Monitoring Ground-Level Ozone from Space

ScienceDaily (Aug. 30, 2011) — Satellite views of the Midwestern United States show that ozone levels above 50 parts per billion (ppb) along the ground could reduce soybean yields by at least 10 percent, costing more than $1 billion in lost crop production, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists.

ARS molecular biologist Lisa Ainsworth is one of the leaders of a 5-year-study that has shown ozone levels above 50 parts per billion along the ground could reduce soybean yields for Midwestern farmers by at least 10%, which would cost more than $1 billion in lost crop production. (Credit: Peggy Greb)

In a 5-year study led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) molecular biologist Lisa Ainsworth, ARS plant physiologist Fitz Booker, and university scientists surveyed widespread ozone damage to soybeans in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana, using both ozone surface monitors and satellite instruments.

Ainsworth works at the ARS Global Change and Photosynthesis Research Unit in Urbana, Ill., and Booker works at the ARS Plant Science Research Unit in Raleigh, N.C. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency.

Satellite information is useful for investigating ozone impacts on crop yields because satellite information is available for rural regions, where ground monitoring networks do not exist. Satellite observations, which are also available for farmland in countries without ground networks, could provide important insight into the global extent of ozone reduction of crop yields.

Ozone levels in most urban areas of the United States have declined with improvements in emission controls, but they are still high enough to damage soybean, peanut, cotton, rice, tomato and other crops. Ozone levels are expected to rise in countries like India and China as growing populations are able to afford more cars and build more power plants. Another concern is that ozone levels will rise in developing countries, whose people can least withstand losses of staples such as rice and wheat.

Ainsworth's and Booker's findings are consistent with those from their SoyFACE (Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment) experiments and studies in outdoor open-top chambers. SoyFACE involves testing plants in open-air field conditions under atmospheric conditions predicted for the year 2050. The consistency of the satellite data with SoyFACE findings and the agreement with data from ozone surface monitors suggests that satellites provide an effective way to monitor crop damage from ozone.

This research, in support of the USDA priority of responding to climate change, was published in the journal Atmospheric Environment.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110829153413.htm

An investigation of widespread ozone damage to the soybean crop in the upper Midwest determined from ground-based and satellite measurements by Jack Fishman et al.,

Atmospheric Environment, 44(18) (2011) 2248-2256; doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2010.01.015 

An investigation of widespread ozone damage to the soybean crop in the upper Midwest determined from ground-based and satellite measurements

Jack Fishman^a, , , John K. Creilson^a, b, Peter A. Parker^c, Elizabeth A. Ainsworth^d, G. Geoffrey Vining^e, John Szarka^e, Fitzgerald L. Booker^f and Xiaojing Xu^a

^a Science Directorate, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681, USA

^b Dept. of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA

^c Systems Engineering Directorate, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681, USA

^d USDA-ARS Photosynthesis Research Unit and Dep. of Plant Biology, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

^e Department of Statistics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ., Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA

^f USDA-ARS Plant Science Research Unit and Dept. of Crop Science, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC 27695, USA

Received 16 November 2009;  

revised 13 January 2010;  

accepted 14 January 2010.  

Available online 20 February 2010.

Abstract

Elevated concentrations of ground-level ozone (O₃) are frequently measured over farmland regions in many parts of the world. While numerous experimental studies show that O₃ can significantly decrease crop productivity, independent verifications of yield losses at current ambient O₃ concentrations in rural locations are sparse. In this study, soybean crop yield data during a 5-year period over the Midwest of the United States were combined with ground and satellite O₃ measurements to provide evidence that yield losses on the order of 10% could be estimated through the use of a multiple linear regression model. Yield loss trends based on both conventional ground-based instrumentation and satellite-derived tropospheric O₃ measurements were statistically significant and were consistent with results obtained from open-top chamber experiments and an open-air experimental facility (SoyFACE, Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment) in central Illinois. Our analysis suggests that such losses are a relatively new phenomenon due to the increase in background tropospheric O₃ levels over recent decades. Extrapolation of these findings supports previous studies that estimate the global economic loss to the farming community of more than $10 billion annually.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231010000415

