The time is ripe for innovative solutions to the climate emergency, and carbon capture is a sector with high potential. Here, we present Out of the Blue‘s novel proposition for a system that could take CO2 directly from the ocean, in a more efficient way than from the air. 

Earth.Org takes a closer look.

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Global efforts to decarbonize our society are intensifying, and encouraging goals have been set for mid-century. However, even the most ambitious of these is too little to prevent 2°C global warming, the consequences of which are highly undesirable. There is therefore a demand for carbon capturing technologies that would allow us to essentially create negative emissions. 

In an ideal world, we would stop emissions as soon as possible, then begin undoing the damage by removing the carbon we’ve emitted for the past 200 years or so. Unfortunately, while carbon capture is entirely feasible, it suffers from lack of scalability and affordability. It is certainly not good enough to allow it to continue as we have.

Current tech focuses on recapturing the emissions from biofuel combustion, where the carbon is caught and pumped far underground into old oil and gas reservoirs or saline aquifers. Another approach is reinforcing the natural processes that act as carbon sinks through forest restoration or rock weathering. The problem is that these require more land than we have to fix the situation, as does carbon capture from biofuel. 

There is growing investment in innovative carbon capture technologies that tackle the problem from a different angle. One such idea is that of Out of the Blue, a start-up whose mission is to remove CO2 from the ocean in a safe, cost-effective and scalable manner. It was founded by Lennart Joos, a chemical engineer who went from academia (UC Berkeley, EPFL), to industry (TOTAL, Umicore), to creating his own startup. He explains that innovation has always been one of his core drivers, and after years fighting climate change he has formulated a viable solution. 

As you may know, the world’s oceans absorb nearly a third of our carbon emissions along with much of the excess atmospheric heat these produce. CO2 dissolves into carbonic acid once in the water, driving up oceanic acidity and hampering animal shell-formation. Phytoplankton, one of the main carbon sinks in the ocean, need these shells to survive, which means that runaway acidity levels will massively lessen the ocean’s carbon capacity. It is therefore just as beneficial to extract carbon from the ocean than it is to do so from the atmosphere. 

Let’s look at the technology in more detail. 

Source: Out of the Blue.

A carbon-binding sponge material is suspended just under the water surface in a container that allows carbon-loaded water to sift through unidirectionally. Once the sponge is saturated, the container is closed off and heated, upon which the carbon is released, leaving the sponge available for reuse (potentially several thousand times). Ideally, a renewable energy source is used, like a mirror for heating or direct wind energy for pumping the CO2 out. Once collected, the gas can be sequestered as is already done with existing carbon capture technology.

The reusable nature of the apparatus along with its low operating costs (just place it there and water movement does the rest) make it economically attractive. On top of this, other ocean-based renewables (like wave power) are gaining traction and could possibly fill Out of the Blue’s energetic needs. 

The ideal deployment for this technology is to harness it to pre-existing drilling platforms with access to depleted gas reservoirs, thus integrating the full process of capture to sequestration into a single system. 

Source: Out of the Blue.

It must be stressed that Out of the Blue is still in its infancy, but we at Earth.Org support the research and development of climate solutions, and believe our readers can benefit from hearing about these endeavors. 

If you are or know anyone who is working on innovative solutions, please get in touch via our contact email address and let us know! 

This article was written by Owen Mulhern

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The Amazon is gradually getting drier, and in 2020, fires hit a 12-year high. Its regenerative abilities are being pushed to the limit, and if stronger restrictions and conservation legislation aren’t passed, it will eventually falter. Here, we review a set of images and maps produced by NASA, whose satellite instruments allow us to monitor the situation better than ever before.

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Since the beginning of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency in 2019, the Amazon has been burning at its highest rates since the early 2000s. NASA has been tracking the rainforest’s blazes thanks to satellite instruments for years, but it remains difficult to make out their causes: is it a seasonal agricultural fire burning in pastures, a brush fire, or a deforestation effort? 

Dry years naturally have more fires than wet ones, and human activity can usually be derived from the location and frequency of fires. For instance, fires most often occur naturally in shrublands, savannahs, and the nearby Pantanal wetlands, than in Amazonia. But if there is an abnormal concentration of fires in an area near human settlements or highways, that is a smoking gun. High resolution imagery can also be applied to confirm suspicions more easily, but this can’t be deployed over the entirety of the burn zones for cost and time-consumption considerations.

