The Environment
Saving the World's Coral Reefs
(1/28/2018)
The survival of coral reefs is at a 'make or break' point, according to the UN chief of environment, Erik Solheim. Greenhouse gases, pollution and warming oceans are all contributing to the destruction of the beautiful and ecologically important reefs. [Daily Mail, Jan 19] Various efforts and studies are underway around the world. Let's all hope it's not too late.
(photo is from the Maldives article)
Honeybee Colony Collapse May Be Abating (a little)
(1/28/2018)
Finally a bit of good news in the decade-long decline in world bee populations. From Bloomberg.com: The number of U.S. honeybees, a critical component to agricultural production, rose in 2017 from a year earlier, and deaths of the insects attributed to a mysterious malady that’s affected hives in North America and Europe declined, according to a 2017 U.S. Department of Agriculture honeybee health survey
It's a complex problem with multiple stressors, including some pesticides, implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder. EarthSky had this informative article on deciphering the mysterious honey bee decline.
(Photo is from EarthSky.)
"Whether at the national or corporate level, an integral part of most plans to combat climate change is making the shift to renewable energy sources. With solar and wind power leading the charge, renewables are steadily finding their way into the energy infrastructure of a number of countries and companies...There is, however, a sizable hurdle that early renewable energy adapters will inevitably encounter. Energy output from solar and wind, and to a lesser extent hydrogen, are dependent on circumstances beyond human control. An emerging solution to this issue is the use of energy storage devices or commercial-grade batteries like Tesla’s Powerpack...A new study from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) argues that this hurdle could very well be overcome by a combination of solutions. By making renewable energy completely reliable, it could provide consistent power across all sectors, potentially making blackouts a thing of the past."
Using computer modeling, the authors describe three scenarios for which blackouts were avoided for a five-year period at low energy costs. The researchers noted that having various energy storage options available was an important factor in that outcome. The successful scenarios used various combinations of concentrated solar power (CSP) storage, commercial batteries, thermal energy storage , hydropower turbines and heat pumps.
In a new paper published in the journal Agronomy, University of California researchers “document the most current understanding on California’s climate change trends in terms of temperature, precipitation, snowpack, and extreme events such as heat waves, drought, and flooding, and their relative impacts” on the state’s agriculture. Among their findings:
"A temperature change of just a few degrees is 'closely related to yield reductions' in some of the most cherished California crops: almonds, wine grapes, strawberries, walnuts, freestone peaches, and cherries. Avocado production could plummet by the middle of the century."
Because of fewer winter chill hours, by the end of the century, "only 10 percent of the Central Valley will remain viable to grow fruits like apricots, kiwis, peaches, and nectarines."
California’s snowpack, which provides much of the water used for crops, has already “reduced considerably” in recent decades and is “projected to shrink further." Scenarios studied project losses from 48 percent to 65 percent.
"In short, California’s climate has already 'changed significantly' since the first half of the 20th century, when the state emerged as a linchpin of our food system." And the authors conclude "this change can be expected to continue in the future."
Graphics from “Climate Change Trends and Impacts on California Agriculture: A Detailed Review,” by Pathak, et al.
Study Finds Major Shifts in Global Freshwater
POSTED 5/17/2018
A new global, satellite-based study of Earth's freshwater distribution found that Earth's wet areas are getting wetter, while dry areas are getting drier.
The data suggest that this pattern is due to a variety of factors, including human water management practices, human-caused climate change and natural climate cycles. The NASA-led research team, which included Hiroko Beaudoing, a faculty specialist at the University of Maryland's Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC), used 14 years of observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission to track global trends in freshwater in 34 regions around the world. (Science Daily)
Global map of freshwater stored on land for February 2016 Credit: NASA
Sea level will rise more than previously estimated
Sea level rise driven by climate change is set to pose an existential crisis to many US coastal communities
POSTED JUNE 19, 2018
Right now, three factors contribute about equally to global sea level rise, according to Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences at Princeton. First, as the world has warmed as result of the burning of fossil fuels, oceans have absorbed the majority of the heat. Warmer water expands, which takes up more space. Second, glaciers are melting, adding more water to the system. The third factor is the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland that are still protected by glaciers. The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014) estimated that the maximum sea level rise of 82 cm in the worst case scenario (CO2 emissions continue to rise)*
Two recent studies on the Antarctic ice sheet published in the journal "Nature" indicate that the increase in sea level by 2100 may be greater than estimated.
The co-author of one study on the Antarctic ice sheet, Dr Luke Bennetts, from the University of Adelaide's School of Mathematical Sciences, notes that the "contribution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is currently the greatest source of uncertainty in projections of global mean sea level rise." What the study found was disturbing - that storm-driven ocean swells have triggered the catastrophic disintegration of Antarctic ice shelves in recent decades. The finding highlights the need for sea ice and ocean waves to be included in ice sheet modelling. This will allow scientists to more accurately forecast the fate of the remaining ice shelves and better predict the contribution of Antarctica's ice sheet to sea level rise, as climate changes. Dr Bennetts says that "while ice shelf disintegration doesn't directly raise sea level because they are already floating, the resulting acceleration of the tributary glaciers behind the ice shelf, into the Southern Ocean, does." (Science Daily)
The second study has even more directly troublesome news regarding the Antarctic ice. There's enough ice stacked on top of Antarctica to raise seas around the globe by almost 200 feet. While it takes time for major changes to occur with that much ice, Antarctica is melting faster than we thought and the melting has been speeding up significantly in recent years. "Between 1992 and 2017, Antarctica lost more than 3.3 trillion tons of ice, causing sea levels around the globe to rise an average of 8 millimeters. About 40% of that loss occurred between 2012 and 2017, according to the new study. From 1992 to 2012, the continent lost about 84 billion tons of ice a year, and over the next five years, that jumped to more than 240 billion tons per year. If the acceleration of ice melt were to continue, it could potentially cascade, leading to runaway ice melt and rapid sea level rise." (Business Insider)
*If governments achieve drastic emissions cuts from 2020 onward, sea levels are projected to rise by between 26 and 54 cm on 1986-2005 levels by the end of the century.
