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Overfishing is one of the most serious threats to marine food supplies. Image: By Fabien Bazanegueon Unsplash

Heat extremes harm harvests. So do floods, drought and high winds. Climate change spurs food shocks that threaten the supper table.

LONDON, 1 February, 2019 − More than ever, the world’s ways of keeping hunger at bay are taking a pounding as food shocks become more frequent. Potatoes are being baked in heat waves. Corn is being parched by drought. Fruit is being bitten by frost.

And a long-term study suggests that for the world’s farmers and graziers, fishing crews and fish farmers, things will get worse as the world warms. Australian and US scientists report in the journal Nature Sustainability that they examined the incidence of what they call “food shocks” across 134 nations over a period of 53 years.

They found that some regions and some kinds of farming have suffered worse than others; that food production is vulnerable to volatile climate and weather changes; and that the dangers are increasing with time.

The researchers looked at cases of dramatic crop failure, harvest loss and fishing fleet failures between 1961 and 2013, as recorded by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and other sources, and then mapped shock frequency and co-occurrence.

In their database of 741 available time-series of food production, they found 226 cases of food shock: dramatic interruption of supply.

Hunger increases

Agriculture and livestock emerged as slightly more vulnerable to shock than fisheries and aquaculture. South Asia suffered most from crop damage or loss; the Caribbean for livestock, and Eastern Europe for fisheries; some of these regions were hard hit in more than one sector.

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Human carbon emissions to rise in 2019

January 31, 2019

Human carbon emissions to rise in 2019

Tropical forests continue to suffer devastation. Image: By ViniLowRaw on Unsplash

Here comes another dismal science forecast, with human carbon emissions due to rise this year. Forests may be unable to keep pace as global warming increases.

LONDON, 31 January, 2019 − Stand by for a year in which global warming can only get worse as human carbon emissions climb still further. British meteorologists warn that although 2018 broke all records for greenhouse gas emissions, 2019 will see even more carbon dioxide take up long-term residence in the planetary atmosphere.

And it will happen for two reasons, both of them nominally at least under human control. The overall release of carbon dioxide from power stations, factory chimneys, cement quarries, car exhausts and so on will continue to rise with fossil fuel combustion, even though there has been greater investment than ever in renewable resources such as wind and solar energy.

And those natural “sinks” that absorb extra carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it as living timber in the forests, or bones and shells in the oceans, are expected to under-perform.

This is largely because of natural cyclic variation in the tropical climate, but also partly because humans continue to degrade grasslands and fell or burn the forests that naturally absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and return oxygen for the animal world to breathe.

Hawaii’s unique record

Climate scientists know what is going to happen because they can see the future already written in a unique 60-year-old cycle of data recorded high on a mountaintop in Hawaii, in the Pacific, far from any heavy industry or city pollution that might distort the local chemistry of the atmosphere.

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Permafrost thaws as global warming sets in

January 29, 2019

Permafrost thaws as global warming sets in

Stone circles caused by permafrost on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. Image: By Hannes Grobe, via Wikimedia Commons

Global warming is at work far below the surface, at depths seemingly insulated from the greenhouse effect. This is bad news for the permafrost.

LONDON, 29 January, 2019 – Even in the coldest places – 10 metres below the surface of the polar wastes – global warming has begun to work. A new study of the frozen soils in both hemispheres shows that between 2007 and 2016, they warmed by an average of 0.3°C.

This remained true within the Arctic and Antarctic zones, in the highest mountain regions of Europe and Asia, and even in the Siberian tundra, where the temperatures at depth rose by almost a whole degree.

New research into the permafrost, defined as territory where soil has been frozen for at least two consecutive years, suggests that much of it may not be permanently frozen for much longer.

Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that along with the tilth, clays and sediments the icy structures store vast amounts of carbon in the form of yet-to-be-decomposed plant material.

So the thawing permafrost could surrender even more warming agents in the form of greenhouse gases, and accelerate global warming even further.

“The permafrost isn’t simply warming on a local and regional scale, but worldwide and at virtually the same pace as climate warming”

Researchers based in Potsdam, Germany report in the journal Nature Communications that they and colleagues in the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost monitored and measured soil temperatures in boreholes at 154 locations; more than 120 of them over a 10-year cycle. In a dozen locations the temperatures actually fell, and at 40 locations there was virtually no change.

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Coffee harvests face risk from rising heat

January 28, 2019

Coffee harvests face risk from rising heat

Many millions of people depend on coffee for a living. Image: By Rodrigo Flores on Unsplash

Global coffee harvests, which provide the drink of choice for millions and the livelihoods of many more, are in peril, not least from rising temperatures.

