The Earth Story

“The best wedge issue is an actual wedge”

Not sure I can evaluate every single claim in this clip (for example, calling the type of mining discussed “the most polluting” bothered me a bit as I can probably come up with other types, depending on whether acid drainage bugs you more than cyanide), but here’s a story worth telling. A nickel mine was proposed in the highlands of Oregon and the people who make a living and live downstream of those mines, relying on the water, banded together and wound up leading the government to pass a 20 year withdrawal of mining permits in that area, maintaining wilderness protections for it.

Lake Effect: Restoration Efforts in the Great Lakes

In any map of North America, the Great Lakes draw the eye to their irregular shape, stamped on the continent like an aquatic Rorschach test. Formed after the last glacial period, the five lakes straddle the border between the US and Canada and contain centuries of history in their shipwreck-studded depths. Erie, Ontario, Huron and Michigan, and the largest of them all, Superior, together make up the largest system of fresh surface water in the world, providing drinking water for 40 million people around their shores and generating billions of dollars in revenue from tourism and recreational or commercial boating and fishing.

The Great Lakes play a crucial ecological role, providing critical breeding, feeding, and resting areas for a wide range of native species as well as migration corridors for migratory birds. For many years, though, the lakes have been subject to ecological degradation: polluted by industrial and agricultural activities, invaded by non-native species, and hit by toxic algal blooms. In 2014, for example, 500,000 residents in the city of Toledo, Ohio went without water for three days because of an algal bloom in Lake Erie. We’ve covered the effects of algal blooms before (http://bit.ly/2opK8eo); they happen when runoff of phosphorus-heavy fertilizer from farmlands and feedlots provides a surge in available nutrients for algae in waterways, leading to an explosion of growth.

In 2010, a federal effort called the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative was launched to help strengthen and protect the Great Lakes ecosystem. Previously, target areas of significant degradation had been designated as “Areas of Concern;” the initiative aims to delist all of the US AOCs by funding more than 3,000 projects to rehabilitate the lake environments. To deal with the pollution that causes algal blooms, watershed management programs have partnered with farmers to reduce excess fertilizer runoff, while green infrastructure projects and wetlands restoration in shoreline cities like Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee reduce urban runoff. In the Toledo area, best practices have been established for farmers, and parks and roadways have been retrofitted with rain gardens and bioswales (landscape elements designed to trap contaminants) to capture and filter runoff into Maumee Bay, the site of the 2014 algal bloom.

Other projects aim to keep the water in the lakes safe for drinking and recreation, control the spread of harmful invasive species, restore natural habitats, and promote the health of endangered and threatened native species like the Canada lynx, piping plover, and the Lake Erie water snake, which is one of only 23 species to be removed from the Endangered Species List due to recovery. In 2016, the five-year program was renewed through 2021 by Congress, which appropriated $300 million per year of funding for the initiative. However, budget proposals for the coming year reduce funding 97%, despite broad bipartisan and local support for the program.

Live in the Great Lakes watershed and want to see what the GLRI has done for your town or county? You can find an interactive map and list of projects here: www.glri.us

-CEL

Sources: https://www.glri.us/ http://bit.ly/2nwXAcI http://bit.ly/2oxuif0 http://nyti.ms/2n1o7CH http://bit.ly/2ns1fw2 http://bit.ly/2nLt5Rv http://bit.ly/2nZDMll http://bit.ly/2nOd3HX Images: 1. NASA (https://go.nasa.gov/2opXeZM), 2. An algal bloom in Lake Erie. 3. A water snake in Lake Erie. 2&3: NYT (http://nyti.ms/2n1GyXZ)

A geophysicist in the 1970s doing a geophysical survey of the border between Finland and Norway discovered that Finland’s highest elevation point was on a slope directly on the border - and the peak of that mountain was actually just a couple meters across the border in Norway. He then proposed the idea of having Norway agree to give Finland this mountain peak as a present, eventually walking across all of Norway to lobby to give them the mountain and settling on 1917, the 100th anniversary of Finland’s founding as a nation. That would give Finland a new highest point and a new mountain. Once the idea was around, they began having to figure out how to actually go about legally making this plan happen - how do you convince a country to give up a mountain?