As sea levels rise, properties along the coasts will be impacted. The Union of Concerned Scientists analyzed data on the rise in ocean levels and estimated what the ensuing coastal flooding could mean in financial terms for the United States by the year 2045. Their conclusion: Sea level rise driven by climate change is set to pose an existential crisis to many US coastal communities, with new research finding that as many as 311,000 homes face being flooded every two weeks within the next 30 years. The swelling oceans are forecast repeatedly to soak coastal residences collectively worth $120bn by 2045 if greenhouse gas emissions are not severely curtailed. (UK Guardian)
Right: © Provided by Business Insider/ Crevasses near the grounding line of Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica.
Belize Coral Reef Delisted
POSTED JULY 10, 2018
After being danger-listed in 2009, the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System (BBRRS) was removed from the UNESCO World Heritage Center list of “World Heritage in Danger” last month.
"This is the face of climate change"
POSTED JULY 31, 2018
"The extreme heatwaves and wildfires wreaking havoc around the globe are 'the face of climate change,' one of the world’s leading climate scientists has declared, with the impacts of global warming now 'playing out in real time.'
Climate change has long been predicted to increase extreme weather incidents, and scientists are now confident these predictions are coming true. Scientists say the global warming has contributed to the scorching temperatures that have baked the UK and northern Europe for weeks.
The hot spell was made more than twice as likely by climate change, a new analysis found, demonstrating an 'unambiguous' link.
Extreme weather has struck across Europe, from the Arctic Circle to Greece, and across the world, from North America to Japan. “This is the face of climate change,” said Prof Michael Mann, at Penn State University, and one the world’s most eminent climate scientists. “We literally would not have seen these extremes in the absence of climate change.”
...
It is not too late to make the significant cuts needed in greenhouse gas emissions, said Mann, because the impacts progressively worsen as global warming increases.
“It is not going off a cliff, it is like walking out into a minefield,” he said. “So the argument it is too late to do something would be like saying: ‘I’m just going to keep walking’. That would be absurd – you reverse course and get off that minefield as quick as you can. It is really a question of how bad it is going to get.”
'Abrupt thaw' of permafrost beneath lakes could significantly affect climate change models
POSTED AUGUST 19, 2018
"New NASA-funded research has discovered that Arctic permafrost’s expected gradual thawing and the associated release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere may actually be sped up by instances of a relatively little known process called abrupt thawing. Abrupt thawing takes place under a certain type of Arctic lake, known as a thermokarst lake that forms as permafrost thaws.
"The impact on the climate may mean an influx of permafrost-derived methane into the atmosphere in the mid-21st century, which is not currently accounted for in climate projections.
Methane bubbles are trapped in the ice on a pond near Fairbanks, Alaska. Credit: Katey Walter Anthony.
"The Arctic landscape stores one of the largest natural reservoirs of organic carbon in the world in its frozen soils. But once thawed, soil microbes in the permafrost can turn that carbon into the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane, which then enter into the atmosphere and contribute to climate warming.
"The mechanism of abrupt thaw and thermokarst lake formation matters a lot for the permafrost-carbon feedback this century," said first author Katey Walter Anthony at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who led the project that was part of NASA’s Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), a ten-year program to understand climate change effects on the Arctic. "We don’t have to wait 200 or 300 years to get these large releases of permafrost carbon. Within my lifetime, my children’s lifetime, it should be ramping up. It’s already happening but it’s not happening at a really fast rate right now, but within a few decades, it should peak."
Day Zero: the coming global water crisis and what we can do about it
Besides the air we breathe, nothing is more essential to our survival than water. Access to clean water is far from universal today. According to the non-profit Water.org, 844 million people live without access to safe water and 2.3 billion without improved sanitation. One million people die from water-, sanitation- and hygiene-related disease each year. And, thanks to changing climate, decaying infrastructure and burgeoning city populations, access to water is going to get more problematic in the future across much of the world.
IPCC issues a final call to halt a climate catastrophe
POSTED OCTOBER 15, 2018
After three years of research and a week of haggling between scientists and government officials at a meeting in South Korea, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a special report on the impact of global warming of 1.5 degrees C.
BBC reports: It's the final call, say scientists, the most extensive warning yet on the risks of rising global temperatures. Their dramatic report on keeping that rise under 1.5 degrees C says the world is now completely off track, heading instead towards 3C.
Keeping to the preferred target of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels will mean "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society".
It will be hugely expensive - but the window of opportunity remains open.
Left: link to the interactive BBC article.
Scientists turn CO2 back into solid carbon
POSTED FEBRUARY 28, 2019
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the global community must remove 100 billion to 1 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by mid-century in order to avoid catastrophic global warming. Along with emissions reductions, carbon capture processes are being researched to aid in meeting the goal. The Independent (U.K.) reports on a breakthrough carbon capture experiment by a research team led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. [link below left]
The scientists developed a new technique using a liquid metal electrolysis method which converts CO2 from a gas into solid particles of carbon at room temperature.
The process has the potential to be more commercially viable and safer than other carbon capture processes. Other solid capture processes must be done at extremely high temperatures, and carbon capture in a liquid form poses storage safety issues.
RMIT researcher Dr Torben Daeneke said: “While we can't literally turn back time, turning carbon dioxide back into coal and burying it back in the ground is a bit like rewinding the emissions clock...While more research needs to be done, it's a crucial first step to delivering solid storage of carbon."
Coping with climate change: from the Himalayas to the Arctic
POSTED MAR 24, 2019
Yaks in the Himalayas, reindeer in the Arctic, and entire ways of life are threatened by the warming climate. While the focus has been on what's happening at the poles, 240 million people live in the 1.3 million square miles of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. Many of these live a vulnerable, subsistence lifestyle.
"Last winter, [Changlin] Xu was one of three herders who traveled from the region to the city of Tromsø, Norway, 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle....This journey was important; the yak herders’ polar pilgrimage was intended to ignite a conversation with Scandinavian reindeer herders who are facing similar challenges. For in a warming world, yak and reindeer herders share a common fate: dying animals, rangeland degradation and youth seeking alternative livelihoods.
