People see the most interesting things in the world around them. Some people see Stephen Hawking's initials in the universe's microwave background radiation. Others seek patterns in the clouds or lines on a palm. People are hard-wired to look for meaning in patterns. Not all patterns have meaning, but many do. Geologists, for instance, pay a lot of (legitimate) attention to patterns in ancient sediments: these patterns, called primary structures, give information about current flow direction, exposure to air, and the presence of living organisms. Others can orient us to which way was "up" when the sediments were deposited. Cross-bedding, mudcracks, and bioturbation are some examples of patterns with meaning. Seeing a dog's face in a rock exposure is an example of a pattern that lacks meaning, as surely as if one saw the same dog's face in the meaningless blobs of ink in a Rorschach test.

Lately, I've been thinking about the human predisposition for perceiving meaning in patterns.

The week before last, I gave a presentation at a local middle school about climate change. Before my talk, one of the teachers came up to me to ask if I thought that global warming could have triggered the earthquake. He whispered conspiratorially, "There have been a lot of earthquakes lately!" I said no, because (1) I couldn't think of a plausible mechanism for that to work in Haiti* and (2) there are perfectly good tectonic reasons for the Haiti earthquake, and (3) there haven't been more earthquakes lately than usual, at least not in any significant way.

As I type these words, the first snowflakes are falling in the second major snowstorm to hit Washington, DC, in less than a week. The first, dubbed Snowmageddon or the Snowpocalypse, dumped more than 18 inches of snow on the capital city. The city does not respond well to that amount of snow: schools shut, the government closed, and there were insane panicked runs on groceries at the area's stores. The new storm, dubbed Snoverkill, adds insult to injury with another 6 to 16 inches predicted. The schools I teach for, NOVA and GMU, have both been closed since last Friday. The way it's looking now, I'm not going to be working again until this coming Friday -- a full week lost due to the white stuff.

What's interesting to me is how people react to the snow. I mean this on two levels: one is the obvious fact that both the culture and infrastructure of Washington, DC, are quite poorly equipped to deal with a couple feet of snow. However, that's not as interesting as the way the snow serves as a reflection on people's mental states. Some people look at the two big snowstorms coming back to back and say, "Where's global warming now?" Others look at the same two storms, with fear that this is the new paradigm like The Day After Tomorrow, and say, "See what climate change hath wrought?" The thing is, they are both wrong.

Weather is not climate, even when two weather events occur in the same week. Tamino calculates that you need about 14 years of temperature data to tease out the long-term trend. Nine years isn't enough, and one week isn't enough. Yet people notice the "clumping" of these data: "two storms in one week! That's a pattern! It must therefore be significant! If it's significant, it's therefore reflective of a common cause, and that common cause is the one I have already decided to be true. Therefore these two storms are evidence of global warming / global cooling**" (depending on who you're listening to).

The thing is, data are clumpy. There is going to be noise in the data. When it comes to snowstorms, the noise is the weather. The noise is superimposed upon a longer-term trend. That trend is the climate. Likewise with earthquakes: no one expects earthquakes to occur with a periodicity regular enough to set to music. Earthquakes of a certain size have a certain probability of occuring in a given period of time, but there's no guarantee that one will occur. If you calculate the average number of earthquakes during a given period of time, and then compare any period of time to that average, your comparison time period will either have more earthquakes than the average or less earthquakes than the average. Ditto for snowstorms: some winters will be more snowy. Some winters will be less snowy.

There are exceptions, such as earthquakes triggered by other earthquakes, or a common cause. The recent earthquake storm at Yellowstone is sufficiently constrained in time and space to suggest that it indeed is a group related by a common cause (though it does not show a magmatic signature, another case of people seeing what they want in the data). Haiti's aftershocks play the same game, though not every earthquake that occurs in Haiti is necessarily connected to the big shock.

Anyhow, this stuff has been on my mind this week. The world is one big Rorschach blot, and humans see what they want in it. We are psychologically all too likely to jump from pattern recognition (noticing clumps in data) to conclusions (often pre-determined), without taking the time to really analyze whether there is in fact a trend present, and if that trend is significant, and if there is a logical causal mechanism to explain that trend.

We are a species that seeks meaning: some augur the future from tea leaves, while others engage in science and reason. Some methods of gaining access to meaning are themselves meaningful. Others are meaningless. Both surround us.

Stay warm out there.
________________________________________
* Though potentially up in Greenland it could work due to glacial melting causing unloading on the crust, changing the stress field that's keeping a fault locked in place.
** It's probably also worth pointing out that snow does not equal temperature. It's precipitation. People are visually susceptible to the sight of snow: it registers more than numbers.

Labels: analogies, climate change, dc, movies, nova, primary structures, science and society, snow

In the new issue of Scientific American, vodcast host and prodigious author Steve Mirsky takes on James Inhofe and Ray Comfort. No news here if you're the sort of person who follows climate politics and creationism shenanigans, but his short essay is pretty funny.

Labels: climate change, evolution, global warming, humor, podcasts and vodcasts, politics

Food for thought: check out this excellent article in the Columbia Review of Journalism ("Hot Air," Jan/Feb issue). Subtitle: "Why don't TV weathermen believe in climate change?"

Hat tip: Anthony Leiserowitz at the Yale Project on Climate Change, who is quoted in the story.

Labels: climate change, global warming, politics, tv

Last Friday, I went to a briefing in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill about adaptation to climate change. I present here a transcription of my notes as a quick, unpolished rundown of what was discussed there. It may be of interest to you.

The speakers, their titles, and their topics were:

• Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs, the Climate Institute: Projected impacts of Climate Change on the United States


• Kristie L. Ebi, Executive Director, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 2 Technical Support Unit - Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability: Adaptation


• Katharine L. Jacobs, Professor, University of Arizona Soil, Water and Environmental Science Department: Adaptation to water resource changes


• Susanne Moser, Director and Principal Researcher, Susanne Moser Research & Consulting: California as a case-study in adaptation planning

MacCracken was first up, and gave [what I was surely biased to percieve as] the most compelling talk. I felt this way not because he was the only dude, but because he was talking science, while everyone else was talking adaptation -- how humans should/can/might respond to climate change -- a topic I find fundamentally less interesting than the science. However, I'm teaching environmental geology again this semester, and having some clue as to policy options is a part of my job. That's why I went. Citing the IPCC and a UNEP report (reproduced above because I think its cover design is pretty clever), MacCracken informed us that the overall projections for North America is that it will get wetter in the north and drier in the south. He noted that there is less confidence in precipitation projections than there is in temperature projections. Water is going to be one of the most important aspects of climate change, MacCracken asserted. Tangentially, he also suggested that the large amount of snow we're seeing in the U.S. this winter has to do with less ice cover on the Great Lakes (encouraging evaporation and precipitaiton as snow). He showed a cool graph of corn yields over time, showing the crop's susceptibility to extreme climate events (superimposed on an overall upward trend). I found this to be interesting, and coveted the graph. [Eventually, all the speakers' PowerPoints will be available at the AMS Climate Briefing site - but they are not there yet.] He showed some good graphs showing projections of sea level rise under high, medium, and low emissions scenarios. He also cited Isabella Velicogna (2009), displaying graphs which show estimates of ice mass loss from Greenland and Antarctica. (I need to get a copy of these images: very compelling! The Way Things Break discussed them in October, when they were first published.) Finally, he brought up ecosystem changes, showing us maps of the spruce bark beetle infestation on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska (a forest catastrophe I have seen firsthand).

Ebi spoke quietly about adaptation in general. Adaptation is in contrast to mitigation, which is what most people spend their climate time talking about: Mitigation attempts to prevent future climate change (by limiting emissions of CO2 or by capturing CO2 and sequestering it), while adaptation says, "given a certain level of climate change, what do we do in order to maximize human welfare?") She noted that the impacts we face are entirely contingent upon which adaptation strategies we adopt: a given quantum of climate change will have different effects upon identical communities which adopt different levels of adaptation. Ergo, adaptation is important, and we really need to start talking about it. She made the claim that the federal Stimulus package was a major missed opportunity, as major infrastructural investment was made without consideration as to whether long-term infrastructure should be modified or moved. For instance, before rebuilding a bridge, perhaps we should be asking ourselves if it should be taller, or before repaving a coastal road, we should perhaps consider moving it to a higher elevation where it is likely to last longer. She gave a compelling example of Barbados (I think), where coastal mapping showed that with year 2100 projections for sea-level rise plus a category-3 hurricane, the portion of Barbados' coast to be flooded will include both the power plant and the coastal road! While Barbados has been proactive in addressing these issues, Ebi says the U.S. has not. Adaptation, she argued, is nothing more than iterative risk management. She gave a list of criteria necessary for action, and you can see that the U.S. is falling short of the minimum threshold for action on many of them:

• an awareness of the problem
• an understanding of the causes
• a sense that the problem matters
• a capability to influence outcomes
• political will to deal with the problem

The third expert to speak was Kathy Jacobs. She pointed out that many of the projected impacts of climate change will be delivered, one way or another, via the water cycle. One example she gave that caught my attention was the declining amount of snowpack in the western U.S. Historically, this snowpack has been a fundamental reservoir of water during the summer months, and as it melts away, we are going to need to build artificial reservoirs to compensate. She noted that this sort of adaptation is uniquely human: ecosystems do not have the foresight or ability to build reservoirs and the like -- so if we want those ecosystems to continue to function, we will have to do their planning, too. She discussed the Colorado River, which is estimated to decline somewhere between 11% and 40% at the same time demand for its water is increasing. She said, "We may not know the magnitude or the rate of change [in Colorado River discharge], but we know the direction of change" (i.e., downward). The comment she made that impressed me the most was that the current uncertainty (in U.S. society) about whether climate change is real is blocking action. She was citing the frequently-made argument that because we don't understand everything about climate change, we shouldn't take any action. "Yet we make decisions with imperfect information all the time," she said. "Climate change shouldn't be any different. We need to get past that." She made two final points: (1) that there is no silver bullet solution to our burgeoning water resources crisis ["We will need a broad portfolio approach" including things like desalination], and (2) Many of the current water technologies are energy intensive, and these technologies will be less attractive in the future because of their carbon cost.

Susanne Moser was the last one at bat. She detailed California's response to the question of adaptation. It was an interesting case study, because under the leadership of Governor Schwarzenegger, an office was formed to examine what adaptation might mean for the Golden State. This office provides bi-annual updates to the government of California on the state of the science. They are the only state to do this, so far (though ~a dozen other states have taken less decisive measures). Unfortunately, "California is also adapting to bankruptcy," and so really this golden example of adaptation is hamstrung by economic constraints: It is really only a baby step.

