Ocean Deserts Source of GHG

Dead zones contribute to climate change

Hypoxic Waters Elevate Greenhouse Gasses in the Atmosphere

A University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science oceanographer says  that the increased amount of nitrous oxide (N2O) produced in aquatic dead zones, low-oxygen (hypoxic) waters, increases concentrations of the potent GHG in the atmosphere, worsening the impacts of global warming and contributing to the widening of ozone “holes” that allow harmful UV radiation through.

Eutrophication in the Sea of Azov.  Eutrophication is caused by human activity. (Source: NASA).

“As the volume of hypoxic waters move towards the sea surface and expands along our coasts, their ability to produce the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide increases,” explains Dr. Codispoti of the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory. “With low-oxygen waters currently producing about half of the ocean’s net nitrous oxide, we could see an additional significant atmospheric increase if these ‘dead zones’ continue to expand.”

N2O, a highly potent greenhouse gas, is present in minute concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere, and is now a major factor in the destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer. “For the past 400,000 years, changes in atmospheric N2O appear to have roughly paralleled changes in carbon dioxide CO2 and have had modest impacts on climate, but this may change. Just as human activities may be causing an unprecedented rise in the terrestrial N2O sources, marine N2O production may also rise substantially as a result of nutrient pollution, warming waters and ocean acidification. Because the marine environment is a net producer of N2O, much of this production will be lost to the atmosphere, thus further intensifying its climatic impact,” a UMC news release said.

As dissolved oxygen levels decline in coastal waters, the N2O production increases. “Under well-oxygenated conditions, microbes produce N2O at low rates. But at oxygen concentrations decrease to hypoxic levels, these waters can increase their production of N2O.”

Shallow suboxic and hypoxic waters produce high rates of N2O “because respiration and biological turnover rates are higher near the sunlit waters where phytoplankton produce the fuel for respiration.”

“When suboxic waters (oxygen essentially absent) occur at depths of less than 300 feet, the combination of high respiration rates, and the peculiarities of a process called denitrification can cause N2O production rates to be 10,000 times higher than the average for the open ocean. The future of marine N2O production depends critically on what will happen to the roughly ten percent of the ocean volume that is hypoxic and suboxic.

“Nitrous oxide data from many coastal zones that contain low oxygen waters are sparse, including Chesapeake Bay,” said Dr. Codispoti. “We should intensify our observations of the relationship between low oxygen concentrations and nitrous oxide in coastal waters.”

The article “Interesting Times for Nitrous Oxide” appears in the March 12, 2010 edition of the journal Science.

University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Related Links:

• Eutrophication and Hypoxia
• Our oceans are dying
• The Eight Steps that Help Kill More of Our Fish

Global temps could rise higher than expected

Global temperatures could rise more than expected, new study shows

The kinds of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide taking place today could have a significantly larger effect on global temperatures than previously thought, according to a new study led by Yale University geologists. Their findings appear December 20 in the advanced online edition of Nature Geoscience.

The team demonstrated that only a relatively small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) was associated with a period of substantial warming in the mid- and early-Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago, when temperatures were approximately 3 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today.

Climate sensitivity—the mean global temperature response to a doubling of the concentration of atmospheric CO2—is estimated to be 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius, using current models.

“These models take into account only relatively fast feedbacks, such as changes in atmospheric water vapor and the distribution of sea ice, clouds and aerosols,” said Mark Pagani, associate professor of geology and geophysics at Yale and lead author of the paper. “We wanted to look at Earth-system climate sensitivity, which includes the effects of long-term feedbacks such as change in continental ice-sheets, terrestrial ecosystems and greenhouse gases other than CO2.”

To do this, the team focused on the most recent episode of sustained global warmth with geography similar to today’s. Their reconstructed CO2 concentrations for the past five million years was used to estimate Earth-system climate sensitivity for a fully equilibrated state of the planet, and found that a relatively small rise in CO2 levels was associated with substantial global warming 4.5 million years ago. They also found that the global temperature was 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than today while CO2 levels were only between about 365 and 415 parts per million (ppm)—similar to today’s concentration of about 386 ppm.

“This work and other ancient climate reconstructions reveal that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than is discussed in policy circles,” Pagani said. “Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held CO2 concentrations at the current level.”

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Other authors of the paper include Zhonghui Liu (Yale University and The University of Hong Kong), and Jonathan LaRiviere and Ana Christina Ravelo (University of California, Santa Cruz).