"This meeting of the minds is but one example of the growing relationship between the Arctic and Asia, specifically within the icy high mountains of the Hindu Kush Himalaya known as the “Third Pole” because the region contains more snow and ice than anywhere other than the polar regions. It also serves as the source of 10 major river systems that provide water to more than a billion people...Until recently, the cryosphere — the frozen water part of the Earth system — has been largely ignored. In 2009, Pam Pearson, a former U.S. diplomat and deputy ambassador to Norway, founded the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative after it became clear there were no organizations focused on climate change in the cryosphere. “It’s not just that both poles are warming at about twice the rate [of the rest of the world], mountainous regions are as well. It’s kind of an altitude impact in addition to a polar impact,” she explains. “When it comes to human impacts, the Himalaya is unique just because of the large number of people living there and the degree to which they’re so dependent on snowpack and glacier melt, seasonally.” (Cosmos, Mar 23 - link below left)
Left: Link to Cosmos article
Above: Map of Hindu Kush Himalayan region from Cosmos article
In Norway, human encroachment and energy exploitation have degraded more than 30 percent of reindeer pastures. At this pace, traditional reindeer herding will largely be gone by mid-century.
Meanwhile, the yak populations of Bhutan, India and Nepal have declined precipitously in recent decades, dropping from 200,000 in Nepal in the 1960s, for example, to just 66,000 by 2013. And no one yet knows what the exact long-term consequences of climate change will be for the Sami or Hindu Kush Himalayan herders. By sharing observations and coping strategies, herders from both regions hope they will be able to harness their collective power and combat the changes that threaten to unravel their traditional ways of life.
Poisons, natural ecosystems and sustainability
POSTED FEBRUARY 21, 2020
Ecology, a term coined by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866, comes from the Greek "oikos" meaning “household,” “home,” or “place to live.” While climate change from global warming has been getting most of the attention for the past couple of decades, our home, Planet Earth, has other threats to deal with, as several articles from Cosmos remind us.
Poisons in our water and air are literally killing us
(Cosmos, link below left)
An analysis published in the journal Cancer found that in US municipalities with a range of pollution and environmental degradation issues the total number of cancer cases was 9 percent above the national average. Although the problem is not limited to the United States...
Almost every human being is now contaminated in a worldwide flood of industrial chemicals and pollutants – most of which have never been tested for safety – a leading scientific journal has warned. Regulation and legal protection for today’s citizens from chemical poisons can no longer assure our health and safety, according to a hard-hitting report in the journal PLOS Biology, titled “Challenges in Environmental Health: Closing the Gap between Evidence and Regulations”. The report describes a chemical oversight system corrupted from its outset in the 1970s when 60,000 chemicals were registered for use in the US, mostly without being safety tested. Many of these chemicals were subsequently adopted as ‘safe’ around the world.
...Americans face a special challenge from deregulation- loving, science-ignorant, ideologically-driven lawmakers:
Gaining a clearer understanding of the health costs of environmental degradation would therefore seem like a good idea – a matter of significance not just to researchers but policy makers and legislators grappling with the burgeoning cost of health care as well as endemic budget deficits. Yet ironically this study, [noted above and] credited with being the first of its kind in the US, assessing the impact of cumulative environmental exposures on cancer incidence in populations, may also be the last. Access to such geospatial information would be extremely curtailed by a Republican-sponsored bill ostensibly intended to protect local zoning decisions from federal government interference. Under the bill proposed by Representative Paul Gosar, of Arizona, and Senator Mike Lee, of Utah, no federal funding could be used to “design, build, maintain, utilise or provide access to a Federal database of geospatial information on community racial disparities or disparities in access to affordable housing”. (Cosmos, May 2017)
Human activity is threatening ecosystems that have supported life for millennia
(Cosmos, link below center)
Natural ecosystems have provided vital benefits for humankind as we developed and evolved. A team of scientists from the US, Canada, and Europe have now created an interactive global map that shows the current state of these benefits and that can be used to model how future changes will affect these benefits.in The team focused on three areas: water quality control, protection from coastal hazards, and crop pollination.
The key findings, reported in the journal Science, are sobering. “Up to five billion people face higher water pollution and insufficient pollination for nutrition under plausible future scenarios of land use and climate change” ...[and] these risks are disproportionately distributed; half of African and South Asian populations face higher-than-average water pollution, crop losses and storm risk. “Our analyses suggest that the current environmental governance at local, regional and international levels is failing to encourage the most vulnerable regions to invest in ecosystems,” says co-author Unai Pascual, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. “If we continue on this trajectory, ecosystems will be unable to provide natural insurance in the face of climate change-induced impacts on food, water and infrastructure.”
The model also highlights how interconnected our world is and how dependent on these natural ecosystems we are. "Globally, more sustainable initiatives might mitigate declines in nature’s benefits three to 10-fold. However, the authors warn that these initiatives must not be studied in isolation. Policy makers, scientists and concerned citizens "can now explore different scenarios by zooming into their own regions of interest on the interactive viewer to identify where the environment makes its biggest contributions and who will be most impacted by future development trajectories."
Overuse of the earth's resources is reaching a tipping point
(Cosmos, link below right)
The World Wildlife Federation publishes a biannual Living Planet Report. Since the 1970s, the WWF report has noted that humans are using more resources than the planet can regenerate. When our ecological footprint exceeds Earth’s biocapacity, that’s unsustainable resource use. While unsustainable resource use can occur for some time, it cannot last forever. Reporting on her research, Bonnie McCain writes:
"...my colleagues and I compared future ecological footprints with research about planetary boundaries (points at which the risks to humanity of crossing a tipping point become unacceptably high). We found the discrepancy between the ecological footprint and biocapacity is likely to continue until at least 2050. We also found that our global cropping footprint is likely to exceed the planetary boundary for land clearing between 2025 and 2035. This occurs in the context of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations that have already crossed the planetary boundary of 350 ppm. (As I write, the carbon dioxide concentration is over 400 ppm.) By itself, both these points are serious enough. More seriously, we have no idea what happens when two planetary boundaries are approached simultaneously, or two tipping points interact.
