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Forest Regrowth In The Amazon | Earth Wise

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The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest in the world.  It covers an area approximately equal in size to the lower 48 states, and is home to an estimated 10% of the world’s biodiversity and 15% of its freshwater.  These so-called “lungs of the planet” provide many important global ecological services, including carbon storage, and regulating air quality and climate.

Deforestation in the Amazon exploded in the 1970s and remains one of its biggest threats today.  Since the 1970s, more than 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been cleared.  Cattle ranching, soy and palm plantations, logging, and climate change are some of the biggest drivers of deforestation.  

Now, according to a new study recently published in the journal Ecology, the regrowth of Amazonian forests following deforestation may happen more slowly than previously thought.  These findings could have significant impacts on climate change predictions as the ability of forest regrowth in the Amazon – so-called secondary forests – may have been overestimated.  The research, which was conducted in Bragança, Brazil and includes two decades of forest monitoring, reveals that climate change and the wider loss of forests could be hampering regrowth.    

After 60 years of regrowth, the research team found that secondary forests only held 40% of the carbon when compared with forests undisturbed by humans.  Secondary forests also take less carbon from the atmosphere during periods of drought, and climate change is increasing the number of drought-years in the Amazon.  (During their 20 years of monitoring, the researchers also found biodiversity levels in secondary forests were only 56% of those seen in undisturbed forests). 

More long-term studies are needed to better understand the impacts of reforestation efforts.  

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Amazon forest regrowth much slower than previously thought

Photo, posted September 6, 2009, courtesy of Nao Lizuka via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Possible Storage Breakthrough: Solar Energy | Earth Wise

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Solar energy is a nearly unlimited resource, but it is only available to us when the sun is shining.  For solar power to provide for the majority of our energy needs, there needs to be a way to capture the energy from the sun, store it, and release it when we need it.  There are many approaches to storing solar energy, but so far none have provided an ideal solution.

Scientists at the Chalmers Institute of Technology in Sweden have developed a way to harness solar energy and keep it in reserve so it can be released on demand in the form of heat—even decades after it was captured. Their solution combines several innovations, including an energy-trapping molecule, a storage system, and an energy-storing laminate for windows and textiles.

The energy-trapping molecule is made up of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen.  When hit by sunlight, the molecule captures the sun’s energy and holds on to it until it is released as heat by a catalyst.  The specialized storage unit is claimed to be able to store energy for decades.  The transparent coating that the team developed also collects solar energy and releases heat.  Using it would reduce the amount of electricity required for heating buildings.

So far, the team has concentrated on producing heat from stored solar energy.  It is unclear whether the technology can be adapted to produce electricity, which would be even more valuable.  In any event, the team does not yet have precise cost estimates for its technology, but there are no rare or expensive elements required, so the economics seem promising.  There is much more work to be done, but this could be a very important technology for the world’s energy systems.

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An Energy Breakthrough Could Store Solar Power for Decades

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Another Greenhouse Gas Record

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According to the World Meteorological Organization, levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached yet another new record high.  Globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide reached 407.8 parts per million in 2018, up from 405.5 parts per million in 2017.

The increase year-over-year was similar to that from 2016 to 2017, and remains a little over the average for the last decade.  Global CO2 levels crossed the 400 parts per million threshold in 2015.

Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide also increased by higher amounts than the average for the past decade, based on observations from the Global Atmosphere Watch network with stations all over the globe.

Since 1990, there has been a 43% increase in total radiative forcing – which is the warming effect on the climate from long-lived greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide accounts for about 80% of this.  The report notes that the last time the Earth experienced this high a level of CO2 was 3 to 5 million years ago. At that time, global temperatures were 2 to 3 Celsius degrees higher and sea levels were 30 to 60 feet higher than now.

