The Concord Consortium

The Earth is getting warmer.  In warmer climes, decomposition occurs more quickly.  This releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, leading to further warming.  But it needn’t get completely out of control–trees (and other plants) can come to the rescue!

A recent study in a central Massachusetts forest has shown that increased temperatures do indeed lead to increased decomposition.  But they also led to increased tree growth, partially offsetting the carbon dioxide release from decomposition.  Why?  The researchers found that nitrogen was also being liberated by the decomposition.

Because tree growth is limited by the availability of nitrogen, an increased supply of nitrogen results in increased growth.  The trees’ growth spurts result in some of the carbon dioxide being stored in the wood rather than being released into the atmosphere.  Unfortunately, the trees don’t take in ALL of the released carbon dioxide… trees to the (partial) rescue!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110525120050.htm

A new study from the University of Colorado suggests that 66% of Earth’s permafrost could disappear by the year 2200.  And this could be really bad for Earth’s temperature.

If the temperature increases, the permafrost melts.  Simple enough, right?  But it’s slightly more complicated.  Trapped in the permafrost is lots and lots of carbon–in the form of plant material trapped in the frozen soil.

When it’s frozen, bacteria and fungi don’t break it down quickly.  But when it’s thawed out, the plant material quickly decays.  As soil bacteria and fungi break down the organic matter, they release tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This leads to higher temperatures and more thawing permafrost.

“The amount we expect to be released by permafrost is equivalent to half of the amount of carbon released since the dawn of the Industrial Age,” said Kevin Schaefer, lead author on the study.

Greater reductions in fossil fuel emissions to account for carbon released by the permafrost will be a daunting global challenge, Schaefer said. “The problem is getting more and more difficult all the time,” he said. “It is hard enough to reduce the emissions in any case, but now we have to reduce emissions even more. We think it is important to get that message out now.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110216132100.htm

Explore the relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases in our activity, “What will Earth’s climate be in the future?“

Warm millennium, that is.  And Southern Hemisphere, that is.

New research suggests that Earth will continue to warm into the year 3000, even if human-caused carbon dioxide emissions stop right now.  According to their models, scientists predict that the Northern Hemisphere will fare much better, with the warming trend reversing within the millennium.  This is likely due to the much larger landmass in the Northern Hemisphere.

The Southern Hemisphere has much more ocean surface, which has thus far slowed the warming trend, as the ocean acts as a huge carbon dioxide and heat sink.

Shawn Marshall, Canada Research Chair in Climate Change and University of Calgary geography professor, explains this phenomenon:

“The global ocean and parts of the Southern Hemisphere have much more inertia, such that change occurs more slowly. The inertia in intermediate and deep ocean currents driving into the Southern Atlantic means those oceans are only now beginning to warm as a result of CO2 emissions from the last century. The simulation showed that warming will continue rather than stop or reverse on the 1000-year time scale.”

Does this mean certain doom for the planet?  No.  Throughout its history, Earth has had warmer periods than the one that is predicted by these models.  The Earth will be just fine.  The big question, for us humans, is how humans will fare.

Explore the role of oceans in Earth’s climate with our activity, “What will Earth’s climate be in the future?“

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110109184025.htm

From xkcd: http://www.xkcd.com/164/

Science is about facts and evidence.  There is a lot of evidence that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.  You can explore with our models how carbon dioxide impacts the global temperature.

Politics is about what to do about those facts.  But politics too often turns into a blame game, in which people take sides without really listening to the evidence.

Do we ban the burning of fossil fuels because it increases carbon dioxide emissions?  Do we look  for ways to capture all carbon dioxide emissions from human activities?  Do we impose a “carbon tax” on all goods?  What would be the economic impacts of these policies?  Is the electronics-centric lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed even compatible with low carbon dioxide emissions?

In the end, it all comes down to a cost-benefit analysis of the risks and rewards for each course of action.  What risks do we undertake by doing nothing?  What risks do we undertake by completely changing the ways by which people travel around the world?  What benefits do we gain from each action?

But to do a cost-benefit analysis, we have to understand the facts; we have to understand our “known knowns”–what we know we know–and our “known unknowns”–what we know we don’t know.  We have to remember that there are always “unknown unknowns”–those things that we don’t even know that we don’t know.

That’s why it’s up to each of us, as individuals, to learn about the science–about the facts and the real evidence and what’s still not fully understood–and then choose our actions based on our own understandings of the facts and preponderance of the evidence, not on someone else’s views.  We have to think for ourselves and act accordingly.

But we also have to remember that our actions impact those around us.  We’re all on this planet together.

From xkcd: http://www.xkcd.com/402/

The permafrost line is shifting.  It may be slow by tornado-chasing standards, but it’s shifting.

A study earlier this year from Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada showed that the permafrost line has moved northward by 130 kilometers in the last 50 years.  While climate change is the most probable explanation for the melting permafrost, there is not enough long-term data for scientists to confirm this.

And so the research goes on to study and better understand our ever-changing world.

Learn more about climate change in our “What will Earth’s climate be in the future?” investigation.

Pollution has its benefits.

With fewer particulates being released by smokestacks and cars, there are fewer aerosols in the atmosphere.  Fewer aerosols means that more solar radiation hits the ground.  With more sunlight hitting the Earth, the Earth warms up–faster than many scientists had initially predicted.

Calculations by Jan Magnus, Bertrand Melenberg, and Chris Muris, econometricians at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, suggest that carbon dioxide emissions will have to be reduced by an additional 50 million tons to compensate for the additional solar radiation reaching the surface.  That’s just to keep the temperature rise to 2 degrees Centigrade!

The Clean Air Act of 1970 gave us clear blue skies and pure white snows, but they weren’t counting on enhanced carbon dioxide emissions to accelerate the warming process.

Read the summary at http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2010/03/100309083700.htm.

Learn how albedo affects global temperature with our models in the “What will Earth’s climate be in the future?” investigation.