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DocWatch
carbon sinks
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News stories about "carbon sinks," with punchlines: http://apocadocs.com/d.pl?carbon+sinks
Related Scary Tags:
climate impacts  ~ ocean acidification  ~ carbon emissions  ~ global warming  ~ anthropogenic change  ~ forests  ~ holyshit  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ deforestation  ~ smart policy  ~ rain forest depletion  



Wed, Jul 13, 2016
from University of Exeter, via DesdemonaDespair:
Drought stalls tree growth and shuts down Amazon carbon sink
A recent drought completely shut down the Amazon Basin's carbon sink, by killing trees and slowing their growth, a ground-breaking study led by researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Leeds has found. Previous research has suggested that the Amazon - the most extensive tropical forest on Earth and one of the "green lungs" of the planet - may be gradually losing its capacity to take carbon from the atmosphere. This new study, the most extensive land-based study of the effect of drought on Amazonian rainforests to date, paints a more complex picture, with forests responding dynamically to an increasingly variable climate.... Co-author Professor Oliver Phillips, from the University of Leeds, said: "For more than 20 years the Amazon has been providing a tremendous service, taking up hundreds of millions more tonnes of carbon every year in tree growth than it loses through tree death. But both the 2005 and 2010 droughts eliminated those net gains." ...


Surely this was included in the modeling algorithms upon which the barely-sufficient Paris accords depend.

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Sun, Jan 24, 2016
from Desmog Canada:
"The Blob" Disrupts What We Think We Know About Climate Change, Oceans Scientist Says
When the abnormally warm patch of water first appeared in 2013, fascinated scientists watched disrupted weather patterns, from drought in California to almost snowless winters in Alaska and record cold winters in the northeast. The anomalously warm water, with temperatures three degrees Centigrade above normal, was nicknamed The Blob by U.S climatologist Nick Bond. It stretched over one million square kilometres of the Gulf of Alaska -- more than the surface area of B.C. and Alberta combined -- stretching down 100-metres into the ocean. And, over the next two years that patch of water radically affected marine life from herring to whales. Without the welling-up of cold, nutrient-rich water, there was a dearth of krill, zooplankton and copepods that feed herring, salmon and other species. "The fish out there are malnourished, the whole ecosystem is malnourished," said Richard Dewey, associate director for science with Ocean Networks Canada, speaking at Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre in Sidney on Thursday.... It could be an indication of what climate change will look like, with large-scale shifts in weather patterns, said Dewey, pointing out that The Blob was not anticipated by climatologists because it did not fit into existing climate models. "Climate change may look like a whole new model we haven't seen before," Dewey said. ...


It might be time for Godzilla to smash industrial civilization.

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Thu, Jan 7, 2016
from Washington Post:
U.S. wildfires just set an amazing and troubling new record
Last year's wildfire season set a record with more than 10 million acres burned. That's more land than Maryland, the District and Delaware combined.... Lawmakers base their funding on the average cost to fight fires over the previous decade. But that doesn't account for wildfire seasons that now run from April through December instead of June to September. ...


We sure know how to put the wild in wildfires!

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Sat, Nov 7, 2015
from PhysOrg:
A small increase of ocean acidification => dramatic shift in ocean habitats
Rising levels of CO2 released by anthropogenic activities are driving unprecedented changes in the chemistry of the oceans. The mean ocean surface acidity has increased by a near 30 percent [since] the advent of the Industrial Revolution.... "The present study shows that moderate acidification observed in a CO2 vent system leads to a dramatic shift in highly diverse and structurally complex benthic habitats thriving at depths rarely explored in terms of ocean acidification effects", explains Cristina Linares, Ramon y Cajal researcher at the University of Barcelona, first author of the paper and coordinator of the project LIFE+INDEMARES. ...


A little goes a loong way.

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Sat, Jul 4, 2015
from Desdemona:
World arable land per capita, 1961-2012
... Add these numbers, and there are at least 14.5 million hectares per year of wildlands being converted to human uses, probably mostly for agriculture.... Humans are destroying soil at a rate of 12 million hectares per year, and we’re making up for it by destroying forest and wetlands at a comparable rate. But is all of this destruction of the natural world enabling us to keep up with the ever-growing human population? ...


I am still hungry.

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Fri, Aug 22, 2014
from London Guardian:
Global warming slowdown answer lies in depths of Atlantic, study finds
The key to the slowdown in global warming in recent years could lie in the depths of the Atlantic and Southern Oceans where excess heat is being stored - not the Pacific Ocean as has previously been suggested, according to new research. But the finding suggests that a naturally occurring ocean cycle burying the heat will flip in around 15 years' time, causing global temperature rises to accelerate again. ...


So. We're still sunk.

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Wed, Jun 11, 2014
from University of Edinburgh, via ScienceDaily:
Warming climates intensify greenhouse gas given out by oceans
Fresh insight into how the oceans can affect CO2 levels in the atmosphere shows that rising temperatures can indirectly increase the amount of the greenhouse gas emitted by the oceans. Scientists studied a 26,000-year-old sediment core taken from the Gulf of California to find out how the ocean's ability to take up atmospheric CO2 has changed over time. They tracked the abundance of the key elements silicon and iron in the fossils of tiny marine organisms, known as plankton, in the sediment core. Plankton absorb CO2 from the atmosphere at the ocean surface, and can lock away vast quantities of carbon.... Researchers found that those periods when silicon was least abundant in ocean waters corresponded with relatively warm climates, low levels of atmospheric iron, and reduced CO2 uptake by the oceans' plankton. Scientists had suspected that iron might have a role in enabling plankton to absorb CO2. However, this latest study shows that a lack of iron at the ocean surface can limit the effect of other key elements in helping plankton take up carbon. ...


I wonder if ocean acidity's effect on plankton might also be a factor?

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Sun, Jun 8, 2014
from University of Edinburgh:
Saving trees in tropics could cut emissions by one-fifth, study shows
Reducing deforestation in the tropics would significantly cut the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere -- by as much as one-fifth -- research shows. In the first study of its kind, scientists have calculated the amount of carbon absorbed by the world's tropical forests and the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions created by loss of trees, as a result of human activity. ...


Treeific!

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Fri, Apr 25, 2014
from Northern Arizona University:
Carbon loss from soil accelerating climate change
Research published in Science today found that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cause soil microbes to produce more carbon dioxide, accelerating climate change. Two Northern Arizona University researchers led the study, which challenges previous understanding about how carbon accumulates in soil. Increased levels of CO2 accelerate plant growth, which causes more absorption of CO2 through photosynthesis. Until now, the accepted belief was that carbon is then stored in wood and soil for a long time, slowing climate change. Yet this new research suggests that the extra carbon provides fuel to microorganisms in the soil whose byproducts (such as CO2) are released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. ...


What a dirty trick!

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Tue, Apr 8, 2014
from NBC News:
Can Deserts Stop Global Warming? No, but They Help, Study Says
The world's arid areas -- deserts filled with scrubby vegetation and sand -- are absorbing more of the carbon dioxide that's being emitted into the atmosphere than expected, a new study shows. While these ecosystems will not stop global warming, scientists said the finding provides a better understanding of the carbon cycle, and thus how the global climate will change in the future... The findings indicate that these arid ecosystems are "significant, previously unrecognized sinks" for atmospheric carbon dioxide, Evans and colleagues write in a paper published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change. ...


Everything but the desert sink!

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Mon, Feb 3, 2014
from Ohio State University:
Drug trafficking leads to deforestation in Central America
Add yet another threat to the list of problems facing the rapidly disappearing rainforests of Central America: drug trafficking... Traffickers are slashing down forests, often within protected areas, to make way for clandestine landing strips and roads to move drugs, and converting forests into agribusinesses to launder their drug profits, the researchers say. Much of this appears to be a response to U.S.-led anti-trafficking efforts, especially in Mexico, said Kendra McSweeney, lead author of the Science article and an associate professor of geography at The Ohio State University. ...


The War on Drugs is a subset of the overall War on Earth.

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Sat, Nov 2, 2013
from The Earth Institute at Columbia University :
Is Global Heating Hiding out in the Oceans? Parts of Pacific Warming 15 Times Faster Than in Past 10,000 Years
A recent slowdown in global warming has led some skeptics to renew their claims that industrial carbon emissions are not causing a century-long rise in Earth's surface temperatures. But rather than letting humans off the hook, a new study in the leading journal Science adds support to the idea that the oceans are taking up some of the excess heat, at least for the moment. In a reconstruction of Pacific Ocean temperatures in the last 10,000 years, researchers have found that its middle depths have warmed 15 times faster in the last 60 years than they did during apparent natural warming cycles in the previous 10,000. ...


In the ocean, no one can hear you scream.

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Mon, Oct 14, 2013
from Climate News Network:
Ocean Deteriorating More Rapidly Than Thought
Marine scientists say the state of the world's oceans is deteriorating more rapidly than anyone had realized, and is worse than that described in last month's U.N. climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They say the rate, speed and impacts of ocean change are greater, faster and more imminent than previously thought -- and they expect summertime Arctic sea ice cover will have disappeared in around 25 years. ...


Seas the day.

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Mon, Sep 30, 2013
from NewScientist:
Climate report: Lull in warming doesn't mean we're safe
Humanity's role in driving climate change is more certain than ever before, but the most extreme scenarios of future warming are looking less likely than a few years ago. This is the upshot of the latest scientific assessment from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published today.... The new report leaves no doubt that a storm is brewing. It is unequivocal -- temperatures are rising and human activity is to blame. Without drastic action to curb emissions, it says, the world faces a century of strong warming, in which glaciers and ice sheets melt, sea levels rise, the oceans acidify, weather systems shift and rainfall patterns change.... this stark warning will be sidelined by the scientific conundrum over the "missing heat" that should, according to most climate models, have been warming the atmosphere ever faster these past few decades. This may be a short-term blip -- perhaps a result of the oceans temporarily taking up more heat from the atmosphere, says one of the IPCC's lead authors, Myles Allen of the University of Oxford. The report underlines that, whatever is happening to the atmosphere, the oceans continue to warm dramatically. ...


Damn you, ocean, for trying to save us all.

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Wed, Sep 4, 2013
from National Resources Defense Council (via EcoWatch):
U.S. Becomes Largest Wood Pellet Exporter, Clearcutting Forests and Destroying Wetlands
When you think about burning wood to heat your home, you might imagine a cozy fireplace, not a giant power plant. Unfortunately, utility companies in Europe are making massive investments to convert their power plants to burn wood -- known as "biomass" -- as a replacement for coal and other fossil fuels. This is despite the fact that recent research shows that burning whole trees in power plants actually increases carbon emissions relative to fossil fuels for many decades -- anywhere from 35 to 100 years or more. It also emits higher levels of multiple air pollutants. The result of this new demand has been the explosive growth of wood pellet exports from North America, most of which originate in our Southern forests here in the U.S., putting into peril some of the most valuable ecosystems in the world. ...


Ronald Reagan was right, after all!

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Thu, Aug 15, 2013
from ScienceAlert:
Ocean acidity continues to increase
A unique comparison of coastal water monitoring near Australia's Davis Station in East Antarctica has shown significant changes in ocean chemistry over the past 16 years. The study, published in The Journal of Marine Chemistry, shows a marked and somewhat unexpected increase in the acidity of the seawater in the region.... 'The surprise was that the change in acidity was so large, indicating that natural and human induced changes have combined to amplify ocean acidity in this region,' said Mr Roden. ...


If he's surprised, we should be a little suspicious of his conclusions, since "faster than expected" is the new normal.

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Wed, Jul 17, 2013
from Smithsonian Institution:
High Carbon Dioxide Spurs Wetlands to Absorb More Carbon
Under elevated carbon dioxide levels, wetland plants can absorb up to 32 percent more carbon than they do at current levels, according to a 19-year study published in Global Change Biology from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md. With atmospheric CO2 passing the 400 parts-per-million milestone this year, the findings offer hope that wetlands could help soften the blow of climate change. ...


Too bad we've been destroying our wetlands!

