Earth Wise

A look at our changing environment.

You are here: Home / Archives for planet

planet

A Hot July | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

The numbers are in and, unsurprisingly, July was a hot month.  July 2020 tied for the second-hottest July on record for the planet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  In our own backyard, the Northern Hemisphere saw the hottest July ever, breaking the previous record set just last year.

The July 2020 global temperature was 62.06 Fahrenheit, which is 1.66 degrees above the 20th-century average.  The combined land and ocean surface average temperature for the Northern Hemisphere, the highest ever recorded for July, was 2.12 degrees F above average, breaking the previous record by 0.14 degrees.

Record-hot July temperatures were also recorded across parts of southeastern Asia, northern South America, across the west and northern Pacific Ocean, the northern Indian Ocean, and parts of the Caribbean Sea.

The year-to-date global land and ocean surface temperature was the second highest in the 141 years of record keeping at 58.79 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 1.89 degrees F above the 20th-century average. 

So far it is been the hottest year to date on record across a large portion of northern Asia, parts of Europe, China, Mexico, northern South America, as well as the Atlantic, northern Indian and Pacific oceans.

Meanwhile, the extent of sea ice in the Arctic for July 2020 was the smallest ever measured in the 42 years of record-keeping, over 23% below the 1981-2010 average.  July’s Arctic sea ice extent was smaller than the previous record (set last year) by 120,000 square miles, an area roughly the size of New Mexico.

*********

Web Links

July 2020 was record hot for N. Hemisphere, 2nd hottest for planet

Photo, posted July 24, 2018, courtesy of Maria Eklund Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Livestock Expansion And Global Pandemics | Earth Wise

By 1 Comment

The domestication of cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals as livestock for their meat, milk, and eggs was historically revolutionary.  It boosted food security by giving people a readily-available means of feeding themselves as opposed to more traditional methods such as hunting and fishing. 

But animal agriculture has plenty of drawbacks.  The industrialization of animal agriculture has led to horrendous conditions.  Animals are kept in huge quantities and packed together with little regard for their health and welfare.  This approach to agriculture is simply designed to maximize production while minimizing costs. 

With its chemical inputs and toxic outputs, intensive animal agriculture is also a major threat to the environment.  In fact, it’s a major driver of habitat degradation and biodiversity loss all around the globe.   

But it’s not just animals and the planet that pay a price.  Humans have inherited several lethal pathogens from livestock over the years, including the influenza virus that likely jumped to humans from poultry.

According to a study recently published in Biological Conservation,  there is a connection between the global increase in the emergence of infectious diseases and epidemics, the accelerated loss of biodiversity, and the expansion of livestock.  In the study, the research team from the Institute of Evolution Sciences of Montpellier cross referenced databases on human and animal health, livestock expansion, and biodiversity loss between 1960-2019.  The team found that the number of epidemics identified in humans increased in correlation with both biodiversity loss and livestock expansion. 

In the era of COVID-19, it’s important to understand how global livestock expansion directly threatens both human health and the health of the planet. 

**********   

Web Links

Livestock expansion is a factor in global pandemics

Photo, posted July 22, 2018, courtesy of Artem Beliakin via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Plant-Based Bottles | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Single-use plastic soda and water bottles are a real problem.  Every year, billions of them are produced – comprising nearly 300 million tons of plastic that mostly ends up in landfills or in the ocean.   This discarded plastic ends up on remote islands, in the snow atop mountains, and in trenches in the deepest parts of ocean.

There has been increasing pressure on beverage companies to put an end to this environmental disaster, but the convenience and economy of disposable bottles is just too attractive.

These bottles are made of plastic derived from oil and once they are produced, they take decades or even centuries to decompose.  Recycling them is a not-starter because it is cheaper to just make new ones.

A possible solution has emerged.  A Dutch company called Avantium has found a way to take plant sugars and transform them into a plastic capable of standing up to carbonated beverages like soda and beer but that will also break down in as little as a year in a composter or 3 years if left exposed to the elements.

Coca Cola and Carlsberg are working with Avantium to develop new drink packaging based on their material that could be in stores as soon as 2023.  The new packaging would be quite different from what we use today.  Instead of a clear or tinted bottle, beverages would come inside a cardboard container with a liner made of plant-based plastic.