This study used samples provided by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program and was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Yale Climate and Energy Institute.

Contact: Suzanne Taylor Muzzin
suzanne.taylormuzzin@yale.edu
Yale University

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Global warming likely to be amplified by slow changes to Earth systems

Researchers studying a period of high carbon dioxide levels and warm climate several million years ago have concluded that slow changes such as melting ice sheets amplified the initial warming caused by greenhouse gases.

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that a relatively small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels was associated with substantial global warming about 4.5 million years ago during the early Pliocene.

Coauthor Christina Ravelo, professor of ocean sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said the study indicates that the sensitivity of Earth’s temperature to increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is greater than has been expected on the basis of climate models that only include rapid responses.

Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to increased atmospheric and sea-surface temperatures. Relatively rapid feedbacks include changes in atmospheric water vapor, clouds, and sea ice. These short-term changes probably set in motion long-term changes in other factors–such as the extent of continental ice sheets, vegetation cover on land, and deep ocean circulation–that lead to additional global warming, Ravelo said.

“The implication is that these slow components of the Earth system, once they have time to change and equilibrate, may amplify the effects of small changes in the greenhouse gas composition of the atmosphere,” she said.

The researchers used sediment cores drilled from the seafloor at six different locations around the world to reconstruct carbon dioxide levels over the past five million years. They found that during the early and middle Pliocene (3 to 5 million years ago), when average global temperatures were at least 2 to 3 degrees Celsius warmer than today, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was similar to today’s levels, about 30 percent higher than preindustrial levels.

“Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held carbon dioxide concentrations at the current level,” said lead author Mark Pagani, an associate professor of geology and geophysics at Yale University.

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Contact: Tim Stephens
stephens@ucsc.edu
831-459-2495
University of California – Santa Cruz

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Related Links:

• FEWW CO2e Links

Reduce Harmful Emissions by Wealthy Individuals

Why Wealthy Individuals Allowed to Produce More Climate-Changing Emissions?

More than half the planet’s greenhouse gasses emissions come from less than a billion of the population

In Carbon Footprint of Your Dollar our colleagues at CASF and EDRO calculated how much carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, your money made.

Our colleagues at MSRB and CASF showed the amount of CO2 made by the world richest individuals in The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution.

The Moderators emphasize that it’s the total wealth of the individual which is responsible for the amount of CO2e emissions, not necessarily the individual’s  lifestyle. For example, while Richard Branson’s personal lifestyle is responsible for up to a 1,000 times more harmful emissions than Bill Gate’s  and Warren Buffet’s put together, the total harmful emissions generated as a result of the combined assets of the world’s richest duo is about 40 times more than the airline owner’s.

In a new report submitted to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers wrote that it makes sense to track the these rich individuals when setting national targets to reduce CO2 emissions.

Here’s the Report’s Abstract:

Sharing global CO₂ emission reductions among one billion high emitters

We present a framework for allocating a global carbon reduction target among nations, in which the concept of ‘‘common but differentiated responsibilities’’ refers to the emissions of individuals instead of nations.We use the income distribution of a country to estimate how its fossil fuel CO2 emissions are distributed among its citizens, from which we build up a global CO2 distribution. We then propose a simple rule to derive a universal cap on global individual emissions and find corresponding limits on national aggregate emissions from this cap. All of the world’s high CO2-emitting individuals are treated the same, regardless of where they live. Any future global emission goal (target and time frame) can be converted into national reduction targets, which are determined by ‘‘Business as Usual’’ projections of national carbon emissions and in-country income distributions. For example, reducing projected global emissions in 2030 by 13 GtCO2 would require the engagement of 1.13 billion high emitters, roughly equally distributed in 4 regions: the U.S., the OECD minus the U.S., China, and the non-OECD minus China. We also modify our methodology to place a floor on emissions of the world’s lowest CO2 emitters and demonstrate that climate mitigation and alleviation of extreme poverty are largely decoupled.

“You’re distributing the task of doing something about emissions reduction based on the proportion of the population in the country that’s actually doing the most damage,” said one of the study’s authors, Shoibal Chakravarty of the Princeton Environment Institute.

“As countries develop—India, China, Brazil and others—over time, they’ll have more and more of these individuals and they’ll have a higher share of carbon reductions to do in the future,” he said.

