Happy Wednesday! For this week’s wonderful, waterful post, we’ll dive to the deepest realms of the ocean to check out the amazing, bizarre, and sometimes downright creepy-looking creatures that live there. In water 3000+ feet deep, where no sunlight penetrates, fish, squid, shrimp and jellyfish make their own light to help them seek out prey, avoid predators, and find mates.
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How do they do it? These denizens of the dark create light, called bioluminescence or “living light”, through a chemical reaction. It’s similar to what happens when you break the inner tube of a glowstick: luciferin, a pigment, reacts with oxygen to produce light. The same process used by fireflies.
Most deep-sea creatures give off – and can only see – blue-green light, which travels through water better than other wavelengths (colors) of light. However, there is one family of fish, the Malacoseids or Loosejaws, that produces red light. These fish can use their light to hunt, without being seen by predators or prey!
The Better to Eat You With…
And what’s with those crazy jaws?!? While they may seemed designed to give nightmares, there is an ecological reason for those toothsome grins. Food is scarce down there. With so few prey, it takes a lot of time and energy to find a meal – once they get their jaws around something, they’re not letting go.
For more on the deep sea, check out some earlier posts, here and here, and one on climate change and the deep sea here.
These photos come from a 2002 NOAA* expedition: “Islands in the Stream 2002: Exploring Underwater Oases,” available on the NOAA Ocean Explorer website. “Ocean Explorer is an educational Internet offering for all who wish to learn about, discover, and virtually explore the ocean realm.” Check it out!
This week’s waterful post goes out by request to Lisa E. Arlt, a lovely person and talented writer whom I had the pleasure of chatting with this past weekend. As Lisa reminded me, once a writer, always a writer, no matter what life throws your way. Check out her writing and travels (she’s a former foreign service officer) here.
Have an idea for a Wonderful Waterful post? Let me know in the comments section below!
One of these can be yours. Just comment or link to Brave Blue Words!
Science Swag Giveaway – last chance to enter!
For the rest of the week (through April 1st), leave a comment and get entered into a drawing for one of the fab science calendars that I picked up at the AAAS conference last month. (You can check out my posts on the conference here and here). Each comment = an entry, so feel free to check out some older posts and comment on those too. Following this blog via Facebook will also get you an entry. Linking to this site from yours will get you TWO entires per link. Act now – the giveaway ends April 1st!
Spring has sprung. Daffodils are blooming, birds are building nests and my kids are putting away the winter PJs. (I put a stop to that). I know, with colder temperatures threatening much of the northern US, it’s hard to believe it, but spring officially started last Sunday, with the vernal equinox.
Spring means new growth as plants respond to warmer temperatures and higher light levels. That’s true in the ocean, as well. In the spring, the population of phytoplankton (microscope algae) in surface waters grows rapidly, creating patches of green so large they can be seen in satellite photos. Unlike land plants, however, the algae aren’t just sitting there waiting for the sun’s warmth to return – in the ocean, there’s nowhere to sit! So what happens?
Springs Means Green – Even in the Ocean
When water is heated from above, it becomes stratified – separated into layers, with lighter warm surface waters floating above denser, cold water. A boundary forms between the warmer and colder waters, called the thermocline. This prevents mixing between the water layers. (If you’ve ever gone swimming in a deep lake or pond, you’ve probably experienced this effect, when the water around your feet is colder than at the surface).
The classic explanation for the spring bloom was that the thermocline allows phytoplankton to remain in the upper water levels, where there is enough light for them to grow and create large blooms. As they grow, populations of the critters that feed on them, microscope animals called zooplankton, grow as well.
Eventually, in late spring/early summer, the phytoplankton eat all the food in the upper layer, their population growth slows, and the zooplankton eat them at roughly the same rate as they grow. (So, even though the growing and eating is still going on, the big green patch disappears from satellite photos). Newer research* suggests that the phytoplankton begin to bloom during the winter, and that stratification only concentrates them at the surface where our satellites can see them – and zooplankton can find them and eat them.
03/21/04. Before the spring bloom. Color scale shows concentration of chlorophyll (phytoplankton) in North Atlantic surface waters. MODIS image: NASA Aqua satellite
A month later, the spring bloom is well underway from North Carolina to Canada. 04/22/2004. MODIS image: NASA Aqua satellite
Marine Food Web
Phytoplankton are the primary producers in the marine food web – they capture energy from the sun. Zooplankton feed on the phytoplankton, and are themselves food for immature fish, shrimp, small fish such as sardines and herring, and even huge creatures like blue whales and North Atlantic right whales (who feed on tiny shrimp-like krill and copepods, respectively). Small fish feed bigger fish and so on – right onto our plates.
