Climate change accelerating death of Western forests

(Photo: Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY)

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DENVER — The iconic pine and aspen forests of the Rocky Mountains are dying off at an alarming rate thanks to conditions exacerbated by climate change — drought, insect infestations and wildfires — a new report says.

Colorado alone could lose 45% of its aspen stands over the next 45 years, says the report released Thursday by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. Pine bark beetles alone have killed 46 million acres of trees across the west, an area nearly the size of Colorado.

“The wildfires, infestations and heat and drought stress are the symptoms; climate change is the underlying disease,” Jason Funk, the report’s co-author and a senior climate scientist at Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement.

Projections by the U.S. Forest Service that were included in the report, predict that if emissions of heat-trapping gases continue increasing at recent rates, by 2060 the area climatically suitable in the Rocky Mountains for lodgepole pine could decline by about 90%, for ponderosa pine by about 80%, for Engelmann spruce by about 66% and for Douglas fir by about 58%.

National forests and parks play a key role in the economies of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. National parks in those states, including Yellowstone and Glacier, host about 11 million visitors annually, generating $1 billion in tourist spending, the report, Rocky Mountain Forests at Risk, said. If the landscapes significantly change, tourists may no longer visit those areas, it said.

The trees grow in different areas, depending on how cold the winters get and how warm the summers are. If climate change alters those levels, the trees won’t grow there anymore.

“So far, we have had relatively modest climate changes, but they have already jolted our forests,” said Stephen Saunders, report co-author and president of Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. “If we continue changing the climate, we may bring about much more fundamental disruption of these treasured national landscapes.”

Global warming study raises the steaks

31 Jul 2014 00:00 Damian Carringto

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Latest research shows that eating less red meat would have a greater impact in cutting carbon emissions than giving up cars.

Beef’s environmental impact dwarfs that of other meat, including chicken and pork, new research reveals, with one expert saying that eating less red meat would be a better way for ­people to cut carbon emissions than giving up their cars.

The heavy impact on the environment of meat production was known but the research shows a new scale and scope of damage, particularly for beef. The popular red meat requires 28 times more land to produce than pork or chicken, 11 times more water and results in five times more climate-warming emissions. When compared with staples such as potatoes, wheat and rice, the impact of beef per calorie is even more extreme, requiring 160 times more land and producing 11 times more greenhouse gases.

Agriculture is a significant driver of global warming and causes 15% of all emissions, half of which are from livestock. Furthermore, the huge amounts of grain and water needed to raise cattle is a concern to experts worried about feeding another two billion people by 2050. But previous calls for people to eat less meat in order to help the environment, or preserve grain stocks, have been highly controversial.

“The big story is just how dramatically impactful beef is compared to all the others,” said Professor Gidon Eshel, at Bard College in New York State, who led the research on beef’s impact. He said cutting subsidies for meat production would be the least controversial way to reduce its consumption.

“I would strongly hope that governments stay out of people’s diet but, at the same time, there are many government policies that favour the current diet in which animals feature too prominently,” he said. “Remove the artificial support given to the livestock industry and rising prices will do the rest. In that way you are having less government intervention in people’s diet and not more.”

Less efficient use of feed 
Eshel’s team analysed how much land, water and nitrogen fertiliser was needed to raise beef and compared this with poultry, pork, eggs and dairy produce.

Beef had a far greater impact than all the others because, as ruminants, cattle make far less efficient use of their feed. “Only a minute fraction of the food consumed by cattle goes into the bloodstream, so the bulk of the energy is lost,” Eshel said.

Feeding cattle on grain rather than grass exacerbates this inefficiency, although Eshel noted that even grass-fed cattle still have greater environmental footprints than other animal produce.

The footprint of lamb, relatively rarely eaten in the United States, was not considered in the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Tim Benton, at the University of Leeds, said the new work is based on national US data, rather than farm-level studies, and provides a useful overview. “It captures the big picture,” he said, adding that livestock is the key to the sustainability of global agriculture.

“The biggest intervention people could make towards reducing their carbon footprints would not be to abandon cars but to eat significantly less red meat,” Benton said. “Another recent study implies the single biggest intervention to free up calories that could be used to feed people would be not to use grains for beef production in the US.”

