Stickiness and Climate Models: Open Climate Models (2)
Stickiness and Climate Models: Open Climate Models (2)
In the previous entry I motivated the need for communities other than scientists to have access not just to the results from climate models, but to the ability to configure climate models for possible changes to the Earth’s surface and to investigate the impact of those changes. An example I used was the possibility of a project to irrigate the Sahara – a project where it was reasonable to ask how both weather and climate might be modified.
We don’t have to imagine futuristic projects like this to make the argument that more access to configurable, evaluated climate models is needed. Some might recall an entry where I was writing about managing aerosols and greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide to control warming in the near-term. That entry had been motivated by an outstanding presentation by Professor V. Ramanathan from the University of California San Diego. (I recommend specifically this part of Ram’s web page.) He was talking about an experiment where he was going to investigate whether or not changing cook stoves in India could reduce black carbon in the atmosphere, leading to reduced warming of the planet. While Professor Ramanathan has access to climate models and access to experts to design model experiments, he is not the only interested party in the execution and the results of the model experiments. It is easy to see that all of the regional governments would be interested in their own evaluations; many non-governmental organizations would be interested, as well as corporations and citizens.
In order to get buy in from all of these entities, people will want to be able to evaluate the information and its quality. They are likely going to want to pose their own questions. If such an undertaking was to proceed under the auspices of a treaty, then it is easy to imagine a country wanting to, say, develop its own climate modeling capabilities. And, of course, we will want to evaluate whether or not any action has had the predicted effect. Finally, remember that a scientific evaluation would require that independent researchers verify the information from other researchers.
My argument, suggested in a couple of earlier entries, is that community approaches are called for because of the complexity and ultimate scale that is involved (Using Projections, Downscaling). This stands in contrast to other ways to approach this problem, for example, users forming collaborations with scientists at universities and laboratories, or a new breed of climate consultancy with the needed expertise. No doubt, these other forms of developing climate information will occur and grow; it is the way that weather information is obtained. Restating, I don’t think that the simple extension of the way we provide weather services provides what is needed for climate services.
I want to state, explicitly, that I am in no way making the statement that the community of climate scientists and the availability of climate data and climate information are, fundamentally, closed. In fact, I have argued the contrary - that by the standards of any large, complex knowledge base that I can think of - the data, the analysis, and the deliberations of the climate community are free and available (for example Trust, but Verify, Strength in Many Peers). And without exaggeration, historian Paul Edwards has studied both weather and climate science as pioneering examples of the development of data and information sharing communities - A Vast Machine). That the climate community is excessively closed is part of the political argument. If any readers are aware of good studies about openness of research communities, then please send me (directly) references. My argument is that the requirement to extend the use of climate information to uncountable application communities challenges the current notions of community.
The provision of climate models that are configurable by non-scientists, presumably non-expert communities, is difficult and controversial. I recently gave a talk on this subject at Supercomputing 2010, and the slides of my presentation are linked here. In the next few articles in this series I want to explore some of the challenges that need to be overcome if there were to be open innovation and development of climate models, some ideas on how address the challenges, and some strategies on how to think about uncertainty in climate projections.
Developing Climate Models: Some basic problems
A climate model is built from component models that represent the atmosphere, the oceans, the land surface and the Earth’s ice – the cryosphere. Each of these models is composed of sub-component models, for example, cumulus cloud models. If you were to look around at the clouds, sky, the plants, the people, the landscape, the streams, and ask the question – how do I represent these things as numbers? How do I represent how these things will change? How do I represent how these things interact with each other? If you ask these questions, then you start to appreciate what needs to be included in a climate model. The answers to these questions get written up as narratives and computer codes that in some approximate way represents both the observed behavior and how that behavior changes. This leads to hundreds of thousands lines of computer code, which represent the knowledge of hundreds of types of researchers. To bring all of this together is a big management problem. To make sure that all the pieces work together is not straightforward; there is no single prescription; it is, sometimes, arcane and artistic.
Figure 1. Components of a model of the Earth’s Climate.
Add on top of this inherent tangle of ideas and codes our history, and it only makes the problem harder. We build on existing models, which requires us to use what exists. In some cases it is safe to say that there is computer code 30 years old, written in languages that are no longer taught. It’s a little like trying to keep ancient stone buildings from falling down. This heritage code provides a stubborn inertia that inhibits change and modernization.
Then to this heritage code add to the mix the nature of the computational problem. For as long as I have been a scientist, say 30 years, weather and climate models require the largest computers available, and these supercomputers are not programmed like your Apple or your PC. I know people Putman at NASA today who are trying to scale climate models to run on more than 100,000 processors. To be clear, that is a single model requiring 100,000 processors to run in concert with each other, which is far different than having 100,000 little models running independently. (Weather fans should remember L. F. Richardson). And we cannot stop the weather forecasts and the climate assessments to build something fundamentally new; our mission requires us to keep working along with what we have.