West Fork Complex Fire, Colorado

This image was taken by NASA’s Aqua satellite Shows what was named the West Fork Complex Fire, large areas burning in several locations within the San Juan and Rio Grande National Forests of southwestern Colorado. The Aqua satellite also has the ability to detect temperatures, and the red boxes outline areas with elevated temperatures and active burning on that date.

This fire started on June 5 of 2013 due to lightning and burned over 70,000 acres of forest. The fire complex is composed of several sections which both burn on their own and which joined together in places. 

The fire was fed by dead trees that were killed due to the infestation of the pine bark beetle, which has killed enormous amounts of pine trees throughout the Rocky Mountains. After the beetles kill the trees, they stand in place and dry out, making perfect fuel for wildfires.

One plausible way to help with this problem is fire prevention; funding teams to go throughout the West clearing dead brush and fuel from fire-prone areas, which can keep fires from starting or from going out of control when they do start. However, the fire prevention budget in the U.S. is currently being decimated.

The program’s budget for last year was close to $500 million, but when adjusted for inflation that is a slight cut from even 10 years ago.

On top of that, the past few fire seasons have been some of the worst in U.S. history, which means more money must be spent fighting fires. Where can that money be found? From the prevention budget of course.

The proposed budget for next year’s fire prevention efforts at the federal level is $292 million, a 40% cut from just 2 years ago. Fighting a single wildfire can cost over $100 million, particularly if it’s in a populated area, so limiting the scale of a couple fires per year would more than pay for itself. However, the budget cuts are mandatory and do not allow for intelligent distribution of funds; they pretend that if the budget is cut, more money won’t be needed, which is the exact opposite of reality. Instead, the U.S. taxpayer will be paying for these prevention cuts for the next few years, in both more fires and more money spent fighting them.

Many of the worst fire seasons in U.S. history have occurred in the last 15 years as a result of buildup of fuel and climate change. Slashing the prevention budget will make absolutely certain that trend continues.

-JBB

Image credit: NASA/EO: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=81466

Effect of beetles on forest: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78677

West Fork complex burning beetle-ravaged forests (press report): http://www.denverpost.com/coloradowildfires2013/ci_23518316/winds-shift-west-fork-fire-northwest-toward-creede

Fire Incident Report for West Fork Complex: http://www.inciweb.org/incident/3436/

Rising cost of wildfires: http://www.pagosadailypost.com/news/23491/The_Rising_Cost_of_Wildfire_Protection__/

Feds cut funding on prevention: http://www.mywesttexas.com/top_stories/article_794c4ad8-d968-11e2-adad-001a4bcf887a.html

West fork fire grows: http://www.denverpost.com/coloradowildfires2013/ci_23522520/west-fork-fire-grows-colorado-threat

Nauru

The once stunning tropical scenery of the small island state of Nauru formerly known as Pleasant Island currently resembles a moonscape. What looks like a natural karst formation shows the leftovers of intense phosphate mining on the pacific island.

At the beginning of the 20th century Nauru’s rich near surface deposits were discovered and mining made it one of the richest states in the world in the 1970s. But soon the reserves of the little island became exhausted and left its environment seriously harmed. Main parts of the country became uninhabitable.

The phosphate deposits are basically fossilized bird poo that accumulated over the years and developed within the coral pinnacles. The material made for an excellent fertilizer and was scooped out of the coral ground. The mining activities in combination with further natural erosion left behind a visually stunning but useless landscape.

Xandi

Image Credits: http://bit.ly/2a60AtZ http://bit.ly/2aaCjib Sources: http://bit.ly/2aC9sXJ https://www.lonelyplanet.com/nauru

A little deforestation goes a long way

In 2012, Brazil passed a new version of its forest management code that, in its most stringent areas, requires landowners to retain 80% of the original forest cover. This law has had an impact in reducing the overall rate of deforestation, although the trends have been unclear in many areas.

Even though this standard was established, so far no one has actually tested how much disturbance happens to a forest when 20% of the tree cover is removed. A new study from a huge team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Lancaster tested the effectiveness of this standard by counting the number of species present in a huge database of undisturbed, partially disturbed, and heavily disturbed forests.

Overall, they found that in terms of protecting biodiversity in the rainforest, the 80% standard still caused major drops in biodiversity. Even forests that only saw 20% disturbance still saw a loss of 40 to 60% of the preexisting biodiversity.