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Wed, May 22, 2013
from PLOS, via PlanetEarth:
Coccoliths thrive despite ocean acidification
An international team studied the effect of ocean acidification on plankton in the North Sea over the past forty years, to see what impact future changes may have.... Foraminifera and coccoliths, which are small shelled plankton and algae, appear to be surviving remarkably well in the more acidic conditions. But numbers of pteropods and bivalves - such as mussels, clams and oysters - are falling. 'Ecologically, some species are soaring, whilst others are crashing out of the system,' says Professor Jason Hall-Spencer, of Plymouth University, who co-authored the paper.... 'The aragonite skeleton of pteropods dissolves more easily in corrosive waters than the low-magnesium calcite that typifies many clams and other molluscs,' explains Hall-Spencer. 'But now we think that it's not as simple as that. It depends partly on how stressed organisms are by other factors, such as lack of food. It also depends on their shape and their ability to protect their skeletons.' ...


Ocean life will be half-full and half-empty!

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Tue, Apr 30, 2013
from Reuters:
Plants slow climate change by forming cloud sunshade: study
Plants help to slow climate change by emitting gases as temperatures rise that lead to the formation of a sunshade of clouds over the planet, scientists said on Sunday. The tiny sun-dimming effect could offset about one percent of warming worldwide and up to 30 percent locally such as over vast northern forests in Siberia, Canada or the Nordic nations, they wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience. While proportionally small, some scientists said the study provided further evidence of the importance of protecting forests, which help to slow climate change by absorbing greenhouse gases as they grow and to preserve wildlife. ...


It's amazing that nature still wants to be on our side.

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Tue, Apr 16, 2013
from UCSB, via PhysOrg:
Effect of ocean acidification may not be so dire
"The story years ago was that ocean acidification was going to be bad, really bad for calcifiers," said Iglesias-Rodriguez, whose team discovered that one species of the tiny single celled marine coccolithophore, Emiliania huxleyi, actually had bigger shells in high carbon dioxide seawater conditions. While the team acknowledges that calcification tends to decline with acidification, "we now know that there are variable responses in sea corals, in sea urchins, in all shelled organisms that we find in the sea."... "The E. huxleyi increased the amount of calcite they had because they kept calcifying but slowed down division rates,"slower growth could become problematic. If other species grow faster, E. huxleyi could be outnumbered in some areas. ...


Ocean acidity may not be a problem for many [ocean] calcifiers.*
* Some restrictions may apply.

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Sat, Feb 2, 2013
from Climate Central:
Ozone Hole's Winds Are Shifting, May Lead To Decrease In Carbon Dioxide Absorption
High above Antarctica, the atmosphere is slowly recovering from the decades-long barrage of manmade chemicals that ate a hole in the protective ozone layer. But the legacy of that destruction lingers. Scientists have linked the ozone hole that forms each Antarctic spring high above Earth to changes in the fierce band of westerly winds that swirls around Antarctica. Those winds, closer to the continent's surface, have grown stronger and moved poleward over the past several decades. And now a new study suggests that the ozone hole has an even broader reach. It finds evidence those shifting winds are speeding circulation patterns in polar waters. That shift is important because it may already be weakening the Southern Ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and slow the march of manmade climate change. ...


Man up, Southern Ocean, and grow some carbon sinkin' balls.

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Mon, Dec 10, 2012
from New York Times:
Mighty Old Trees Are Perishing Fast, Study Warns
The death rate of many of the biggest and oldest trees around the world is increasing rapidly, scientists report in a new study in Friday's issue of the journal Science. They warned that research to understand and stem the loss of the trees is urgently needed... The research team found that big, old trees are dying at an alarmingly fast clip around the world at all latitudes -- Yosemite National Park in California, the African savanna, the Brazilian rain forest, Europe and the boreal forests around the world. ...


I think I shall never see an old poem as lovely as an old tree.

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Mon, Nov 26, 2012
from Reuters:
Sea snails show impact of more acidic ocean
The shells of some marine snails in the seas around Antarctica are dissolving as the water becomes more acidic, threatening the food chain, a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience said on Sunday... The shell of the pteropod sea snail in the Southern Ocean was severely dissolved by more acidic surface water, the researchers ... found. ...


This is pterrible news!

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Sun, Nov 4, 2012
from LiveScience, via HuffingtonPost:
Ocean Acidification Research Suggests Return To Dinosaur-Era Underwater Acoustics
... Rising acidity in the oceans could set underwater acoustic conditions back to the Cretaceous period, scientists say, allowing some low-frequency sounds like whale songs to travel perhaps twice as far as they do now. "We call it the Cretaceous acoustic effect, because ocean acidification forced by global warming appears to be leading us back to the similar ocean acoustic conditions as those that existed 110 million years ago, during the Age of Dinosaurs," David G. Browning, an acoustician at the University of Rhode Island, said in a statement. ...


WHAT'S THAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU. THE METAPHOR IS TOO LOUD.

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Mon, Oct 1, 2012
from Nature:
Earth's carbon sink downsized
As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to climb, most climate models project that the world's oceans and trees will keep soaking up more than half of the extra CO2. But researchers report this week that the capacity for land plants to absorb more CO2 will be much lower than previously thought, owing to limitations in soil nutrients. Because plants take up CO2 during photosynthesis, it has long been assumed that they will provide a large carbon "sink" to help offset increases in atmospheric CO2 caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Some scientists have argued that the increase might even be good for plants, which would presumably grow faster and mop up even more CO2. Climate models estimate that the world's oceans have absorbed about 30 percent of the CO2 that humans have released in the past 150 years and that land plants have gulped another 30 percent. But the latest study, by ecologists Peter Reich and Sarah Hobbie at the University of Minnesota in St Paul, suggests that estimates of how much CO2 land plants can use are far too optimistic. ...


What is the carbon footprint of optimism?

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Mon, Sep 10, 2012
from University of California - Santa Cruz:
How Sea Otters Can Reduce CO2 in the Atmosphere: Appetite for Sea Urchins Allows Kelp to Thrive
Can an abundance of sea otters help reverse a principal cause of global warming? A new study by two UC Santa Cruz researchers suggest that a thriving sea otter population that keeps sea urchins in check will in turn allow kelp forests to prosper. The spreading kelp can absorb as much as 12 times the amount of CO2 from the atmosphere than if it were subject to ravenous sea urchins, the study finds. ...


Kelp is on its way!

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You're still reading! Good for you!
You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy):
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day!
Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore.
Wed, Aug 1, 2012
from Live Science:
Nature Still Sucking Up Considerable Carbon Dioxide
While humans are emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere, the planet sucks some of it back up. A new study indicates that natural, carbon-removing processes, have not yet reached capacity, in spite of humans' increasing emissions over recent decades. The oceans can absorb carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, as can trees and other vegetation. "Globally, these carbon dioxide 'sinks' have roughly kept pace with emissions from human activities, continuing to draw about half of the emitted [carbon dioxide] back out of the atmosphere," said study researcher and climate scientist Pieter Tans, with the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory, in a statement. "However, we do not expect this to continue indefinitely." ...


Let it continue long enough that I might maximize my profits.

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Tue, Jun 12, 2012
from New York Times:
Warming Will Unlock Carbon in Forests, Study Warns
...scientists have identified another feedback loop that may be accelerating the loss of carbon dioxide from the topsoil of forests in the United States, contributing to climate change. In a study published online on Monday, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that as temperatures rise, activity increases among the microbes that eat the topsoil and exhale carbon dioxide afterward. While that finding is not surprising, said the lead author, Francesca Hopkins, a doctoral researcher in the Department of Earth System Science at Irvine, she and her collaborators also found that in warmer temperatures the microbes were better able to digest decades-old carbon stored in the soils. ...


Microbes... they'll eat anything.

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Tue, May 15, 2012
from The Coloradoan:
CSU study: Trees don't clean as much as thought
A new Colorado State University study of when and how trees absorb carbon could have far-reaching effects on years of previous and current climate change research. The culmination of seven years of research has revealed that trees trap in their leaves less carbon dioxide than once thought. This means that there is an estimated 2 billion more metric tons of the greenhouse gas in the air that scientists say has, with others, contributed to a rise in the Earth's temperature. ...


Stupid slacker trees.

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Mon, Apr 9, 2012
from The Daily Climate:
Warming Atlantic primes the Amazon for fire
...Scientists used to think the rainforest, especially in the western Amazon, was too wet to burn. But major fire seasons in 2005 and 2010 made them reconsider. Fires are a major source of carbon emissions in the Amazon, and scientists are beginning to worry that the region could become a net emitter, instead of a carbon sink. New findings link rising ocean temperatures off the northern coast of Brazil to changing weather patterns: As the Atlantic warms, it draws moisture away from the forest, priming the region for bigger fires. "We are reaching a tipping point in terms of drought, beyond which these forests can catch fire," says Daniel Nepstad, international program director at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute in Brasilia, Brazil. ...


Ocean vs forests: this time it's personal!

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Wed, Apr 4, 2012
from ClimateWire:
Dying corals -- milestones along a meandering path to famine
...Already, there is evidence that as the ocean warms, many commercial fish stocks are moving poleward in search of cooler waters. Rising ocean temperatures have triggered coral bleaching events that have caused widespread damage to the world's reefs, which serve as a habitat for many species.... Researchers are also concerned about the effects that shifting ocean chemistry will have on marine ecosystems. As the world's carbon dioxide output has risen, oceans have absorbed more and more of the heat-trapping gas, leaving seawater 30 percent more acidic than it was before the Industrial Revolution began. Eventually, ocean acidification could scramble ocean ecosystems by making it harder for sea creatures like oysters, coral and plankton to grow the hard, chalky shells that protect them from predators. ...


No matter where those fish go we'll track em down!

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Mon, Apr 2, 2012
from Living on Earth:
Africa's Great Green Wall of Trees
Africa is turning to desert. Studies show that as much as two thirds of the continent's arable land could become desert by 2025 if current trends continue. But a bold initiative to plant a wall of trees 4,300 miles long across the African continent could keep back the sands of the Sahara, improve degraded lands, and help alleviate poverty... It's known as the Great Green Wall. ...


And we should all be green with envy!

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Wed, Mar 21, 2012
from Reuters, via Chicago Tribune:
Damage to world's oceans 'to reach $2 trillion a year'
The cost of damage to the world's oceans from climate change could reach $2 trillion a year by 2100 if measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions are not stepped up, a study by marine experts said on Wednesday. The study found that without action to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions, the global average temperature could rise by 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century causing ocean acidification, sea level rise, marine pollution, species migration and more intense tropical cyclones. It would also threaten coral reefs, disrupt fisheries and deplete fish stocks.... If cuts in emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases were carried out more urgently and temperature increases were limited to 2.2 degrees C, nearly $1.4 trillion of the total cost could be avoided, the study found. However, such progress would require the widespread use of radical carbon removal technologies like sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, Frank Ackerman, one of the report's authors told Reuters. "The faster we stop emissions rising, the lower the damage will be. But on current technology, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up on a 4 degree C pathway," said Ackerman, senior economist and director of the Climate Economics Group at SEI's U.S. Center. ...


But think of all the business innovation that will spur!

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Tue, Mar 13, 2012
from PNAS, via Treehugger:
Tar Sands Industry Claims About Restoring Ecosystems Just Greenwashing, New Report Says
New research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has examined the impact of tar sands mining in Canada on boreal forest and peatlands, finding that contrary to industry claims that such landscape can be restored post-mining, full restoration is not possible. Furthermore, due to the fact that currently approved mines will cause the destruction of more than 29,500 hectares (114 square miles) of peatland, an additional 11.4-47.3 million metric tons of carbon emissions will be released by the mining. The destruction of the peat swamps will also remove carbon storage potential of up 7,200 metric tons per year, even after restoration is done. The release of these greenhouse gases has never previously been included in calculations of the life-cycle emissions of fuel produced from tar sands. ...


It's strangely as if we actually can't put Humpty together again.

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Wed, Mar 7, 2012
from Colorado Independent:
Forestry budgets sapped by scourges of warming climate
The warming climate is breeding more beetle-ravaged forest and prolonged fire seasons, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell testified before a Senate committee on Tuesday, as he fielded questions about the White House's proposed agency budget for fiscal year 2013.... The wildfire risk is heightened as beetles make their way through the forests, sucking the life from trees and leaving dead, dried wood in their wake. The expansion of bark beetles "has started to slow a little bit," [Tidwell] said, but "we're still seeing about an additional 600,000 acres infested each year, so we're going to have to continue to maintain this focus for the next few years." ...


Bark beetles sound sooooo vampiric!