The take away message from this little exposé is that we have a highly specialized problem, with potentially overwhelming complexity, and a long history of how we have managed to get things done. “Managed to get things done” is at the core. All of the scientists and the codes are spread all over. They are not in any formal sense, managed, and we have had to develop management strategies to help control the complexity. We have this tension between management and community and creativity.
I have managed large weather and climate modeling activities when I was at NASA. On a good day, I maintain that I managed this successfully. When I was a manager I sought control, and I grimaced at some naïve ideas of community. My experience tells me that we need to investigate new ways of model development and model use. This need arises because the complexity is too large to control, and this is especially true as we extend the need to use climate models to investigate energy policy decisions and, especially, adaptation to climate change.
In the past decade we have seen the emergence of community approaches to complex problem solving. Within these communities we see the convergence of creativity and the emergence of solution paths. We see self-organizing and self-correcting processes evolve. Counter intuitively, perhaps, we see not anarchy, but the emergence of governance in these open communities. The next entry in the series will focus more on describing open communities.
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Pakistani Flood Relief Links
Doctors Without Borders
The International Red Cross
MERLIN medical relief charity
U.S. State Department Recommended Charities
The mobile giving service mGive allows one to text the word "SWAT" to 50555. The text will result in a $10 donation to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Pakistan Flood Relief Effort.
Portlight Disaster Relief at Wunderground.com
An impressive list of organizations
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Oh! He read it alright but you can't teach an old dog new tricks!
NOAA Hurricane Research Director to Receive AMS Suomi Award
December 2, 2010
Frank Marks, Ph.D., director of hurricane research at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, will receive the prestigious Verner E. Suomi Award by the American Meteorological Society. Marks will receive the Suomi medallion at the AMS 91st Annual Meeting in Seattle on Jan. 26, 2011.
The Suomi award is presented in recognition of highly significant technological achievement in the atmospheric or related oceanic and hydrologic sciences. The 14th recipient of the prestigious award, Marks is being honored for his creative use of airborne Doppler radar and other technologies to advance understanding of the dynamics of tropical cyclones.
“I am delighted and extremely proud that the AMS has recognized Dr. Marks for his landmark contributions to airborne Doppler radar observations,” said Robert Atlas, Ph.D., director of NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. “His vision and passion to develop and apply Doppler radar technology for tropical meteorology field research has allowed for tremendous improvement in understanding hurricane structure and rainfall, benefiting the scientific community and the nation.”
Marks began his career with NOAA after earning his master’s and doctoral degrees in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. He has worked as a research meteorologist in AOML’s Hurricane Research Division since 1980 and as the division director since 2003.
Over the course of his career, Marks has flown more than 200 research missions in tropical cyclones aboard NOAA’s hurricane hunter aircraft, the flying laboratories that carry the radar he helped develop and establish as an integral hurricane observation tool. His research focus is in radar remote sensing — ground-based, airborne and spaceborne — of tropical cyclones and mesoscale convective systems to understand the storm kinematic and precipitation structure.
“I am deeply honored by this recognition and want to recognize all of my colleagues within NOAA who helped to make it possible, especially those who maintain and operate the research aircraft and whose dedication and skill made my accomplishments possible,” Marks said.
In addition to the Suomi Award, Marks has received other awards during his tenure with NOAA, including many for his outstanding performance as a federal manager and leader in the scientific community.
Link
NOAA’s Prediction for Active Season Realized; Slow Eastern Pacific Season Sets Record
November 29, 2010
According to NOAA the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends tomorrow, was one of the busiest on record. In contrast, the eastern North Pacific season had the fewest storms on record since the satellite era began.
In the Atlantic Basin a total of 19 named storms formed – tied with 1887 and 1995 for third highest on record. Of those, 12 became hurricanes – tied with 1969 for second highest on record. Five of those reached major hurricane status of Category 3 or higher.
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November 24, 2010
Today, out of an abundance of caution, NOAA has closed 4,213 square miles of Gulf of Mexico federal waters off Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama to royal red shrimping. The precautionary measure was taken after a commercial shrimper, having hauled in his catch of the deep water shrimp, discovered tar balls in his net.
Fishing for royal red shrimp is conducted by pulling fishing nets across the bottom of the ocean floor. The tar balls found in the catch may have been entrained in the net as it was dragged along the seafloor.
Other fishing at shallower depths in this area has not turned up any tar balls and is thus not impacted by this closure. The fisherman who reported this catch had trawled for brown shrimp in shallow waters in a different portion of the area to be closed earlier in the day without seeing tar balls.
