The Earth Story

Dusk til dawn over the Middle East, including Dubai, Sharjah, and Syria - before the war started.

Refugees and the Environment

While the toll on humanity when faced with a refugee crisis is undeniable, the impact on the environment has the possibility of vastly changing the ecology of a region as well. In times of war and civil unrest, refugee camps that spring up are frequently densely packed and poorly managed, especially in regions that are already stressed.

Today, the Syrian refugee crisis is putting enormous strain on neighboring countries that are hosting camps for Syrians fleeing the war. Some of the biggest impacts include deforestation, erosion, and depletion or pollution of water resources. In a region that is already facing dwindling fresh water reserves, the influx of thousands of refugees both strains the water supply and causes tensions between locals and the new population.

Ethnic tensions can further damage local ecosystems, as seen in Zaire following the Rwandan Civil War and genocide. Military groups of both Hutus and Tutsis used the refugee camps in Zaire to attack one another, ultimately leading to two more civil wars over the next five years and the formation of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Together the wars were deadlier than any conflict since the end of World War I, and had a massive impact on the region's ecology. Vast swaths of Africa’s forests were threatened by attempts to deny cover to the fighting militias. This policy is reminiscent of the United States’ effort to defoliate much of southern Vietnam through chemical agents such as the infamous Agent Orange.

However, unlike Vietnam, the region’s plant life returned fairly quickly. Large parts of the Virunga Volcanoes region was cleared, but bamboo grows quickly, and the region has recovered. The forests that were heavily forested by refugee camps happened to be in an area often affected by volcanic flows, and the species that grow there are able to recover rapidly.

But Africa’s wildlife did not fare so well. The Goma-Rutshuru road was heavily deforested and the setting for a number of conflicts. It also cuts across a major migration route for elephants and other large mammals. War zones also bring arms dealers, and the easy availability of automatic weapons led to a sharp increase in poaching. Almost the entire population of hippopotamus were killed along two major rivers. The sudden population drop has had the subsequent effect of changing local vegetation and damaging the fishing industry of the region. ~RA

Image: http://bit.ly/2rVuFo5

Sources: http://bit.ly/2hw4cb0 http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5520

Zaatari Refugee Camp, Jordan

These 2 images from the ASTER instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite show a location in the nation of Jordan, with the upper one taken in 2009 and the lower one taken in 2013

In-between, a large, white area has appeared. This area is a refugee camp, home to over 100,000 refugees from the fighting in Syria. It opened in July of 2012 and swelled to this size in only 1 year. The camp appears white because of the color of the structures and tents in the area.

The UN High Commissioner on Refugees states that this camp would be the equivalent of building a city the size of Cambridge, England or Fargo, North Dakota in a single year. Nearly 5 million refugees have left Syria for the surrounding nations since fighting broke out in that country.

-JBB

Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using data from NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=81818

UNHCR statement: http://www.unhcr.org.uk/news-and-views/news-list/news-detail/article/one-year-on-jordans-zaatri-refugee-camp-mushrooms-into-major-urban-centre.html

Salt Bride

We’ve told you in the past about how salty the Dead Sea is (http://bit.ly/2bplPHN), but it can be hard to comprehend just how much salt is really in the water. Now an artist has come up with an unusual visual.

Sigalit Landau submerged a black dress in the Dead Sea for two months in 2014, and called the result “Salt Bride”. She took photos of the transformation, and you can see the results at the end of the two months; the black dress is completely encased in salt crystals.

The Dead Sea has a salinity of 34%, making it one of the saltiest bodies of water on the planet. That’s anywhere from five to nine times saltier than the ocean. Anything left in the lake for a long period of time, or any other very salty solution, will start to collect salt leading to elevated concentrations of salt around the object relative to the surrounding water. Salt next to this saltier solution will seed crystals (nucleation), beginning the process that turned the dress from black to bulky sparkling white.

Photos of the transformation are on display at Marlborough Contemporary museum in London, England, until Sept. 3.

Photo Credit: Sigalit Landau/Marlborough Contemporary and Matanya Tausig http://bit.ly/2bVpvid References: http://bit.ly/2bVrymv http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36477284

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Demet Kara, an archaeologist from the Hatay Archaeology Museum, believes the words “Be cheerful, enjoy your life,” in ancient Greek are displayed in this mosaic featuring a laid-back skeleton with his cup, bottle of wine and loaf of bread. Found alongside were two other scenes which Kara suggests were likely to adorn the dining room of a wealthy family’s villa during the 3rd century BCE. The ancient Greek-Roman city of Antiocheia once thrived in this area where researchers excavated, which is now known as the Hatay province on the Turkish-Syrian border.

“There are three scenes on glass mosaics made of black tiles. Two things are very important among the elite class in the Roman period in terms of social activities: The first is the bath and the second is dinner. In the first scene, a black person throws fire. That symbolizes the bath. In the middle scene, there is a sundial and a young clothed man running towards it with a bare-headed butler behind. The sundial is between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. 9 p.m. is the bath time in the Roman period. He has to arrive at supper at 10 p.m. Unless he can, it is not well received. There is writing on the scene that reads he is late for supper and writing about time on the other. In the last scene, there is a reckless skeleton with a drinking pot in his hand along with bread and a wine pot. The writing on it reads ‘be cheerful and live your life,’” Kara stated.

Nikos Tsivikis with the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum has recently reported that contrary to Kara’s initial dating of 3rd century BCE, these Turkish mosaics were more likely to be from the late Roman period of 2-4th century CE. Further research and discussions declare that perhaps the message could be more accurately translated to “You get the pleasure of the food you eat hastily with death.”