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Mon, Jan 23, 2012
from BBC:
Race to save Ecuador's 'lungs of the world' park
The Yasuni National Park, known as "the lungs of the world" and one of the most bio-diverse places on earth, is under threat from oil drilling. The race is on to find the funds required to develop new sustainable energy programmes that would leave the oil - and the forest - untouched. ...


I breathe. Can I contribute somehow?

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Thu, Nov 17, 2011
from Labspaces:
Erratic, extreme day-to-day weather puts climate change in new light
The first climate study to focus on variations in daily weather conditions has found that day-to-day weather has grown increasingly erratic and extreme, with significant fluctuations in sunshine and rainfall affecting more than a third of the planet. Princeton University researchers recently reported in the Journal of Climate that extremely sunny or cloudy days are more common than in the early 1980s, and that swings from thunderstorms to dry days rose considerably since the late 1990s. These swings could have consequences for ecosystem stability and the control of pests and diseases, as well as for industries such as agriculture and solar-energy production, all of which are vulnerable to inconsistent and extreme weather, the researchers noted.... Constant fluctuations in severe conditions could alter how the atmosphere distributes heat and rainfall, as well as inhibit the ability of plants to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, possibly leading to higher levels of the greenhouse gas than currently accounted for. ...


I think it's time to invent the Tentumbrella™.

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Thu, Oct 27, 2011
from Oregon State University via ScienceDaily:
Production of Biofuel from Forests Will Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Study Finds
The largest and most comprehensive study yet done on the effect of biofuel production from West Coast forests has concluded that an emphasis on bioenergy would increase carbon dioxide emissions from these forests at least 14 percent, if the efficiency of such operations is optimal. The findings are contrary to assumptions and some previous studies that suggest biofuels from this source would be carbon-neutral or even reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this research, that wasn't true in any scenario. ...


Fueled again!

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Mon, Oct 3, 2011
from New York Times:
With Deaths of Forests, a Loss of Key Climate Protectors
From the mountainous Southwest deep into Texas, wildfires raced across parched landscapes this summer, burning millions more acres. In Colorado, at least 15 percent of that state's spectacular aspen forests have gone into decline because of a lack of water. The devastation extends worldwide. The great euphorbia trees of southern Africa are succumbing to heat and water stress. So are the Atlas cedars of northern Algeria. Fires fed by hot, dry weather are killing enormous stretches of Siberian forest. Eucalyptus trees are succumbing on a large scale to a heat blast in Australia, and the Amazon recently suffered two "once a century" droughts just five years apart, killing many large trees. Experts are scrambling to understand the situation, and to predict how serious it may become.... Scientists have figured out -- with the precise numbers deduced only recently -- that forests have been absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that people are putting into the air by burning fossil fuels and other activities. It is an amount so large that trees are effectively absorbing the emissions from all the world's cars and trucks. ...


You mean there might be a reason to hug a tree?

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Tue, Aug 23, 2011
from New York Times:
Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers
This page opposes the building of a 1,700-mile pipeline called the Keystone XL, which would carry diluted bitumen -- an acidic crude oil -- from Canada's Alberta tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast. We have two main concerns: the risk of oil spills along the pipeline, which would traverse highly sensitive terrain, and the fact that the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production does. The Canadian government insists that it has found ways to reduce those emissions. But a new report from Canada's environmental ministry shows how great the impact of the tar sands will be in the coming years, even with cleaner production methods. It projects that Canada will double its current tar sands production over the next decade to more than 1.8 million barrels a day. That rate will mean cutting down some 740,000 acres of boreal forest -- a natural carbon reservoir. Extracting oil from tar sands is also much more complicated than pumping conventional crude oil out of the ground. It requires steam-heating the sands to produce a petroleum slurry, then further dilution. One result of this process, the ministry says, is that greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector as a whole will rise by nearly one-third from 2005 to 2020... ...


Sometimes it seems as if we want to destroy our world.

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Wed, Aug 17, 2011
from OnEarth:
NRDC: Acidic Oceans
Q&A with NRDC senior scientist Lisa Suatoni: How closely is ocean acidification related to global climate change? Ocean acidification and global climate change are two -- independent -- impacts of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations. When fossil fuels are burned, carbon dioxide is produced. Approximately two thirds of that CO2 goes into the atmosphere, where it causes global warming; the remaining third is absorbed by the world's oceans, where it causes ocean acidification. Two problems, one culprit.... The Arctic is predicted to be corrosive to some types of shelled organisms in the next 10 to 30 years.... As we speak, roughly one million tons of CO2 are being absorbed by the oceans every hour. And the source of this pollution -- global emissions of greenhouse gases -- is expected to rise, rapidly. By mid-century, the average atmospheric CO2 concentration could easily reach double the pre-industrial concentration, and so could the drop in ocean pH. That means the problems we are seeing in the Pacific Northwest oyster industry are most likely going to get worse and spread elsewhere. Although they've held off disaster for now, the oyster hatcheries will need to continue developing techniques to protect their "crop" from the shifting chemistry of the sea. What can we do about acidification on a larger scale? Is there a way to get the ocean's chemistry back into balance? There is no way to artificially restore the chemistry of the world's oceans to pre-industrial levels. It will happen naturally as the ocean water mixes with the deep sea sediments, which act to neutralize the enhanced acidity, but that takes thousands of years. The only broad-scale solution to ocean acidification is to reduce and stabilize carbon dioxide emissions right now to keep things from getting worse. ...


I bet we'll just innovate ourselves out of needing the ocean!

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Mon, Aug 15, 2011
from MSNBC:
Arctic voyage to study ocean's changing acidity
The world's oceans are getting more acidic, and a new mission to the Arctic will help scientists figure out what this means for delicate marine life. For the second straight year, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) will embark on a research cruise aboard the U.S. Coast Guard vessel Healy to the Arctic Ocean on Aug. 15 to collect water samples and other data to determine trends in ocean acidification from the least explored ocean in the world. What the scientists learn from the data collected during the seven-week cruise will provide an understanding of the extent to which the Arctic Ocean 's chemistry is changing and detail potential implications for carbonate species -- such as phytoplankton and shellfish -- that are vulnerable to greater ocean acidity created by climate change. "Ocean acidification can have broad global impacts on industry, ecosystems, tourism and policy, so it is of vital importance to determine trends and whether impacts are already occurring in oceans around the world," said USGS oceanographer Lisa Robbins. ...


Who knows? Maybe acidity is good for marine life!

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Mon, Jul 25, 2011
from London Guardian:
WWF accused of failing to regulate sustainable timber scheme
Conservation group WWF let timber companies use its panda brand logo while they were razing some of the world's most biologically rich rainforests or trading in potentially illegally sourced timber, according to the investigative group Global Witness. The WWF's flagship Global forest and trade network (Gftn), which is part-subsidised by the US government and EU, promotes sustainable timber, bringing together more than 70 international logging companies and large numbers of timber sellers. The WWF says the 20-year-old scheme is now responsible for nearly 19 percent of forest products bought or sold internationally, with members' combined annual sales approaching $70bn (£43bn). However, Global Witness's report, Pandering to the Loggers, claims Gftn's membership and participation rules are inadequate, allowing companies to systematically abuse the scheme. ...


World Wildlife F**ckers.

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Tue, Jul 19, 2011
from CNN:
Study: Changes to ocean expected to damage shellfish around world
Massive global greenhouse gas pollution is changing the chemistry of the world's oceans so much that scientists now predict it could severely damage shellfish populations and the nations that depend on the harvests if significant action isn't taken. A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts shows that ocean acidification is becoming a very serious problem. The study was published in July online in the journal Fish and Fisheries....Ocean acidification, or the changing chemical make-up of seawater, has occurred since the industrial revolution as ocean waters absorbed too much carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a by-product of human industrial activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels. The Woods Hole study found that many marine animals like mollusks and corals that build hard shells and skeletons are most at risk from this. ...


Seems the shelflife of shellfish is deteriorating.

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Sat, Jul 16, 2011
from Fast Company:
The Bacon Uprising
...The Chinese middle class is eating more and more meat, and Beijing wants to keep prices low. That means finding a way to feed all those pigs with grain imported from land cut from the Brazilian rainforest, leading to conflict within the BRICs... Since Deng Xiaoping, China's leaders have been obsessed with "food security" the same way America's are haunted by not having enough oil. And as Chinese diets become more meat centric, fears of the dangers in the fluctuation of pork prices led China to establish a top-secret "strategic pork reserve" in 2007, the only one of its kind. But maintaining all those pigs has led to a massive dependence on corn and soybean imports for animal feed, which in turn is leading China's agribusinesses to fan out abroad in a quest to control the means of production. China's attempts to control the means of production in other countries just rising out of developing world is causing tension with its natural allies, and could be just the first step in an ever-escalating series of resource-based conflicts. ...


One day, we can sort out all this mess together in Hog Heaven.

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Thu, Jul 14, 2011
from Huffington Post:
Global Warming: Nature Can't Save Us From Ourselves
The notion that nature itself will act as a check on the atmospheric excesses of humanity has long held a fair amount of appeal, not least because it draws on a nugget of high-school science that most people can quickly comprehend. Plants inhale carbon dioxide, after all -- they need it to grow. Add more CO2 to the air, as human civilization has been doing in copious amounts since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and the result will surely be thicker, more expansive biomass.... It's a conviction readily embraced by climate skeptics.... But scientists generally agree that the influence of increased biomass will be modest, essentially acting like a brake on a runaway freight train. It might be able to slow steadily rising temperatures, but it will hardly be enough to stop global warming in its tracks.... "To solve the carbon-climate problem, we need to transform our energy system into one that does not dump its waste into the sky," Caldeira said. "Land plants help. It looks like they won't help quite as much as we thought they would. Clearly, we can't expect nature to solve our problems for us." ...


Aren't we lucky that just around the corner, there's technology to save us from ourselves!

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Wed, May 25, 2011
from Yale Environment 300:
By Barcoding Trees, Liberia Looks to Save its Rainforests
Nearly two-thirds of West Africa's remaining rainforests are in the small but troubled nation of Liberia. That is a small miracle. A decade ago, Liberia's forests were being stripped bare by warlords to fund a vicious 14-year civil war that left 150,000 dead. In 2003, the United Nations belatedly imposed an embargo on Liberian "logs of war." Revenues crashed and, coincidentally or not, the war swiftly came to an end. Now the elected government of Harvard-trained President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has signed a deal with the European Union to place timber sales on a permanently legal footing. The deal, agreed to this month, makes use of a unique national timber-tracking system that requires every legally harvestable tree and every cut log to carry a barcode that will enable it to be tracked from its origin to its final destination. ...


It's gonna take someone named Sirleaf to save the trees.

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Fri, May 20, 2011
from NSF:
Big Clue to Future Climate Change in Small Plants
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and University of Minnesota-Twin Cities conducted an 11-year experiment with 13 plant species common in U.S. Midwestern states. The scientists added extra carbon dioxide (CO2) to the plants' environment to discover how--in the higher carbon dioxide world of global warming--the plants would respond. The results suggest that plants' capacity to absorb extra carbon from the atmosphere as CO2 levels rise may be less than expected.... "They have major implications for models of future climate," says Peter Reich, a forest ecologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author of the paper. "Current state-of-the-art climate models assume that vegetation will soak up much of the extra CO2 we put into the air from fossil fuel burning." But the new results, says biologist Tali Lee of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and first author of the paper, "show that the capacity of some terrestrial ecosystems to absorb the extra CO2 may be less than the models assume." That means that today's carbon cycle models likely underpredict the pace of increase of future CO2 levels, and therefore the pace of climate change, say Lee, Reich and Susan Barrott of the University of Minnesota, also a co-author of the paper. "What this all boils down to," says Reich, "is that the world could warm even faster than we thought." ...


I don't think "boil down" is the kindest choice of words.

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Fri, May 20, 2011
from BBC:
Brazil: Amazon rainforest deforestation rises sharply
Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has increased almost sixfold, new data suggests. Satellite images show deforestation increased from 103 sq km in March and April 2010 to 593 sq km (229 sq miles) in the same period of 2011, Brazil's space research institute says. Much of the destruction has been in Mato Grosso state, the centre of soya farming in Brazil. The news comes shortly before a vote on new forest protection rules. Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said the figures were "alarming" and announced the setting up of a "crisis cabinet" in response to the news. ...