Following the report of tar balls, NOAA was in contact with shrimpers involved in royal red shrimping in this area. Only a handful of the approximately 250 permitted royal red shrimp fishermen are currently active in the fishery. The tar balls are being analyzed by the U.S. Coast Guard to determine if they are from the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill.
This decision was made in consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The closure becomes effective at 6 p.m. EST and does not apply to any state waters.
%u201CWe are taking this situation seriously. This fishery is the only trawl fishery that operates at the deep depths where the tar balls were found and we have not received reports of any other gear or fishery interactions with tar balls.%u201D said Roy Crabtree, assistant NOAA administrator for NOAA%u2019s Fisheries Service southeast region. %u201COur primary concerns are public safety and ensuring the integrity of the Gulf%u2019s seafood supply.
Royal red shrimp are caught in Gulf waters deeper than 600 feet and are the only species targeted with trawls at these depths. The more common Gulf shrimp species are brown, white and pink shrimp and are caught in waters less than 300 feet deep. The agency has received no reports of tar balls from fishermen that target other species in that area. Fishing for other shellfish and finfish species within this area is still allowed.
These waters were closed to all commercial and recreational fishing earlier this summer because of the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill and were reopened to all fishing on November 15 after hundreds of seafood specimens sampled from the area, including royal red shrimp, passed both sensory and chemical testing. Additionally, no oil was observed in the area for a period of 30 days prior to the reopening.
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NOAA Proposes Listing Ringed and Bearded Seals as Threatened Under Endangered Species Act
December 3, 2010
NOAA%u2019s Fisheries Service is proposing to list four subspecies of ringed seals, found in the Arctic Basin and the North Atlantic, and two distinct population segments of bearded seals in the Pacific Ocean, as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The proposed listings cite threats posed by diminishing sea ice, and additionally, for ringed seals, reduced snow cover. NOAA climate models were used to predict future sea ice conditions.
One of the five recognized subspecies of ringed seals, the Saimaa in Finland, is already listed as endangered under the ESA. Under the proposed rules published today in the Federal Register, the remaining four subspecies of ringed seals %u2013 Arctic, Okhotsk, Baltic and Ladoga %u2013 would all be listed as threatened.
Ringed seals are found in the Arctic Basin (including the Bering Sea), western North Pacific (Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan), and in the North Atlantic in the Baltic Sea and Lakes Ladoga and Saimaa east of the Baltic Sea.
Throughout most of its range, the Arctic ringed seal does not come ashore and uses sea ice for whelping, nursing, molting, and resting. Ringed seal pups are normally born in snow caves in the spring, and are vulnerable to freezing and predation without them. Timing of spring ice break-up, snow depths on sea ice, and late-winter rain can adversely affect snow cave formation and occupation. That the species produces only a single pup each year may limit the ringed seal%u2019s ability to respond to environmental challenges such as the diminishing ice and snow cover.
Because of these factors, NOAA%u2019s Fisheries Service has found that these four sub-species of ringed seal are at risk of becoming endangered within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of their ranges, warranting a listing as threatened.
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Threshold Sea Surface Temperature for Hurricanes and Tropical Thunderstorms Is Rising
ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2010) — Scientists have long known that atmospheric convection in the form of hurricanes and tropical ocean thunderstorms tends to occur when sea surface temperature rises above a threshold. The critical question is, how do rising ocean temperatures with global warming affect this threshold? If the threshold does not rise, it could mean more frequent hurricanes.According to a new study by researchers at the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) of the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM), this threshold sea surface temperature for convection is rising under global warming at the same rate as that of the tropical oceans.
Their paper appears in the journal Nature Geoscience.
In order to detect the annual changes in the threshold sea surface temperature, Nat Johnson, a postdoctoral fellow at IPRC, and Shang-Ping Xie, a professor of meteorology at IPRC and UHM, analyzed satellite estimates of tropical ocean rainfall spanning 30 years. They find that changes in the threshold temperature for convection closely follow the changes in average tropical sea surface temperature, which have both been rising approximately 0.1°C per decade.
"The correspondence between the two time series is rather remarkable," says lead author Johnson. "The convective threshold and average sea surface temperatures are so closely linked because of their relation with temperatures in the atmosphere extending several miles above the surface."
The change in tropical upper atmospheric temperatures has been a controversial topic in recent years because of discrepancies between reported temperature trends from instruments and the expected trends under global warming according to global climate models. The measurements from instruments have shown less warming than expected in the upper atmosphere. The findings of Johnson and Xie, however, provide strong support that the tropical atmosphere is warming at a rate that is consistent with climate model simulations.
"This study is an exciting example of how applying our knowledge of physical processes in the tropical atmosphere can give us important information when direct measurements may have failed us," Johnson notes.