Just like on land, recent studies** of satellite data suggest that climate change is causing the spring bloom to occur earlier in parts of the ocean, like the Arctic. While that may seem like a good thing (who doesn’t want winter to end sooner?), it’s not clear if the creatures that feed on phytoplankton will be able to hatch earlier in response. If the phytoplankton use up all the nutrients and begin to die sooner, before the zooplankton can hatch and eat them, then all the other creatures that depend on this annual event may suffer.
Scientists are watching the spring bloom closely, monitoring fish populations throughout the Arctic region, to see what will happen.
In spite of the impending cold front, I’ve been out in my garden, planting peas and potatoes, and harvesting greens from seeds that I put out in the late summer and fall, (and didn’t get around to harvesting during the winter). How about you? What does activity does the bloomin’ spring inspire in you? Gardening? Spring cleaning? A trip to the beach? Let us know in the comments below!
Lunch!
References:
* Behrenfeld et al. Abandoning Sverdrup’s Critical Depth Hypothesis on phytoplankton blooms. Ecology, 2010; 91 (4): 977 DOI: 10.1890/09-1207.1
** M. Kahru, V. Brotas, M. Manzano-Sarabia, B. G. Mitchell. Are phytoplankton blooms occurring earlier in the Arctic? Global Change Biology, 2010; DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2010.02312.x
BONUS: Cool Science Swag Giveaway
For the rest of March, anyone who leaves a comment will be entered into a random drawing for one of the fab calendars that I got at the AAAS conference last month, shown in the photo below. Each comment = an entry, so feel free to check out some older posts and comment on those too. Forwarding a post from the blog, RTing it on Twitter, or following this blog via Facebook will also get you an entry. Linking to this site from yours will get you TWO entires per link. One week to go – start your entries now!
Yes - one of these can be yours! Just comment, forward, RT or link to Brave Blue Words!
** LIVE WEBCAST – Clearing the Air: Managing Air Quality to Benefit Heath and Climate in India.
Dr. Sarath Guttikinda, an air quality expert from Delhi, India; Dr. William Lau, a climate scientist from NASA; and yours truly will discuss the links between air quality and climate in India, and what can be done to improve both. The event is free, open to the public, and will be webcast by Johns Hopkins University.
I’ve just learned that the event that I’ve been planning for March 30th, on air quality and climate change in India, is going to be webcast (!) thanks to the our wonderful co-sponsor, the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. We’re also going to be audio- and videotaped for posterity. (Yes, “we” – I’m speaking as well).
Wednesday March 30, 10:30am – noon 1717 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036 Room 500
Black carbon and dust cover Himalayan snow, causing faster melting.
Indian cities have some of the most polluted air in the world, and highest rates of air pollution disease and death. Mounting evidence suggests that black carbon from these same pollution sources are altering the monsoon and melting glaciers. But there is good news: reductions in “black carbon” emissions from the region’s diesel engines, factories, and cookstoves could limit near-term damage while protecting human health and promoting development.
Please join us to hear three leading science and policy experts discuss these breakthroughs in our understanding of air quality and climate change and efforts to address them.
DR. SARATH GUTTIKUNDA is a TED fellow and an affiliate assistant professor at Desert Research Institute, Reno, USA, and the founder of UrbanEmissions.Info in New Delhi, India. He developed the SIM-air (Simple Interactive Models for Better Air Quality) family of tools for sharing information on air pollution and climate change among cities in the developing world. Previously, he worked for 5 years with the World Bank on air quality and climate change issues. Dr. Guttikunda will describe what we know about pollutant emissions, what more needs to be done to better understand their impacts, and the stakes for Indian air quality and climate policy.
DR. WILLIAM K. M. LAU is the Chief of the Laboratory for Atmospheres at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA), Goddard Space Flight Center. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Maryland, Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and a senior science advisor of the Hong Kong Observatory. His research interests include the impacts of aerosols on the Indian monsoon and accelerated melting of Himalayan cryosphere, and he is currently the lead scientist for the Joint Aerosol-Monsoon Experiment (JAMEX).
MS. DANIELLE MEITIV is a Climate Specialist with the Clean Air Task Force. Ms. Meitiv works with scientists to promote research on the connections between air quality and climate in South Asia. She and her partners in the region are working to bring this science to the attention of policymakers in the U.S. and India.
After covering a AAAS session on science and the media in my blog post last week, I’d planned to focus on another titled “Adapting to a Clear and Present Danger: Climate Change and Ocean Ecosystems.” Two of the talks stood out for me: one on the potential impacts of ocean warming and acidification, and the other on coral reefs, and all the threats they face. I had all my notes, including quotes from the speakers and abstracts of their talks. I’d even hunted down some of their earlier talks, and found cool graphics to accompany the post. Then, I sat down to write. But I couldn’t.
Why? Work’s been busy lately, especially since we’re trying to raise money for my primary project. I’ve been neglecting my WIP (work in progress: a first person sci-fi novel), and wanted to work on that. And on top of all that was simple procrastination – or so I thought. I should have suspected that something was up. I like writing this blog, and don’t usually look for excuses not to. So why was I having so much trouble?