The report includes data on the isotopic analysis of the CO2 in the atmosphere.  CO2 produced by fossil fuel combustion comes from plant material from millions of years ago and does not contain radiocarbon, that is, carbon-14.  CO2 from natural sources contains radiocarbon produced by cosmic rays.  The increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere contain decreasing levels of radiocarbon, indicating that the overall increase is largely due to human activities.

Overall, global efforts to date to reduce emissions have not been very successful, and this is borne out by the growing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

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Greenhouse gas concentrations in atmosphere reach yet another high

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Solar And Wind Energy And Groundwater

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The use of both solar and wind farms has been expanding all over the country as a way of lowering carbon emissions from the electric power sector.   According to a new study led by Princeton University, these renewable energy sources have another important benefit:  they keep more water in the ground.

The study focused on drought-prone California where both solar and wind power have been expanding dramatically.  California is the largest agricultural producer in the United States and has also experienced one of the most severe droughts on record between 2012 and 2017.

The study determined that increased solar and wind energy can reduce the reliance on hydropower, especially during times of drought. 

The study looked at multiple scenarios in order to determine how much solar and wind energy should be used to maximize economic revenue and to see how solar and wind power could ensure groundwater recovery.  They created a framework to quantify the optimal pathways for maximizing hydroelectricity and agricultural income while avoiding groundwater depletion.

During the long drought, California’s agriculture industry relied heavily on tapping into groundwater stores, which is an unsustainable practice.  With more droughts likely to occur in California as well as increasing water demand from the growing California population, the burden on the state’s groundwater supply will only grow.

According to the researchers, it is far more practical to impose further regulations on groundwater use if sufficient solar and wind power is deployed.   They caution that these resources need to be deployed long before groundwater aquifers are depleted, or it will be too late for them to do any good.

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Solar and Wind Energy Preserve Groundwater for Drought, Agriculture

Photo, posted December 11, 2014, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Lighting Up Batteries

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One of the things that hampers the adoption of electric vehicles is range anxiety.  Drivers worry that they will run out of charge before they get to the closest charging station.   Range anxiety has lessened considerably in recent years as electric cars have incorporated larger and larger battery packs yielding driving ranges well over two hundred and even over three hundred miles.

With these extended driving ranges, drivers then turn their attention to how long it takes to charge.  Tesla’s Superchargers have gotten to the point where a car can add 75 miles of charge in 5 minutes and 200 miles in less than half an hour.  Fast charging systems are improving the charge times for other electric models as well.

Nevertheless, drivers would ideally like to reduce charging times to as little as possible in order to provide the convenience experienced in gasoline cars.

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have reported a mechanism for speeding up the charging of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.  By exposing the battery cathode to a beam of concentrated light, the charging time can be reduced by a factor of two or more. If this could be commercialized, it could be a real game changer for electric vehicles.

The research used specially crafted lithium-ion cells with transparent quartz windows.  Shining white light into the windows caused a semiconductor material known as LMO to change its charge state and drive the charging reaction more quickly in the lithium ions of the battery.

Using this photo-assisted technology in vehicle batteries would require substantial redesign that would allow concentrated light to illuminate battery electrodes during charging.  How practical that is remains to be seen, but the payoff would be substantial.

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Shedding new light on the charging of lithium-ion batteries

Photo, posted June 30, 2018, courtesy of Open Grid Scheduler via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Rising Seas Will Erase Cities

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According to new research, climate-driven sea level rise could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought.  This sobering assessment means some of the world’s great coastal cities, including Bangkok, Shanghai, Mumbai, Basra, Alexandria, and Ho Chi Minh City, could be in big trouble.   

Scientists have always relied on land elevation data to determine the effects of sea level rise over large areas.  But standard elevation measurements using satellites struggle to differentiate the true ground level from the tops of trees or buildings.  The authors of the paper developed a more accurate way to calculate land elevation by using artificial intelligence to determine the error rate and to correct for it.  The new findings revealed that 150 million people – three times more than previously thought – are now living on land that is projected to be below the high-tide line by the middle of this century. 

