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Fisherman Nets Message in a Bottle in Isolated Gaza

A Palestinian fisherman rows a boat in the Mediterranean sea off Gaza City on July 27, 2017. (AFP)
A Palestinian fisherman rows a boat in the Mediterranean sea off Gaza City on July 27, 2017. (AFP)
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Fisherman Nets Message in a Bottle in Isolated Gaza

A Palestinian fisherman rows a boat in the Mediterranean sea off Gaza City on July 27, 2017. (AFP)
A Palestinian fisherman rows a boat in the Mediterranean sea off Gaza City on July 27, 2017. (AFP)

For Palestinian fisherman Jihad al-Soltan, it was a surprise summer catch -- a message in a bottle that he netted off a Gaza beach, reported Reuters.

It had bobbed its way in the Mediterranean for nearly 800 km (500 miles) from the Greek island of Rhodes, placed in the water by a vacationing British couple in July.

"We are currently on holiday on Rhodes and we would love to know how far this bottle got, even if it's just the next beach," said the letter inside, signed "Faithfully, Zac and Beth".

By replying to the email address they enclosed, Soltan discovered the two were Bethany Wright, a university student, and her boyfriend, Zac Marriner.

"Hello, Thank you for picking up this bottle. As a reward here are some magic flowers," the couple wrote in their letter. By the time the bottle reached Gaza's shores last week, the flowers had wilted.

But Soltan said on Monday he was buoyed by the thought that currents could carry a carefree message into troubled waters under Israeli naval blockade and fishing zone restrictions - measures Israel says are necessary to prevent arms smuggling by Gaza's hostile Hamas Islamist rulers.

"As a fisherman I felt this letter traveled through borders and international waters without restrictions while we as fishermen are unable to go beyond six miles," he said. "I hope one day we would become as free as this bottle was."

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Italy’s Ventina Glacier Has Melted So Much Geologists Now Can Only Monitor It Remotely 

An overview of the Ventina glacier, near Sondrio, northern Italy,1985. (Lombardy Glaciology Service via AP) 
An overview of the Ventina glacier, near Sondrio, northern Italy,1985. (Lombardy Glaciology Service via AP) 
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Italy’s Ventina Glacier Has Melted So Much Geologists Now Can Only Monitor It Remotely 

An overview of the Ventina glacier, near Sondrio, northern Italy,1985. (Lombardy Glaciology Service via AP) 
An overview of the Ventina glacier, near Sondrio, northern Italy,1985. (Lombardy Glaciology Service via AP) 

Italy’s Ventina glacier, one of the biggest in northern Lombardy, has melted so much due to climate change that geologists can no longer measure it the way they have for the past 130 years.

After this year’s hot summer, geologists discovered that the simple stakes used as benchmarks to measure the glacier’s retraction each year are now buried under rockslides and debris that have made the terrain too unsteady for future in-person visits.

The Lombardy Glaciological Service said Monday that it will now use drone imagery and remote sensing to keep track of the ongoing shrinkage.

Geologists say that the Ventina glacier has already lost 1.7 kilometers (1 mile) in length since the first measuring benchmarks were positioned at the front of the glacier in 1895.

The melting has accelerated in recent years, with the glacier losing 431 meters (471 yards) in the last 10 years, nearly half of that since 2021, the service said. It's another example of how accelerating global warming is melting and shrinking Europe’s glaciers, causing a host of environmental and other impacts.

“While we could still hope until the 1980s that there would be normal cycles (of retraction) or at least a contained retraction, in the last 40 years something truly striking has occurred,” said Andrea Toffaletti, a member of the Lombardy Glaciological Service.

Italy’s mountain glaciers, which are found throughout the Alps and Dolomites in the north and along the central Apennines, have been receding for years, thanks to inadequate snowfall in the winter and record-setting hot summers. Glaciers always melt some in summer, with the runoff fueling mountain streams and rivers.

But the hot summers are “no longer able to guarantee the survival of the winter snowpack,” that keeps the glacier intact, Toffaletti said.

“In order to regenerate and remain in balance, a certain amount of residual snow from the winter must remain on the glacier's surface at the end of the summer. And this is happening less and less frequently,” said Toffaletti.

According to the Lombardy service, the Alps represent a climate hotspot, recording double the global average of temperature increases since pre-industrial times, resulting in the loss of over 64% of the volume of Alpine glaciers.

In February, the journal Nature reported on a study showing the world’s glaciers lost ice at the rate of about 255 billion tons (231 billion metric tons) annually from 2000 to 2011, but that quickened to about 346 billion tons (314 billion metric tons) annually over about the next decade.