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Science Snippets: Water Disappears as Earth Warms
Draft script:
The title of this video makes an obvious statement. As Earth or any part of Earth warms, evaporation accelerates. As a result, surface water evaporates and goes into the atmosphere. Considering Earth is in the midst of the most rapid environmental change in planetary history, we must accept evaporation to be at an all-time high. This short video describes examples of our rapidly drying planet.
From CNN comes a story titled The world’s highest navigable lake is drying out. The story was published 3 September 2023. Here’s the lede: “Water levels at Lake Titicaca – the highest navigable lake in the world and South America’s largest – are dropping precipitously after an unprecedented winter heat wave.” The first paragraph concludes with this sentence: “The shocking decline is affecting tourism, fishing and agriculture, which locals rely on to make a living.”
The article published by CNN goes on: “Visitors have long been attracted to the blue waters and open skies of South America’s largest lake, which straddles more than 3,200 square miles across the border of Peru and Bolivia.
Sometimes described as an ‘inland sea,’ it is home to Aymara, Quechua, and Uros indigenous communities and sits at an altitude of around 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) in the central Andes mountain range, making it the highest navigable lake in the world. The extreme altitude also exposes the lake to high levels of solar radiation, which enhances evaporation and constitutes most of its water losses.
More than three million people live around the lake, relying on its waters to fish, farm and attract tourists who boost the economy of an otherwise marginalized region.
Now the lake is at risk of losing some of that magic.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Means of Extinction: Antarctic “Super Vortex” is Accelerating
From the Daily Mail in the UK comes an article titled Antarctica ‘super vortex’ is speeding up due to climate change – and it could melt thousands of square miles of sea ice, study reveals. The article was published on 27 March 2024. More sensationalist headlines appear in other outlets. From the Daily Star on 4 April 2024 is Antarctica ‘super vortex’ could put mankind underwater like an ‘apocalyptic film.’ From LAD Bible dot com on 1 April 2024 is Urgent warning over Antarctic ‘super vortex’ that could affect fate of humanity. In addition to serving as click-bait, these headlines might be more accurate than the one in the Daily Mail. Corporate media outlets tend to avoid articles about human extinction.
The story in the Daily Mail refers to a peer-reviewed, open-access paper in Nature. Here’s the lede from the article in the Daily Mail: “A massive vortex of ocean water encircling Antarctica, a swirling volume 100-times larger than all the world’s rivers combined, is getting faster due to climate change.”
The vortex is known as the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. It slows during Earth’s cool periods, such as during Ice Ages. It hastens when the planet warms. Considering we are undergoing the fastest rate of environmental change in planetary history, according even to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 8 October 2018 report Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees, it comes as no surprise that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current represents a threat leading to the extinction of all life on Earth.
The article in the Daily Mail begins with three key points: (1) Antarctic Circumpolar Current churns 6 billion cubic-feet of water per second; (2) the vortex slows during cool eras, like the Ice Age, but speeds up with global warming; and (3) researchers drilled 500- to 650-ft-long deep sea sediment cores for the study.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Science Snippets: Expect Extreme Weather Events
Draft script:
From Scientific American on 27 March 2024 comes this headline: Global Warming Is Slowing the Earth’s Rotation. Here’s the subtitle: “Drastic polar ice melt is slowing Earth’s rotation, counteracting a speedup from the planet’s liquid outer core. The upshot is that we might need to subtract a leap second for the first time ever within the decade.”
Oh, really? That’s the upshot? Not that anthropogenic global warming underlies the ongoing Mass Extinction Event. Not that anthropogenic global warming is destroying habitat for all life on Earth. Onto the important topic: “we might need to subtract a leap second for the time ever within the decade.”
A Harvard University geophysicist provides the bottom line of this article: “Do we continue … adding or subtracting seconds from our definition of a day, or do we accept this irregular difference as normal and give up the bother of continuously correcting?”
Onward, then, to issues of minimal importance relative to the article in Scientific American, at least according to the Scientific American author. I’ll start with an article at earth.com. Titled Strongest ocean current on Earth is speeding up and causing problems, this article was published on 31 March 2024.
Here’s the lede: “The Antarctic Circumpolar Current … is the most powerful current on Earth, encircling Antarctica and influencing the global climate.” The relevant question asked by the article comes from the two ensuing paragraphs: “Over the last few decades, observations show that it has been speeding up. Experts were uncertain whether this was a result of human-caused warming or a natural pattern.
However, scientists have discovered that this oceanic powerhouse is getting even stronger. What does this mean for our planet’s future?”
The article at earth.com refers to a peer-reviewed, open-access paper published in Frontiers in Marine Science published on 22 February 2024. It is titled Revisiting the multidecadal variability of North Atlantic Ocean circulation and climate.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Science Snippets: Planting Trees in Some Locations Warms Earth
Draft script:
A paper in Phys.Org published 31 March 2024 is titled Planting trees in wrong places heats the planet: Study. The study referenced in the title appeared in Nature Communications on 26 March 2024. It was produced by 11 scholars.
One of the study’s co-authors was quoted in the Phys.Org article: “There are some places where putting trees back leads to net climate negative outcomes.” In fact, the peer-reviewed paper indicates that reforestation projects that failed to include albedo in the analysis overestimated the benefit to the climate by 20 to 80%.
