Ocean News

Hurricanes are moving more slowly — which makes them even more dangerous | Washington Post

The study, published in the journal Nature, finds a 10 percent slowdown in storm speed between 1949 and 2016. It points directly to the example of Hurricane Harvey, whose catastrophic rains were enabled by the storm’s lingering in the Houston area for such a long period.

Slower-moving storms will rain more over a given area, batter that area longer with their winds and pile up more water ahead of them as they approach shorelines, said Jim Kossin, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the study’s author.

“Every one of the hazards that we know tropical cyclones carry with them, all of them are just going to stick around longer,” Kossin said. “And so that’s never a good thing.”

 

Climate Change Can Be Stopped by Turning Air Into Gasoline | The Atlantic

A team of scientists announced that they have found a method to cheaply and directly pull carbon-dioxide pollution out of the atmosphere.

Their research suggests that people will soon be able to produce gasoline and jet fuel from little more than limestone, hydrogen, and air. It hints at the eventual construction of a vast, industrial-scale network of carbon scrubbers, capable of removing greenhouse gases directly from the atmosphere.

Above all, the new technique is noteworthy because it promises to remove carbon dioxide cheaply. As recently as 2011, a panel of experts estimated that it would cost at least $600 to remove a metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The new paper says it can remove the same ton for as little as $94, and for no more than $232. At those rates, it would cost between $1 and $2.50 to remove the carbon dioxide released by burning a gallon of gasoline in a modern car.

 

Seabirds Aren’t Keeping Pace With Climate Change, Scientists Warn | News Deeply

In a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, scientists conducted the largest analysis to date of whether seabird breeding seasons are shifting as oceans warm and their prey availability changes. Even though some species are breeding at different times, the study found that seabird breeding seasons haven’t changed much on average....

The concern, however, is that if seabirds can’t adapt, then they won’t find enough food to feed their chicks. Scientists have already found that warming oceans are affecting birds’ traditional food stocks, such as shrimp, squid and small fish. Where once seabirds could rely on prey being available as they breed, rising sea temperatures have caused prey more sensitive to environmental conditions to reproduce at different times than in the past.

That doesn’t mean that some seabirds can’t or won’t change with climatic conditions. Some species of cormorants and gannets tend to be more flexible, Keogan said, whereas some albatrosses have a consistent breeding window that lasts only a couple of days. She believes that birds that forage relatively close to their breeding colonies may be better at adapting, while the species with large foraging ranges, such as albatrosses, are not....

 

Climate change could alter ocean food chains, leading to far fewer fish in the sea | The Conversation
In a recent study, I worked with colleagues from five universities and laboratories to examine how climate warming out to the year 2300 could affect marine ecosystems and global fisheries. We wanted to know how sustained warming would change the supply of key nutrients that support tiny plankton, which in turn are food for fish.

We found that warming on this scale would alter key factors that drive marine ecosystems, including winds, water temperatures, sea ice cover and ocean circulation. The resulting disruptions would transfer nutrients from surface waters down into the deep ocean, leaving less at the surface to support plankton growth.

As marine ecosystems become increasingly nutrient-starved over time, we estimate global fish catch could be reduced 20 percent by 2300, and by nearly 60 percent across the North Atlantic. This would be an enormous reduction in a key food source for millions of people.

 

Benefits of curbing climate change far outweigh costs | Union of Concerned Scientists

Those who oppose policies to cut carbon pollution and slow climate change always claim that doing so will be too expensive and cripple the economy. They argue that instead we should maximize economic growth so that we can pay for climate damages and adaptation in the future. It’s an argument helped by the fact that models have essentially treated economic growth as an external factor that won’t be significantly impacted by climate change...

Burke led another team of scientists in research quantifying these economic costs of higher temperatures. Their latest paper, also published in Nature, found that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would likely save the global economy more than $20 trillion by the year 2100 as compared to 2 degrees Celsius warming—at a cost of about $300 billion. That means the benefits of curbing climate change would exceed the costs by about 70-to-1. The study also only accounts for temperature effects on GDP and not other damaging factors like sea level rise, and is thus likely a conservative estimate.

Burke’s study also estimated the economic impact of higher levels of global warming, if we fail to meet the Paris climate targets. For example, global warming of 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures in 2100 would reduce global GDP by about 10 percent as compared to 2 degrees Celsius global warming. A temperature of 4-to-5 degrees Celsius would make us 10 percent poorer yet, as compared to 3 degrees Celsius. Those would be massive economic losses that could exceed $100 trillion. And it wouldn’t just impact poor countries—a working paper recently published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond found that global warming could significantly hamper economic growth in the United States as well, especially in the hotter Southern states....

 

Climate change is moving fish around faster than laws can handle, study says | Washington Post

Fish don’t follow international boundaries or understand economic trade agreements. Different species live in regions all over the globe. If that wasn’t complicated enough, they also migrate as they age....

And in response to climate change, vital fishery stocks such as salmon and mackerel are migrating without "paperwork". According to a new study being published in Science Magazine, coastal countries need to collaborate even more on international fishing regulations to prevent misuse of resources. Food, environmental and economic securities are at stake, it warns....

Modern international fishing rights are further complicated as oceans warm because of climate change. According to Angee Doerr, a research scientist who specializes in fisheries at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions, developing countries in tropical areas are particularly at risk. “Equatorial countries are highly dependent on fish as a protein source,” she said. As water temperatures increase, “fish are moving to stay within their comfortable range.” This means they may be leaving their traditional waters altogether....

 

"And the hits just keep on coming..."