Some people would turn to soul-searching at this point. I turned to the web. And what do you know? It turns out that I’m not the only one who gets tired of reading (and writing) about bad news.
Wait, Don’t Tell Me
Climate change is real. So is ocean acidification, the demise of coral reefs and the destruction of rainforests. Not to mention (but I will anyway), the loss of dozens endangered species, overfishing, air pollution, ocean dumping and oil spills…
Have your eyes glazed over yet? Were you tempted to stop reading, to find something positive to check out for a change? Me too. It’s natural. No one can take a steady diet of misery – it just wears us down. Some psychologists believe that we have a finite capacity for worry and just can’t take it all in at once.* The kids are sick, I’m being downsized, the mortgage is due, there’s a tragedy in Japan – oh, and the climate is changing? Take a number. Sometime we go numb, tuning out what our brains just can’t handle.
That’s not a cop-out. Humans evolved to handle immediate threats like hungry predators, and modern-day stresses trigger same basic fight or flight response. But our bodies can’t stay on high alert all the time. After a while, the alarms stop ringing, and we go back to business as usual. Without doing anything.
If You Can’t Say Anything Nice…
That’s another problem – what can we do? The problems I’ve mentioned are so huge, is it even possible for one individual to make a difference? Too often we scientists, reporters, bloggers and the like give folks the bad news without any ideas of what to do. Any reason for hope. Is it any wonder people stop listening?
Some studies** suggest that people resist doing anything about climate change – and even deny that it is happening – because it contradicts their views of a “just world.” Surely, if God (or the Universe or humanity, etc) is good, things can’t be that bad. Or it will all work out in the end. I have to admit that I fall into this camp sometimes. I have to or else I could never keep working and writing about the issue of climate change.
So now what?
What does that mean for someone like me, who lives and breathes this stuff all the time, and tries to educate others about it, too? Some take-home lessons:
Stay away from the apocalyptic messages – they cause people to tune out.
Give people reason for hope, including things they can do and info about efforts underway to make a difference.
Share as much good news as possible.
Enjoy all the wonderful things about people, the environment, life – celebrate! Those are the REAL reasons we work so hard to save it all, right?
As I said, I do believe in a just world. I know we humans have the capacity to address the challenges of climate change in ways that will make the world a better place for having done so. And we can even have a good time while doing so. To quote the incomparable Emma Goldman: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Keep fighting the good fight – and dancing all the while.
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What do you think? Does bad news about the environment cause you to tune out? Are there strategies that can help people see the threats – and the solutions? What things do you celebrate and work to save? Please share in the comments below.
BONUS: Cool Science Swag Giveaway
For the rest of March, anyone who leaves a comment will be entered into a random drawing for one of the fab calendars that I got at the AAAS conference last month, shown in the photo below. Each comment = an entry, so feel free to check out some older posts and comment on those too. Forwarding a post from the blog, RTing it on Twitter, or following this blog via Facebook will also get you an entry. Two weeks to go – start your entries now!
Yes - one of these can be yours - just comment, forward or RT Brave Blue Words!
References
* The Psychology of Climate Change Communication, published by the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University
** Feinberg, M., and R. Willer, 2011. Apocalypse Soon? : Dire Messages Reduce Belief in Global Warming by Contradicting Just-World
Beliefs Psychological Science 2011 22:34 Originally published online 9 December 2010 DOI: 10.1177/0956797610391911
Most science conferences are like little in-group parties, where people who know each other’s work intimately get together to discuss their latest results, and query each other about what to do next. Don’t get me wrong – I love them. You meet interesting people, learn A LOT, and come home with new ideas, and great T-shirts or shoulder bags. Since I am a generalist by nature, I’ve attending lots of different kinds of conferences: the Geological Society of America, the American Physics Society, the European Geophysical Union, the Estuarine Research Federation, and the Coastal Society, to name a few.
The AAAS Annual Meeting, which I attended for the first time this year, was completely different. The raison d’etre of “triple-A-S” is right there in its name: the American Association for the Advancement of Science. I didn’t really get what that meant until now. Instead of technical talks, where experts talk to their peers about the incremental advances in their area of science, this meeting was all about the big picture. Panels of speakers addressed different aspects of a single topic, speaking broadly about what was known, where the gaps and questions were, and what they’d like to see happen next. Scientists from different fields sat in on each others’ sessions, offering all sorts of interesting and cross-disciplinary questions and comments. The meeting wasn’t only for and about scientists, either. A number of panels focused on the communication of science, and the relevant of science to society. It was amazing. There was also a two-day Family Science Fair, which my son and nephews loved. I picked up all sorts of great science swag, including posters, bumper stickers, calendars and buttons, which I will start giving away next week.
