• According to official records, a total of 431 leopards died in 2017. These included 159 incidents of poaching. Some 450 big cats died in 2016 and 127 of them were found poached. In 2015 (399) and in 2014 (331) died.
• The highest leopard mortality rate was recorded in Uttarakhand with 93 deaths.
• This is followed by Maharashtra (90), Rajasthan (46), Madhya Pradesh (37), Uttar Pradesh (27), Karnataka (24), and Himachal Pradesh (23) among others.
• Poaching, road accidents, and human-animal conflict are the main reasons for this increased mortality rate. In 2018 only, 29 leopards were killed by villagers and eight leopards considered to be maneaters were killed by the forest department workers.

Global water supplies shrinking due to climate change

News

• Climate change will drive our water supplies to shrink due to drying soils, while generating more intense rain, according to a study which warns that drought-like conditions will soon become the new normal in our world.
• The study relied on actual data from 43,000 rainfall stations and 5,300 river monitoring sites in 160 countries.

Findings

• Where once these were moist before a storm event allowing excess rainfall to run off into rivers – they are now drier and soak up more of the rain, so less water makes it as flow.
• Less water into our rivers means less water for cities and farms. And drier soils means farmers need more water to grow the same crops.
• Worse, this pattern is repeated all over the world, assuming serious proportions in places that were already dry. It is extremely concerning.
• For every 100 raindrops that fall on land, only 36 drops are ‘blue water’ the rainfall that enters lakes, rivers and aquifers and therefore, all the water extracted for human needs.
• The remaining two thirds of rainfall is mostly retained as soil moisture known as ‘green water’ and used by the landscape and the ecosystem.
• As warming temperatures cause more water to evaporate from soils, those dry soils are absorbing more of the rainfall when it does occur — leaving less ‘blue water’ for human use.

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