scenarios

Geoengineering could create winners and losers

November 13, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Geoengineering – deliberate interventions to alter the climate and curb climate change – is a controversial topic, to say the least. Once practically considered taboo even to discuss, there in increasing interest in at least exploring various ideas about how to halt or reverse climate change through direct actions that impact global temperatures.

Putting aside the very real concerns about the risks and dangers associated with such action, there is also the issue that climate interventions may create dramatically different effects across the globe, benefitting some areas and adversely affecting others.

A recent study by scientists at Rutgers University tackled this very issue. Published in the journal Nature Food, it described the results of computer models simulating the impacts of stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI), which is spraying sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, where it would partially shield the Earth from the Sun, lowering temperatures.

The study looked at 11 different SAI scenarios and found that none of them benefitted everyone. Uncontrolled global warming favors crop production in cold, high-latitude areas such as Canada, Russia, Scandinavia, and our northern border states. Moderate amounts of SAI favors food production in the mid-latitudes (such as in the US and Europe.) Large amounts of intervention favors agricultural production in the tropics.

Even if geoengineering might not have dire consequences – which is by no means certain – it would create winners and losers. Nations may have different ideas of what constitutes an optimal global temperature. So, who gets to decide where to set the global thermostat? The prospects for conflict loom large.

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Climate Intervention Technologies May Create Winners and Losers in World Food Supply

Photo, posted November 18, 2021, courtesy of Conall via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Climate Change And The Winter Olympics | Earth Wise

February 8, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

According to a new study led by researchers from the University of Waterloo in Canada, climate change will limit where the Winter Olympics can be held as winter changes across the Northern Hemisphere.

The international research team found that by the end of the century only one of the 21 cities that have previously hosted the Winter Olympics would be able to reliably provide fair and safe conditions for winter sports if global greenhouse gas emissions are not dramatically reduced.

However, if the emissions targets set forth in the Paris Climate Agreement can be reached, the number of climate-reliable host cities for the Winter Olympics would jump to eight.

In the study, which was recently published in the journal Current Issues in Tourism, the researchers reviewed historical climate data from the 1920s to today, as well as future climate change scenarios for the 2050s and 2080s. The researchers also surveyed international athletes and coaches, and found that 89% of them felt that changing weather patterns are already affecting competition conditions.

The average February daytime temperature of host cities has been steadily increasing. At the winter games held between the 1920s and 1950s, the average temperature was 32.7°F. It rose to 37.6°F at games between the 1960s and 1990s, and has spiked to 43.3°F in the games held in the twenty-first century. The planet is projected to warm another 3.6°F to 7.9°F this century depending on our ability to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Reducing global greenhouse gas emissions is critical to ensure that there remain places across the globe to host the Winter Olympics.

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Climate change threatens future Winter Olympics

Photo, posted February 21, 2010, courtesy of Michael via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Threat From Thwaites | Earth Wise

January 20, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is the widest glacier in the world. It is about 80 miles across and in places extends to a depth of about 2,600 to 3,900 feet. The glacier is roughly the size of Florida, and it currently contributes 4% of annual global sea level rise as it continues to retreat from a warming ocean.

The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration is a team of nearly 100 scientists dedicated to studying the glacier. According to the scientists, Thwaites has doubled its outflow speed within the last 30 years. The glacier in its entirety holds enough water to raise global sea levels by over two feet, which would be catastrophic.

A third of the glacier flows more slowly than the rest because it is braced by a floating ice shelf that is held in place by an underwater mountain. The concern is that the brace of ice slowing the glacier may not last for long.

Beneath the surface, warmer ocean water is attacking the glacier from all angles. The water is melting the ice directly beneath the glacier causing it to lose its grip on the underwater mountain. Massive fractures have formed and are growing.

Warm water is also a threat for what is called the grounding zone, which is the area where the glacier lifts off the seabed. There are many possible scenarios under which there could be a major ice loss from the glacier. It is unclear how quickly it could occur. It might take decades, or it could be centuries. The threat is large enough and real enough that continued observation and research is essential.

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The Threat from Thwaites: The Retreat of Antarctica’s Riskiest Glacier

Photo, posted October 16, 2012, courtesy of J. Yungel / NASA Ice via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Oil Platforms And Fish | Earth Wise

July 16, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It is well-known that offshore oil platforms become major habitats for fish. Their support structures rise hundreds of feet through the water column and basically create a prefabricated reef for marine life. Many of these platforms will soon be decommissioned and government agencies are considering the consequences to undersea life when this happens.

Researchers at the University of California Santa Barbara have looked at how various decommissioning scenarios would affect undersea ecosystems. They found that completely removing a platform could reduce fish biomass by an average of 95%. In contrast, removing just the top part of the rig could keep losses to around 10%.

California is looking at several possibilities for decommissioning 27 oil platforms off of its coast. The three options are: leave the platform in place, remove all of it, or remove just the top part of it. Each option entails its own economic and ecological consequences.

The research team studied the size and composition of fish communities at 24 platforms and created models for each of the decommissioning scenarios. The partial removal approach involved stripping away all structures within 26 meters of the surface. This number would eliminate the need for a lighted buoy where the support structure remained according to U.S. Coast Guard guidelines.

For the 24 structures studied, leaving them entirely in place would support over 29,000 kilograms of fish biomass. Removing just the top 26 meters would support nearly 28,000 kilograms. Removing the platforms entirely would support only 500 kilograms of fish biomass.

As California weighs how to decommission its oil platforms, studies like this will be critical to making informed decisions.

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Oil Platforms’ Fishy Future

Photo, posted June 4, 2019, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The March Of The Penguins Toward Extinction

November 28, 2019 By EarthWise 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.

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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.