(January 19, 2018)
To study the dynamics of our aging star, @NASASun researchers have enlisted Mercury, the smallest, innermost planet in the solar system. See how: go.nasa.gov/2DsuhTT
Daily Archives: 5. Juli 2026
Leap second
A leap second (sometimes called intercalary second)[1] is a one-second adjustment occasionally applied to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), to accommodate the difference between International Atomic Time (TAI), as measured precisely by atomic clocks, and observed solar time (UT1), which varies due to irregularities and long-term slowdown in the Earth‘s rotation.
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After 1972, both clocks have been ticking in SI seconds, so the difference between their displays at any time is 10 seconds plus the total number of leap seconds that have been applied to UTC as of that time; as of 2024, 27 leap seconds have been applied to UTC, so the difference is 10 + 27 = 37 seconds. The most recent leap second was on December 31, 2016.
Schaltsekunde
Die Erde rotiert minimal langsamer, als bei der Definition der Sekunde zugrunde gelegt wurde; ein tatsächlicher mittlerer Sonnentag dauert daher um Sekundenbruchteile länger als 86.400 Sekunden.
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Im Jahr 1972 betrug die Differenz zwischen UTC und TAI vor EinfĂĽhrung der Schaltsekunde bereits 10 Sekunden, heute liegt sie bei 37 Sekunden.
Earth’s Rotation Is Slowing Faster Than In 3.6 Million Years
(June 7, 2026)
Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing as climate change melts glaciers and polar ice sheets, redistributing water across the planet and subtly lengthening the day. According to new research from the University of Vienna and ETH Zürich, the current increase in day length — 1.33 milliseconds per century — is unprecedented over at least the past 3.6 million years. It’s a new measure of how profoundly human-driven warming is affecting the Earth system, even as only 48% of Americans believe climate change is the result of human activity.
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Researchers reconstructed changes in day length over the past 3.6 million years using fossil remains of benthic foraminifera — single-celled marine microorganisms on the seafloor — and advanced machine-learning techniques.
Cold wave triggers health warning for Tanzania schoolchildren
According to the Tanzania Meteorologiucal Authority (TMA) , July is expected to record colder-than-usual conditions compared with other months of the cold season.
TEMPO | Neve em Mar del Plata, no litoral da provĂncia de Buenos Aires. Aeroporto local registra 4°C ao meio-dia.
(July 2, 2026)
@SalinasEsteban
Snow blankets Mar del Plata as a record polar cold wave grips Argentina
(Juky 3, 2026)
The SMN forecast that the cold would persist over the coming days, with Friday as a possible coldest day of the year in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, before a slight warming toward the weekend. Authorities recommended that people dress in layers, take extra care when traveling due to possible ice formation, and ventilate heated rooms to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
Location Approx. minimum temperature
Maquinchao (RĂo Negro) -14 °C
Trelew (Chubut) -13 °C
El Palomar (Buenos Aires) -7 °C
Mar del Plata (Buenos Aires) -1 °C (wind-chill -3.4 °C)
Buenos Aires City -1.9 °C
The Planet Cooled In June; Europe Maps The Heat Island; Hokkaido Joins The July Chill; + Rare Coastal Snow As South America Freezes
(July 3, 2026)
For all the media’s huffing and puffing over western Europe’s “climate-change heatwave,” the planet cooled in June.
UAH’s satellite-based lower troposphere record has June 2026 at +0.46C above the norm, down from +0.53C in May — a clear monthly fall all while headlines tried to turn one regional European hot spell into proof of a planetary catastrophe.
According to a World Weather Attribution report — and dutifully recycled by the usual activist rags — western Europe’s recent heatwave was “impossible without the climate crisis.”
Reuters led with the same line, adding that the “soaring night-time temperatures” were made 100 times more likely. The Guardian went further, calling it the “worst ever and impossible without climate crisis,” and claiming the heat was “only possible because of fossil-fuel burning.” Euronews warned that “climate change is running rampant,” while El PaĂs spelled out the sermon in its headline: “It’s not just hot, it’s climate change.” Etc. Etc. Etc.
The European heat was real. But it was weather. It was circulation. That is what blocking highs do.
Overall, the planet cooled 0.07C in June.