Over the next few weeks I will report on some of these great sessions in depth, including:
Science Without Borders and Media Unbounded: What Comes Next
Adapting to a Clear and Present Danger: Climate Change and Ocean Ecosystems (I may have to dedicate two blog posts to this session, which included fabulous talks on coral reefs and ocean acidification by James Brady of MBARI, and Nancy Knowlton of the Smithsonian).
2050: Will There Be Fish in the Ocean?
Comparing National Responses to Climate Change: Networks of Debate and Contention (focusing on the differences between how climate change is viewed in the US and India – the two countries where I do my climate change work).
First up: science and the media.
Media Unbounded
“Science Without Borders and Media Unbounded: What Comes Next,” focused on the impact of the Internet on media, and featured a panel of journalists who focus on science and environmental reporting: Tom Rosenstiel, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Elizabeth Shogren, reporter for National Public Radio (NPR), and Seth Borenstein, reporter for the Associated Press (AP). Kerry Emanuel, a researcher in the Program of Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) responded to their presentations.
Tom Rosenstiel gave a fascinating overview. The world of media is both shrinking and expanding. The editorial aspects are expanding: there is more commentary and discussion than ever. The reportorial component – where people actually go out to discover and confirm things – is shrinking. As more people get their news online, the print newspaper is fading, but publishers are not: most people still get their news from a handful of trusted sources like the New York Times, Washington Post, and others. However, since they’re not paying for it, newspaper budgets and pressrooms are shrinking. There are more readers, but fewer reporters. This has led to the loss of specialized beats, like the environment, particularly in local papers. This also means that reporters don’t get into stories in-depth, instead sticking to breaking the news. There are fewer interviews, less follow-up. What has this done to our public square? Perhaps the world we’re exposed to is smaller, our common knowledge pool is shrinking. As readers (and listeners) we’re spending less time learning about the larger world and more time on our particular interests.
Elizabeth Shogren spoke about how the Internet has made her job easier and more interesting. She can spend more time getting the interesting stories (because that is still a priority at NPR), and can do more with them. In addition to a radio report, she can – and is expected – to present a whole multi-media story, complete with online images, and videos. She can include information that didn’t make it into the recording, and give listeners resources for more information. She noted that the Internet makes information more accessible, and has the potential to make governing more transparent. Now, even if she can’t be on Capitol Hill at 1:00 AM to follow the debate on an important bill, she can get all the information – videos and transcripts – online. In theory, this takes away one of the tactics that lawmakers have used to ‘hide’ debates they didn’t want the public to pay attention to – but only if people take advantage of the information that is out there.
The Differences Between Researchers and Reporters
Seth Borenstein spoke about the incredible access that the Internet gives him to scientific data, allowing him to dig through the databases and reports about climate change that researchers routinely put up on their websites or on government and other shared sites. (I took note of these, and you can expect to here more about specific findings and studies in future posts). He used this access to disprove a recent claim of climate change deniers: that January’s temperature were colder than usual and therefore ‘proved’ that global warming wasn’t happening. Instead, he discovered that for the past 311 months – every month since February 1985 – temperatures have been warmer than the long-term average for that month. He followed with a statement that had all the scientists in the room groaning in disbelief. He said that IF January 2011 had been warmer, THAT would have been a story that his editor would have wanted to hear, but the fact that every month for nearly 26 YEARS had been warmer was not a story! The facts weren’t interesting – only the controversy. And this from a reporter who truly gets, and likes reporting on science and climate change. Is it any wonder that so many scientists are reluctant to speak to the media?
Kerry Emanuel took up this issue in his comments. He opened with a quote from Oscar Wilde to express how many scientists see the media: “In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press.” He noted the dichotomy in the modern media (and one that journalists rarely acknowledge): the media as the fourth estate, with high ideals vs. media as a business. Scientists sometimes get tripped up by this tension. They often assume (perhaps naively) that they and the reporter have the same objective: to get to the truth. Even if languages are different, the end result is usually good. However, that is not always the case – sometimes the journalist just wants to sell the story. Sometimes journalists bend the story into something they think will sell. This makes scientists wary – they have to determine where the journalist coming from. (Shogren’s response was that scientists need to do their homework, and learn more about the journalist who is approaching them. If they don’t like the kind of things he or she writes, the researcher doesn’t have to talk).
Global Warming Deniers: Who’s To Blame?
Shogren complained that she though the global warming debate was settled, but was frustrated to hear it coming up again. Disturbingly, she blamed it on the scientists, saying that they (we) hadn’t done a good enough job explaining it to the public! There was an immediate outcry: the science has gotten stronger, but the media keeps allowing the debate to be re-opened. She said that if there was controversy, they had to report it. Researchers said: there’s no controversy in the facts, but the media keeps giving the stage to fringe groups with vested interests in undermining the facts. Very interesting.
