Trillionthtonne.org

A few weeks ago in my Earth 130 class (Global Warming) Professor Lea asked that we each share the following link to at least one person. 

http://trillionthtonne.org/

The bright red number in the billions is the estimated tonnes of carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution. Once we reach 1 trillion tonnes of carbon, there is expected to be a global warming of 2 degrees Celsuis. This site even has the date and time we expect to hit that point, as well as the estimated rate we must reduce our carbon emissions to avoid emitting 1 trillion tonnes of carbon. It's extremely interesting to see these numbers changing at such a fast rate, and the expected time move closer and closer. Definitely check it out. (I also highly recommend Earth 130, Professor Lea is awesome to have discussions with and knows it all, considering climate change is his line of work.)

Climate Change and Alaskan Wetlands

In case my chalkboard graphic was not enough, I have put together an even more compelling graphic to better illustrate the findings of Corcoran et al. In their study of Alaskan boreal wetland responses to climate change!

Figure 1: climate change and Alaskan wetlands (Morse, 2014)

In Summary, since late 1980s wetlands have shrunk in size due to increased average temperatures in Alaska of 3-4 degrees Celsius. This decrease in wetland size means a higher concentration of nutrients which leads to phytoplankton blooms. These blooms mean more food for zooplankton and less algae fallout to benthic invertebrates. Since migratory birds rely on benthic inverts for a large portion of their diet, the researchers predicted that we may begin to see shrinking migratory bird populations.

Some of the data supporting this research is assumed to be the same for all wetlands in the study area. This is problematic because the area that they were surveying has 20,000 wetlands in a 36,000 square kilometer area. However, It is nonetheless interesting to think about the cataclysmic effects that climate change can have on an entire ecosystem.

Corcoran, R.M., Lovvorn, J.R., Heglund, P.J. (2009). Long-term change in limnology and invertebrates in Alaskan boreal wetlands. Hydrobiologia, 620(1), 77-89. 

Rogue scientist

I've always been fascinated by the idea of rogue scientists. I had presumed that they existed only in the comic books but now we have a real one, Russ George, who dumped 100 tons of iron sulphate in the Pacific Ocean off the British Columbia coast last July without the knowledge or consent of the Canadian government. The end result was an algae bloom covering more than 10,000 square kilometers of ocean.

There have been a number of articles on this incident (eg Geoengineering: Testing the Waters in the New York Times) but the most interesting is the one in Scientific American because they interview the man himself: Pacific Ocean Hacker Speaks Out. Is Russ George a "rogue geoengineer," salmon savior or something else?
Lots of interesting questions are asked:

• Any concerns about possible side effects like dead zones?
• Any concerns about the legality of this effort?
• Can ocean fertilization really help combat climate change on any significant scale?