The importance of this type of monitoring is to better guide the everlasting debates held within the countries concerned (mainly Brazil, but also Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay and Argentina). You often find completely contradictory claims on both sides of the issue; one says nothing of note is happening, while the other claims the forest is on the verge of dying. The truth is somewhere in between, and solid proof is the only thing that can settle it.

As we can see in the series above, deforestation fires a multi-step process that often begins years before ranches are fully set up. It starts with razing patches of forest with bulldozers or tractors, after which piled up wood is set ablaze during the dry season. 

This year, NASA provides us with advanced imagery of the fires that occurred throughout the Amazon in 2020. Despite COVID-19, fire activity of all types rose significantly, including the two most environmentally destructive: deforestation and understory fires. Understory fires are entirely due to climatological mechanisms, burn slowly under the forest canopy and destroy more of the trees in their path than other kinds. 

Douglas Morton, chief of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, headed the development of a tool that can sort fires into four groups: deforestation, understory, savannah-grassland and small clearing/agricultural. 

In the map above, dark gray is forest cover, while light grey is the lack thereof, either because of deforestation or the natural layout of the land. 

Small clearing fires are usually controlled and do not cause too much damage, but they can sometimes escape and cause underbrush fires (savannah-grassland types can also do this). Savannah fires cover a lot of ground, but regrowth is quick and damage does not persist, unlike the deforestation or underbrush types whose damage can last decades. 

Atlantic ocean temperatures shifted rain away from South America in 2020, causing warmth and drought which fuelled many more fires than usual. Of the 600,000 detected, 25 were on par with the largest 2020 Californian fires, which were far larger than those of the past century. 

Large swaths of Amazonian land are official indigenous protected areas, but if the tribes within do not combat outsider development, these borders can be infringed upon

In the map below, notice how the Bau and Menkragnoti areas, whose people actively patrol their lands, remain untouched. Apyterewa, near São Felix de Xingu, a cattle town with over 2 million animals, is exposed to “grilheiros”, or land grabbers.

NASA is developing an Amazon dashboard to make their data as accessible and useful as possible for local decision makers who are trying to combat the fires. The work of various NGOs has also been effective in protecting lands, though they lack the manpower to stop all illegal activity. 

NASA Earth Observatory maps by Lauren Dauphin, using data from the GFED Amazon Dashboard team. VIIRS fire data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership. Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Indigenous Territories and Natural Protected Areas data from the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network (RAISG).

Story by Owen Mulhern. 

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The recent Nanda Devi glacier collapse in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, northern India, was a disaster. A large piece of ice broke off on the 7th of February 2021, leading to a massive flood in the Dhauli Ganga river, then in the Alaknanda – the major tributary of the Ganges. 

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The water crashed through the valley, destroying the Rishi Ganga power plant and severely damaging a hydropower project near the Tapovan village. An important bridge connecting thirteen villages near Tapovan was washed away, and another hydropower project downstream from Joshimath, the next agglomeration on the river, was also damaged. 35 of the Rishi Ganga plant’s workers are still missing, while 37 workers are stuck in a tunnel near the hydropower plant. As of today, 68 bodies have been recovered, and 140 are still missing.   

Map of the course of the Uttarakhand flood in the Chamoli district of northern India, following the breakage of an upstream glacier. Climate change is expected to make events like these more frequent. Credit: Casar Corran.

The Hindu Kush Himalayan region is one of the world’s greatest river systems, providing fresh water for 1.65 billion people in India, Pakistan, China and neighboring nations. A 2019 report described the likely loss of 36% of the area’s ice caps by 2100, regardless of drastic climate action, up to 66% in a business-as-usual scenario. 

This event was only one of many more to come, as inevitable melt will increase the frequency and possibly the intensity of water surges in the long run. Dams in the area may not be able to withstand all of them, and those that make it through can wreak havoc as we’ve seen here. 

Above we have an image from 1984, where glacier cover is visible. Below is the same area 32 years later. The loss is astounding.

The authors of the 2019 study afore-mentioned say that the melting has accelerated during warm seasons, but that this will taper off as the glaciers lose mass. In turn, this will cause water shortages for the many who depend on the steady flow of water these normally provide. 

Authorities need to understand that this wasn’t a freak accident, and that any future plans in the area should take reoccurrence into account. 

This article was written by Owen Mulhern. 