All I gotta say is that "crisis cabinet" better not be made of wood!

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Wed, May 11, 2011
from ScienceDaily:
Ocean Acidification: Carbon Dioxide Makes Life Difficult for Algae
The acidification of the world's oceans could have major consequences for the marine environment. New research shows that coccoliths, which are an important part of the marine environment, dissolve when seawater acidifies. Coccoliths are very small shells of calcium carbonate that encapsulate a number of species of alga. Algae plays an important role in the global carbon-oxygen cycle and thus in our ecosystem. Our seawater has changed because of our emissions of greenhouse gases and therefore it was interesting for Hassenkam and his colleagues to investigate how the coccoliths react to different types of water. "We know that the world's oceans are acidifying due to our emissions of CO2 and that is why it is interesting for us to find out how the coccoliths are reacting to it.... In fact, it turns out that the shell falls completely apart when we do experiments in water with a pH value that many researchers believe will be the found in the world oceans in the year 2100 due to the CO2 levels...." ...


Shells fall apart; the algae cannot hold.

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Wed, Apr 20, 2011
from Discovery News:
As Gold Prices Go Up, Forests Are Coming Down
A worldwide growth in the price of gold has accelerated the pace of deforestation in some of the most pristine parts of the Peruvian Amazon, where miners are cutting down trees in order to extract the valuable natural resource. From 2003 to 2009, found a new study, the rate of deforestation in two gold-mining areas increased six-fold alongside record-setting leaps in the international price of gold. During one two-year period, as gold prices climbed steadily, forests disappeared at a rate of 4.5 American football fields a day from one of the two sites. Alongside the accelerating paces of both mining and deforestation, the study found, there has also been an exponential rise in the use of mercury, which helps miners extract gold from the Earth. ...


Someday soon we'll realize these trees were worth their weight in gold.

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Thu, Mar 10, 2011
from Scientific American:
Blue Carbon: An Oceanic Opportunity to Fight Climate Change
Mangroves are tangled orchards of spindly shrubs that thrive in the interface between land and sea. They bloom in muddy soil where the water is briny and shallow, and the air muggy. Salt marshes and sea grasses also flourish in these brackish hinterlands. Worldwide, these coastal habitats are recognized for their natural beauty and ability to filter pollution, house fish nurseries and buffer shorelines against storms. Less known is their ability to sequester vast amounts of carbon--up to five times that stored in tropical forests. Dubbed "blue carbon" because of their littoral environment, these previously undervalued coastal carbon sinks are beginning to gain attention from the climate and conservation communities.... To date, human encroachment has destroyed more than 35 percent of mangroves, 30 percent of sea grass meadows and 20 percent of salt marshes. Stopping such destruction could therefore become an important element in confronting climate change. ...


I say no action until we get equal protection for womangroves.

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Sun, Mar 6, 2011
from Time:
Testing the Waters
...Corals build colonies that secrete calcium carbonate to form ocean reefs. When they're healthy, coral reefs provide shelter and food for animals all along the food chain, including the top: us. Across the planet, half a billion people rely, directly and indirectly, on corals for their living. That's why what happens to the 9,000-year-old Great Barrier Reef, as well as to other reefs worldwide, is critical. The recent Queensland floods were most notably tragic for the lives lost and property destroyed. But they have also hurt the Great Barrier Reef by funneling into the ocean vast plumes of freshwater and agricultural runoff that could severely damage the coral. Besides the extreme rain that sparked the floods, rising ocean temperatures, changes to the ocean's chemistry and the global trade in natural resources -- all symptoms of our fossil-fuel economy -- are waging a multifront war on the marine environment. "You can't walk into a forest and start hacking at branches and killing off animals and denuding the forest cover without killing the trees," says Justin Marshall, a marine biologist at the University of Queensland. "The outlook for the whole reef is poor." ...


This story brought to you by a mag once called TIME now called NO TIME LEFT.

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Thu, Feb 10, 2011
from Guardian:
Mass tree deaths prompt fears of Amazon 'climate tipping point'
Billions of trees died in the record drought that struck the Amazon in 2010, raising fears that the vast forest is on the verge of a tipping point, where it will stop absorbing greenhouse gas emissions and instead increase them. The dense forests of the Amazon soak up more than one-quarter of the world's atmospheric carbon, making it a critically important buffer against global warming. But if the Amazon switches from a carbon sink to a carbon source that prompts further droughts and mass tree deaths, such a feedback loop could cause runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences. "Put starkly, current emissions pathways risk playing Russian roulette with the world's largest forest," said tropical forest expert Simon Lewis, at the University of Leeds, and who led the research published today in the journal Science.... He said increasing droughts in the Amazon are found in some climate models, including the sophisticated model used by the Hadley centre. This means the 2005 and 2010 droughts are consistent with the idea that global warming will cause more droughts in future, emit more carbon, and potentially lead to runaway climate change. "The greenhouse gases we have already emitted may mean there are several more droughts in the pipeline," he said. ...


That tale of the pipeline is exhausting.

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Fri, Feb 4, 2011
from London Guardian:
Communities not getting a say in how forests are managed
Governments have been accused by grassroots groups and scientific researchers of reneging on commitments to give communities a say in how forests are managed, and doing little to address the causes of worldwide deforestation. The charges came as the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, declared 2011 to be the international year of forests, and politicians from around the world meet in New York for the high level segment of the UN's ninth forestry forum (UNFF). Non-government groups released a report showing that indigenous peoples and forest communities have done a much better job at conservation than governments. ...


When are going to go ahead and declare an international year of panic!!!

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Thu, Feb 3, 2011
from Discovery:
Amazon Drought of 2010 Sign of Forest Fatigue
The tropical forests of Amazonia may be giving up their role as buffers against the continuing buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, scientists report, a circumstance that could accelerate climate change. The warning comes in the new issue of the journal Science, where an international research team reports that the drought in the Amazon during 2010 was even worse than what scientists called the "once-in-a-century" drought of 2005.... "The two recent Amazon droughts demonstrate a mechanism by which remaining intact tropical forests of South American can shift from buffering the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide to accelerating it," the scientists write. Growing trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. Dying trees give it back. ...


How can a carbon sink become a carbon faucet?

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Mon, Jan 17, 2011
from Science, via Mongabay:
Amount of carbon absorbed by ecosystems each year is grossly overstated, says new study
According to a new paper published in Science, current carbon accounting methods significantly overstate the amount of carbon that can be absorbed by forests, plains, and other terrestrial ecosystems. That is because most current carbon accounting methods do not consider the methane and carbon dioxide released naturally by rivers, streams, and lakes. This new paper suggests that rivers, streams, and lakes emit the equivalent of 2.05 billion metric tons of carbon every year. (By comparison, all the terrestrial ecosystems on the world's continents are thought to absorb around 2.6 billion metric tons of carbon each year). This is, as the lead author of the paper said, is a "major accounting error".... Previous papers have suggested that freshwater ecosystems may also be storing large quantities of carbon dioxide--perhaps as much as 600 million metric tons. There is an urgent need for further study, as precise measurements of natural carbon sources and sinks are vital for shaping policies on conservation, deforestation, and other issues. ...


"Major accounting errors" usually precede bankruptcies.

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Sun, Dec 5, 2010
from Daily Mail:
Jellyfish are taking over the oceans: Population surge as rising acidity of world's seas kills predators
Britain's beaches could soon be inundated with records numbers of jellyfish, marine experts warned today. Scientists say the number of jellyfish are on the rise thanks to the increasing acidity of the world's oceans. The warning comes in a new report into ocean acidification - an often overlooked side effect of burning fossil fuel.... The report, written by Dr Carol Turley of Plymouth University, said: 'Ocean acidification has also been tentatively linked to increased jellyfish numbers and changes in fish abundance.' Jellyfish are immune to the effects of acidification. As other species decline, jellyfish will move in to fill the ecological niche. Populations have boomed in the Mediterranean in recent years. Some marine scientists say the changing chemistry of the sea is to blame.... The report says acidification may push overstressed oceans into disaster with far reaching consequences the billions of people who rely on fish as their main protein source.... 'The basic chemistry of sea water is being altered on a scale unseen within fossil records over at least 20 million years,' the report said. ...


I hear Ashton Kutcher's mistress has a sex tape, and boy is he pissed!

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Tue, Nov 30, 2010
from Mongabay.com:
Consumer goods industry announces goal of zero deforestation in Cancun
While governments continue to stall on action to cut greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, global corporations are promising big changes to tackle their responsibilities. The Board of Consumer Goods Forum (BCGF) has approved a resolution to achieve net zero deforestation by 2020 in products such as palm oil, soy, beef, and paper. Announced yesterday at the UN Climate Summit in Cancun, the BCGF has stated the goal will be met both by individual actions within companies and collective action, including partnerships with NGOs, development banks, and governments. With such giants as Walmart, Unilever, Carrefour, and General Mills, BCGF is made up of four hundred global consumer goods manufacturers and retailers totaling over $2.8 trillion in revenue. ...


And in the meantime, maybe we can do our part by not consuming so much crap!

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Tue, Nov 2, 2010
from ScienceDaily:
Expanding Croplands Decreasing World's Carbon Sinks
Nature's capacity to store carbon, the element at the heart of global climate woes, is steadily eroding as the world's farmers expand croplands at the expense of native ecosystem such as forests. The tradeoff between agricultural production and maintaining nature's carbon reservoirs -- native trees, plants and their carbon-rich detritus in the soil -- is becoming more pronounced as more and more of the world's natural ecosystems succumb to the plow. The problem, experts say, is most acute in the tropics, where expanding agriculture often comes at the expense of the tropical forests that act as massive carbon sinks because of their rich diversity and abundance of plant life. The seriousness of the problem is documented in the most comprehensive and fine-grained analysis of the world's existing carbon stocks and global crop yields. The study is published online this in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Minnesota, Stanford University, Arizona State University and The Nature Conservancy.... "The main news is that agricultural production by clearing land in the tropics releases a lot of greenhouse gases per unit of food produced." ...


"Eating ourselves out of house and home" takes on a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

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Fri, Oct 22, 2010
from Reuters:
Plants clean air pollution better than expected
Plants, especially some trees under stress, are even better than expected at scrubbing certain chemical pollutants out of the air, researchers reported on Thursday. "Plants clean our air to a greater extent than we had realized," Thomas Karl of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, a federally funded research center based in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement. "They actively consume certain types of air pollution." Scientists have long known that plants take in carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas that can build up in the atmosphere and trap heat beneath it. But they did not know that some plants excel at sucking up a class of chemicals known as oxygenated volatile organic compounds, or oVOCs. ...


I always clean better when I'm under stress!

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Wed, Sep 22, 2010
from EPOCA:
Shellfish feel the burn: damage linked to atmospheric CO2
Last week, the National Academy of Sciences released a report on research of what has been called "the other carbon problem"--ocean acidification.... The NAS report says that we're way behind in studying this problem, which wasn't even fully recognized until recently. Just how far behind we are is made clear by a paper that will be released this week by PNAS, which reveals that two species of commercially harvested shellfish are likely to already be suffering increased mortality due to ocean acidification.... The interesting twist in the new work is that the authors also run the experiment under preindustrial CO2 levels of about 250ppm (actual levels were closer to 280ppm). For both species of shellfish, the mortality was much lower and development proceded more quickly. For the quahog, viability doubled (from 20 percent to 40 percent), while for the bay scallop, viability went from 43 percent to 74 percent. The animals made major developmental milestones more quickly--metamorphosis at day 14 occurred in half the animals at preindustrial CO2 levels, but that dropped to less than seven percent at modern levels. The authors helpfully point out that they've eliminated predation in their lab conditions. If the animals were subject to being eaten, the weaker shells that form at higher CO2 levels would almost certainly increase the mortality.... According to the paper, it's actually been over 24 million years since levels are likely to have been this high, and many shellfish have diversified more recently than that; any changes in CO2 in the intervening time have also been far more gradual than the current pace. ...


This wasn't supposed to happen until long after I was dead!

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Mon, Sep 13, 2010
from Carnegie Institution via ScienceDaily:
Carbon Mapping Breakthrough
By integrating satellite mapping, airborne-laser technology, and ground-based plot surveys, scientists from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, with colleagues from the World Wildlife Fund and in coordination with the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment (MINAM), have revealed the first high-resolution maps of carbon locked up in tropical forest vegetation and emitted by land-use practices. These new maps pave the way for accurate monitoring of carbon storage and emissions for the proposed United Nations initiative on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). ...