Related Links:

• Carbon Footprint of Your Dollar
• The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution
• Stop Burning Earth
• Protect Economy from Climate??!
• Energy: 286W

• Failing Ecosystems

• World Problems: The Root Cause Matrix
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Future Scenarios
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle

• Giga Trends
• World CO2 Emissions

• Look me straight in the eye & tell me you can’t
• Protect Economy from Climate??!
• Blind scientists examining the economic elephant
• How Much Carbon Dioxide Does Your Money Make?
• Cosmic Scale Evil
• Index of Human Impact on Nature

An Upside of the Economic Downturn

Airlines are flying less and polluting less, but that’s not enough!

Airlines carbon emissions may decrease by about 8 percent in 2009 because the airlines are slashing flights due to a drop in both cargo and passenger demand, Reuters reported.

“About 6 percent of the forecast carbon cut will come as a result of carriers flying fewer planes in 2009, and a further 1.8 percent reflects steps to improve energy efficiency [sic,]” the International Air Transport Association (IATA) was reported as saying.

IATA Director-General Giovanni Bisignani also reported that the airline industry will lose up to $5 billion in 2009 due to the economic slowdown.

Japan Airline (JAL), one of the world’s major airlines, has lost about 20 percent of its passengers and 40 percent of its freight business.

Horrendous Airline Stats

• How many are up there polluting our skies?

Related Links:

• Image of the Day: Flight Madness
• To & From New Zealand: Double Act of Eco-Terrorism
• Hundreds of millions worldwide face disaster
• Best News of the Day for the Environment!
• If You Are Flying to or Importing Food From New Zealand

Stop Polluting Our Air!

Second Airbus Plunges into Water

Second Airbus  in less than 50 days plunges into the water

Flying an Airbus? Don’t fly on even days!

A US Airways Airbus with 155 passengers and crew  plunged into the Hudson River in New York City.

The US Airways Airbus A320 crashed less than a minute after taking off from New York LaGuardia Airport heading for Charlotte, North Carolina. All 150 passengers, three flight crew and two pilots were reportedly rescued, however, some passengers were later treated for undisclosed injuries.

The aircraft sank minutes after the rescue operation had ended.

Airbus A320 becomes a submarine. Passengers are rescued in an inflatable raft from a US Airways Airbus 320 aircraft that went down in the Hudson River in NYC on Thursday. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews). Image may be subject to copyright.

On November 28, 2008, an Air New Zealand Airbus A320 crashed into the Mediterranean off Perpignan, southeastern France, killing all seven pilots and airline employees. There were no passengers on board.

Flying, Airbus safe?

Fearsome Flying Facts:
Did you know that on a flight from New York to Charlotte, North Carolina [flight duration of 1 hour 47 mins.,] each passenger produces about 1,000 lbs. of   carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) greenhouse gasses?  That is the equivalent of driving a mid-size car for a month!

Airbus Crash Stats:
If you really have to fly because your life depends on it [sic,] and if you are flying an Airbus, then fly on odd days of the month because the Airbus is statistically twice more likely to crash on even days!

Gremlins’ Slant: “Will keep the trend constant for the next 10 years; will let the odds even out!”

A list of Airbus A-320 crashes in recent years

• November 28, 2008 – Air New Zealand Airbus A320 crashed into the Mediterranean off Perpignan, southeastern France, killing all seven pilots and airline employees. There were no passengers on board.

• October 7 – Qantas Flight 72 an Airbus A330-300 made an emergency landing in Exmouth, Australia after a rapid descent that left about 70 people injured, 14 of them seriously.

• June 10, 2008 – Sudan Airways Flight 109, an Airbus A310, crashed at Khartoum International Airport, catching fire as it broke apart, killing 30 people [another 6 are listed as missing.]

• May 30, 2008 – TACA Airlines Flight 390, an Airbus A320, overruns the runway at Toncontín International Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, killing five (including two on ground).

• January 10, 2008 – Air Canada Flight 190, an Airbus A319, experienced turbulence over the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Ten of  the 88 people on board were injured, and the plane was  forced to divert and make an emergency landing at Calgary International Airport.

• July 17, 2007 – TAM Airlines Flight 3054, an Airbus A320, crashed in São Paulo, Brazil, killing all 187 on board and 12 people on the ground.

• July 9, 2006 – S7 Airlines Flight 778, an Airbus A310, crashed into a barricade and caught fire on landing in Irkutsk, Russia, killing 128 of the 203 people on board.

• May 3, 2006 – An Armenian A320 Airbus plunged into the Black Sea moments after starting its descent into the Russian resort of Sochi, killing all 113 passengers and crew.