It’s clear from photos like this one of the Rio Tinto river that areas at the south, heavily disturbed areas will suffer almost total losses in original biodiversity, but before now the effect of a single road or a small disturbance wasn’t known. This study implies that although the 80% standard is an improvement, if humans want to preserve biodiversity in areas like the Amazon Rainforest, there is no substitute for truly leaving areas as untouched wilderness.

-JBB

Image credit: NASA/Aqua/MODIS https://flic.kr/p/aahLdS

Original paper: http://go.nature.com/29TC8N8

Reference on the law: http://bit.ly/1T9B8RJ

DOWNSIZE of a HISTORIC SURVEY

It seems that every geologic survey on the globe has faced fiscal restructuring. Many, including ours in Greece, are in the bulls-eye of those who want to save what they see as “meaningless” public expenditures in the face of impending economic doom.

I recall visiting the British Geological Survey when it was newly relocated to Keyworth, still somewhat in a state of shock at their transition, so much so that I was asked not to show in a presentation any geological mapping… this from the country where geological mapping essentially was born. But I digress…

The Arizona Geologic Survey, in many different public infrastructure formats, dates from the 1880’s. I don’t think I need to remind readers of The Earth Story that Arizona is a geologically significant state: whoa! It hosts 25 national parks and monuments essentially based on world-class geo-environmental heritage -- including the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, and that Meteor Crater (privately owned) that is featured in every scientific documentary ever produced on Discover Channel so it would seem. It even hosts that wondrous geosite we regularly feature here on The Earth Story known as… The Wave.

Arizona’s mineral wealth is held in awe within the professional and academic community. If you’ve studied geology, you’ve taken courses in ore deposits that definitely included mines in Arizona (http://arizonaexperience.org/live-maps/active-mines). Gold, Uranium, Copper, Silver, Molybdenum… even when retired, the study of these mines are among those that have provided the foundation for models of ore formation for geologists around the world.

And wherever there are mines, there are, unfortunately, related issues of environmental problems that include heavy minerals and acid mine drainage as well as the problem of large holes left in the ground and piles of waste material and mine talus. Arizona also has plenty of natural problems of non-desirable elements such as radon hot spots and arsenic that would be there with or without mining. If you fear for arsenic in your water supply in Arizona, who ya gonna call? That’s right, the Survey!

While not as seismically active as some regions of the world, all earthquakes need to be monitored because, frankly, you never know. And about that volcano hazard… well there are 600 in the San Francisco Volcanic Field, the most recent having erupted a mere 1000 years ago (to paraphrase Monty Python, “It’s not dead; it’s only resting”). Of more immediate geologic hazard, there are some sneaky soils that swell when wet making roads hazardous, landslides, rockslides, sinkholes… You know, geology is indeed a dangerous business. "Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice." - Will Durant. Thanks, Will. You stated eloquently what we geologists know in our hearts to be true.

Combined with keeping the public safe, keeping it in awe of the state’s geologic treasures, aiding with mineral prospection and exploitation, geologic-environmental mapping essential to development, initiation and surveillance of laws and legislation pertaining to the above, AND developing new sources of energy … one would think that the Arizona Survey would be ideally suited for a continuing public mandate backing its work. But this is now the 21st century. Get real.

However the idea got started, it was the office of the governor, Doug Ducey, that started ringing the bell “for whom it tolls.” Officially, the spin is that “the cost-cutting action benefits taxpayers while building on synergy between the Survey and the university” (quoting the excellent report by R. Showstack in Eos). Apparently “synergy” was interpreted as so cost-efficient that the cost-cutting action of the state is, essentially, to cut all funding for the survey starting July 1, this year. The survey was moved last week from its headquarters (offices of about 1000m2) to space within the University of Arizona (about 250 m2) leaving behind some 45% of its personnel (with early retirement, getting new jobs, and well… the sack), and (at least temporarily) their public access mining and mineral museum and its excellent souvenirs.

Where will the Survey find funding? Contracts, grants, and sales of reports sounds good, but its overhead at the University of Arizona will eat up at least half of that. Synergy is a hungry animal. Essentially, the Arizona Geologic Survey is now a research institute. Could it become a geologic “MIT” or “CalTech?” It has the expertise required, but this would be a long-term dream in a short-budget nightmare.

