News Release 31-Jan-2020

Boston University

Chi Chen, a Boston University graduate researcher, and Ranga Myneni, a BU College of Arts & Sciences professor of earth and environment, released a new paper that reveals how humans are helping to increase the Earth’s plant and tree cover, which absorbs carbon from the atmosphere and cools our planet. The boom of vegetation, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions, could be skewing our perception of how fast we’re warming the planet.

Taking a closer look at 250 scientific studies, land-monitoring satellite data, climate and environmental models, and field observations, a team of Boston University researchers and international collaborators have illuminated several causes and consequences of a global increase in vegetation growth, an effect called greening.

In a new study, published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, the researchers report that climate-altering carbon emissions and intensive land use have inadvertently greened half of the Earth’s vegetated lands. And while that sounds like it may be a good thing, this phenomenal rate of greening, together with global warming, sea-level rise, and sea-ice decline, represents highly credible evidence that human industry and activity is dramatically impacting the Earth’s climate, say the study’s first authors, Shilong Piao and Xuhui Wang of Peking University.

Green leaves convert sunlight to sugars while replacing carbon dioxide in the air with water vapor, which cools the Earth’s surface. The reasons for greening vary around the world, but often involve intensive use of land for farming, large-scale planting of trees, a warmer and wetter climate in northern regions, natural reforestation of abandoned lands, and recovery from past disturbances.

And the chief cause of global greening we’re experiencing? It seems to be that rising carbon dioxide emissions are providing more and more fertilizer for plants, the researchers say. As a result, the boom of global greening since the early 1980s may have slowed the rate of global warming, the researchers say, possibly by as much as 0.2 to 0.25 degrees Celsius.

“It is ironic that the very same carbon emissions responsible for harmful changes to climate are also fertilizing plant growth, which in turn is somewhat moderating global warming,” says study coauthor Dr. Jarle Bjerke of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research.

Boston University researchers previously discovered that, based on near-daily NASA and NOAA satellite imaging observations since the early 1980s, vast expanses of the Earth’s vegetated lands from the Arctic to the temperate latitudes have gotten markedly more green.

“Notably, the NASA [satellite data] observed pronounced greening during the 21st century in the world’s most populous and still-developing countries, China and India,” says Ranga Myneni, the new study’s senior author.

Even regions far, far removed from human reach have not escaped the global warming and greening trends. “Svalbard in the high-arctic, for example, has seen a 30 percent increase in greenness [in addition to] an increase in [summer temperatures] from 2.9 to 4.7 degrees Celcius between 1986 and 2015,” says study coauthor Rama Nemani of NASA’s Ames Research Center.

Over the last 40 years, carbon emissions from fossil fuel use and tropical deforestation have added 160 parts per million (ppm), a unit of measure for air pollutants, of CO2 to Earth’s atmosphere. About 40 ppm of that has diffused passively into the oceans and another 50 ppm has been actively taken up by plants, the researchers say. But 70 ppm remains in the atmosphere, and together with other greenhouse gases, is responsible the land warming patterns that have been observed since the 1980s.

“Plants are actively defending against the dangers of carbon pollution by not only sequestering carbon on land but also by wetting the atmosphere through transpiration of ground water and evaporation of precipitation intercepted by their bodies,” says study coauthor Philippe Ciais, of the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, Gif-sur-Yvette, France. “Stopping deforestation and sustainable, ecologically sensible afforestation could be one of the simplest and cost-effective, though not sufficient, defenses against climate change,” he adds.

It is not easy to accurately estimate the cooling benefit from global greening because of the complex interconnected nature of the climate system, the researchers say. “This unintended benefit of global greening, and its potential transitory nature, suggests how much more daunting, and urgent, is the stated goal of keeping global warming to below 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius, especially given the trajectory of carbon emissions and history of inaction during the past decades,” says study coauthor Hans Tømmervik of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Norway.

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From EurekAlert!

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February 1, 2020 at 04:58AM

In 1901, the Sydney’s Evening News reported that scientists believe the break-off of Antarctic icebergs from glaciers is linked to volcanic activity underneath the Antarctic Continent

Icebergs in The Southern Ocean — Evening News (Sydney, NSW: 1869 – 1931), Saturday 14 December 1901, page 9

OFFICERS of the New Zealand Shipping Company’s steamer Rimutaka lately reported having seen 700 icebergs, one of which was four miles long, in the vicinity of Cape Horn. This led Dr. Ross to inquire of the Minister for Public Instruction if he would obtain from the Government Astronomer a report as to the effect (if any) the appearance of so large a number of icebergs in the Southern Ocean would have in bringing about any climatic variations or conditions of the continent of Australia in the near future or otherwise.

The worthy medico obtained the following reply: — The Government Astronomer reports as follows:

During 1895, 1896, and 1897 icebergs innumerable, off and on, were reported on the tracks of vessels from London to Australia. Some of these reached almost to the longitude of West Australia, and these years here were remarkably hot, i.e., 1895, 1896, and 1897. The great cold spell in New South Wales was in 1900.”