It may take a while for people to get used to the change, but we have already managed to get used to milk, juice and other liquids coming in cardboard containers instead of glass or plastic bottles.  The benefits to the planet would make the effort well worthwhile.

**********

Web Links

Plant-Based Bottles Could Degrade In One Year

Photo courtesy of Avantium.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Planting Trees and Climate Change | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Forests are among the most important natural carbon sinks.  Trees remove carbon from the air and store it in their trunks, branches, and leaves, and transfer part of it into the soil.  But in some regions, these natural carbon sinks are starting to weaken due to deforestation, forest degradation, and the impacts of climate change.  This problem has led some climate mitigation projects to focus on increasing the overall number of trees on the planet. 

But, according to a paper recently published in the journal Science, “we can’t plant our way out of climate change.”  That’s the simple message from Restoration Ecologist Karen Holl and University of São Paulo Professor Pedro Brancalion to anyone who thinks planting one trillion trees will reverse the effects of climate change.  They say planting more trees is only one piece of the puzzle.  Any initiatives like 1t.org or the Trillion Tree Campaign must be done carefully and be accompanied by commitments to long-term management.

Tree plantings can provide many environmental benefits, including improving water quality, biodiversity, and increasing shade.  But trees can sometimes have undesirable impacts, such as harming native species and ecosystems or reducing water availability, depending on where and how the trees are planted.

The authors suggest four principles that should guide forest enhancement initiatives: reduce forest clearing and degradation, balance ecological and social goals, view tree plantings as one part of a multifaceted solution, and plan, coordinate and monitor the work. 

While tree plantings can clearly be part of the solution, slowing the pace of climate change requires a comprehensive approach that must start with burning less fossil fuels.

**********

Web Links

Challenges in tree-planting programs

Planting trees is no panacea for climate change

Photo, posted December 1, 2019, courtesy of Akuppa John Wigham via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Antarctica’s Hot Summer | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

The Southern Hemisphere’s recent summer brought drought, heatwaves and bush-fires that ravaged Australia.  At the same time, Antarctica experienced a summer of extreme weather.

In East Antarctica, the Casey research station in the Australian Antarctic Territory had its first heatwave event, recording extreme maximum and minimum temperatures over three consecutive days in January.  Record high temperatures were also reported at bases on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The Casey station recorded a record high maximum temperature of 49 degrees Fahrenheit and a record overnight low of 36 degrees.  In February, Brazilian scientists reported a high temperature of 69 degrees at Marambio, an all-time record for Antarctica.

Ecologists say that the hot summer would most likely lead to long-term disruption of local populations, communities, and the broader ecosystem.  That disruption could be both positive and negative.

Most life in Antarctica exists in small ice-free oases and depends on melting snow and ice for a water supply.  Melt water from the warming temperatures will lead to increased growth and reproduction of mosses, lichens, microbes and invertebrates.

However, excessive flooding can dislodge plants and alter the composition of communities of invertebrates and microbial mats. If the ice completely melts early in the season, then ecosystems will suffer drought for the rest of the season.

Extreme events often have impacts for years after the event.  There will be long-term studies of the areas affected by the recent Antarctic heat wave. Such extreme events associated with global climate change are predicted to increase in frequency and impact, and even the most remote areas of the planet are not immune to them.

**********

Web Links

Antarctica’s summer of extreme heat

Photo, posted January 30, 2014, courtesy of Andreas Kambanis via Flickr

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Cooling The Earth With A Warmer Arctic | Climate Change | Earth Wise

By 1 Comment

Researchers are considering a wide range of approaches to mitigate the effects of global climate change.  Among these are various strategies of geoengineering, which must be viewed with enormous caution, given the high likelihood of unintended consequences from almost anything we might do.

Researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis have investigated potential strategies for cooling the planet in the absence of Arctic sea ice.

The Arctic region is heating up faster than any other place on earth and its sea ice is rapidly disappearing.  Estimates are that summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean will be largely gone within a generation.  Arctic ice and snow reflect the sun’s energy into space, which helps to keep the planet cool.  What happens if that ice is gone?