How wonderful that we can actually watch the horror unfold!

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Thu, Aug 26, 2010
from Sydney Morning Herald:
Declining trees spell gloom for planet
LESS rainfall and rising global temperatures are damaging one of the world's best guardians against climate change: trees. A global study, published in the journal Science, shows that the amount of carbon dioxide being soaked up by the world's forests in the past decade has declined, reversing a 20-year trend. It diminishes hopes that global warming can be seriously slowed down by the mass planting of trees in carbon sinks. Although plants generally grow bigger as a result of absorbing carbon-enriched air, they need more water and nutrients to do so, and they have been getting less. ...


There's always kudzu.

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Sat, Aug 14, 2010
from Anchorage Arctic Sounder:
Borehole network confirms, permafrost is thawing worldwide
An expanded network of boreholes across the northern hemisphere has confirmed that permafrost throughout polar and sub-polar regions is thawing, say scientists who studied the topic during International Polar Year... Using information collected from 575 boreholes located throughout North America, Russia and the Nordic region, researchers found that permafrost temperatures during the International Polar Year were as much as 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than they were 20 or 30 years ago. ...


My blood runs cold when I hear news like this.

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Mon, Aug 2, 2010
from University of Georgia, via EurekAlert:
Ice-free ocean may not absorb CO2
Scientists have been looking at ways the Earth might benefit from natural processes to balance the rising heat, and one process had intrigued them, a premise that melting ice at the poles might allow more open water that could absorb carbon dioxide, one of the major compounds implicating in warming. Now, though, in research just published in the journal Science and led by a University of Georgia biogeochemist, that idea may be one more dead end. In fact, a survey of waters in the Canada Basin, which extends north of Alaska to the North Pole, shows that its value as a potential carbon dioxide "sink" may be short-lived at best and minor in terms of what the planet will need to avoid future problems.... "But our research shows that as the ice melts, the carbon dioxide in the water very quickly reaches equilibrium with the atmosphere, so its use as a place to store CO2 declines dramatically and quickly. We never really understood how limited these waters would be in terms of their usefulness in soaking up carbon dioxide."... And because of this carbon dioxide uptake, the waters become quite acidic and "a poor environment for calcium-carbonate shell-bearing marine organisms," Cai said. ...


I'm not sure how a cul-de-sac can be composed of so many dead ends.

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Mon, Jul 19, 2010
from The Daily Climate:
New conservation model emerges in Canada's boreal
The scale of the conservation effort is staggering: 470,000 square miles - half the size of the Louisiana Purchase, five times the size of the U.S. national park system - forever shielded from logging, mining and damming. It is part of an ongoing and unprecedented drive to protect Canada's northern boreal forests, peat bogs, wetlands and tundra - a drive that is also changing how land managers view their stewardship, civic leaders approach economic growth and companies view their bottom line. And for the first time, some of the protections have a climate component. "It's our gift to future generations," said Alan Latourelle, chief executive officer of Parks Canada, the agency managing the nation's parks, which is in the process of doubling their size. "We're the last generation that can do that." ...


Hey, climate refugees! Have I got an ideal place for you!

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Thu, Jul 8, 2010
from New Scientist:
Sea otters worth $700 million in carbon credits
Want to slow global warming? Save a sea otter. So says Chris Wilmers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, whose team has calculated that the animals remove at least 0.18 kilograms of carbon from the atmosphere for every square metre of occupied coastal waters. That means that if sea otters were restored to healthy populations along the coasts of North America they could collectively lock up a mammoth 1010 kg of carbon - currently worth more than $700 million on the European carbon-trading market.... The figures are part of a growing realisation that predators play a crucial ecological role, promoting the growth of vegetation by controlling herbivore populations. Just as wolves benefit trees and shrubs by killing deer, sea otters allow the luxuriant growth of kelp by consuming sea urchins. In former kelp forests that have lost their otters, Wilmers says, "all you are left with is piles of urchins and very little else". ...


Are you crazy? We're not even paying them minimum wage!

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Wed, Jun 30, 2010
from PhysOrg:
Nutrients, viruses and the biological carbon pump
Adding nutrients to the sea could decrease viral infection rates among phytoplankton and enhance the efficiency of the biological pump, a means by which carbon is transferred from the atmosphere to the deep ocean, according to a new mathematical modelling study. The findings, published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, have implications for ocean geo-engineering schemes proposed for tackling global warming. Tiny free-floating algae called phytoplankton dominate biological production in the world's oceans and sit at the base of the marine food web. Their population dynamics are controlled by sunlight, nutrient availability, grazing by tiny planktonic animals (zooplankton) and mortality caused by viral infection. "Viruses are the most abundant organism in the world's oceans, and it is thought that all phytoplankton species are susceptible to infection. Our aim was to model the interaction between viruses, phytoplankton, zooplankton grazing and nutrient levels".... The researchers took an 'eco-epidemic' modelling approach, taking into account the mutual interaction between the effects of ecology and disease epidemiology. This approach has been used previously to model the effects of infection by pathogens on the population dynamics of mammals and invertebrate animals.... Artificial enhancement of the biological carbon pump by fertilizing the oceans with nutrients has been proposed as a possible geo-engineering 'fix' for global warming caused by the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide from anthropogenic sources. "The decrease in viral infection rates caused by artificially adding nutrients to the sea could in the future benefit humans by increasing the efficiency of the biological carbon pump, making these proposed ocean geo-engineering schemes more viable," said Dr Rhodes. ...


As far as I know, extra nutrients never caused any problems anywhere else.

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Wed, Jun 23, 2010
from National Research Council, Ocean Studies Board:
Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Ocean
Some of the strongest evidence of the potential impacts of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems comes from experiments on calcifying organisms; acidifying seawater to various extents has been shown to affect the formation and dissolution of calcium carbonate shells and skeletons in a range of marine organisms including reef-building corals, commercially-important mollusks such as oysters and mussels, and many phytoplankton and zooplankton species that form the base of marine food webs. It is important to note that the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is rising too rapidly for natural, CaCO3-cycle processes to maintain the pH of the ocean.... Ocean acidification may affect wild marine fisheries directly by altering the growth or survival of target species, and indirectly through changes in species' ecosystems, such as predator and prey abundance or critical habitat.... Beyond the value of commercial or recreational shellfish harvests, shellfish resources such as oyster reefs and mussel beds provide valuable ecosystem services. ...


I wonder how you "meet the challenges" of a dead ocean?

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Thu, Jun 10, 2010
from EPOCA:
The societal challenge of ocean acidification
[S]ince the beginning of the industrial revolution, the oceans have taken up approximately 30 percent of the CO2 produced from fossil fuel burning, cement manufacture and land use changes.... While the invasion of CO2 into the ocean removes this greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and thereby dampens global warming, it forms carbonic acid in seawater and lowers ambient surface ocean pH... [It] will become more pronounced as humankind emits more CO2 into the atmosphere, with surface ocean pH expected to decline by a further 0.3 pH units by the end of the century, corresponding to an approximately 100 percent increase in ocean acidity.... Such a rapid change in ocean pH has very likely not happened since the time the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. ...


We are way good at this shit.

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Fri, Apr 9, 2010
from Alaska Journal of Commerce:
Research expands to 'sister' issue of global warming
Rising temperatures and sea levels, melting glaciers and extreme weather dominate the discussion on global warming, but a parallel issue with potentially tremendous impact on Alaska's coastal waters is finally gaining attention. Increased research into ocean acidification caused by the saturation of water with carbon dioxide is the focus of Jeremy Mathis of University of Alaska Fairbanks, who stepped onto the national stage for the first time recently in a briefing to a mix of Congressmen, Senators and staffers in Washington, D.C.... A positive response from holders of the purse strings is essential to making up research ground on ocean acidification, which Mathis calls a "sister" or co-equal problem to global warming. Studies of its potential effects on the food chain are few and the lack of baseline data on ocean pH levels is a stark contrast to decades of temperature monitoring from stations positioned around the globe.... A decrease in these mineral levels to food web base species like pteropods, also known as sea butterflies, which make up 45 percent of the diet for juvenile pink salmon, can cause cascading waves of disruption up the food chain. Mathis' research shows a 10 percent decline in pteropod production can lead to a 20 percent reduction in the body weight of mature salmon.... ...


These sisters / are doing it to ourselves...

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Sun, Apr 4, 2010
from PhysOrg.com:
'Evil twin' threatens world oceans, scientists warn
"Ocean conditions are already more extreme than those experienced by marine organisms and ecosystems for millions of years," the researchers say in the latest issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE). "This emphasises the urgent need to adopt policies that drastically reduce CO2 emissions." Ocean acidification, which the researchers call the 'evil twin of global warming', is caused when the CO2 emitted by human activity, mainly burning fossil fuels, dissolves into the oceans. It is happening independently of, but in combination with, global warming.... "Evidence gathered by scientists around the world over the last few years suggests that ocean acidification could represent an equal - or perhaps even greater threat - to the biology of our planet than global warming." ...


That's a greater theoretical threat, right?

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Mon, Feb 15, 2010
from Telegraph.co.uk:
Pollution creating acid oceans
Researchers from the University of Bristol looked at how levels of acid in the ocean have changed over history. They found that as ocean acidification accelerated it caused mass extinctions at the bottom of the food chain that could threaten whole ecosystems in the future. The rapid acidification today is being caused by the massive amount of carbon dioxide being pumped out by cars and factories every year, which is absorbed by the water. Since the industrial revolution acidity in the seas have increased by 30 per cent.... Dr Ridgwell said acidification is actually occurring much faster today than in the examples they looked at from the past therefore "exceeding the rate plankton can adapt" and theatening the basis of much of marine life. This would mean fish and other creatures further up the food chain that human beings eat may be affected as soon as the end of this century. ...


Plankton? We don't need plankton! We just need fish.

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Thu, Feb 4, 2010
from PhysOrg.com:
Oceans reveal further impacts of climate change, says UAB expert
"The oceans are a sink for the carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere," says McClintock, who has spent more than two decades researching the marine species off the coast of Antarctica. Carbon dioxide is absorbed by oceans, and through a chemical process hydrogen ions are released to make seawater more acidic. "Existing data points to consistently increasing oceanic acidity, and that is a direct result of increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere; it is incontrovertible," McClintock says. "The ramifications for many of the organisms that call the water home are profound."... "In addition, the increased acidity of the seawater itself can literally begin to eat away at the outer surfaces of shells of existing clams, snails and other calcified organisms, which could cause species to die outright or become vulnerable to new predators." One study McClintock recently conducted with a team of UAB researchers revealed that the shells of post-mortem Antarctic marine invertebrates evidenced erosion and significant loss of mass within only five weeks under simulated acidic conditions. McClintock says acidification also could exert a toll on the world's fisheries, including mollusks and crustaceans. He adds that the potential loss of such marine populations could greatly alter the oceans' long-standing food chains and produce negative ripple effects on human industries or food supplies over time. ...


It may be scientifically incontrovertible -- if you believe in "science."

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Thu, Jan 28, 2010
from Nature, via BBC:
Temperature and CO2 feedback loop 'weaker than thought'
The most alarming forecasts of natural systems amplifying the human-induced greenhouse effect may be too high, according to a new report. The study in Nature confirms that as the planet warms, oceans and forests will absorb proportionally less CO2. It says this will increase the effects of man-made warming -- but much less than recent research has suggested. The authors warn, though, that their research will not reduce projections of future temperature rises. Further, they say their concern about man-made climate change remains high.... The team's calculations are based on a probabilistic analysis of climate variation between the years 1050 and 1800 -- that is, before the Industrial Revolution introduced fossil carbon into the atmosphere.... "We have plenty of reason to believe that the shape of the relationship may change (be nonlinear) when we 'hit the system harder'. So, I don't think they can rule out that the positive feedback from the carbon cycle could become stronger in a significantly warmer climate." ...


A nudge is a little different than a shove.