The study notes further that global climate models project that the sea surface temperature threshold for convection will continue to rise in tandem with the tropical average sea surface temperature. If true, hurricanes and other forms of tropical convection will require warmer ocean surfaces for initiation over the next century.
This work was supported by grants from NOAA, NSF, NASA, and JAMSTEC.
I actually prefer Cozumel to Cancun. It used to be really laid back but has lately been getting more touristy . There is a hotel there called the Coral Princess. It has a coral shelf at the waters edge instead of a sand beach and you just jump into about 10 feet of water and there are fish everywhere. Grand Cayman has some places at the north end of Seven Mile Beach that are similar, even better. If you guys are right, in about 75 years Manhattan will have many such places.
Would that be acceptable?
Cyclone, I was only talking about Cozumel because it's a pick-me-up on a gray 20 degree day here in Columbus Ohio.
Is it acceptable? What do you think?
My guess is that a warmer world over a couple hundred years would be a boon to mankind. Yes, we'd lose some real estate, but what about the reduction in fuel costs and health benefits?
You guys try to make it sound like one day we turn around and all the great coastal cities are under water. That's an absurd conclusion to draw. Even in your worst scenario there would be plenty of time to adjust. We have built great cities in less than one generation's time. I think in a couple centuries and with a few good landscape architects and developers we could move mountains let alone cities.
Is this also acceptable which is happening at the same time? Which by the way my tunnel idea can stop.
(Reuters) - Acidification of the seas linked to climate change could threaten fisheries production and is already causing the fastest shift in ocean chemistry in 65 million years, a U.N. study showed on Thursday.
Production of shellfish, such as mussels, shrimp or lobsters, could be most at risk since they will find it harder to build protective shells, according to the report issued on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in Mexico.
It could also damage coral reefs, vital as nurseries for many commercial fish stocks.
"Ocean acidification is yet another red flag being raised, carrying planetary health warnings about the uncontrolled growth in greenhouse gas emissions," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).
"Whether ocean acidification on its own proves to be a major or a minor challenge to the marine environment and its food chain remains to be seen," he said in a statement.
A UNEP booklet reviewing scientific findings about ocean acidification, caused by water soaking up greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, said that it adds to threats to food security that already include overfishing and pollution.
"It's the speed of change ... that is the cause of concern," said Carol Turley, of the UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme.
DINOSAURS
"We don't think it has been experienced by the marine environment for 65 million years," when the dinosaurs vanished, she said, presenting a booklet entitled "Environmental consequences of ocean acidification: a threat to food security."
About 25 percent of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, are absorbed by the seas, where it converts to carbonic acid. The pH value of the oceans, a scale from alkaline to acidic, has fallen 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution in a shift to acidity.
"We are speaking about a threat especially to the shellfish industry," said Joseph Alcamo, the chief scientist of UNEP. Aquaculture production ranges from French mussels to shrimp in Thailand.
It would also damage coral reefs, and fish that swim around reefs. About a billion people worldwide rely on fish as their main source of protein.
There was evidence that acidification had other effects, for instance impairing the sense of smell of bright-colored clown fish and making it harder for them to avoid predators.
And there were other puzzling findings. Some adult lobsters were apparently increasing shell-building even though juveniles were less able to build healthy skeletons.
But the summer that broke heat records across the Northern Hemisphere is still being felt below the surface of the Caribbean Sea: 2010 will likely be one of the most deadly years on record for coral reefs.
If diplomats attending the two-week global climate change talks that opened Monday in Cancún, Mexico, want more evidence of the negative and potentially devastating affects of warming temperatures, they need look no further than the blue sea outside their hotels. Researchers say that throughout the Caribbean coral reefs are “bleaching,” a condition that occurs when they are under extreme stress due to warmer-than-normal sea temperatures.The last major bleaching, in 2005, resulted in the death of 40 percent of corals in parts of eastern Caribbean. When full results are in, this year is likely to be worse, scientists said.
“When we average out the net bleaching events and severity across the Caribbean basin, 2010 (and more than likely 2011) will go down in the record books as having the most severe bleaching and coral mortality in over 20 years,” says Rick MacPherson, conservation programs director of the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL).
Coral feels heat
Under normal conditions, algae live symbiotically within the coral, giving it color and providing it with a source of food. But under stress, the coral expels the algae, leaving it whitened, or “bleached.” The longer the coral remains bleached, the more likely it is to die, according to marine biologists.
Following a hot summer – the fourth hottest on record for the US, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – nearly the entire Caribbean was at risk for bleaching. While some bleaching occurs every year, this year stands out.
“Temperatures are high in the Caribbean, and we expect this to continue. This season has the potential to be one of the worst bleaching seasons for some reefs,” Mark Eakin, coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, said in a statement in late September.
