Bloomberg (July 25)
“The world’s oceans experienced a staggering amount of warming in 2023, as vast marine heat waves affected 96% of their surface, breaking records for intensity, longevity and scale…. That could mark a turning point in the way the oceans behave, potentially signaling a tipping point after which average sea temperatures will be reset higher and some ecosystems may not recover.”
Tags: 2023, 96, Ecosystems, Intensity, Longevity, Marine heat waves, Oceans, Records, Scale, Sea temperatures, Staggering, Surface, Tipping point, Warming, World
Washington Post (August 22)
“As a heat dome promises to smash more records this week across swaths of the Midwest, South and Southeast. The country can expect that extreme heat, which already kills more people than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined, will only worsen in the coming summers.” Cities can do little “to reduce the intensity of hurricanes” or change the path of tornadoes, but they can intervene to “reduce heat-wave intensity.” Almost “80 percent of the U.S. population lives” in cities where “the urban heat island effect can increase temperatures by 8 degrees.” Measures like requiring “reflective building materials, such as cool roofs;” and “increasing green spaces” can lower “peak temperatures by as much as 2 to 9 degrees Celsius.”
Tags: Cool roofs; Green spaces, Extreme, Floods, Heat dome, Heat wave, Hurricanes, Intensity, Intervene, Records, Reflective building materials, Summers, Temperatures, Tornadoes, U.S., Urban heat island
1843 (April Issue)
Kikunae Ikeda discovered “umami” in 1907, yet a century later “umami had barely entered the Western lexicon.” This has slowly changed since the Millennium when scientists discovered the taste receptors for umami. “Over the past few years, it has begun to creep out of professional kitchens and into the consciousness of home cooks through so-called “umami-bombs” that, in the form of miso, kimchi and tubes of mixed umami ingredients, have begun to appear on supermarket shelves around the world. All are designed to turn up the intensity of flavour.”
Tags: Flavour, Ikeda, Intensity, Kimchi Supermarket, Kitchens, Miso, Taste receptors, Umami