The researchers explored the fact that the Arctic Ocean ice actually insulates the Arctic atmosphere from the warmer water under the ice.  Without the ice layer, the surface water would actually increase air temperatures by 20 degrees C during the winter.  That in turn would increase the heat irradiated into space and thereby cool down the planet.

The Arctic sea ice is in part maintained because the upper regions of the Arctic Ocean have lower salinity than the Atlantic Ocean.  This stops Atlantic water from flowing above the cold Arctic waters.  So, if we were to somehow deliberately increase the salinity of the Arctic Ocean surface water, warmer, less salty Atlantic Ocean water would flow in, increase the temperature of the Arctic atmosphere, and release heat trapped in the ocean into space.

It all sounds pretty crazy, but the researchers say that given the seriousness of climate change, all options should be considered when dealing with it.

**********

Web Links

Could we cool the Earth with an ice-free Arctic?

Photo, posted August 19, 2016, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The March Of The Penguins Toward Extinction

By Leave a Comment

According to a new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the warming climate may render emperor penguins extinct by the end of this century.  The study, which was part of an international collaboration between scientists, finds that emperor penguins will likely experience an 86% decline by 2100 if the global climate continues to warm at the current rate.  At that point, it would be very unlikely for them to recover, according to the study’s lead author.       

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and recently published in the journal Global Change Biology.

The fate of emperor penguins is largely tied to the fate of sea ice.  The penguins use sea ice as a place for breeding, feeding, and molting.  They look for very specific conditions of sea ice – it must be locked in to the Antarctic shoreline but also close enough to open seawater to give them access to food. The study predicts that this sea ice will gradually disappear, depriving the birds of their habitat, food sources, and ability to raise their young.     

The researchers combined two existing computer models to study three different climate change scenarios.  If the average global temperature increases by only 1.5 degrees Celsius, the study found that only 5% of sea ice would be lost by 2100, resulting in a 19% drop in penguin colonies.  If the planet warms by 2 degrees Celsius, the sea ice loss nearly triples and more than a third of penguin colonies disappear.  The ‘business as usual’ scenario where the planet continues to warm at the current rate will ensure a near complete loss of emperor penguin colonies by 2100. 

**********

Web Links

Unless warming is slowed, emperor penguins will be marching towards extinction

Photo, posted January 15, 2011, courtesy of Eli Duke via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Geoengineering And Volcanoes

By Leave a Comment

Solar geoengineering is a theoretical strategy for curbing the effects of climate change by introducing aerosol particles in the upper atmosphere to reflect some of the Sun’s radiation back into space and thereby cool the planet.  It would basically be intentionally tinkering with the climate system on a global scale.

The concept is fraught with the danger of unintended consequences and most experts consider the idea almost unthinkable.  But there are those who see it as a last resort if all our other efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change are unsuccessful.

Proponents of the idea like to describe the technique as being like a human-made volcano.  Major volcanic eruptions spew ash particles into the atmosphere which can linger for as long as a few years.  The result is cooler temperatures, sometimes across much of the globe.  The Krakatoa eruption of 1883 lowered average Northern Hemisphere temperatures by more than 2 degrees and created chaotic weather patterns until about 1888.

Researchers at the Carnegie Institution and two Chinese research institutions used sophisticated modeling techniques to compare the effects on the climate of a volcanic eruption with long-term geoengineering deployment.

They found that the volcanic eruption created a greater temperature difference between the land and sea than the geoengineering and resulted in very different precipitation scenarios.  In both cases, there would be less available water for people on land.

Overall, the study demonstrated that volcanic eruptions are imperfect analogs for geoengineering and that scientists should be very cautious about extrapolating too much from them.  It is important to evaluate geoengineering from an informed position, but the truth is that it represents a great and perilous unknown.

**********

Web Links

Geoengineering Versus A Volcano

Photo, posted November 1, 2002, courtesy of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Decline Of Earth’s Largest Freshwater Creatures

By Leave a Comment

While nearly 70% of the globe is covered by water, only 2.5% of it is freshwater.  The rest is saline and ocean-based.  And only 1% of our freshwater is easily accessible, with much of it locked away in snowfields and glaciers.  

