Signs From Earth

Millennium Island, Kiribati

Millennium Island was photographed on July 1, 2009 by astronauts in the International Space Station. Formerly named Caroline, this uninhabited island in the South Pacific at the end of the Line Island chain is part of the Republic of Kiribati.

After Kiribati moved the International Dateline in 1995, Caroline became the first land outpost where the sun would rise on the new millennium on January 1, 2000. The island was renamed to mark the occasion, and celebrants arrived to party and celebrate the arrival of the new year, century, and millennium. 

Whether the current Millennium began on January 1, 2000, or January 1, 2001 is another matter.

NASA Earth Observatory: Image of the Day, Millennium Island, Kiribati

What Two Degrees Warmer Means

Beyond all the political discussion of limiting carbon emissions in the U.S. or globally, it is useful to keep in mind the potential impact of a two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F.) rise in global temperatures. 

David Archer at RealClimate has summarized:

"... even a “moderate” warming of 2°C stands a strong chance of provoking drought and storm responses that could challenge civilized society, leading potentially to the conflict and suffering that go with failed states and mass migrations. Global warming of 2°C would leave the Earth warmer than it has been in millions of years, a disruption of climate conditions that have been stable for longer than the history of human agriculture. Given the drought that already afflicts Australia, the crumbling of the sea ice in the Arctic, and the increasing storm damage after only 0.8°C of warming so far, a target of 2°C seems almost cavalier."

RealClimate: Two Degrees

Costa Rica Said to Be Happiest Place

The place to be these days is Costa Rica, if you seek a spot on earth where happiness abounds, or at least is in measurably greater quantities than the alternative. This according to the Happy Planet Index 2.0, which gave runner-up status to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Nine of the top ten nations in the index are in Latin America.

Apparently happiness is not in great surplus globally, as the New Economics Foundation, patron and host of the survey, has renamed the index website "The (Un)Happy Planet Index 2.0." 

So if you are looking for a hangout with more happiness potential than your current outpost, here is the resource to locate that new address. To produce its rankings, the unhappy planet index adds up measures such as life expectancy, life satisfaction, and ecological footprint.

In case you are interested, the United States ranks 114th of 143. Apparently our huge cars, mega-mortgage starter mansions, and endless credit card debt aren't always tickets to happiness. Perhaps, among other things, our ecological footprint is working against us.

Below: A map of the world, color coded by the Happy Planet Index. Countries in red are said by the index to rank poorly in at least two of the three measures.

 

Satellites Show Arctic Ice Thinner, Younger

Trend in Winter Sea Ice Volume: This obscure graphic from NASA show several things: 1.) Top sequence: The decline in red color shows a reduction in the amount of multiyear (MY) ice covering the Arctic Ocean in winter. The size of the red area has declined significantly from 2004 to 2008. 2.) The lower chart (black line) shows an average decline of 900 sq. km. per year in total area of ice cover over the same period. Most significantly, the steep slope of the red line in the lower graph shows the rapid loss of multiyear ice cover from 2004-2008. The rising blue line shows the increasing percentage of thin seasonal ice, or ice that appears in the fall and thaws the next summer. This juvenile ice now dominates.

 

Satellites are showing that the depth and age of Arctic sea ice is in significant decline. Multiyear winter ice has declined by more than 40 percent of its previous area in just five years from 2004 to 2008. Remaining multiyear ice also has thinned significantly, losing more than 0.6 meter depth in four years. Thin seasonal ice, ice less than a year old, has replaced multiyear ice as the dominant ice type covering the Arctic Ocean.

These results were reported July 7 by scientists from NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) and the University of Washington and published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, a publication of the American Geophysical Union (AGU.) This follows on July 6 ice loss reports for summer 2009 from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), and similar April reports from NSIDC showing the rise in seasonal ice cover over the Arctic Ocean.

These accelerating ice loss trends are significant in that they bode a year soon when all ice covering the Arctic Ocean melts in summertime. Some scientists have projected that the Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2015. 

More Permafrost, More Potential Warming

Frozen soil sediment deposit in Siberia. Photo: Edward A.G. Schuur

The Global Carbon Project has released a new study that indicates northern hemisphere land areas contain about twice the permafrost previously thought, and melting of this permafrost could significantly accelerate the impacts of global warming.

Permafrost is carbon-rich frozen ground that covers vast areas of northern Asia, Europe, North America. Frozen for centuries, it is beginning to thaw and produce greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide. 

As more greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning heat the atmosphere, more permafrost thaws. As permafrost thaws, it too emits its own share of greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide. A key concern of scientists is that thawing permafrost will further increase the rate of planet heating already underway driven our burning of fossil fuels coal, oil, and natural gas. 

This "feedback" process, where rising temperatures beget even more rising temperatures, is one of the great unknowns in climate research. Will we see runaway temperature increases as permafrost melts and adds even more methane and carbon dioxide to the atmosphere?