The consequences could be dire but McCain sees some hope if we begin to make the right choices now.
We face the permanent loss of essential natural processes, putting, for example, our global food security at risk. Our research shows we need to address gradual, cumulative change, as the global resource buffer shrinks and stabilising feedback mechanisms are overwhelmed. But there’s good news too. Ecological footprints decrease in response to human decisions. Our current trajectory towards tipping points is not fait accompli at all, but can be influenced by the choices we make now.
Earth Day - Then and Now
POSTED APRIL 20, 2020
It's been a half-century since the first Earth Day demonstrations and "teach-ins". April 22, 1970. It was a time of anti-war protests and counter-cultural upheaval. People believed, in the immortal words of Bob Dylan, that "the times they are-a-changin". Anything was possible.
The world had been pretty much going along obliviously to the damage done to the environment by the pollution entering our air and water. Leaded gas from 12 mile-per-gallon automobiles, smoke and sludge from industry, and toxic chemicals used indiscriminately had been the order of the day for decades. Until this point, mainstream America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment threatens human health. Two propelling events, though, happened in the 1960's and led to the first Earth Day. (1)
- In 1962, Rachel Carson's best-seller "Silent Spring" was published. The book focused on the impact of the indiscriminate use of pesticides, particularly the DDT used to kill mosquitoes. The overarching theme of the book is the powerful—and often negative—effect humans have on the natural world.
- In January 1969, there was a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California.
EarthDay.org continues: "Inspired by the student anti-war movement, [Democratic Senator Gaylord] Nelson wanted to infuse the energy of student anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a teach-in on college campuses to the national media, and persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair. They recruited Denis Hayes, a young activist, to organize the campus teach-ins and they choose April 22, a weekday falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, to maximize the greatest student participation."
Above: Two Getty Image photos from Earth Day 1970
The Earth Day demonstrations across the US in 1970 added to the growing awareness of the health impacts of air and water pollution. The result was the passage of the federal environmental legislation that has protected us to this day: the Environmental Protection Agency was established on December 2, 1970; the Clean Air Act was signed into law on December 31, 1970; the Clean Water Act, on October 18,1972.
Over the years, the focus of Earth Day events evolved. (2)
Earth Day went international in 1990, with 200 million people in 141 countries participating in the event. Recycling and sustainable development were major themes that year and Earth Day "set the stage for the United Nations Earth Summit in Brazil two years later. It also helped convince over a dozen countries to create labeling programs that pointed consumers toward eco-friendly goods and services. Some eastern European nations even established environmental protection agencies."
By the time of Earth Day 2000, global warming and clean energy had become the focus. Over the years, there was an ever increasing awareness of the potential damage to world's ecosystems being wreaked by greenhouse gas emissions. In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted. This outlined the greenhouse gas emissions reduction obligation for countries, along with what came to be known as Kyoto mechanisms such as emissions trading, clean development mechanism and joint implementation.
Earth Day in 2010 coincided with the International Year of Biodiversity. The 40th anniversary included a climate rally to demand comprehensive climate legislation. "Acts of Green" ranging from beach cleanups to voter registration drives, and launched a million-tree-planting initiative.
Earth Day is a good time to pause and reflect on the inter-connectedness of all life.
Marc Ian Barasch discusses this in Field Notes on the Compassionate Life. He relates the story of a Colorado boy who became lost in the woods in the dead of winter. As hypothermia was setting in, the boy tried to chase away two huge elks that he saw nearby. He lost consciousness and would surely have died had not the two elks slept up against him warming him through the cold night.
Barasch continues, "There are a million stories of our fellow creatures being kind to us for no good reason...There are inexplicable ways compassion radiates through the world; some spirit of sympathy drawn toward any distress." Barasch relates experiments that show even plants to be sensitive to painful or sad thoughts and memories. He concludes that perhaps "our ultimate human assignment is to extend our sense of kinship beyond family and clan and strangers to all other creatures...Acknowledging a sentient world might make us kinder, gentler citizens of a planet that has already had to endure more than its share of our cruelties."
The theme for Earth Day 2020 is climate action. Earthday.org: "The enormous challenge — but also the vast opportunities — of action on climate change have distinguished the issue as the most pressing topic for the 50th anniversary. Climate change represents the biggest challenge to the future of humanity and the life-support systems that make our world habitable."
I'll close with a final thought from Barasch's book that could perhaps guide and inspire our efforts over the coming year. "Given our shaky collective plight, knowing Nature's 'value' may not be enough; we may need to love it."
Images: Polar bear on ice floe is from ZME Science website; Deer in winter woods is from Conservation Fund website (Reggie Hall); Earth from Space (Apollo 17) from NASA
References: (1) https://www.earthday.org/history/ (2) The History of Earth Day, CBS Miami 2012
Fair Use Notice: Images and quotes on this website may be subject to copyright. Their inclusion on this site is within the fair use doctrine of copyright law.
Climate change: future hurricanes may cause havoc inland
POSTED NOVEMBER 19, 2020
Hurricanes are one of the most destructive forces found in nature. During its life cycle an average hurricane can expend as much energy as 10,000 atomic bombs . If converted to electricity, a hurricane would power the United States for 3 years. Hurricanes, also known as tropical cyclones form over waters where the humidity is high, sea surface temperatures are warm and light winds prevail. Those conditions usually occur in the summer and early autumn in the tropical North Atlantic and North Pacific.
The 2020 hurricane season's 30th named storm, Iota, slammed into Nicaragua Tuesday as a Category 4* hurricane, the strongest to hit Nicaragua in the country's history. It was also the strongest hurricane to make landfall this late in the season (June 1 to November 30). This has been a record-setting year for named storms in the North Atlantic as the impact of global warming continues to be felt.
Previous studies have shown that climate change can intensify hurricanes over the open ocean. A new study in the journal Nature found that North Atlantic hurricanes are weakening more slowly than they used to when they hit land and that this is also linked to climate change. Researchers say those that develop over warmer oceans carry more moisture and therefore stay stronger for longer. There is thus a real risk than in the future they will reach communities further inland and be more destructive. This is the first study to establish a link between a warming climate and the smaller subset of hurricanes that have made landfall. [Cosmos, Nov 12] The researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate4 University analyzed data for storms that made landfall over North America between 1967 and 2018, then used the decrease in storm intensity to define a timescale of decay. They report that while hurricanes were likely to decay by 75% within a day of landfall half a century ago, today it is just 50%.