The phenomenon is not confined to the Caribbean. Coral reefs in Southeast Asia and in the Indian Ocean are experiencing their worst bleaching since 1998. Scientists expect similar results for the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia.
Reefs worth $375 billion a year
The environmental and economic impacts are potentially enormous.
Coral covers less than 1 percent of the ocean floor but provides habitat and supports as much as 25 percent of all marine life. Coral reefs are home to more than 1 million aquatic species. And barrier reefs knock down waves before they reach shore, cutting down on the rate of coastal erosion, according to coral reef conservation groups.An oft-cited 1998 study, “Reefs at Risk,” found that the food, tourism revenue, coastal protection, and value of new medications provided by coral reefs is worth about $375 billion a year.Described by some as the tropical rainforests of the sea and others as bustling little cities of marine life, today’s coral reefs are between 5,000 and 10,000 years old. But the past 30 years have been particularly difficult for them. One study suggests that some areas of the Caribbean lost 80 percent of live coral since 1977.
90-degree water
That’s why marine biologists are worried about another massive bleaching like that of 2005. Scientists had hoped that an active hurricane season would stir ocean waters, bringing up colder waters. Coral reefs grow best in temperatures between 70 and 85 degrees F., according to Coral Reef Alliance.
But the 19 named storms that barreled across the Atlantic Ocean, ending with Tropical Storm Tomas, did little to cool off waters. In some areas, water temperatures reached nearly 90 degrees F.
“Some areas of the Caribbean have been experiencing varying levels of bleaching and stress from this year’s unusually warm sea surface temperatures,” Mr. MacPherson says. “Winds have been relatively still throughout the eastern Caribbean and, as a result, little mixing of sea water has been occurring.”
From the coast of Panama to the eastern Caribbean, divers are finding white masses where once brilliantly colored seascapes stood.
'Extensive bleaching'
Off the coast of Tobago in the southern Caribbean, scientists from Coral Cay, a conservation group, reported bleaching accompanied by an unknown fungal disease covering sponges.
“It’s pretty snowy down there,” says Marie Smedley, lead scientist for Coral Cay’s team in Tobago. “The water temperatures are cooling down now and that’s a good thing. … But we’ve seen extensive bleaching around the island.”
In western Caribbean, divers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute found bleaching and water temperatures that were 7 degrees F. warmer than normal – as warm as 89 degrees.
Off the Caribbean coast of Hispaniola – the second largest island in the region behind Cuba – Dominican marine biologist Ruben Torres found that 5 percent of the coral colonies he checked on a recent SCUBA dive trip had some bleaching.
“Our coast was not affected as [badly] as the southern Caribbean,” near Tobago, he says. “I think we got lucky this year.”
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Yale Environment 360: Unless we change the way we live, the Earth's coral reefs will be utterly destroyed within our children's lifetimes, says marine scientist JEN Veron
Over the past decades, there have dozens of articles in the media describing dire futures for coral reefs. In the 1960s and '70s, we were informed that many reefs were being consumed by a voracious coral predator, the crown-of-thorns starfish. In the 1980s and '90s, although these starfish still reared their thorny heads from time to time, the principal threats had moved on — to sediment runoff, nutrients, overfishing, and general habitat destruction.
For me, an Australian marine scientist who has spent the past 40 years working on reefs the world over, these threats were of real concern, but their implications were limited in time or in space or both. Although crown-of-thorns starfish can certainly devastate reefs, the impacts of sediments, nutrients and habitat loss have usually been of greater concern, and I have been repeatedly shocked by the destruction I have witnessed. However, nothing comes close to the devastation waiting in the wings at the moment.
You may well feel that dire predictions about anything almost always turn out to be exaggerations. You may think there may be something in it to worry about, but it won't be as bad as doomsayers like me are predicting. This view is understandable given that only a few decades ago I, myself, would have thought it ridiculous to imagine that reefs might have a limited lifespan on Earth as a consequence of human actions. It would have seemed preposterous that, for example, the Great Barrier Reef — the biggest structure ever made by life on Earth — could be mortally threatened by any present or foreseeable environmental change.
Yet here I am today, humbled to have spent the most productive scientific years of my life around the rich wonders of the underwater world, and utterly convinced that they will not be there for our children's children to enjoy unless we drastically change our priorities and the way we live.
A decade ago, my increasing concern for the plight of reefs in the face of global temperature changes led me to start researching the effects of climate change on reefs, drawing on my experience in reef science, evolution, biodiversity, genetics, and conservation, as well as my profound interests in geology, palaeontology, and oceanography, not to mention the challenging task of understanding the climate science, geochemical processes, and ocean chemistry.
When I started researching my book, A Reef in Time: The Great Barrier Reef from Beginning to End (Harvard, 2008), I knew that climate change was likely to have serious consequences for coral reefs. But the big picture that gradually emerged from my integration of these disparate disciplines left me shocked to the core.
