Ocean News

Study reveals new Antarctic process contributing to sea level rise and climate change | ScienceDaily

Summary:
A new study has revealed a previously undocumented process where melting glacial ice sheets change the ocean in a way that further accelerates the rate of ice melt and sea level rise. The research found that glacial meltwater makes the ocean's surface layer less salty and more buoyant, preventing deep mixing in winter and allowing warm water at depth to retain its heat and further melt glaciers from below.
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...The study found that fresh meltwater also reduces the formation and sinking of dense water in some regions around Antarctica, slowing ocean circulation which takes up and stores heat and carbon dioxide. The cold glacial meltwaters flowing from the Antarctic cause a slowing of the currents which enable the ocean to draw down carbon dioxide and heat from the atmosphere. In combination, the two processes we identified feed off each other to further accelerate climate change...

 

What could go wrong? I wonder what the half-life of a Russian barge is?

Russia Launches Floating Nuclear Power Plant; It's Headed To The Arctic



Russia Launches Floating Nuclear Power Plant; It's Headed To The Arctic https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/30/607088530/russia-launches-floating-nuclear-power-plant-its-headed-to-the-arctic

 

This ocean path will take you on the longest straight-line journey on Earth | Science Mag

 

Australia Just Promised The Single Largest Investment The Great Barrier Reef Has Ever Seen
Australia Just Promised The Single Largest Investment The Great Barrier Reef Has Ever Seen https://www.sciencealert.com/australia-promised-single-largest-investment-save-great-barrier-reef



From what I've read elsewhere, the government "promised" to "invest" $A 500,000,000 in the reef, which they would give to farmers to get them to clean up their act. The very people who, in pursuit of personal profit, ****** the reef up to begin with, get paid to try and stop doing it in the future.

 

The Secret Weapon That Will Solve Global Warming | Forbes opinion piece

...Worse, the ideological split colors peoples’ approach to the problem [of Global Warming]. Conservatives favor using the market, while liberals focus on governmental action. Count me among the former, not so much from a rigid ideological perspective but from practical consideration of costs and benefits. Ideology should inform or influence, but not control...

Consumers are the ultimate arbiters of what is or isn’t a viable fuel or technology, and they can be motivated in the millions with one simple tool: price signals. A carbon tax would incentivize every consumer to act at minimal cost...

The price effect is too often downplayed by liberals who argue that the shift in consumer preferences to more efficient vehicles a decade ago was due to increased environmental awareness... Unfortunately, many conservatives are so rigidly opposed to any tax increase that they will not admit the superiority of this approach.

 

Sentinel tracks ships' dirty emissions from orbit | BBC

Sentinel-5P, the new EU satellite tasked with tracking dirty air has demonstrated how it will become a powerful tool to monitor emissions from shipping. This latest image reveals the trail of nitrogen dioxide left in the air as ships move in and out of the Mediterranean Sea.

Nitrogen dioxide is a product of the combustion of fuels, in this instance from the burning of marine diesel. But it is also possible to see in the picture the emissions hanging over major urban areas on land that come from cars, trucks and a number of industrial activities. NO₂ will be a major contributor to the poorer air quality people living in those areas experience.

 

CO2 levels measured over the past month at the Mauna Loa Baseline Atmospheric Observatory in Hawaii topped 410 parts per million for the first time in recorded history, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

April's average of 410.31 parts per million marks a sharp increase since 2013, when CO2 levels surpassed 400 ppm for the first time. The current levels are higher than at any point in at least the past 800,000 years, according to Ralph Keeling, head of Scripps' CO2 program.
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For about the last decade, CO2 has increased at about 2.5 parts per million annually, an unprecedented rate of growth, Ralph Keeling said. That rate of increase is 100 to 200 times faster than what the Earth experienced during the transition from the last ice age, according to NOAA researchers.

The new measurements come amid other recent troubling climate benchmarks. Earlier this week, Pakistan may have set a record high April temperature for anywhere on Earth of 122.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Ice cover in the Bering Sea is at a springtime low not seen since the middle of the 19th century. And the Chukchi Sea is now experiencing its earliest melt season on record.

"We've fallen off a cliff," National Weather Service climatologist Rick Thoman said on Twitter of the Bering Sea data.

SCIENCE: Atmospheric CO2 sets record high https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/03/stories/1060080715

 

Hawaii Approves Bill Banning Sunscreen Believed To Kill Coral Reefs | NPR

Hawaii lawmakers passed a bill Tuesday that would prohibit the sale of over-the-counter sunscreens containing chemicals they say are contributing to the destruction of the state's coral reefs and other ocean life. If signed by Gov. David Ige, it will make Hawaii the first state in the country to pass such a law and will take effect on Jan. 1, 2021.

The chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate, which are used in more than 3,500 of the world's most popular sunscreen products, including Hawaiian Tropic, Coppertone and Banana Boat, would be prohibited.

A 2015 study of coral reefs in Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Israel determined oxybenzone "leaches the coral of its nutrients and bleaches it white. It can also disrupt the development of fish and other wildlife." Even a small drop is enough to damage delicate corals. At the time, researchers estimated about 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotions end up in coral reefs around the world each year.

 

Could sprinkling sand save the Arctic's shrinking sea ice? | The Guardian

 

On a remote atoll, a concrete dome holds a leaking toxic timebomb http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-27/the-dome-runit-island-nuclear-test-leaking-due-to-climate-change/9161442

 

Tourism nearly a tenth of global CO2 emissions | PHYS.ORG

Domestic and international tourism account for eight percent of greenhouse gas emissions, four times more than previously estimated, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change. The researchers identified air travel as the major contributor to the overall emissions from global tourism.

"To make my own travel more sustainable—for future generations—I invest in long-run abatement options at prices that incorporate at least average abatement costs, like investing in afforestation, rather than assuming only low-hanging fruit, like residential power efficiency. If I flew from Melbourne to the UK return, I would pay at least an additional $425 to offset my emissions; for a return trip between Sydney and Brisbane, about $45 extra," Professor Lenzen said.

 

Climate Change Is Already Depressing the Price of Flood-Prone Real Estate | Fortune

Work by Harvard researchers published last week and highlighted by the Wall Street Journal finds that, after accounting for an array of other factors, home prices have appreciated more slowly in lower-lying areas of Miami-Dade County, particularly Miami Beach. A broader study using data from Zillow, still under peer review, found that properties exposed to rising sea levels sell at a 7% discount to comparable properties not subject to climate-related risk.

 

The military paid for a study on sea level rise. The results were scary. | Washington Post

The U.S. military supported research to learn about the vulnerability of its tropical-island installations. The Pentagon base on the Marshal Islands supports about 1,250 American civilians, contractors and military personnel.

The danger comes because of the increasing ability of large waves to spill across the island and sink into its groundwater. “Historically, there would be an overwash event due to a cyclone or typhoon every 20 or 30 years,” said Curt Storlazzi, a USGS researcher who led the study. “Every 20 or 30 years or more, communities can recover in that time. The concern is that with sea-level rise, those flooding events are going to happen more frequently.”

 

I'm missing the cartoons . .

 

Weeds take over kelp in high CO2 oceans | PHYS.org