Scott Mandia: CERN cosmic rays and clouds explained, Irene and flooding

From Peter Sinclair's "Climate Denial Crock of the Week"


Scott Mandia explains the (in)significance of the CERN cloud and cosmic rays results wrt to climate change, and the effect of rain in Irene as opposed to its winds



The Climate Science Rapid Response Team, one of the reality-based community’s most effective responses to anti-science quackery in the media, has been ably represented by John Abraham in some high-profile venues over the last few months. Now we’re fortunate that the media has found out about another of CSRRT’s lucid luminaries, meteorologist and co-founder Scott Mandia.


http://climatecrocks.com/2011/08/30/scott-mandia-interview-irene-wrapped-cern-explained/

Michael Ashley: Event horizon: the black hole in The Australian’s climate change coverage

Event horizon: the black hole in The Australian’s climate change coverage

The Australian’s coverage of climate changed is seriously warped. AFP PHOTO/NASA- CXC/A. HOBART

The Conversation, August 31, 2011: MEDIA & DEMOCRACY – Michael Ashley investigates the national paper’s op-ed policy.

The “event horizon” of a black hole is one of the most mind-boggling concepts in astrophysics.

The black hole’s stupendous gravity causes time itself to be warped — an astronaut falling inwards sufficiently slowly would see arbitrarily far into the future history of the Universe during their final minutes and seconds before crossing the event horizon.

There is no other place in time or space where our normal perception of reality is so completely overturned.

That is, apart from a meeting room deep within the News Limited bunker at 2 Holt Street, Surry Hills.

It is in this room that Chris Mitchell, editor-in-chief of The Australian, holds editorial meetings.

And it is in this room that reality becomes so distorted that The Australian was able to state earlier this month, “it is in keeping with this newspaper’s rationalist pedigree that we have long accepted the peer-reviewed science on anthropogenic climate change,” while at the same time engaging in a campaign to misrepresent and distort climate science.

Other editorials have made it clear that The Australian believes it is treating its readers as mature adults who should be able to make up their own minds based on arguments from “both sides” of the debate.

The problem is that on one side of the debate you have 97% of the world’s published climate scientists and the world’s major scientific organisations, and on the other side you have fools.

Excuse my bluntness, but it is past time to acknowledge that the science underpinning anthropogenic climate change is rock solid. The sceptics have had the time and opportunity to come with up a convincing case, but their best efforts read like arguments that NASA faked the moon landing.

My colleagues working in the climate sciences have largely given up trying to correct the constant stream of misinformation from The Australian, in frustration.

The Australian’s anti-science campaign takes many forms. One is the inflation of the credentials of their fake experts. For example, OpEd writer and member of the Outdoor Recreation Party Jon Jenkins was referred to as an “Adjunct Professor”. Bond University wrote to The Australian informing them that this was not true.

Howard Brady was called a “climate change researcher from Macquarie University”; in fact, Brady is a 70 year-old retiree who has published just seven scientific papers (on Antarctic sediments, not climate), the most recent one in 1983, following which he worked for 17 years in the oil industry. Macquarie University contacted The Australian to set the record straight.

In neither of these cases did The Australian publish a retraction or clarification.

Another tactic is to accept opinion pieces on science from unqualified sources. When I contacted The Australian’s opinion editor late last year to express dismay at their bias, I was given the example of Michael Asten, a part-time professorial fellow in the school of geosciences at Monash University, Melbourne, as someone who was well-qualified to comment.

So I did some investigation into Asten and his four OpEds in The Australian over the past two years.

A quick check of Asten’s peer-reviewed publications shows that while he appears to be your go-to guy if you have electromagnetic interference problems with your fluxgate magnetometer, he hasn’t published anything remotely related to climate science. He is, however, well-connected with the mining and coal industries.

In his first OpEd (“Climate claims fail science test”, December 9, 2009), Asten wrote “recent results published by top scientists cast doubt on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s theory” and he showcased the work that Pearson et al published in the top journalNature.

