Climate change •

World’s First National Zero Deforestation Policy, Adopted by Norway

June 11, 2016 By Dustin Smith Leave a Comment

Noway Hopes Similar Zero Deforestation Policies Will Be Adopted by Britain and Germany.

Zero Deforestation is a Monumental Move in the Fight Against Climate Change.

Norway now has a zero deforestation policy, the world’s first such policy to be officially instituted.

In 2014, Norway, Germany, and Britain pledged to “promote national commitments that encourage deforestation free supply chains.” The UN Climate Summit witnessed Norway, along with Britain and Germany, declare to encourage deforestation.

The call to arms has been since then reinforced in Norway by companies and national industries. After two years of giving them time to adapt, the Norwegian government has made the policy official – deforestation is now entirely banned in Norway and products that contribute to deforestation are no longer to be used within the country’s borders.

The Scandinavian nation hopes that its personal efforts will set a proper example to the world in the gigantic endeavor to protect the rain-forest. The country now hopes that its co-pledging countries, Germany and Britain, will follow with similar zero deforestation policies and demonstrate an united international front in the ongoing fight against climate change.

In just the past decade, Norway has invested tremendous resources in other countries in order to enable them to properly manage their deforestation issues. Liberia will be given $150 million, Guyana was given $250 million, and Norway’s highest international deforestation investment is Brazil, to which the Norwegian government granted $1 billion in 2015.

With this aid, Brazil was able to save 33,000 square miles of rainforest. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is now at less than 25% than it was in 2008. This was regarded as “one of the most impressive climate change mitigation actions”. While Brazil is still nowhere near its own zero deforestation law, if the past decade is any indication of the future, it is a definite possibility further down the line.

In the field of forest conservation, Norway has led by example and all over the the globe, nations followed. In 2015, it has been reported that the rate of deforestation was halved in comparison to the 1990s.

Efforts such as the zero deforestation policy should be a testament in regards to the determination of humanity against climate change. By globally keeping all the remaining forests intact, the world could undo more than a quarter of the issues caused by global warming.

Image Courtesy of Reddit.

Climate Change Action Is Needed

April 26, 2016 By Ben Beckstrom Leave a Comment

Harnessing wind and solar power instead of burning fossil fuels could improve the state of the Earth.

The weather is changing, there is no doubt about that. What used to be snowy is now sunny, and white Christmases were replaced by mild-temperature holidays, and the ice caps are considerably shrinking. Climate change action is needed urgently if the inhabitants of the United States want to keep on living comfortably.

Last year’s winter was definitive proof that climate change is affecting our country more than the “doubters” want to admit. Climate change action is needed urgently, and the officials should start looking into various solutions for the heat waves that will soon affect the entire country.

There is no button that can stop the climate from changing. At least not while Exxon and other such companies are continuing to burn fossil fuels and raise the level of CO2 to dangerous limits.

But there are measures that can be taken to prevent the heat wave from being even hotter and more disruptive than it is predicted to be this year. Because the heat is not only affecting us, humans, making our air conditioning units work non-stop to cool our houses.

The lack of rain and the constant, terrible heat will not help crops get bigger, by the contrary, the plants will wilt and die if the farms are not equipped with state-of-the-art irrigation systems. Moreover, wild animals will die at an alarming rate if their usual water sources will be depleted.

Climate change action is needed, and the matter couldn’t be more urgent. In order to save what is left of the planet, the industries, and the individuals should invest in renewable sources of energy.

Even though the oil industry does not agree with renewables, mostly because they are eliminating the big oil corporations, making a place for new, sustainable energy providers, this is the technology of the future.

Solar and wind power are already ready to be harnessed. As opposed to the fossil fuel industry that is using up natural finite resources, renewables are working with wind and solar power. This means that the sources of the energy will never deplete.

Apart from eco-friendly power sources, there are other technologies and measures that could be taken into consideration. For example, carbon capture is an interesting idea. Even if the technology had somewhat of a rough start, the idea that scientists could capture some of the incredibly large amounts of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere and reuse, store, or recycle is comforting.

Climate change action is needed for our planet to survive humans and their actions.

Image source: Geograph

Scientists Predict Freshwater Crisis for Most Small Islands by Century’s End

April 12, 2016 By Ben Beckstrom Leave a Comment

Small exotic islands such as this may have little to no access to freshwater by the middle and end of the century.

