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by John Timmer, 02/02/2022 in Ars Technica
Study: Few places will struggle to balance renewables and conservation
by Bruce Mountain, 02/02/2022 in The Conversation
Labor’s plan to green the Kurri Kurri gas power plant makes no sense
“The increasing incidence of wildfire in the Arctic is not only thawing permafrost but also changing the entire underlying structure of the region.” The net result is to greatly increase the rate of thawing and the amount of greenhouse gases being released to the global atmosphere (which is why it concerns us here in Australia!)
The bottom line is that if we humans don’t stop the continuing increase in global temperature (global warming) it will soon be impossible to do so because of the exponentially increasing positive feedbacks from temperature sensitive greenhouse gas emissions like this. This is the threshold, or point of no return, beyond which our planetary climate system is fully committed to complete its flip into the hothouse hell state. (see Steffen et al. 2018, Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene and my own 2021 research presentation, Portents for the Future – 2020 Wildfires on the Siberian Permafrost.)
by Danielle Beurteaux, 1 February 2022 in EOS
The Anaktuvuk River Fire in 2007 tore through 100,000 hectares of Alaskan tundra in almost 3 months of continuous burning. This fire not only changed the area vegetation, but it also thawed permafrost and led to the formation of thermokarst. This is a dramatic example but may serve as a bellwether incident for climate to come.
“Almost everything hinges on permafrost in the Arctic ecosystem.”
Arctic permafrost stores 33% of Earth’s organic carbon, even though it covers only 20% of the planet. It also acts as the structural foundation, physically and ecologically, for the entire pan-Arctic region. Permafrost thawing has cascading effects on the hydrological conditions of the landscape and ice and also triggers changes in vegetation and releases stored carbon. “Almost everything hinges on permafrost in the Arctic ecosystem,” said Yaping Chen, a postdoctoral research associate at the College of William and Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Yet there are still questions about how fires (the incidence of which is increasing in the Arctic) and climate change might increase the amount of thermokarst—the uneven land formed after permafrost melts. Thermokarst is the result of the degradation of permafrost and provides reduced carbon sequestration and fewer niche ecosystems than permafrost.
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“Our major result is that although fire only burned about 3% of the Arctic landscape, it is responsible for more than 10% of thermokarst formation,” said Chen. “However, climate change remains the predominant regional consideration of thermokarst formation.”
Researchers also found that fires increased thermokarst formation for up to 80 years postfire, much longer, said Chen, than previously thought.
We have poor knowledge about the presence of permafrost, said Chen. We don’t know exactly where it is or how much there is of it. “These difficulties make it very hard to predict where thermokarst may start and how it will develop over time,” she said.
Read the complete article…
Humanity has only a few years at the most to stop and reverse global warming. If we fail to do this our children and grandchildren will have no future in the global mass extinction in Earth’s Hothouse Hell. Currently stifled and mesmerized by the humbug, lies, blocking and misdirection of the LNP COALition’s fossil fuel puppets, Australians are doing nothing effective to fight the warming fire that is burning up our only planet.
To have any hope of contributing to the solution, we must replace Capt. Humbug (a.k.a., Scotty from Marketing), his deputy dunce, Blarny Bulldust (The Man with the Hat), and their troop of wooden headed puppets occupying our Parliament with sensible people committed to acting on the climate emergency as their first order of business if elected to office. Vote Climate One’s Traffic Light Voting System is designed to help you replace the special interest puppets with good people who will help put out the fire rather than trying to con us into believing that it doesn’t exist…., or if it does, that it isn’t important….
Spratt focuses almost exclusively on the consequences of permafrost thawing without much consideration of the overall environment of which the thawing permafrost is only a part. Even looked at in isolation it is clear that greenhouse gases are being released sooner and in greater quantities that in earth system models and conservative IPCC reporting.
I spent several months last year researching the interacting dynamics of the 2020 Siberian wildfires (burning taiga forests, arctic tundra, and even the underlying peat soils) on the underlying permafrost and the likely impacts on greenhouse gas emissions from both the burning overburden and underlying permafrost. None of the modeling has the full complexities of the likely internal positive feedbacks within this permafrost system. In other words, although all authorities seem to accept that the Arctic permafrost is a dangerous threshold we could already be tripping over, I think most still badly underestimate the dangers it represents for flipping us past the point of no return on the road to Earth’s Hothouse Hell climate state and global mass extinction.