I enjoyed the briefing. It was the sixth or seventh AMS-sponsored briefing I've attended on Capitol Hill, and it was informative as always. Typing up these notes reminds me how useful it was. I'd like to thank AMS for making these sessions open to the general public, and for providing lunch to all the participants.

Labels: alaska, antarctica, art, barbados, california, climate change, CO2, dc, global warming, graphics, greenland, politics, science and society, water resources

Local yokels! Head on over to the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Metro Center for their new climate change photo exhibit.

Hat tip to Surprising Science.

Labels: climate change, dc, global warming, museums

Remember how I was lamenting the carbon footprint of my globetrotting?

Here's a nice summary of that issue in an image:

Smoke from the engines of the M.V. Evangelistas drifts across the terminus of the largest valley glacier in South America.

Labels: chile, climate change, CO2, environmental, glaciation, global warming, patagonia, south america, travel

This is coming up on Friday. I'm going. See you there?

Labels: action, climate change, dc, environmental, global warming, politics

So I'm in Patagonia right now, doing the thing I love to do most: travel across my home planet, checking out its less explored corners. Chile and Argentina are my 20th and 21st countries to visit. It is my second trip to South America. I've also travelled twice to Africa, four times to Asia (including my stint in Peace Corps Mongolia), and extensive travels in North America. I've only hit North Atlantic island nations as far as Europe is concerned. I've been to Australia once. I have not been to Antarctica.

So why am I listing all of this?

Because I'm a freaking hypocrite. I'm very concerned about how humanity is altering atmospheric chemistry, and what that's going to do to our (shared) planet's natural systems. Because I am convinced that we are releasing carbon into the atmosphere at a faster rate than natural systems can remove it, we are endangering ourselves (or at least some of ourselves) and also endangering the ecosystems that we depend on. I recognize the role the individual can/might/should play in reducing their personal carbon emissions through efficiency and lifestyle choices. I drive a Prius, use energy efficient light bulbs, recycle my cans and bottles and paper, serve on the College's "Green Committee," and teach (and blog) about the science underlying environmental issues, like climate change. I'm spreading the word, see?

But I really love to travel, and travel is a high-carbon endeavor. The best thing I could do for the world would probably be to stay home, but home gets stale. The world is big and diverse and full of landscapes and people and food and culture and birds and all kinds of interesting things. And there is nothing like getting out there and experiencing it firsthand. My time on this planet is finite, maybe close to half used up (assuming an average lifespan). What am I going to do during my time here? I figure I should live morally, attempt to improve things a bit, and enjoy myself. And I enjoy travelling more than anything else. I don't have kids (or an interest in having them), I'm not a religious person, I'm not tied down to a garden or a dog or a network of people that can't live without me. There's little to keep me in town when the opportunity for travel arises. And I have a career which gives me three and a half weeks off each winter and three months off each summer, plus a week of spring break. I have chosen my career in no small part because of the tremendous amount of free time it grants me each year. (Having a third of the year "off" makes up for the fifteen hour days I work during the fall and spring semesters, I reckon.)

My philosophy of life is essentially to facilitate and accrue a suite of fond memories and cool experiences. My goal is to enjoy my limited time here. Secondary goals: be a good person, help others out, learn as much as possible about the world I will spend my life in, share this perspective by spreading an understanding of the natural world, be creative, be responsible (but not so responsible, CO2-wise, that it cripples Goal #1). I am aware that this is a fundamentally self-centered approach, and I accept it.

So I know that there is a tangible global negative to my jetsetting habits, but the personal positive is what sways me. I'm going to keep travelling, because although environmental concerns mean a lot to me, experiencing the world means even more.

So that's my philosophical postcard from the austral hemisphere. ...Wish you were here!

--Mr. Hypocrite

Labels: argentina, chile, climate change, CO2, energy, environmental, global warming, patagonia, science and society, south america, travel

Last new year's, I stated some of my goals for the year. Here they are again; I'll bold the ones I actually accomplished, and strike through the ones that I didn't.

1. visiting the Galapagos Islands
2. visiting the high Andes (Cotopaxi, Chimborazo), Ecuador
3. finding a cool outcrop of graded beds in the Martinsburg Formation (late Ordovician turbidites in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia) that Rick Diecchio told me about last week
4. "walking on the Moho" in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland (late summer)
5. seeing Snowball rocks and Ediacarans on the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland (late summer)
6. visiting Egg Mountain paleontological site, Montana
7. joining my colleague Ken Rasmussen's field trip to the Culpeper Basin, a Triassic rift valley in northern Virginia
8. some cool trip next winter break (2009-10): perhaps Patagonia? Or Antarctica?

I've also got some big teaching resolutions:

1. Running a successful and robust Structural Geology course for George Mason University (spring semester).
2. Running a successful and innovation Environmental Geology course for NOVA (spring semester).
3. Running a successful and safe Regional Field Geology of the Northern Rocky Mountains course for NOVA (summer semester).
4. Preparing and running a successful and groundbreaking Honors Historical Geology course linked with English Literature 242 at NOVA, where the English professor and I will bridge the two subjects with readings of Lyell, Darwin, "A Pair of Blue Eyes," and others (fall semester). (didn't get sufficient enrollment for this one; bummer!)

On other topics:

1. Finish my M.S.S.E. degree (July)
2. Buy a house
3. Put together a series of geology 'vodcasts' on local geology (though I've gathered a lot of footage that will eventually go into this series)
4. Write a few freelance articles [link]
5. Publish one cartoon per month in EARTH
6. Prepping (cutting and polishing) a backlog of rock samples from all over the place (I'll have to share the story soon of how our "Campus Safety Officer" emasculated my rock saw out of a fear of accidents and ensuing litigation: it's an absolute abomination...)
7. Successfully moving the geology department into our new building

So what's up for the coming year, 2010?

1. More structure at GMU! Bigger, better, tweaked towards greater learning.
2. Hire and train a new member of the NOVA geology team to take on some of the tasks that my colleagues and I can't currently keep up with.
3. Actually get up to Newfoundland this year. I've got a family reunion up there in early August, so hopefully that will be the catalyst. (My mom's side of the family are Newfies.)
4. Run my Rockies course (with co-instructor Pete Berquist) again.
5. Update my website's numerous mentions of "greywacke" (English spelling) to "graywacke" (American spelling).
6. Get my geoblogging under control. I'm clearly devoting too much time to this for too little recompense. Maybe an alternate would be: find a grant or some such to fund the time I spend writing this blog.
7. Continue my cartooning for EARTH. Also occasional freelance writing pieces.
8. Scan my Cartoon Guide to Geology and post it for download/printing on Lulu.
9. Take meaningful action as a "citizen scientist" to combat climate change misinformation, creationism and Intelligent Design mumbo-jumbo, and other forms of pseudoscience pertinent to my expertise as a geologist.
10. Get those geology vodcasts going.
11. Go to Antarctica. (fingers crossed)
12. Work less. Relax more. Be creative. Enjoy life.

Labels: antarctica, canada, climate change, evolution, montana, newfoundland, pseudoscience, structure, teaching

The news from Copenhagen is dissipiriting, but this is worse. Via Pharyngula.

Labels: blogs, climate change, global warming, pseudoscience

I thought this video does a nice job of investigating the hacked e-mails from CRU:

Rational, in context, and well-presented. I especially like the video author's advice at the end: if you don't believe his presentation, go check for yourself, with specific advice about what to check if you want to verify or refute his interpretation.

Labels: climate change, global warming, politics, science and society

The Way Things Break has a nice "review" post up pointing to the "emerging scientific consensus on the SwiftHack e-mails."

I hope my e-mails never get published online because I can sometimes be brusque or snarky or dimwitted and ignorant, and this incident has reminded me never to type something online that I don't mind the whole world seeing. A good thing to be reminded of, particularly (listen up, young people) in terms of the sorts of stuff that gets press time on Facebook.

That being said, I think it was wise of (CRU head) Phil Jones to step aside for an inquiry. My sense of things so far is that there isn't anything wrong, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if the inquiry suggests there was any kind of fraud. The e-mails I've seen are not particularly damning scientifically, given that they are taken out of context. All data gets processed, and I suspect that's all that was going on at CRU, though the words used to describe it are unfortunate. A lot of scientists I know write e-mails the way I do, and I'm sure it would be easy to take any particular e-mail completely out of context and interpret it incorrectly and embarrassingly.

I wonder what life would be like for other scientists if they were working on politically-charged topics like climate change. What would the structural geologists say if a tectonics working group got hacked and a media firestorm erupted with individuals quoting a line or two of an e-mail out of context to suggest that plate tectonics was a vast conspiracy of left-winger outdoorsy types just looking for research dollars so they could go hang out in the mountains? Or a group of sedimentologists get hacked, and the hackers scream that their e-mails show geologic time is a fraud? Maybe some physicists could get hacked, and the resulting headlines on Fox News would be that "Theory of Gravity called Into Question. Inquiry Launched." Chemists: it could happen to you too. You won't be able to keep your "everything is made out of atoms" charade up much longer...

One more, for reals: I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there were some creationists out there looking at this chaos and thinking, "We should hack some biologists' e-mails, and then publish the lines that would call evolution into question." Stay tuned for that. You heard it here first.

I want to be excited for Copenhagen, but this CRU "Climategate" business definitely casts a shadow over things. Unfortunate timing...

Labels: climate change, evolution, geologic time, global warming, humor, politics, science and society

Labels: alaska, climate change, global warming, humor, oil

My friend Eric Roston made a guest appearance on Andy Revkin's Dot Earth blog yesterday. Eric wrote The Carbon Age, but more importantly, he occasionally gets together with me and some mutual friends to drink homebrew. Good work, Eric: Cheers!

Labels: blogs, books, climate change, india

Last night, Lily and I went down the street to the Carnegie Institution to catch a guest lecture by climatologist Wally Broecker of Columbia University. Broecker won the Balzan Prize last year, and this was 'the Balzan Lecture.'

Broecker was introduced by the Swiss and Italian ambassadors to the United States, as well as another man whose title was not made explicit, but who had the most pronounced eyebrows I have ever seen on a non-cartoon character.