A group of U.S. researchers found that 73 percent of world’s small islands may soon lack freshwater as supplies are dwindling because of climate change. Scientists estimate that the problem may affect 16 million people on those islands.

The research team found that the Cocos Islands in Australia and Cook Islands in New Zealand are among the small islands set to become arid by the middle of the century. Researchers sifted through data on 80 islands and found that nearly three-quarters are at a high risk of having no or little access to freshwater.

Researchers at Boulder Colorado University based their findings on measurements of evaporation through plant leaves and surfaces on the islands. Kristopher Karnauskas, lead author of the study, explained that while half of islands including all in the deep tropics are expected to be showered by more rainfall, highest levels of evaporation on the rest of the sampled islands may dry them out by 2050.

The study was recently published in Nature Climate Change.

Researchers also found that the changes may reshape the vegetation on the islands, while islander will find it harder to produce fresh food locally due to natural freshwater shortage.

“It’s going to be harder to grow stuff because there’s not going to be enough water,”

Karnauskas said.

The team predicts that small islands will also experience reduced tree cover as they get drier.

Furthermore, 16 million islanders should expect cost of water to skyrocket as they will need more imports or more expensive desalination systems. Moreover, researchers recommend large investments in systems to capture and store rainfall on the islands and plants to recycle waste water.

Over the next decades, researchers expect poorer water quality and more algal blooms around the islands. One resident on Christmas Island noted that the island, which is on the list with islands at risk of drying out, is already facing a water crisis triggered by contamination of freshwater due to the waste in the local landfill.

Authorities urged islanders not to dispose toxic waste in the landfill or there may be fines. But environmentalists claim that residents will get rid of their old tires and batteries in the jungle where nobody can charge them.

According to Boulder team, 9 million islanders will see their homes get 20 percent drier by 2090, while 6 million will be have to deal with up to 60 percent less freshwater.

Image Source: Flickr

February Smashes Monthly World Temperature Record

March 15, 2016 By Elisabeth Leave a Comment

Our planet becomes increasingly warmer, with a new monthly temperature record just having been smashed in February.

Last month’s temperature leap of 1.35 degrees C was the highest in modern history, scientists report. Experts deemed the latest temperature spike a “shocker,” while they also cautioned that we may be in the midst of a “climate emergency.”

According to NASA, February saw the highest temperature spike in a century as the month was 1.35 degrees C warmer than its long-term mean temperature, i.e. the one calculated for the 1951-1980 period. Scientists described the rise as both “unprecedented” and “stunning.”

The recent record shattered a previous one set in January, which saw a temperature spike of 1.15 degrees C.

“Nasa dropped a bombshell of a climate report,”

wrote two weather experts from Weather Underground, Bob Henson and Jeff Masters.

The two researchers were shocked by the sudden jump of 0.21 degrees C in the average monthly temperature from January to February. The team described the leap “extraordinary,” saying that the result was a “true shocker.”

Henson and Masters added that we are heading at a “frightening pace” towards the worst-case-scenario of the 2 degree rise in global temperatures above pre-industrial levels. According to the December climate summit, that threshold should by no means be passed, as the limit is critical for climate change.

World leaders are currently setting in place strategies to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C. The effects of global warming can be observed as years go by. For instance, last year broke the record for the warmest year since records began in 1850.

Experts currently expect this year to set a new record, as well. If that happens, the yearly temperature record will have been shattered three straight years.

Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies could only say “wow” when he saw the new record. He noted that while we may not be aware of it, we must be in a “climate emergency.”

Bob Ward, a climate scientist at the London School of Economics’ Research Institute on Climate Change, deemed the spike “worrying.” He couldn’t help but noting that since October each month was warmer than any prior month.

Ward believes that this is a clear sign that we are approaching the 2 degrees C limit. He explained that beyond that limit the effects of global warming will be probably “very dangerous.”

Yet, some scientists think that the recent temperature records may be partially due to an El Niño event, which was described as the strongest in the last 18 years.

Image Source: Flickr

Africa’s Crops under Increased Pressure from Climate Change

March 8, 2016 By Elisabeth Leave a Comment

A new study suggests that climate change will make some major crops including maize, beans, and bananas impossibly to grow in Africa.