31 January 2022
by David Spratt in Climate Code Red
Sixth in a series.
Read 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
Permafrost is permanently frozen ground. It covers one-quarter of the land mass of the northern hemisphere, and contains 1.5 trillion tonnes of carbon, twice the amount currently in the atmosphere and triple the amount emitted by human activity since 1850. Permafrost buried beneath the Arctic Ocean holds 60 billion tons of methane (in structures known as methane clathrates) and 560 billion tons of organic carbon.
Permafrost is releasing significant amounts of greenhouse gases, and feedbacks are under way, but the dynamics are not yet well enough understood to be able to judge whether tipping points have been reached or not. As previously noted (in part 1 of this series), University of NSW researchers point out that: “We do not know exactly how close we are to a tipping point, or even whether we have already passed it… There are tipping points that while not yet triggered may already be fully committed to.”
As permafrost thaws, soil microbes awaken and feast on the warming biomass, creating heat as they do so: a positive feedback that drives more defrosting. Russian permafrost scientist Trofim Maximov describes the global feedback: thawing permafrost releases greenhouse gases which cause warmer temperatures, melting the permafrost further: “It’s a natural process… which means that, unlike purely anthropogenic processes, once it starts, you can’t really stop it.”
A 2018 study estimated that stabilisation of the climate at 2°C may eventually result in release of 225–345 gigatonnes (GtC) of thawed permafrost carbon. That is equivalent to two-to-three decades of human emissions at the current rate. Some scientists consider that 1.5°C appears to be something of a “tipping point” for extensive permafrost thaw.
Read the complete article….
If rapidly thawing permafrost doesn’t sound the alarm that shouts, ‘Your house is on fire. If you don’t put it out your house will be gone!’ I don’t know what does. Unfortunately, in Australia we are living in a country whose national government seems to be a troop of wooden-headed puppets and knaves working for the fossil fuel industry. Here they are doing everything possible to drown out, stifle, and misdirect the alarm so it either won’t be heard at all, or will at least be ignored by the citizens they are supposed to protect and keep safe.
If we continue to follow the lead these puppets are trolling us with, nothing will be done to stop and reverse global warming until we are irrevocably committed to the Hell the fossil fuel industry is tipping us into. Think of the future when you decide who to vote for (and place last in your list of preferences) in the upcoming election. Hopefully, you will give your top preferences to candidates who can be trusted to put action on the global climate emergency at the top of their to do list if elected, and puppets of the fossil fuel and related special interests at the bottom of your list.
To help you, we are making available what we know about each candidate via our electorate specific Traffic Light Voting System.
Reya Kumar, 31/01/2022 in The Tufts Daily
California wildfires are getting worse, and it’s our fault
Elizabeth Pennesi, 31/01/2022 in Science
Rare and ancient trees are key to a healthy forest: Two studies pinpoint the need for forest diversity both in age and species
by Joel Makower, 31/01/2022 in GreenBiz
The new ‘ROI’ for climate: The ‘risk of inaction’
Coral polyps are the primary architects of the remarkably diverse coral reef ecosystems that border lands and islands in tropical oceans around the world. As such coral reefs provide shelter and sustenance for a significant fraction of our ocean’s biomass for at least part of their lives. Coral polyps are colonial animals related to jellyfish and sea anemones. However, thanks to symbiotic algae that live in their bodies, they are sinks for capturing and sequestering CO₂ in forming the limestone reefs. Over the last 10,000 years or so, they have thrived in waters close to the maximum temperatures their photosynthetic algae can tolerate. However, as the world begins to warm beyond temperatures observed for many 10s of thousands of years corals have had to expel their algae and become bleached. As Spratt describes, bleaching is becoming common event for the Great Barrier Reef, and is leading to dying coral reefs and collapsing reef ecosystems around the world.
As masses of polyps die and rot they become net greenhouse gas emitters (CO₂, methane, hydrogen sulfide – H₂S – where the H₂S is also highly toxic) and end up covered by slimes of bacteria and algae. The dead reef becomes quite toxic, and loses many of the species that originally thrived there through starvation, poisoning, or loss of habitat. Thus, the rising greenhouse gas emissions from dying and decomposing reef ecosystems adds yet another source of positive feedback to drive global temperatures (including ocean temperatures) higher yet.