In a long period of deep personal anguish, I turned to specialists in many different fields of science to find anything that might suggest a fault in my own conclusions. But in this quest I was depressingly unsuccessful. The bottom line remains: Science argues that coral reefs can indeed be utterly trashed in the lifetime of today's children. That certainty is what motivates me to spread this message as clearly, and accurately, as I can.
So what are the issues? Most readers will know that there have been several major episodes of mass bleaching on major reef areas worldwide over the past 20 years. In the late-1980s when the first mass bleaching occurred, there was a great deal of concern among reef scientists and conservation organizations, but the phenomenon had no clear explanation. Since then, the number and frequency of mass bleachings have increased and sparked widespread research efforts.
Corals have an intimate symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae, zooxanthellae, which live in their cells and provide the photosynthetic fuel for them to grow and reefs to form. The research showed that this relationship can be surprisingly fragile if corals are exposed to high light conditions at the same time as above-normal water temperatures, because the algae produce toxic levels of oxygen, and excessive levels of oxygen are toxic to most animal life. Under these conditions, corals must expel the zooxanthellae, bleach, and probably die or succumb to the toxin and definitely die. A tough choice, one they have not had to make at any time in their long genetic history.
We tend to think of temperature in terms of our day-to-day comfort level. We don't have to be told that atmospheric temperature shows huge swings and variations from day to night, among seasons, and cyclically on other scales. Early critics of global warming used this variability to argue that there was no evidence for overall thermal increases. This missed the point and delayed our recognition of the true problem because atmospheric temperature is only a minor part of the Earth's thermal picture.
By far the most important mobile heat sinks on the planet are the oceans. As the greenhouse effect from elevated CO2 has increased, the oceans have absorbed more heat. The surface layers are affected most as mixing to the depths can take hundreds of years. Large ocean masses such as the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool do not continue to warm further, but rather they broaden and deepen. Now they commonly become so large that their outer edges are pulsed onto the continental margins, where waters are warmed further. This creates the mortal dilemma for corals — to expel or not to expel their oxygen-producing zooxanthellae.
Ecosystems can recover from all sorts of abuse, and coral reefs are no exception. Good recoveries from bleaching have been observed, provided that further events do not occur while the ecosystem is re-establishing. Unfortunately, there are no signs that greenhouse gas increases are moderating, and so we can assume that the frequency and severity of bleaching events will continue to increase — on our present course, the worst bleaching year we have had to date will be an average year by 2030, and a good year by 2050. Ocean and atmospheric rises in temperature are also predicted to increase the severity of cyclones, which will add an extra burden on the recovery process.
Scientists don't need a pocket calculator to conclude that compressing the time periods between events in this way will prevent recovery: If we do not take action, the only corals not affected by mass bleaching by 2050 will be those hiding in refuges away from strong sunlight.
But there is more bad news. A decade or so ago, we thought that mass bleaching was the most serious threat to coral reefs. How wrong we were. It is clear now that there is a much more serious crisis on the horizon — that of ocean acidification. This will not only affect coral reefs (although reefs will be hit particularly hard), but will impact all marine ecosystems. The potential consequences of ocean acidification are nothing less than catastrophic. The ultimate culprit is still CO2 but the mechanism is very different.
Normally there is a balance between CO2 in the atmosphere and its derivatives in surface waters of the ocean. As with temperature, the oceans act as a huge repository, absorbing and buffering any excess CO2 in the atmosphere. For this process to be efficient the oceans must have time for mixing to occur between its different layers, renewing the surface buffers from below. When CO2 increases too rapidly, these chemical reactions can falter, altering the balance of the buffers and gradually allowing the oceans to become less alkaline.
All organisms that produce calcium carbonate skeletons (including shells, crabs, sea urchins, corals, coralline algae, calcareous phytoplankton, and many others) depend on their ability to deposit calcium carbonate, and this process is largely controlled by the prevailing water chemistry. As alkalinity decreases, precipitation of calcium carbonate becomes more and more difficult until eventually it is inhibited altogether. The potential consequences of such acidification are nothing less than catastrophic.
In my book, I examine the events that led up to each of the five mass extinctions in Earth's history. Corals offer a unique insight into the past, both because they have been around for most of the history of life on Earth and also because they readily fossilize. I examine the theories offered to explain these global extinctions and find that ocean acidification is the only explanation which fits the evidence well. Ocean acidification has played a major part in the marine devastations which took place in those ancient times.