According to a study published in Nature Mar. 7, some of the Dark Continent’s most widely grown crops including bananas, maize, and beans would become impossible to cultivate especially across key regions in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of the century.

Researchers explained that unchecked changes brought by climate change in the area would make major crops unavailable. The study found that the most threatened crops are bananas, maize and beans, while yam, sorghum, and millet would dwindle, but not perish.

Scientists called for “transformational change” to ensure that Africa’s crops and food security remain unaltered. The change involved swapping current crops with more resilient one, better irrigation systems, and abandon agriculture in high-risk regions.

The study also provides an approximate timescale pinpointing the worst-case-scenarios if no measures against climate change are taken:

In 2016, Africa should start make the switch to more resilient crops especially in high-risk areas across Senegal, Niger, Guinea, Gambia, and Burkina Faso which heavily rely on maze.

By 2025, if no measures are taken, parts of West Africa including Ghana would no longer be able to grow bananas. Plus, the maize crops of Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Namibia, and Botswana would share the same fate.

By 2050, bean crops in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Tanzania, and Angola would dwindle.

By 2100, Niger would no longer be able to grow maize because of climate change, according to the research. Additionally, 30 percent of Benin’s yam fields would be impacted and so would 35 percent of groundnut crops in Senegal. Furthermore, sub-Saharan Africa’s bean crops would decrease by 41 percent.

Julian Ramirez-Villegas, senior researcher involved in the latest analysis which was sponsored by CGIAR’s Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, noted that the study clearly shows when and where man should intervene to avoid the said worst-case-scenarios.

Ramirez-Villegas argued that interventions are crucial to prevent global warming from wreaking havoc among Africa’s “vital food supplies.” The researcher also said that for the first time humans had the deadlines for taking action.

Study authors acknowledged that more resilient crops would require 15 years to breed, but Africa’s agriculture has great potential. For instance, after being introduced by colonialists, maize needed only 100 years to replace traditional crops like sorghum and millet.

Andy Jarvis, another author of the study, noted that Africa is in a race against time to secure its food supply. Jarvis called for more funding and a new policy environment in the region to make change happen.
Image Source: Flickr

Fresh Evidence Points at Global Warming ‘Pause’ in the Early 2000s

February 26, 2016 By Elisabeth 4 Comments

A group of noted climate researchers found that global warming did slow down at the turn of the century.

Climate change skeptics rejoice! A team of top-notch researchers brought new evidence that global warming hiatus may be real in a study published in Nature Climate Change. Scientists say that they detected a slowdown in the rate of global temperature rise in the early 2000s.

The findings are at odds with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s conclusions, which have dismissed any trace of a pause in global warming. Yet, the issue remains controversial.

Three years ago, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that there was indeed a slowdown in global warming between 1998 and 2012 as compared with 1951 levels.

Nevertheless, the panel noted that ‘natural variability’ and short term records may tamper with the accuracy of their scientific finding. The group also said that the study results may not reflect long-term trends in climate science.

Yet, the report was often cited by climate change deniers as the strongest evidence that global warming theory may be biased from start ever since. But recent studies have challenged the 2013 conclusions.

The most notable research was conducted by the NOAA, which found that the ‘pause’ never existed. The agency based its conclusions on ‘newly corrected and updated’ data on changes in sea temperatures in the last decades.

Another study dismissed the notion of a global warming pause simply because scientists worldwide hadn’t reached a consensus on what a global warming hiatus may be. And the most popular definition of the hiatus doesn’t hold water over long-term periods.

But a recent study brings the global warming pause into the limelight once more. Top climate researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Canadian Center for Climate Modeling and Analysis (whose John Fyfe led the team), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Penn State University currently say that global warming slowdown was real.

They cite rates of global surface warming in the early 2000s that are slower than the average rates generated through computer simulations. Nevertheless, the team didn’t reach the conclusion that global warming is no more.

Stephan Lewandowsky from the University of Bristol and co-author of several studies questioning the pause explained that the new research paper simply found a mismatch between climate change models for the early 2000s and actual climate data.

Lewandowsky added that he talked to Fyfe’s team, and they all agreed on the fact that global warming is far from over.

Image Source: Wikimedia

All U.S. Forests under Growing Stress from Climate Change, Droughts

February 23, 2016 By Elisabeth Leave a Comment

A review paper shows that all forested parts of the U.S. are currently undergoing drought-induced changes.

