State of Emergency in Siberia's Permafrost Region due to Wildfires

by Pakalolo, DailyKos, July 25, 2014

The fires were touched off by thunderstorms that produced no rain. The Siberian Times reports that over 1,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes due to fire in the Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia, with its landmass as permafrost and 40% of that area within the arctic circle. States of emergency are also in effect in the Russian Federation regions of Kransnoyarsk and Irkutsk.

Vyacheslav Popov, head of the republic's Forestry Department, said: 'The area of wildfires doubled. There are 37 active wildfires in the republic right now covering the territory of 76,000 hectares. There is a threat to eight settlements in five areas of Yakutia''

'The biggest number if wildfires are here in Vilyui district', said the the local administration head, Sergey Vinokurov.

'They all started at the same time because of so-called 'dry thunderstorms' which we had last week.  

'We had to send helicopters to evacuate people out of the most dangerous areas and bring them to Vilyuisk'.

The town is an administrative capital some 600 kilometres northwest of capital Yakutsk.

As Siberia frazzles in the summer heat, states of emergency were introduced in areas of Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions, the Republic of Buryatia, and three districts of Trans-Baikal region, plus one of the Tyva Republic.

'For the duration of the emergency situation, entering forests is strictly forbidden for the population', and punishable by fines of up to 100,000 rubles ($2,800)', locals were warned in Buryatia.

In the Northwest Territories of Canada, dry and warm weather has fueled over 186 fires of which 156 are still burning according to this report from Climate Central.

Boreal forests like those in the Northwest Territories are burning at rates "unprecedented" in the past 10,000 years according to the authors of a study put out last year. The northern reaches of the globe are warming at twice the rate as areas closer to the equator, and those hotter conditions are contributing to more widespread burns.

The regions just below the Arctic are not alone in the increase and severity of wildfires as the recent wildfire news coming out of the Western states reflects. But the burn rate in the boreal forests is unprecedented.

Winner of National Geographic photo of the year, 2013. Grand Prize and Nature Winner Paul Souders, Seattle, Washington. "The Ice Bear." A polar bear peers up from beneath the melting sea ice on Hudson Bay as the setting midnight sun glows red from the smoke of distant fires during a record-breaking spell of hot weather. The Manitoba population of polar bears, the southernmost in the world, is particularly threatened by a warming climate and reduced sea ice.

In this riveting must read piece titled More Wildfires = More Warming = More Wildfires, Chris Mooney describes the wildfire-permafrost feedback loop.

You have this climate and fire interaction, and all of a sudden permafrost can thaw really rapidly," explains Jon O'Donnell, an ecologist with the National Parks Service's Arctic Network. Scientists call it a "positive feedback," and it's one of the scariest aspects of global warming because, in essence, it means a bad situation is making itself worse.

When it comes to understanding the wildfire-permafrost feedback and just how bad it could be, one factor is clear: Wildfires are definitely getting worse. "The area burned by wildfires has been increased quite a bit over the last couple of decades," says Terry Chapin, a biologist at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. Indeed, a new study just out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that recent fire activity in these "boreal" regions of the globe is higher than anything seen in the last 10,000 years.

Fires are also becoming more severe, says O'Donnell. Finally, the seasonality of fires appears to be changing, with burns extending later into the summer, when permafrost has thawed more completely—once again, amplifying the overall impact of burning on frozen soils and the carbon they contain.

And here's where the feedback kicks in: Large northern fires don't just burn huge swaths of forest. They can also burn off the upper layer of lichen and mosses on the forest floor. When intact, this forest surface layer insulates the underlying permafrost and protects it from thawing—but getting rid of it takes away that protection, even as it also exposes the area to the heating of direct sunlight.