Eight Asian nations – China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Japan – account for about 70% of the people living on at-risk land. 

More than 20 million people in Vietnam, including much of Ho Chi Minh City, live on land that will be inundated by 2050.  In Thailand, more than 10% of its citizens, including much of Bangkok, currently live on land imperiled by projected sea level rise. 

This new research was produced by Climate Central, a New Jersey-based science organization, and was recently published in the journal Nature Communications. 

Sea level rise is clearly not just an environmental problem.  It’s a humanitarian crisis.

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New elevation data triple estimates of global vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding

Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows

Photo, posted December 18, 2009, courtesy of Misko via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Arctic As A Carbon Source

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According to a new NASA-funded study, the Arctic may now be a source for carbon in the atmosphere rather than being the sink for it that is has been for tens of thousands of years.

The study, published in Nature Climate Change, warns that carbon dioxide loss from the world’s permafrost regions could increase by more than 40% over the next century if human-caused greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current pace.  Worse yet, carbon emitted from thawing permafrost has not even been included in most climate models.

Permafrost is the carbon-rich frozen soil and organic matter that covers nearly a quarter of Northern Hemisphere land area, mostly in Alaska, Canada, Siberia, and Greenland.  Permafrost holds more carbon than has ever been released by humans from fossil fuel burning, but it has been safely locked away by ice for tens of thousands of years.

As global temperatures rise, the permafrost is starting to thaw and release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The recent findings indicate that the loss of carbon dioxide during the winter in the Arctic may already be offsetting carbon uptake during the growing season.  The researchers compiled on-the-ground observations of carbon dioxide emissions across many sites and combined these with remote sensing data and modeling.  They estimate that the permafrost region is now losing 1.7 billion metric tons of carbon during the winter season but taking up only 1 billion during the growing season.

The major concern is that as the Arctic continues to warm, more carbon will be released into the atmosphere from the permafrost region, which will further the warming.  Climate modeling teams across the globe are trying to incorporate these findings into their projections.

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Arctic Shifts to a Carbon Source due to Winter Soil Emissions

Photo, posted July 27, 2015, courtesy of Gary Bembridge via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Bioacoustics

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Researchers are increasingly placing microphones in forests and other ecosystems to monitor birds, insects, frogs, and other animals.  Advances in technology are enabling the wide-spread use of bioacoustics as an important research tool.

Studying animals in their natural habitat Is often a difficult task.  For one thing, many animals are difficult to find, and the presence of humans disrupts their behavior or even drives them off.  Remote cameras are useful, but cameras can only see what is in front of them and aren’t much use for detecting small animals, hidden animals, or ones high up in trees.

Biologists have long recognized the value of recording sound to identify animals and learn about their havior.  Animal sounds can be as definitive a means of identification as visual images and microphones can pick up the sounds from animals located anywhere within their detection range.

The two advances in technology that are turning bioacoustics into a widely used tool are a steep drop in the price of recording equipment and the rapidly expanding capabilities of user-friendly artificial intelligence algorithms.

Autonomous environmental audio recorders tended to cost between $500 and $1000 until quite recently.  Now, such equipment can be had for as little as $70.

The other big challenge is analyzing audio data.  Finding specific animal sounds among hundreds of hours of recordings is an untenably tedious task.  Identifying the characteristic sounds of specific species in crowded environments is a tricky business.  But neural network-based artificial intelligence technology is making such big data analysis quite practical and, remarkably, it is becoming quite user-friendly.

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Listening to Nature: The Emerging Field of Bioacoustics

Photo, posted January 28, 2013, courtesy of Felix Uribe via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Reducing Emissions From Natural Gas Processing

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Qatar, a small country in the Middle East with a population of about 2.5 million has the highest per capita income of any country in the world.  This is largely a result of being one of the world’s top producers of natural gas.  The upshot of that is that the tiny country has the dubious honor of being the world’s leading emitter of CO2 per capita.

