by faster | Jul 2, 2020 | Blog
SOURCE: University of Stirling DATE: July 2, 2020 SNIP: The environmental benefits of taller, shrubbier tundra plants in the Arctic may be overstated, according to new research involving the University of Stirling. Current ecosystem and climate models suggest that, as the Arctic warms, tundra ecosystems are becoming more productive, with greater photosynthesis resulting in more carbon being removed, or sequestered, from the atmosphere. However, most models do not consider the transfer and fate of this carbon below-ground, and how this can interact with soil carbon through the activities of soil microorganisms. This is critically important because the vast majority of carbon in Arctic ecosystems is found in soil and ‘permafrost’ (permanently frozen soil or sediment) in the form of organic matter produced by the incomplete decay of dead plants, animals and soil organisms in cold conditions. The new research considered the impact of a shrubbier Arctic on soil carbon stocks and the overall carbon sequestration potential of these ecosystems. Significantly, it found that some tall shrub communities stimulate recycling of carbon in soils, releasing it back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide – meaning that more productive shrubs might not always result in greater carbon sequestration. Professor Wookey said: “While previous studies suggest that a warmer, greener Arctic may increase the rate that carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere, our research identified an acceleration in the rate of loss of carbon from soils, back into the atmosphere. “This may more than offset carbon sequestration and would, unexpectedly, turn these ecosystems into a net source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Significantly, current ecosystem and climate models do not...
by faster | Jun 26, 2020 | Blog
SOURCE: Inside Climate News DATE: June 26, 2020 SNIP: Along the northern edge of Alaska, millions of square miles of land are home to countless animal species—hundreds of thousands of caribou, scores of threatened bird species, polar bears and more. This isn’t the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, although the same is true there. It’s the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a few hundred miles west of the refuge, and some of its most ecologically sensitive lands may soon be open for business to the oil industry. Since early in the Trump administration, the U.S. Interior Department has sought to open new areas of the NPR-A to drilling, including the area around Teshekpuk Lake, a region that has long been considered too ecologically sensitive for drilling. “Teshekpuk Lake is the feeding and calving grounds of our caribou, geese, fish we depend on for survival,” said Martha Itta, the tribal administrator of the Native Village of Nuiqsut, which is adjacent to the reserve. “Drilling in the Teshekpuk area would be devastating to our people. We will no longer be able to hunt being surrounded by industry. We will go hungry.” Earlier this year, the Trump administration released a plan for drilling in part of the Alaskan Arctic that provided a range of options. A few of them expanded the area allowed for drilling, but only slightly. One, called Alternative D, opened up almost all of the region—including Teshekpuk Lake. On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management released its final environmental review and announced which option it preferred: Alternative D, plus 300,000 acres. The plan would make a total of roughly 6.8 million acres...
by faster | Apr 20, 2020 | Blog
SOURCE: The Independent DATE: April 20, 2020 SNIP: The Arctic Ocean will likely be ice-free during summers before 2050, researchers say. Amid rapid global warming – with average Arctic temperatures already 2C above what they were in the pre-industrial era – the extent of the sea ice is diminishing ever faster. As the climate crisis worsens, scientists say it is now only the efficacy of protection measures which will determine for how many more years our planet will continue to have a northern ice cap year round. A major new piece of research involving 21 leading institutes and using 40 different climate models has found that whatever action is taken, we are on course to see ice-free summers in the coming decades. The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The scientists considered the future of Arctic sea-ice cover in scenarios with high future CO2 emissions and little climate protection – as expected, Arctic sea ice disappeared quickly in summer in these simulations. But the study also found the Arctic summer sea ice also disappears “occasionally” if CO2 emissions are rapidly reduced. Dirk Notz, who leads the sea-ice research group at University of Hamburg, said: “If we reduce global emissions rapidly and substantially, and thus keep global warming below 2C relative to preindustrial levels, Arctic sea ice will nevertheless likely disappear occasionally in summer even before 2050. This really surprised...
by faster | Jan 29, 2020 | Blog
SOURCE: Phys.org DATE: January 29, 2020 SNIP: Tidewater glaciers, the massive rivers of ice that end in the ocean, may be melting underwater much faster than previously thought, according to a Rutgers co-authored study that used robotic kayaks. The findings, which challenge current frameworks for analyzing ocean-glacier interactions, have implications for the rest of the world’s tidewater glaciers, whose rapid retreat is contributing to sea-level rise. The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, surveyed the ocean in front of 20-mile-long LeConte Glacier in Alaska. The seaborne robots made it possible for the first time to analyze plumes of meltwater, the water released when snow or ice melts, where glaciers meet the ocean. It is a dangerous area for ships because of ice calving—when falling slabs of ice that break from glaciers crash into the water and spawn huge waves. “With the kayaks, we found a surprising signal of melting: Layers of concentrated meltwater intruding into the ocean that reveal the critical importance of a process typically neglected when modeling or estimating melt rates,” said lead author Rebecca Jackson, a physical oceanographer and assistant professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Two kinds of underwater melting occur near glaciers. Where freshwater discharge drains at the base of a glacier (from upstream melt on the glacier’s surface), vigorous plumes result in discharge-driven melting. Away from these discharge outlets, the glacier melts directly into the ocean waters in a regime called ambient melting. The study follows one published last year in the journal Science that measured...
by faster | Jan 27, 2020 | Blog
SOURCE: Inside Climate News DATE: January 27, 2020 SNIP: The rapid decline of Arctic sea ice during the last couple of decades has spurred climate scientists to study how that meltdown influences the rest of the planet, and a new study suggests that the effects may extend deep into the tropics. The study, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, detected a pattern that links sea ice decline since the late 1990s with more frequent warm cycles in the Central Pacific Ocean. The surges of ocean heating in that region can disrupt the climate, affecting drought, flood and hurricane patterns around the world. Winds are the link between the melting ice and the tropics. The researchers posit that the Arctic Ocean has warmed up so much in the last 20 years that warm, late-summer sea surface air forms powerful convective towers, rising to the stratosphere. When the air falls back toward the equatorial Pacific, it intensifies prevailing east-to-west trade winds that push warm water toward Asia and Oceana, giving birth to a Central Pacific El Niño, a geographically specific variation of the well-documented Pacific warming and cooling cycle that is a key driver of the global climate. The study found a secondary effect. The atmospheric roller coaster rebounds back north, and may weaken a weather pattern near Alaska that steers Pacific storms toward the West Coast. The new research shows that El Niños forming in the Central Pacific started becoming more frequent at the same time that Arctic sea ice extent started its precipitous decline. Jennifer Francis, a climate researcher with the Woods Hole...