Hot, humid environments such as the Amazon Basin and central Africa store abundant carbon with little change to albedo. These are ideal places for reforestation. On the other hand, temperate grasslands and savannas sequester and store relatively little carbon and can negatively alter albedo. As a result, promises of enhanced carbon capture tend to be overblown in these areas.
The co-author quoted above indicated in the Phys.Org article that even projects in the best locations were probably delivering 20% less cooling than estimated when albedo changes are included in the analysis. Although there are good reasons beyond carbon sequestration to plant trees, it is important to focus reforestation efforts in proper locations. Given the limited money available for reforestation projects throughout the world, the Phys.Org article and the peer-reviewed paper indicate the importance of prioritizing projects.
The peer-reviewed, open-access paper in Nature Communications is titled Accounting for albedo change to identify climate-positive tree cover restoration. It was published 6 March 2024. I’ll read the entire Abstract: “Restoring tree cover changes albedo, which is the fraction of sunlight reflected from the Earth’s surface. In most locations, these changes in albedo offset or even negate the carbon removal benefits with the latter leading to global warming…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
“Live Fast, Die Young”: USDA Shifts Plant Hardiness Zones
Draft script:
Here’s the final sentence of the first paragraph in an article released by yahoo.com on 14 February 2024: “The USDA just updated its plant hardiness zone map for the first time since 2012, and there have been some major changes.” In other words, the United States Department of Agriculture has altered their map of plant hardiness zones for the first time in more than a decade. Plant hardiness zones have been described since 1927, initially with eight zones, and now with 13 zones. Although the article at yahoo.com focuses on gardening, the implications for all ecosystems on Earth are clear.
This new map of plant hardiness zones was released in November 2023. According to the new map, about half of the United States has shifted to a new hardiness zone. The article at yahoo.com expresses the issue in this manner: “That’s really big news if you consider 80 million Americans use this map to decide on what and when to grow! Simply put, the types of plants that are able to grow successfully has changed for 50 percent of the country, according to data collected by over 13,000 weather stations across the U.S.” Obviously, this finding has implications well beyond gardening. If the physical characteristics of the Northern Hemisphere have changed, then the ability of organisms to keep up with those characteristics is an important consideration. As I have repeatedly pointed out, the rate of environmental change is critically important to the continued existence of species and populations.
A related article was published at Phys.org on 16 February 2024: ‘Live fast, die young’: Agriculture is transforming entire ecosystems. Here’s the opening paragraph: “A research team has investigated the effects of agricultural grassland use on communities of organisms…
…click on the link above to read the rest of the article…
Will AMOC Kill Us All?
Draft script:
You’ve probably heard a lot about the AMOC, which is short for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current. Based on my awkward pronunciation of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current, you can understand why I prefer the acronym, AMOC. With this video, I will provide an overview of the AMOC, including how it threatens to rapidly cool a significant portion of Earth. I will then explain why I’m skeptical of this outcome.
CNN published an article on 26 July 2023 titled A crucial system of ocean currents is heading for a collapse that ‘would affect every person on the planet.’ The first two paragraphs follow:
“A vital system of ocean currents could collapse within a few decades if the world continues to pump out planet-heating pollution, scientists are warning – an event that would be catastrophic for global weather and ‘affect every person on the planet.’”
“A new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature found that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current – of which the Gulf Stream in a part – could collapse around the middle of the century, or even as early as 2025.”
The paper was published in Nature Communications, not Nature. But I digress.
It is no exaggeration to claim that the AMOC is critical to the continued retention of habitat for life on Earth. It is a complex tangle of currents that, among other things, works like a giant conveyor belt that transports warm water from the tropics toward the North Atlantic. At this point, the water cools and becomes saltier. It therefore sinks deep into the ocean before spreading south. Importantly, the AMOC contributes to the regulation of global weather patterns. Its collapse would trigger extreme winters and rising sea levels in western Europe and the northeastern United States. Further from home, a collapsed AMOC would shift the timing and magnitude of the tropical monsoon.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The First Signs of Civilization’s Collapse?
The First Signs of Civilization’s Collapse?
New Video Link! Sorry!
Draft script:
From Tom Dispatch on 17 August 2023 comes a story headlined Michael Klare, A World on the Edge of … Collapse? The article is short, and it introduces a much longer article by Michael Klare, professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College. I’ll read the complete introductory article by Tom Dispatch editor Tom Engelhardt:
“You can hardly turn on the TV news or go online these days without seeing… well, Donald Trump, of course, and his extreme version of American politics. Every indictment of him only seems to add to his strength in what’s no longer the Republican but the Trumpublican Party. Still, speaking of extremism (and disasters), I wouldn’t put him at the top of the list. This summer has offered us a scorchingly extreme version of climate change and a planet being burned, flooded, and melted in ever more unexpected and previously unimagined ways. Records are being set regularly with the year itself all too likely to take its place as the hottest ever — until, that is, next year on a planet where the last eight years have been the warmest in recorded history.
Oh, and if you happen to live on an island, here’s a little advice: get off it fast! Islands are going up in flames. Sardinia and Cyprus in the Mediterranean are now scorching messes and Hawaii’s Maui only recently became a first-class nightmare in which some residents had to plunge into the ocean to escape the flames. And if southern Europe, seemingly in an almost endless heatwave, continues to burn, northern Europe has been experiencing startlingly torrential rains and flooding.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