LONDON, 28 January, 2019 – Coffee drinkers, be warned. A combination of factors – including climate change – is threatening supplies of the beans on which the coffee harvests depend.

Latest analysis by a team of scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London found that more than 60% of over 120 coffee species known across Africa, Asia and Australasia are threatened with extinction.

For many people, coffee is their favourite tipple. In the UK alone, more than 80 million cups of coffee are drunk every day. The experts at Kew say a total of 100 million people around the world depend on coffee for their livelihoods.

Climate change, together with fungal diseases and the impact of land clearances and deforestation, are all having negative impacts on coffee plants.

Coffee plants are fragile and often acutely sensitive to temperature changes, particularly those belonging to the Arabica species (Coffea arabica), the source of the world’s most popular coffee variety.

“Climate change will have a damaging impact on commercial coffee production worldwide”

The Coffee Research Institute says Arabica plants need year-round temperatures of between 15°C and 24°C in order to maintain high production levels and good quality.

Wild coffee plants play an essential role in building up more robust plants for cultivation; cross-bred with plantation plants, they provide the genetic resources to help withstand pests and diseases. They also encourage resilience to changes in climate and improve the flavour and quality of the coffee beans.

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Polar ice loss speeds up by leaps and bounds

January 23, 2019

Polar ice loss speeds up by leaps and bounds

More ice is melting in Antarctica, threatening much faster sea level rise. Image: By Danielle Barneson Unsplash

North and south, polar ice loss is happening faster than ever. Researchers now have a measure of the accelerating flow into the ocean.

LONDON, 22 January, 2019 – In the last few decades the speed of polar ice loss at both ends of the planet has begun to gallop away at rates which will have a marked effect on global sea levels.

Antarctica is now losing ice mass six times faster than it did 40 years ago. In the decade that began in 1979, the great white continent surrendered 40 billion tons of ice a year to raise global sea levels. By the decade 2009 to 2017, this mass loss had soared to 252 billion tons a year.

And in Greenland, the greatest concentration of terrestrial ice in the northern hemisphere has also accelerated its rate of ice loss fourfold in this century.

Satellite studies confirm that in 2003, around 102 billion tons of ice turned to flowing water or broke off into the ocean as floating bergs. By 2013, this figure had climbed to 393 billion tons a year.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. As the Antarctic Ice Sheet continues to melt away, we expect multi-metre sea level rise from Antarctica in the coming centuries”

Scientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they studied high resolution aerial photographs, satellite radar readings and historic Landsat imagery to survey 18 south polar regions encompassing 176 basins and surrounding islands of Antarctica to take the most precise measurement of ice loss so far.

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More vegetables, less meat for all our sakes

January 17, 2019

More vegetables, less meat for all our sakes

Spanish market: Vegetable-rich diets make for a healthier planet. Image: By ja ma on Unsplash

Researchers are clear: the healthy diet for a healthy planet is more vegetables, less meat. What matters is the food that’s served, and the way it’s produced too.

LONDON, 17 January, 2019 − An international panel of health scientists and climate researchers has prescribed a new diet for the planet: more vegetables, less meat, fresh fruit, wholegrains and pulses, give up sugar, waste less and keep counting the calories.

And if 200 nations accept the diagnosis and follow doctor’s orders, tomorrow’s farmers may be able to feed 10 billion people comfortably by 2050, help contain climate change, and prevent 11 million premature deaths per year.

A commission sponsored by one of the oldest and most distinguished medical journals in the world today provides what it calls the first scientific targets for a healthy diet, from a sustainable food production system, that operates within what its authors term “planetary boundaries.”

The commission is the result of three years’ consultation by 37 experts from 16 countries, among them experts in health, nutrition, environmental sustainability, economics and political governance.

Goal within reach

It addresses the twin problems of global food supply: altogether 3 billion people are either under-nourished, or approaching clinical obesity because they are too well-nourished.

And global food production in its present form is helping to drive global warming and climate change, trigger accelerating biodiversity loss, pollute the rivers, lakes and coasts with ever greater levels of nitrogen and phosphorus run-off, and make unsustainable use of both land and fresh water.

“The food we eat and how we produce it determines the health of people and the planet, and we are currently getting this seriously wrong,” said Tim Lang, a food scientist at the City University of London, and one of the authors.

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Warmer waters leave Irish anglers fishless

January 16, 2019

Warmer waters leave Irish anglers fishless

Anglers’ prize: But the salmon is not doing well in Irish waters. Image: Via Wikimedia Commons [public domain]

Irish anglers are having little luck as fish feel the effects of warmer waters − which are also increasing greenhouse gases.