You might also like: Mapping the Mauritius Oil Spill

The recent marine oil spill that occurred off the coast of Mauritius had widespread repercussions on two sensitive and valuable ecosystems that are already globally declining. We review the incident, along with its fallout and future perspectives in this article.

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Mauritius is a popular tourist destination because of its white sand beaches, volcanic rocks, beautiful mangrove forests, coral reefs, seagrass and historic buildings. However, on July 25th 2020, a 300 meter long Japanese tanker sailing from China to Brazil named the MV Wakashio ran aground on a barrier reef just southeast of Mauritius. 

The Mauritian authorities initiated their national oil contingency plan, and were hopeful to avoid any drastic environmental consequences as there was no leakage in the first few days following the wreck. Unfortunately, several days of rough seas and battering waves ended up opening the hull, allowing fuel oil, diesel and lubricant oil to pour out. 

A reported 3000 metric tons (MT) of fuel was pumped out before the ship broke in two, and though many methods of containment were deployed, but not before 1000 MT leaked into the sea. Tens of thousands showed up to help, exposing themselves to the toxic material which caused more than 50 whales and dolphins to wash up dead on the island’s shores.

Compared to others (Amoco Cadiz: ~221,000 MT), the Mauritius oil spill was quite small. And yet, it affects highly sensitive and important types of ecosystems: mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass. All three are some of the most potent carbon sinks on the planet, and are in sharp decline worldwide. 

Local communities also depend on these systems, both for sustenance and tourism, which have suffered greatly since the incident (on top of COVID-19 which had already battered the tourism industry). Fishing has been banned in many areas, and over 36km of beach length is off-limits. The success of the cleanup operation has led to a reopening of recreational activities but the mangroves remain heavily contaminated due to their difficulty of access. 

The Effects of the Oil Spill

Oil toxicity is mainly due to compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which can bind DNA and protein, don’t dissolve in water, stick together and take ages to disappear. Even in small amounts, they have significant long-term impacts including carcinogenesis. 

Mangroves roots are designed to absorb oils, and are therefore highly sensitive to oil spills. The level of poisoning is serious – young plants can die within days, while the older trees might take six or more months. Further, many filter feeders, like corals, crustaceans and mollusks, are very likely to be poisoned, either by being directly coated, or by feeding on oil polluted sediments. This can also transfer to their predators, and so forth all the way up the food chain (us).

As for corals, previous case studies demonstrate that oil spills basically affect all reproductive traits, from gamete recrutement to fecundity, and spawn survival. Because mass spawning occurs around November, we have not yet witnessed the full effects of the spill, but it will likely have significant impact. 

Fish generally lack developed cell membranes and detoxification structures. Enough said? Oil spills expose them to malformations, circulatory failure, low appetite, low energy and thus higher vulnerability to predators. 

Finally, marine mammals like dolphins, whales and sea turtles often ingest the oil coating the sea surface as they break through to breathe. This leads to a range of complications in the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems that can quickly, or slowly, lead to death. 

In Conclusion…

Mauritius is, without a doubt, a natural treasure trove that must be protected for its uniqueness, but also for the role it plays in global environmental health. It’s unfortunate location near a shipping mega route put it at risk that materialized with the MV Wakashio’s wreck. Great cleanup efforts have mitigated the damage, but traces of oil remain that will damage the island’s precious ecosystems for years to come due to the persistence of the toxic compounds. 

This article was written by Owen Mulhern. Map and research by Ka Hei Chow.

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A critical turning point in modern agricultural history was the onset of The Green Revolution, a series of international programs launched in the 1950s and 60s designed to increase crop yields around the world through modern farming practices to truly revolutionize food production. 

Earth.Og takes a closer look.

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Feeding a Growing Population

By the early to mid 20th century, the world population was rapidly expanding, resulting in more hunger as traditional agricultural practices struggled to meet with rising demand. While industrialized nations intensified their production by using selective plant breeding and chemical fertilizers and pesticides, ‘developing’ countries without industrial farming methods struggled to feed a rapidly growing population. This triggered an international response in the 1950s led by the Rockefeller Foundation to establish programs to adapt industrial agricultural practices for use in developing countries.

 Known as The Green Revolution (GR), the programs prioritized the growth of high yield varieties (HYV) of high calorie crops, such as wheat and rice, as an efficient means of increasing caloric intake. In many ways, the Green Revolution achieved what it had set out to do – expand modern agriculture to a global scale, increase food production, and combat world hunger. In fact, it is reported to have saved 1 billion people from starvation. 