Fossil fuel emissions have rapidly worsened European heatwaves in just a few decades
(June 26, 2026)
Heatwaves pose a serious threat to human health and have profound impacts on ecosystems. During the summer of 2022, more than 60,000 people across Europe died as a result of extreme heat. Even in the following summer, which was significantly cooler, over 47,000 heat-related deaths were recorded (Gallo et al., 2024). Last year, the first heatwave in Europe, also hitting at the end of June, cost an estimated 2,300 people their lives in only 12 European cities (Grantham Institute, 2025).
Europe’s Deadly Heatwave: Climate Change Tripled the Death Toll, Finds Study
(July 11, 2025)
A searing heatwave that swept across parts of Europe in late June 2025 has been linked to nearly 2,300 excess deaths, according to a rapid attribution study conducted by scientists from Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
The analysis shows that global warming raised temperatures during this heatwave by 2 to 4°C above what they would have been in a world without human influence. This increase, though seemingly modest, had deadly consequences when combined with ageing infrastructure, dense urban environments, and inadequate heat preparedness in many parts of Europe. Temperatures soared well beyond seasonal norms, straining public health systems and exposing gaps in cities’ ability to protect residents.
Researchers focused on data from June 23 to July 2 and 12 European cities in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, the UK, Greece, Croatia, and Hungary.
Nachrichtenagentur Radio Utopie
You are reading Nachrichtenagentur Radio Utopie.
Subsurface structural changes associated with successive 11-yr solar activity cycles have been progressively more confined near the surface: new helioseismic results on Cycles 22–25 from BiSON
(May 28, 2026)
We use Sun-as-a-star helioseismology data, collected by the Birmingham Solar-Oscillations Network, to examine the relationship between the solar-cycle-induced frequency shifts of whole-Sun, low-angular degree solar p modes and well-known proxies of global solar activity. Changes in behaviour between the low-frequency modes and proxies, which in a previous study we found had occurred on the declining phase of Cycle 23, appear to have persisted into Cycle 25. More striking is a significant change in the relationship for higher-frequency modes, which the new Cycle 25 data now reveal. The observed mean frequency shifts in Cycle 25 are much stronger than one would expect for these modes based on the relationship between the frequencies and proxies seen in previous cycles, in particular Cycle 22. In sum, Cycle 25 is as strong as Cycles 22 and 23 when observed in this higher-frequency seismic band, in marked contrast to the relative sizes of the cycles seen in the global activity proxies, where Cycle 25 is noticeably weaker. (…)
The last few solar cycles have seen significant changes in overall levels of activity and differences in the evolution of magnetic fields at different solar latitudes (e.g. see D. H. Hathaway 2015; A. Norton et al. 2023). Cycle 24 was significantly weaker in well-known proxies of global solar activity than previous cycles, and marked a departure from the preceding so-called modern maximum epoch (I. G. Usoskin 2017). While the current Cycle 25 has peaked at higher activity, it did not return to pre-Cycle-24 levels.
Listening to the Sun reveals previously hidden changes to solar cycle
(May 28, 2026)
Professor Sarbani Basu, from Yale University, said, “We discovered that the relationship between internal solar oscillations and surface activity has evolved over the past few cycles. This trend cannot be explained simply by weaker magnetic fields. Instead, it indicates a structural reorganisation of how the Sun’s magnetic activity is stored beneath the surface.”
Ongoing collection and analysis of BiSON solar data over what remains of Cycle 25 and into the upcoming Cycle 26 will be crucial in determining whether the changes discovered in the Sun’s activity point to a sustained, systematic change in solar magnetic behaviour.
The Sun is Changing and We Don’t Know Why
(May 29, 2026)
Here‘s where it gets strange. Traditional measurements of solar activity such as sunspot counts and magnetic field strengths at the surface suggest that cycle 25 is relatively modest. But the helioseismic data tells a different story. Look at the high-frequency oscillations, which probe the shallowest layers, and cycle 25 appears just as powerful as its predecessors. The Sun looks different depending on where you look. The surface is playing it down but the interior is not.
What does this mean? The honest answer is that nobody is entirely sure yet.
Astrophysicists Puzzle Over Webb’s New Universe
(July 2, 2026)
Faced with observations of early black holes and galaxies that weren’t expected to exist, scientists have come up with a wealth of new theories to explain them. Now they just need to figure out which ones are true.