Historian Ilber Ortayli also reported that a separate museum should be set up for the area and that hopefully further research and international attention for the mosaic will reveal more about it’s unusual design.

Seems thousands of years ago, rich people thought of skeletons as humorous. Similar mosaics of a skeleton holding up two pitchers (because he’s clearly ready to party) and another of a reclining skeleton next to his scythe soliciting the idea that everyone “know thyself” (or else!?) have been uncovered in Pompeii, Italy.

Whatever the actual intent was for these mosaics, it seems to be that even back then people toyed with the idea of sinful pleasures.

--Mi Image Credit: http://bit.ly/1WFipB0 http://bit.ly/1W6IYiz Sources: http://cnn.it/1W4iCh8 http://bit.ly/24rV9rG http://bit.ly/1SOvRSo

Of a drought, a civil war, and millions of fleeing refugees...with more to come in the future

One of the expected effects of global warming is an increase in drought in varying parts of the globe, and one example is the series which has been worsening in the Eastern Mediterranean region since 1998. This group of events have strained the resilience of the societies living there, and Syria was pushed beyond the breaking point by the record breaking event it sustained between 2005 and 2010, though the knock on effects of this conflict has also put all its neighbours and the European Union under major stress as well. While climate change is not the only factor in the ongoing civil war, political, religious and other strains being at the fore of the media debate, it is doubtful whether events would have taken such a tragic turn but for this drought, which recent tree ring research (broadly put wide ring good growth year, narrow ring bad growth year) shows to be the worst in 900 years.

When the drought started, Syrian society, however politically constrained, had a certain amount if inbuilt resilience through state, local, tribal and family networks to weather the first years. The country's aquifers were depleted however, due to misguided agricultural policies since the 1970's, and most farmers were dependent on rain for irrigation. Farms had yet to recover from the 1998-2000 drought when the 5 year one hit, creating a disaster.

Take away people's ability to earn a livelihood off the land, and sooner or later, the farmers have to move to seek employment elsewhere (as happened in the dust bowl in the US Midwest in the 1930's forcing many farmers to move west to California and Oregon). If this work isn't available in sufficient quantities for the displaced people (now living in concrete facility less slums at the edge of large cities like Damascus and Aleppo, Syria's urban population grew by 50% between 2002 and 2010) to feed their families, and food costs increase (as they did in the late naughties), you have a recipe for revolution, and evidence of a failing state that is unable to meet its people's needs. Since then we have had years of civil war whose complexity has risen as more and more actors and proxies enter the scene. Over 4.2 million have fled the country (mostly to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, also affected by the drought, though a mere million has seemingly managed to stall the entire European dream), and 7.6 million more remain internally displaced within Syria in an ever shifting mosaic that mirrors the ebbs and flows of battle.

The tree ring data was compiled from across the region, and revealed 900 years of information on wet and dry periods, and show that the current drought is well beyond the norms of natural climate variation during this period, implying that it is a clear signal of biting climate change. Research last year (linked below) showed that such events are three times more likely in a world with higher greenhouse gas levels.

Climate modelling suggests that this is only the start, and that the whole region, already deficient in water resources for its growing population will get drier as the century progresses as rainfall patterns shift in a warming world. The region is already under severe water stress, with conflicts over upstream diversion by Turkey of the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates simmering in the background and over the waters of the Jordan.

Worse droughts in the future, and the possible implosion of other countries under the strain, with all the attendant consequences are now a growing preoccupation of the world's military security apparati (the Pentagon calls global warming a threat multiplier that poses “immediate risks) and if they're worried, we should be too. As David Titley, director of Penn State's Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk and retired Navy Rear Admiral put it: “This paper points to the importance of resilience, and how spectacularly a society can break and fracture when climate-forced events exceed the capacity to adapt.”

Loz

Image credit: Graphic: NASA/Grace, Drought: Reuters, Civil war: Abd Doumani/AFP, Refugees fleeing: EPA

http://go.nasa.gov/23BIZQ2 http://bit.ly/217TeVM http://bit.ly/1pnRX0W http://bit.ly/1R3HvVz

original papers, paywall access: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241 http://bit.ly/1WUKEIJ http://bit.ly/22FP4Hb

Clouds rising over a dust storm

The world's greatest desert has just produced a massive haboob, covering large parts of the Middle East and surrounding countries in a cloying haze. The Sahara is the source of much of the world's airborne dust, dumping nutrients as far away as the Amazon basin and the occasional red coating after rain on European cars. It also has an influence on the weather in the Atlantic ocean, both in promoting cloud formation and an as yet poorly understood role in the intensity of hurricane seasons, but right now it's just making lives miserable for people across the region, having killed at least 12 so far and caused a surge of hospital admissions for respiratory problems.

This photo was taken over the Libyan desert looking towards the great sand seas early this month, showing what a large storm looks like from space. The clouds come from the cold winds associated with haboobs condensing the air's moisture around them. Countries badly affected over the last couple of days include Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Cyprus, though the storm has been winding down since wednesday. Air pollution in Jerusalem was the worst ever recorded, and some flights were cancelled across the region, traffic through the Suez Canal was also affected.

This dust storm was partly caused by the very hot conditions endured through most of August, when temperatures in the upper 40's culminating in over 50 Celsius in conditions of high humidity oppressed the region for 3 weeks. Temperatures were so hot in Baghdad that traffic cones melted into ponds of asphalt. Iraq had to declare a four day holiday as it was too hot to go out and work.

Loz

Image credit: Alec Gerst/NASA

http://1.usa.gov/1IZu15E http://1.usa.gov/1Q5ZEQp http://bit.ly/1OBzHYC http://wxch.nl/1UB5uzV http://bit.ly/1OC10SD http://bit.ly/1SJ9QnP