Plus, there's an added effect: After a fire burns through a region, O'Donnell notes, it leaves behind an area of the earth's surface that is blackened in color. And these dark areas absorb more heat from the sun, thus further upping temperatures and thawing permafrost. As the soil thaws, meanwhile, microbes have a much easier time decomposing its organic matter. "The microbes can start to crank on that carbon," says O'Donnell, adding that the process results in the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

The Permafrost Tunnel   was excavated from 1963–1969 for the study of permafrost, geology, ice science, and the mining and construction techniques specific to permafrost environments.  The Permafrost Tunnel offers a unique research platform for scientists and engineers who wish to study a frozen environment over 40,000 years old.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/25/1316463/-State-of-Emergency-in-Siberia-s-Permafrost-Region-due-to-Wildfires

Climate Hawks endorses Ruben Gallego for Arizona's 7th Congressional District

Endorsement: Ruben Gallego in AZ-07

by RL MILLER, July 25, 2014

It's a rare chance to elect a climate hawk in the House of Representatives this year in Phoenix, Arizona. We're delighted to endorse Ruben Gallego in Arizona's 7th Congressional District, in a Democratic primary August 26.

Here's the setup. Retiring Rep. Ed Pastor has represented the deep blue district, but he's apparently taken a vow of climate silence - he's scored a grand total of 3 points, out of 100, on our scorecard by cosponsoring a handful of solar bills and otherwise ducking the issue. The front-runners are Iraq war veteran Ruben Gallego and county supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, facing each other (and assorted others) in less than five weeks.

Gallego's announcement focused on climate change and wage disparity: "There really needs to be an argument on these issues, also from a Hispanic perspective," he said. "I think we need Hispanic congressmen and congresswomen to start stepping up and talking about climate change, start talking about a living wage or at least a higher minimum wage, because that directly impacts Latinos here in this country." He opposes both the Keystone pipeline and the Rosemont copper mine, and he wants to bring more solar energy (and jobs!) to the sunny state. Rep. Raul Grijalva, MoveOn, Dolores Huerta, and DailyKos are among his endorsers.

Meanwhile, his opponent takes coal money but doesn't bother to include an energy/environment page on her website. Best guess: she'll avoid mentioning climate and score in the same range as Pastor. Gallego, on the other hand, can be one of the few chances in 2014 to put a climate champion in the House.

Polls from a while back showed Gallego leading by a few points, but with a huge percentage of undecideds - in other words, the kind of race where voter contact and turnout make a difference. And that's why we're backing up our endorsement with boots on the ground, just as we're doing in the Hawaii primaries. Best of all for Arizona's democratic future, the more we turn out voters in a district that historically doesn't vote much, the more we help turn them into habitual voters...and help turn around the politics of a sometimes-crAZy state.

http://www.climatehawksvote.com/endorse_az07_2014

Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes: strategy of climate science denial groups 'extremely successful'

Professor Naomi Oreskes says actions of climate denialists are laying the foundations for the government interventions they fear the most

by Graham Readfearn, The Guardian, July 24, 2014

Naomi Oreskes, Harvard University Professor of the History of Science. Photograph: Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs & Communications.

In 1965, US President Lyndon Johnson had a special message for the American Congress on conservation of the environment.

Worried about the "storm of modern change" threatening cherished landscapes, Johnson said: “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through… a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”

The same quote appears at the beginning of the 2010 book Merchants of Doubt: How A Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by science historians Erik Conway and Professor Naomi Oreskes.

Plainly the line – almost half a century old now – was picked to show just how long the impacts of fossil fuel burning have been known in the corridors of the highest powers.

The book explained the efforts since the 1960s of vested interests and ideologues to underplay the risks of pumping ever-increasing volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

One of the most startling revealing aspects of the book was how some of the same institutions and individuals who held out against a wave of scientific warnings about the health impacts of tobacco smoke became integral to efforts to block any meaningful policy response to greenhouse gas emissions.

Oreskes is a Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University and she has a new book out, again co-written with Conway.

The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From The Future is written from the perspective of a historian living in the year 2393 and looking back at what went horribly wrong in the lead up to the “Great Collapse.”

Here's my Q&A with Oreskes:

Q: Merchants of Doubt looked at the role of think tanks, vested interests and free market ideologies in attacking the science linking fossil-fuel burning to climate change, smoking to cancer, pollution to acid rain and CFCs to the ozone hole. Four years later, has anything changed?

Not really. There are some new faces on the horizon, but recruiting “fresh voices” has been a tactic for a long time. So even the things that may look new are in fact old. The Heartland Institute has become more visible, and the George Marshall Institute a bit less, but the overall picture continues: these groups continue to dismiss or disparage the science, attack scientists, and sow doubt.