A particularly galling aspect of the past four mass extinction events (very little is known about the first) is that, following them, reefs disappeared — not just for a few tens of thousands of years, but for millions of years — long after adverse climatic conditions may have returned to benign levels. One of the characteristics of acidification is that while it can be initiated by high CO2 levels over relatively short periods, there are no short-term geochemical fixes to reverse the process. Reversal can take place only through the immensely slow weathering and dissolution processes of geological time, processes that take hundreds of thousands to millions of years.
Ocean physics dictates that we will observe the effects of acidification in colder and deeper waters before it spreads to shallower tropical climes. The early stages of acidification have now been detected in the Southern Ocean and, surprisingly perhaps, in tropical corals. On our current trajectory of increasing atmospheric CO2, we can expect that by 2030 to 2050 the acidification process will be affecting all the oceans of the world to some degree. At that point, the relatively cool, deep-water tropical regions that have offered refuges to corals from temperature stress will be those most affected by acidification.
No doubt different species of coral, coralline algae, plankton, and mollusks will show different tolerances, and their capacity to calcify will decline at different rates. But as acidification progresses, they will all suffer from some form of coralline osteoporosis. The result will be that corals will no longer be able to build reefs or maintain them against the forces of erosion. What were once thriving coral gardens that supported the greatest biodiversity of the marine realm will become red-black bacterial slime, and they will stay that way.
Another concept of great importance is that of commitment — a word climatologists use only too often. Many of the consequences of our current actions cannot yet be seen, and yet the Earth is already committed to their path. This delayed reaction is due to the inertia of the oceans, both thermal and chemical. The greenhouse gases we produce today will take a number of decades (and sometimes more) to unleash their full fury, but their effects are unavoidable and unstoppable. We cannot afford to wait until the predictions of science can be totally verified, because by that time it will be too late. How many of us wish to explain to our children and children's children that the predictions were there but we wanted confirmation?
Coral reefs speak unambiguously about climate change. They survived Ice Age sea-level changes of 120 meters or more with impunity. They once survived in a world where CO2 from volcanoes and methane was much higher than anything predicted today. But that was over 40 million years ago, and the increase took place over millions of years, not just a few decades, time enough for ocean equilibration to take place and marine life to adapt.
This is not what is happening today. Ponder these facts: The atmospheric levels of CO2 we are already committed to reach, no matter what mitigation is now implemented, have no equal over the entire longevity of the Great Barrier Reef, perhaps 25 million years. And most significantly, the rate of CO2 increase we are now experiencing has no precedent in all known geological history.
Reefs are the ocean's canaries and we must hear their call. This call is not just for themselves, for the other great ecosystems of the ocean stand behind reefs like a row of dominoes. If coral reefs fail, the rest will follow in rapid succession, and the Sixth Mass Extinction will be upon us — and will be of our making.
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It sure looks like the 2010 turnaround time is going to be real short this year compared to past years! What's up with that?
'Greener' climate prediction shows plants slow warming
GREENBELT, Md. -- A new NASA computer modeling effort has found that additional growth of plants and trees in a world with doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide levels would create a new negative feedback – a cooling effect – in the Earth's climate system that could work to reduce future global warming.
The cooling effect would be -0.3 degrees Celsius (C) (-0.5 Fahrenheit (F)) globally and -0.6 degrees C (-1.1 F) over land, compared to simulations where the feedback was not included, said Lahouari Bounoua, of Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Bounoua is lead author on a paper detailing the results that will be published Dec. 7 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-12/nsfc-cp120710.php
They will never be able to it because as we run out of fossil fuel and population explodes we will need more bio fuel to take it's place and so you can say goodbye to planting.
We are doomed!
So much for the negative 0.3 degree F feedback drop in temperature. In fact you add it to the 6.0 degree F projected increase in temperature making it 6.3 degrees F making it another positive feedback. But is that really another positive feedback? It sure sounds negative to me how about you?
This isn't about planting, it is about a response from all plants.
And, I didn't post it concerning a number. My point is that we know so very little and are constantly coming up with new and different model results, not to mention actual measurement.
But no one had any comment about that part. They must know all there is to know about climate already and I bored them with the notion otherwise.
You don't get it. There may not be any plants/forests when fossil fuel runs out due to the population explosion they will need to build houses and use bio fuel to replace the fossil fuel.
Pacific Sperm Whales Exposed to PAHs, Pesticides, Other Pollutants
The biomarker does not prove the animals came in contact with manmade contamination or industrial waste, she said. It reveals exposure to a compound whether it's manmade, such as industrial combustion, or naturally produced, such as a volcano or forest fire. However, the enzyme does show the animals are coming in contact with compounds known to induce molecular changes.
Additional studies are needed to further characterize the relationship between CYP1A1 expression and pollutant burden in sperm whales and other cetaceans, as well as exposures to industrial and natural sources of PAHs, she said.