But the subject was always controversial, he said. “This opens a real can of worms.” – © Guardian News & Media 2014

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Rush to Uncover Ancient Human History Before Glaciers Melt June 27, 2014

Prehistoric items already recovered from Alpine ice. This bow and arrow set was found on the Schnidejoch ice sheet in the Bernese Oberland.

A Swiss researcher is rushing to retrieve items covered for hundreds or even thousands of years by ice that is now melting due to global warming.

Leandra Naef told the Swiss Broadcasting Corp. that the project in the country’s eastern mountains “has to happen now, or else it will be too late, if it’s not already too late.”

Her plan is to search for well-preserved artifacts trapped beneath ice patches in the highest elevations of the Alps.

Since a 5,000-year-old corpse was discovered by hikers in melting ice nearly a quarter of a century ago, items like leather leggings from about 3000 B.C., as well as an ancient arrow quiver, have also emerged from the receding glaciers.

Naef has targeted 40 points that she believes are most likely to yield artifacts.

She urges hikers and wardens to turn in anything they find over upcoming summers as the Alpine glaciers vanish.

Naef hopes to uncover some artifacts herself this summer.

Photo: Archäologischer Dienst Kt. Bern

 

© MMXIV Earth Environment Service

This May Was Hottest In Recorded History

The month of May was the hottest in recorded history, a dire finding for scientists warning of global warming.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that May 2014 was the hottest May since records started being kept in the mid 20th century. The research found that land and sea surfaces were 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th Century average of 58.6 degrees.

The steamy month of May was not a one-off, the NOAA warned.

“Four of the five warmest Mays on record have occurred in the past five years,” the NOAA also wrote in its report.

El Niño last made an appearance in 1997, climate scientists believe there is an 80 percent chance it will return by the fall.

“I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this before,” said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The effects of global warming are being seen elsewhere. Researchers have found that glaciers in Antarctica are melting at a fast rate, and elsewhere sea levels are rising.

The higher waters have even uncovered graves of dead WWII soldiers on the Marshall Islands.

“These last spring tides in February to April this year have caused not just inundation and flooding of communities but have also undermined regular land, so that even the dead are affected,” said Republic of the Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony De Brum, at the United Nations climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany.

He added, “There are coffins and dead people being washed away from graves, it’s that serious.”

Scientists say the effects of global warming are clear when looking at the previous hottest month of May ever, which was just four years ago.

We Cannot Know Too Much About ALBEDO

Ponds can predict extent of Arctic ice melt.

DDN Correspondent Posted on 18 Jun, 2014 at 12:02:PM IST

According to a recent research, the quantity of water in ponds that accumulates on top of icebergs at the time of spring warming can assist to forecast how much the Arctic ice will melt during the summer.

 The new research is conducted by the University of Reading.

The scientists have anticipated that the extent of minimum Arctic ice this September will be around 5.4 million sq km, which is similar to what it was last year. The scientists concluded it on the basis of observing the melt-pond region in spring, as they discovered a strong association between the spring pond fraction and sea ice extent in September.

According to the researchers, this has connection with the albedo, which is the reflective power of ice. The scientists found in the month of April that the maximum extent of sea ice in the Arctic was reducing, with the melting season continuing five more days.

The study says existence of more ponds decrease the albedo and a lesser albedo results in more melting and more melting increases pond fraction. The findings help elucidate the acceleration of Arctic sea-ice reduction that took place during the past decade.

Another research published in February indicated that the loss of ice shows that a smaller amount of sun heat was being reflected back into the atmosphere, which was increasing global warming.

A Hint at a possible solution to Global Warming

Microbial Garden Taking The Shine Off Glaciers

June 14, 2014

Image Caption: Stefanie Lutz (center) and Professor Liane G. Benning (left) collecting a biofilm sample on the Mittivakkat Glacier in Greenland. Credit: Stefanie Lutz, Professor Liane G. Benning and Dr Alexandre Anesio

University of Leeds

The first ecological study of an entire glacier has found that microbes drastically reduce surface reflectivity and have a non-negligible impact on the amount of sunlight that is reflected into space.