They continue to try to block action by confusing us about the facts. And the arguments, the tactics, and the overall strategy has remained the same. And, they’ve been extremely successful. CO2 has reached 400 ppm, meaningful action is still not in sight, and people who really understand the science—understand what is at stake—are getting very worried.

Q: How did you move from being a geologist working in Australia for the Western Mining Corporation to being a scholar of the history of science?

Oh, this is a long story. I was always interested in broad questions about science. History of science gave me the opportunity to pursue those broad questions.

Naomi Oreskes discusses the background to the 2010 Merchants of Doubt.

Q: You were filmed for an ABC documentary that pitched a climate change "advocate" against a "sceptic." You met Australian politician and climate science sceptic Nick Minchin – the key political kingmaker who engineered the leadership challenge that gave the now Prime Minister Tony Abbott the Liberal leadership. What were your impressions of Minchin?

Well, I think he is a basically nice guy who has fallen into a trap: the trap of imprecatory denial. He doesn’t like the implications of climate change for our political and economic system, so he denies its reality. But climate change will come back to bite us all. It is already starting to.

Naomi Oreskes meets former Australian politician and climate skeptic Nick Minchin.

Q: So you worked in Australia as a geologist, toured here to promote Merchants of Doubt and had an academic role at the University of Western Australia, so you've seen a bit of how things have played out. How do you think Australia has been influenced by organised climate science denial?

Clearly. One sees all the same strategies and tactics being used there, plus a few additional ones (trotting out geologists to claim there are hidden underwater volcanoes that are responsible for the extra atmospheric CO2). The Institute of Public Affairs in Australia has been very active trotting out skeptical and denialist claims with little or no basis in evidence. If you go to their web site, they link back to many of the very same groups whose activities we documented in Merchants of Doubt: the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, Competitive Enterprise institute, the Heritage Foundation.

It’s the same old, same old: defend the free market, deny the reality of market failure, block action that could actually address those failures. And of course, that is the point of the new book: by denying the reality of market failure, and blocking corrective action, these folks are actually undermining our economies, and laying the foundations for kinds of government interventions that will make them pine for the good old days of a carbon tax.

Q: Oh yes, the new book – The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future. You've written it from the point of view of a historian writing about the "Period of the Penumbra (1988–2093) that led to the Great Collapse and Mass Migration (2073–2093)." It doesn't sound like there are too many laughs?

Not unless we are talking about black humour. Our editor, when he first approached us, said he found it funny in a Dr Strangelovian way. I took that as a huge compliment.

Q: Dr Strangelove – a character that apparently borrowed parts from the real life Edward Teller, the so-called "father" of the H-bomb. Your new book borrows much from real life events and modern science too doesn't it (it's a clunky segue, but I'm sticking with it)?

Yes of course. A good deal of the power of that film came from the fact that while it was farce, it was all too true in some ways—or at least, all too plausible. It was conceivable that the world would end not in deliberate, calculated aggression, but in stupidity, mistakes, and men and machines run amok.

Kubrick understood that. Fortunately, we escaped disaster in the Cold War, because enough people realized what was at stake. Erik and I have often discussed that, in this case—climate change—a lot of people, folks like Nick Minchin included—don’t seem to realize what is at stake.

They’ve dismissed the science. They’ve pooh-poohed the mounting evidence that disruptive climate change is already underway. They’ve assumed scientists were over-reacting, and that all environmentalists are watermelons. And that bodes poorly for our future. Because the longer we wait, the more plausible our “collapse” scenario, with its unhappy implications for western democracies, becomes.

Q: But what is it that you think drives the denial industry? How much of it is just pure self-interest? Is it fear of socialism – a kind of post-Cold War paranoia that you identified in Merchants of Doubt? Or is it ideological fervour like the kind you've witnessed amongst American Tea Baggers?

I think it’s a complicated mix. Certainly, there are some very cynical individuals and groups who are protecting their own self-interest, with little or no regard to the consequences for others.

There are also those who have bought into the watermelon argument—that environmentalists are green on the outside, red on the inside—and that climate change is just an excuse to bring in socialism by another name.

Then there are also many people who I think believe, or have persuaded themselves, that climate change is just another fad, exaggerated by scientists who just want more money for their research, or environmentalists who over-react to small threats or are unrealistic about where their bread is buttered.

