Perpetual Innovation

Category: oceans

  • 13 of 14 warmest years on record occurred in 21st century – UN | Environment

    13 of 14 warmest years on record occurred in 21st century – UN | Environment | theguardian.com:

    Ouch. As you look at the clock, you will see that we are only 14 years into the 21st Century. Yet we have 13 of the hottest 14 years in recorded history.

    You do have to take the whole of the earth into account, obviously, not just the USA, where we were ?fortunate? enough to have a exceptionally cold and blizzardy Winter. (Polar Vortex is now in our daily vernacular.)

    If you are interested in the science go here to look at the 11 or 12 major indicators (based on several data sources each) that would indicate global warming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record

    If you want a composite graphic that shows the robustness of the evidence, go here. There are several data sources overlaid in each graphic. Note that the stratosphere is decreasing (cooler), that is consistent with a depletion of the ozone layer.

    The recent UN report talks about the trends in costs associated with climate effects, like typhoons. A draft report talks about $1.45T costs associated with climate change over the next decade. (See here http://www.livescience.com/43891-global-warming-economic-damage.html.)

    The costs are expected to reach $70 to $100B per year for adaptation by 2050. (See here: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/03/31/will-the-uns-new-report-shift-the-global-warming-debate)

    NASA has lots of interesting graphics, including time-series that will show the world temperature changes over the last couple hundred years. (Or just recently if you want since 1970).(The science visualization study at NASA is awesome, no mater what your interests: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/Gallery/index.html or if you want to draw your own graphs based on the underlying data, go here: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/3/2/1880-2014).

    As we come up on Earth Day (EarthDay.org or EarthDay in Wikipedia) the impacts of business as usual (BAS) really revolves around whether you think something should be done to be much more sustainable NOW!, in decades or in centuries to come.

    The degree of urgency really depends on how much you believe in global warming, and how fast you think that warming may take place.

    Look at the graphs and make your own call on this.

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  • Rising levels of acids in seas may endanger marine life, says study | Environment | The Guardian

    Rising levels of acids in seas may endanger marine life, says study | Environment | The Guardian

    Ouch!

    This has been a growing concern. The rapid increases in the CO2 levels — blasting past 400ppm as we speak — that has several scary consequences.

    First, there’s the greenhouse gas (GHG) thing and the rising temperatures of the air and land.

    Second, the excess CO2, at least some of it, is absorbed into the oceans. This increases the acidity of the oceans. Higher acid levels could wipe out shell fish, coral reefs and other things/animals that are critical for the health of the oceans (and of the planet).

    Here’s what the article and the scientists said:

    Hans Poertner, professor of marine biology at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, and co-author of a new study of the phenomenon, told the Guardian: “The current rate of change is likely to be more than 10 times faster than it has been in any of the evolutionary crises in the earth’s history.”
    Seawater is naturally slightly alkaline, but as oceans absorb CO2 from the air, their pH level falls gradually. Under the rapid escalation of greenhouse gas emissions, ocean acidification is gathering pace and many forms of marine life – especially species that build calcium-based shells – are under threat.

    Ouch!

  • The Keeling Curve | How Much CO2 Can The Oceans Take Up?

    The Keeling Curve | How Much CO2 Can The Oceans Take Up?: “Recent estimates have calculated that 26 percent of all the carbon released as CO2 from fossil fuel burning, cement manufacture, and land-use changes over the decade 2002–2011 was absorbed by the oceans. (About 28 percent went to plants and roughly 46 percent to the atmosphere.) During this time, the average annual total release of was 9.3 billion tons of carbon per year, thus on average 2.5 billion tons went into the ocean annually.”

    So… of the 9.3 billion in CO2 emissions, the oceans have been absorbing about 26%. But, as in all things that reach saturation, this cannot be expected to continue.

    We do know that CO2 will go into the air, since the atmosphere gets first go at fossil fuel emissions. So the Greenhouse gasses might start to rise much, much faster.

    This certainly looks like a no-win.

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  • Rising ocean acidity tips delicate balance | TBO.com

    Rising ocean acidity tips delicate balance | TBO.com:

    There are lots of reasons to be concerned about rising ocean acidity. If it kills one year’s generation of oysters, that is disquieting. If it starts to kill of the next year, and the next year, that is a disaster.

    The kill off of the ocean reefs, pretty much world-wide, is in part because of ocean acidifciation. An estimate of 10% of ocean reefs are dead with some 60% at risk. That should rise to 90% and essentially 100% at risk by 2030 and 2050, respectively. Most of that impact is human caused, and a big part of that is fossil fuel related.

    The greenhouse gases raise the air temperatures (again, the big debate is about how much and how fast). The oceans raise in temperature at a much delayed rate, especially deep ocean. So it may be years or decades before ocean temperature rises are felt from the time of increase in air temperatures.

    But the other impact is directly from CO2 emissions. Land and water masses absorb the CO2 from the atmosphere. Maybe 30 to 40% go into water, mainly oceans. This ocean sink of carbon dioxide make the water more acidic. This in turn causes lots of problems for shell fish, coral reefs, etc…

    Double whammy for the oceans.

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