Despite freshwater only making up a small fraction of all water on the planet, it’s home to one third of all vertebrate species.  Some have survived hundreds of millions of years, but many of the world’s largest freshwater creatures – including fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals – may soon find themselves on the brink of extinction.

According to a study recently published in the journal Global Change Biology, scientists from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries and international colleagues have quantified the global decline of freshwater megafauna for the first time.  In four decades since 1970, the global populations of these freshwater giants have declined 88% – twice as much as the loss of vertebrate populations on land or in the oceans. 

Freshwater megafauna include all freshwater animals that weigh 30 kilograms (about 66 pounds) or more, such as certain dolphins, beavers, crocodiles, turtles and sturgeons.

Overexploitation is one of the main threats to freshwater megafauna.  (These animals are often targeted for their meat, eggs, and skin).  The other main threat is the loss of free-flowing rivers. Many of the world’s large rivers are already highly fragmented, which impacts access to spawning and feeding grounds.  The research team says another 3700 large dams are planned or under construction, including 800 in habitats rich with freshwater megafauna, including the Amazon, Congo, and Ganges river basins.

Current conservation measures are clearly failing our freshwater creatures. 

********** 

Web Links

88 percent decline of big freshwater animals

Earth’s largest freshwater creatures at risk of extinction

Photo, posted March 25, 2012, courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Fighting Climate Change With Trees

By Leave a Comment

We cut down forests all around the world for a myriad of reasons, including livestock grazing, agricultural production, timber, and urban development.  But what if we stopped cutting down forests for these things and additionally grew new forests on vacant lots and any other available parcels of land on earth?  What impact could this have on our survival? 

For the first time, scientists have quantified what impact this plan could have.  According to a new study by researchers at ETH Zurich – a university that specializes in science, technology, and engineering – the planet could support nearly 2.5 billion additional acres of forest without shrinking current cities and farms.  When all those acres of forest mature, the trees could store an extra 200 gigatons of carbon.  This reforestation could stave off the most devastating impacts of global climate change. 

Russia could restore the most acres of forest – 373 million acres to be precise – followed by the United States with 255 million acres and Canada with 193 million acres.  Australia, Brazil, and China also have large areas well-suited for forest restoration. 

The average global temperature has risen by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since the start of the industrial age with its surge in greenhouse gas emissions.  Temperatures are projected to rise even more in the coming years as the planet continues to warm.   

Trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in their roots and branches.  The absorbed carbon becomes part of the soil when trees die and decompose, and it can linger there for millennia depending on things like temperature and soil management.  Trees are critical in the fight against climate change. 

**********

Web Links

How trees could save the climate

Photo, posted June 18, 2011, courtesy of K.W. Barrett via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Climate Change And The Bottom Line

By Leave a Comment

Large companies around the world are facing up to the fact that climate change could substantially affect their bottom lines within the next five years.  Shareholders and regulators have been applying pressure to companies to disclose the specific financial impacts they could face as the planet warms and companies are increasingly making those disclosures.

A non-profit charity called CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project) runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states, and regions to manage their environmental impacts.  In 2018, more than 7,000 companies submitted reports to CDP and, for the first time, CDP explicitly asked firms to try to calculate how a warming planet might affect them financially.

Analysis of the reports from 215 of the world’s 500 largest corporations revealed that these companies alone potentially faced roughly $1 trillion in costs related to climate change in the decades ahead unless they took proactive steps to prepare. 

Climate-related risks range from extreme weather that could disrupt supply chains to stricter climate regulations that could hurt the value of coal, oil, and gas investments.  Technology companies like Google’s parent company, Alphabet, Inc., face increased costs to cool energy-hungry data centers as temperatures rise.

In all, the world’s largest companies estimated that at least $250 billion of assets may need to be written off or retired early as the planet heats up.  Previous studies, based on computer climate modeling, have estimated that the risks of global warming, if left unmanaged, could cost the world’s financial sector between $1.7 trillion to $24.2 trillion in net present value terms.