Texas A&M University has a campus in Qatar and researchers there in collaboration with colleagues at the main campus in College Station, Texas have developed a new reactor technology that can help Qatar process its wealth of natural gas while reducing the country’s carbon footprint.

The technology processes natural gas and captured CO2 to produce both syngas – which is a valuable precursor for many products – and high-quality carbon nanotubes, all without releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.

Natural gas reforming is a process by which syngas – a feedstock for liquid hydrocarbons and ultraclean fuels- is produced.  The process requires lots of heat and emits CO2.  The new technology adds a novel CARGEN (or CARbon GENerator) reactor that advances the natural gas reforming process and includes a catalyst that captures the CO2 emissions and produces nanotubes.  The reactor can be driven by either electric or solar power, eliminating the need to burn fuel that ordinarily results in more carbon emissions.

The result is that Qatar’s CO2 emissions would be converted into two products that are important to its economy.  In particular, carbon nanotubes are very expensive and extremely versatile, and can be used to manufacture products such as computers and other high-quality materials.

The next step for the researchers is to partner with industry collaborators to further scale up the technology.

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Qatar Researchers Develop Natural Gas Processing Technology That Could Reduce Qatar’s Carbon Footprint

Photo, posted September 30, 2012, courtesy of Jimmy Baikovicius via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The March Of The Penguins Toward Extinction

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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. 

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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.

Clean Gas From An Artificial Leaf

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Photosynthesis is the process used by plants, algae and certain bacteria to harness energy from sunlight and turn it into chemical energy.  It is often described as the green engine of life on earth.

For quite some time, there have been extensive research efforts around the world in the area of artificial photosynthesis.  The goal is to somehow mimic the behavior of plants in order to generate clean-burning fuels using nothing more than sunlight and the carbon dioxide in the air.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have recently demonstrated a so-called artificial leaf that can directly produce syngas using sunlight.   Syngas is a fuel gas mixture consisting primarily of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.  Most people haven’t heard of syngas, but many products are created using it.  Being able to produce it sustainably would be a critical step to a far greener chemical and fuel industry.

The artificial leaf contains two light absorbers, similar to the molecules in plants that harvest sunlight, which are combined with a catalyst made from the naturally abundant element cobalt.  When the device is immersed in water, one light absorber uses the catalyst to produce oxygen.  The other carries out the chemical reaction that reduces carbon dioxide and water into carbon monoxide and hydrogen.  The result is the syngas mixture.

It turns out that even a rainy or overcast day provides enough light to drive the process.

Previous artificial leaf devices have mostly just produced hydrogen.  The Cambridge device produces syngas thanks to the novel combination of materials and catalysts it uses.

The researchers are now focused on finding ways to use the technology to produce a sustainable gasoline substitute.

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‘Artificial leaf’ successfully produces clean gas

Photo, posted August 15, 2014, courtesy of Mike Mozart via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Ocean Acidification And Mass Extinction

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Since the industrial revolution, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased due to the burning of fossil fuels and land use changes.  The ocean absorbs about 30% of the CO2 that is released in the atmosphere.  As the levels of atmospheric CO2 increase, so do the levels in the ocean.

When CO2 is absorbed by the ocean, a series of chemical reactions occur, resulting in seawater becoming more acidic.  Ocean acidification threatens calcifying organisms, such as clams and corals, as well as other marine animals, like fish.  When these organisms are at risk, the entire marine ecosystem may also be at risk.

In fact, according to research recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, fossil evidence from 66 million years ago has revealed that ocean acidification can cause the mass extinction of marine life.  Researchers analyzed seashells in sediment laid down shortly after a giant meteorite hit earth.  This strike wiped out the dinosaurs and 75% of marine species.  Chemical analysis of the shells revealed a sharp drop in the PH of the ocean over hundreds of years after the meteorite strike.  The meteorite impact vaporized rocks, causing carbonic acid and sulphuric acid to rain down, acidifying the ocean.  The strike also resulted in mass die-off of plants on land, increasing atmospheric CO2.  