Fourteen Duke University researchers found that all U.S. forests are under growing stress from climate change, droughts, and rising temperatures that we all have been witnessing in recent years.

James S. Clark, senior researcher involved in the study and environmental science expert at Duke, explained that in the last 20 years, rising temperatures coupled with variable rainfall and snowfall worsened forest droughts in almost all U.S. forested areas.

Clark noted that while forests in the West were hit the hardest by shifting temperatures, all other forests of the U.S. are under a growing stress from droughts and global warming which make them more likely to decline.

Still, Clark’s team acknowledged that they lack the necessary data to assess how bad the decline would be because they do not yet know how fast forests can adapt to quick changes. The team said that it is difficult to say which forests will be there over the next two to four decades.

But U.S. forests have been under a lot of stress in recent years due to droughts, parasite infestations and large scale wildfires especially in the West. Plus, climate scientists predict that the droughts may get even worse across the entire nation in the next decades.

Additionally, climate change effects are affecting upper latitudes at a faster rate than forests can adapt. Clark explained that forests can not adjust fast enough to survive. Especially the tree populations in the East need many years to expand to more habitable locations by natural means.

The study was published Feb 22 in the online issue of the journal Global Change Biology.

The study is in fact an analysis of hundreds of research papers on how prolonged droughts and climate change can affect U.S. forests on the long term. Clark noted that there is enough research on how climate change and rising temperatures affect individual tree species, but little is known about the impact on forest systems.

The team explained that hundreds of studies focused on how separate species respond to stress form rising temperatures, droughts and parasites. But little research was conducted to understand species-wide changes triggered by these phenomena in the Eastern forests.

Duke researchers believe that their findings are crucial to help authorities better manage forests and preserve fragile ecosystems. This is why the team calls for more research on the impacts of drought and climate change on tree populations as a whole.

Image Source: Wikimedia

Climate Change is Not Crystal Clear to Many Science Teachers

February 12, 2016 By Elisabeth 1 Comment

A recent survey shows that 30 percent of U.S. teachers still have their doubts on the origins of climate change.

A recent survey suggests that climate change is not crystal clear to many science teachers. Researchers have found that there’s a lot of confusion around the topic with many teachers in middle schools and highs schools not getting the facts right including the idea that the phenomenon is triggered by human activities, rater than natural occurrences.

The survey involved 1,500 science teachers from all states. Some of them were science teachers, others chemistry, biology, Earth sciences, or physics teachers. Study authors were shocked to learn that about 30 percent of respondents said that they believe and teach their students that climate change is a naturally occurring phenomenon which has been going on for centuries.

Another 31 percent said that they provide their students with both versions of the theory i.e. that global warming is either man-made or has natural causes, despite the consensus among climate scientists that the phenomenon is caused by man.

Eric Plutzer, lead author of the study and researcher at The Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Political Science, noted that any ‘nonscientific perspectives’ delivered to students may make them think that truth about global warming depends on people’s values and deeply held convictions rather than real science.

Plutzer has conducted other similar surveys on the teaching of alternative theories to evolutionism in U.S. schools including intelligent design and creationism. He noted that in both cases some teachers present the mainstream theories as controversial, so they feel obliged to tell their students the beliefs of both sides rather than advancing climate change and evolutionism as two rigorously proven scientific topics.

Study authors also found that a relatively small number of teachers send a mixed message, while ‘a substantial number’ do not cover topics that seem controversial including global warming.

The survey also found that U.S. teachers do not get their fact straight on the scientific consensus around the origins of climate change. I middle schools, only 30 percent got the consensus right (81 percent to 100 percent), while in high schools, teachers fared a little better with 45 percent.

Furthermore, many teachers failed to follow official guidelines on how to teach climate change in class. Many of them said that they would discuss secondary topics with their students including pesticide use, ozone layer, and pollution caused by rocket launches.

Additionally, two percent of teachers were full-fledged deniers of climate change, while 30 percent had mixed feelings about it – they believed that it was either generated by natural causes or by both natural and human causes.

The study was published Feb 11 in the journal Science.

Image Source: Pixabay

Not All Forests Help Fight Climate Change

February 6, 2016 By Ben Beckstrom Leave a Comment

A recent study suggests that bad forest management decisions in Europe might have made climate change worse in the past 250 years.