This has implications for inland communities as one of the researchers, Pinaki Chakraborty, explains: “We know that coastal areas need to ready themselves for more intense hurricanes, but inland communities, who may not have the know-how or infrastructure to cope with such intense winds or heavy rainfall, also need to be prepared.”
For more about hurricane formation, see the DW link top sidebar. For more on the study, see the Cosmos link mid-sidebar.
*A category 4 hurricane has maximum sustained winds from 130 to 156 mph. The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale is a 1 to 5 rating, or category, based on a hurricane's maximum sustained winds.
Depressions, Storms, Hurricanes
Tropical cyclones with maximum sustained surface winds of less than 39 miles per hour (mph) are called tropical depressions. Those with maximum sustained winds of 39 mph or higher are called tropical storms.
When a storm's maximum sustained winds reach 74 mph, it is called a hurricane. The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale is a 1 to 5 rating, or category, based on a hurricane's maximum sustained winds.
Preparing for a radically changed planet
POSTED APRIL 21, 2021
The coming decades will see our planet affected more and more by global warming. Severe weather events will increase in frequency and intensity. Droughts will last longer, and coastal flooding will force permanent evacuations. Climate refugees will be added to today's war and hunger refugees.
Steps we take now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will mitigate the effects of global warming, but the climate change flywheel is a slow one. Whatever changes we make today will take decades, perhaps centuries, to have an effect. Atmospheric CO2 is now 50% higher than in pre-industrial times and could hit 500 ppm in 30 years. Planet Earth has not seen that level in at least 3,000,000 years. As atmospheric CO2 rises, so does the average global temperature. The polar regions are especially hard hit and melting snow from glaciers increases the sea level.
If the CO2 remains at 500 ppm for many decades, our coastlines, indeed our world, would be unrecognizable. In the March Atlantic, Peter Brannen compares the today's southeastern United States to what was there 3 million years ago:
Our modern coastlines would have been so far underwater that you'd have to take great pains to avoid getting the bends if you tried scuba diving down to them. Today traveling east through Virginia, or North or South Carolina, or Georgia, midway through your drive you'll pass over a gentle 100 foot drop. This is the Orangeburg Scarp, a bluff - hundreds of miles long - that divides the broad flat coastal plain of the American Southeast...Here, waves of the Pliocene high seas chewed away at the middle of the Carolinas - an East Coast Big Sur.
Further in the past, 16 million years ago, with CO2 in the same 500 ppm range, Brannen writes:
...the planet appears truly exotic. The Amazon is running backwards, and gathers in great pools in the Andes. A seaway stretches from Western Europe to Kazakhstan and spills into the Indian Ocean. California's Central Valley is open ocean.
Computer models of the sea level in 2100 predict a rise between 1 and 8 feet above where it is today. Increasingly severe weather events and their associated storm surges will exacerbate the problem, and inland areas will be subjected to destruction previously seen only along the immediate coast.
We can prepare now for this radically changed planet. Engineering solutions and science-based actions are some of the best investments we can make as we adapt. Protecting infrastructure located near coastal areas from critical damage and protecting coastal communities from flooding are two high priority goals.
Infrastructure
Since the beginning of civilization, humans have built important infrastructure next to the sea, taking advantage of the access to ocean-going transportation. Many of the world’s largest cities are near the ocean, more than 600 million people live within 10 meters of sea level [1 and link right], and forty percent of the world's population - some 3 billion people - live within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of a coastline.
Protecting the coasts and the areas immediately inland is an obvious priority. Of particular concern is the infrastructure that is located near the coastlines - some examples:
Docks and ports, major components of international trade, are obviously at risk. One early forewarning of what might be expected are near Bothnian Bay in northern Finland, where one-time piers and boathouses lie stranded. Another is the ruins of the ancient Egyptian port of Heracleion, which can only be visited today by scuba divers. [1]
The Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station near Miami is in danger of being permanently flooded. Built pretty much right at sea level circa 1972, by mid-century the Turkey Point site will be below the high tide line. [1] Power plants, particularly nuclear power plants, located on or near the coast are at risk. Sea level rise, combined with more intense hurricanes, increases this risk. "Flooding can disable the backup power supplies and other safety equipment needed to keep the hot and highly radioactive reactor cores and spent nuclear fuel pools from overheating and melting down...It can also disable the electrical distribution systems needed to deliver electricity through the plant. If flooding disables backup power supplies, then some equipment needed to cool the reactor and spent fuel, such as electrically powered pumps, would not be available.” [1]
Super Storm Sandy was one of the most damaging weather events in U.S. history. A 14-foot storm surge drowned parts of New York City’s subway system. Financial damages amounted to $71.4 billion, including power outages for 8.5 million people and 20,000 canceled airline flights. [2]
One surprising bit of infrastructure that’s vulnerable to sea level rise is the internet. Large parts of the worldwide communications system are located underwater—in the form of ocean-spanning submarine cables. Yet, those cables connect to stations on shore and those nodes, and the fiber-optic cables radiating from them are not so robust. Researchers looking at the combination of internet infrastructure density and vulnerability to sea level rise and found that the New York, Miami, and Seattle metropolitan areas were at risk not just of limited outages, but of losing internet connectivity altogether. [1]
The solutions for existing infrastructure come down to:
"Hardening" their defense - for example, by building higher seawalls and raising pier height
Shutting down particularly vulnerable sites
Whenever possible, relocating the infrastructure to a safe location.