During the Q & A, I asked all the members of the panel how Twitter and blogs had changed the way they do their reporting, if at all. Surprisingly, there were few comments. (Perhaps they thought those venues were about information, not ‘news’). Rosenstiel said that the Internet gave any expert access to an audience (unspoken, but implied was the critique that it also gives access to the clueless, as well).
Coming up next: Climate change and Ocean Ecosystems.
Think that I have a clue about oceans and climate? Want more Brave Blue Words? Tune in next week for more on the latest from AAAS. And stay tuned for information about how you can win some of the great science stuff from AAAS!
Coral reefs are vulnerable to ocean warming and acidification. Researcher Nancy Knowlton says that there's still time left to save them - but not much.
Tomorrow marks the first full day of sessions for the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. AAAS (“triple A S”) is one of the world’s most influential science organizations, and publisher of the most widel- read research journal, Science. This year, the big AAAS shindig is in downtown Washington, DC, which means that yours truly will be there, covering as much of it as I can, on Facebook, Twitter and right here. The talks go from 8:00 to 6:00pm Friday to Monday, but might not make it through all of them: this is my first attempt at live tweeting/blogging a conference. Wish me luck – and fully-charged laptop batteries.
There are a ridiculous number of sessions to choose from covering everything from cutting-edge physics to brain science, climate change to communication. Since it is impossible to be in more than one place at a time (damn!), the only way to survive a conference like this is to prioritize. If you’ve been following this blog or @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter, you won’t be surprised to hear that my top two priorities will be climate change and ocean issues (followed by science communication).
The AAAS meeting site has a scheduler where you can highlight the sessions I plan to attend, saving me from having to mark up and flip through the program book they give out at registration. (I’ll probably do that anyway, but it’s a start). Here are some of the sessions I’m looking forward to:
Climate Change: Altering the Physics, Ecology, and Socioeconomics of Fisheries
Science Without Borders and Media Unbounded: What Comes Next?
The Science of Comedy: Communicating with Humor
Cross-Border Responses to Global Challenges: Can Everybody Win?
Science and Policy for Environmental Security in the Asia-Pacific Region
Comparing National Responses to Climate Change: Networks of Debate and Contention
Communicating Diversity in Science: Implications for Climate Change Denial
Adapting to a Clear and Present Danger: Climate Change and Ocean Ecosystems
In Hot Water: Rising Public Health Concerns from Changing Ocean Conditions
If a Culture of Growth Is Unsustainable, What Should Change?
Where Ocean Meets Land: Dynamic Shorelines in a Warming World
And those are just from the first two days…
Many of these sessions will overlap, so while I will no doubt be running from one end of the DC Convention Center to the other regularly, I won’t be able to get to all of them I’ll send regular updates to Facebook and Twitter, so if you’re not already following me in those two venues, get to it! Facebook: Danielle Meitiv, and Author Danielle Meitiv, @Danielle_Meitiv on Twitter.
If you’re attending AAAS, send me a tweet, or a note via Facebook, so we can meet!
Next week I’ll weigh in with a blog post with highlights from the conference. Stay tuned!
Climate change is usually thought of as an environmental issue, and sometimes a humanitarian one. But how might the debate change if it were seen as a matter of national security? A new report by the US-European non-profit E3G states that this is the most appropriate way to think about climate change, and risk management the appropriate framework in which to address it.
“Degrees of Risk: Defining a Risk Management Framework for Climate Security” is the result of a series of closed-door meetings with national and international security, intelligence, and defense officials. Yesterday, E3G authors and security experts gathered in the conference room of DC-based think tank Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), to discuss the report’s recommendations.”The scientific evidence that the climate is likely to change significantly in the next few decades is far more solid than the evidence that usually underpins security decisions in other areas, like nuclear proliferation or the actions of rogue states,” said co-author Dr. Jay Gulledge, Director of the Pew Center’s Science and Impacts Program. So, what might decision-making look like if the threats posed by climate change were taken as serious, and analyzed as rigorously as these other acknowledged security challenges?
Rebooting the climate debate
It could reboot the whole public debate about climate change, especially in the U.S. The split between climate “skeptics” and believers has led to an under-emphasis of both scientific uncertainties, and extreme scenarios. This alienates the majority of people, whom polls show believe that climate change is an important issue, but don’t know what can be done about it.
The truth is that we don’t know what precisely what climate change will bring. But uncertainty need not be a barrier to action. People make decisions based on imperfect knowledge all the time: where to buy a house, invest retirements funds, buy insurance. “The risk management approach makes sense even if you have questions about the effects of climate change,” said E3G chief executive Nick Mabey, one of the authors of the report and a speaker at yesterday’s event. “You don’t buy fire insurance because you know your house will burn down. You buy it because you don’t know it won’t.”