**********

Web Links

Companies See Climate Change Hitting Their Bottom Lines in the Next 5 Years

Photo, posted February 29, 2016, courtesy of Ben Nuttall via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Return Of An Old Threat

By Leave a Comment

The 1987 signing of the Montreal Protocol was one of the biggest victories for global environmental stewardship. The 197 signatory nations banded together to address a planetary emergency:  the depletion of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere resulting from the use of chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs.

Over the years, there were celebratory headlines like “The Earth’s Ozone Hole is Shrinking” and “Without the Ozone Treaty, You’d Get Sunburned in 5 Minutes”.  And indeed, the hole in the ozone layer has shrunk over time.

However, the presence of CFCs in the atmosphere is continually monitored and studies in recent years reported new emissions of about 13,000 tons of CFC-11 a year from somewhere in eastern Asia starting in 2012.  That was two years after the 2010 date for ending all CFC production under the terms of the Montreal Protocol.

A new study published in Nature has pinned down the source of more than half of the new CFC emissions to the provinces of Shandong and Hebei on the northeastern coast of China.  The bulk of these emissions are believed to come from small factories using the chemical to manufacture foam insulation used in refrigerators and buildings.

The Chinese government has already shut down two manufacturing locations, but undercover agents have found that 18 out of 21 manufacturers in the region are using the banned substance.  They appear to be quite adept at circumventing enforcement.

The new emissions aren’t large enough so far to be catastrophic, but the Chinese government needs to crack down on this illegal activity.  It is difficult to stop because these are small companies operating in meth lab-like facilities.  Saving the earth’s atmosphere from ourselves is a tricky business.

**********

Web Links

How an Illicit Chemical Is Jeopardizing Recovery of the Ozone Layer

Photo, posted July 28, 2012, courtesy of Beth Scupham via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Rainy May

By Leave a Comment

If it seemed like May was unusually rainy, that’s because it was.  According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, May 2019 was the second-wettest month on record in the U.S. and contributed to a record-setting wet 12-month period.

The average precipitation for May was 4.41 inches, which is 1.5 inches above normal.  The wettest month in 125 years of record keeping was May 2015, which averaged just 0.03 inches more than this past May.

The period from June 2018 through May 2019 saw the wettest 12-month period on record in the U.S. with 37.68 inches, nearly 8 inches above average.  Increases in heavy rain events are among the most anticipated and well-documented impacts from climate change.

During May, the stormy pattern led to widespread flooding in the nation’s heartland.  In North Carolina, early-season extreme heat and a rapidly-developing drought was replaced by intense rainfall and flooding.

With all the clouds and rain around, the average May temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 59.5 degrees, which ranked in the bottom third of the 125-year record.

Extreme and unusual weather is becoming commonplace as the climate changes.  Duluth, Minnesota had 10.6 inches of snow on May 9, breaking an all-time record for May.  Denver had its snowiest May in 77 years.  But while the U.S. experienced somewhat cooler weather than usual, the planet as a whole continues to warm.  April 2019 was the second hottest April on record, dating back to 1880.  The Arctic region saw a record low for sea ice. 

**********

Web Links

Rain-soaked U.S. had its 2nd-wettest month on record in May

Photo, posted May 20, 2013, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

One Million Extinctions

By Leave a Comment

A group of 145 expert authors from 50 countries has produced a report based upon a review of 15,000 scientific and government sources that is the first comprehensive look at the state of the planet’s biodiversity in 15 years.  The conclusions are alarming.

Thanks to human pressures, one million species may be pushed to extinction in the next few years, something with serious consequences for human beings as well as the rest of life on earth.

Based upon scientific studies as well as indigenous and local knowledge, the evidence is overwhelming that human activities are the primary cause of nature’s decline.  The report ranked the major drivers of species decline as land conversion, including deforestation; overfishing; bush meat hunting and poaching; climate change; pollution; and invasive alien species.

The tremendous variety of living species on our plant which number at least 8.7 million and perhaps many more – biodiversity – constitutes a life-supporting safety net that provides our food, clean water, air, energy, and more.