Global Carbon Project: Soil Organic Carbon Pools in the Northern Circumpolar Permafrost Region

Arctic Melt Season "In High Gear"

The blue line shows Arctic Ocean sea ice extent on July 5. Graphic from NSIDC.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center on July 6 released updated information on the melting trends of Arctic Ocean sea ice for the summer of 2009. The area of sea ice is tracking below the 1979-2000 average, is not as severe as for the record year of 2007, but is in league with that melt year. 

Further details are available at the NSIDC website. NSIDC said in its July 6 Twitter feed, "In midst of melt season, atmospheric patterns look like 2007, but so far we don't see the same rapid melt."

 

"...get out of Facebook and into somebody's face."

"Just Do It": In case you have not read NYT columnist Tom Friedman's assessment of the climate bill currently under consideration by the U.S Congress: He doesn't like the deeply compromised bill, but says it is all there is between some action and nothing. And he says no legislative action will occur unless We the People begin to take some action:

"...Attention all young Americans: your climate future is being decided right now in the cloakrooms of the Capitol, where the coal lobby holds huge sway. You want to make a difference? Then get out of Facebook and into somebody’s face. Get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon. That will get the Senate’s attention. Play hardball or don’t play at all."

Earth's Rainfall Creeps North

Map shows band of heaviest rainfall across the Pacific Ocean, which research indicates is moving north about a mile per year. Credit: University of Washington

Eurekalert reports on research: Earth's most prominent rainfall feature creeping northward

University of Washington research published in Nature Geoscience indicates rainfall is moving north away from the equator, and has been doing so for centuries, probably because of rising temperatures most likely driven by increased solar irradiance since the Little Ice Age of the last millennium.

"The rain band near the equator that determines the supply of freshwater to nearly a billion people throughout the tropics and subtropics has been creeping north for more than 300 years. If the band continues to migrate at just less than a mile a year, which is the average for all the years it has been moving north, then some Pacific islands near the equator may be starved of freshwater by midcentury or sooner."

The broader concern expressed by researchers is that future northward movement of the rain band in the tropics could potentially be driven by rising levels of greenhouse gases with resulting "profound implications for the societies and economies that depend on it."

Nature Geoscience: Southward Movement of Pacific Intertropical Convergence Zone AD 1400-1850

Mapping 44 Hazardous Coal Ash Waste Ponds

 

A ruptured coal ash storage pond near Kingston, Tennessee in late 2008. The EPA has released a list of vulnerable coal ash storage ponds around the U.S. Most are in Appalachian states. EPA Photo.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finally released a list of 44 vulnerable "coal ash" ponds in the United States. Two weeks ago the agency tried to keep the list secret, claiming these hazardous toxic waste ponds could be terrorist targets. 

Bill Kovarik of Radford University has mapped the locations of these 44 hazardous sites, most of them in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina and Arizona.

These sludge ponds store the toxic waste remaining after coal is burned to produce electricity. Coal produces about 50 percent of the electricity in the United States, and also creates large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) when it is burned. Rising levels of CO2 are widely seen by scientists as the leading reason earth's temperatures are rising. 

If you live near one of these 44 toxic waste ponds, the EPA has said they have "high hazard potential." EPA verbiage accompanying the list says this means a failure of a dam holding back these coal ash wastes "will probably cause loss of human life."

Public interest has been high in these hazardous toxic waste ponds ever since one of them ruptured last December (picture above) at the TVA Kingston coal-fired power plant in Tennessee. That toxic sludge is still being cleaned up, and a recent report in the Knoxville News-Sentinel said the Tennessee Valley Authority expects cleanup costs will be about $1 billion. 

A TVA-commissioned study of the causes of that disaster said an "unstable" layer of ash in the failed pond caused the dam to break. The 1,400-page study released in late June, called "Root Cause Analysis," is a compendium of obscure and virtually inscrutable technical language. What is called the "Executive Summary" can be found here.

Suffice to say the price of coal for producing electricity keeps rising. When we turn on a light we subsidize the creation of devastated and polluted landscapes, whether they be mountaintop removal coal mines, or the toxic waste sites created by these hazardous coal ash ponds. And as we burn ever more coal (and oil) to power our modern 24/7/365 society, we keep heating up the planet.

Resources:

Climate Fight Site: Carbon War Room

Sir Richard Branson is behind Carbon War Room, a new web effort designed to ramp up action on reducing carbon emissions and move the world "beyond the carbon economy." With a growing research database, resources, and widgets to post to your own website, the site's "About Us" page reveals:

"The Carbon War Room is a global philanthropic inititative, founded to harness the resource and skills of the Planet’s entrepreneurs and institutions to urgently deliver solutions that enable humanity to prosper beyond the carbon economy. Our Founders include some of the world’s leading entrepreneurs and institutions who are passionate about solving this problem..."

The website's creators envision the "battles" against carbon in seven "theatres," including: transportation, electricity, the built environment, industrial processes, agriculture and deforestation, development of transition economies, and in "adaptation mitigation." Thanks to Joel Makower for the tip...

Desert Dust Alters Mountain Meadows

 

More dust in Colorado mountains causes earlier spring snow melt. Photo: Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies

Following on an earlier post here on dust covering the snowpack of southwest Colorado mountains this year, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reveals that the increased dust cover on snow is altering the behavior of mountain plants.  