On September 4, 1895, Mr. Russell read a paper on this subject before the Royal Society of New South Wales. In this the Government Astronomer referred to the extraordinary’ occurrence within the previous eighteen months of icebergs between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia. Many years since, he said, Lieutenant Maury studied the subject, and found that to the north of latitude 50deg Antarctic icebergs most abounded between the meridians 15deg west and 55deg east.

Mr. John Towson, P.R.G.S., in his paper published by the British Board of Trade and Admiralty, called – ”Icebergs in the Southern Ocean,” and which discussed every record of icebergs in the Southern Ocean from the time of Captain Cook to 1858, alters the limit to 50deg west to 10deg east. The result of Mr. Russell’s own observations would make the limits 50deg west and 110deg east. According to Mr. Russell, from 1891 upwards to July, 1895, vessels bound for Australia via the Cape of Good Hope found icebergs east of the Cape. Many vessels saw forty or fifty a day, and others still more, and up to 150; and Mr. Russell thinks many of them came from the lee of Patagonia.

Admiral Fitzroy also favours this view, for he says (”Weather,” page 149):

Immediately round Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands ice seldom remains, as any that is drifted there is carried eastward by the current that always sets around the great southern promontory, and the south-easterly winds help this.”

With reference to the area between New Zealand and Cape Horn, Admiral Fitzroy said:

In the South Pacific, between 150deg and 100deg west longitude and 50deg to 60deg latitude, every ship that risks a passage through it finds numerous and some enormous masses of ice. Immense islands rather than Icebergs have been passed thereabouts, 800ft to 1000ft above the sea, and several miles in circumference.” 

Mr. Russell found no record by Maury, Fitzroy, or Towson of Icebergs to the east of New Zealand, and yet from 1890 to 1895 they formed a conspicuous feature about the Chatham Isands. Lieutenant Maury and Towson referred to ”sudden accessions of ice bergs;” but Mr. Russell had found nothing to indicate a repetition in regular periods, and there was, in his opinion, no reason to suppose there was any such recurrence.

“The records showed,” said the Government Astronomer, ”such untold number of icebergs that it is difficult to believe that they have taken so many thousands of years to form, as some authorities demand. Vast as the Antarctic Continent is, it does not seem possible that room could be found on it for the building up gradually, from pre-Adamite times, all these multitudes of icebergs. When we trace them in the ocean, it is evident that they drift northwards, get into warmer water, where they begin to break up with tremendous noise — (the Cutty Sark, February 8, 1893, heard reports like that of an eighty-ton gun) — and grinding, which, aided by the solvent power of the water, destroys the iceberg in a comparatively short time. How then can they have taken so many thousands of years to make as some authorities demand?

Were the Antarctic region as large as the whole world, there would not be space to make the icebergs which we see in process of destruction in the ocean, if the origin of each iceberg was always back in pre-Adamite days.

When we come to look at these reports closely, we find the great majority of the icebergs are of moderate dimensions — 500ft to 2000ft in extreme dimensions — and such icebergs might, I think, be formed in comparatively short periods. Slow as the motion of solid ice is known to be, it does make a measurable progress from year to year; that progress depending upon the amount of snow, and the decline down which it is finding its way to the sea. But, taking an average glacier, it progresses a mile in from twenty to thirty years, and, therefore, the great majority of icebergs of the dimensions just given could be made in comparatively short periods. Some are, however, very much larger, and the number of icebergs seem to be vastly greater in some years than in others.

As an explanation of this, it has been, suggested that unusual falls of snow may account for it by accelerating the motion of the ice; but I think the circumstances forbid the acceptance of this view, because the motion of the glacier depends mainly upon the declivity down which it is descending, and that does not alter, and the piling up of snow could not in one year cause such a marked increase in the rate of flow as would be necessary to account for the enormous increase in numbers which appear from time to time, as, for instance, in 1854 and 1891.

There must evidently be a force sufficient to break off the icebergs, which are slowly forming on shore, and to do it at irregular periods, separated by many years. Such a force seems to reside in the volcanoes of the Antarctic Continent, when they burst forth in eruption and earthquake, and so shake the foreshores that the icebergs are broken off from the glaciers, and set adrift to float we know not where. This view derives some support from the character of the icebergs when outbursts occur, as at the end of 1854, and-again recently, for on each occasion there were great icebergs which only some convulsion of nature could set adrift. 

One of these was reported by 21 ships in 1855. It was a solid mass of ice, measuring 60 miles on one side, 40 miles on another, and in the third side (for it was triangular) there was a great bay into which three vessels unconsciously sailed. Two got out by tremendous exertion, and the third became a total wreck. Again, on January 17, 1893, the ship Loch Torridon, in latitude 53deg 51min, longitude 46deg west, sailed for 50 miles along one side of an immense ice island, and the captain saw another estimated to be 1500ft high. On January 11, 1893, the ships Westdale and Strathcathro sailed, all unconscious of danger, into a horseshoe shaped bay in an iceberg. It was 20 miles deep, 10 miles across in the middle, and 4 miles wide at the entrance. The similarity of this ice-bound bay with the one seen in 1855, and another seen by Dampier in his voyages, is noteworthy, for they were all alike. It would seem as if there were some forming place — a mould — in which these icebergs are built up and held until some great eruption, sets them free.”