Finally there is the power of rationalization—people whose bread really is buttered by the fossil fuel industry, or people who are heavily invested in the industry in one way or another, and just don’t want to accept that there is a fundamental problem.

Q: Is that a big issue – do you think? That the nuances of the science aren't that widely understood and so it's an easy job to confuse people about it?

Yes I think so. That’s one reason why these disinformation campaigns have been so successful. It’s always easy to find some aspect of the science that is uncertain, or confusing, and focus on that to the exclusion of the larger picture

Q: It sounds like an almost intractable situation. Is there something you think should have happened, that didn't, that might have helped to combat that misinformation?

Well, it certainly would have helped if political leaders had not repeated that disinformation!

Q: What would you do about it?

What I am doing: writing and talking about it, so we can accurately diagnose the problem. You can’t solve a problem if you don’t know what it is.

Q: Researching denial and organised misinformation has been your thing for about a decade now. So what's next?

A book about the solutions? How not to go down the road to collapse?

Naomi Oreskes in a 2014 TEDTalk explaining why people should trust science – just not for the reasons most people think.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/jul/25/harvard-historian-strategy-of-climate-science-denial-groups-extremely-successful

"Synchronization of North Pacific and Greenland climates preceded abrupt deglacial warming," by S.K. Praetorius & A.C. Mix, Science 345 (2014); doi: 10.1126/science.1252000

Science, 345(6195) (25 July 2014) 444-448; doi: 10.1126/science.1252000

Synchronization of North Pacific and Greenland climates preceded abrupt deglacial warming  

Summer K. Praetorius* and Alan C. Mix

College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, U.S.A.

Abstract

Some proposed mechanisms for transmission of major climate change events between the North Pacific and North Atlantic predict opposing patterns of variations; others suggest synchronization. Resolving this conflict has implications for regulation of poleward heat transport and global climate change. New multidecadal-resolution foraminiferal oxygen isotope records from the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) reveal sudden shifts between intervals of synchroneity and asynchroneity with the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP) δ¹⁸O record over the past 18,000 years. Synchronization of these regions occurred 15,500 to 11,000 years ago, just prior to and throughout the most abrupt climate transitions of the last 20,000 years, suggesting that dynamic coupling of North Pacific and North Atlantic climates may lead to critical transitions in Earth’s climate system.

*Correspondence: spraetor@coas.oregonstate.edu

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6195/444.abstract

USGS: Bee-toxic neonicotinoid pesticides clothianidin, thiamethoxam, imidacloprid found in streams in upper Midwest

Bee Killing Insecticides Widespread in Upper Midwest

USGS, July 24, 2014

Summary: Insecticides similar to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids, were found commonly in streams throughout the upper Midwest, according to a new USGS study

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Contact Information:
Alex Demas ( Phone: 703-648-4421 ); Kathy Kuivila ( Phone: 503-251-3257 );

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Insecticides similar to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids, were found commonly in streams throughout the Midwest, according to a new USGS study. This is the first broad-scale investigation of neonicotinoid insecticides in the Midwestern United States and one of the first conducted within the United States.

Effective in killing a broad range of insect pests, use of neonicotinoid insecticides has dramatically increased over the last decade across the United States, particularly in the Midwest.  The use of clothianidin, one of the chemicals studied, on corn in Iowa alone has almost doubled between 2011 and 2013.

 “Neonicotinoid insecticides are receiving increased attention by scientists as we explore the possible links between pesticides, nutrition, infectious disease, and other stress factors in the environment possibly associated with honeybee dieoffs.” said USGS scientist Kathryn Kuivila, the research team leader.

Neonicotinoid insecticides dissolve easily in water, but do not break down quickly in the environment. This means they are likely to be transported away in runoff from the fields where they were first applied to nearby surface water and groundwater bodies.

In all, 9 rivers and streams, including the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, were included in the study. The rivers studied drain most of Iowa, and parts of Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. These states have the highest use of neonicotinoid insecticides in the Nation, and the chemicals were found in all 9 rivers and streams.