In response to a comment from a representative from the Chinese embassy (more on THAT in a moment), Mabey emphasized that this was not just a way to ‘sell’ the need to address climate change to a different or skeptical constituency. That wouldn’t work, he said. Instead, the authors contend that risk management is a means to change the debate, to move forward and prepare the world for the whole range of impacts could be coming. Besides, Mabey noted, those who have take an ideological position against climate change are not going to be convinced. (Really, isn’t it time we stopped paying attention to them and just got on with it?)
The defense establishment already gets it
While prospective Presidential candidates at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference across town competed to outdo one another in their zealous insistence that climate change is a hoax, Courtney C. St. John, Climate Change Affairs Officer, U.S. Navy Task Force Climate Change outlined the ways in which the Navy has already incorporating the reality of climate change and its effects into their planning and operations. Dr. Daniel Chu, Principal Director of Strategy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, referred to the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which includes analyses of the threats posed by climate change. The QDR notes that climate change may act as an accelerant of instability and conflict, and will shape the operating environment role and missions that the Department of Defense will undertake. The Annual Threat Assessment given by the Director of National Intelligence to Congress states that the intelligence community expects climate change to have extensive implications for U.S. security over the next 20 years.
The flooding in Pakistan, which impacted more than 20 million people, was the the result of an unusual westward shift of the Asian monsoon. Climate and security experts fear disasters like this will become more common as the climate changes.
Risk management; as easy as ABC
The report recommends the “ABC Risk Management Framework” for addressing climate change:
Aim to mitigate to say below 2ºC;
Build and budget for resilience to 3-4ºC;
Contingency plan for capability to respond to 5ºC
The speakers emphasized that this framework can be tailored to fit each countries needs and goals. In fact, under this framework, a sustainable global response rests on nations assessing their own vulnerabilities to climate change, and developing clear goals that reflect their national interests. The Maldives, a small island nation just few meters above sea level might focus on sea level rise, while India could aim to reduce climate change’s impacts on the Asian monsoon. But while these goals differ, both reflect the need to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
The Executive Summary as well as the full report are available for download here.
* As an example of the kind of vague but critical risk management questions that security experts pose all the time, one of the speakers asked “what threat will China pose in 2050?” A representative from the Chinese Embassy felt the need to respond to this comment: “China will not pose a threat to other countries. We will not invade other countries, kill or enslave other people.” Think we can hold them to that?
References
Mabey, N., J. Gulledge, B. Finel, and K. Silverthrone (2011). “Degrees of Risk: Defining a Risk Management Framework for Climate Security.” Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G). London, UK.
The planet is warming. The release of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, from the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities, is causing global temperatures and sea levels to rise, glaciers to melt, and climate patterns to change all over the world. It’s also affecting the oceans.
Since the Industrial Revolution, 30% of the CO2 that has been emitted through the combustion of fossil fuels has been taken up by the oceans. But it comes with a cost: ocean acidification, the “other” carbon problem. I’ve written about this before here. But now there may be some good news, a new way to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere AND acid in the oceans. Read on!
The chemistry of seawater is what allows the oceans to take up so much CO2. For you chemistry buffs, here’s how it works:
The more CO2 we introduce on the left, the more the equations are driven to the right: the more acidic (H+) the oceans get. Over long time scales – and I mean really long, like millions of years – the problem is solved through carbonate weathering of rocks. Instead of the above, where H2CO3 ends up creating more acid (H+), you get this:
* CO2 (from the atmosphere) + H2O (rainwater) ⇌ H2CO3 (carbonic acid)
* H2CO3 + H2O + silicate minerals -> HCO3− (bicarbonate ion) + cations (Ca++, Fe++, Na+, etc.) + clays (which ultimately end up in the sea).
Notice that while you still have HCO3−, there’s no free H+ running around to make the water acid. Instead that HCO3− is used by creatures like corals and foraminifera to make calcium carbonate (CaCO3) shells, and ultimately buried deep beneath the seafloor when those critters die.
Voila! Less CO2 in the air AND less acid in the oceans! Too bad it takes millions of years…
Or does it? Greg Rau of the University of California Santa Cruz conducted a series of experiments in his lab to see if he could make this process happen faster. He made a scrubber that mimicked the natural weathering process, using limestone and seawater. His process removed up to 97% of the CO2 from a simulated exhaust stream (the kind released from power plants). He had the gas flow over crushed limestone (weathering), then dissolved the resulting ions in seawater to make it more alkaline (less acidic).
When it’s scaled up, this process could be used to keep carbon dioxide from power plants out of the atmosphere by putting it into the sea as bicarbonate (HCO3−). Since many of these plants are located on coasts, and use massive amounts of seawater for cooling anyway, the scrubbers could be installed at existing facilities. A win for the atmosphere a win for the oceans – some good news for a change!
References:
Rau, G. (2010). CO2 Mitigation via Capture and Chemical Conversion in Seawater, Environ. Sci. Technol., Article ASAP. DOI: 10.1021/es102671x. Publication Date (Web): December 28, 2010
Every year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) asks experts to vote on the top ten weather and climate events for that year. The “voters consider factors such as the scope and unusualness of the event, its immediate human and economic impact, and whether it is emblematic of climate trends or variability.”