Researchers found that the pH dropped by 0.25 pH units in the 100 to 1,000 years after the meteorite strike.  Alarmingly, scientists expect the pH of the ocean to drop by 0.4 pH units by 2100 if our carbon emissions continue as projected. 

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Ocean acidification can cause mass extinctions, fossils reveal

Photo, posted March 16, 2017, courtesy of Zachary Martin via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Predicting Lightning Strikes

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Lightning is one of the most unpredictable phenomena in nature.  Approximately 100 lightning bolts strike earth’s surface every second, and each lightning bolt can contain up to one billion volts of electricity.  Lightning regularly kills both people and animals and sets homes and forests on fire.  It’s also been known to ground airplanes. 

Researchers at EPFL – a research institute and university in Switzerland – have developed a novel way to predict where and when lightning will strike.  The system relies on a combination of standard data from weather stations and artificial intelligence to predict lightning strikes to the nearest 10 to 30 minutes and within a radius of less than 20 miles.  The simple and inexpensive system was outlined in a research paper recently published in Climate and Atmospheric Science, a Nature partner journal.   

According to researchers, the current systems for predicting lightning strikes are slow, expensive, and complex, relying on external data acquired by satellite and radar.  The new inexpensive system from EPFL uses real time data that can be obtained from any weather station, meaning it can cover remote regions that are out of radar and satellite range and where communication networks are lacking.  The quick predictions from the system allow alerts to be issued before a storm has even formed. 

The system uses a machine-learning algorithm that’s been trained to recognize conditions that lead to lightning.  The researchers took into account atmospheric pressure, air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed, among other things.  After training the algorithm, the system was able to predict lightning strikes accurately nearly 80% of the time.

This system is a simple way to predict a complex phenomenon. 

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Using AI to predict where and when lightning will strike

Photo, posted December 14, 2018, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Air Quality In The U.S.

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Globally, poor air is a serious problem.  According to the World Health Organization, exposure to air pollution is linked to the premature deaths of an estimated 7 million people every year.  In fact, 91% of the people on the planet live in places where air pollution exceeds WHO guideline limits. 

In the United States, air pollution has dramatically improved over the last four decades due in large part to federal regulations put in place under the Clean Air Act of 1970.  Fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) and other pollution, including ozone, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide, have all decreased during this time span. 

But according to recent research, this trend has unfortunately done an about-face.  New data reveals that air pollution has increased nationally since 2016.  An analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that, on average, fine particulate pollution increased 5.5% across the country between 2016 and 2018. 

This increase in fine particulate pollution was associated with nearly 10,000 additional premature deaths in the United States during that time period. 

According to researchers, there are several factors likely causing this uptick in unhealthy air, including increases in both driving and the burning of natural gas.  Wildfires out west are also thought to be a major contributor. 

The researchers also suggest that a decrease in enforcement of the Clean Air Act may also be playing a role.  The law put in place strict air pollution standards for vehicles, factories, power plants, and other sources, and is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives.

It’s time for clean air to be recognized as a basic human right.

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America’s Air Quality Worsens, Ending Years of Gains, Study Says

Photo, posted April 6, 2007, courtesy of Brett Weinstein via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Beavers And Biodiversity

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Beavers are large, semi-aquatic rodents known best for their ability to construct dams, canals, and lodges (their homes).  They are among the largest rodents in the world.  With powerful jaws and strong teeth, beavers fell trees to use as building materials, often changing their environment in ways few other animals can. But in a good way.  As it turns out, beavers are important for biodiversity. 

According to new research from the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Stirling in Scotland, reintroducing beavers to their native habitats is an important step towards solving the freshwater biodiversity crisis. 