Coastal Communities
Global warming and rising sea levels put communities near coastlines and those in flood zones along rivers at greater risk. In the United States alone, hundreds of coastal communities will soon face chronic, disruptive flooding that directly affects people's homes, lives, and properties, according to an analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists. ""More than 300,000 of today's coastal homes, with a collective market value of about $117.5 billion today, are at risk of chronic inundation in 2045...By the end of the century, homes and commercial properties currently worth more than $1 trillion could be at risk." [3]
Seawalls have long been the "go-to" answer for protecting against the sea surge from storms, but there are other, better options. Environmental scientists and engineers have devised ways to prevent coastal flooding by sopping up water and limiting erosion and wave energy - including "living shorelines" and permeable pavement, which allows floodwaters to seep into the ground below rather than pool on the surface. [4 and right]
Creating a living shoreline might be as straightforward as restoring what once existed at the site — whether it’s oyster reefs, coral reefs, or other living breakwaters that dissipate wave energy. The newly protected shorelines become more stable over time as plants, roots, and reefs grow. Salt marshes and mangroves trap sediment and organic matter, allowing them to grow in elevation. That affords rising protection against inundation. Similarly, the growth in height of oyster reefs can outpace sea level rise, allowing them to continue protecting shorelines as sea levels continue to rise. [4]
As sea levels rise, the frequency and intensity of flooding along rivers will also increase. Preservation and restoration of wetlands can prevent flooding - not only near the coast but near rivers. Wetlands - swamps, marshes, fens and bogs - are natural water-storage features on the landscape. They provide essential wildlife habitat and act as massive natural water filters, and "natural sponges" that hold water when it rains, then release it slowly. Wetlands play a crucial role in preventing floods not only where rivers discharge into the ocean (such as the Mississippi Delta) but also in the headwaters and watershed, where they store water during heavy rains, slowing runoff into streams and reducing flood peaks. [5]
St. Stanislaus was a boy’s Catholic Boarding School over a hundred years old in Bay St. Louis, MS. Located on the beach overlooking the Gulf, it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The picture below was taken before the building disintegrated. (EPA website)
Wetland remediation projects often require substantial restoration work. When removing impacted sediments, it is often necessary to remove the surrounding flora and vegetation. When the excavation is completed, the area must be restored so that it can once again become a vibrant habitat for native plants and animals. Carrying out this restoration requires treatment of invasive species, placement of clean sand and sediment, seeding and planting, and, when complete, continued maintenance and monitoring. [6]
The world is changing and we need to adapt. The projects to preserve infrastructure and reduce the destruction from flooding will require much capital and many years, but delaying them will lead to immensely greater costs in the future.
References: [1] American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) [2] Scientific American [3] Union of Concerned Scientists [4] NBC News [5] The Why Files [6] JFBrennan.com
Carbon capture: an emerging tool in the climate change kit
POSTED JUNE 16, 2021
In spite of the pandemic-caused turndown of the world's economies and the resulting decreased amount of carbon released to the atmosphere, the CO2 in the earth's atmosphere rose by 2.6 ppm in 2020, the fifth-highest in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) 63-year record. There was also a significant jump in the atmospheric concentration of methane, which is far less abundant than CO2 but 28 times more potent than CO2 at trapping heat - NOAA’s preliminary analysis showed the annual increase in atmospheric methane to be the largest recorded since measurements began in 1983. [1]
Our planet has not seen CO2 levels this high in 3.6 million years - the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period. It was a world very different from today's, as described by NOAA: "During that time sea level was about 78 feet higher than today, the average temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in pre-industrial times, and studies indicate large forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra." [1]
Although the carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere in 2020 was 7% less than it would have been without the pandemic, the annual increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations was near record levels. The climate change flywheel is a slow one, and it will take many decades to significantly reverse the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In order to meet the Paris Climate Accord goals, the nations of the world will have to develop carbon capture projects and add them to the suite of steps already under consideration.
Trees and plants are the oldest form of carbon capture. They take CO2 out of the air and convert it to oxygen and glucose by photosynthesis. There is an international initiative, 1t.org, which aims to restore and grow one trillion trees by 2030 to mitigate climate change. But trees take time to grow, and many climate experts agree that additional carbon capture methods will be needed to meet the scheduled targets for carbon neutrality.
There are a number of carbon capture technologies available that could help speed the return to lower levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and avoid a return to a Mid-Pliocene Warm Period planet. Originally developed in the 1970's to enhance the recovery of crude oil, modern carbon capture techniques are being adapted to fight climate change. On a large scale, these technologies are expensive and will require some form of government investment subsidy or incentive (for example, the United States' 45Q tax credit) to speed implementation.
At present, there are 21 "large-scale" facilities around the world with capacity to capture up to 40 million tons of CO2 each year. [2] This is a miniscule fraction (~0.10%) of the world's total annual CO2 emissions. Carbon capture capacity will have to be greatly expanded if it is to play an important role in supplementing emissions reduction efforts. In addition to existing technologies, new technologies are being developed. Microsoft is establishing a 1 billion USD climate innovation fund to accelerate the global development of carbon reduction, capture and removal technologies. and the Elon Musk is offering a $100 million prize for development of the best carbon capture technology.
This post takes a look at existing and emerging carbon capture technologies, storage methods, and re-use applications.
The Carbon Capture Process
As shown in the schematic from the Paris-based International Energy Agency [2], there are three steps to the carbon capture process:
(1) The carbon dioxide is removed either directly from the air (Direct Air Capture or DAC) or from point sources such as power plant stacks where it is more concentrated.
(2) The captured carbon dioxide is transported to its point of use or storage.
(3) The carbon is stored in underground geological formations or re-utilized (for example in concrete manufacture).
Schematic of the Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) Process
Carbon dioxide emissions can best be captured at point sources where the concentration of CO2 is high, but not all point sources are suitable for the technology. Fixed point sources such as power plant stacks are good candidates for point carbon capture, while moving point sources such as automobile tailpipes are not.