The research, led by the University of Leeds and published June 12 in the journal FEMS Microbiology Ecology, will help improve climate change models that have previously neglected the role of microbes in darkening the Earth’s surface.

Observing how life thrives at extreme cold temperatures also has important implications for the search for life on distant worlds, such as Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

Stefanie Lutz, a PhD student at the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, and lead author of the study, said: “Our three-week field trip revealed a ‘microbial garden’ of life forms flourishing in this cold environment, including snow algae, bacteria, fungi and even invertebrates.

“Skiers may have seen snow algae before, but not been able to identify it. They are visible to the naked eye as colored snow – most often red – and are frequently referred to as ‘watermelon snow’.”

The study was carried out on the Mittivakkat Glacier in south east Greenland during the summer of 2012, which was the hottest summer and thus the fastest melting season recorded for 150 years.

“Our timing was serendipitous, as it meant we were able to see changes in microbial processes over an extremely fast melting season and observe a process from start to end across all habitats on a glacier surface. This is the most comprehensive study of microbial communities living on a glacier to date,” said Lutz.

The research showed that, compared to pure snow and ice, the reflectivity of the glacier (known as the “albedo“) can be reduced by up to 80% in places where colored microbial populations are extremely dense, leading to the darkening of the glacier surface.

Professor Liane G. Benning from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds and co-author of the study, said: “Previously, it was assumed that low albedo, which is most often measured from satellites, was primarily due to soot or dust. However, our research provides a first, ground-based measure for the microbial contribution to albedo. We have shown that albedo is strongly affected by and dependent upon the development and dominance of microbial communities.

“In future climate scenarios, where even more melting is predicted, it is crucial that we are able to better discriminate between all factors affecting albedo.”

The research leading to these results received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013] under grant agreement n° 262693 [INTERACT] and a University of Leeds, School of Earth and Environment grant to Stefanie Lutz and Liane G. Benning.

Remember the word, ALBEDO

Dust Darkens Greenland Ice Sheet Speeding Melt due to a change in Albedo

08.06.2014

A new paper in Nature Geoscience says dust on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet is absorbing solar warmth and accelerating melting. It suggests that the dust comes from other Arctic areas losing snow cover earlier due to climate change.

Click to enlarge. Observed broadband diuse albedo above 2,000 m a.s.l. Diffuse broadband albedo derived from MODIS MCD43A3 products for the May–July period from 2003 to 2013. The values are averaged over the GrIS above 2,000 m elevation. Only data with local solar elevation larger than 25o and labelled as high quality are used. The 2003–2008 mean and the standard deviation are indicated in grey shades. Individual 2003 to 2008 albedo series are shown as grey dashed lines. Courtesy: authors and Nature Geoscience.

Click to enlarge. Melting snow containing light absorbing impurities.

Melting snow containing light absorbing impurities. Courtesy: Florent Domin

é.

Snow surface at Summit, Greenland. Courtesy: Florent Dominé.

Here is the Nature press release relating to this story.

The springtime darkening of the Greenland ice sheet since 2009 may be attributable to an increase in the amount of impurities—such as dust—in snow, according to a study published online in Nature Geoscience. Impurities, which increase the solar energy absorbed by snow, can lead to enhanced melting and thus contribute to the loss of Greenland’s ice.

Marie Dumont and colleagues analysed satellite observations to show that the observed darkening of Greenland’s ice in springtime months is consistent with a widespread increase in the amount of light-absorbing impurities. They propose that dust originating from other Arctic areas, which are losing their snow cover earlier in the spring as the climate warms, may be the source of the impurities.

Numerical snow models suggest that the darkening of springtime snow due to light-absorbing impurities has led to significant mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet in recent years.