Of the three most often found chemicals, clothianidin was the most commonly detected, showing up in 75% of the sites and at the highest concentration. Thiamethoxam was found at 47% of the sites, and imidacloprid was found at 23%. Two, acetamiprid and dinotefuran, were only found once, and the sixth, thiacloprid, was never detected.
Instead of being sprayed on growing or full-grown crops, neonicotinoids can be applied to the seed before planting. The use of treated seeds in the United States has increased to the point where most corn and soybeans planted in the United States have a seed treatment (i.e., coating), many of which include neonicotinoid insecticides.

“We noticed higher levels of these insecticides after rain storms during crop planting, which is similar to the spring flushing of herbicides that has been documented in Midwestern U.S. rivers and streams,” said USGS scientist Michelle Hladick, the report’s lead author. “In fact, the insecticides also were detected prior to their first use during the growing season, which indicates that they can persist from applications in prior years.”

One of the chemicals, imidacloprid, is known to be toxic to aquatic organisms at 10-100 nanograms per liter if the aquatic organisms are exposed to it for an extended period of time. Clothianidin and thiamethoxam behave similarly to imidacloprid, and are therefore anticipated to have similar effect levels. Maximum concentrations of clothianidin, thiamethoxam and imidacloprid measured in this study were 257, 185, and 42.7 nanograms per liter, respectively.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified all detected neonicotinoids as not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.

The paper, “Widespread occurrence of neonicotinoid insecticides in streams in a high corn and soybean producing region, USA” and has been published in Environmental Pollution. Learn more about the study and the long-term USGS effort to gather information on the environmental occurrence of new pesticides in different geographic, climatic, and use settings here. To learn more about USGS environmental health science, please visit the USGS Environmental Health website and sign up for our GeoHealth Newsletter.

Locations of sites in Iowa sampled for neonicotinoids in 2013. Watersheds for the Mississippi River and Missouri River sites are shown in the inset.

The Dark Snow team investigates the source of soot that's accelerating Greenland ice melt

The crowd-funded Dark Snow Project is trying to figure out where Greenland soot is coming from

by John Abraham, "Climate Consensus - The 97%," The Guardian, July 24, 2014

The Mount McAllister wildfire burns 34 miles (56 km) west of Chetwynd in British Columbia, in this handout photo taken July 14, 2014. Wildfires like this are one source of black soot. Photograph: Reuters

Around the planet, wildfires are becoming larger and more destructive. This summer, a series of wildfires enveloped large areas of Canada’s Boreal forest, blanketing western North America with smoke. One key question is, do these fires have an effect on climate by darkening Arctic ice with layers of soot, causing more sunlight to be absorbed by the ice?

For the second year, the Dark Snow Project science team has taken to the ice on Greenland to investigate the forces driving Greenland's ice loss. They are looking at the causes of surface darkening on the ice sheet that's been observed over the last decade. 

The Dark Snow Project is a collaborative effort between a multidisciplinary, international group of experts. The driving questions are, what's causing the steady darkening of the Greenland Ice Sheet that has been observed in the past decade? Is it an important cause of ice melt? Does it represent yet another climate "feedback" which is accelerating global change?

Peter Sinclair, Dark Snow Participant.

A number of natural processes cause ice to darken. The simple process of melting causes ice crystals to deform and reflect less light. In addition, pollen, sea spray, desert dust, pollution from industry and shipping cause darkening. However, there are also other causes.

Recently, newly published research strengthens the idea that wildfire soot has driven extensive melt over the ice sheet, and in addition, that layers of refrozen water are themselves darkening factors that drive further melt.

In addition to increased wildfires, the Dark Snow Team will be investigating the impact of algae and microbes, which, increasingly favored by warming temperatures, are gaining a larger foothold on the ice.

Dark Snow biologist Dr. Marek Stibal has found that a species of algae living on the ice produces a very special pigment that acts as a sunscreen, protecting it against the intense summer glare. The pigment is the very same molecule that gives black tea its color. The dark pigment, visible in many photos of ice during melt season, is an important, but not well understood, part of the darkening process.

As warmer temperatures spread over larger areas of the ice, more liquid water is made available - a vital factor for algae growth. In addition, scientists wonder whether industrial pollution may be delivering key nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus to the ice, further driving algae growth.

