QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 15 September 2018

Solution: a.

In the news (BBC): There’s a 70% chance of a recurrence of the El Niño weather event before the end of this year, according to the World Meteorological Organisation. Researchers say they are not expecting this new one to be as intense as 2015-16.

The last El Niño occurred in 2015-16 and impacted weather patterns around the world. It was one of the strongest ever recorded, and had an impact on global temperatures, which saw 2016 enter the record books as the warmest year. As well as heat, the event also led to drought in Africa that saw food production plummet in many countries across the continent. South America saw floods across Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

According to the WMO, climate change is influencing the traditional dynamics of these weather events.

The El Niño/Southern Oscillation, to give its proper title, is a natural event that involves fluctuating ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific, which influence the weather all over the world.

NCERT Class 9 Geography: “El Niño” is a name given to the periodic development of a warm ocean current along the coast of Peru as a temporary replacement of the cold Peruvian current. ‘El Nino’ is a Spanish word meaning ‘the child’, and refers to the baby Christ, as this current starts flowing during Christmas. The presence of the El Nino leads to an increase in sea-surface temperatures and weakening of the trade winds in the region.

Solution: c.

The American space agency is about to put a laser in orbit to measure the condition of Earth’s ice cover. The satellite mission, called ICESat-2, should provide more precise information on how these frozen surfaces are being affected by global warming.

Antarctica, Greenland and the ice floating on the Arctic Ocean have all lost volume in recent decades. ICESat-2 will track ongoing change in unprecedented detail from its vantage point some 500km above the planet.

As the name suggests, ICESat-2 is a follow-on project. The original spacecraft flew in the 2000s and pioneered the laser measurement of the height of polar glaciers and sea-ice from space.

Weighing half a tonne, the new laser system is one of the largest Earth-observation instruments ever built by Nasa. It uses a technique called “photon counting”. It fires about 10,000 pulses of light every second. Each of those shots goes down to the Earth and bounces back up on a timescale of about 3.3 milliseconds. The exact time equates to the height of the reflecting surface.

“We fire about a trillion photons (particles of light) in every shot. We get about one back,” says Cathy Richardson, who works on the team at Nasa that developed the instrument. “We can time that one photon when it comes back just as accurately as when it left the instrument. And from that we can calculate a distance to about half a centimetre on the Earth.”

BBC;

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Solution: c.

These are the six Indian cities (mentioned in the question) that are part of the C40 initiative.

In the news (BBC): With many countries struggling to cut their carbon, new data suggests that major cities are making substantial strides to stem their emissions. Twenty-seven cities (no Indian city is on this list, but these 27 cities are part of the C40 initiative) saw CO2 peak in 2012 and then go into decline. Those emissions are now at least 10% lower than at their zenith. As well as moving to green energy, the cities have provided affordable alternatives to private cars. Emissions declined by 2% every year on average, while their economies expanded by 3% annually.

About C40: It is a network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change. C40 supports cities to collaborate effectively, share knowledge and drive meaningful, measurable and sustainable action on climate change.

C40 Cities;

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Solution: d.

Britannica: Many fungi are free-living in soil or water; others form parasitic or symbiotic relationships with plants or animals.

BBC: Many people are familiar with edible mushrooms or the mould behind penicillin. But fungi have a range of vital roles, from helping plants draw water and nutrients from the soil to medicines that can lower blood cholesterol or enable organ transplants. Fungi also hold promise for breaking down plastics and generating new types of biofuels. But they have a darker side: devastating trees, crops and other plants across the world, and wiping out animals such as amphibians.

Only 56 types of fungi have been evaluated for the IUCN Red List, compared with more than 25,000 plants and 68,000 animals.

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Solution: b.

In the news: Section 377 judgment.