Abstract

The surface energy balance and mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet depends on the albedo of snow, which governs the amount of solar energy that is absorbed. The observed decline of Greenland’s albedo over the past decade has been attributed to an enhanced growth of snow grains as a result of atmospheric warming. Satellite observations show that, since 2009, albedo values even in springtime at high elevations have been lower than the 2003–2008 average. Here we show, using a numerical snow model, that the decrease in albedo cannot be attributed solely to grain growth enhancement. Instead, our analysis of remote sensing data indicates that the springtime darkening since 2009 stems from a widespread increase in the amount of light-absorbing impurities in snow, as well as in the atmosphere. We suggest that the transport of dust from snow-free areas in the Arctic that are experiencing earlier melting of seasonal snow cover as the climate warms may be a contributing source of impurities. In our snow model simulations, a decrease in the albedo of fresh snow by 0.01 leads to a surface mass loss of 27 Gt yr, which could induce an acceleration of Greenland’s mass loss twice as large as over the past two decades. Future trends in light-absorbing impurities should therefore be considered in projections of Greenland mass loss.

 

“No Mo Joe”

How climate change and a deadly fungus are threatening our coffee supply

By Gwynn Guilford @sinoceros June 2, 2014

Time to switch to tea? Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

 

In the next 24 hours, the world will guzzle 1.6 billion cups of coffee, the most popular beverage on the planet besides water and tea. It’s big business, too: Global coffee exports totaled $28.6 billion in 2013—after oil, it is the world’s most traded commodity.But there’s something else that likes coffee even more than humans: Hemileia vastatrix, better known as coffee rust or roya disease. It’s a fungal parasite that survives on coffee tree leaves, and in the 2012-13 crop year alone, it caused nearly $499 million in losses (pdf, p.3) among Central American coffee growers. Worse, big swings in weather resulting from climate change are hastening the spread of this fungus, reports National Geographic, and causing epic droughts on plantations elsewhere in the region. The devastating double-whammy of climate and disease could wipe out as much as two-fifths of Central America’s coffee crop.

Most likely originating in East Africa, coffee rust infects the leaves of the coffee plant, speckling them with pale yellow spots that scramble photosynthesis, leaving the plant unable to breathe. The fungus first arrived in the Western Hemisphere in the 1970s, when it suffocated more than half of Central America’s crops, spreading both by wind and on the clothes of migrant workers.

Coffee rust.Flickr user Neil Palmer (CIAT)

Scientists eventually came up with rust-resistant coffee species. But those commercial crops are stuck with a limited range of genes, while rust keeps evolving, expanding its range. In evolutionary terms, the coffee plants can’t keep up. And in 2010, rust bounced back in a more aggressive form, this time in Guatemala and Colombia . By 2013, the fungus infected three-quarters of El Salvador’s crops, and more than two-thirds of Guatemala’s and Costa Rica’s. Not only Guatemala, but Honduras and Costa Rica have since declared national emergencies to free up funds for pesticides.

+One reason for the fungus’ return is that rust spores need a lot of moisture to grow—around a day or two of continuous rain or heavy dew. While those conditions normally exist only during the rainy season, climate variation—the term for dramatic changes in weather that have intensified in recent years—means downpours are happening more frequently. Tellingly, 2010 was an unusually wet year in Central America (pdf, p.8). Climate variation is also responsible for the drought that’s devastated the coffee crop of Brazil, one of the world’s biggest suppliers.

Weird weather isn’t the only problem tethered to climate change; so is global warming. Hotter temperatures are a particular menace to Arabica, a type of coffee that makes up seven-tenths of global coffee production and requires cool climes to grow. A recent study predicted that by 2080,  global warming would make two-thirds of current farms too hot to grow Arabica—and that is the best-case scenario.

Warmer weather is also allowing rust to attack at higher altitudes, and is accelerating the spread of a slew of other coffee parasites. For instance, research in Ethiopia, the cradle of coffee civilization, found that an insect called the coffee berry borer struggled to reproduce in low temperatures. Once things warmed up, the borers could be grandparents within a year.

This is bad not only for global caffeination but also for small Central American farmers, millions of whom depend on coffee for their livelihoods. In Guatemala alone, the blight robbed coffee farmers of up to three-fifths of their income in 2013.

John Boehner: I’m ‘not qualified’ to debate climate change

 

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, center, leaves a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, on May 29, 2014.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

 

By Aliyah Frumin

John Boehner is qualified to lead Congress. But in his mind, he’s apparently not qualified to weigh in on climate change.

“Listen, I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change,” the House Speaker said at a press conference Thursday. But that doesn’t mean Boehner is withholding his opinions on the Obama administration’s plans to deal with the continuing rise of the Earth’s temperature.