‘If,” says Mr. Russell, ”we accept the suggestion of the cause of sudden accession of icebergs here put forward, we have a cause known to be in operation there, and quite sufficient to account for the enormous number of icebergs, and also of the large dimensions of some of them at these times of outburst.”

It is noteworthy that the ice which came with the great outburst in 1854-1855, also disappeared quite suddenly, probably due to the prevalence of strong north-west winds over the Southern Indian. Ocean. (At (At the meeting of the Royal Society on October 6, 1897, Mr Russell read a second paper on the subject, in the course of which he said ‘that so far as the records go, we find that when there is a prevalence of north-west winds no ice is re-ported, and with southerly winds plenty of ice is reported. . . . A storm in the iceberg area travels to Australia in six of seven days, and the probability that the iceberg area has the same winds: that we have in Australia, only a few days earlier, is very strong indeed.

Mr. Russell suggested that vessels sighting ice bergs on a fine day, with a strong northerly or southerly wind, should stop the engines, and watch the berg carefully for three or four hours, to see if it does move with the wind, for as soon as the motion with the wind is definitely deter-mined by actual observation of the berg, it will be possible, by careful study of, the wind in South Africa and Australia, to forecast the position of icebergs between Africa and, Australia With some degree of exactness. In conclusion, the Government Astronomer said

It seems unnecessary to urge upon those most interested the importance of the experiments suggested. My investigations have convinced me that the icebergs do drift with the wind at a very appreciable rate, and there certainly are many risks, much anxiety, and loss of time, which might be, avoided if my suggestions prove to be facts, as I think, they will.”

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February 1, 2020 at 04:19AM

A page was turned and a new chapter in Britain’s history began at 11pm last night as the Union Jack was taken down in the European parliament in Brussels while cheers rose on Parliament Square in Westminster.

One thousand, three hundred and 18 days (and one hour) after polling closed in the EU referendum of 2016, Britain had cancelled its membership of the European Union.

Unable to have the moment marked by the real bongs of Big Ben because of renovation work, Boris Johnson arranged for the image of the clock tower to be beamed on to No 10 and recorded chimes were played at 11pm with a brief image of zero hour. In a simultaneous tweet the prime minister said that this was “an extraordinary turning point in the life of this country”.

At a victory rally on a muddy Parliament Square where the rain had finally relented, Nigel Farage led Leave supporters in Land of Hope and Glory. The Brexit Party leader said: “For the first time in history, the people have beaten the establishment. The real winner tonight is democracy.”

This is not, of course, the end. Merely the end of the beginning. A lot of negotiation lies ahead before the shape of Britain’s future relationship with its neighbours is settled.

The decree absolute has been granted; the divorced parties still need to divide up the CD collection and arrange custody of the dog.

The Union Jacks were taken down without ceremony in the council of the EU and outside the European parliament. At the same time, British access to diplomatic and EU working-group databases was switched off.

Full story

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February 1, 2020 at 02:45AM

The woman who was leading the UK’s hosting of a UN global climate change summit has been sacked by Boris Johnson.

Claire Perry O’Neill, a former energy minister, said that she was “very sad” that her role as president of the COP26 United Nations climate change talks in Glasgow in November, had been “rescinded” by the Prime Minister.

The role, which was semi-independent from Whitehall, will now come under the remit of Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom and her department.

Perry O’Neill tweeted: “Very sad that the role I was offered by @BorisJohnson last year has now been rescinded as Whitehall ‘can’t cope’ with an Indy COP unit. A shame we haven’t had one climate cabinet meeting since we formed. Wishing the COP team every blessing in the climate recovery emergency.”

Green credentials in doubt

The decision to axe Ms Perry O’Neill casts doubt on Mr Johnson’s credentials as a Prime Minister committed to fighting climate change and putting the UK on the path to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. COP26 in Glasgow is seen as a landmark in the fight against climate change because campaigners argue that the world is reaching a tipping point at which global warming cannot be stopped.

Ms Perry O’Neill was appointed by Mr Johnson last summer, shortly after he arrived in No 10.

A Cabinet Office statement said: “Claire Perry O’Neill will no longer be UK COP26 president. The Prime Minister is grateful to Claire for her work preparing for what will be a very successful and ambitious climate change summit in Glasgow in November.

“Preparations will continue at pace for the summit, and a replacement will be confirmed shortly. Going forward, this will be a ministerial role.”

Mr Johnson is expected to carry out a major Cabinet reshuffle in the next few weeks, with whoever takes charge at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy expected to take the lead on the climate summit.

Full story

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February 1, 2020 at 02:23AM