Two charts below illustrate this. The first graph shows how global population growth caused a rise in famine, which then ceased in the 1960s. The second graph shows the global change in the daily supply of calories from 1961, coinciding with the global deployment of the GR’s agricultural technologies. While the world population has more than doubled since the 1960s, hunger and famine has plummeted thanks to the food surplus generated by the GR. 

Unfortunately, prioritizing HYVs of calorie dense foods has had a number of negative unintended consequences too, including malnutrition and over dependence on chemical inputs,  presenting a threat to the future of food security.

From Starvation to Malnutrition

Thanks to the innovations of the Green revolution we grow enough food to feed the world 1.5 times over, yet malnutrition is the new problem. 

 As of 2017, 820 million people are undernourished  (10.8% of the world population) and obesity rates have tripled since 1975 (Rockefeller Foundation).  

There is a misconception that “producing more calories will alleviate hunger”, says Timothy Wise, a senior researcher at the Small Planet Institute. But unbalanced, carbohydrate intense diets have created a new form of food insecurity in which people have access to the calories but not all the necessary nutrients. 

Environmental Impacts 

Global fertilizer consumption today has risen ten-fold since the 1960s (FAO, 2017), while pesticide use has increased by 74% since 1990. Their use has certainly increased crop yields, but they come with negative environmental impacts. First, we often combine them with monocultures, leaving the soil bare after harvest until the next round. This allows wind and water to erode the surface where all the nutrients are contained. Second, erosion also carries leftover fertilizer into waterways, carrying it downstream to fuel algal blooms that can destroy ecosystems and poison humans. Furthermore, when chemical inputs are sprayed over crops they can seep into the group and contaminate groundwater supplies. In the EU, 38% of water bodies are under threat from agricultural pollutants, and in the US agriculture is the top polluter of rivers and streams. 

A major issue is how the monopoly of the seed market has greatly reduced crop variety and makes it ever more difficult for farmers to turn toward other, more sustainable methods (The recent farmer riots in India are a symptom of the same ailment). We’ve reached a point where an estimated 75% of global crop diversity has disappeared since the mid 20th century! The expression “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” rings through our minds as we realize that we are one or two nasty plant diseases away from losing massive chunks of our food supply. 

The best response to this threat is having our farmer vary their crops, increasing resilience to weather change and disease. Studies have proven the effectiveness of this approach, but it remains up to our governments to combat the gridlock imposed by private companies.

Possible Solutions for Underperforming Food System 

The global food system accounts for over 70% of the freshwater use, takes up half of the earth’s land, and is responsible for 25% of global GHG emissions. It produces enough food to feed the whole population 1.5 times over, and yet almost 11% of us are undernourished.

• Crop Diversification: Reversing monoculture by crop diversification increases access to diverse foods to provide balanced diets, helps rebuild soil health and resilience, and reduces economic risks to the farmer. 

• Reducing Food Waste: About 30% of global food production goes to waste every year. If we can reduce how much we waste, we can reduce how much we produce, alleviating pressure off the land, water, atmosphere, and climate. 

• Regenerative Agriculture: Regenerative agriculture focuses on using natural biodiversity to replenish soil and combat climate change. Practices include soil rotation, agroforestry, and no-till farming. In truth, these are ancestral practices, time-proven over the centuries, but we dropped them for the Green Revolution’s techniques. 

This article was written by Lola Robinson. Cover photo by Sean Paul Kinnear on Unsplash.

References

• Anderson, Theresa. “Seed Diversity Key to Weathering the Storms Ahead.” Thomson Reuters Foundation News, 23 Oct. 2013, https://news.trust.org

• Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie. “Hunger and Undernourishment.” Our World in Data, 8 Oct. 2013, https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment

• Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie (2013) – “Food Supply”. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/food-supply’

• Roser, Max. “Pesticides.” Our World in Data, 13 Oct. 2019, https://ourworldindata.org/pesticides#pesticide-application-rates

• Joe Hassel and Max Roser. “Famine.” Our World in Data, 7 Dec. 2017, https://ourworldindata.org/famines

• Shah, Rajiv. “Doing More with Less: Fixing Our Food System.” The Rockefeller Foundation, 4 Sept. 2018, www.rockefellerfoundation.org

• “Stabilizing Nations’ Food Production through Crop Diversity.” Phys.org, Phys.org, 19 June 2019, https://phys.org

• Mateo-Sagasta, Javier, et al. Water Pollution from Agriculture: A Global Review , 2017. www.fao.org

• “Worldwide Food Waste.” United Nations Environment Program, www.unep.org

The African population is expected to nearly double from 1.3 to 2.5 billion by 2050. Logically, this comes with a proportional amount of urban expansion, economic development and the implied growth in emissions. While the continent’s influence on climate change will only really kick in during the second half of the century, it could still offset the world’s decarbonization efforts. How can Africa avoid following the same path as past developing continents and steer toward a sustainable future? 