Let the “synergy” commence!

AnnieR

The Most-Excellent Website of the Arizona Geologic Survey: http://www.azgs.az.gov/

Some relevant blogs and posts on the issue: http://azgeology.azgs.az.gov/article/feature-article/2016/06/azgs-moving-out-state-government-university-arizona http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/help-save-the-arizona-geological-survey/ https://eos.org/articles/new-law-puts-the-squeeze-on-the-arizona-geological-survey Showstack, R. (2016), New law puts the squeeze on the Arizona Geological Survey, Eos, 97, doi:10.1029/2016EO053643.Published on 03 June 2016.

AND – a treasure trove for scientific researchers the world over (and interested students, science kids, and the general public), visit and down-load free from their immense on-line resources:http://repository.azgs.az.gov/

Photo credits: Montage Arizona Survey. Grand Canyon view by Scott Catron (wikicommons). The Wave from http://www.zastavki.com/eng/World/USA/wallpaper-8918.htm.

CLIMATE CHANGE COULD BE DROPPED FROM THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM IN THE UK

Government education officials plan to drop detailed information on climate change and environmental instruction from the national curriculum for children under the age of 14, according to a draft curriculum proposed by the Department for Education in the United Kingdom. This has sparked intense debate on the necessity for environmental education in the country from scientists and advocates, who state that learning about climate change in school is the first stage in educating young people about actions they can take to solve the problem in the future.

Climate change is mentioned in the standards for younger children, but is not highlighted in detail. Preliminary guidelines in the geography standards make no mention of climate change, and the chemistry standards make one single reference to the source of emissions of carbon dioxide from human actions. Within this section, there is a sub-heading for “Earth Science,” which mentions the climate change topic, as well as changes to the Earth’s atmosphere. Sustainable development is not mentioned within the guidelines, but recycling is mentioned—in the chemistry curriculum. The current curriculum, however, explicitly mentions climate change, sustainable development, and human impacts on the environment.

These potential changes have created controversy. Former science adviser Professor Sir David King is a vocal critic of this revision, stating that teaching young people about climate change as an environmental crisis with subjects such as the ozone hole and the elimination of CFCs is crucial. This way, students can understand successful past attempts to solve environmental problems and can be better equipped to solve future crises. Two petitions urging the Department for Education to keep climate change in the curriculum are also circulating. They have been signed by more than 65,000 people and were created by a 15-year-old teenager and a geography teacher. A letter to the Sunday Times signed by 96 people, including prominent scientists, politicians, business leaders, and broadcasters, was also critical of the change. The signers of the letter stated that the government is responsible for teaching future generations about the value of nature.

The Department for Education is still considering these changes. The Geographical Association and the Royal Geographical Society have approved the shift in teaching, stating that students need a stronger foundation in geographical concepts before understanding the complexities of climate change. The Department for Education argues that climate change is still being taught, since climate and weather are still in the curriculum, and teachers can make the link between human activity and changes to landscapes, ecosystems, the accumulation of toxins in nature, and species adaptation.

-Jeanne K.

Photo courtesy of NASA Goddard Photo and Video, and created by Reto Stöckli, Nazmi El Saleous, and Marit Jentoft-Nilsen. It is a true-color image of Earth as it would appear from 35,000 km above the Earth from space; the image was created with satellite data documenting land masses and cloud positions.

References: http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/s/science%20-%20key%20stages%201%20and%202.pdf

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/s/science%20-%20key%20stage%203%2004-02-13.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/14/plans-drop-climate-change-curriculum

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/17/climate-change-cut-national-curriculum

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22158941

For more about climate change and education, please see: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=498259450235104&set=a.488935441167505.1073741833.352857924775258&type=3&theater

Water waste

A couple years ago I took a trip through Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That park is America’s most-visited park and it has a huge number of sites where you can stop and just enjoy the scenery or, let’s be honest, run across the street to put a hand lens on the rocks.

When I left that day, I’d filled up the couple grocery bags in my car with discarded water bottles picked up from the roadside and there were plenty more I didn’t have room for.