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ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2010) — Family members who smoke are more apt to feel it is OK to smoke indoors as their children get older. But in households with secondhand smoke, children between 12 and 17 are 1.67 times more prone to have recurrent ear infections compared to adolescents who live in a smoke-free environment, a large new study reveals.
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The warming effects of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas have been known for a long time, says Caldeira. But he and fellow Carnegie scientist Long Cao were concerned that it is not as widely recognized that carbon dioxide also warms our planet by its direct effects on plants. Previous work by Carnegie's Chris Field and Joe Berry had indicated that the effects were important. "There is no longer any doubt that carbon dioxide decreases evaporative cooling by plants and that this decreased cooling adds to global warming," says Cao. "This effect would cause significant warming even if carbon dioxide were not a greenhouse gas."
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Hey Aggie - wondering if you've ever posted anything here that you didn't find on Watts Up With That?
Just saying, you know.
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They sound like two peas in the same pod don't they?
Is it there? I subscribe to a EurekAlert list and is in my.yahoo.
Let's go see if Watts has anything substantive to say about it...
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Nope. Just the press release. Exactly the same thing as everywhere else, but tainted, somehow, because of the URL, I guess. Whatever.
In pre-historical times of less CO2 ppm, yeah, they survived. Did they grow as fast? Of course not.
And, the discussion of extremes is a little silly. *Some* plant matter will survive anything and after a major event, then available resources just help the surviving plants come back quickly. After a forest fire, flood, drought, plants come back, and fast. Down here, in Katrina's flood zone, everyone can tell you that a lot of plant matter initially died from flood and saltwater, but a year later, lots of overgrown areas where the plants came back faster than the humans. Only the bad erosion areas lost in any permanent way.
"High CO2 levels might have one benefit for plant growth in an indirect way. Plants will need fewer openings in their leaves to exchange gases (stomata). Stomata let water vapor out from leaves. So if leaves develop fewer stomata to get the CO2 they need, plants will lose less water and be more drought-tolerant."
Drought tolerant? How do you know that or will they wilt and die and now more deserts arrive.
I already know all that see post 128 where it talks about that!
Underwater Suspension Tunnels And Climate Control
Posted by: cyclonebuster | 07 Dec 10 | Leave a comment | Edit
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If Greenpeace wants to stop global warming they must build my Tunnels. That way it will solve all the problems they have deemed caused by global warming by restoring our planets temperature to pre-industrial revolution temperatures.
I know what they can do for climate control and every aspect of how the planet can benefit from them just from regulation of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the enormous amount of electrical power they can produce from the kinetic energy in the gulf stream current. I understand how and why they work physically in the real world but I really can't figure out the math behind them. Is there a mathematical formula that can prove how and why they work? I built a test scale model (1/650) out of PVC pipe and used red food coloring to show how water is forced uphill from the kinetic energy and made videos of it on youtube.
In its simple form F1>F2 but I will explain where F1 and F2 come from and try to piece it together.
If the whole tunnel structure is submerged and anchored to the sea floor and the Tunnel inlet at depth is faced into the 6mph gulf stream current opposing its flow a certain amount of pressure at the tunnel inlet will exist depending on the depth it is. That pressure at the tunnel inlet I call force 1. The Tunnel outlet near the surface also has a certain amount of pressure depending on how deep it is. This force I call force 2.
Two very important people discovered long ago what will happen at both ends of the tunnel. One was Pascal and the other Was Bernoulli. What I did was combine these principles to do work. At tunnel inlet at depth Force 1 exists as the gulf stream flow impinges against the mouth of the tunnel inlet. That force is transferred to the inside walls of the tunnel and the pressure decreases with altitude. Pascal discovered the theory of hydraulics where if you apply a force to a cylinder that force is transferred everywhere within that cylinder including the walls of the cylinder. So tunnel inlet where force 1 exist I credit Pascal.
Now for the other end of the submerged tunnel near the surface where force two exists at the outlet. As the 6mph gulf stream flows past the tunnel exit a more negative pressure is created like on a airplanes wing where lift is created as the air flows over the wing or like in perfume bottle when you squeeze the bulb creating a more negative pressure in the mixing chamber drawing the fluid upwards. I credit this application to Bernoulli.
So if you combine both forces Pascal at the opening at depth and Bernoulli at the opening near the surface you can see there is a pressure differential set up across the whole tunnel structure throughout its height. Pascal states where ever there is a differential of pressure flow will occur.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fh_RXiEinU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6O6UHpKT_E
http://www.sciencechatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16890
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A number of studies have actually emitted CO2 in part of fields, sections of forests, etc. and found CO2 being THE limiting factor.
I hadn't shown any links, as my (little bit) of knowledge on the matter was from presentations at a conference...I might have to spend a little time finding those. (Not brand new, that conference was 6 years ago).
I think they were DOE researchers.....maybe.
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