Earth.org takes a closer look.

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Africa’s population profile is young, and experiencing rapid growth – so rapid that half of the additional world population between now and 2050 will come from the cradle of humanity. 

Already set to become more populous than China or India by 2023, it is also the world’s biggest urbanization hotspot. An estimated 187 million Africans will move to big cities in the next decade, which will have to be expanded by ten times the size of Cairo to accommodate the influx. 

Africa is, hence, emerging as a major consumer in the global non-renewable energy market (like oil and gas). Growing urban population means rising energy demands for industrial production, cooling and transport. Meeting demands means greenhouse gas generation as a by-product. A report conducted by the EU Science Hub in 2019 estimated the resulting emissions, based on the fuel demand projections under three scenarios.

• Reference
  Projection under this scenario is based on historical energy balance and projected national statistics, including population growth and GDP projections. Essentially “business as usual”.

• 2.0°C & 1.5°C

The two mitigation scenarios are based on the countries’ effort in meeting their emission targets assumed in the Paris Agreement, which is keeping the rise of global temperature under 2.0°C and 1.5°C scenarios. This would require an 11% and 27% reduction in energy consumption respectively, compared to the Reference scenario. 

It has been predicted that under the Reference scenario, total primary energy supply would grow 35% during the period 2015-2030, 38% during 2030-2050, and

approximately 27% from 2050 to 2065; and fossil fuel sources would account for 61%-65% of the overall energy generation throughout the years.

Source: EU Commission – Energy Projections for African Countries.

Without a concerted effort to divert from fossil fuels (usually the cheapest option), the continent’s emissions could double by 2065, possibly offsetting much of the decarbonization occurring throughout the rest of the globe. The key to sustainable development will be the introduction of emission caps and renewable infrastructure.

Source: EU Commission – Energy Projections for African Countries.

Such legislation would be introduced under the State Policies scenario, and would result in a 1% increase in Africa’s contribution to global CO2 emissions by 2040. 

This would be thanks to an offset through the reduction of other types of GHGs that result from poor industrial and environmental practices. Further, the falling cost of renewables coupled with growing foreign investment will help build up the necessary infrastructure for a transition toward clean energy.

African countries are bestowed with a huge, mostly untapped, renewable energy potential. The continent’s power generation potential estimates are 350 GW for hydroelectric, 110 GW for wind, 15 GW for geothermal and a staggering 1000 GW for solar. However, an infrastructure of proportional size and all of its environmental change will be needed to tap into these reserves. 

According to the 2040 Africa Case, a scenario built on the premise of the continent’s development vision in the IEA report, 

In a 2040 outlook report for the African continent, the IEA predicts solar deployment to overtake all other forms of renewable energy thanks to its ubiquitous installment potential. 

Wind would also expand rapidly in several countries that benefit from optimal conditions. 

Source: https://twitter.com/juliuslaetus/status/523063242461958145/photo/1

As a result, the current oil and gas-dominated African energy profile will shift to a 50-50 split between fossil fuels and renewables by 2040, pushed further to around 35-75 in an ideal scenario. 

The sheer size of Africa and its population make its future development of high concern to the rest of the world, and we would be wise to do our best to guide it in the right direction. This means setting the right example first, and helping wherever possible next. Africa’s future will be representative of our chosen pathway as a species. 

This article was written by Wing Ki Leung and Owen Mulhern.

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From cypherpunk breakthrough to gambler’s gold, crypto-currencies have made as many people rich as they have bankrupt. As Bitcoin continues to rise in popularity, a research team looks at its oft-ignored contribution to global warming.

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The rise of Bitcoin has been quite a phenomenon, with many making and losing a lot of money on the crypto-currency’s volatility. Just recently, Tesla invested USD 1.5 billion in the coin, boosting its value to unprecedented levels.