Anyone who has visited a National Park…or heck, looked at any roadside is familiar with this problem. The U.S. reportedly consumes about 30 billion bottles of water per year. Most of the plastic from those bottles winds up in the trash – less than ¼ is actually recycled – and then there’s the side of the road.

Flooding in Houston and surrounding areas

It has been a rough month of weather in Texas, Oklahoma, and surrounding states. Several pulses of tornado-generating weather systems moved across the plains in those states, and Monday night Texas was hit by record-breaking downpours.

Although much of the state was hit, the city of Houston appears to have had flooding as bad as anyone. Rainfall totals during this event in Houston are comparable to the levels that accompany tropical storms/hurricanes, and that is after an already wet month.

Several casualties have been reported from this flooding and the National Weather Service even issued a rare “Flash Flood Emergency” warning as it was hitting. The crowd at a basketball game in Houston was asked not to leave the stadium during the event.

Flash floods actually are the most deadly type of floods in the U.S. – they strike without much warning and have an awful habit of trapping people, particularly in vehicles. Water has a huge amount of mass to it and it takes less than a meter of water depth to actually be able to float a car or push it to the side if there’s a strong current. Weather forecasters in the U.S. constantly remind drivers “Turn around, don’t drown” for this reason – even small water depths can be hazardous to cars that try to drive through them.

This rainstorm is unusual but not totally surprising. This year is shaping up to be an El Niño year (http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1lTHNjN ) and El Niño years are associated with wet conditions along the Gulf Coast. That doesn’t guarantee storms like this, but combined with the extra water vapor in the air on an average day due to a warming planet, it does make them more likely.

Texas was actually suffering drought conditions as recently as last year; that drought has turned around, but it’s turned from one disaster to another. Interestingly, the US actually has a new tool to monitor the development of floods like this; large flash floods don’t just happen, they require the soil to be saturated beforehand by previous rainstorms so there’s no where to put the newly-fallen water. NASA’s SMAP satellite, part of its Earth Observing program, is able to measure the actual water content of soils and will lead to more accurate predictions of flash flood risk as data collection continues (http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1lYunTC).

However, as we recently noted, NASA’s Earth Observing program is facing large cuts in its budget due to political differences over climate change (http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1lKWEqU). This is the type of disaster where that information from NASA’s Earth Observing Program is particularly valuable, but if cutbacks like those happen; we’ll just have to be ok with more limited warnings about these disasters as they develop.

-JBB

Image credit: http://bit.ly/1ch0HyP

More: http://bit.ly/1J3nH14 http://slate.me/1RlDkUC

“Geology is not a core science” #ThanksEarthScience

In 2009, the governor of the state of Louisiana was giving a reply to a speech by the U.S. President that in part described how there were supposedly wasteful items in a spending bill being considered by Congress when something remarkable happened. One example of the type of thing the government should not be funding given in this speech was “something called volcano monitoring”.

To a geologist, this clause was jaw-dropping. Not only did it seem like the concept that “we should monitor volcanoes as a natural hazard because they could kill people” wasn’t understood, hearing that from the governor of the state devastated a mere 3.5 years earlier by Hurricane Katrina and the associated engineering failures was particularly startling.

I couldn’t help but flash back to that moment this week as Earth Science in the United States has a target on its back once again. At the beginning of May, the Congress passed a NASA budget outline that included a huge cut in their Earth Science spending. Then this past week, a U.S. Congressperson on the budget committee argued that the slight increase in funding for the National Science Foundation should go to the 4 “core sciences” which specifically excluded Earth Science and Social Sciences.

I hope the social scientists will forgive me if I allow them to mount their own defense.

If you’re following this page, you’ve gotten the idea by now that geologists do a lot of things – from environmental work to oil and gas exploration to understanding the chemistry of 10-component non-ideal solutions (that’s an accurate way to describe what I do btw). But by most accounts, there’s one specific reason why Earth Science has found itself on the front lines in these cases: climate change.

The Republican Party currently runs both houses of the U.S. Congress. For various reasons the legislators in that party are both opposed to taking any action in response to the threat of climate change and, in many cases, outright deny that climate change can even be driven by what humans have done to the atmosphere. These cuts to the NASA and NSF earth science budgets are, based on several statements, viewed as direct attacks on earth scientists for climate research.