28 January 2022
by David Spratt in Climate Code Red
Fifth in a series.
Read 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
Ecosystems, including coral reefs, mangroves and kelp forests in Australia, are degrading fast as the world’s sixth mass extinction gathers pace.
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Corals survive within a narrow water temperature band, and suffer heat stress and expel zooxanthellae if the ocean temperature gets too high. Bleaching events vary in intensity; in the extreme case, all zooxanthellae are expelled and the living colony will appear totally white (hence “bleaching”). As elevated sea temperatures persist, coral mortality rates increase: corals may recover, if there are any zooxanthellae left in their tissues, but if not, death appears to be inevitable.
The bottom line: If severe bleaching events occur regularly at shorter than 10–15 year intervals, then reefs face a death spiral of coral mortality followed by inadequate recovery periods. And that is what is happening now. Along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the frequency of mass bleaching is increasing, with events occurring in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2020. The 2016-17 events severely bleached half the reef, whose extent has been reduced by three-quarters over the last 40 years. Coral reproduction on the Great Barrier Reef has fallen 89% after repeated recent bleachings. [My emphasis]
Read the complete article….
One of these articles is referenced in today’s The Age newspapers.
by Miki Perkins, 02/02/2022 in The Age
Global warming of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels will be catastrophic for almost all coral reefs, including those that scientists once hoped would act as refuges during climate change.
Only 0.2 per cent of coral reefs globally are likely to avoid frequent heat stress if temperatures warm, according to new research from an international team of universities, including James Cook University in Townsville.
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Even thermal refuges, which experts assumed would be more able to endure warming oceans owing to factors such as the consistent upwelling of cool deep waters, would provide almost no protection to reef animals, the study found. It is published today in PLOS Climate.
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Read the complete article….
Actually, there were two articles on rapidly rising sea surface temperatures (SST) published yesterday in the science journal, PLOS Climate. Together they seem to seal the fate of most of our planet’s coral reef ecosystems:
by Adele M Dixon, et al., 01/02/2022 in
PLOS Climate – https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000004
ABSTRACT: Thermal refugia underpin climate-smart management of coral reefs, but whether current thermal refugia will remain so under future warming is uncertain…. We confirm that warming of 1.5°C relative to pre-industrial levels will be catastrophic for coral reefs….
Read the complete article…..
by K. Tanaka & Kyle S. Van Houtan 01/02/2202 in
PLOS Climate – https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000007
ABSTRACT: Climate change exposes marine ecosystems to extreme conditions with increasing frequency…. For the year 2019, our index reports that 57% of the global ocean surface recorded extreme heat, which was comparatively rare (approximately 2%) during the period of the second industrial revolution. Significant increases in the extent of extreme marine events over the past century resulted in many local climates to have shifted out of their historical SST bounds across many economically and ecologically important marine regions. For the global ocean, 2014 was the first year to exceed the 50% threshold of extreme heat thereby becoming “normal”….
Read the complete article….
Given that we have probably already crossed several tipping points such as permafrost thawing on the road to runaway global warming where natural positive feedbacks will continue working to drive global temperatures ever higher, the Great Barrier Reef as we know it seems to be unavoidably doomed. However, as long as a majority of the keystone architect coral species survive somewhere, they may be able to recolonize their previous ranges and begin building new reefs over subsequent centuries.
Unfortunately, when we should be working all-out to stop anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, our present Australian Government lead by Capt. Humbug (AKA Scotty from Marketing) and his deputy Blarny Barney (the Man with the Hat) is working hard to grow and maintain the healthy capacity of the fossil fuel industry to produce and burn carbon for energy. Also, not only are they doing nothing practical to stop and reverse global warming, but they just promised to spend a billion dollars on the Reef (over 9 years) to cloak the fact that they are doing nothing that counts to save the Reef (or for that matter our own human species).
The rapidly approaching Federal Election gives us the opportunity to remove Capt. Humbug and his wooden headed puppets from office and replace them with trustworthy, thinking people who have committed themselves to put work to solve the climate crisis as their first order of business if elected to Parliament. Vote Climate One’s Traffic Light Voting System is designed to help you do this.
Cassandra Morgan, 01/02/2022 in the The Age
Melbourne’s hot January nights smash temperature records
By Katherine Murphy, 01/02/2022 in The Guardian
Craig Kelly floats preference offer for Coalition MPs who break ranks in parliament