Justice Kennedy’s Retirement Could Reshape the Environment | The Atlantic

 

A Victory for Coral: Unesco Removes Belize Reef From Its Endangered List | New York Times

 

Economic models significantly underestimate climate change risks | London School of Economics

Policymakers are being misinformed by the results of economic models that underestimate the future risks of climate change impacts, according to a new paper
published in the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy.

They warn that the "integrated assessment models" used by economists "largely ignore the potential for 'tipping points' beyond which impacts accelerate, become unstoppable, or become irreversible." As a result "they inadequately account for the potential damages from climate change, especially at moderate to high levels of warming," due to rises in global mean temperature of more than 2 Celsius degrees.

The authors draw attention to "a major discrepancy between scientific and economic estimates of the impacts of unmanaged future climate change." They state: "These discrepancies between the physical and the economic impact estimates are large, and they matter. However, physical impacts are often not translated into monetary terms and they have largely been ignored by climate economists."

 

Global warming may be twice what climate models predict | University of New South Wales

 

Melting Permafrost Emits More Methane Than Scientists Thought | Eco Watch

Methane is reckoned to be at least 30 times more powerful than CO2 at warming the earth, with some estimates putting its potency much higher still. The good news, research has suggested, is that there is far less methane than CO2 in the atmosphere to worry about.

The bad news, announced by an international research team, is that previous calculations may have been seriously wrong, and that thawing permafrost is likely to be producing appreciably more methane than anyone had thought....

Methane and carbon dioxide are both produced in thawing permafrost as dead animal and plant remains decompose. But methane is formed only in the absence of oxygen. Until now, scientists had also thought that more greenhouse gases were formed when the ground was dry and well aerated—in other words, when oxygen was available.

So they did not expect much methane to be produced by the thawing permafrost. What Dr. Knoblauch and his colleagues have now shown is that water-saturated permafrost soils without oxygen can be twice as harmful to the climate as dry soils—which means the role of methane has been greatly underestimated....

 

Red-hot planet: All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week | Washington Post

• Northern Siberia model analyses showed temperatures soaring 40 degrees above normal on July 5
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• Ouargla, Algeria 124.3 degrees, surpassing Africa’s previous highest reliable temperature measurement of 123.3 degrees
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• The University of California Los Angeles set its all-time high-temperature of 111 degrees on July 6
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• Denver tied its all-time high-temperature record of 105 degrees on June 28
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• Mount Washington, N.H., tied its all-time warmest low temperature of 60 degrees on July 2.
  
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• Burlington, VT, set its all-time warmest low temperature ever recorded of 80 degrees on July 2
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• Montreal recorded its highest temperature in recorded history, dating back 147 years, of 97.9 degrees on July 2
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• Glasgow, Scotland had its hottest day on record, hitting 89.4 degrees
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• Belfast, Ireland hit 85.1 degrees (29.5 Celsius) on June 28, its all-time record
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• Tbilisi, Georgia: On July 4, the capital city soared to 104.9 degrees, its all-time record.
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• Yerevan, Armenia: On July 2, the capital city soared to 107.6 degrees, a record high for July and tying its record for any month.
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• Several locations in southern Russia topped or matched their warmest June temperatures on record on the 28th.
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• Quriyat, Oman, posted the world’s hottest low temperature ever recorded on June 28: 109 degrees (42.6 Celsius).
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• In April, Pakistan posted the hottest temperature ever observed on Earth during the month of 122.4 degrees

 

'Zero tolerance' plan eyed for plastic pollution

Governments are being asked to move towards a legal treaty banning plastic waste from entering the sea.

Delegates in Nairobi preparing the way for the UN's environment ministers meeting next week are said to be in broad agreement on the need for tougher action to combat the plastics crisis.

One idea is to mirror the model of the Paris climate agreement.

'Zero tolerance' plan for plastic pollution https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42190678


Hey, censorship for the U.S.A.! This ought to make it easier for deniers.



You can watch it here if you want...

World Environment Day: 'Our world is swamped by plastic'
Eight million tonnes of plastic dumped into oceans each year, killing marine life and entering the human food chain.

World Environment Day: 'Our world is swamped by plastic' https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/world-environment-day-world-swamped-plastic-180605144524487.html


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The Northwest’s orcas are starving and disappearing. Can they be saved? | The News Tribune

For the last three years, not one calf has been born to the dwindling pods of black-and-white killer whales spouting geysers of mist off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Normally four or five calves would be born each year among the urban population of whales — pods named J, K and L. But most recently, the number of orcas has dwindled to just 75, a 30-year-low in what seems to be an inexorable, perplexing decline.

Listed as endangered since 2005, the orcas essentially are starving, as their primary prey, the Chinook salmon, are dying off....

The recent agreement between the Canadian government and Kinder Morgan to expand the Trans Mountain Pipeline would multiply oil tanker traffic through the orcas’ habitat by seven times, according to some estimates, and expose them to excessive noise and potential spills. Construction is set to begin in August, despite opposition from Governor Inslee and many environmentalists....

Of most concern are the lingering effects of chemicals and pesticides, including the now banned DDT, as well as PCBs and PPDE, widely used in flame retardants and found through the world. The pollutants accumulate in salmon as they feed, and when the whales eat salmon they also ingest PCBs at even higher levels. “It’s very lipophilic, which means it stays in the fat, and the females transfer a huge proportion of the contaminant burden to their offspring,” Hanson said. “About 85 percent gets transferred to calves through lactation.”...

 

That Pacific Ocean garbage patch is close by so everything gets to eat plenty of that. Plus maybe this might make a tiny contribution to the problem....

7 years later, still feeling around in the dark. That doesn't bode well.
Plus there is all the other pollutants of oil, chemicals, and toxic waste that were flushed into the Pacific with the tsunami.


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