For fixed point source carbon capture, emissions are routed through a vessel with a liquid solvent, such as a sodium hydroxide-water solution, which absorbs the carbon dioxide. From there, the solvent is heated up in a second tower — called a “stripper” or “regenerator” — to remove the CO2, where it’s then routed for underground storage. The solvent can then be re-used. [3]
There is growing interest in multi-user CCUS “hubs” in industrial areas located near geologic storage sites, such as depleted oil and gas reservoirs. A proponent of one such proposal suggests that a hub in the Houston area might effectively capture all the CO2 emissions from the petrochemical, manufacturing and power generation facilities located there. The CO2 would be piped into natural geologic formations thousands of feet under the sea floor. Within 20 years, the proposed Houston hub could capture potentially 100 million tons of carbon dioxide per year - seven times the total US carbon captured today. Multiply this by numerous industrial regions around the world and CCUS would begin to make an impact in the race to halt climate change. The cost of such a hub would be significant. For a facility such as that proposed for the Houston area, investment is estimated at $100 billion or about $1000 per ton of CO2 captured per year.
Direct air capture (DAC) may soon become an option for carbon from distributed point sources such as automobile exhaust and has great potential for removing carbon dioxide that is already in the air. Still in the development stage, the 15 DAC plants currently operating around the world are removing less than 10,000 tons per year of CO2. (This compares to the 40 million tons/year carbon dioxide being captured at point sources.) Most of these plants are small and sell the captured CO2 for use – for carbonating drinks, for example.
There are several noteworthy projects underway to scale up DAC technology. Among them:
The first large-scale direct air capture plant is now being developed in Texas by a Carbon Engineering and Occidental Petroleum partnership. The plant will capture up to 1 million tons of CO2 each year and could become operational as early as 2023. [4] Banks of fans, each about 8.5 meters in diameter, will "draw air into a large structure called a contactor. The air is pushed through a plastic mesh coated with a potassium hydroxide solution, which binds with the carbon dioxide. A series of chemical processes concentrate and compress the CO2 into tiny white pellets, which are then heated to 900 °C to release the carbon dioxide as a gas...The captured gas will be injected into older oil wells, both sequestering the CO2 underground and forcing up any remaining oil." [IEEE link below left]
"Reykjavik-based Carbfix captures and dissolves CO₂ in water, then injects it into the ground where it turns into stone in less than two years...The technology relies on basalts, where the carbonated water reacts with elements such as calcium, magnesium and iron, forming carbonates that fill up empty spaces in the rocks underground. Carbfix aims to reach 1 billion metric tons of permanently stored CO₂ in 2030. The global storage potential using the technology is greater than the emissions from burning all fossil fuels on earth, according to Carbfix. Europe could theoretically store at least 4,000 billion tons of CO₂ in rocks, while the U.S. could store at least 7,500 billion tons." [Bloomberg link below center]
Sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide underground or undersea has an enormous benefit for the planet and its people but no direct financial incentive. Utilization of the captured CO2, on the other hand, can be economically attractive. Ella Adlen and Cameron Hepburn at the University of Oxford have studied the possibilities for turning CO2 into a valuable feedstock. They examineed ten utilization pathways and found six "that can be cost competitive and profitable soon [or] even now: CO2 chemicals, concrete building materials, enhanced oil recovery, forestry, soil carbon sequestration, and biochar." The authors caution, though, that "there are large uncertainties over scalability, the permanence of the capture, and the cleanness of the future energy mix being used to power certain methods." [Energy Post link below right]
Carbon capture will not solve the climate crisis. It is an emerging tool that is seen by many as necessary to get to that point faster.
Carbon capture does not obviate the need to reduce greenhouse emissions. But fixed-point-source carbon capture does prevent those emissions from getting into the air.
Finally, Direct Air Carbon Capture is one of the very few ways to reverse the relentless increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.
Sources: [1] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [2] International Energy Agency [3] CNBC [4] International Energy Agency
IPCC's stark warning
POSTED SEPTEMBER 28, 2021
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the first installment of its Sixth Assessment Report on August 9.* The press release accompanying it summarizes the situation: "the changes observed in the climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, and some of the changes already set in motion—such as continued sea level rise—are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years."
The report from Working Group I warns that:
The window to implement actions that will hold the increase in global temperatures from pre-industrial days to "well below 2 degrees C" (the 2015 Paris Climate Accords target) is rapidly closing
The evidence that the rise in global temperatures is primarily driven by human activity is unequivocal and that "carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main driver of climate change, even as other greenhouse gases and air pollutants also affect the climate."
Every region of the world is already experiencing the effects of human-induced climate change. Because of the human-induced rise in greenhouse gases, the oceans are rising, and deadly disasters like wildfires, heat waves, and flooding are becoming more destructive. These effects will intensify as global temperatures continue to rise.
“Stabilizing the climate will require strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and reaching net zero CO2 emissions."
The National Resources Defense Council gleans these interesting facts from the IPCC report [sidebar below]:
In 2019, levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were higher than at any time in at least two million years.
The earth’s average surface temperature has increased faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the last 2,000 years.
Between 2011 and 2020, the annual average area of sea ice coverage in the Arctic reached its lowest level since at least 1850.
The global average sea level has risen faster since 1900 than over any preceding century in at least the last 3,000 years.
One of the most alarming notes in the IPCC report, though, is this: "Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered.”
How bad could global warming actually get?
Vox [sidebar] summarizes the IPCC emission scenarios. Here are three:
The best case "green" scenario- a gradual but concerted shift toward clean energy, with few political barriers in adapting to and mitigating climate change - entails a rapid drawdown of fossil fuels, widespread deployment of clean energy, increasing energy efficiency, and lower resource demands. By the middle of the century, humanity will zero out its contributions to climate change and global temperatures will stop rising at 1.5C** above pre-industrial levels. At this level, increasingly frequent and intense heat waves and extreme rainfall would characterize our weather patterns.
The "middle of the road" scenario corresponds with what countries have pledged to do so far about climate change. If every country actually fulfilled its existing obligations, their emissions would lead to about 2.7°C of warming by 2100 and a sea level rise of 30 to 54 cm. As a report from Climate Action Trackers concludes, of the nations responsible for 80% of the world's emissions, only Gambia is meeting its existing obligations to the Paris Climate Accords.***
So let's look at a worse scenario than "middle of the road," one that a contributing author to the IPCC report calls "a reasonable storyline for what a worst-case world could look like.” In this scenario, we would see sea levels rise 46 cm to 74 cm from today and global temperatures up 3.6 C from pre-industrial levels.
