Climate Change Is Making the Whole Planet Tip

Climate change is changing the planet. Yes, it’s doing it in all those ways that you already know about: rising seas, rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, more extreme weather. But climate change is changing the planet in another dramatic way, too: It’s actually causing the entire crust of the Earth to shift. According to new research by Jianli Chen and colleagues, climate change–induced glacier melt and sea level rise have thrown the whole planet off-kilter.

The Earth is a ball that floats in space, and the Earth’s surface—the tectonic plates that make up the land—are like a shell that floats on the mantle below. Just like the hard chocolate coating can slip and slide on your soft serve ice cream, the crust of the Earth can slide over the mantle. This is different than continental drift. This is the whole surface of the planet moving as one. The rotation axis of the Earth stays steady, the land masses shift around it. The idea is known as “true polar wander,” and its occurrence is a part of the planet’s history.

The Earth is not a perfect sphere—it’s kind of fat at the middle—and changing how the mass on the surface is distributed changes how the tectonic plates sit in relation to the planet’s rotation axis. By melting Greenland and other glaciers, say the researchers, the Earth’s geographic North Pole has drifted to the east at around 2.4 inches each year since 2005. Nature:

From 1982 to 2005, the pole drifted southeast towards northern Labrador, Canada, at a rate of about 2 milliarcseconds — or roughly 6 centimetres — per year. But in 2005, the pole changed course and began galloping east towards Greenland at a rate of more than 7 milliarcseconds per year.

Seasonal shifts in how ice and water are spread around the world mean that the North Pole is always sort of wandering around. But drift triggered by climate change is new. It’s a sign that global warming isn’t just changing how we might live in the world, but the very face of the world itself.

For Peat’s Sake - Peat is not a renewable resource. What does that mean for my favorite Scotch whiskies?

The peat that the Scotch industry burns by the ton to make peated whiskies isn’t renewable, but it’s not quite a fossil fuel either. A sort of proto-coal, peat is a mush of partially decomposed plant matter that lies on the surface of the Earth and accumulates imperceptibly, by about a millimeter a year. It only forms in places where a handful of climatic conditions are in balance. Soil chemistry, density of flora, precipitation, temperature, humidity, and average wind speed must be just so, yielding a habitat with more rainfall than evaporation can subsequently carry away. When all these variables line up, plants never fully decompose; an initial, brief round of decay produces a bath of weak acids that prevents any further decomposition. Over centuries, mummified plants pile up and get compressed into a carbon-rich gunk that resembles crumbly, wet Oreo cookies. Give it a few more million years, and this peat turns into coal.

“There’s some peat that’s 20,000 years old,” says Sandy Neuzil, a peat specialist with the United States Geological Survey. “But most of it’s between 4,000 and 8,000 years.”

In peat-rich regions, which are located mostly in Northern Europe, Canada, and Russia, people have long burned the gunk for heating and cooking. For most of human history, consumption was at the household level and without serious consequences. However, in at least one place, Ireland’s Blasket Islands, the peat resource was totally exhausted. (For this reason, the islands have been uninhabited since 1953.) In the past 150 years, peat consumption ticked up as it became a primary fuel in some power plants, though most of these plants are closing or reducing the amount of peat they burn.

Every year, about 25 million tons of peat are harvested and burned, by individuals, power utilities, and companies of various kinds (including, but not limited to, distilleries). Another 14 million tons are used by farmers, landscapers, and gardeners to amend deficient soil. Peat keeps golf courses looking sharp. As massive as these numbers are, they amount to about 0.1 percent of the global peat resource. An additional 10 percent of the global resource has been lost to real-estate development and agriculture.

Thankfully, the majority of the Earth’s peatlands remain undisturbed. Jean-Yves Daigle, outgoing chair of the Canadian National Committee of the International Peat Society, estimates that there are around 1.5 million square miles of peatland on Earth. This figure only scratches the surface: Square miles measure surface area, but peat deposits can be up to 60 feet deep. (Neuzil reported this anecdotal figure in a stage whisper, as if it were a shamefully tasty rumor.) So, Daigle says, call that between 5 trillion and 6 trillion tons. He reckons that we are using about 0.05 percent of this resource every year. If the trend holds, and if the incidence of peatland fires—such as one that burned uncontrollably in Minnesota last year—doesn’t increase dramatically, that works out to another 2,000 years of Scotch.

However, Neuzil told me that if peat were used only to make Scotch, its most noble purpose (my words, not hers), the supply would never run out. Accumulation would keep pace with consumption, and from now until the end of time there would be Scotch on Earth.

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Deepwater Horizon: Gulf of Mexico ‘deep-cleaned’ itself

New details have emerged about “self-cleaning” effects in the Gulf of Mexico witnessed in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Researchers reporting at the American Chemical Society conference revealed details of a cascade of micro-organisms that spring into action to degrade oil.

Research has also outlined how chemical “dispersants” used in clean-up efforts actually frustrate these processes.

However, the long-term effects of the weeks of oil exposure remain unknown.

And concern was expressed about the ultimate resilience of the Gulf.

Terry Hazen of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has been studying oil-degrading microbes in greater and greater detail since the disaster, even discovering some that had never been seen before.