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Thu, Jan 21, 2010
from Seattle Times:
Pacific's rising acid levels threatening marine life
The most extensive survey of pH levels in the Pacific Ocean confirms what spot measurements have suggested: From Hawaii to Alaska, the upper reaches of the sea are becoming more acidic in concert with rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "If you see these changes across an entire ocean basin, you can be assured it's happening on a global scale in other ocean basins around the world," said Robert Byrne, a marine chemist at the University of South Florida and lead author of an upcoming paper in Geophysical Research Letters. Ocean acidification is a threat to shelled creatures and other marine life, and is a leading suspect in the ongoing crash of Pacific oyster populations in Washington.... As expected, the researchers found acidification was strongest in the top layer of water, closest to the atmosphere. Normal seawater is slightly alkaline, with a pH value of about 8. Over the past 15 years, average pH levels in the top 300 feet of the ocean dropped 0.026 pH units. That sounds tiny, but is equivalent to a 6 percent jump in acidity, Byrne said. ...


Nothing some Arm'n'Hammer won't fix!

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Mon, Jan 18, 2010
from Climate Dynamics, via EPOCA:
Reversible and irreversible impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in multi-century projections with the NCAR global coupled carbon cycle-climate model
The reversibility and irreversibility of impacts is quantified by comparing anthropogenically-forced regional changes with internal, unforced climate variability. We show that the influence of historical emissions and of non-CO2 agents is largely reversible on the regional scale. Forced changes in surface temperature and precipitation become smaller than internal variability for most land and ocean grid cells in the absence of future carbon emissions. In contrast, continued carbon emissions over the 21st century cause irreversible climate change on centennial to millennial timescales in most regions and impacts related to ocean acidification and sea level rise continue to aggravate for centuries even if emissions are stopped in year 2100. Undersaturation of the Arctic surface ocean with respect to aragonite, a mineral form of calcium carbonate secreted by marine organisms, is imminent and remains widespread. The volume of supersaturated water providing habitat to calcifying organisms is reduced from preindustrial 40 to 25 percent in 2100 and to 10 percent in 2300 for the high emission case. We conclude that emission trading schemes, related to the Kyoto Process, should not permit trading between emissions of relatively short-lived agents and CO2 given the irreversible impacts of anthropogenic carbon emissions. ...


Those scientists and their imaginary futures. I'm going back to playing "Halo 3."

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Sun, Jan 10, 2010
from New York Times:
Water Conservation Could Limit Suburban Lawns
...The all-American suburban lawn, the backdrop for everything from the illustrations in old Dick & Jane readers to House Beautiful, long ago began to fade in the drought-prone suburbs around San Francisco Bay. But now a 2006 state law, designed to conserve water by altering landscaping practices, is taking effect, and the changes that began three decades ago are likely to accelerate. One proposal being considered in Menlo Park could restrict lawns on new or reconfigured landscapes to no more than 500 square feet per dwelling unit or to no more than 25 percent of the landscaped area, whichever is larger. ...


But my lawn... is my life!

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Sun, Jan 10, 2010
from National Oceanography Centre, Southampton via ScienceDaily:
Echinoderms Contribute to Global Carbon Sink; Impact of Marine Creatures Underestimated
The impact on levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere by the decaying remains of a group of marine creatures that includes starfish and sea urchin has been significantly underestimated. "Climate models must take this carbon sink into account," says Mario Lebrato, lead author of the study.... Calcifying organisms incorporate carbon directly from the seawater into their skeletons in the form of inorganic minerals such as calcium carbonate. This means that their bodies contain a substantial amount of inorganic carbon. When they die and sink, some of the inorganic carbon is remineralised, and much of it becomes buried in sediments, where it remains locked up indefinitely.... There is a worry that ocean acidification due to increased carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels could reduce the amount of calcium carbonate incorporated into the skeletons of echinoderms and other calcifying organisms. ...


In other words, these carbon sinks... may be sunk!

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Wed, Dec 16, 2009
from New York Times:
Climate Talks Near Deal to Save Forests
COPENHAGEN -- Negotiators have all but completed a sweeping deal that would compensate countries for preserving forests, and in some cases, other natural landscapes like peat soils, swamps and fields that play a crucial role in curbing climate change. Environmental groups have long advocated such a compensation program because forests are efficient absorbers of carbon dioxide, the primary heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. Rain forest destruction, which releases the carbon dioxide stored in trees, is estimated to account for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. The agreement for the program, if signed as expected, may turn out to be the most significant achievement to come out of the Copenhagen climate talks, providing a system through which countries can be paid for conserving disappearing natural assets based on their contribution to reducing emissions. ...


Can I please get paid to not weed my garden?

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Thu, Dec 10, 2009
from UCLA, via EurekAlert:
UCLA researchers engineer bacteria to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel
In a new approach, researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have genetically modified a cyanobacterium to consume carbon dioxide and produce the liquid fuel isobutanol, which holds great potential as a gasoline alternative. The reaction is powered directly by energy from sunlight, through photosynthesis.... This new method has two advantages for the long-term, global-scale goal of achieving a cleaner and greener energy economy, the researchers say. First, it recycles carbon dioxide, reducing greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. Second, it uses solar energy to convert the carbon dioxide into a liquid fuel that can be used in the existing energy infrastructure, including in most automobiles. ...


Recycling -- with attitude!

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Thu, Dec 10, 2009
from CGIAR, via EurekAlert:
Disagreement over what constitutes a forest is Achilles' heel of REDD plan
Disagreement over what constitutes a forest could undermine an agreement to protect forests, which is expected to be one of the bright spots at the UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen, according to an analysis by the Alternatives to Slash and Burn (ASB) Partnership for Tropical Forest Margins.... "Countries can clear massive amounts of forest and still claim that deforestation had not occurred," said Peter A Minang, ASB Global Coordinator, who has extensive experience working with the REDD initiative. For example, replacement of tropical rainforests by oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia would not be considered 'deforestation' because the plantations meet the definition of a forest. Lands that have been clear cut or burned, but which remain under control of forest institutions, are also still considered forest. ...


We can't see the forest for the nomenclature.

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Thu, Dec 3, 2009
from Washington Post:
As emissions increase, carbon 'sinks' get clogged
In the race to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, scientists have been looking to forests and oceans to absorb the pollution people generate. Relying on nature to compensate for human excesses sounds like a win-win situation -- except that these resources are under stress from the very emissions we are asking them to absorb, making them less able partners in the pact...a global society of conservation biologists has launched a lobbying campaign, asking key decision-makers -- from the Danish officials chairing next week's climate talks in Copenhagen to U.S. lawmakers -- to push for steeper emission cuts to ensure that humans do not exhaust forests' capacity to store carbon in the decades to come. ...


Man up!, natural resources!

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Tue, Dec 1, 2009
from Times Online (UK):
Carbon must be sucked from air, says IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri
Drastic cuts in carbon emissions may not be sufficient to avoid the worst ravages of global warming and the world will need to suck carbon from the atmosphere to avert permanent damage to the climate, according to a leading world authority on climate science. In an interview with The Times, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), proposed that new techniques should be applied to help to mop up atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide that have been pumped into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. "There are enough technologies in existence to allow for mitigation," he said. "At some point we will have to cross over and start sucking some of those gases out of the atmosphere." ...


Go in reverse? That sucks indeed.

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Fri, Nov 13, 2009
from Telegraph.co.uk:
Threat of climate change should be treated like war say engineers
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) said it would be almost impossible for the UK to meet ambitious climate change targets to cut greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by 2050 without drastic action. The only way to reach the target would be to "go to war" against carbon emissions, its report said. This would mean setting up a Department of Climate Security to act like the War Cabinet and co-ordinate action across every other Government department. Unemployed people would be trained in making homes more energy efficient, factories would make solar panels and schools would encourage pupils to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Money would be pumped into wind turbines, nuclear power stations and solar panels as a matter of urgency. ...


We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the factories, we shall fight in our lifestyles. This is our finest hour.

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Fri, Oct 30, 2009
from London Guardian:
Canada sets aside its boreal forest as giant carbon vault
...In a series of initiatives, Canadian provincial governments and aboriginal leaders have set aside vast tracts of coniferous woods, wetlands, and peat. The conservation drive bans logging, mining, and oil drilling on some 250m acres -- an area more than twice the size of California...A report by the International Boreal Conservation Campaign said the forests, with their rich mix of trees, wetlands, peat and tundra, were a far bigger carbon store than scientists had realised, soaking up 22 percent of the total carbon stored on the earth's land surface....said Sue Libenson, a spokeswoman for the International Boreal Conservation Campaign... "The general premise is that there is still a hell of a lot of carbon in there." Its release would be a climate catastrophe. ...


CliTastrophe!

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Mon, Oct 26, 2009
from London Independent:
Illegal logging responsible for loss of 10 million hectares in Indonesia
Lush tropical rainforest once covered almost all of Indonesia's 17,000 islands between the Indian and Pacific oceans. And just half a century ago, 80 per cent remained. But since then, rampant logging and burning has destroyed nearly half that cover, and made the country the world's third largest emitter of greenhouses gases after the US and China. Indonesia still has one-tenth of the world's remaining rainforests, a treasure trove of rare plant and animal species, including critically endangered tigers, elephants and orang-utans. However, it is destroying its forests faster than any other country, according to the Guinness Book of Records, with an average two million hectares disappearing every year, double the annual loss in the 1980s. ...


Say it ain't so, Indo!

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Mon, Oct 26, 2009
from London Independent:
Historic chance to halt the scourge of deforestation
At last, the wreck of the rainforests is being tackled. One of the key parts of the Copenhagen climate agreement which the international community will try to construct in December is a comprehensive treaty aiming to reduce deforestation rates in the developing countries by at least 50 per cent by 2020.... as the threat of climate change has become more and more clear, there has been an growing perception that the biggest benefit of all that rainforests provide is their function as a carbon store, and the biggest danger from their destruction is the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when they are cut down and burnt. ...


I am beginning to think we better call it Hopenhagen.

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Wed, Oct 14, 2009
from London Times:
Marine plant life holds the secret to preventing global warming
Life in the ocean has the potential to help to prevent global warming, according to a report published today. Marine plant life sucks 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, but most of the plankton responsible never reaches the seabed to become a permanent carbon store. Mangrove forests, salt marshes and seagrass beds are a different matter. Although together they cover less than 1 per cent of the world's seabed, they lock away well over half of all carbon to be buried in the ocean floor. They are estimated to store 1,650 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year -- nearly half of global transport emissions -- making them one of the most intense carbon sinks on Earth. Their capacity to absorb the emissions is under threat, however: the habitats are being lost at a rate of up to 7 per cent a year, up to 15 times faster than the tropical rainforests. A third have already been lost. ...


"Preventing global warming...?" Can we build a time machine from marine plant life?

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Sat, Oct 10, 2009
from DOE, via EurekAlert:
Nitrogen cycle now in climate models, refines global predictions
For the first time, climate scientists from across the country have successfully incorporated the nitrogen cycle into global simulations for climate change, questioning previous assumptions regarding carbon feedback and potentially helping to refine model forecasts about global warming.... In this case, scientists found that the rate of climate change over the next century could be higher than previously anticipated when the requirement of plant nutrients are included in the climate model.... But by taking the natural demand for nutrients into account, the authors have shown that the stimulation of plant growth over the coming century may be two to three times smaller than previously predicted. Since less growth implies less CO2 absorbed by vegetation, the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are expected to increase. ...


Will you guys stop refining your models, already?

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Tue, Oct 6, 2009
from London Guardian:
UN's forest protection scheme at risk from organised crime, experts warn
A revolutionary UN scheme to cut carbon emissions by paying poorer countries to preserve their forests is a recipe for corruption and will be hijacked by organised crime without safeguards, a Guardian investigation has found. The UN, the World Bank, the UK and individuals including Prince Charles have strongly backed UN plans to expand the global carbon market to allow countries to trade the carbon stored in forests. If, as expected, this is agreed at crucial UN climate change talks taking place in Bangkok this week and concluding in Copenhagen in December, up to $30bn a year could be transferred from rich countries to the owners of endangered forests. ...


I'd like to get in on a little action myself.

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Sat, Sep 5, 2009
from Mongabay:
Investing in conservation could save global economy trillions of dollars annually
By investing billions in conserving natural areas now, governments could save trillions every year in ecosystem services, such as natural carbon sinks to fight climate change, according to a European report The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). As reported by Reuters, a one time investment of 45 billion dollars in protected areas the global economy could save ecosystem services worth 4.5-5.2 trillion annually, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters, adding that this was more than the value of the global car, steel and information technology sectors. ...