Researchers surveyed water plants and beetles in 20 wetlands in Sweden – 10 created by beavers and 10 that were not – in order to understand what impact beavers might have on the variety of plant and animal life around them. 

The research team’s findings build on previous work that has shown that beavers have an important impact on biodiversity.  This latest study discovered that the number of species found only in beaver-built ponds was 50% higher than in other non beaver-built wetlands in the same region. 

Beavers are known to be profound engineers of the environment. They use wood to build dams across rivers in order to form ponds behind them.  They do this to raise the water level in order to avoid predators, like bears and wolves. But it turns out many other plants and animals, like water plants and beetles, also benefit from their work.

According to the research team, reintroducing beavers to their native habitats should benefit the wider biodiversity and be seen as an important step towards solving the freshwater biodiversity crisis. 

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Beaver reintroduction key to solving freshwater biodiversity crisis

Photo, posted October 2, 2014, courtesy of USFWS Midwest Region via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Europe Is Warming Faster Than Predicted

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A new study has found that Europe is warming faster than even climate models projected.  The number of summer days with extreme heat in Europe has tripled since the 1950s, while the number of days with extreme cold has decreased by factors of two or three depending on the region.

According to climate scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, the climate trends are much larger than what would come from natural variability and are a clear signal of climate change.  Extremely hot days in Europe have become hotter by an average of more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit while extremely cold days have warmed by more than 5 degrees.  The research examined data from weather stations across Europe from 1950 to 2018.  Over 90% of the stations recorded increasing temperatures over time, a percentage much too high to be purely from natural climate variability.  The results also showed that the region was warming even faster than climate models projected.

The research results come after an extremely hot summer in Europe.  Southern France hit 114.8 degrees, a new record, in June.  Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium all recorded all-time national temperature highs.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently announced that July was the hottest month ever recorded.

European summers and winters will only grow hotter in the coming years as climate change accelerates.  The rapidly increasing temperatures will impact cities and people that are unprepared for them and pose real risks for residents in the coming decades.  Extreme heat is dangerous because it stresses the human body, potentially leading to heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

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Europe warming faster than expected due to climate change

Photo, posted July 30, 2011, courtesy of Marcel de Jong via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Mistaking Plastic For Food

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Green sea turtles are one of the world’s largest species of turtle, with some measuring close to four feet long and weighing up to nearly 300 pounds.  Their range extends throughout tropical and subtropical seas around the world, with the largest nesting populations found in Costa Rica and Australia. 

Green sea turtles get their name from the green layer of fat under their shell, as opposed to their shell itself, which can be brown, green, yellow, and/or black.  Scientists believe the green coloring of their fat is a result of their diet.  Unlike most other sea turtles, green sea turtles eat marine plants such as seaweed and seagrass.

But new research suggests that green sea turtles are also more likely to swallow plastic because it resembles their natural diet. The scientists from the University of Exeter and the Society for the Protection of Turtles who examined green sea turtles that washed up on beaches in Cyprus found they favored narrow lengths of plastic in natural colors (like green and black) as opposed to debris of other shapes and colors. 

Researchers were able to examine the full gastrointestinal tract of 19 green sea turtles.  They found pieces of plastic inside every one of them, with the number of pieces ranging from three to 183.  Smaller turtles tended to contain more plastic, possibly because they are less experienced or because diet choices change with age and size. 

Previous research has suggested that leatherback sea turtles also eat plastic that resembles their food: jellyfish. 

Researchers hope these findings will help motivate us to continue to work on reducing our overall plastic consumption and pollution.

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Green turtles eat plastic that looks like their food

Photo, posted September, 2007, courtesy of Brock Roseberry via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Hundred-Year Floods Becoming One-Year Floods

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By definition, 100-year floods are intense flooding events that historically tend to happen once every 100 years.  Put another way, a 100-year flood has a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year.

According to new research published in the journal Nature Communications, rising global temperatures may turn 100-year floods into annual occurrences in parts of the United States.  The increase in severe coastal flooding events by the end of this century will be a result of rising sea levels and stronger, more frequent tropical storms and hurricanes.