They can break down the long-chain carbon-based “alkane” molecules present in oil - and in isolated conditions will even move towards oil.

“They’re really oil-seeking missiles,” he told the meeting.

In a sense, it is no surprise that the seas should host oil-hungry microbes; natural seeps from the ocean floor have been releasing oil into the world’s waters for millions of years.

A 2003 US National Academy of Sciences reportput the annual average of this seepage in the Gulf at 140,000 tonnes.

But Prof Hazen’s research has revealed more of the complex web of microbes that feed on oil - and are in turn fed on.

Through recent studies, most recently in Frontiers of Microbiology, he and collaborators have begun to map the genomes of these microbes and determine which genes contribute to oil-degrading properties when oil concentrations rise.

A release like that of Deepwater Horizon contains a rich mix of carbon-containing molecules - alkanes, methane and what are called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), each presenting its own risks to the environment.

The new finding is about methanotrophs, which feed on methane - among the last compounds to be degraded.

Prof Hazen said that the sudden release of methane, rather than slow seeps, created a lucky effect.

“All of a sudden the [methanotroph populations] go up to really high densities and they’re fat and happy - and then [the methane is] gone.” he told BBC News.

“At that point, they degrade anything else that’s there fortuitously, and they’ll degrade it down below what would be usable as a carbon and energy source - so it’s really sort of a ‘deep-cleaning’ effect.

“That’s why I think the Gulf of Mexico is cleaner than you would expect, not only from the oil but from everything else that goes into it.”

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How Climate Change and Your Wine Habit Threaten Endangered Pandas

One group that’s been keeping a close eye on climate change is wine growers. Since a 2006 study predicted global warming could fry over 80 percent of the US’s wine grapes, vinters have been planning new heat-resistant varietals, adopting big-data-driven water saving techniques, and mapping out what could become the new Napa Valleys of a warming world.

That last trend is the focus of a new study out today that examines how shifting wine cultivation geography could have implications for endangered species. Lee Hannah, an ecologist at Conservational International, used a suite of global climate models to plot where ideal wine conditions will migrate to as temperatures warm and precipitation patterns fluctuate.

“In a lot of these places, what’s there now is good wildlife habitat,” Hannah said.

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Scientists link frozen spring to dramatic Arctic sea ice loss

Climate scientists have linked the massive snowstorms and bitter spring weather now being experienced across Britain and large parts of Europe and North America to the dramatic loss ofArctic sea ice.

Both the extent and the volume of the sea ice that forms and melts each year in the Arctic Ocean fell to an historic low last autumn, and satellite records published on Monday by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, show the ice extent is close to the minimum recorded for this time of year.

“The sea ice is going rapidly. It’s 80% less than it was just 30 years ago. There has been a dramatic loss. This is a symptom of global warming and it contributes to enhanced warming of the Arctic,” said Jennifer Francis, research professor with the Rutgers Institute of Coastal and Marine Science.

According to Francis and a growing body of other researchers, the Arctic ice loss adds heat to the ocean and atmosphere which shifts the position of the jet stream – the high-altitude river of air that steers storm systems and governs most weather in northern hemisphere.

“This is what is affecting the jet stream and leading to the extreme weather we are seeing in mid-latitudes,” she said. “It allows the cold air from the Arctic to plunge much further south. The pattern can be slow to change because the [southern] wave of the jet stream is getting bigger. It’s now at a near record position, so whatever weather you have now is going to stick around,” she said.

Francis linked the Arctic temperature rises to extreme weather in mid latitudes last year and warned in September that 2012’s record sea ice melt could lead to a cold winter in the UK and northern Europe.

She was backed by Vladimir Petoukhov, professor of Earth system analysis at Potsdam Institute in Germany, whose research suggests the loss of ice this year could be changing the direction of the jet stream.

“The ice was at a record low last year and is now exceptionally low in some parts of the Arctic like the Labrador and Greenland seas. This could be one reason why anticyclones are developing,” he said.

The heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures which have marked March 2013 across the northern hemisphere are in stark contrast to March 2012 when many countries experienced their warmest ever springs. The hypothesis that wind patterns are being changed because melting Arctic sea ice has exposed huge swaths of normally frozen ocean to the atmosphere would explain both the extremes of heat and cold, say the scientists.

A recent paper by the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also found that enhanced warming of the Arctic influenced weather across the northern hemisphere.

“With more solar energy going into the Arctic Ocean because of lost ice, there is reason to expect more extreme weather events, such as heavy snowfall, heat waves, and flooding in North America and Europe,” said the researchers.

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Earth Hour is being held on March 23, 2013, from 8:30 to 9:30 pm! You can join the millions of other people participating across the globe by turning off all non-essential lights, appliances and other electrical devices in your household during this time period in your timezone.

Earth hour has an impact beyond the measurable decrease in electricity consumption (up to 10% lower, as measured in Sydney, Australia in 2007 (x)).  It raises awareness of environmental issues such as climate change and energy consumption, and it encourages individuals, businesses and governments to take responsibility for their ecological footprint, opening dialog regarding environmental challenges.

Read more at the Earth Hour website.