The list is below. However, as @chr1stianh pointed out on Twitter, this list conflates climate with weather (and tosses some resulting hazards into the mix, too). But the two are NOT the same. As Mark Twain said, “Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.” Put another way, climate is the average of meteorological elements, such as temperature, humidity, precipitation, etc. over a long period. Weather is what’s going on outside your window right now, (34 and sunny here in the DC area), or over a short period of time (i.e. the ten-day forecast). And while climate change experts predictions include more extreme weather events, it’s not possible to point to any one event, and say THAT is the result of global warming. We can say that flooding, hurricanes, or drought in specific regions are consistent with what scientists predict, and we can expect to see a lot more of them.
With that critique, let’s look at the list of extreme weather and catastrophic events that these experts voted into the Top Ten for 2010. It’s a doozy and consistent with what we’re in for with accelerating climate change. Not all the news is bad – I find it hard to mourn a lower-than-usual hurricane season in the NE Pacific (#7), given the damage those storms can cause. And not all of it was confined to 2010: a severe drought in Brazil (#6), which has impacted the Amazon, is ongoing.
Russian – European – Asian Heat Waves, Summer 2010. A severe summer spawned drought, wildfires and crop failures across western Russia, where more than 15,000 people died. All-time high temperatures occurred in many cities and nations in the region. China faced locust swarms during July.
2010 as warmest year on record. The globally-averaged temperature for 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest on record. Three months in 2010 were the warmest on record for that month.
Pakistani Flooding, Late July to August. An unusual westward shift of monsoon rainfall dumped more than a foot of rain across a large area of the Upper Indus Valley. Subsequent flooding of the Indus River killed 1,600 people and displaced millions. (The civil government’s late and inadequate response created openings for the military and Islamic militants to increase their influence in the already unstable country).
El Niño to La Niña Transition, Mid-to-Late Spring. The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the most prominent and far-reaching patterns of climate variability, saw a huge swing in mid-2010. Only 1973, 1983 and 1998 have seen larger within-year swings. (More on ENSO and climate change in a future blog post).
Negative Arctic Oscillation (AO), December–February. The AO Index (another future blog post), which is strongly correlated with wintertime cold air outbreaks, was more negative in February 2010 than it had been since records began in 1950. Major cold air outbreaks resulted throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
Brazilian Drought, ongoing. A severe drought parching northern Brazil shrunk the Rio Negro, one of the Amazon River’s most important tributaries, to its lowest level since records began in 1902 at its confluence with the Amazon. The Amazon’s depth there fell more than 12 feet below average. The drought, which is linked to the El Niño, has left 60,000 people hungry as fish die and transportation routes dry up. Millions of dead fish have clogged waterways, making freshwater scarce.
Surprisingly inactive NE Pacific hurricane season. The 2010 NE Pacific Hurricane Season was one of the least active on record, produced the fewest named storms and hurricanes of the modern era, and had the earliest end date (Sep 23) on record.
(Tied for 7th place) Historic N. Hemispheric Snow Retreat, January – June. The melt season for all that 2009-2010 snow was ferocious, contributing to spring floods in the Northern U.S. and Canada. Following the early and pronounced snow melt, the North American, Eurasian and Hemispheric snow cover was the smallest on record for May and June 2010.
Minimum Sea Ice Extent, mid-September. 2010′s sea ice minimum of 4.9 million sq km was the third smallest on record. The last four years (2007-2010) are the four smallest on record. The Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route were simultaneously ice-free in September, a first in modern history.
China Drought, first half of 2010. A persistent drought centered in the Yunan Province was touted as perhaps the worst in this region in more than 100 years. Major crop losses and lack of drinking water created severe problems for local residents.
A firefighter attempts to extinguish a forest fire near the village of Dolginino, some 180 km (111 mi) southeast of Moscow. August 2010 (AP Photo/File)
These are only the ones that made the top ten list. There are fourteen other “honorable mentions” (a dubious honor, for sure), including episodes of coral bleaching, flooding in China, a record dry monsoon in Bangladesh, hurricanes, and cyclones. This ranking was done during the first week of December, so the Australian flooding that started on December 25, was not included in the voting. There’s little doubt that event would have made the list.
So, if you are faced with a fool climate change denier who claims that our current cold snap proves that climate change is a hoax, you can punch them in the mouth show them this list. And have them tell that to the thousands of families displaced and/or grieving in Pakistan, Russia and Australia, because of these events, and many more that may have been made much worse by human-caused global warming.
Reference:
NOAA National Climatic Data Center, State of the Climate: Global Analysis for December 2010, published online January 2011, retrieved on January 13, 2011 from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2010/13.