It is a long-held belief that forests act like carbon sinks since trees absorb carbon and prevents it from ending up in the atmosphere and worsen the greenhouse effect. But a group of researchers found that not all forests help fight climate change. In fact in Europe planting some types of trees over the past 250 years has worsened climate change, scientists claim.

The study revealed that forest management decisions taken between 1750 and 2015 failed to tackle climate change and they might even contributed to it even though there were a lot more reforestations efforts to offset deforestation over that period.

Researchers used computer models to simulate how forested land in Europe has been managed over the past 250 years. The team took into account data on both deforestation and reforestation activities, and types of tress that were planted by humans to compensate for the harvested wood.

Computer models revealed some issues that escaped scientists’ attention over the past two centuries or so. First, they revealed that although the net gain in forest gain obtain through forest management decisions was quite significant, the amount of stored carbon was lower than natural forests’ was before reforestation efforts.

Second, the models revealed that during reforestation Europeans preferred conifer trees because of their higher commercial value though the land was previously populated with broad-leaved forests such as oaks.

Finally, computer models also showed that in the last 250 years, about 85 percent of European forests were affected by forest management decisions such as deforestation, reforestation tree thinning and so on.

As a result, European forests produced 3.1 billion metric tons since 1750 instead of reducing the levels of extra carbon in the atmosphere. Scientists noted that these forests now have a huge ‘carbon debt’ that might have contributed to climate change.

Kim Naudts, a researcher at University of Versailles and lead author of the research, noted that forest in Europe were less efficient in storing the harmful greenhouse gas because humans brought most wild forests under their management.

Naudts explained that past research had shown that wild forest store carbon more efficiently than their managed counterparts. Furthermore, opting for conifers to reforestate land previously occupied by broadleaved trees had an unwanted consequence.

Scientists argue that since conifer leaves are tinted in a darker tone than broadleaved trees’ leaves, they also attracted more sunlight worsening global rising temperatures. Plus, conifers tend to retain more water and prevent it from evaporating thus promoting a dry environment around them which has also contributed to climate change.

Global Oceans are Trapping Heat at Mind-Boggling Rates

January 19, 2016 By Elisabeth Leave a Comment

A recent research suggests that oceans’ heat content rose to unprecedented levels in just 20 years.

A recent study suggests that global oceans are warming at mind-boggling rates since they absorbed more than 90 percent of the heat generated by the greenhouse gas effect and 30 percent of the excess carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere by human activities since pre-industrial times.

Scientists from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory found that it took our planet’s ocean water thousands of years before the industrial era to warm as much as it did in the last 20 years.

The team of researchers also found that while 35 percent of the excess heat is usually stored at depths of 2,300 feet (700 meter) or more, the bulk must be found in the deeper layers. The situation is unseen since two decades ago just 20 percent of the excess heat was stored in those depths.

The study, which was published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, sought to zoom in on the excess heat that is trapped by global oceans.

Study authors explained that oceans have a much larger capacity of storing heat than the atmosphere. About 90 percent of heat generated through greenhouse gas emissions is trapped by the world’s oceans. Five years ago, a report showed that the Southern Ocean was able to absorb 1.2 billion tons of carbon per year, which is about how much Europe produces in a year.

In the recent research, investigators studied heat variations at various depths in multiple sites across the world. They also sifted through similar data dating back to 1865.

For superficial layers, i.e. those located within 2,300 feet from the oceanic surface, the team used data collected by HMS Challenger expedition, which measured heat content in ocean water in the mid-1870s.

More up-to-date data was gathered by a fleet of “Deep Argo” robots, which can take water samples and measure heat content at far greater depths than the 1870s expedition.

Peter Gleckler, senior researcher involved in the study, explained that old and new data suggested that ocean water temperature rose by “several tenths of a degree” since the pre-industrial times. Gleckler noted that while this may not seem much, it is a ‘huge increase’ at historical scale.

Gleckler added that global warming might be even worse as most studies had often overlooked the amount of trapped heat within the oceans’ deepest layers. He believes that we can fully understand the phenomenon if we scrutinize not only the surface, but also the oceanic depths.

“We can’t just look at the upper ocean anymore, we need to look deeper,”

Gleckler said.

Image Source: Flickr

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