Broecker's PowerPoint was written in all capital letters, and all Helvetica. It was a bold font for a man who has a reputation for boldness. He was blunt in his assessment of the climate crisis: "The problem is huge, and I wish I could live for fifty more years to see how it all plays out," he said. He pointed out that we are currently at "390" parts per million carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, up over a third from pre-industrial levels of ~280 ppm. "We're going up by two per year," he said, and that means that we will be at 450 ppm within 30 years. "If we want to stop at 450 ppm, we're going to have to go on a World War II footing."

He estimated that about 80% of humanity's energy comes from carbon, and stated "We must cut back to zero net emissions." However, he acknowledged that it is unlikely that we will be able to do this in the time we have (~30 years, see above), so he has come to the conclusion that the only way we're going to be able to avoid a doubling of CO2 is to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester it somewhere.

He showed both Keeling curves: Dave Keeling's CO2 data from Mauna Loa, and Dave's son Ralph Keeling's CO2 data and O2 data from La Jolla. (I've reported before on how compelling this oxygen data is: it's definitive information that shows the rise in atmospheric CO2 must be coming from the combustion of fossil fuels, a process which consumes oxygen by bonding it in an exothermic reaction to fossil fuel carbon.) Broecker then predicted that we are going to at least double CO2, triggering a rise in temperature of about 3.5 degrees C. He said, "This will not be a total catastrophe, but it's going to be a huge mess." He discussed ecological changes which will likely result - species shifting poleward or towards higher elevations, but able to migrate at different rates, which will be rough in terms of keeping ecosystems coherent and functional.

He said that water vapor is actually the biggest contributor to the greenhouse effect, and that it amplifies the warming caused by CO2. The partial pressure of water vapor over the oceans goes up by about 7% with each degree of warming: this means that a degree of warmth caused by CO2 would trigger a triple warming because of its effect on water vapor. He discussed uncertainties in our understanding of the climate system: the role of aerosols, the role of clouds. "We're perturbing climate," he said, "on a planet where we don't understand the whole thing."

He discussed his Columbia colleague Klaus Lackner, who has developed a plastic compound that can capture carbon from the air. Lackner has proposed a facility using filters of this compound, and estimates each facility, about the size of a shipping container, could remove 1 ton of CO2 per day, about the equivalent of 20 U.S. automobiles' emissions. Each facillity costs about as much as a car, so Broecker proposed paying for them by tacking a 5% surcharge onto automobile sales. They also cost money to maintain, and the calculation suggested that if we added a tax of 25 cents per gallon, we could generate enough income to maintain these carbon-capturing facilities.

The grants that Lackner got to develop this technology totaled about $6 million. Broecker pointed out that we pay (Yankee) baseball pitchers about $6 million per year, and that it's a shock and a shame that so very, very little is being invested in solving the problem of accumulating carbon emissions. He said, "That is peanuts compared to the amount of money that is being spent on any other serious problem on this planet."

Norway's 13-year record of success in storing captured carbon in deep sea sandstone reservoirs was his next topic, and he went on to suggest that we should try trial experiments where we inject CO2 directly into the deep sea's water, given that it has a ~1000-year circulation time. Below 3500 m depth, liquid CO2 is more dense than seawater, and would either sink or form clathrate slush. Broecker suggested it's quite possible it could be stable down there, and we need to figure out if in fact it is before it's time to actually start injecting it. Greenpeace opposes this idea, and Broecker said, "environmentalists are their own worse enemies." In Iceland, an experiment is being done where the small amount of CO2 that comes up in geothermal water is being re-injected into basalt. He pointed out that Iceland is investing MUCH more per capita in carbon capture and sequestration experiments, and lamented that the rest of the world was being so lackadaisical with its funding.

Finally, he discussed the 'geoengineering' solution of pumping SO2 into the stratosphere to filter out some incoming solar radiation (as happened naturally in the aftermath of Mount Pinatubo's 1984 eruption). Broecker and colleagues did a paper back then to calculate how much SO2 we would need in the stratosphere to counteract the warming effect of CO2 + H2O vapor, and found it to be about 30 million tons of SO2 per year. He calculated that you could deliver it with 747 aircraft, but you would need 250 of them, flying around the clock, year-round, to do it. The cost would be about $15 billion. Whether he advocated this approach was unclear to me, but that's where we ended up. The end.

Applause, more "hosting" from Mr. Eyebrow (who tried to inject a positive note into the grim discussion: "It will be okay. We're so smart; we will figure it out!"), and some audience questions. A walk home for Callan and Lily, followed by a gin and tonic.

Labels: awards, climate change, CO2, dc, global warming, meetings, new york

Wallace Broecker

Columbia University Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

What Can We Do About Fossil Fuel CO2?

Reversing the rise of atmospheric CO2 will be a monumental task. Despite our best efforts to conserve energy, to substitute non-fossil fuel sources, and to capture CO2 produced in power plants, the level of CO2 will almost certainly reach double its pre-industrial value. Halting the CO2 buildup will require direct capture of CO2 from the atmosphere. Once the CO2 level has stabilized, there will almost certainly be a drive to reduce it. Fortunately, it appears that CO2 capture can be achieved at an acceptable cost. If we fail to act aggressively, however, we will be faced with risky remedial measures.

Co-hosted with the Embassies of Italy and Switzerland
Thursday, November 12, 2009 6:45 PM
This program is free and open to the public and is held at the Carnegie Institution, located at 1530 P Street, NW (corner of 16th and P Streets)

For more information, visit http://www.ciw.edu/events/lectures, call 202-328-6988 or e-mail CapitalScienceInfo@ciw.edu

Labels: climate change, dc, global warming, meetings

A trio of recommendations for a Tuesday morning:

• Thomas Friedman on the three bombs (nuclear, climate, debt). Wise words. (Hat tip to Cathy Manduca, via the Earth and Mind blog)
• Betsy Kolbert on how the Internet enables non-rational thinking, from last week's New Yorker.
• And another one from Ms. Kolbert, on the 'geoengineering solution' for climate change, from this week's New Yorker. (It's a review of both Superfreakonomics and Al Gore's new Our Choice, and guess how she feels about those two books? Hint: she uses the word "horseshit" several times, and she's not referring to Mr. Gore.)

Labels: blogs, climate change, economics, global warming, politics

I really enjoyed Freakonomics, and so it was disappointing to hear that the recently-released sequel, Superfreakonomics, had a section devoted to the suggestion that global warming was going to be imposssible to solve via cutting carbon emissions (with renewable energy sources) and so we should focus our efforts on geoengineering schemes instead. RealClimate has a well-written post up today showing just how sloppy the Superfreakonomics authors' thinking on this issue is.

Labels: books, climate change, global warming, politics, tech

Steve Fetter, former dean of public policy at the University of Maryland, came to NOVA to speak at our first annual Climate Change Symposium in 2008. He was our "headliner" act. Now, I learn from the University of Maryland alumni magazine Terp that Steve is now an assistant director in the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. Congratulations Steve!

Labels: climate change, maryland, meetings, politics

Got a computer but don't use it 24/7? Perhaps you might consider lending some of its processing power to modeling climate. The more computing power, the more robust the models' predictions can be. More information here: essentially download a program that makes use of your computer's computing power when you're not already using it for other stuff, like Facebook.

Labels: climate change, tech

Heh heh heh.

Labels: action, climate change, global warming, humor

Awesome: right-handed Anomalocarids!
Elizabeth Kolbert on getting things moving re: climate policy.
The volcanological blogs are all agog over tephra and teeth.
Lockwood tears into sloppy "press release" style "journalism."

Labels: blogs, climate change, evolution, politics, science and society

If you haven't seen this yet, please watch it. Nice work, Mr. Balog!

Labels: art, climate change, glaciation, global warming, ice, meetings

George Mason Univerity invites you to attend the first lecture of this season's Vision Series on Monday, September 21, 7:00 PM, in the Center for the Arts. Jagadish Shukla, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Oceanic and Earth Sciences, will present "Global Warming: Science, Adaptation and Mitigation". A reception with light refreshments will follow the lecture. The Vision Series lectures are free and open to the public. Tickets are available online, or at the CFA ticket office, or the evening of the presentation. For more information and to reserve tickets, click here.

Labels: climate change, global warming, virginia

Very clever! (a comparison of tobacco-doesn't-hurt-you and climate-change-denier arguments) Hat tip to Tamino.

Great resource. (For those who love to wallow in data and want the freshest graphs for their students.) Hat tip to ClimateSight.

Labels: climate change, global warming, politics

Bill McKibben on political conservatives and climate change. (Orion) - This addresses what I see as a fundamental contradiction in modern political discourse: the fact that a lot of "conservatives" aren't into conserving natural systems. It bugs me & McKibben both.

Weather vs. climate (Surprising Science, a Smithsonian blog)

The new Wooster Geologists blog, featuring some awesome imagery of the Canadian Rockies.

Some advice about finding the right geology grad program for you (from Christie at the Cape)

Labels: climate change, global warming, politics, websites

WHAT: Top Ten Things You Should Know About Climate Change

WHEN: Tuesday, August 4, 5:30-8:00 PM; program begins at 6:15 PM.

WHERE: The Front Page Restaurant, 4201 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA, Located near Ballston Metro on the ground floor of the NSF building. Parking is available under the NSF building or at Ballston Common Mall.

WHO: Keith Dixon, Research Meteorologist and Climate Modeler, NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Joe Witte, Meteorologist, Newschannel 8

HOW: Special 1/2 price burgers start at 5:30 PM. Please come early to order table service and socialize. Short presentation begins at 6:15 PM, followed by Q&A. No science background required—only an interest!

Cafe Scientifique is free and open to the public. Register online here.

ABOUT THE TOPIC: In the coming decades, scientists expect climate change to have an increasing impact on human and natural systems. In a warmer world, accessibility to food, water, raw materials, and energy are likely to change. Climate change will also affect our weather, human health, biodiversity, economic stability, and national security. Come learn the top ten things you should know to know about climate change.

SUPPORT THIS CAFE: The Ballston Science and Technology Alliance, a nonprofit organization, is the sponsor of Cafe Scientifique Arlington. Since April 2006, the goal of Cafe Scientifique has been to make science more accessible and accountable by featuring speakers whose expertise spans the sciences and who can talk in plain English. Cafe is held each month on first Tuesdays at the Front Page in Arlington. Please go to www.arlingtonvirginiausa.com/bsta and contribute. Help keep Cafe open and free to all!