The study, led by researchers at Princeton University and MIT, examined flood risk for 171 counties along the US East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico.  Their analysis concluded that 100-year floods will become annual events in New England.  In the US Southeast and Gulf of Mexico, counties could experience such floods as often as every year up to as seldom as every 30 years.

Previously, most analysis of coastal flooding has looked only at the impact of sea level rise on flood risk.  This new research combined the risk of rising seas with projected changes in coastal storms over the course of this century.  Data from the Gulf of Mexico revealed that the effect of stronger storms is comparable with or even more significant than the effect of sea level change for 40% of the counties studied.  So, neglecting the effects of storm climatology change is likely to significantly underestimate the impact of climate change in many places.

The hope is that more comprehensive flood risk data can be used to create more effective climate resiliency strategies all the way down to the county level.

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100-Year Floods Could Soon Happen Annually in Parts of U.S., Study Finds

Photo, posted August 31, 2017, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Cleaner Air Saves Lives

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A new study by Columbia University has concluded that lower air pollution levels saved an estimated 5,660 lives in New York State in 2012, compared to 2002 mortality levels.

The study looked at New York State levels of the specific type of pollution known as fine particulate matter, referred to as PM2.5.  These microscopic particulates are a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets that either come from burning fuel or are formed in the atmosphere as a result of complex reactions of chemicals such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power plants, industries, and automobiles.

Long-term exposure to PM2.5 can lead to respiratory and cardiovascular problems.

The study looked at extensive amounts of data to analyze trends in PM2.5 levels across New York State.  The data showed that PM2.5 levels dropped by 28 to 37% between 2002 and 2012.  This was a result of continued progress in cleaner vehicles, the reduction of high sulfur-dioxide emitting coal-burning power plants, and other air pollution reduction programs.  They calculated that this amount of reduction in PM2.5 reduced the air pollution mortality burden for New York State residents by 67% – from 8,410 premature deaths in 2002 to 2,750 deaths in 2012.

The study provides evidence that emission controls on air pollutants – which were initiated by the Clean Air Act of 1970 and later expanded in 1990 – have improved public health across New York State.  According to the researchers, the study is a key step to documenting the health benefits from cleaner air.

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Air Pollution Cuts Are Saving Lives in New York State

Photo, posted October 13, 2018, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Wildfires And Carbon

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This summer has been an unprecedented year for fires in the Arctic.  Major fires have burned throughout the Arctic in Russia, Canada, and Greenland.  In total these fires released 50 million tons of carbon dioxide in June alone, which is as much as Sweden emits in an entire year.

In an average year, wildfires around the world burn an area equivalent to the size of India and emit more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than global road, rail, shipping and air transport combined.

Ordinarily, this is part of a natural cycle.  As vegetation in burned areas regrows, it draws CO2 back out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis.  This is part of the fire-recovery cycle, which can take less than a year in grasslands, but decades in forests.  But in Arctic or tropical peatlands, full recovery may not occur for centuries.

A recent study looked at and quantified the important role that charcoal plays in helping to compensate for carbon emissions from fires.  In wildfires, some of the vegetation is not consumed by burning, but instead is transformed to charcoal – referred to as pyrogenic carbon.   This carbon-rich material can be stored in soils and oceans over very long time periods.

Researchers have combined field studies, satellite data, and modelling to quantify the amount of carbon that is placed in storage in the form of charcoal.  Their results are that the production of pyrogenic carbon amounts to about 12% of the CO2 emissions from fires and can be considered a significant buffer for landscape fire emissions.

Charcoal does not represent a solution to the problem of increasingly intense wildfires, but it is important to take it into account in understanding what is happening.

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Web Links

How wildfires trap carbon for centuries to millennia

Photo, posted August 17, 2018, courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management Oregon and Washington via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

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