In parts of the ocean, little life remains but green slime.  Some remote tropical forests are nearly silent because insects have vanished.  Many grasslands are becoming deserts.  Human activity has severely altered more than 75% of Earth’s land areas and has impacted 66% of the oceans.  The world’s oceans increasingly are characterized by plastics, dead zones, overfishing, and acidification.

The main message of the 1,500-page report is that transformative change is urgently needed.  In order to safeguard a healthy planet, society needs to shift from a sole focus on chasing economic growth.  This won’t be easy, but we must come to the understanding that nature is the foundation for development before it is too late.

**********

Web Links

One million species at risk of extinction, UN report warns

Photo, posted January 1, 2014, courtesy of Eric Kilby via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Shipping And Invasive Species

By Leave a Comment

The increasing numbers of invasive species around the world are a major driver of biodiversity change and cause billions of dollars in economic damages annually.  Climate change is a major factor in the spread of invasive species, but a new study by McGill University suggests that global shipping growth will far outweigh climate change in the spread of non-indigenous pests to new environments in the coming decades.

One of the most significant ways in which the disparate regions of the world are interconnected is via transportation networks.   The global shipping network is the primary means by which materials and goods are moved worldwide, accounting for over 80% of world trade.  And for this reason, the global shipping network is responsible for much of the introduction of non-indigenous species across the planet.

Living organisms are often transported through ballast water, which is taken up to stabilize cargo vessels.  Other species are transported by biofouling, whereby they attach to the hulls of ships.  Taken together, these two pathways account for anywhere between 60 and 90% of marine bioinvasions.   (Terrestrial invaders are generally moved as a byproduct of shipping, for example by infesting wood packaging material).

The McGill study looked at trends in global shipping and how socioeconomic factors are driving change.  For example, China’s share of global container throughput has gone from 1.4% in 1990 to 20.1% in 2013.  So, the distribution and patterns of shipping have been changing dramatically and with it the spread of non-indigenous species.

Awareness of this issue is increasing.  For example, there have been policy initiatives such as the International Ballast Water Management Convention that is an effort to control bio-invasions through measures such as ballast exchange.  We need to take measures to limit the unintentional spread of species.

**********

Web Links

Global forecasts of shipping traffic and biological invasions to 2050

Photo, posted December 3, 2009, courtesy of Roger W via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

More Antarctic Warming

By Leave a Comment

East Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth.  It makes up two-thirds of the continent, is home to the South Pole, and has vast ice sheets that have been around for tens of millions of years and are nearly three miles thick in places.  Temperatures there hover around 67 degrees below zero.  In 2010, a few spots on East Antarctica’s polar plateau reached a record-breaking 144 degrees below zero.

But almost unbelievably, parts of the East Antarctic seem to be melting.

Scientists are seeing worrying signs of ice loss in the East Antarctic.  Glaciers are starting to move more quickly and are dumping their ice into the Southern Ocean.  Satellite images show the fast-moving ice.  The biggest glacier – the Totten Glacier – alone contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by over 12 feet.

The Antarctic as a whole contains about 90% of the planet’s ice.  In theory, if it all melted, it would raise global sea levels by an average of 200 feet.

The growing concerns about eastern Antarctica are not that its interior plateau will soon start to melt.  It is still extremely cold there and should stay that way for a long time.  But its edges, which are in contact with warming ocean waters, are the real worry.  As the region’s ice shelves, which float atop the Southern Ocean, erode, the vast glaciers behind them could rapidly accelerate their slide into the sea.

Today, satellites show huge glaciers moving rapidly toward the coast, with wide rivers of ice sometimes moving several miles a year.  In the face of rapid change and limited data, it is difficult to predict what the Antarctic will do in the future.  But it doesn’t look good.

**********

Web Links

Polar Warning: Even Antarctica’s Coldest Region Is Starting to Melt

Photo, posted January 3, 2013, courtesy of Christopher Michel via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Humans And Vertebrate Mortality

By Leave a Comment

According to a new study, more than one-quarter of the planet’s land vertebrates die because of humans.  This is a “disproportionately huge effect” on the other land vertebrates that share planet’s surface with us. 