COMING NEXT MONTH: September 1, BioDiversity: How Special We Are! Dave Harrelson and Susan Jewel, Biologists, Endangered Species Program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service SPECIAL BSTA PROGRAM: August 25, 4:15 PM at Room 110 NSF, Climate Change Communication 2.0, Ed Maibach, Director of George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication. Register online here.

For more information contact Kaye Breen, ballstonscience@yahoo.com, visit www.arlingtonvirginiausa.com/bsta or join us on twitter: http://twitter.com/sciencecafeva or facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ballston-Science-and-Technology-Alliance/116954825970.

Labels: climate change, dc, meetings, nova

It shows current atmospheric measurements of carbon dioxide in parts per million, as sampled at Mauna Loa, Hawai'i.

Want one? Here's where to pick up the HTML code.

Labels: climate change, CO2, global warming, hawaii

My colleague Ken Rasmussen (the other full-time geology professor at NOVA-Annandale) takes issue with George Will's most recent climate-change-denying column for the Washington Post.

Labels: climate change, dc, environmental, global warming, nova

This weekend, I discovered a series on YouTube that debunks the claims of climate change denialists with reason and evidence (imagine that). I've watched three of the videos so far (average length ~6 minutes) and found them to be accurate and effective. If you're interested, click on over to start watching.

Labels: climate change, websites

When I started writing this post, I had just finished reading Tyler Volk's book CO2 Rising. Now it's been more than a month, and it's time to get this post up online. The author has kindly granted me permission to reproduce some of the images from the book.

CO2 Rising has got some stuff that sets it apart from other global warming books.

To start with, it's more focused on helping readers understand the carbon cycle rather than outright climate science. To do this, Volk employs a heurisitic device of naming certain carbon atoms. He names one 'Dave' (in tribute to Dave Keeling, who established the atmospheric CO2 observatory on Mauna Loa). Dave gets washed out of limestone and into the sea, he diffuses into the air, he gets sucked into a plant stoma and locked up in plant sugar. He gets fermented in a batch of beer, and drunk by the author, then oxidized and diffuses across the lung membrane and is exhaled back into the atmosphere, and so on. There are three other carbon atoms who also get names, and the reader gets to follow them on their adventures through the biosphere over tens of thousands of years. Some have been locked up in fossil fuel deposits for millions of years.

While I've heard some dismiss this narrative technique as a gimmick, I liked it. It drives home the point that carbon atoms "live" forever, and are simply jumping from carbon reservoir to reservoir through chemical reactions and physical flow. Bonds form and are broken. Energy is absorbed, energy is released. Now Dave is in a coccolithophore, now he's in a tree, now he's being oxidized in a cooking fire. You really get a sense of the complexity and the limits of the carbon cycle.

After these physical pathways are established, the latter half of the book explores the manifestations of accumulating carbon dioxide in the world. The reader, with their new sense of the robust & complicated nature of the carbon cycle, can start looking at the problem of anthropogenic climate change.

I was particularly impressed with Volk's pedagogical style by "zooming out" from a series of graphs of carbon dioxide, granting a tremendous perspective on how out-of-whack our modern CO2 concentrations really are. He does this by starting with the present day and backing out further and further into the past. The saga begins with the familiar Mauna Loa curve:


Then he puts that in perspective by showing CO2 data from Law Dome ice, which overlaps with Mauna Loa:


...But Law Dome's record goes back further than that:


...And where Law Dome's record ends, the ice of Taylor Dome takes over:


...And it takes us back further still:


Finally, we get to Vostok's record, which takes us back (in this graph) 400, 000 years:


I think that's a pretty impressive way of presenting this data -- building it out bit by bit, starting with the familiar and then going waaaaaaaaaayyyy back into the past.

All in all, I really enjoyed the book. I recommend that you read it. Say hi to 'Dave' for me!

Labels: books, climate change, CO2, global warming

Here's the results of a neat little experiment my Environmental Geology students did a couple weeks ago. This is the first time I've run this activity, and I was pleased with the results:

Labels: climate change, CO2, global warming, nova, teaching

"Climate Change in the American Mind"

Tuesday, April 28th, 10am

National Science Foundation
Arlington, VA
Room 1235

Anthony Leiserowitz
Yale Project on Climate Change

Report here

Labels: climate change, meetings, science and society

Heh! This "clean coal" debunking campaign is directed by the Coen Brothers.

And another:

Behind the scenes:

Labels: climate change, CO2, coal, global warming, humor, politics

Last week, I mentioned the impending launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory... Well, last night at the launch, things didn't work out so well...

NASA Satellite Fails to Reach Orbit (New York Times)
NASA satellite crashes (Los Angeles Times)
Seven years' work on satellite crashes and burns in 12 minutes (Scotsman)
NASA satellite launch fails (Newsday)
and from NASA themselves, the grim Launch Mishap Ends OCO Mission

What a bummer. All that potential knowledge, snuffed out before we even got a chance to see it.

Labels: climate change, CO2, global warming, news, satellite imagery

Very cool -- I think I want to design an Environmental Geology lab that uses Google Earth to access and evaluate this data. Kudos to the Vulcan Project for putting it together.

You can open these layers in Google Earth by clicking here.

Labels: climate change, CO2, coal, global warming

NASA is launching a new satellite next week to monitor the atmosphere's carbon flux from a outside-the-planet perspective. It's called the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO). Hopefully this will complement and give context to our current ~100 monitoring stations around the world (point measurements) for a truly global picture of our atmosphere's carbon inputs and outputs.

According to the NASA OCO website, the satellite will map the globe "once every 16 days for at least two years. It will do so with the accuracy, resolution and coverage needed to provide the first complete picture of the regional-scale geographic distribution and seasonal variations of both human and natural sources of carbon dioxide emissions and their sinks-the reservoirs that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it."

I can't wait to learn what we don't currently know about the carbon system. This is a tool that's long overdue!

Labels: climate change, CO2, satellite imagery

The February meeting of the Potomac Geophysical Society will be held February 19th at the Fort Myer Officers' Club in Arlington, VA in the Campaign Room. This month's talk will be: Listening to a Melting Arctic Ocean - Singing the Blues?, by Peter N. Mikhalevsky, SAIC, VA.

Abstract:
The waters of the Arctic Ocean have been warming since the mid 1990's. Average maximum temperatures have risen by more than 1°C. In the last 20 years submarine measurements of sea ice draft have shown a 40% reduction in average sea ice thickness while satellite remote sensing has shown a 14% reduction in sea-ice extent over the same period decreasing at a rate of 3-5%/decade (thicker multi-year ice at 7-10%/decade). Forecasts indicate that if these trends continue the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free, "A Blue Arctic Ocean" before the end of this century. Significant effort is needed to expand our observational capabilities in the Arctic Ocean to support better modeling, forecasting and improve our understanding of this critical ocean and the linkages to global climate. One technique - acoustic thermometry - has been shown to be a very effective for monitoring average heat content and average temperature in the Arctic Ocean and in particular in the Arctic Intermediate Water (AIW) layer. Two experiments conducted in 1994 and 1999 measured the warming and demonstrated the feasibility of long term observations. Plans are in process to incorporate acoustic thermometry and tomography in in-situ Arctic Ocean observatories.

Dinner Menu
Chicken Marsala (House salad & vegetables, rolls and butter)
Tira Mi Su
Coffee / tea
A vegetarian meal can be substituted by request.

Reception at 6:30. Dinner at 7:30. Talk at 8:30 PM. Allow 15 minutes for security entering Ft. Myer as all civilian vehicles are searched. To ensure access to and from Fort Myer use the Hatfield Gate, open 24 hours a day (https://webmail-1.nvcc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.fmmcmwr.com/directionsmyer.htm). If you wish to attend dinner ($25), please make reservations with Joydeep Bhattacharyya at 703-676-4373 or via E-mail at Joydeep.bhattacharyya@saic.com. If you wish, please feel free to attend the talk without dinner. Non-members and guests are welcome. Visit the PGS web site at https://webmail-1.nvcc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.potomacgeophysical.com%2520/ for new meeting announcements, etc.

Labels: climate change, global warming, meetings, oceans, pgs

For those of you who missed it, here's video of Mike Tidwell's talk at NOVA last Thursday.

Labels: action, climate change, global warming, maryland, nova, podcasts and vodcasts, politics, virginia

Cool idea. Check it out.

Labels: art, blogs, climate change, global warming, ice, oceans

Because he's coming to campus tomorrow (Thursday), last weekend I watched Mike Tidwell's movie We are all Smith Islanders. It's a 35-minute long documentary about how climate change is effecting the states of Maryland and Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Though it is a political document (and not a scientific documentary), I think it's a worthwhile enterprise because it connects the global to the local. We hear a lot about climate change, but when someone actually walks through Ocean City, Maryland, pointing out what three feet of sea level rise would look like, it fosters a connection based on shared landmarks.

Thanks to archive.org, you can actually watch the movie in low resolution on the Internet. Google video also keeps a copy available.

Or, if you'd prefer it in higher resolution (on DVD), you can find it at the NOVA library.

Labels: action, climate change, dc, global warming, maryland, movies, nova, politics, virginia

I'm on the mailing list for ANDRILL, an organization that I got interested in because they pair educators up with Antarctic researchers for scientific expeditions. They forwarded this video to me yesterday from the recent Polar-palooza campaign. It's a bunch of high school kids singing/rapping about climate change. Some of the turns of phrase are pretty clever, and the overall production values are high. I dig it, and figured you might want to check it out too:

Labels: antarctica, climate change, global warming, music

While completing an Amazon impluse buy triggered by the "Climate Sale" post at The Way Things Break, I noticed a clever book cover:

Whoever designed that deserves a bonus. Pretty clever.

Labels: art, blogs, books, climate change, global warming, websites

American Meteorological Society's Environmental Science Seminar Series

Coming to Grips with Sustainable Practices: Where Do We Go from Here?

What are the forces that shaped consumer culture in the U.S.? How does per capita consumption in the U.S. compare with that of other countries, especially in the realm of energy usage? What impact has consumerism had on resources and living standards in the U.S. and elsewhere? What are the implications of maintaining our present level of consumption? What are the implications of other countries aspiring to levels of per capita consumption on a par with ours? How might our society begin to identify and embrace more sustainable habits and practices, and what might such practices be? What policy steps might the new Administration and Congress consider codifying in the interest of promoting a more sustainable lifestyle and economy?