You may know that the production of bitcoins (called “mining”) is a highly energy-intensive process. For a bitcoin purchase to solidify, it must make it to the blockchain – but before this can happen, it has to be confirmed by supervisors, a.k.a. the miners. They chaperone the process, making sure the verification of each transaction is carried out without interference, before grouping transactions into blocks that are then added to the nigh-unhackable blockchain. Entire warehouses of hardware are dedicated to this, consuming so much electricity that in 2017, bitcoin mining was responsible for around 69 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions – roughly equal to Austria’s annual emissions.

The finding is credited to a team of researchers from UH Manoa in Hawaii, who looked into the considerable environmental impacts of the crypto-currency’s computation requirements. They went further to say that Bitcoin cumulative emissions would be enough to bring us past  2°C global warming within 16 to 22 years. 

Of course, there are a few assumptions here. They studied how fast other technologies had been adopted by society and went with the average (16 years) to slowest rate (22 years). Computing power and electricity generation sources were also averaged. Considering the unique nature of bitcoin and the concerns therein (volatility, technological and regulatory issues), it is difficult to say when or whether it will ever be widely adopted and scaled up. 

Nonetheless, the study brings it to our attention that it is something to keep an eye on.

This article was written by Owen Mulhern.

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Dangerous, chemically contaminated Superfund sites are peppered across the US, and they are increasingly threatened by climate-amplified natural disasters, be it wildfire, flood or sea level rise. Here is an example of a close call in 2018, representative of the hazard. 

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The city of Redding, California, was founded in 1887 in an area that used to be called Poverty Flats. It grew thanks to nearby copper and iron extraction, in the early 20th century, but this activity gave way to dam construction and lumber. A notable mine in the area is that of the Iron Mountain Mine – a “massive sulfide ore deposit” according to the US. Geological Survey. 

The company that owned the site used open slope and open pit techniques, meaning that mineral deposits were exposed to the air, and to rain-driven runoff, thus disseminating dangerous particles into the surrounding environment. After mining activity ceased in 1963, big waste rock dumps, toxic liquid ponds called tailings and the external and underground mine cavities remained, leading the US. government to declare it a Superfund site in 1983. 

Superfund sites are locations contaminated with hazardous materials that endanger people, fauna and flora in the area. Proximity to waterways can be particularly nefarious as these carry toxins over long distances. The US. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged with identifying these, and placing them on a waiting list for clean-up. 

An emerging issue is these sites’ vulnerability to natural disasters, and their amplification by climate change. Sea level rise, floods and wildfires alike can help spread the hazardous materials and affect local communities’ well-being. Californian wildfire seasons have gotten notoriously worse over the past decade, and many have come dangerously close to some west coast Superfund sites. 

In 2018, the Carr Fire burned through 929 km2, destroying at least 1,604 structures (of which 1,077 were homes), damaging 277 others and costing US $1.659 billion in damages. While it places 7th on the list of most destructive fires in the region, it would have been far worse had it travelled just 13 more kilometers north and reached the Iron Mountain Mine Superfund site.

Credit: Casar Corran.

The EPA has its hands full with Superfund sites: the clean-up list is 1344 items long, while clean-ups themselves fell to single digits last year for lack of funding under Trump. These operations are long, arduous and costly, but over 1,000 of the high priority sites are threatened by disasters that are worsening year by year. 

The previous administration had a disregard for environmental issues, and climate change especially. These scientific facts need to be reintegrated into assessments and future planification, but it may be that the results reveal the need of a gargantuan effort that the administration is not ready to tackle. The sad truth is that Superfund sites surrounded by disproportionately poorer neighborhoods, and not richer, large city centers. 

It is a difficult issue that will likely have to solved by targeting the highest impact sites, but these will have to be identified by taking into account the changing nature of our weather. 

This article was written by Owen Mulhern.

You might also like: Satellite Imagery and Post-Fire Forest Recovery

Satellite information is becoming an ever more ubiquitous tool to help us monitor and adapt to our rapidly changing world. As wildfires increase in intensity, scientists are looking to use satellite imagery to learn more about forest recovery after a blaze. 

Since 1985, scientists have been able to observe and monitor the world’s surface and atmosphere thanks to satellite instruments. These can observe by day or night and see land through clouds, smoke and haze, giving us unprecedented levels of information on many natural and man-made processes. 