That's kind of risky. I'll stick with credit default swaps.

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Tue, Aug 25, 2009
from University of Adelaide, via EurekAlert:
World's last great forest under threat: New study
The world's last remaining "pristine" forest -- the boreal forest across large stretches of Russia, Canada and other northern countries -- is under increasing threat, a team of international researchers has found.... The researchers... have called for the urgent preservation of existing boreal forests in order to secure biodiversity and prevent the loss of this major global carbon sink.... The boreal forest comprises about one-third of the world's forested area and one-third of the world's stored carbon, covering a large proportion of Russia, Canada, Alaska and Scandinavia.... "Much world attention has focused on the loss and degradation of tropical forests over the past three decades, but now the boreal forest is poised to become the next Amazon," says Associate Professor Bradshaw, from the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute. ...


I'm not liking that comparison at all.

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Sat, Aug 22, 2009
from New York Times:
In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let the Trees Stand
...Deforestation, a critical contributor to climate change, effectively accounts for 20 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions and 70 percent of the emissions in Brazil. Halting new deforestation, experts say, is as powerful a way to combat warming as closing the world’s coal plants. But until now, there has been no financial reward for keeping forest standing. Which is why a growing number of scientists, politicians and environmentalists argue that cash payments ... are the only way to end tropical forest destruction and provide a game-changing strategy in efforts to limit global warming. ...


Then money DOES grow on trees!

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Sat, Aug 8, 2009
from University of Hawaii, via ScienceDaily:
Researchers Reveal Ocean Acidification At Station ALOHA In Hawaii
Since the beginning of the industrial age, CO2-driven acidification of the surface oceans has already caused a 0.1 unit lowering of pH, and models suggest that another 0.3 pH unit drop by the year 2050 is likely. Continued acidification of the sea may have a host of negative impacts on marine biota, and has the potential to alter the rates of ocean biogeochemical processes. Despite the global environmental importance of ocean acidification, there are few studies of sufficient duration, accuracy and sampling intensity to document the rate of change of ocean pH and shed light on the factors controlling its variability.... [However,] Dore, along with SOEST co-authors Karl, Lukas, Matt Church and Dan Sadler, found that over the two decades of observation, the surface ocean grew more acidic at exactly the rate expected from chemical equilibration with the atmosphere. However, that rate of change varied considerably on seasonal and inter-annual timescales, and even reversed for one period of nearly five years. The year-to-year changes appear to be driven by climate-induced changes in ocean mixing and attendant biological responses to mixing events. ...


In this case, "exactly as expected" may be "worse than we imagined."

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Sun, Jun 14, 2009
from The Economist:
REDDy and waiting
THESE are critical times for trees. In some places -- like Peru, where police and indigenous folk are doing battle -- the future of the forests is being determined by lethal force. Guyana is seeking money from the rich world to help keep most of its land forested. In other places, eco-warriors merely have to hack their way through a thicket of arcane technicalities. One such place is Bonn, where diplomats from most countries in the world are haggling over financial incentives to keep trees intact... The talks are working on details of an idea known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD): it aims to fold the saving of trees into a wider UN effort to cool the world. At the moment, the UN system offers no rewards for leaving trees alone. ...


A la Pink Floyd, sing with me: Hey, teacher, leave them trees alone!

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Sat, Jun 6, 2009
from BusinessGreen:
Rainforests could be more profitable standing, says research
The Indonesian rainforest is worth more to businesses standing than if it was felled, according to new research. A study published in the journal Conservation Letters shows that a scheme that would give palm oil companies -- largely responsible for deforestation in the region -- carbon credits for protecting rainforests would make them more money than clearing land to grow plants for palm oil. Palm oil is used in a number of cosmetic products as well as man biofuels. The scheme, called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd), could go a long way towards protecting rainforests, Oscar Venter from the University of Queensland told the BBC. "If Redd does become part of the next international climate agreement, it will have the potential to fund forest protection in areas slated for oil palm conversion," said Dr Venter, who led the research. ...


And, if we can build a theme park or two in the rainforest... even more profit!

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Wed, Jun 3, 2009
from WorldWatch Institute:
Farmers Poised to Offset One-Quarter of Global Fossil Fuel Emissions Annually
Innovations in food production and land use that are ready to be scaled-up today could reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to roughly 25 percent of global fossil fuel emissions and present the best opportunity to remove greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, according to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute and Ecoagriculture Partners. As the price of carbon rises with new caps on emissions and expanding markets for carbon offsets, the contribution of land-based, or "terrestrial," carbon to climate change mitigation efforts could increase even further.... Mobilizing agricultural carbon sequestration is therefore an essential tool in the effort to reduce the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases to the 350 parts-per-million level that many scientists argue we must achieve to avoid catastrophic climate change. A recent assessment published by Worldwatch in State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World found that emissions of carbon dioxide will have to "go negative" -- with more being absorbed than emitted -- by 2050 to achieve this goal. ...


Growing ourselves out of this problem sure has a nice ring to it.

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Thu, May 21, 2009
from The Economist:
Thaliaceans and the carbon cycle
The thaliacean graveyard off Côte d'Ivoire came as a surprise because not much was known at the time about what happens to animals with gelatinous bodies, whether chordates or jellyfish, after they have died. And it set Mr Lebrato and Dr Jones thinking, because if thaliaceans are falling to the bottom of the sea in large numbers, they might be taking a lot of carbon with them. Until then gelatinous animals had largely been ignored by researchers studying the carbon cycle (the way that element moves through land, sea, air and living creatures) because gelatinous bodies were thought to contain a lot of water and thus relatively little carbon. However, as Mr Lebrato and Dr Jones report in Limnology and Oceanography, when they analysed thaliacean tissues they found that the creatures were one-third carbon by weight. That was much more than they expected. Jellyfish, by comparison, are 10 percent carbon, and diatoms (single-celled algae that are common in plankton) 20 percent. It also helps explain why thaliaceans are so dense—and thus sink so quickly after they die.... Even if the carbon is not permanently buried, the lack of mixing between deep and shallow water in the ocean means that it is likely to stay down there for a long time—something that will have to be added to computer models of how the climate works. The carbon cycle has thus acquired another epicycle, and become even more complicated to understand than it was. ...


It's clear that the thaliaceans have not been doing their jobs!

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Sat, May 16, 2009
from Inter Press Service:
Deep CO2 Cuts May Be Last Hope for Acid Oceans
Ocean acidification offers the clearest evidence of dangers of climate change. And yet the indisputable fact that burning fossil fuels is slowly turning the oceans into an acid bath has been largely ignored by industrialised countries and their climate treaty negotiators, concluded delegates from 76 countries at the World Oceans Conference in Manado, Indonesia. Oceans and coastal areas must be on the agenda at the crucial climate talks in Copenhagen in December, they wrote in a declaration. "We must come to the rescue of the oceans," declared Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the opening of high-level government talks on Thursday in the northern city of Manado.... Each day, the oceans absorb 30 million tonnes of CO2, gradually and inevitably increasing their acidity. There is no controversy about this basic chemistry. ...


"No controversy"??? Come on, skeptics! Quit yer slackin'!

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Tue, Apr 28, 2009
from New Scientist:
How to turn greenhouse gas into a clean fuel
Converting a greenhouse gas into a clean-burning fuel offers two benefits for the price of one. That's the thinking behind a novel process for converting carbon dioxide into methanol at room temperature.... "Our catalyst isn't toxic, and the reaction happens rapidly at room temperature," says team leader Jackie Ying. The catalyst used by Ying's team is a type of chemical called an N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC). The mechanism by which the NHC speeds up the conversion is uncertain, but it appears to change the shape of the CO2 molecule, "activating" it in a way that makes it easier for hydrogen to bond with its carbon atom, says team member Yugen Zhang. ...


A converter in every home? That would suck... carbon dioxide.

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Fri, Apr 17, 2009
from Agence France-Presse:
Forests could flip from sink to source of CO2: study
Forests that today soak up a quarter of carbon pollution spewed into the atmosphere could soon become a net source of CO2 if Earth's surface warms by another two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), cautions a report to be presented Friday at the UN. Plants both absorb and exhale carbon dioxide, but healthy forests -- especially those in the tropics -- take up far more of the greenhouse gas than they give off. When they are damaged, get sick or die, that stored carbon is released....Authored by 35 of the world's top forestry scientists, the study provides the first global assessment of the ability of forests to adapt to climate change. Manmade warming to date -- about 0.7 C since the mid-19th century -- has already slowed regeneration of tropical forests, and made them more vulnerable to fire, disease and insect infestations. Increasingly violent and frequent storms have added to the destruction. ...


From sink.... to sunk.

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Mon, Apr 13, 2009
from University of Bath via ScienceDaily:
Hemp Could Be Key To Zero-carbon Houses
Hemp, a plant from the cannabis family, could be used to build carbon-neutral homes of the future to help combat climate change and boost the rural economy, say researchers at the University of Bath. A consortium, led by the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials based at the University, has embarked on a unique housing project to develop the use of hemp-lime construction materials in the UK. Hemp-lime is a lightweight composite building material made of fibres from the fast growing plant, bound together using a lime-based adhesive. The hemp plant stores carbon during its growth and this, combined with the low carbon footprint of lime and its very efficient insulating properties, gives the material a ‘better than zero carbon’ footprint. ...


Dude, where's my house?

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Fri, Apr 10, 2009
from Science Daily:
Climate Change Leads To Major Decrease In Carbon Dioxide Storage
The North Atlantic Ocean is one of the Earth’s tools to offset natural carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, the ‘carbon sink’ in the North Atlantic is the primary gate for carbon dioxide (CO2) entering the global ocean and stores it for about 1500 years. The oceans have removed nearly 30 per cent of anthropogenic (man-made) emissions over the last 250 years. However, several recent studies show a dramatic decline in the North Atlantic Ocean's carbon sink....They believe the decrease is a natural phenomenon as a result of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which causes weather patterns to change. ...


Sounds like one of our major sinks... is sunk!

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Wed, Mar 11, 2009
from Christian Science Monitor:
Canada’s carbon sink has sprung a leak
Billions of tiny mountain pine beetles are treating Canada’s boreal forest like a 3,000-mile-long salad bar, transforming a key absorber of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas into a CO2 emitter instead. In just a decade, exploding beetle populations and a rise in wildfires have flipped Canada’s boreal forest from its longstanding role as a natural carbon vacuum – sucking up 55 million or more tons of CO2 annually – to that of a giant tailpipe emitting up to 245 million tons of CO2 each year, according to the Canadian Forest Service. That sharp about-face is raising questions about the future of northern forests worldwide that are being hit hard by global warming – including Russia’s massive boreal expanse, where wildfires have risen dramatically. ...


From Dudley Do-Right to Dudley Do-Wrong!

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Fri, Mar 6, 2009
from London Independent:
Revenge of the rainforest
It covers an area 25 times bigger than Britain, is home to a bewildering concentration of flora and fauna and is often described as the "lungs of the world" for its ability to absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide through its immense photosynthetic network of trees and leaves. The Amazon rainforest is one of the biggest and most important living stores of carbon on the planet through its ability to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into solid carbon, kept locked in the trunks of rainforest trees for centuries. But this massive natural "sink" for carbon cannot be relied on to continue absorbing carbon dioxide in perpetuity, a study shows. Researchers have found that, for a period in 2005, the Amazon rainforest actually slipped into reverse gear and started to emit more carbon than it absorbed. Four years ago, a sudden and intense drought in the Amazonian dry season created the sort of conditions that give climate scientists nightmares. Instead of being a net absorber of about two billion tons of carbon dioxide, the forest became a net producer of the greenhouse gas, to the tune of about three billion tons. The additional quantity of carbon dioxide left in the atmosphere after the drought - some five billion tons - exceeded the annual man-made emissions of Europe and Japan combined. What happened in the dry season of 2005 was a stark reminder of how quickly the factors affecting global warming can change. ...


So the Rainforest... is a Drainforest!