Public Invited

Monday, January 26, 2009
New Time: 12:00 noon - 2:00 pm
Russell Senate Office Building, Room 253 Washington, DC

Buffet Reception Following

Moderator:
Dr. Anthony Socci, Senior Science and Communication Fellow, American Meteorological Society

Speakers:
Dr. Juliet B. Schor, Professor of Sociology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA

Betsy Taylor, Consultant, Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions, Strategic & Philanthropic Consulting on Climate Solutions & Sustainable Development, Takoma Park, MD

Program Summary

Sustainability, Consumption and the Path Forward At the center of the US ecological dilemma lies consumption. We have been a consumer nation for more than a century, having made a directed choice in the 1930s toward that path. Today, in the midst of the simultaneous crises of the economy and the environment, we are again faced with choices about how to move forward. Although it has gotten far less attention, business-as-usual spending is as problematic as BAU energy use. The US ecological footprint, which is twice the level of comparably rich European countries, exceeds the equitable global sustainability level by a factor of 5. Rising per capita consumption underlies the ecological overshoot of the world economy, which now exceeds biological capacity by 40%. In the United States, inflated-adjusted personal consumption expenditures increased 88% from1973 to 2003, which resulted in a 37% rise in our ecological footprint. This is important because it has accompanied decades of attempts to save energy and de-materialize production, all of which have proved inadequate. Fortunately, there is increasing awareness of these issues, and a grassroots movement to transform consumer patterns and habits is underway. However, it has had virtually no legislative presence to date.

In Dr. Schor's presentation, the issue of consumption will be placed into its historical and comparative context. New data will be presented on the magnitude of the 'cheap import' boom in material (and therefore ecological terms) over the last 15 years. Underlying economic factors such as labor market policies and the distribution of income affect the path of consumption and ecological impact. A medium term consumption path will be sketched out, which yields high levels of human well-being, is becoming broadly popular, and is ecologically sustainable.

Ms. Taylor will discuss an array of policy instruments that could promote a more sustainable standard of living and more sustainable consumerism. In the lead-up to address climate change through cap & trade or carbon fees, it would serve our collective interests to simultaneously address the root causes of ecological degradation and collapse. Ms. Taylor will also call for a rekindled debate on policies and programs that might steer our economy and culture in a more sustainable and durable direction.

Labels: climate change, energy, environmental, meetings

From Greenfyres, via Tamino: "Sherlock Holmes and case of the climate bandwagon." Well worth a read, if you like satire and the writings of Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle.

Labels: blogs, books, climate change, global warming, humor

Following the success of last year's Climate Change Symposium, this year NOVA will host Mike Tidwell, the dynamic director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, for a talk on global warming and what college campuses can do about it. Mr. Tidwell has a reputation as a terrific speaker, so I'm really looking forward to his talk.

He will be speaking at 11am on Thursday, February 5, in the Ernst Community Cultural Center Theater (CE building) on the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College. The event is free and open to the public. I encourage you to attend if you're in town. A booksigning will follow in the Theater lobby.

Labels: climate change, global warming, maryland, meetings, nova

Tamino of Open Mind has an excellent post up describing how 2008 temperature data compare to the long-term trend. Check it out! It's an excellent example of clear writing accompanied by illustrative graphs.

Labels: climate change, global warming, graphics, news

This is pretty good... from the Coyote Crossing blog:

Labels: art, climate change, coal, environmental, global warming, politics

An article posted last hour on washingtonpost.com by Joel Achenbach examines an upcoming paper in Science that explores the idea of an impact triggering the Younger Dryas glacial advance as well as ending the Clovis culture and triggering the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna. The evidence is nanodiamonds in sedimentary deposits from 12,900 years ago. Read the article, and wonder how Joel Achenbach finds out about this stuff a day before it's published. How does he get his hands on this article with enough time to compose a newspaper piece about it, but the rest of us have to wait until tomorrow to read the original paper?

Labels: anthropology, climate change, critters, diamonds, ice, news, sediment

Labels: climate change, environmental, global warming, humor, oil, politics

Two of my favorite things to talk about, global warming and the Talking Heads, are combined in this trailer for a new program on PBS:

Hat tip to Babak R. for passing this on to me. I'm a day behind the curve in posting it (the show aired last night), but I'm a day behind in just about everything these days, so I'll post it anyhow.

Labels: climate change, global warming, music, tv

This is pretty good, folks. Frank Capra (director of It's A Wonderful Life and other films) put out a documentary called "Unchained Goddess" for Bell Labs' television program "The Bell Telephone Hour." In this segment, host Frank Baxter (a professor of English, not science, but we'll let that pass, since he's so charming and avuncular) discusses the state of knowledge in the 1950s about global warming:

Hat tip to Andy Revkin of the Times for posting this on his Dot Earth blog today.

Labels: climate change, global warming, movies

Heh heh heh!

Labels: climate change, global warming, humor

This week, New Scientist gives a rundown on how the two main U.S. presidential contenders compare on the issue of climate change. Check it out.

Labels: climate change, news, politics

What're you doing on Friday? There are two excellent-sounding earth science seminars inside the Beltway: The University of Maryland Geology Department's weekly seminar, and the American Meteorological Society's monthly seminar for policy makers. Both events are free and open to the public. AMS is at 10am, UMD at 11am. You can't do both -- you must choose...

AMS: Friday, September 26, 2008New Time - 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room G50 Washington, DC

Accelerating Atmospheric CO2 Growth from Economic Activity, Carbon Intensity, and Efficiency of Natural Carbon Sinks

What is the relationship between economic activity and CO2 growth? What is carbon intensity and how does it relate to economic activity? What are the trends in CO2 growth, carbon intensity, and changes in the efficiency of natural reservoirs to store carbon? How does the growth in CO2 compare to the various estimates of CO2 growth contained in the most recent IPCC assessment of climate change? What is permafrost and what is the extent of permafrost thaw in the Arctic? Is permafrost thaw a response to global warming and if so, what is the future likely to hold? Will permafrost thaw result in the release of additional CO2 into the atmosphere from Arctic soils? If so, what is the impact likely to be on global warming? How much carbon is stored in Arctic soils? Assuming that the Arctic continues to warm well above the global average, what is the likely fate of that soil carbon and how might it influence climate in the future?

Public Invited; Buffet Reception Following

Moderator: Dr. Anthony Socci, Senior Science Fellow, American Meteorological Society

Speakers:

• Dr. Josep (Pep) Canadell, Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Marine and Atmospheric Research, Canberra, Australia
• Dr. Vladimir Romanovsky, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, A
• Dr. Howard E. Epstein, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

Program Summary

How Fast is Atmospheric CO2 Growing and Why, and Does it Suggest Ways to Mitigate Climate Change?

The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is the single largest human perturbation of the climate system. Its rate of change reflects the balance between human-driven carbon emissions and the dynamics of a number of terrestrial and ocean processes that remove or emit CO2. It is the long term evolution of this balance that will determine to a large extent the speed and magnitude of climate change and the mitigation requirements to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations at any given level. Dr. Canadell will present the most recent trends in global carbon sources and sinks, updated for the first time to the year 2007, with particularly focus on major shifts occurring since 2000. Dr. Canadell’s research indicates that the underlying drivers of changes in atmospheric CO2 growth include: i) increased human-induced carbon emissions, ii) stagnation of the carbon intensity of the global economy, and iii) decreased efficiency of natural carbon sinks.

New Estimates of Carbon Storage in Arctic Soils and Implications in a Changing Environment

The Arctic represents approximately 13% of the total land area of the Earth, and arctic tundra occupies roughly 5 million square kilometers. Arctic tundra soils represent a major storage pool for dead organic carbon, largely due to cold temperatures and saturated soils in many locations that prevent its decomposition. Prior estimates of carbon stored in tundra soils range from 20-29 kg of soil organic carbon (SOC) per square meter. These estimates however, were based on data collected from only the top 20-40 cm of soil, and were sometimes extrapolated to 100 cm. It is our understanding that large quantities of SOC are stored at greater depths, through the annual freezing and thawing motion of the soils (cryoturbation), and potentially frozen in the permafrost.

Recent detailed analysis of Arctic soils by Dr. Epstein and his colleagues found that soil organic carbon values averaged 34.8 kg per square meter, representing an increase of approximately 40% over the prior estimates. Additionally, 38% of the total soil organic carbon was found in the permafrost.

A total of 98.2 gigatonnes (1015 grams) of carbon is estimated to be stored in the soils of the North American Arctic tundra. An area-based estimate for the entire Arctic suggests the presence of approximately 160 gigatonnes of carbon. The annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is roughly 2% of this amount, so small changes in Arctic carbon storage could have substantive impacts on atmospheric CO2. The future of this stored carbon is, however, largely uncertain in the face of a changing Arctic environment. Climate change and resulting increasing temperatures in much of the Arctic could increase the decomposition rates of soil organic carbon (producing atmospheric CO2), and increase permafrost thaw, which would expose more soil organic carbon for decomposition. On the other hand, increasing temperatures could also lead to greater sequestration of atmospheric CO2 by tundra vegetation. Actual changes will be the result of complex interactions between processes that sequester carbon and those that release it.

Past, Present and Future Changes in Permafrost and Implications for a Changing Carbon Budget

Presence of permafrost is one of the major factors that turn northern ecosystems into an efficient natural carbon sink. Moreover, a significant amount of carbon is sequestered in the upper several meters to several tens of meters of permafrost. Because of that, the appearance and disappearance of permafrost within the northern landscapes have a direct impact on the efficiency of northern ecosystems to sequester carbon in soil, both near the ground surface and in deeper soil layers. Recent changes in permafrost may potentially transform the northern ecosystems from an effective carbon sink to a significant source of carbon for the Earth’s atmosphere. Additional emissions of carbon from thawing permafrost may be in the form of CO2 or methane depending upon specific local conditions.

Dr. Romanovsky will present information on changes in terrestrial and subsea permafrost in the past during the last glacial-interglacial cycle and on the most recent trends in permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere. He will further discuss the potential impact of these changes in permafrost (including a short discussion on potential changes in methane gas clathrates) on the global carbon cycle. Dr. Romanovsky’s research suggests that permafrost in North America and Northern Eurasia shows a substantial warming during the last 20 to 30 years. The magnitude of warming varied with location, but was typically from 0.5 to 2°C at 15 meters depth. Thawing of the Little Ice Age permafrost is on-going at many locations. There are some indications that the late-Holocene permafrost started to thaw at some specific undisturbed locations in the European Northeast, in the Northwest and East Siberia, and in Alaska. Future projections of possible changes in permafrost during the current century, based on the application of calibrated permafrost models, will be also presented.