WEST OF IRELAND, 16 January, 2019 − Unusually high temperatures in 2018 have left many Irish anglers frustrated as fish struggle to survive in the Emerald Isle’s lakes and rivers, with the rising heat also causing an increase in methane emissions.

Now changes in climate could threaten the anglers’ activities, putting in jeopardy what is a multi-million euro leisure industry.

Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), a state agency, says that a heat wave across Ireland in the summer of 2018 caused temperatures in the country’s lakes and rivers to rise to what it describes as lethal levels for a number of freshwater fish species.

The IFI’s findings, reported in the Irish Times newspaper, indicate that the two most affected species were salmon and trout – both prized by the freshwater fishing community.

“The 2018 summer water temperatures need to be considered in the context of climate change predictions”, Cathal Gallagher, the IFI’s head of research, told the Irish Times.“If temperatures continue to increase, sensitive cold water fish species will be at risk.”

Long heat

The warming trends were most noted in the west of Ireland, says the IFI. One of the worst affected rivers was the Owenriff in County Galway, where temperatures well above summer time norms were recorded over a prolonged period.

Dr Gallagher says high temperatures could lead to localised extinction of native fish diversity in the future; there would be knock-on economic losses.

“We would reach a stage where the Owenriff catchment or similar catchments become inhospitable to brown trout and salmon over the summer period in the near future.”

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Salt-free drinkable water comes at a cost

January 15, 2019

Salt-free drinkable water comes at a cost

A desalination plant in Spain. Image: By Andrés Nieto Porras from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, via Wikimedia Commons

Two thirds of the world worries about water for at least a month annually. One successful source of salt-free drinkable water leaves a bitter aftertaste.

LONDON, 15 January, 2019 – Around the arid world, some 16,000 desalination plants are now purifying seawater and brackish aquifers, producing 95 million cubic metres of fresh, salt-free drinkable water daily. This is almost half the daily flow over Niagara Falls.

But there is a potentially-polluting price to pay: for every litre of fresh water, the same desalination plants produce around 1.5 litres of toxic brine. That adds up to enough in the course of a year to cover the whole of the US state of Florida to a depth of more than 30 cms.

A new study urges nations to explore better solutions – and new ways to exploit the minerals in the wastewater and support efforts to advance the declared UN sustainable development goal of reliable, safe water on tap for everybody in the world.

A second study confirms that the sustainable development goal of clean water and sanitation for everybody by 2030 is likely to cost around $1 trillion a year – and up to 8% more if the advances are matched by efforts to contain climate changeand limit global warming to the agreed UN target of well below 2°C above historic levels by 2100.

“Reject brine has been used for aquaculture, with increases in fish biomass of 300%”

Four out of ten of the world’s people face severe water scarcity. More than six out of ten experience at least one month a year in conditions of water scarcity. There are now desalination technologies at work in 177 countries: two thirds of them in nations with high incomes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Warming may mean sea levels 30 cms higher

January 14, 2019

Warming may mean sea levels 30 cms higher

An Irish railway station, built with sea level rise in mind. Image: By Sarah777, via Wikipedia Commons

Warmer oceans mean higher tides, bigger storm surges and heavier rainstorms. With ocean temperatures rising ever faster, sea levels 30 cms higher are possible by 2100.

LONDON, 14 January, 2019 − The world’s oceans are warming increasingly fast. The planet could face sea levels 30 cms higher in 80 years.

While 2018 was probably only the fourth warmest year for global surface temperatures, it is likely to have been the hottest year ever for the oceans. The previous such year was 2017, and before that 2016.

And if global warming follows the pattern predicted by computer simulations, then at present rates the extra temperature of the oceans will cause a thermal expansion – warm water is always less dense than cold water – by 30 centimetres by the end of the century.

That is 30cms of sea level rise on top of all the extra rising sea water delivered by melting ice caps and glaciers on the world’s continents.

“The need to slow or stop the rates of climate change and prepare for the expected impacts is increasingly evident”

The planet is 71% ocean and the clear blue water absorbs an estimated 93% of all the excess heat trapped by the greenhouse gases emitted by humans as they burn fossil fuels to power the global economy.

And a quartet of scientists from China and the US calculate that if the world goes on burning fossil fuels under the notorious business-as-usual scenario, then by the end of the century the top 2,000 metres of the high seas will have warmed by 0.78°C, causing 30cms of sea level rise simply by ocean expansion.