Given that countries are not currently meeting their commitments to the Paris accords (the "middle of the road" scenario), we may see global temperatures between 2.7C and 3.6C above pre-industrial levels and a sea level rise as much as 74 cm (~2.5 feet) higher than today.
What would such a world of catastrophic climate change look like?
As global temperatures rise, feedback loops accelerate climate change. As the polar ice caps and glaciers disappear, the Earth's ability to reflect back the sun's energy decreases. As the Amazon rain forest, one of the world's largest CO2 "sinks" (absorbers), is destroyed, more of our emissions will remain in the atmosphere. As the permafrost melts, huge amounts of an even more potent greenhouse gas, methane, are released.****
Sky News presents a degree-by-degree account of what we may confront in the future as the world warms [sidebar]:
If the world temperature rises by two degrees, mountain glaciers and rivers will start to disappear and mountainous regions will see more landslides; sea level rise could displace as much as 10% of the world's population; a third of all life on earth will face extinction; plant growth will slow and have a reduced ability to absorb carbon dioxide; the world's food production zones will become barren and, within 85 years, one third of the planet will be without fresh water.
If the world temperature rises by two-three degrees: in addition to the above, up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest will be destroyed and warmer soil will kill vegetation and release more carbon; hurricanes will be stronger and cities in Asia, Australia and the south-east of the US will face destruction; Holland would be inundated by the North Sea; saltwater will creep upstream, poisoning the groundwater and further ruining the food supply.
If the world temperature rises by three-four degrees: In addition to all the above, millions of people will begin to flee coastal areas; the ice at both poles will vanish and sea levels will rise by 50m over the course of several centuries; China, a major producer of the world's rice, wheat and maize, could see its agriculture fail; summers will be hotter and soaring temperatures will make forest fires more frequent and destructive; some regions will become unlivable and many will die in heat waves.
Taking a different approach from Sky News, The Atlantic's Peter Brannen looks at atmospheric CO2 levels to see what a climate-changed world would look like. Brannen takes several leaps back through the geologic millennia and describes what the Earth looked like in each era. A link to the article and a few highlights from Brannen's description of the Middle Miocene Epoch (about 16 million years ago) when CO2 levels were between 400 and 500 ppm*** are in the sidebar.
What must we do to avert disaster?
Because of the feedback loops mentioned above, whatever we do we must do quickly and because of the global nature of the threat, we must do it together. There is no place for narrow, nationalistic policies.
The key to preventing a climate catastrophe comes down to a few guiding principles:
A concerted shift toward clean energy. This entails a rapid drawdown of fossil fuels, electrification of the transport sector, widespread deployment of clean energy to power plants, increasing energy efficiency in our buildings and industrial processes, and lower resource demands.
Protection of the Earth's natural carbon dioxide sinks - its oceans, its forests, its soils, its permafrost. Reduced logging - particularly in the Amazon, the "lungs of the planet," stopping plastic pollution of the oceans, and moving to a sustainable agricultural model that incentivizes practices that protect nature and our health are three steps that can be taken.
Sustainability rather than overconsumption must begin to drive the economies of advanced industrialized nations. As the major contributors to climate change, we bear the major responsibility in correcting it.
Last but not least, we must prepare for a radically changed planet. In a worst case scenario, if we cannot stop climate change, we need to mitigate the damage. Engineering solutions and science-based actions are some of the best investments we can make as we adapt. Employing carbon capture technology, protecting infrastructure located near coastal areas from critical damage, and protecting coastal communities from flooding are priorities. [See sidebar for links to What in the World? posts]
The UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) will be held in Glasgow from October 31 through November 12. In light of the IPCC findings, the need for action is urgent. Hopefully, the policy recommendations made at COP 26 will be accepted and implemented by all world leaders.
Whether the United States, the second largest contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gas, will have the political will to take the necessary steps is still an open question. Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda with its climate and job creation benefits faces strong opposition from Republicans and almost certain defeat in a filibustering Senate. If Biden and the Democrats do not end the filibuster, we will miss perhaps our best and most immediate opportunity to get back on track in the fight against climate change. NRDC dramatically states the consequences of not moving forward with the proposals: "to forgo its many climate and job-creating benefits is to forfeit America’s future."
What can I do now?
And then there are the small steps we all can take to reduce our carbon footprint. Making our voices heard with elected officials, reducing our consumption of meat and dairy, using energy efficient appliances, driving fuel-efficient vehicles, and reducing home energy consumption are a few of the suggestions from NRDC and London's Imperial College. [sidebar]
Notes
*The final IPCC 6 report will be published in September 2022.
**Today the global temperature is 1.1°C above the pre-industrial global temperature. The CO2 level in the atmosphere are 411 ppm.
***The Climate Action Trackers report also notes that of the nations responsible for 80% of the world's emissions, seven countries including the United Kingdom are rated "almost sufficient;" the United States and eight others are categorically insufficient; another 15 countries including China are "highly insufficient;" and five countries — Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Thailand — as "critically insufficient." For those bottom five, the report warns, "global warming would reach beyond 4°C" if all governments were to follow their leads. [Courthouse News Service, Sep 15 ]
****Melting of the permafrost would release millions of tons of methane to the atmosphere. Methane is an even more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. Land-based permafrost in the Siberian arctic is already releasing 17 million tons of methane per year. At least 1,400 gigatons (Gt) of carbon is presently locked up as methane and methane hydrates under the Arctic under water permafrost.
The Middle Miocene
The Atlantic
The Amazon is running backwards, and gathers in great pools at the foot of the Andes.
A seaway stretches from Western Europe to Kazakhstan and spills into the Indian Ocean. California’s Central Valley is open ocean.
The canyons of the Columbia River on the Oregon-Washington border are a black, unbreathable place, flowing with rivers of incandescent rock.
The sweeping grasslands distinctive to our cooler, drier, low-CO2 world had yet to take over the planet, and so forests were everywhere—in the middle of Australia and Central Asia and Patagonia.
With CO2 at 500 ppm, the sea level is about 150 feet higher than today.
Links to WITW Posts
Preparing for a radically changed planet - Apr 21
Carbon capture: an emerging tool in the climate change kit - Jun 16