According to the study, meadow plants typically time their flowering to rising temperatures and melting of snow, but the heat-absorbing dust causes snow to melt before ground temperatures are warm enough for plant growth. 

Dust levels in the mountains have increased about five times since the mid-1800s, mostly due to human activity in the deserts nearby, the study said. The researchers say the change in timing of snowmelt could change the composition of alpine plant communities as some species decline in abundance and others increase.

NASA Top 10 Image: Ocean Sand, Bahamas

While poking around the NASA Earth Observatory website I came across a page for the the Top 10 Images of the Day. The Top 10 Images page is part of NASA Earth Observatory's 10th Anniversary celebration. The website began on April 29, 1999.

Ranked third among those "Top 10" images is Atafu Atoll, which has been among the most visited postings here at Signs From Earth. Perhaps more pictures and less writing are what the visitors seek...

Ranked second is this amazing 2002 satellite image (above) of sands in the Bahamas. From the description: "...Tides and ocean currents in the Bahamas sculpted the sand and seaweed beds into these multicolored, fluted patterns in much the same way that winds sculpted the vast sand dunes in the Sahara Desert.."

Numbers Alone Show Vote Rigging

Figuring out whether election results from Iran are fraudulent is simple, according to New York University political scientists Bernd Beber and Alexandra Scacco. In their June 20 Washington Post op-ed The Devil is in the Digits, they discuss the lack of randomness in the last digit of polling results from each province:

"...Last digits in a fair election don't tell us anything about the candidates, the make-up of the electorate or the context of the election. They are random noise in the sense that a fair vote count is as likely to end in 1 as it is to end in 2, 3, 4, or any other numeral. But that's exactly why they can serve as a litmus test for election fraud. For example, an election in which a majority of provincial vote counts ended in 5 would surely raise red flags...."

"...The numbers look suspicious. We find too many 7s and not enough 5s in the last digit. We expect each digit (0, 1, 2, and so on) to appear at the end of 10 percent of the vote counts. But in Iran's provincial results, the digit 7 appears 17 percent of the time, and only 4 percent of the results end in the number 5. Two such departures from the average -- a spike of 17 percent or more in one digit and a drop to 4 percent or less in another -- are extremely unlikely. Fewer than four in a hundred non-fraudulent elections would produce such numbers...."

From Bernd Beber website: Annotated Version of The Devil is in The Digits

From Alexandra Scacco website: Election Results Data Used in Analysis

Climate Change Bell Tolls for People, Too

If we all wake up one day surprised in the grip of some massive drought, crop failure, or endless heat wave, we can't claim we weren't warned. The United States climate impacts study released by the government this week is only one of several reports out in just the past month addressing the issue. 

This idea of consequences begins to take hold, that our profligate burning of fossil sunshine coal and oil will come home to roost in ways far beyond disappearing Arctic ice. No longer are we just pondering a planet where polar bears float around stranded on Arctic ice remnants. We are beginning to realize that climate change means changes in the climate for us too.

I've been in Geneva as a panelist this week at a United Nations conference on what they call "Disaster Risk Reduction." Impacts of climate change now and upcoming -- rising seas, loss of land and homes, floods, drought, loss of stable food supplies -- are all front-burner topics here. 

The idea is that we can spend money now to reforest millions of acres, replant coastal mangroves as coastal storm defense, restore damaged watersheds or produce drought- and heat-tolerant crops to prepare in advance and reduce the cost of projected impacts. But that means money spent now to avoid something that hasn't happened yet, and in a cash-strapped world this is a hard sell. Money and help seems so much easier to find once a catastrophe has happened.

Climate and Migration: A report last week from CARE, Columbia University's CIESIN program and the UN focuses on climate migration. Called "In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement," it focuses on people in several vulnerable regions who will need to move around within the regions where they live now. They include regions of Asia that depends on glacial meltwater from the Tibetan plateau, Mexico and Central America, the Sahel, several low-lying river deltas, and low-lying islands.

Climate, Conflict, and National Security: Dan Smith of International Alert discussed his report A Climate of Conflict last week in Washington at ECSP on the links between climate change, peace and war. The Center for New American Security initiated its new program, blog, and "working paper" on a similar idea: that the future security of nations depends on preservation of natural systems now being threatened by rampant consumption and the rising effects of climate change. And there is also the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report "From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The Role of Natural Resources and the Environment." (PDF file here.)

Climate and Health: Finally, there is the extensive report out last month from English medical journal The Lancet saying that climate change is the biggest global health threat of this century.

Resources:

Look Here: Look at LOOK3

Those who know me know I've been deep into photography and photojournalism for about 40 years. Had fun this weekend at the third outing of "The Festival of the Photograph," LOOK3, in Charlottesville, VA. 

Here from a selection of pictures I've put up over on my page at flickr, is festival Master of Ceremonies Vince Musi and his son on Saturday during the master's lecture for Callie Shell (Musi's wife), who has been photographing Barack Obama for Time Magazine for years. For eight years before that Callie was official photographer for  Al Gore when he served as Vice President.