Increasing amounts of Arctic methane releasing into atmosphere

Methane in today’s atmosphere is a stronger greenhouse gas per molecule than CO₂, and an atmospheric concentration that can change more quickly than CO₂ can. There has been a lot of press coverage of a new paper in Science called “Extensive methane venting to the atmosphere from sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf”, talking about the instability of this important greenhouse gas.

Over 80% of the bottom water over the ESAS was found to be supersaturated with dissolved methane, and 50% of the surface water. More than 100 “hotspots’ were discovered, where large quantities of methane are escaping from the sea-floor.

The latest estimate of methane release from the shallow seas off the north coast of Russia, the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), suggests that around 8 teragrams per year of the gas are reaching the atmosphere. This is equivalent to prior estimates of methane released from ALL oceans.

Although methane is harmful to the environment, there’s no reason to fixate on methane in particular. Methane is a transient gas in the atmosphere, while CO₂ essentially accumulates in the atmosphere-ocean carbon cycle, so the climate changing from the increasing CO₂ that methane oxidizes into may be as important as the concentration of methane itself.

So just like too much of any greenhouse gas, methane [at this point] is something that isn’t entirely controllable with the little actions we do to protect our environment. We just have to deal with the consequences and do what we can so it doesn’t worsen.

35 Somali Pirates Captured

“The French Defense Ministry claims one of its frigates has seized 35 pirates, four “mother ships” and six skiffs in various sweeps off the coast of Somalia.”

It seems odd that there really still are issues with pirates around the world today, but they are still out there.  The arrests that were recently made in the past few days occured in one of the most vital and busiest shipping lanes in the world. The Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean seem to be the most at-risk spots for ships to be overtaken by Somali pirates.

If there was more coverage of pirates around the world in general, we would see how big the issue actually can be. Many people see pirates as something of fiction or of old times, but they are still around. Nearly half the 47 ships hijacked off Somalia last year were taken in March and April, which are the most dangerous months of the year for ships in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. With over four hundred pirate attacks last year the situation has been growing steadily worse and many vessels are choosing alternative routes to avoid the risks now inherent in the area.

Luckily this week, Operation Atalanta, the attempt by an EU joint force to restrict and eliminate pirate attacks has been successful. The operation has two main purposes– to ensure the safety of passing vessels supplying aid on behalf of the World Food Programme (WFP) to those who need it in the African state and also to try and ensure no attacks take place on ordinary freight and container ships while traveling the Gulf of Aden.

“If global warming is real, why is it cold?”

While searching for my latest ocean-related blog idea, I came across the headline “If global warming is real why is it cold?” I thought about it and realized I didn’t completely know the answer.

Much of the public seem to believe that climate and weather are directly linked. They are related because they both have to do with atmospheric conditions, but the difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. “Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time,” NASA stated.

Then why is the weather cold? The Times Online describes how this winter has been a ‘blocking high’ over Greenland and Baffin Island that has raised temperatures above normal in these areas, and brought cold weather to the surrounding regions – Northern Europe, the UK and the north east coast of America.

Just because here in parts of North America we seem to be freezing, which makes it hard to comprehend ‘Global Warming’, other parts of the world are sweltering. The Christian Science Monitor tells us that Globally, the 2000′ s were the hottest decade on record.

Global warming is the increase of the Earth’s AVERAGE surface temperature due to a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Just because we have record cold weather, doesn’t mean global warming isn’t occurring.

“We believe global warming exists because scientists have stated that it has been the ten hottest years on record started in 1991, sea levels are rising, ice caps are melting and the connection between man-made emissions and global warming is well established.”

And to tie in with last weeks beat story, even the Coral are finding new ways to adapt to protect themselves from global warming. Corals around the world, already threatened by pollution, are widely likely to be first and most threatened species as the earth’s climate warms.

“The scientists, from Penn State University and elsewhere, have produced new evidence that some algae that live in partnership with corals are resilient to higher ocean temperatures.”

Corals and algae live together in what scientists call a ‘symbiotic relationship’. Coral polyps shelter the algae and as these plants photosynthesize they produce sugars the corals rely on for food. With this heat-resilient algae binding to the corals, they will have a better chance of surviving for longer. Although this algae will not save the coral in these reefs, it will definitely buy some time.

Research Presentation Shows Flaw in the CAM Model, Based on Observation.

Research on sea ice loss and and cloud coverage show a flaw in the CAM3.5 and CAM4 climate models, based off of observations.

The Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) is the atmosphere component of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). The Community Climate System Model (CCSM) is one of the primary tools for climate science studies in the United States. The CCSM consists of atmosphere, ocean, land, and sea-ice components coupled through exchange of mass, momentum, energy, and chemical species. (SciDAC Journal of Physics: Conference Series 78, 2007)

Jennifer Kay, 32, sees her lectures around the states as a tour, moving from one place to another, getting feedback from people in the same career field and uses that feedback in her new research and lectures. Kay compared this to a tour in the way that she gets feedback and uses it on her next project, as artists use feedback from their audience to better their next album.

CAM3.5 has a built-in response between sea ice and clouds in fixed atmospheric regimes. The system shows that clouds increase over newly open water, but this feedback is not realistic as proven by observations.

“Observations reveal no summer cloud response to sea ice loss, but cloud increases during early fall,” said Kay “CAM3.5 has a built-in feedback between stratus clouds and sea ice. This feedback produces unrealistic cloud increases over newly open water in stable atmospheric regimes.”

“It is a useful way to talk to collaborators and get feedback” said Kay, speaking of her research presentation. “It’s pretty fun. The people are fun and nice.”

Jennifer Kay’s lecture on Arctic sea ice and its interactions with the environment was held in Burt Hall Tuesday afternoon. There were about 30 attendees, most attending due to similar interests, such as Boundary Layer Meteorologist, Larry Mahrt, and Jim Coakley, Atmospheric Scientist.

Jim Coakley said he came to the lecture because “I’m an atmospheric scientist; this is what I do.”

“This is such a rapidly changing field”, said Coakley. “There has been so much evolution of these models. We are putting together space observations. We couldn’t do that 20 years ago.”

CAM4, the most recent climate observation model, is showing arctic sea ice loss at a slower rate than it is actually occurring at. The CAM4 model is showing a projection of clouds in areas where there are not actually clouds. Clouds have a cooling effect on the climate and block solar radiation, so having those in the CAM4 model would mean the ice is more blocked and likely to melt at a slower rate. Without those clouds, there is more solar radiation on the ice and it is in a warmer climate, making the sea ice melt much more quickly than projected, meaning that climate change could be much more severe than we believe.

82 Endangered Coral Species Threatened

“The Obama administration will consider federal protection for 82 coral species threatened by warming water temperatures.” The National Marine Fisheries Service said that it found “substantial scientific or commercial information” that Caribbean and Indo-Pacific corals may be threatened or endangered.

With global warming occurring and ocean temperatures rising, these corals are threatened because they need very specific water temperatures to survive. It may seem like this is not a big issue, but corals are very important to our oceans. Coral holds together some of the most diverse ecosystems, such as the Great Coral Reef, and also protects our shorelines from getting completely ravaged. [Information from my Research paper on Coral Bleaching; ask in you’d like more information].

I’m glad this information is getting out more to the public, and there should be more of an emphasis on how coral isn’t a plant- it is an actual animal that is being threatened, and a crucial part of marine ecosystems. Environmentalist predict that the threatened corals could be wiped out within the next 50 years if they are not protected from the warming waters, pollution, and rising ocean acidity.

Rising sea levels could wipe out largest tiger population

Because of the rising seas along the coast of Bangladesh, one of the world’s largest tiger populations could be wiped out. It is assumed that sea levels will rise 11 inches along this coast by 2070 and push the tiger population to as low as 5 tigers (according to the new World Wildlife Fund-led study published this month in the peer-reviewed journal, Climatic Change). Studies in the past have shown that tiger populations below 25 have difficulty surviving. It is necessary to address the impacts of climate change to save these tigers. Tigers are one of the world’s most threatened species, an estimated 3,200 left in the wild; 250 of those tigers are on the Indian side of the Sundarbans, and another 250 on the Bangladesh side.

This article from abc News states solely that the rising sea levels will affect tiger population, but not why or how. It is to be understood that tigers cannot adapt to any other environment and they will die off if the seas raise 11 inches, which doesn’t seem like it would make that much of an impact.

Also, the only thing we can do is become more knowledgeable about the climate change in hopes that someday we could be able to prevent this from happening.  Overall it is a well written, informative article; it just does not contain information that people interested in reading this article would like to know. Generally people reading about rising sea level due to climate change and the tiger population being wiped out would like to know how it could be prevented and what people are doing to help it.