The next seminar is tentatively scheduled for October 10, 2008.
Topic: Ecosystem Health in a Rapidly Changing Climate

Please see the AMS web site for seminar summaries, presentations and future
events: http://www.ametsoc.org/seminar

For more information please contact:
Anthony D. Socci, Ph.D. Tel. (202) 737-9006, ext. 412 socci@ametsoc.org

UMD: 11:00am - 12:00pm at 1121 Computer Science Instructional Center

Internal flow and extrusion of the Greater Himalayan Slab, Mount Everest Massif: a tour of the world's highest rocks
Dr. Rick Law from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Law please sign up online. You also may delete an appointment from this page. Please join the faculty and students for refreshments in the Geology Building foyer at 10:30 am.

Seminar series web page for UMD-College Park Geology.

Labels: climate change, CO2, geology, global warming, maryland, meetings

Labels: appalachians, climate change, global warming, new york, rain, sediment, snow

Here's a good cartoon from Tom Toles (Washington Post) that I ran across today:

And if you like that, also see this one and this one.

Labels: art, climate change, humor, oil

Another event that may be of interest to DC area readers:
Learn why plug-in hybrid cars (PHEV) hold such great promise as a means to reduce the costs of driving, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce our national reliance on petroleum. What are current PHEV drivers experiencing (the good and the not-so-good) and what are the barriers to bringing PHEV’s to market. Plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles are not yet in production, but what we might expect to see from automotive companies in the next few years. The term "plug-in hybrid" has come to mean a hybrid vehicle that can be charged from a standard electrical wall socket.

I won't be able to make it because of Historical Geology class Tuesday nights, but I encourage the rest of you to go, and enjoy!

Labels: climate change, global warming, oil, prius, tech

Andy Revkin's Dot Earth blog alerted me to a significant milestone in Arctic melting: There is a continuous circle of water around the Arctic now: the Northwest Passage (north of North America) and the "Northeast Passage" (a.k.a. the Northern Sea Route, north of Eurasia) are both open at the same time, for the first time in recorded human history. The last time the Northern Sea Route was open was 2005, but the Northwest Passage wasn't open then. The Northwest Passage opened up last summer (2007), but the Northern Sea Route wasn't open then. This year is the first time in human history that you could sail a boat completely around the North Pole through open water... but you'd have to have a pretty fast boat (because it's going to start freezing up again within a couple of weeks).

The last month's worth of retreating sea ice data is shown in this animation loop.

Article in the Independent (U.K.)

Press release by the National Ice Center (Sept. 5):

"As of September 4, 2008, the Northern Sea Route (Northeast Passage) appears 'open'. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), open water is defined as areas with less than 1/10th ice concentration (WMO Sea-Ice Nomenclature, 1970). National Ice Center (NIC) analysis of Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery suggests a 10-15km wide area of open water that winds along the Taymyr Peninsula and through the Laptev Sea. Even with small openings, currents from the north could clog openings again quickly, in the same fashion that has opened the sea ice lead in a matter of days. A sea ice lead is any fracture or passage-way through sea ice which is navigable by surface vessels. There are also substantial amounts of dangerous multi-year ice present in the area. Shallow or uncharted bathymetries may present additional hazards in those areas where ice concentration is reduced. Current charting of bathymetry from the International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO) suggests depths between 10-20 meters along the Taymyr Peninsula and 20-30 meters through the lead in the Laptev. This is the first recorded occurrence of the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route both being open at the same time. The NIC will continue to monitor this area and will report on any changes in the status of polar navigation routes."

UPDATE: You may also be interested in the fate of some specific ice shelves: "Rapid Retreat: Ice Shelf Loss on Canada's Ellesmere Coast," a well-illustrated update from NASA's Earth Observatory.

Labels: alaska, canada, climate change, global warming, russia

Labels: art, climate change, environmental, global warming, humor

Fellow DC metro area residents -- there are a bunch of geology events coming up in the next couple of months that you may be interested in. Everything* listed here is free and open to the public.

Next Sunday, August 24, I'll be leading an event called "Geology Along the C&O Canal," at the Lock 8 River Center from 10am until 11am. My plan is to give an overview of the Appalachian mountain belt, then focus on the Piedmont "chapter" of that story, using local outcrops to illustrate the rock types produced. I'm not sure if you need to reserve a spot or not; Call Bridget Chapin at the Potomac Conservancy (number at link above) to inquire about details.

Friday, September 5: "Geology Along the Billy Goat Trail," I'll lead this hike along the famous Billy Goat Trail, examining its exquisite display of metamorphic geology and geomorphology. 12:30pm-4:30pm. Reserve a spot through the good folks at the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center.

Wednesday, September 10: first Geological Society of Washington meeting of the fall. Beer served at 7:30pm, and the formal program begins at 8pm. At the Cosmos Club in Dupont Circle.

Saturday, September 20: I'll be leading my "History Before History: the Geologic Saga of Washington, DC" walking tour as part of Walkingtown, DC. The tour runs from 1pm until about 4pm, and involves about 2.5 miles of walking from Adams-Morgan to Georgetown. Limit of 30 people; interested walkers should reserve a spot with Cultural Tourism, DC, the nonprofit group that sponsors Walkingtown, DC each spring and fall.

Sunday, September 21: For those who can't make it Saturday, I'll again be leading my "History Before History: the Geologic Saga of Washington, DC" walking tour as part of Walkingtown, DC. The tour runs from 1pm until about 4pm, and involves about 2.5 miles of walking from Adams-Morgan to Georgetown. Limit of 30 people; interested walkers should reserve a spot with Cultural Tourism, DC, the nonprofit group that sponsors Walkingtown, DC each spring and fall.

Wednesday, September 24: Another Geological Society of Washington meeting, but I'll be delivering a talk at this one. My talk's title is "Rise of the geoblogosphere."

Sunday, October 5: I'll be delivering a talk called "A Geologist's Perspective on Climate Change" at the Chinn Park Regional Library in Woodbridge, Virginia. 2pm-3pm.

Friday & Saturday, October 10-11: The Virginia Geological Field Conference, in Marion, VA. "Geology of the Saltville and Pulaski Fault Blocks" is this year's topic. *This is the one item on the list that is not in the immediate DC metro area, and also the one item on the list that costs money -- registration is $45 for professionals, $20 for students. Transportation, lunch, and guidebook will be provided. See more details on the website. If you're interested in comparing and contrasting two Valley and Ridge fault blocks shoved westward during Alleghenian mountain-building, this might be of interest to you.

Thursday, October 23: the Earth's birthday, according to James Ussher. 4004 BC to 2008 AD; does that make it 6012 years old? Or is it 6011 years old, since there was no year "0"? Tricky... Regardless, I'll be serving lithosphere/asthenosphere cake/pudding to NOVA students in celebration of the day. (I posted on visiting Archbishop Ussher's church here.)

Wednesday, October 22: Another GSW meeting. Same time, same place, but this time I'll be back where I belong: in the audience.

Friday, October 24: "Geology Along the Billy Goat Trail," I'll lead this hike along the infamous Billy Goat Trail, examining its exquisite display of metamorphic geology and geomorphology. 12:30pm-4:30pm. Reserve a spot through the good folks at the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center.

If you're into geology and you'll be around, I hope you'll join us on one or more of these events.

Labels: blogs, climate change, CO2, dc, geology, global warming, gsw, nova, piedmont

A bunch of articles in today's issue of Nature use precise measurements of the composition of glacial air bubbles to extend the record of atmospheric gases (and airborne dust) back to 800,000 years before present. (Previously, the record "only" went back to 650,000 years before present.) Fully eight glacial cycles are seen in the new, expanded dataset. These new findings are all part of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA), and they offer some new insights, as well as additional confirmation of the close link between climate and past fluctuations in CO2 and CH4. Check it out.

Labels: climate change, CO2, global warming, ice

In an article in Newsweek, the hosts of NPR's "Car Talk" talk about the car of the future.

Turns out that the Tappet Brothers, one of whom doesn't even own a car (!), are lobbying Congress for increased automobile fuel efficiency. They're also starring in a new episode of the PBS series Nova. And they have some advice for you, the consumer: "Get a Prius."

FYI, since we're talking about it -- a quick update on my "Pious" seems in order. Its current fuel efficiency (running average since I bought the car in December) is:

Labels: action, climate change, global warming, oil, petroleum, prius, tech, tv

Thought I'd pass these along:

(1) This weekend's New York Times Magazine is the "Green Issue" with a wealth of articles on environmental issues and their solutions. The range of authors they got to contribute is pretty impressive.

(2) A video on YouTube which simplifies thinking about our choices regarding climate policy, and provides a compelling argument that action is the right choice, even if climate science turns out to be wrong:

Labels: climate change, environmental, global warming

Take the next five minutes of your life, and watch this video about a cool new imaging experiment done by Kevin Gurney's research group at Purdue. They've taken pre-existing data about CO2 emissions and plotted it in a dynamic map. The most striking feature is the pulsating nature of the United States' CO2 emissions: we put out a lot during the day, and not so much at night. The maps really show this -- demonstrating yet again the power of images (over description) to convey information.

It's long been my contention that one of the biggest problems with the global warming issue is that CO2 is invisible. I'll bet that if people actually saw giant clouds the color of liquid Barney wafting off the coast every day, then they would be more inclined to think of carbon dioxide as something tangible.

Labels: art, climate change, CO2, global warming, maps

About a year ago, I watched "The Blob" (the original 1958 version) via Netflix. As you're probably aware, it deals with an alien lifeform coming to Earth, a little blob of goo that assimilates human beings into its body and grows, eventually getting large enough to engulf a diner where Steve McQueen is hiding. My favorite moment came at the end of The Blob, when they discover that the blob doesn't like cold. So they spray it with CO2 fire extinguishers & freeze it. Then the Air Force comes in and air-lifts it up to "the Arctic." The police chief character says to Steve McQueen: "At least we've got it stopped." And McQueen replies, I kid you not: "As long as the Arctic stays cold." Oh, Steve, if only you knew! Looks like we've got one more hazard that climate change is going to unleash...