The idea that Earth Science isn’t a “core science” is something that I’d hope would get people as frustrated as me. Upon hearing that statement, I couldn’t help but think back to that speech in 2009; an elected representative outright stating that Volcano Monitoring is something we shouldn’t be doing as a nation. I couldn’t help but think about taking that further – if NASA shouldn’t be studying Earth, does that mean it’s similarly unimportant to know where hurricanes are going?

Earth Scientists are a varied bunch. In my department alone there are people who work on how humans affected lake sediments 1000 years ago, on how the Great Lakes are changing as they warm, on martian volcanoes, on the evolution of the Andes mountains, on the cycling of Nitrogen, on the chemistry of fluids within the Marcellus Shale, on microseismic events that occur during hydraulic fracturing, and more. If I had to guess, if those same legislators were asked if they wanted to shut down all those research paths, they might pretty strongly support some of them.

Both the NSF and NASA choose which projects they’re going to fund based on scientific merit and review from peers in the field, so a cut to the Earth Science budget doesn’t just hit one, it hits all of us. Earth Scientists do a lot of stuff. We find the minerals in the ground that enable modern society to function. We find the energy that it takes to power the computer I’m typing on. The same satellites that study climate change made it possible to know 7 days in advance that Hurricane Sandy was going to make a left-hand turn and strike the New York area. You can’t just peel off one part, say “it’s off limits” and then try to do the rest.

These different parts of geology are in fact so intertwined that to be completely honest sometimes it even bothers me. Even though I’m not a climate scientist I’ve studied enough to know that the costs of the current path of releasing CO2 to the atmosphere in money and lives are going to be huge. Yet, I just finished teaching a core class full of undergraduate geology majors – many of whom are likely to wind up working for the oil and gas industry.

I once personally asked Bill McKibbon of 350.org, who has been extremely active on the issue of avoiding catastrophic climate change, how a geoscientist should handle the fact that they’re telling people about the climate problem while simultaneously training students who will help put more CO2 into the air. His answer was to make sure students also understood the potential problems with that career path, an answer I’m not sure totally satisfies me. This is a reality we can’t get around; like Robert Oppenheimer who saw the physics he had worked on turn into a nuclear weapon, the tools of Earth Science can be used for good or ill, but they can’t be split from each other. If you want to understand where oil and gas deposits come from, you need to understand how the carbon came out of the atmosphere originally, and so on.

Over at our Twitter page (https://twitter.com/theearthstory), I started my own version of Hashtag Activism using the tag “#ThanksEarthScience” to point out how many different ways Earth Science influences modern. I’m a couple days into this now and hopefully a few other people have joined in – feel free to check it out and join in if you’re on Twitter (I’m totally open to sarcastic uses!). If not, take a second, look around you, and ponder what kinds of things Earth science has made possible. The glass in your computer or cell phone screen, the electricity that runs it, the lithium in the batteries, the electricity that powers the lights in your room, your weather forecast for that day, your ability to breathe the air, the metal that went into whatever transportation type you used to get to work or home for the day, the concrete that went into building the structure you’re sitting in, and on and on.

Those are my thoughts about the attack on my science, thanks for reading and hopefully pondering for a bit. If you're a US Citizen and you've made it this far and would like to help, there's an action link below from the AGU to write your congressperson on one of these bills.

-JBB

Image credit: NASA Marshall https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/16198576886/

Write your representative: http://actioncenter.agu.org/app/write-a-letter?0&engagementId=94856

Read more: http://bit.ly/1A59Iqi http://bit.ly/1Fj2LSy http://350.org/

All through scientific history there has been a series of controversies. These often develop on issues where there is little debate within the relevant academic community, yet widespread popular debate remains among the public. Climate change is one of the best examples of this phenomenon.

For every piece of supporting evidence of climate change, there is a counter argument; usually a misconception, but other times, it is a sinister misrepresentation of information. The latter is what came to be in 2012 when David Rose published an article in The Daily Mail suggesting that the British Meteorological office released data indicating that “The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago”, a statement you'll still regularly hear today from the world's politicians.

Unfortunately, David was completely incorrect. So much so that the met office released a statement saying that Mr Rose’s article was misleading and also explained that Rose is essentially trying to go down the up escalator by focusing on short-term noise while ignoring the long-term trend.