“I am astute to understand that every proposal that has come out of this administration to deal with climate change involves hurting our economy and killing American jobs. That can’t be the prescription for dealing with changes to our environment,” he said.

Boehner made the remarks in response to a reporter asking the Ohio Republican about his previously stated concerns over federal, environmental regulations. “Are there steps you would support to take action against climate change and do you think that’s a problem?” the reporter questioned.

Earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida pushed back on the overwhelming scientific evidence to announce that he doesn’t believe human activity causes climate change.

Rubio, a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate, told ABC: “I don’t agree with the notion that some are putting out there, including scientists that somehow there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate.” He added: “Our climate is always changing.”

His comments came just days after the White House issued a report insisting climate change is a potentially catastrophic reality being hastened by human behavior. Boehner’s own “I’m not a scientist” moment comes ahead of new, stricter standards for coal-fired power plants that are expected to be announced by the Obama administration on Monday.

Denying human activity is to blame for the warming of the planet could put lawmakers in good standing with the far right – but not the majority of Americans. According to a poll by Pew Research, two thirds of Americans – 67% – said there is solid evidence that the Earth has been getting warming over the last few decades. However, among Tea Party Republicans, only 25% agreed with that statement.

Climate Change Doomed the Ancients

By ERIC H. CLINEMAY 27, 2014

 

Photo

THIS month, a report issued by a prominent military advisory board concluded that climate change posed a serious threat to America’s national security.

The authors, 16 retired high-ranking officers, warned that droughts, rising seas and extreme weather events, among other environmental threats, were already causing global “instability and conflict.”

But Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a stalwart believer that global warming is a “hoax,” dismissed the report as a publicity stunt.

Perhaps the senator needs a history lesson, because climate change has been leading to global conflict — and even the collapse of civilizations — for more than 3,000 years. Drought and famine led to internal rebellions in some societies and the sacking of others, as people fleeing hardship at home became conquerors abroad.

One of the most vivid examples comes from around 1200 B.C. A centuries-long drought in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean regions, contributed to — if not caused — widespread famine, unrest and ultimately the destruction of many once prosperous cities, according to four recent studies.

The scientists determined the length and severity of the drought by examining ancient pollen as well as oxygen and carbon isotope data drawn from alluvial and mineral deposits. All of their conclusions are corroborated by correspondence, inscribed and fired on clay tablets, dating from that time.

Ancient letters from the Hittite kingdom, in what is now modern-day Turkey, beseech neighboring powers for shipments of grain to stave off famine caused by the drought. (The drought is thought to have affected much of what is now Greece, Israel, Lebanon and Syria for up to 300 years.) One letter, sent from a Hittite king, pleads for help: “It is a matter of life or death!”

Another letter, sent from the city of Emar, in what is now inland Syria, states simply, “If you do not quickly arrive here, we ourselves will die of hunger.” The kingdom of Egypt, as well as the city of Ugarit, on the coast of what is now Syria, responded with food and supplies, but it is not clear if they were able to provide enough relief.

It certainly created problems of national security for the great powers of the time. Correspondence between the Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, Cypriots, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Assyrians and Babylonians — effectively, the Group of 8 of the Late Bronze Age — includes warnings of attacks from enemy ships in the Mediterranean. The marauders are thought to have been the Sea Peoples, possibly from the western Mediterranean, who were probably fleeing their island homes because of the drought and famine and were moving across the Mediterranean as both refugees and conquerors.

One letter sent to Ugarit advised the king to “be on the lookout for the enemy and make yourself very strong!” The warning probably came too late, for another letter dating from the same time states: “When your messenger arrived, the army was humiliated and the city was sacked. Our food in the threshing floors was burned and the vineyards were also destroyed. Our city is sacked. May you know it! May you know it!”

While sea levels may not have been rising then, as they are now, changes in the water temperature may have been to blame for making life virtually unlivable in parts of the region

A 2012 study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science found that the surface temperatures of the Mediterranean Sea cooled rapidly during this time, severely reducing precipitation over the coasts. The study concluded that agriculture would have suffered and that the conditions might have influenced the “population declines, urban abandonments and long-distance migrations associated with the period.”