Wildfires have been getting noticeably worse due to more intense droughts as climate change warms our planet. Satellites have allowed us to observe fire fronts and the subsequent burn scars from above, but now NASA researchers are going a step further. Landscape ecologist Naiara Pinto and her colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory intend to use satellite imagery to assess how well California’s ecosystems recover after fires. 

Much like echolocation, we can observe ground topology using microwave pulses that bounce back to the source of emission – changes over time can then be detected with subsequent fly-bys, like those resulting from earthquakes, flooding, or denuded ground after large fires. 

The map above is a mosaic of observations in the same area over a decade. Radar signals bounce off burned barren terrain differently than they reflect from unburned, vegetated ground. The colors indicate relative levels of vegetation, and yellow lines delineate several major fires. NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using UAVSAR data and imagery courtesy of Anne Marie Peacock, Naiara Pinto, and Yunling Lou and NASA/Caltech UAVSAR.

The map shows the patchwork of plant ecosystems at different stages of development, with red at an earlier and green at a later stage. However, there have been cases of little to no forest regeneration, which has experts worried and seeking to understand why. A study by Dr. Stevens-Rumann of the Colorado State Forest and Rangeland Stewardship found correlations between geographical features, species and regrowth likelihood. For instance, chances of recovery are lower on steep slopes, or places with repeated blazes that reduce the ground’s seed bank. 

The hills of California are gradually losing forest to brushy, dry vegetation that is itself highly flammable, thus creating a positive feedback loop. Trees are also more communal that one might expect, as proximity to living, mature trees is also a big factor in forest regrowth and gradual thinning chips away at forests’ ability to bounce back. Other factors such as water availability, arboreal diseases, species and altitude come together to influence ecosystem regeneration, all of which are detectable with satellite instruments. 

Cross-referencing our theoretical understanding with observed patterns will help us determine the important factors with higher accuracy, and help with better forest management in the future. 

This article was written by Owen Mulhern.

You might also like: Sea Level Rise Faster Than Previously Thought

Rising sea levels pose a slow, yet ever growing threat to coastal inhabitants, and commercial and leisure activities. A recent study determined a new way to assess the upper limits of sea level rise by the end of the century and it looks worse than previously thought.

Earth.Org takes a closer look.

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Our planet is warming because of a sharp spike in greenhouse gas concentrations since the Industrial Revolution, over 200 years ago. This has disrupted the 12,000 years of exceptionally benign climate, a period dubbed the Holocene, and precipitated a globally recognized climate emergency. 

Gigantic systems like the atmosphere, cryosphere and sea and land surface take a lot of time and energy to shift from equilibrium to sustained loss or gain, and an even longer time to reach a new equilibrium once the initial one is disrupted.  

Hence, our forcing of sustained atmospheric warming, oceanic warming and ice melt is committing us to a long-lasting continuation of these phenomena, all of which contribute to sea level rise. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regularly produces assessments on the state of our climate, along with our best predictions for the future based on a combination of different climate models. According to these, sea levels are unlikely to rise any higher than 1.1m by 2100, although other studies conclude that ~2m is entirely possible. 

The authors of a new paper, “The transient sensitivity of sea level rise”, found that they could do away with scenario-specific biases by looking at the relationship between temperature rise and the resulting change in sea level rise rate, rather than sea level itself. They found a near linear relationship, allowing them to define the “transient sea level sensitivity” as the increase in sea level rise rate with a given amount of warming. 

Recalculations of potential sea level rise by 2100 based on this relationship yielded a worrying conclusion: the upper limits of the IPCC’s future projections fall below their new results. They expect a 0.4 to 0.7 m rise in sea levels per degree Celsius of atmospheric warming, although there will be a timela between the temperature and subsequent rise. We stand at 1 degree Celsius today, and have thus locked in 0.4 to 0.7m, but the worst case scenarios for the end of the century reach the 3 or even 4 degree mark – that is a potential 1.6 to 2.8 m rise in sea levels. 

Mapping by Braundt Lau, figure by Claudia Cheuk.

To say this would be catastrophic is an understatement, both for the 600 million + living in low-lying coastal areas, and the economies of countries with highly developed coastal infrastructure. Thankfully, we have time yet to steer away from such a pathway, but the takeaway point is that even in a low emission scenario, sea level rise will have a higher impact than expected around the world. 

This article was written by Owen Mulhern.

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