• September 21,2005 – JetBlue Airways Flight 292, an Airbus A320, made an emergency landing in Los Angeles because of landing gear steering failure. No injuries were reported.

• August 2, 2005 – Air France Flight 358, an Airbus A340, skids off a runway in Toronto, Ontario, while landing and catches fire; all 309 on board escape without fatalities or serious injuries, but the aircraft is completely destroyed by the fire.

• November 12, 2001 – American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300, crashes into a Queens neighborhood in New York City when the plane’s vertical tail fin snaps just after takeoff. All 251 passengers and nine crew members on board are killed as well as five people on the ground.

• On August 23, 2000. The Gulf Air Airbus A320, on a flight from Cairo, crashed into shallow waters in the gulf as it was attempting to land in Bahrain, killing a 143 passengers and 8 crew on board.

• January 30, 2000 – Kenya Airways Flight 431, an Airbus A310, carrying 169 passengers and 10 crew members, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off Côte d’Ivoire after takeoff from Abidjan. Only ten people survive.

• December 11, 1998 – Thai Airways Flight 261, an Airbus A310, crashes during poor weather near Surat Thani, Thailand. Of the 146 people on board, 102 are killed.

• March 22, 1998 – Philippine Airlines Flight 137, an Airbus A320, overshoots the end of the runway while landing at Bacolod City in the Philippines, plowing through several houses. None of the passengers were harmed, but three people on the ground were killed and several more injured.

• February 16, 1998 – China Airlines Flight 676, an Airbus A300, crashes into a residential area while attempting to land in Taipei, Taiwan. All 196 people on board are killed, in addition to six on the ground.

• September 26, 1997 – Garuda Indonesia Flight 152, an Airbus A300, crashes into a mountain near Buah Nabar, Indonesia killing all 234 on board.

• March 31 1995 – Tarom Flight 371, an Airbus A310, crashed near Baloteşti, Romania killing all 60 people on board.

• April 26, 1994 – China Airlines Flight 140, an Airbus A300, crashed during landing at Nagoya, Japan killing 264 of the 271 people on board.

• March 23, 1994 – Aeroflot Flight 593, an Airbus A310, crashed into a hillside in Siberia killing all 75 passengers and crew.

• September 14, 1993 – Lufthansa Flight 2904, an Airbus A320, crashed after overrunning the runway in Warsaw, Poland, killing 2 and injuring 68 of the 72 people on board.

• September 28, 1992 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 268, an Airbus A300, crashes near Kathmandu, Nepal, killing all 12 crew and 155 passengers.

• February 14, 1990 – Indian Airlines Flight 605, an Airbus A320, crashed on its final approach to Bangalore airport killing 92 out of 146 people on board .

• June 26, 1988 – Air France Flight 296, an Airbus A320, made a low pass over Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport in landing configuration during an air show and crashed into trees at the end of the runway, killing 3 of the 130 passengers on board. [Source Wikipedia and others]

Related Links:

• Air New Zealand Flying Coffin Crashes in the Mediterranean
• US Airways Plane Goes Down in Hudson River

Images of the Day: Burning Coal

Live by the coal, die by the coal.

Lit, warmed, changed, soaked and choked by coal!

The sun rises behind Fiddlers Ferry coal fired power station near Liverpool, northern England, December 15, 2008. REUTERS/Phil Noble. Image may be subject to copyright.

Laborers search for usable coal at a cinder dump site near a power plant in Changzhi, Shanxi province December 15, 2008. REUTERS/Stringer. Image may be subject to copyright.

The Shrinking Window of Opportunity

Two Questions for Don Quixote

1. General George, do you fight Global Warming, or prevent it?
2. How do you fight global warming?

World’s Top 33 Emitters of CO2

The top 20 emitters are responsible for about 80 percent of CO2 pollution. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Shrinking Window of Opportunity (Inset photo REUTERS/Jim Young). Image may be subject to copyright.

Related Links:

• Climate talks continue in Paris
• Bush urges halt of CO2 emission growth by 2025

• Pittsburgh, Los Angeles have worst U.S. air pollution

NYC Mayor Vows to Slash Carbon Emissions by 2050

NASA: Satellite image of the New York metropolitan area

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg vowed Friday that local US leaders would spearhead the fight against climate change despite President George W. Bush’s hardline stance in global talks. More …

What would you say to the Mayor when 6 feet of flood waters inundates the entire NYC metropolitan area well before 2050 because he didn’t cut the emissions to zero in 2007?

Bloomie, what did you have to lose by doing the right thing?