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Migrant birds face risk in earlier springs

January 12, 2019

Migrant birds face risk in earlier springs

A great tit preys on a pied flycatcher. Image: By Maurice van Laar

Spring in the high latitudes is arriving ever earlier. But migrant birds from the tropics may not realise that, and faulty timing could cost them their lives.

LONDON, 11 January, 2019 – Biologists have identified another tale of conflict and bloodshed as African migrant birds compete with European natives for resources in a fast-warming world.

Death rates among male pied flycatchers – African carnivores that migrate each spring to the Netherlands to breed – have risen in the 10 years between 2007 and 2016, as winters have warmed and springs have arrived earlier.

And in some years, almost one in 10 of the male migrant flycatchers has been found pecked to death by great tits that have already taken up residence in nest boxes that both species favour.

Jelmer Samplonius, then of the University of Groningen and now at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and a colleague report in the journal Current Biology that they became interested in the competition between the migrant Ficedula hypoleuca and the European garden bird Parus major because both compete for the same resources.

These are the spring explosion of the caterpillar population, and the nest boxes established by householders who like to encourage wildlife. Both species try to time their breeding calendar to coincide with the arrival of plentiful, nourishing food for their chicks, and both species have become accustomed to colonising available nest boxes.

“When a flycatcher enters a box with a great tit inside, it doesn’t stand a chance”

But, the scientists say, climate change driven by global warming, in turn fired by profligate combustion of fossil fuels that increase the ratios of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, has brought new challenges.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Permafrost thaw unsettles the Arctic

January 10, 2019

Permafrost thaw unsettles the Arctic

Permafrost thaw caused this Alaskan road to drop by 3 metres. Image: Dr. John Cloud, NOAA (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons

Permafrost thaw and retreating Arctic ice don’t just imperil caribou and bears. People, too, may find the ground shifts beneath their feet.

LONDON, 1 January, 2019 − In just one human generation, citizens of the far north could find themselves on shifting soils as the region’s permafrost thaws. Roads will slump. Buildings will buckle. Pipelines will become at risk of fracture. And in 2050, around three fourths of the people of the permafrost could watch their infrastructure collapse, as what was once hard frozen ground turns into mud.

All this could happen even if the world keeps the promise it made in Paris in 2015 and limits global average warming to just 1.5°C above the level for most of pre-industrial history.

In the last century, the world has already warmed by 1°C on average: the Arctic region has warmed at a far faster rate. At present rates of warming, driven by the profligate use of fossil fuels that raise the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the world is on course for an average warming of 3°C by 2100.

Researchers from Finland, Norway, Russia and the US report in the journal Nature Communications that they mapped, on a scale of a kilometre, the buildings, installations, roads and other infrastructure of the permafrost world: a region defined as that where the ground is frozen solid, summer and winter, for at least two consecutive years.

More than 4 million people live in this pan-Arctic landscape: at least 3.6 million of them, and 70% of their transportation and industrial infrastructure, are at risk.

Present reality

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Ozone loss may have caused mass extinction

February 21, 2018

Ozone loss may have caused mass extinction

Pinus mugo in the French Pyrenees. Image: By Sébastien D’ARCO, via Wikimedia Commons

The loss of ozone may have caused the extinction many millions of years ago of most life on Earth, scientists believe.

LONDON, 21 February, 2018 – Californian scientists have found a new way to account for extinction and to explain mass murder on a planetary scale.

Seven out of 10 land animals perished at the end of the Permian, 252 million years ago. So did 95% of marine species. And the deadly factor at work may have been the destruction of atmospheric ozone, the protective screen in the stratosphere that eliminates harmful ultraviolet light.

Jeffrey Benca of the University of California Berkeley and colleagues report in the journal Science Advances that they irradiated a series of dwarf pines with doses of ultraviolet-B radiation up to 13 times stronger than any on Earth today.

They used 60 pines of the species Pinus mugo, irradiated them for 56 days, and then spent three years examining 57,000 pollen grains produced over that period.

UV-B wavelengths are associated with mutations in DNA, the inheritance mechanism of all life on Earth. The dose chosen was the one to which creatures might have been exposed at the close of the Permian period, an episode characterised by immense volcanic eruptions that would have damaged the upper atmosphere.

Exposed to sterility

And, the researchers found, after two months exposure, the trees survived, but at a cost: they had become sterile. Their cones shrivelled within days of emerging. Once restored to present day, open air conditions, the pines all recovered.

Plants underwrite all animal life: repeated bouts of forest sterility could, researchers think, have played a role in the collapse of the planet’s biosphere.