Data is gathered through use of small aerial drones that hover over the ice and gather photographic evidence of changes in whiteness. The team has modified several small drones for their science purposes this year, and they are gathering exciting data under challenging conditions. By combining observations and sampling at the surface, with low-altitude drone observation, and ice-sheet-scale imagery from satellites, the team hopes to have a complete micro-to-macro view of the ice darkening processes. 

The original mission of Dark Snow was not just to do science, but also to bridge the communication gap with a wider public, to better inform a global audience on the key findings that fill in the climate change story. 

With a feature story in Rolling Stone magazine, and high-profile interviews with Dark Snow scientist Jason Box on NBC, Vice News, and recently, the "Real Time with Bill Maher," that communication part of the mission is also being realized.

The Dark Snow Project is a citizen scientist collaboration, funded by a continuing crowd-source effort online. That effort is still ongoing at this time. One project the team still hopes to fund for August is a satellite hookup for internet connectivity, so as to be able to communicate day-to-day, and moment-to-moment, with journalists and citizens around the globe.

I am anxious to see how this combined funding and media strategy works. While my own climate research is completely unfunded (yes, you read that right), my activities in the thermal sciences has a much more traditional source of resources. Will the Dark Snow project show that alternatives to the traditional research grants are viable? We will see.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jul/24/dark-snow-soot-accelerating-greenland-ice-melt

Richard Pauli on the immorality of paid climate denial comments, in response to the New Yorker article by Toobin

Richard Pauli's comment on the following article in the New Yorker:

Mr Toobin, thank you for this is an important post.

The intensity of the comment responses suggests you have been well targeted by the US version of China's "50-cent Army."  In China, this is the online propaganda operation that targets specific issues of public opinion.  A 50-cent Army is so named because of the fees paid to organizations that generate comments (paid per comment written to deflect criticism and dissent).  This has proved tremendously effective in moving opinions of China's 600 million Internet users.  

A few years ago, in the US, I saw an online recruitment for the formation of a domestic cadre to promote Clean Coal by making personal comments on domestic blogs and newspaper sites.  I declined to join their group. But it proved that widespread use of this tactic is as easy as paying "50 cents per posting," although I have no idea what they had budgeted.  

This leaves the readers here to be more distrusting of comments.  As they should be.  This is an easy public relations manipulation (see also the mass communications theory for the Spiral of Silence).  And for the serious message-manipulation campaign, spending a little cash to salt and sweeten comments is too cheap to pass up.   

Earnest readers will notice that the tone and intensity of comments will appear at different times and places on the Internet.  However, in this case, for this subject, their appearance only works to validate your point: there is big money influencing this very issue.  It translates into public opinion and legislative action, or inaction, that directly impacts the coal and oil industries.  Serious carbon investors might even demand this kind of PR move.  (Is there a fiduciary responsibility/liability there?)  

The difficulty of their task is made great and more expensive on this issue because the assigned 50-cent Army must fight both reality and science.  (For now, that differs on how commenting may be used in China - which may be for pure ideological purposes.)  As global warming climate destabilization increases, the comments will likely become more shrill and numerous.  Anxious readers will dig deeper, searching desperately for some message that says "this is not really happening," like a cancer patient desperate for a different diagnosis.  There will be plenty of comments that deliver on the desperate fantasy, and many readers eager to follow the false cure of alternative medicine.   

But your account is of the unified Republican machine - fully subcontracted out to the Koch  coal and oil interests.  We have full ethical contempt for the legislative response to global warming.  The abrogation of congressional responsibility to protect citizens is immorality amounting to treason against our future, a sabotage of human interests. This is horribly disappointing to learn that people can be so united in a sell-out of others. With this issue it applies globally, even affecting the future of the politicians who squabble over the garments they grab.

Such purchased ignorance comes easily to the very structure of our representative government.  Anyone charged with delivering a safe future to younger people would find this shocking. How do we fix this? Can we?