The long term trend shows, of course, that the Earth is in fact getting warmer and has continued to do so over the last 16 years.

But don’t just take my word for it -here is a short video demonstrating the interplay of natural and human factors and their effect on the short-term temperature trends. Furthermore it demonstrates that underneath the short-term noise, the long-term human-caused global warming trend remains as strong as ever. Video: http://bit.ly/UYML08

The video, produced by Skeptical Science, pays particular attention to the short-term warming and cooling influences of volcanic eruptions, solar activity, and El Niño and La Niña events. It then statistically removes these events from the temperature record and concludes that there is no evidence of a change in the rate of warming.

Unsurprisingly, actual science trumps tabloid journalism once again and it just goes to show that the valid information is out there, if you are willing to open your mind to it.

-Jean

Fore more information about the data used in this video, go to the skeptical science website here: http://bit.ly/XRzudE

Skeptical Science can also be found on facebook: http://on.fb.me/ZLHoWb

The video is a replication of a similar study by Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf which can be found here: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022

Credits: Video:Mr. Kevin C. Voiceover: Mr. Daniel Bailey.

Image courtesy of: http://mattbj.blogspot.ie/2009_11_01_archive.html

“The cost of living is going up and the chance of living is going down. “ –Flip Wilson

A new publication issued by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in the journal “Nature” has reported that the chances of keeping temperatures below a 2 degree rise is now largely in the hands of policy makers.

The challenge of a changing climate can now only be fought with the backing of political agenda – and as most people will agree, this seems bleak.

Of all the uncertainties with regard the effects of climate change, including geophysical and social uncertainties; political uncertainty ranked as the number 1 factor in determining the fate of our species and our planet.

What went wrong? Maybe we have been advertising climate change in an ineffective manner, considering how politically charged the world is?

The burdens of climate change are often communicated in relation to extreme weather events, melting ice caps, lives lost, loss of biodiversity, endangered species etc., but it would appear that to some this doesn't seem to ring a bell; probably as the bell doesn't chime as “Cha ching Cha ching”.

So what happens if we try to communicate climate change in relation to cost?

In 2012, in the United States alone, there were 11 natural disasters that cost over $1 billion – and this does not yet include the almost country wide drought or hurricane sandy, and let’s not forget the multiple other disasters which did not make the 1 billion benchmark. It is predicted that events, like the ones that swept the entire globe in 2012, will increase in frequency and in destructive force if we do not keep temperatures below the 2 degree rise on pre-industrial temperatures.

If we do not change our ways by 2020, the research group have found that the probability of keeping the temperature within the assigned 2 degree window drops below 50% (best case) or 20% (worst case) - no matter how much money is spent in the effort.

It is predicted that money will not matter; it’s almost bittersweet.

Recent years have been eye opening in terms of our natural environment. From here on out, let’s try change our ways; not our climate. The clock is ticking.

-Jean

For more information: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130102140346.htm

Journal Reference: Joeri Rogelj, David L. McCollum, Andy Reisinger, Malte Meinshausen, Keywan Riahi. Probabilistic cost estimates for climate change mitigation. Nature, 2013; 493 (7430): 79 DOI: 10.1038/nature11787

Antarctica – Biological, Geopolitical, Spiritual

If any place on this precious planet earth belongs to everyone and to no one, it is Antarctica, the white continent. We invert the world to examine it and become inverted ourselves. We converge upon it with every line of longitude, encircling it with our high latitudes, test it with our science, and find—in turn—that it tests us. It tests not just our science but also our conscience, our poetry, our art, our ignorance and our assumptions. It contrasts our finest technologies against a single epiphany, a simple adaptation: a seal in the sea or a mother penguin and chick on the ice who call amid a cacophony of 10,000 other penguins, their voices all the same to us, and yet find each other.

The coldest, windiest, driest, and highest of seven continents is at once fertile and sterile, wet and dry, inviting and inhospitable. It waits at the bottom of the world, locked in cold storage; demanding new sensibilities if we are to understand it, appreciate it, protect it. It is not empty. Rather, it is full of those things we tend to think of as emptiness: a featureless fetch of ice, a wind-tossed sea, a “peopleless” coast, a nameless shore. Wilderness is not a political designation here; it’s an essential truth.

