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The area of sea ice around Antarctica has hit a record low, with scientists reporting “never having seen such an extreme situation before”. The ice extent is expected to shrink even further before this year’s summer melting season ends.

The impact of the climate crisis in melting sea ice in the Arctic is clear in the records that stretch back to 1979. Antarctic sea ice varies much more from year to year, which has made it harder to see an effect from global heating.

More than 22 million Americans were under a winter weather warnings or advisories Thursday as a snowstorm that hammered Denver with the biggest two-day January snowfall in more than 30 years slowly pushed eastward.

"Winter storm continues for the Upper Midwest (and) Great Lakes Thursday with heavy, blowing snow leading to dangerous travel conditions," the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center said in a statement.

Additional snowfall totals of around 6-12 inches are forecast for portions of the Upper Great Lakes, and locally higher totals over a foot are possible, the statement said. Much of the snowfall is expected to occur over a period of a few hours. Snowfall rates of 1-2 inches per hour and gusty winds could make "travel difficult to impossible."

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Two-thirds of Antarctica’s native species, including emperor penguins, are under threat of extinction or major population declines by 2100 under current trajectories of global heating, according to new research that outlines priorities for protecting the continent’s biodiversity.

The study, an international collaboration between scientists, conservationists and policymakers from 28 institutions in 12 countries, identified emperor penguins as the Antarctic species at greatest risk of extinction, followed by other seabirds and dry soil nematodes.

The w​inter storm that forecasters dubbed Elliott intensified into a bomb cyclone near the Great Lakes on Friday, bringing high winds and blizzard conditions from the Northern Plains to western and upstate New York, along with life-threatening flooding, flash-freezing and travel chaos as it went.

More than 4,600 flights were canceled as of 3pm, on top of 2,700 cancellations Thursday, grounding tens of thousands of holiday travelers in airports with limited expectations of making further progress, according to FlightAware.

US forecasters warned on Thursday of “potentially crippling impacts across central and eastern” parts of the country, producing widespread disruption to travel and utilities over the holiday season, as an arctic blast surged from west to east.

About 200 million people in the lower 48 states were under extreme weather alerts as a freezing air mass sent temperatures into a nosedive, said Bob Oravec, a forecaster with the National Weather Service (NWS) in College Park, Maryland.

An NWS advisory said the “powerful winter storm” would “produce widespread disruptive and potentially crippling impacts across the central and eastern United States”.

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Some of the world's richest billionaires each emit about 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide on average per year, more than 1 million times the amount emitted by 90% of people, according to a new study.

The sample consisted of 125 billionaire with investments in 183 corporations, and who have a combined corporate equity value of $2.4 trillion. About 50 to 70% of their emissions stem from their investments.

Collectively, their annual carbon dioxide emissions total about 393 million metric tons, which is about the same annual carbon footprint of France with its population of 67 million people, according to the report by Oxfam, a charity collective that aims to reduce poverty.

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