Researchers from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture reviewed 1,114 published studies in which nearly 43,000 animals had perished.  Their study, which was recently published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, found that 28% of the animals’ deaths were directly attributable to humans.  The other 72% died from natural sources.  

Mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians that died between 1970 and 2018 in the Americas, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania were the foundation of the study.  All of these vertebrates had been either collared or tagged as part of other research projects. 

The researchers point out that humans are only one among more than 35,000 species of terrestrial vertebrates globally.  The fact that humans are responsible for more than one-quarter of their deaths illustrates the profound magnitude of the problem.  And that statistic is just the direct causes.  According to the researchers, when urban growth and other land use changes that erode habitat are considered, the human impact is likely even greater. 

The study found that the impact of humans across all the different species was not equal. In fact, larger animals were more likely to be killed by humans than smaller animals. Adult animals were more likely to be killed by humans than juveniles. 

The researchers conclude that humans are such a major contributor to terrestrial vertebrate mortality that they could potentially impact both evolutionary processes and ecosystem functioning. 

**********

Web Links

On the land, one-quarter of vertebrates die because of humans

Photo, posted March 6, 2019, courtesy of USFWS Midwest Region via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Natural Climate Solutions Are Not Enough

By Leave a Comment

A new policy perspective published in Science by researchers at seven prestigious institutions looked at the role of natural science solutions in stabilizing the Earth’s climate for people and ecosystems.   While they asserted that it is imperative to ramp up natural climate solutions, they also concluded that natural solutions alone will not be sufficient.

Natural science solutions include such things as enhancing carbon sinks from forests, agriculture and other lands.  Doing these things are very beneficial in their own right as they lead to improved forests, croplands, grazing lands, and wetlands.

However, these things will not be enough to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and must be combined with rapid efforts to decrease emissions from the energy and industrial sectors.  Among their various findings, the researchers warn that a ten-year delay in emissions reductions from these sectors could completely negate any potential benefits of natural climate solutions.

As has become increasingly clear, there is not an either-or situation with regard to the actions that need to be taken with respect to climate change.

Maximizing natural climate solutions and reducing emissions from the energy and industrial sectors will provide broad benefits beyond climate change mitigation.  Doing these things will improve forests and habitats, reduce the risk of wildfires, and decrease air and water pollution thereby improving human health and well-being.

Of course, to reduce cumulative emissions and put a cap on the warming of the planet, there will need to be policy mechanisms and incentives in place that support both natural climate solutions and increasing mitigation efforts across the energy and industrial sectors.

**********

Web Links

Natural Climate Solutions Are Not Enough

Photo, posted February 11, 2012, courtesy of Joao Andre O. Dias via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Shrinking Arctic Glaciers

By Leave a Comment

The glaciers on Baffin Island, located in Canada’s northeastern Arctic, have been shrinking as the climate warms.  The melting, receding glaciers have exposed fragments of ancient plants that had frozen in the places where they once grew.  New research has shown that these spots have not seen the light of day for at least 40,000 years.

The entire planet has been warming since humanity started flooding the atmosphere with greenhouse gases at the start of the Industrial Revolution, but the effects are not uniform across the globe.  Some regions – like the Arctic – are seeing temperature rises that are greater and faster than anywhere else in the world.  As a result, glaciers in the Arctic have been melting away at rates never before observed in modern human history.

Researchers at the University of Colorado performed radiocarbon dating experiments in order to find out when the last time was that the Arctic was as warm as today.   There have been natural variations in Arctic temperatures caused by the complicated way the Earth wobbles on its axis.  For example, 10,000 years ago the northern latitudes pointed at the sun more directly during the summer than they do now, providing about 9% more sunshine during the summer.

The results of the study showed that the newly-uncovered plants had died at least 40,000 years earlier, indicating that the glaciers had not melted back to today’s size for at least that long.  Global measurements indicate that the planet as a whole has not been as warm as it is today for about 115,000 years, back then again a result of the orientation of the Earth.

Well, the Earth hasn’t wobbled recently.  The Arctic is melting because we are dumping massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

**********

Web Links

These Arctic glaciers are smaller than ever before in human history

Photo, posted September 1, 2010, courtesy of Doryce S. via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)