Antarctica is biological and is defined by the Antarctic Convergence, “…perhaps the longest and most important biological barrier on Earth, as formidable as any mountain range or desert, “ writes biologist David G. Campbell in 'The Crystal Desert'. The convergence encircles the continent and delineates a sudden and significant sea temperature gradient that arrests the dispersion of birds, fish, squid, krill, and—the most important - algae. In warmer waters north of the convergence, the sea rich with single-celled algae called coccolithophrorids; south of the convergence, diatoms. As the relative abundance of these algae species shifts, so does the population of every animal up the food chain that directly and indirectly depends upon them for food, from the thumb-sized krill to the largest animals on earth, blue whales.

Antarctic is geopolitical. As addressed in a document called Antarctica Treaty, it contains all lands and seas below 60°S latitude — roughly 10% of the earth’s surface. First signed by 12 nations in December 1959, the treaty places all territorial claims in abeyance and specifies that the continent “shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes.” It prohibits the deployment and detonation of nuclear devices and the disposal of nuclear waste, making it the world’s first nuclear-free zone and in May 1994 the International Whaling Commission designated all marine waters below 40°S latitude as an 11-million-square-mile whale sanctuary. Despite this, there is now research stations that now punctuate this once pristine world that fly their flags on a continent untouched by man 100 or so years ago. Although some stations were built at the cost of evicting local residents —penguins and seals—research has brought discoveries as significant as the ozone hole, underscoring the truth that humans (along with natural variations) have created serious problems for Antarctica and must now mitigate, if not eliminate them.

Antarctica is spiritual. When asked why he returned there again and again to bitter cold and uncertain survival, Frank Wild, who was second-in-command of Ernest Shackleton’s famed Endurance expedition of 1914-17, said he couldn’t escape the “little voice.” Like light passing through a prism, a person who goes to Antarctica is changed. “A man doesn’t begin to attain wisdom until he recognizes that he is no longer indispensable,” wrote Richard Byrd, while camped alone in the Antarctic. So as we move forward, humbled but yet powerful, we move forward with the fate of penguins and the earth in our hands.

~ JM

Photo Credit: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2010/05/antarctica-at-risk-from-flood-of-people

More Information:

Antarctic Convergence: http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/environment/geography/antarctic-convergence The Crystal Desert: http://www.amazon.com/The-Crystal-Desert-Summers-Antarctica/dp/0618219218 Coccolithophrorids: http://home.physics.wisc.edu/gilbert/coccolithophorid.htm Antarctic Treaty: http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm The Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-1917: http://www.south-pole.com/p0000098.htm Ozone Watch: http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/

United States expands park system Last week, the United States Congress passed a large bill that funded the Defense Department for the next year. Without getting too much into the politics of either that bill or why this was stuck inside it…that bill did something great. The US Congress just passed the largest expansion of the National Park system since 1978. As soon as the President signs the bill, it will create 7 new areas managed by the National Parks system. Several are historic sites, including locations involved in the Manhattan Project and the World War 1 memorial in Washington DC. These photos show a couple of the natural locations, two from an enormous ancient volcanic complex in New Mexico called the Valles Caldera and a tusk from a mammoth from Tule Springs Fossil Beds outside of Las Vegas Nevada. Tule Springs in particular is important to preserve now due to continuing growth of the nearby city. In addition to creating these new parks, 9 other park service properties will be expanded, resources will be targeted to investigate the possibility of adding 8 other parks in the future, and several large areas including areas close to Glacier National Park are declared wilderness areas and put off limits to mining. The process of creating a new national park is not a simple one. It involves justifying the historic or natural value of the area, planning the facilities of the park, coming up with preservation plans to keep the area in tact while allowing public access to the land, and dealing with the property rights of landowners in the area in a fair manner. Getting to this point means a lot of things have gone right. The US Park Service is a small portion of the US budget but its returns are huge. The National Park system had nearly 300 million visitors in 2013. The presence of a park drives tourism and economic activity to an area and almost always produces a long-term boost for an area. A strong park system benefits both the area around parks and the country as a whole. -JBB Image credits:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/barclaynix/7729827848 https://www.flickr.com/photos/docbadger1/9700175881 http://www.tulespringslv.com/IceAgeFossils.aspx Read more:  http://parkadvocate.org/historic-parks-package-passes-congress/