Thanks to @thahall for pointing me towards this report. I get some of my best blog ideas from Twitter!
Want more Brave Blue Words? You can connect to me and this blog on Facebook and Twitter.
Wanna know what you can expect from Brave Blue Words in 2011? Read on – and feel free to make comments or suggestions below.
As in the past, many of my posts will come from the science headlines. I love keeping up on the latest research, and starting this year I’ll even have Science delivered to my door! (A special offer for non-members who register for the AAAS annual meeting before January 27, 2011).
I’ve also come up with a long list of topics that I am itching to learn and write about. Here’s a partial list of what I have on deck for Brave Blue Words in 2011:
Articles on many of the interesting and bizarre critters discovered during the Census of Marine Life, as well as the conclusions that scientists reached about the health of our oceans.
An exploration of the many different habitats found in the oceans, from coral reefs to Arctic glaciers, tide pools to the open sea.
A series on evolution and geologic time. What lived when, where, and how that changed over time.
A look at the evolution of marine creatures, including marine mammals, and marine reptiles, the real monsters of the deep!
How the Earth itself has changed over time. Where and how continents moved, and what impacts those movements had on evolution and climate.
Critical environmental threats to the health of the oceans, including the many different aspects and impacts of climate change.
Updates on important ocean-related legislation, and what you can do to help make them in law.
Guest posts from other fabulous ocean blogs.
Profiles on ocean scientists and activists, including interviews.
In-depth looks at how ocean science is done, including field trips with scientists, and visits to local labs, ships, and other research platforms.
Posts about the latest research as it’s presented at important science conferences. I’ll start with the AAAS conference in February right here in Washington, D.C.
2010 Redux
So, that’s what I’m planning for the future. But what about the past? Surely, there’s a lot I can learn from my own record of successes and mistakes. So here it is, the year-end summary for Brave Blue Words compliments of WordPress:
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 7,400 times in 2010. That’s about 18 full 747s!
In 2010, you wrote 17 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 44 posts. You uploaded 34 pictures, taking up a total of 9mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.
New Year’s is the time for resolutions, right? Well, right off the bat, there is a number in there that I want to increase. And no, it’s not the number of visitors.
Wait. Why not? Surely any blogger worth her storage space would aim for more readers, right? Sure, I’d like hoards of folks to read this blog, but what can I do about it? It’s not something I have direct control over. And resolutions are all about what I can do to make things better here at Brave Blue Words.
Sure, I can work to ensure that I have great content. I can also do all kinds of things to drive more traffic to my site, networking my tuchas off, and connecting to potential readers via Facebook, and Twitter. (I’ve given up on MySpace – it’s just too damned slow!) But I can only build the site, and hope they will come. So, what’s the magic number? What number do I have direct control over?
The number of posts I write. Look back at the numbers. Over the 52 weeks of 2010, I wrote only 17 posts. Contrast that with 2009, when I wrote 27. Since I started in July 2009, that means that in my first year, I posted at least once a week.
What happened in 2010? Sure, I could quote time constraints, family or job-related events that distracted me. We all have those – but they weren’t responsible for a single missed post. No, it was bigger than that. In 2010, I was faced with the greatest challenge a writer can imagine, the thing we all fear. Yes, it’s true. The #1 threat, the bogeyman beneath all writer’s beds, the ghoul in each and everyone of our closets. I faced it, and succumbed to it’s evil allure.
What was it? Simply the fear that what I was writing didn’t matter. That nobody cared about what I had to say, that my lonely voice, shouted into the incredible chaos that is the global Internet, was not loud enough, not important enough, not worthy enough to be heard. No, I didn’t actually think those words (well,not often). But the fear was there and I let it still my hands and silence my voice.
What’s a Writer to Do?
No, that’s not a cue for all you out there to post encouraging comments, or pat me on the back (although good books or chocolate won’t be turned down). If I’m going to make it as a writer, I have to learn to do that for myself. Or as a very dear friend said to me, when I was working for the NYC Parks Dept in my very first job out of college: I’m going to have to learn to post my own A’s on my own refrigerator.
Writing is a solitary activity. Feedback, when it comes (if it comes) is often far removed from the act itself. By years, in the case of a novel. The motivation to write, whether it’s a blog post or a novel, has to come from within. I have to generate the drive day in and day out. Not only is that the secret to consistency, it’s also the magic ingredient in good writing. When I find the things that excite me, the subject that I think are so cool that I can’t keep quiet about them, I’ll write about them.
But what if I don’t? OK, that was a trick question: anyone who knows me would laugh at that suggestion. The world is just so awesome, the oceans so amazing, the whole scientific endeavor so incredible, that I often find it hard to limit myself to just the 500-1,000 words I aim for in my posts. So I’ll write.
And if you like what you see? Come on back – there will be lots more where that came from in 2011. Have a suggestion for a blog post? Leave ti in the comments below!
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