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Shock impacts hit Greenland’s ice

May 14, 2016

Shock impacts hit Greenland’s ice

An aerial view of icebergs floating in Greenland’s Ilulissat Icefjord. Image: Mark Garten/UN Photo

New research indicates that melting of the Northern Hemisphere’s biggest ice sheet is being accelerated by the seismic impact of waves crashing against Greenland’s coastline.

LONDON, 14 May, 2016 – Seismic waves that race through Greenland’s bedrock may help answer questions about the pattern of melting and freezing over the Northern Hemisphere’s biggest single sheet of ice.

Scientists need answers because Greenland remains a puzzle: the glaciers may be accelerating their pace towards the sea − but, despite rising temperatures, the interior is not losing ice, according to a second study.

And a third study presents a new paradox: there may be little ice melt over most of the icecap, but changing climatic conditions suggest that less snow is falling.

There is enough ice packed on Greenland to raise global sea levels by seven metres if it melts. Right now, the flow from the island’s glaciers is probably pushing up sea levels by 0.6mm a year.

Harsh conditions

There is repeatedly confirmed evidence that glaciers are melting at an accelerating rate, and several consequences of global climate changethat suggest that this process should go on accelerating.

But research in Greenland’s harsh conditions is challenging, and year-round continuous observation so far has been almost impossible, even with airpower and satellite studies.

But German Prieto, assistant professor of geophysics in the department of Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and colleagues report in Science Advances journal that they could exploit the one source of evidence that would never falter.

The waves that crash on the coastline send tiny seismic shudders through the rock, and seismic wave velocity changes with rock density. So the reasoning is that changes in the mass of ice pressing down on the rocks could be revealed by changes in the speed of the waves through the rock.

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Nuclear Power Costs Enter Uncharted Territory

April 20, 2016

Nuclear Power Costs Enter Uncharted Territory

Many international businesses are hoping to cash in on disposal of nuclear waste. (StefrogZ via Flickr)

LONDON—If you want a job for life, go into the nuclear industry—not building power plants, but taking them down and making them safe, along with highly-radioactive spent fuel and other hazardous waste involved.

The market for decommissioning nuclear sites is unbelievably large. Sixteen nations in Europe alone face a €253 billion waste bill, and the continent has only just begun to tackle the problem.

Among the many difficulties the industry faces is lack of trained people to do the highly-paid work. Anyone who enters the business is likely to be sought after for the rest of their career because the job of decommissioning Europe’s nuclear sites alone will take more than 100 years—even if no new nuclear power stations are ever built.

Add to the European nuclear legacy the dozens of old nuclear power stations in North America, Japan, Russia and central Asia, and nuclear decommissioning could already be classed as one of the biggest industries in the world, and it can only grow.

And this does not count the millions of dollars still being spent annually to contain the damage from the nuclear accidents in Chernobyl, Russia, in 1986, and Fukushima, Japan, in 2011.

Longer-term problem

So far, the nuclear industry has largely avoided drawing too much attention to this legacy, emphasising that its sites are safe, and concentrating instead on claiming that new nuclear stations are the answer to climate change.

But this approach has not solved the longer-term problem of how to safely contain the radioactivity of old sites to avoid damaging future generations.

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Sea sends early warning of heatwaves

April 8, 2016

Sea sends early warning of heatwaves

Feeling the heat as New York City swelters in extreme summer temperatures. Image: Bill via Flickr

Surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean can give the US Midwest and East Coast 50 days’ notice to prepare itself for a dangerous spell of extreme heat.

LONDON, 8 April, 2016 – Americans could have as many as seven weeks’ advance notice of devastating heatwaves. A telltale pattern of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean could presage weeks of intolerable temperatures in the cities and plains of the US.

Research published in Nature Geoscience reveals that a “fingerprint” of sea surface temperatures about 20 degrees north of the Equator – and dubbed the Pacific Extreme Pattern – meant that the chances of sustained and extreme heat 50 days later in the US Midwest and East Coast stepped up from one in six to one in four. And 30 days ahead, the same pattern brought the odds to better than one in two.

Critical aspects

“Summertime heatwaves are among the deadliest weather events, and they can have big impacts on farming, energy use, and other critical aspects of society,” says Karen McKinnon, a post-doctoral fellow at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

“If we can give city planners and farmers a heads up that extreme heat is on the way, we might be able to avoid some of the worst consequences.”

Climate scientists have consistently predicted that climate change will be driven by global warming that will manifest itself in ever more intense, and more frequent, extremes of heat.

In 2012, the US was hit by an unprecedented and sustained heatwave that broke thousands of local temperature records, and claimed an estimated 100 lives.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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