In facing such a 50-cent Army of Commenters, all we can do is leave the dreck and stick to the articles, and then personally collect the reality of climate and weather changes for ourselves.  And we should remember that for now, it appears the unified Republican Party only makes itself a larger opponent in any election.  We can vote them out, but since their ethical lapses translate into real pain for the future, it will be difficult to forgive. Our anger should not be bitter, but neither must we forget.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/06/republicans-united-on-climate-change.html

New clue to Antarctic food-web puzzle: phytoplankton blooms, krill, penguin guano

by Tim Radford, Climate News Network, July 16, 2014

A landmark research study that shows one species of penguin is thriving while other populations are in rapid decline offers new insight into how climate change is affecting Antarctica.

LONDON - Good news from Antarctica: the continent may be warming, the ice shelf may be at risk, and the food chain may ultimately become precarious, but the Adélie penguin population – at least for the moment − is higher than ever before.

The news does not suggest that global warming and climate change are actually good for this important indicator species, which has certainly been in decline on the Antarctic Peninsula. But it does represent an advance: for the first time, a comprehensive study has concluded with a full census of the species.

Heather Lynch, assistant professor of ecology and evelotion at Stony Brook University in New York, and Michelle La Rue, research fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Polar Geopspatial Center, used high resolution satellite imagery to measure levels of penguin guano – the fertiliser industry’s preferred term for seabird excrement – on the continent.

They then used that as the basis for calculating the numbers of birds in a colony necessary to account for all that digested and evacuated seafood.

They report in a journal called The Auk: Ornithological Advances that they identified at least 17 populations of Adélie penguins not previously known to exist, but failed to pinpoint 13 already-recorded colonies, and declared 8 of them eradicated.

Their estimate for the total Adélie population in and around the Southern Ocean stands at 3.79 million, which is 53% higher than all previous estimates.

Useful evidence

The researchers call their work a “landmark” study, and see it not as evidence that climate change is going to work for the benefit of one particular species, but more as a useful piece of the great food-web puzzle in a changing climate.

Penguins have been in rapid decline in the West Antarctic Peninsula, which has become one of the fastest-warming regions on the planet. Warmer weather and increased rain have already started to take toll of Magellanic penguins in Argentina, and researchers recently predicted long-term decline for the iconic Emperor penguin on Antarctica itself.

But this is only long-term decline. As long as Antarctica stays cold and the ice shelf stays stable, the researchers say, the population could, in the short term, actually rise.

That is because what matters most to the species that nest in Antarctica is the supply of fish and krill around the continent’s edge. The health and resilience of the Adélie population – and the Emperor penguin, the leopard seal, the cetaceans, and so on – ultimately depend on how the krill and fish populations respond to climate change.

Humans, too, fish for commercial supplies of Antarctic krill, which provides a source of food for fish farms.

“Our finding of a 53% increase in Adélie penguin breeding abundance, compared to 20 years ago, suggests that estimates of krill consumption by this species may be seriously underestimated,” Dr Lynch said. “Leaving enough prey for natural krill predators is an important element in ensuring fisheries proceed sustainably.”

But a second team confirms in Nature Communications that there are strong links between climate and marine life, and that changes in factors such as wind speed and sea ice can have knock-on effects right around the Antarctic food web.

Since 1990, scientists aboard US research vessels have been conducting annual surveys along the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, measuring populations of photosynthetic algae.

These peak every 4-6 years, according to changes in atmospheric pressure between the mid-latitudes and Antarctica itself.

Glacial meltwater

In winter, when cold southerly winds blow across the Peninsula, the winter ice extends. Winds drop from spring to summer, reducing the retreat of the ice. So the water column in summer then is stable, and the phytoplankton multiply, fed by iron-rich glacial meltwater.

The blooms of phytoplankton are what the krill need to multiply, and when the krill are around in huge volumes, the Adélie and other penguins, fur seals, baleen whales and albatross don’t have to go so far to find food.

But marine scientist Grace Saba, who did her research while with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, before moving to Rutgers University, New Jersey, reports that these ideal conditions – negative phases of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), to give it the technical terminology – are not guaranteed in future. If the world goes on burning fossil fuels, conditions will probably change.

“Projections from global climate models under business-as-usual emission scenarios up to the year 2100 suggest a further increase in temperature and in the occurrence of positive-SAM conditions,” Dr Saba said.
“If even one positive SAM episode lasted longer than the krill lifespan – 4-6 years with decreased phytoplankton abundance and krill recruitment – it could be catastrophic to the krill population.”