But Asten misrepresented the findings in the Nature paper. Don’t just take my word for it— Paul Pearson and his co-authors wrote to The Australian saying “Professor Michael Asten has misrepresented our recent research by suggesting that it casts doubt on the link between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global warming”.

They added, “We would like to take this opportunity to add our voices to the strong and steady message that the world scientific community is delivering to the Copenhagen negotiators — the greenhouse problem is real, imminent and potentially devastating for the planet, its life, and human civilization. Fortunately it is still not too late to avert the catastrophe.”

You would think you couldn’t ask for a clearer statement than that, but Asten went on to argue in his second opinion piece (“More evidence CO₂ not culprit”, December 29, 2009) that he used data in Pearson’s paper to arrive at a different conclusion from Pearson himself.

So, Asten, with no expertise in the field, is using a paper published in Nature to argue the opposite of what the paper actually says.

He then spins this as “top scientists cast doubt” on the IPCC. Gobsmacking.

In Asten’s third article (“CSIRO should establish if there was medieval warming Down-Under”, 13 May 2010) he asserts that if the medieval warm period was a global phenomenon, then “warming during the past century should be seen as predominantly natural climate change rather than driven by man-made carbon emissions.”

This is bunkum. The effect of man-made carbon dioxide is clear from multiple independent lines of evidence.

In his fourth OpEd (“Political interference will cripple climate debate”, 17 Dec 2010), Asten compares models of sea-level rise from a peer-reviewed paper by Jevrejeva et al, with observations of the sea-level by Riva et al, finding a factor of five difference.

Asten interprets this as a serious discrepancy in climate predictions that the CSIRO was withholding from the Government. He also describes how compliant scientists were intimately involved in the formulation of Nazi racial policy, and outspoken academics were removed by the Gestapo.

But once again, Asten misunderstands the science. The Riva et al paper wasn’t an observation of the total sea-level rise at all, just an estimate of the contribution from melting ice. The Nazi stuff is simply bizarre.

You would think The Australian, if it had any editorial integrity, would have called a halt to Asten’s ready access to the opinion pages after serious flaws were found with each of his contributions. But the lure of publishing an opinion supporting their editorial bias, from an apparently reputable source, was just too strong to resist.

I have singled out Asten in this article, but the same applies to every one of the climate contrarians that are repeatedly given exposure in The Australian.

For example, Bob Carter has claimed “temperature records confirm that cooling is under way” – no they don’t.

Ian Plimer says “To argue that human additions to atmospheric CO2, a trace gas in the atmosphere, changes climate requires an abandonment of all we know about history, archaeology, geology, solar physics, chemistry and astronomy” – this statement is just absurd.

Christopher Monckton has repeatedly misinterpreted scientific papers; and William Kininmonth states “the likely extent of global temperature rise from a doubling of carbon dioxide is less than 1°C” – this is a factor of three below our best estimates.

None of these people has made any impact whatsoever with their arguments in the peer-reviewed literature — they just aren’t contributing to any real scientific debate. The only place that they can publish their junk science is in outlets such as The Australian, where they are welcomed with open arms.

And if you think the bias in The Australian only affects its choice of OpEd pieces, wait till you read Tim Lambert’s examination of news reporting in his article later in this series for The Conversation.

So, when The Australian claims in its editorials to support the peer-reviewed science, it is really just an insurance clause for when the tide inevitably turns against their campaign of misinformation.

The Murdoch media empire has cost humanity perhaps one or two decades of time in the battle against climate change. Each lost decade greatly increases the eventual economic costs, the devastation to our ecosystems, and the suffering of future generations.

Do you think I’m exaggerating?

Read the real science, ask the real experts.

The editors sitting around the table in that meeting room in Surry Hills need to reflect on their culpability.

http://theconversation.edu.au/event-horizon-the-black-hole-in-the-australians-climate-change-coverage-2642

Glenn Hurowitz, Grist: Everything you’ve heard about the tar sands and energy security is wrong

Everything you’ve heard about the tar sands and energy security is wrong

BY GLENN HUROWITZ, grist, august 29, 2011

If there’s a single idea that the oil industry has peddled to persuade the Obama administration to approve the controversial Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline, it’s this: Tar-sands oil might be more polluting than even dirty old regular oil, but it’s better to get our energy from our ally Canada than from unstable oil suppliers in the Middle East or elsewhere.