Labels: climate change, global warming, movies

Over the first half of the semester, I've been reading Vaclav Smil's comprehensive book The Earth's Biosphere. It's an incredible work of scholarship, and I recommend it to anyone with a solid foundational understanding of both biology and geology who's ready for "the big picture": an overall review which will give contextual perspective on each of the details of how the living portion of our planet works. It's a remarkable book, really. It covers so much, in such a precise, well-written manner, that it makes my head spin. It has forty pages of references (in small type)! As an example of the multidisciplinary nature of the book, I offer the following graphic from page 134:

In one image, Smil integrates information about seven variables: clay varieties, latitude, biome type, depth of weathering in the crust, precipitation, temperature, and evaporation! That's an incredible accompishment graphically, but he does the same thing in just about every sentence.

I read the book originally because a potential student recommended it as providing a "balanced" look at climate change. Curious to see what that meant, I checked it out of the library here on campus, and read it. It has an excellent and comprehensive scientific discussion of climate change, with a particular focus on how the Earth's biosphere will effect it, and be effected by it.

I feel obliged to give an example of something I learned, so here's amazing fact #3546 from the book: photosynthesis is really inefficient! Plants vary in how photosynthetically efficient they are, but the values range from plants that capture 0.1% of incoming solar radiation to the really efficient ones, which max out at capturing about 2% of incoming solar radiation. That's so not efficient! I had no idea.

Of course, no book is perfect, and I'll offer two complaints about The Earth's Biosphere: (1) A general theme is woven throughout the book of examining the work of neglected Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky, who made critical advances to our understanding of the biosphere, but hasn't gotten enough credit. Smil goes overboard in giving Vernadsky his due: it's Vernadsky this, Vernadsky that, every couple of pages through the whole book. I got sick of reading about him, and wished Smil could stick to the (excellent, fascinating) science, divorced from the persons who wrought it. (2) Every now and again, he threw in a superflous graphic, like this one:

Is the fish really supposed to be ~16 m tall? What's the point of this graphic anyhow? To show that fish live below the ice? Seems to me you could just say so. (Plus, the graphic needs the scientific name italicized, as in the caption.) I don't mean to snipe -- most of the book is super, but stuff like this irritates me. A fly in the ointment, I guess. The book's worth reading regardless.

Labels: books, climate change, global warming

Juliet Eilperin reports in today's issue of the The Washington Post about the Ken Caldeira study I mentioned a few days ago. She also mentions another recent modeling study by Andreas Schmittner, who wrote (with others) a February 14 article in Global Biogeochemical Cycles that suggests that if global emissions continue on a "business as usual" path for the rest of the century, the Earth will warm by 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. Schmittner's study continues: If we don't get to zero emissions until 2300, the temperature rise at that point would be more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit. (FYI: I haven't yet read the Schmittner, et al., study myself.)

Anyhow, the Post article reminds me of something I've been mulling over, and meaning to post since then.

I view climate change from two main perspectives: (1) as an earth scientist, and (2) as a citizen. As a scientist, I find it fascinating to watch how all this plays out. As a scientist, it presents an opportunity for learning, for greater understanding of how the Earth works. You see, geologists are limited scientifically: we often don't have the option of running controlled experiments on our topics of study: continents are too big, the spans of time are too vast. But with global warming, we have a colossal experiment that's being run, even though no one intended it as such. I offered this quote back in January, and I think I'll put it up again to give some context to my "scientist views climate change" perspective:

• "Human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future. Within a few centuries, we are returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years."

-- Roger Revelle and Hans Seuss, 1957

In other words: The timescale of carbon storage is ~7 orders of magnitude larger than the timescale of carbon release. That's a large difference. Humans are thus changing the atmosphere's composition; but what effect will it have on the climate? Those who practice science can make some logical predictions based on our understanding of the natural world:

(A) It has been demonstrated for over a century that certain gases, like CO2, absorb energy in certain wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. The gases that absorb in the infrared portion of the spectrum are the ones we call "greenhouse gases," since the majority of the energy re-radiated upwards from the Earth's surface is infrared, and absorption of this energy keeps the planet warmer than it would otherwise be.

(B) It has been demonstrated that in the presence of oxygen, biogenic carbon can be oxidized to release energy. Whether it's a campfire or gasoline (derived from petroleum derived from Paleozoic planktonic photosynthesis), organic carbon burns. When it does, carbon and oxygen combine, and CO2 is a product of the (exothermic) reaction.

(C) At numerous locations around the world, we have measured precisely the rising concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere. We have even measured precisely a corresponding decline in free atmospheric oxygen, as oxygen is consumed through the combustion of fossil carbon.

(D) These facts predict that the Earth's temperature will rise on average as a result of the greater concentration of greenhouse gases. That too can be measured, with multiple thermometers in multiple locations over a long period of time. What we find is that on average the temperature is going up (it's risen 0.7 of a degree Celsius, or ~1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century), as is logically predicted by (A), (B), and (C).

So, as a scientist, I think it's really interesting: Here you've got some knowns, and some unknowns, and a logical structure linking them. Hypotheses yield predictions, and those predictions are being tested. Wow, scientist-me thinks, it's fascinating to see how the Earth system works when you alter a variable like atmospheric CO2 concentration.

On the other hand, I'm not just a dispassionate observer watching this all play out on an experimental planet: I'm also a person who lives on that planet and will be subject to the consequences of the experiment. It's from that perspective, the "citizen" point-of-view, that global warming scares the hell out of me. The Earth's fate is not in question here: our planet has endured far greater fluctuations in the past (both warmer and colder). The issue is for those of us who live on the surface of the planet Earth (humans and other species): as conditions change, will we be able to adapt? I'm concerned that some of the consequences are potentially too large for ecosystems to maintain their coherency. I'm worried about the huge proportion of my fellow human citizens (of the Earth) who dwell on the low-elevation coastlines of the world. The Earth will endure quite a lot of temperature variation; but I'm not sure about the organisms on its surface (of which I am one).

Last week, one story in the news was about the opening of the "Doomsday" seed vault on Svalbard. I was struck by the scientific parallels between the seed vault story and global warming, yet how very differently people were treating it. Science suggests that biodiversity is declining, and is subject to numerous threats, and we humans depend on viable seeds for our survival as a species. So, we're taking action by making this vault to keep our seed stock safe. It's totally uncontroversial. You don't see any Seed Vault Skeptics publishing editorials or holding conferences. Yet with climate change, there is a substantial voice in public life suggesting that the science is flawed, and thus that no action is required. Obviously, there's a HUGE difference between the relatively simple matter of creating a seed bunker in the Arctic and retooling the world economy's energy source, but those are both matters of political action. The science underlying each issue is strong and compelling. Whether we choose to act on the conclusions of that science is another thing: do we take action only when it's easy? Or do we take action when the science suggests that, for our own benefit as a species, we must?

Perhaps this is the third perspective with which I view climate change: as a "social scientist" intrigued would how people sort out complex issues like this. Will we be able to pull if off, as a society? Maybe it's already too late.

Some quotes from the Post article:

• "People aren't reducing emissions at all, let alone debating whether 88 percent or 99 percent is sufficient. It's like you're starting off on a road trip from New York to California, and before you even start, you're arguing about where you're going to park at the end."

--Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

• "[Global warming] is a classic inter-generational debate, where the short-term benefits of emitting carbon accrue mainly to us and where the dangers of them are largely put off until future generations."

-- Steve Gardiner, University of Washington

• "Each unit of CO2 emissions must be viewed as leading to quantifiable and essentially permanent climate change on centennial timescales."

-- Damon Matthews, Concordia University

Labels: climate change, CO2, global warming, politics

The meeting this week of global-warming-skeptics in New York, sponsored by the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, is discussing the various reasons they feel climate change science is unconvincing. One reason being bandied about is the cold winter the U.S. has been experiencing. Andrew Revkin covered it for the New York Times. Juliet Eilpern covered it for the Washington Post. "I will admit that we do not have all the pieces," he NYT article quotes Dr. Ignatius Rigor as having said (He works at the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Rigor continues, "but as the I.P.C.C. reports, the preponderance of evidence suggests that global warming is real....Climate skeptics typically take a few small pieces of the puzzle to debunk global warming, and ignore the whole picture that the larger science community sees by looking at all the pieces."

I agree with this rigorous (pun fully intended) approach, and am bummed out when I hear people look at a relatively small weather event as evidence for climactic trends over the long term. Plenty of people made that mistake with Hurricane Katrina, and it looks like more people are making it now with regards to the 2007-08 winter chill. I'm pleased to see that at least one of the skeptics on the Heartland Institute meeting program, Patrick Michaels, a climatologist at the Cato Institute libertarian think-tank in DC, makes that same point. Gavin Schmidt (NASA Goddard & RealClimate.org) agrees: "When I get called by CNN to comment on a big summer storm or a drought or something, I give the same answer I give a guy who asks about a blizzard," Dr. Schmidt said. "It's all in the long-term trends. Weather isn't going to go away because of climate change. There is this desire to explain everything that we see in terms of something you think you understand, whether that's the next ice age coming or global warming."

So how big are the fluctuations (weather) relative to the trend (climate)? This graphic from the Times shows this winter's temperature relative to the overall trend. Click on it for the full-size version.

Also, you may be interested in Real Climate's discussion of the conference.

Labels: climate change, global warming

Today was the artist's reception at the National Academies of Science for Camille Seaman's exhibit of photographs entitled "The Last Iceberg." I took a break from writing a paper for my MSSE class and went down to check it out.

One of my geology honors students, Spencer, showed up too, and we checked out Seaman's glowing icebergs set against dark backgrounds. There were some really stunning images, but the exhibit was rather small -- only fifteen or so separate pictures.

If you're not in the DC area, you can check out a slideshow of images from the exhibit at Seaman's website. Enjoy!

Also, while I was there, I went upstairs to see the excellent "Monkey Portraits" exhibit by Jill Greenberg. As with "The Last Iceberg," only a selection of images was shown -- a total of ten or so. But man, what an amazing ten images! I'll put just one up here, entitled "Undecided":

Labels: art, climate change, dc, global warming, primates

New Scientist gives the full run-down on their findings.

Reference: Matthews, H. D., and K. Caldeira (2008), Stabilizing climate requires near-zero emissions, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L04705, doi:10.1029/2007GL032388.

Labels: climate change, CO2, global warming

In this past week's New Yorker, Michael Specter examines the convoluted business of trying to measure a person's (or a product's) carbon footprint. Turns out to be rather complicated. An interesting, thought-provoking article: this is viewed in some sectors as an essential piece of information, but it's amost mind-numbing to try and cover every relevant consideration. I recommend the article.

