The Earth Story

Biking at the northern tip of European Russia. Lovely rocky, forested landscapes to travel through, with the occasional road or old structure

A perfectly positioned timelapse over Mont Aiguille in Vercors, France allows star trails to make a loop directly above the mountain.

Original caption:

Two weeks of exploring, chilling and kiting in Sardinia wrapped up in two minutes.

Soundtrack: "Dolce Vita" by Ryan Paris Shot & edited by AIRUSHADDICT All shot with a GoPro Hero7 Black

Layers of the Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands sit in the north Atlantic, a tiny slice of land southeast of Iceland and north of the British Isles. These layers are a giant pile of basaltic lava flows, a remnant of the opening of the North Atlantic and probably the presence of the Icelandic plume

The rocks are Eocene in age, about 55 million years old. The landmasses surrounding Iceland today are full of basaltic igneous rocks from this time. Deep in the Earth, a blob of hot mantle rose upward until it hit the landmass assembled in the North Atlantic.

That blob of mantle melted, leading to these thick sequences of basalt, and it also wedged its way into the continental mass above it, shoving it to the side. The North Atlantic Ocean as we see it today probably exists because of these events deep in the mantle.

The landscape of the Faroe Islands has its origins in this volcanism but sedimentary forces have processed it. When lava outpourings slowed, the rocks began to erode, forming thick soils that testify to the warmer climate on Earth during the Eocene and leading to alternating layers of sediments and volcanic flows. Today, the landscape bears the scars of a different climate, with deep valleys carved by glaciers.

-JBB

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/39997856@N03/15131043709

Read more: http://www.faroeislands.fo/Default.aspx?ID=10690

10secondtimelapseLet the century pass me by

One frame of photography bleeds into another to create star trails over Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National park. Steam plumes from the geyser migrate back and forth over the hour waiting for eruption.

Maelstrom

Many of the astronauts who occupy the International Space Station develop their own photographic style, featuring the Earth in views never before seen by humans. Astronaut Don Petit, who occupied the station in 2012, produced some remarkable long-exposure shots that allow the lights of the planet to spread out. This view out the window of the station was taken focused on the North Star, allowing the planet to spin below and the position of the stars to pivot as the station orbited. The glow of the upper level of the atmosphere also stands out.

-JBB

Image credit: Don Petit http://www.space.com/15757-star-trails-iss-swirls.html

Star trails over Japan

Paradise by the Northern Lights

The warming of the world is settled fact. That we humans and our activities are largely the primary driving force behind that ongoing warming is not seriously disputed by scientists. But what’s a few degrees between friends?

The reality is, not all of the world will experience the same level of warming. In fact, parts of the world are already warming a great deal more than the rest. One of those rapidly warming parts is that part of the Northern Hemisphere known as the Arctic.

As the area of the world closest to the North Pole, the Arctic has historically been extremely cold in winter and considered by most humans to be barely livable at the height of its brief summers. But that is changing.

A study just released shows that over the past 3 decades, the Arctic has experienced greater warming than the rest of the planet, and that the portion of the year spent above freezing has grown longer and hotter. As a result, the growing season has become longer and more hospitable to plant growth.

Interestingly, temperatures and vegetation growth now resemble those found 4-6 degrees of latitude or 400-700 kilometers to the south (250-430 miles).

"It's like Winnipeg, Manitoba, moving to Minneapolis-Saint Paul in only 30 years," said study co-author Compton Tucker of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

So why is this not the ideal problem some might think it to be? As the vegetation cover increases, the albedo of the Earth (the “whiteness” of the Earth) darkens, which means that the Earth will retain even more energy from the Sun than it has in the past. This in turn will further warm the Earth.

"This sets in motion a cycle of positive reinforcement between warming and loss of sea ice and snow cover, which we call the amplified greenhouse effect," said the study co-author Ranga Myneni said. "The greenhouse effect could be further amplified in the future as soils in the north thaw, releasing potentially significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane."

As the Earth warms, the Arctic will warm further still. As the Arctic warms, much of the permanently-frozen ground (known as permafrost or yedoma) will thaw, releasing vast quantities of stored carbon in the form of greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. And the summer sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean will continue to dwindle, eventually disappearing altogether (the subject of my next post).

By the end of this century, the increases in temperatures and vegetation growth now resemble those found 20 degrees of latitude or 2,000-3,500 kilometers to the south (1,250-2,150 miles).

The last time that the Earth experienced the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide we now see was 3.5 million years ago, when temperatures in the Arctic were some 11-16°C (19-28°F) and global sea levels were some 23 meters (70 feet) above those of today. Given the ongoing increase in atmospheric CO2 from our human activities, that is the world we are returning our climate to.

