General News
Meropi Kyriacou Honored as TNH Educator of the Year
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
ON THE CALDERONE GLACIER, Italy — Italian scientists are racing against time to study, scan and sample Europe’s southernmost glacier before it melts and disappears as a result of rising global temperatures.
Researchers conducted a preliminary radar survey of the Calderone glacier in Italy’s central Apennine Mountains on March 13 and plan to return next month to drill into it and take samples. The aim is to extract chunks of the glacier and store them in Antarctica for future study.
“This glacier can tell us the Mediterranean’s climate and environmental history,” said researcher Jacopo Gabrieli, of the Institute of Polar Sciences at the Italian National Council of Research.
The Associated Press accompanied Gabrieli and the team to the snow-covered glacier for the radar survey, arriving at the peak by helicopter and traipsing up and down the mountainside of the Gran Sasso massif. Researchers in snow shoes probed the ground with electromagnetic equipment to determine how the glacier is stratified.
The survey will allow experts to “record the depth and morphology between snow and ice, and between ice and rock. In this way we can measure the thicknesses and reconstruct the glacier bottom morphology,” said Stefano Urbini, researcher at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, who also took part in the survey.
The tiny Italian glacier, which already split into two as a result of global warming, is a crucial thermometer of climate change and a treasure trove of atmospheric information. Glaciologists are expecting to find a 25-meter (80-foot) thick layer of ice under the snow and debris that covers the glacier.
The samples from the Calderone will be held in the “Ice Memory” world archive in Antarctica, a natural freezer that allows storage at -50 Celsius and is being built at the French-Italian Concordia station.
According to the Italian research council, glaciers located at an altitude of under 3,600 meters (11,800 feet) will disappear by 2100 if temperatures continue rising at the current pace. The Calderone glacier, which is located at an altitude of 2,700 meters, could melt much earlier, by 2050 if drastic measures aren’t taken, experts say.
“Through these glaciers, through the interest that we all have for these fantastic environments, we can explain how the climate is changing, why it is changing, how man is impacting and what we can do to reduce our impact on our planet,” said Gabrieli.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Three Russian missiles slammed into a downtown area of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv on Wednesday, hitting an eight-floor apartment building and killing at least 13 people, authorities said.
TORONTO - Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter was banned for life from the NBA on Wednesday after a league probe found he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors and wagered on games, even betting on the Raptors to lose.
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday his country would be the one to decide whether and how to respond to Iran’s major air assault earlier this week, brushing off calls for restraint from close allies.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Wednesday he strongly supports a proposal from Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, sending crucial bipartisan support to the precarious effort to approve $95 billion in funding for the U.
BRUSSELS - European Union leaders over a two-day summit of the special European Council will discuss economic and competitiveness issues in Ukraine, Türkiye, the Middle East and Lebanon, stated Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis upon his arrival in Brussels on Wednesday night.