In practice, the opposite is true: Drilling in North America is the single greatest threat to our nation’s energy security.

Here’s the reality: Protecting the United States’ energy security means keeping our continent’s oil in the ground for when we need it in an emergency. The United States and Canada combined hold less than 5% of the world’s proven oil reserves. Thanks in part to expanded domestic drilling during the Obama administration, we’re depleting those reserves at a high rate. That means we have far less oil to fall back on in the event of true emergency, like an oil embargo or a major war when access to foreign oil supplies becomes difficult or even impossible. If we’re really concerned about security, tar-sands oil should be a last-gap, man-the-barricades option – something we as a society hope we never have to use. That’s true to an extent for our domestic supplies of oil in general, whether offshore Arctic oil or the dregs left over at the bottom of the “stripper wells” that dot the Great Plains. We should leave them aside now, and hope that by the time we get into a serious security pickle, we’ve created a 100% clean energy economy that avoids the awful choice pundits seem to love to imagine between security, growth, and a living planet.

To understand how urgent it is that we curtail domestic drilling, consider this: If the United States were cut off today from all sources except Canada, we’d have only 8 years left at current consumption levels. And that amount gets lower every day as the government issues additional domestic drilling leases.

Looking at domestic production as a threat to national security rather than something that boosts it may seem to turn conventional wisdom on its head, but in fact it’s how domestic oil drilling was viewed almost as soon as large Middle East supplies came online in the post-World War II years. 

Following this “conservation theory,” the federal government and others pushed hard to tap new Middle Eastern oil supplies, primarily so we wouldn’t deplete our own. “If we ever got into another World War it is quite possible that we would not have access to reserves held in the Middle East, but in the meantime use of those reserves would prevent the depletion of our own, a depletion which may be serious within the next fifteen years,” wrote powerful World War II Navy Secretary James Forrestal, summarizing the postwar security consensus.

It’s important to contrast this depletion reality with the old canard that the oil industry and its backers continue to push: that drilling domestically somehow reduces the flow of money to the Middle East and other unstable oil suppliers. In practice, basic oil-industry economics show the opposite. Because Middle Eastern and Venezuelan oil is so much cheaper to produce and more plentiful than remaining domestic oil reserves, those countries can almost always outcompete domestic U.S. competitors and still maintain their enormous profit margins and high levels of production. Saudi and Iraqi oil, for instance, costs just $4-$6 per barrel to produce with another $2-$3 tacked on for transportation costs (costs are similar for Iranian oil). Production costs for tar-sands oil clock in at a minimum of $30 per barrel; costs for other domestic sources are similar. To be sure, there are limits to how much oil even Saudi Arabia can draw at any given time without undermining its long-term production capacity, but it and other major oil producers are well within this barrier and retain enormous “swing” production capacity.

Of course, there’s no doubt that our addiction to oil props up petrocracies and funds terror groups.But expanding domestic production, especially through carbon-intense tar-sands development, will do little or nothing to change that even as it imposes serious environmental damage on our continent’s great natural treasures and worsens climate change.

What we need to do instead is move as rapidly as possible to get off oil entirely by fully implementing and further tightening the Obama administration’s strong fuel-efficiency standards, putting a price on carbon pollution, ending oil subsidies, electrifying our vehicle fleet with clean energy, boosting mass transit, and using the full force of our diplomacy to get other major consuming countries like China to do the same.

That will create true American energy security without setting off a carbon bomb that threatens the entire planet, USA very much included.    

Glenn Hurowitz is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. You can follow his Twitter feed about forests, climate, and wildlife: @glennhurowitz.

http://www.grist.org/energy-policy/2011-08-29-everything-youve-heard-about-the-tar-sands-and-energy-security