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Thu, Feb 26, 2009
from USFS, via EurekAlert:
Study finds hemlock trees dying rapidly, affecting forest carbon cycle
Otto, NC -- New research by U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) scientists and partners suggests the hemlock woolly adelgid is killing hemlock trees faster than expected in the southern Appalachians and rapidly altering the carbon cycle of these forests.... Eastern hemlock, a keystone species in the streamside forests of the southern Appalachian region, is already experiencing widespread decline and mortality because of hemlock woolly adelgid (a tiny nonnative insect) infestation. The pest has the potential to kill most of the region's hemlock trees within the next decade. As a native evergreen capable of maintaining year-round transpiration rates, hemlock plays an important role in the ecology and hydrology of mountain ecosystems.... The authors suggest that infrequent frigid winter temperatures in the southern Appalachians may not be enough to suppress adelgid populations. ...


But at least we'll have one fewer means of suicide!

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Thu, Feb 19, 2009
from Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, via EurekAlert:
Cleaning the atmosphere of carbon: African forests out of balance
"If you assume that these forests should be in equilibrium, then the best way to explain why trees are growing bigger is anthropogenic global change -- the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could essentially be acting as fertilizer." says Muller-Landau, "But it's also possible that tropical forests are still growing back following past clearing or fire or other disturbance. Given increasing evidence that tropical forests have a long history of human occupation, recovery from past disturbance is almost certainly part of the reason these forests are taking up carbon today." Muller-Landau, who directs a project to monitor carbon budgets in forest study sites worldwide as part of the Smithsonian's Center for Tropical Forest Science and the HSBC Climate Partnership, advises that this newfound sink shouldn't be taken for granted, or presumed to continue indefinitely. "While we still can't explain exactly what is behind this carbon sink, one thing we know for sure is that it can't be a sink forever. Trees and forests just can't keep getting bigger. Tropical forests are buying us a bit more time right now, but we can't count on them to continue to offset our carbon emissions in the future." ...


Just a wee bit more time.

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Wed, Feb 11, 2009
from New Scientist:
Eating less meat could cut climate costs
Cutting back on beefburgers and bacon could wipe $20 trillion off the cost of fighting climate change. That's the dramatic conclusion of a study that totted up the economic costs of modern meat-heavy diets. The researchers involved say that reducing our intake of beef and pork would lead to the creation of a huge new carbon sink, as vegetation would thrive on unused farmland. The model takes into account farmland that is used to grow extra food to make up for the lost meat, but that requires less area, so some will be abandoned. Millions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, would also be saved every year due to reduced emissions from farms. These impacts would lessen the need for expensive carbon-saving technologies, such as "clean coal" power plants, and so save huge sums, say Elke Stehfest of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and colleagues. ...


Have it your way.

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Fri, Jan 30, 2009
from Guardian (UK):
Carbon trading may be the new sub-prime, says energy boss
"We like certainty about a carbon price," he said. "[But] the carbon price has to become simple and not become a new type of sub-prime tool which will be diverted from what is its initial purpose: to encourage real investment in real low-carbon technology." Green campaigners have long been critical of the way the emissions trading scheme was set up, but it is unusual for a leading industry figure to cast doubt on it, as power companies lobbied hard for a market mechanism to deal with global warming. "We are at the tipping point where we ... should wonder if we have in place the right balance between government policy, regulator responsibility and the market mechanism which will deliver the carbon price," said de Rivaz. ...


When industry lobbies hard for a market mechanism to fix a problem, follow the money.

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Fri, Jan 23, 2009
from BBC (UK):
Climate shift 'killing US trees'
Old growth trees in western parts of the US are probably being killed as a result of regional changes to the climate, a study has suggested. Analysis of undisturbed forests showed that the trees' mortality rate had doubled since 1955, researchers said. They warned that the loss of old growth trees could have implications for the areas' ecology and for the amount of carbon that the forests could store.... "Because mortality increased in small trees, the overall increase in mortality rates cannot be attributed to ageing of large trees," they added.... "We may only be talking about an annual tree mortality rate changing from 1 percent a year to 2 percent, but over time a lot of small numbers add up," said co-author Professor Mark Harmon from Oregon State University. He feared that the die-back was the first sign of a "feedback loop" developing.... Another member of the team, Dr Nate Stephenson, said increasing tree deaths could indicate a forest that was vulnerable to sudden, widespread die-back. ...


I so was hoping it was just the Baby Boomers dying off.

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Fri, Jan 2, 2009
from Chicago Tribune:
Canada's forests, once huge help on greenhouse gases, now contribute to climate change
As relentlessly bad as the news about global warming seems to be, with ice at the poles melting faster than scientists had predicted and world temperatures rising higher than expected, there was at least a reservoir of hope stored here in Canada's vast forests. The country's 1.2 million square miles of trees have been dubbed the "lungs of the planet" by ecologists because they account for more than 7 percent of Earth's total forest lands. They could always be depended upon to suck in vast quantities of carbon dioxide, naturally cleansing the world of much of the harmful heat-trapping gas. But not anymore. In an alarming yet little-noticed series of recent studies, scientists have concluded that Canada's precious forests, stressed from damage caused by global warming, insect infestations and persistent fires, have crossed an ominous line and are now pumping out more climate-changing carbon dioxide than they are sequestering. Worse yet, the experts predict that Canada's forests will remain net carbon sources, as opposed to carbon storage "sinks," until at least 2022, and possibly much longer. ...


So... Ronald Reagan WAS right. Trees do cause pollution!

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Sun, Dec 7, 2008
from London Independent:
Ancient skills 'could reverse global warming'
Ancient techniques pioneered by pre-Columbian Amazonian Indians are about to be pressed into service in Britain and Central America in the most serious commercial attempt yet to reverse global warming. Trials are to be started in Sussex and Belize early in the new year, backed with venture capital from Silicon Valley, on techniques to take carbon from the atmosphere and bury it in the soil, where it should act as a powerful fertiliser....They aim to grow trees and plants to absorb CO2 and then trap the carbon by turning the resulting biomass into "biochar", a fine-grained form of charcoal that can be buried in the soil, keeping it safely locked up for thousands of years. ...


And you make biochar with fires started with my handy, ancient fire-bow drill!

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Thu, Oct 9, 2008
from University of Alaska Fairbanks via ScienceDaily:
Arctic Soil May Contain Nearly Twice Greenhouse-Gas Producing Material Than Previously Estimated
Frozen arctic soil contains nearly twice the greenhouse-gas-producing organic material as was previously estimated, according to recently published research by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists. School of Natural Resources & Agricultural Sciences professor Chien-Lu Ping published his latest findings in Nature Geoscience... Ping predicted that a two- to three-degree rise in air temperatures could cause the arctic tundra to switch from a carbon sink -- an area that absorbs more carbon dioxide than it produces -- to a carbon source -- an area that produces more carbon dioxide than it absorbs. ...


Now there's the horror story of our times: from carbon sink to carbon source.

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Wed, Sep 10, 2008
from Oregon State University, via EurekAlert:
Old growth forests are valuable carbon sinks
Contrary to 40 years of conventional wisdom, a new analysis to be published Friday in the journal Nature suggests that old growth forests are usually "carbon sinks" -- they continue to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change for centuries.... "Carbon accounting rules for forests should give credit for leaving old growth forest intact," researchers from Oregon State University and several other institutions concluded... "Much of this carbon, even soil carbon, will move back to the atmosphere if these forests are disturbed." ...


So these carbon sinks, if disturbed, can become carbon drains.

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Tue, Aug 5, 2008
from Toronto Globe and Mail:
Virgin forests more efficient at storing carbon
"Untouched natural forests store three times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated and 60 per cent more than plantation forests, a new Australian study of "green carbon" and its role in climate change says. Green carbon occurs in natural forests, brown carbon is found in industrialized forests or plantations, grey carbon in fossil fuels and blue carbon in oceans. Australian National University scientists said that the role of untouched forests – and their biomass of green carbon – had been underestimated in the fight against global warming." ...


Like a virgin... Cut for the very first time... Like a virrrgin... When your chainsaw... Makes me feel fine...

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Thu, Jul 24, 2008
from Ohio State University:
Paying to save tropical forests could reduce carbon emissions
Wealthy nations willing to collectively spend about $1 billion annually could prevent the emission of roughly half a billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year for the next 25 years, new research suggests. It would take about that much money to put an end to a tenth of the tropical deforestation in the world, one of the top contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, researchers estimate. If adopted, this type of program could have potential to reduce global carbon emissions by between 2 and 10 percent. ...


A billion a year? Come on, make it 10 billion!

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Mon, Jul 7, 2008
from Science, via Science Daily:
Acidifying Oceans Add Urgency To Carbon Dioxide Cuts
[H]uman emissions of carbon dioxide have begun to alter the chemistry of the ocean--often called the cradle of life on Earth. The ecological and economic consequences are difficult to predict but possibly calamitous, warn a team of chemical oceanographers in the July 4 issue of Science, and halting the changes already underway will likely require even steeper cuts in carbon emissions than those currently proposed to curb climate change.... Although the ocean's chemical response to higher carbon dioxide levels is relatively predictable, the biological response is more uncertain. The ocean's pH and carbonate chemistry has been remarkably stable for millions of years--much more stable than temperature. ...


We're in for an ocean of troubles.

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Fri, May 16, 2008
from Science Daily (US):
Soils Contain Huge Amounts Of Ancient Carbon: When Does This Carbon Enter The Atmosphere?
"As the planet is warming up, this carbon is being released from the soil into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, but there are in fact two types of carbon -- 'new' carbon, which has recently entered the soil through vegetation, and 'old' carbon, which has been locked up in the soil for years... The implications of knowing this are very important and it will enable us to determine for the first time what the consequences of changes in land use might be for climate change... As more CO2 is released from the soil, the temperature is going to increase further -- it could almost be a runaway reaction." ...


We've been waging war on soil for a century. Guess we didn't realize we were losing.

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Tue, Apr 15, 2008
from American Chemical Society:
Ancient Method, Black Gold
"Fifteen hundred years ago, tribes people from the central Amazon basin mixed their soil with charcoal derived from animal bone and tree bark. Today, at the site of this charcoal deposit, scientists have found some of the richest, most fertile soil in the world. Now this ancient, remarkably simple farming technique seems far ahead of the curve, holding promise as a carbon-negative strategy to rein in world hunger as well as greenhouse gases." ...


We love those tribes people!

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Mon, Mar 24, 2008
from Guardian (UK):
Krill fishing threatens Antarctic species
The Antarctic, one of the planet's last unspoilt ecosystems, is under threat from mankind's insatiable appetite for harvesting the seas. The population of krill, a tiny crustacean, is in danger from the growing demand for health supplements and food for fish farms. Global warming has already been blamed for a dramatic fall in numbers because the ice that is home to the algae and plankton they feed on is melting. Now 'suction' harvesting which gathers up vast quantities has been introduced to meet the increased demand. It threatens not just krill, but the entire ecosystem that depends on them, say environmental campaigners. Krill are also believed to be important in removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by eating carbon-rich food near the surface and excreting it when they sink to lower, colder water to escape predators. ...


"But Page warns: 'What we don't want to do is what we have done in pretty much every fishery in the world. We thought the natural resources of the sea were unlimited; we have proved time and time again that's not the case.'"
Once again with the
evidence-based reality thing.

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Tue, Mar 18, 2008
from Hartford Courant:
Carbon Dioxide Up For Sale
"For the first time in the U.S., carbon dioxide goes on sale in September — and the bidding will start at $1.86 a ton. A consortium of 10 states, including Connecticut, said Monday it will hold the first auction of carbon emissions "allowances" on Sept. 10, part of a plan to curb greenhouse gases from the region's power plants and slow global warming. Subsequent auctions will be held quarterly, and power plant operators — who until now have been able to emit without paying — will have until the end of 2011 to acquire enough credits to account for all of their CO{-2} emissions. "It's a new model not just for the region but for the nation," said state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy. "It's a way we can make greenhouse gas reductions achievable but do it in way that costs are contained, that protects the interests of the consumer." ...


Kinda reminds us of the birth of our nation, when all of New England and states south of it banded together.

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Sat, Dec 8, 2007
from ScienceDaily:
Ocean Plankton Reducing Greenhouse Gases By Using More Carbon Dioxide
"Microscopically tiny marine organisms known as plankton increase their carbon uptake in response to increased concentrations of dissolved CO2 and thereby contribute to a dampening of the greenhouse effect on a global scale. An international group of scientists led by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany documented this biological mechanism in a natural plankton community for the first time." ...


For every action, there's often an equal and contraindicated reaction.

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