Labels: climate change, CO2, global warming

The geoblogosphere spawns semi-monthly collections of blog posts on a particular theme, and this time around, Dr. Lemming is hosting with the theme of "things that make you go Hmmmm." The idea here is to write a blog post about something you don't understand in geology -- a mystery. Here's my contribution:

When I was in graduate school at the University of Maryland, I started hearing about a crazy notion that the entire planet had frozen over in the past. Apparently, multiple streams of evidence (chemical, isotopic, geologic, and magnetic) suggested that during the Neoproterozoic era of geologic time, the planet experienced a mega-Ice Age. There were even glacial deposits within a few degrees from the equator. If you've got glaciers operating within a few degrees of the equator, some scientists argued, then that means the Earth would have been entirely sheathed in ice. Its reflectivity ("albedo") would have been so high that most (~85%?) of incoming solar radiation would have been reflected back out into space, and that would have made the planet even colder, promoting more snow and ice. This positive feedback cycle would have reached a tipping point if the planet were covered in ice from the poles to approximately 30 degrees latitude: once it got that white, the "runaway albedo" feedback would have reached a tipping point, and wham, you've got a planet that looks like a great big snowball.

This led Joe Kirschvink (of Cal Tech) to dub this episode of glaciation the "Snowball Earth," which is about as catchy a name as a scientific hypothesis is every likely to get. The idea was then heavily promoted by Paul Hoffman (of Harvard), who was seeing strange stratigraphic patterns during field work in Namibia. Among the evidence Hoffman eventually accumulated for the Snowball were the following: "dropstones" (boulders, presumably dropped by icebergs into fine-grained offshore marine deposits, squishing the layers beneath them); conformable stratigraphy of "tropical" carbonate topped by glacial tillites, topped by more "tropical" carbonate; carbon isotope anomalies in overlying "cap" carbonates indicating a massive inorganic dumping of precipitated CaCO3; delicate crystal fans (some meters tall) precipitated rapidly in the post-Snowball ocean; and the temporary reappearance of banded iron formations (BIFs), which had not been seen since the Paleoproterozoic (and indicated an anoxic ocean, such as one sealed beneath a layer of ice).

When Kirshvink pitched the initial hypothesis, he also proposed how the Snowball could have ended (in a deliciously short, non-peer-reviewed paper): he noted that just because the surface of the planet was frozen, that would have meant diddly to plate tectonics. Radiogenic heat from the Earth's interior would have continued to drive plate tectonic processes, and that meant subduction would have continued, beneath the icy rime. If subduction continued, that meant that volcanoes would have continued to erupt, and as Iceland and Antarctica show us today, volcanoes can erupt underneath glaciers. This is important because volcanic outgassing has a substantial percentage (~15%) of carbon dioxide (CO2), and CO2 absorbs reflected infrared radiation: it's a greenhouse gas.

But with the entire surface of the planet frozen, what would have happened to this degassed CO2? If the planet's surface is frozen solid, that means the hydrologic cycle would be shut down, and the usual means of removing CO2 from the atmosphere (e.g. photosynthesis & also deposition of carbonate sediments like limestones) would be non-functional. Any CO2 emitted by volcanoes would therefore likely linger in the atmosphere, building up in concentration over time. Eventually, Kirshvink suggested, it built up to levels that caused global warming which compensated for the ice albedo effect, and the absorption of all that radiation by the CO2 melted the Snowball.

As evidence for this audacious idea, Kirshvink pointed to the cap carbonates: all that limestone ("cap carbonate") deposited on top of the glacial units needed a lot of CO2 to be dissolved in seawater (and a lot of Ca+ too). The cap carbonates, it was suggested, represented the stratigraphic removal of all that built-up CO2 from the atmosphere. Once the levels of CO2 were drawn down to a non-hothouse level, the cycle could repeat itself. Modeling calculations suggest that it would take about 5 million years of CO2 buildup to melt the Snowball.

And this is what I don't get: if you've got an atmosphere full of CO2, I can see how that would melt the Snowball. But wouldn't it then acidify the ocean (with carbonic acid, like we're seeing today), making calcite dissolve, rather than be precipitated? If the ocean is undersaturated with respect to CaCO3, then that ocean should not host accumulations of limestone. How could the voluminous worldwide cap carbonates be deposited in an acidic ocean?

On the Snowball Earth website, a list of suggested reasons why Snowball Earth could not have happened are listed, along with Hoffman, et al.'s scientific rebuttals. But when they come to the question of acid oceans and the deposition of cap carbonates, you can almost see them shrug: "These are serious criticisms," they note. Hmmmmm.

Post-script: The idea is intriguing not merely scientifically, but also in terms of the way science gets done: by people, sometimes people with outsized personalities. Paul Hoffman promoted the idea with an "evangelical zeal" (according to Gabrielle Walker, who wrote a book about the whole idea and the scientists involved). Hoffman's relentless pushing of the idea ruffled a good many feathers. Some scientists fought back, motivated in part by these chafing interpersonal dynamics. There's nothing like a little scientific controversy, and this is what Walker's book focuses on, more than the details of Snowball science.

When I found that Jay Kaufman (of UMD-College Park) was interpreting a local diamictite(near Aldie, VA) as a Snowball Earth tillite (and the overlying marble layer as a cap carbonate), I thought "this could make a great class." Last spring, I applied for and received a grant from the Virginia Community College System to develop a 2-credit class for NOVA utilizing these local rocks as a gateway to understanding the Snowball Earth hypothesis. I offered the class for the first time last summer, and I'll be offering it again this summer in August. We were fortunate to get rock samples from Virginia's two putative Snowball deposits as well as a suite of samples on loan from Gene Domack of Hamilton College. These "Snowball Suite" samples include tillites and dropstones from Namibia, Greenland, Mauritania, and Canada, as well as international BIFs and cap carbonate samples. I have to tip my hat to Dr. Domack and his colleagues: making these samples available is a terrific service in support of geoscience education.

Labels: climate change, CO2, geology, global warming, nova, snow, snowball earth, teaching

Here's a few photos from last Friday's Climate Change Symposium here at Northern Virginia Community College's Annandale campus:


Panelist Scott Sklar answers an audience question.
(Also pictured, left to right, are Jill Caporale, me, Ken Rasmussen, Daria Amato,
Steve Fetter, Craig Jensen, Ralph Eckerlin, and Paul Burman.)


NOVA biologist Jill Caporale delivers a climate change 'call to action.'


Here's one of me, discussing changes to Arctic sea ice cover.


NOVA geologist Ken Rasmussen discusses the geologic record of ancient climate change.

Fellow geoblogger Tuff Cookie (not her given name) gave us a thumbs-up in her recent report on attending the symposium. I'm glad she was able to attend, and glad it was thought-provoking!

Labels: action, climate change, global warming, nova

National Geographic has a nice overview of the basic ideas behind global warming here.

Labels: climate change, global warming

Global warming bummer for the Italians: chikungunya, a tropical disease native to the Indian Ocean region (a relative of dengue fever), has moved in. It's carried by tiger mosquitoes, which are able to thrive in Italy now that the temperature's gone up. The New York Times has more on this story.

Labels: climate change, global warming

Okay, so we all know that carbon dioxide has this property of being selectively transparent, and that it is accumulating at greater concentrations in Earth's atmosphere because the rate that it is being produced by human activities greatly exceeds the rate it is removed by natural processes. That's the global warming issue in a nutshell. But there's another aspect to climate change that hasn't gotten as much press: ocean acidification.

Much of the carbon dioxide produced since the Industrial Revolution has been absorbed by the oceans. Global warming would have been as noticeable as it is today much earlier had the oceans not acted as a "carbon sink" in this fashion. But the oceans can't absorb CO2 forever without consequence. When CO2 dissolves in H2O, it produces H2CO3, also known as carbonic acid. (top image)

Caldeira and Wickett published a study in 2003 in which the explored the consequences of adding all this extra acid to the oceans. The oceans are large, so changes to their pH take place slowly, but it looks like the ocean's pH is dropping (becoming more acidic) as it absorbs the extra CO2 from the atmosphere. They made some predictions (second image) about how projected emissions of CO2 will influence the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (shown here as pCO2, which translates as the "partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere), and then how that would influence the ocean's pH over a range of depths over the next millennium. As you might expect, their model shows surface waters becoming acidic first, because they are in direct contact with the CO2-rich atmosphere. Oceanic mixing propagates the acidic waters to the depths over longer timescales. They predict a maximum reduction of 0.7 pH units in surface waters, starting around the year 2200.

How will this effect marine life? Remember that lots of marine creatures make their skeletal material (hard parts) out of the mineral calcite, and calcite dissolves in acid. (In my classes, we put a drop of hydrochloric acid on a rock sample to determine if it is calcite.) Consider the effects on two kinds of plankton: coccolithophores and pteropods. The third and fourth images here show scanning electron micrographs of how skeletal material reacts to acidified conditions. The third image is from a study by Ulf Reibesell of the University of Norway, who grew coccolithophores in a series of model "ocean" tanks that had equilibrated to an "atmosphere" containing 300 ppm and 800 ppm CO2. For reference, pre-Industrial CO2 values were about 280 ppm, and today's CO2 values are about 380 ppm. You can see that the calcareous plates of the coccolithophores are smaller, thinner, and more degraded in the more acidic water. The fourth image shows the results of a similar experiment on a pteropod, by Orr, et al. in 2005. (A pteropod is a kind of planktonic snail.) The pteropod was placed in a tank of water undersaturated with respect to aragonite (a polymorph of calcite) for 48 hours. Sub-images b, c, and d show degradation of the snail's shell in those acid waters, and sub-image e shows a the surface of a normal pteropod shell for comparison.

Here's some model predictions of ocean pH from Scott Doney in a 2006 paper in Scientific American. Note that the northern Pacific Ocean becomes marginally saturated with respect to aragonite by the end of the century, and the Southern Ocean will be undersaturated by then. The skeletons of organisms with calcareous shells in those waters will begin to dissolve! So far, the pH drop has been only about 0.1 pH unit, but it is expected to hit around 0.3 pH units by 2100. It's hard to imagine how fundamental a change this will be to oceanic ecosystems!

Now, a new study in Science by the Coral Reef Targeted Research Group concludes that it's not just these high-latitude ocean water. Global warming kills tropical coral reefs, too. They consider the effects of ocean acidification as well as the effects of "bleaching" (when warm corals eject their symbiotic algae).

Labels: climate change, CO2, ocean acidfication