-DB

Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Story Source: Amplified Greenhouse Effect Shaping North Into South http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/growth-shift.html http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1836.html

Resources: Ancient Fossils Hold Clues for Predicting Future Climate Change http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/18383638/756302608/name/sdarticle.pdf http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X11001099

Thawing Permafrost Likely Will Accelerate Global Warming http://www.tellusb.net/index.php/tellusb/article/view/16197

Caves Point to Thawing of Siberia: Thaw in Siberia's Permafrost May Accelerate Global Warming http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2013/02/20/science.1228729.abstract

Not-So-Permanent Permafrost: 850 Billion Tons of Carbon Stored in Frozen Arctic Ground Could Be Released http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL051958/abstract;jsessionid=CE309CAE91402E485689AAA6F160A093.d02t03

Abrupt Permafrost Thaw Increases Climate Threat http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v480/n7375/full/480032a.html

Sunlight Stimulates Release of Climate-Warming Gas from Melting Arctic Permafrost http://www.pnas.org/content/110/9/3429

Carbon Release from Collapsing Coastal Permafrost in Arctic Siberia http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/full/nature11392.html

The disappeared bank of gravel

Odaaq, a gravel bank on the northeastern side of Greenland, used to be the northernmost point of land (also known as ‘Ultima Thule’) at 83°40′N 30°40′W. Well, that is if you would consider a bank of gravel a piece of land; at its discovery in 1978 it measured 15 by 8 meters. It was named after the Inuit that led the Danish team to the gravel bank. However, since then several expeditions have claimed that Odaaq has disappeared and it has been a while since it was last reported to exist. The shifting ice, the melting ice and the changing water conditions could have something to do with its disappearance.

Are there any other candidates for the northernmost point? Well, there is ATW1996 (they are not even properly naming these semi-permanent pieces of land anymore) at 83°40′34.8″N 30°38′38.6″W, of 10km width and one meter height, and the island of 83-42 at 83°42′05.2″N 30°38′49.4″W. Its discoverer Dennis Smith said he would not name the island, because he thought Greenland should name their own territories. However, both of these gravelbanks are again not-permanent, although 83-42 was found with lichen growing on it. In 2007, the newest candidate for Ultima Thule was discovered by explorer Dennis Schmidt at 83°40'30" N, and was named Stray Dog West, but that is also a piece of semi-permanent land.

So, the official guidelines for a northernmost point are that the land has to be permanent. Thus, there is only one candidate left: Kaffeklubben Island (Inuit Qeqertaat and English Coffeeclub island) at 83°40′N 29°50′W with a height of 30m, a length of 700m and a width of max. 300m. A Canadian team calculated that the northernmost tip of Kaffeklubben Island lies 750m farther north than Cape Morris Jesup (first believed to be the northernmost).

Well, this settles it then…

-OW-

Image: Copyright DmitTrix. Odaaq in 2003.

Read more: Jancik, John; Richardson, Javana; & Gardiner, Steve (2002). Under the Midnight Sun: The Ascent of John Denver Peak and the Search for the Northernmost Point of Land on Earth. Stars End Creations. http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-02-16/ultima-thule-83-42-arctic-greenland-ken-jennings http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-flowers-of-kaffeklubben-island

A Year In the Life of Global Carbon Emissions Ever since the world became industrialized in the mid 1700’s, factories have been releasing massive plumes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The known movement of localized emissions has been recorded, but now with new technology, a map of global emissions is available. Last month, NASA released a video from December 2006 which shows the flow of CO2 emissions globally. The image was compiled by using a state of the art computer modeling system into which carbon emission data is downloaded from. The dark red colors indicate the highest densities of CO2, while the blue and light green colors offer lower amounts. Most of the emissions are produced by highly populated industrial regions such as the United States and China. The emissions from Africa and northern South America are mostly due to natural causes such as forest clearance. Carbon dioxide has an annual saw tooth cycle since most of the land surface is in the northern hemisphere and the plants absorb CO2 during their growth phase in spring and release it back in the autumn as everything dies down. Once released, carbon emissions get picked up and transferred around the planet by global wind currents. By the end of the year, CO2 looms over the northern hemisphere before its flow decreases due to the natural CO2 cycle of Earth. Although emissions do decline at the beginning of each cycle due to plant growth, emissions have now reached over 400 parts per million consecutively for over three months - more than has ever been recorded. On July 2nd, 2014, NASA launched the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), a spacecraft with the purpose of measuring the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Thanks to this new data and technology, the scope of human interference on the composition of the world's atmosphere has been revealed, increasing our understanding of ongoing climate change. -MJR *Video credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Read more here: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/19/nasa-animation-shows-stunning-year-in-the-life-of-carbon-emissions http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/02jul_oco2/ http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=11719