Monday March 9, 2009, 8:09 pm
A US scientific study is pointing the finger at the global shipping industry as a major contributor to climate change.
The study has found that the one hundred thousand commercial ships which travel the world's oceans emit almost half as much particle pollution as the world's 600 million cars.
The findings have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
And the lead author is calling for an improvement in the quality of shipping fuels.
In the past, ships running under flags of convenience have been exposed in reports like the Ships of Shame inquiry as being unsafe for crews and polluting the ocean.
Now scientists have put a figure on exactly how much air pollution is emitted by the world's shipping fleet.
US-based scientist Daniel Lack, who works for a US government agency called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has found every year commercial ships emit 1 million kilograms of particle pollution into the air.
"These particles that are coming out are about equivalent to half the particles that are produced from all road traffic in the world," he said.
"What's interesting with ships is that they're in international waters most of the time so the pollution doesn't really get noticed by people.
"But these ships are actually burning really low-quality fuels. They're literally burning the bottom of the barrel. After oil refining, there's a black sludge left and that's what ships are burning, so they're burning a really dirty fuel."
Professor Lack worked on his report with another scientist, James Corbett from the University of Delaware.
It was Professor Corbett's job to find out what effect the pollution from the ships has on human health.
"We're talking about organic carbon materials and we're talking about these very small black carbon particles," he said.
"These particles are small enough to be breathed in to human lungs and they have been shown by epidemiological studies to be associated with increased incidences of breathing illnesses, heart illnesses and even premature death."
The harmful particles released into the air, including sulphur, carbon dioxide and soot, are also damaging the environment.
"If dark particles land on snow, they can accelerate the melting of snow in the north, perhaps the Arctic," he said.
"They interact with water vapour in the atmosphere to help produce brighter or longer lived clouds and the dark particles can absorb energy and retain heat and contribute to global climate change."
It is the first time a large scale study has found exactly how much and what kind of air pollution is released by ships.
Professor Lack says his study exposes shipping as a major polluter and more regulation is needed to ensure the industry cleans up its act.
But he acknowledges, as with the car industry, some shipping companies are seeing an upside in green innovation.
"There's a company in Seattle which has just built the first hybrid tugboat," he said.
"The port of Los Angeles, they're starting to make ships hook up to shore power, which is much cleaner than the power from burning fuel.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Rumblings of doom, some more to edify and uplift..
CO2 levels thinning out ocean life: study
There is alarming evidence that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are harming ocean-based animal life.
When CO2 enters the atmosphere it is absorbed by the ocean, causing increased acidity in the water.
A new study has found a link between this process and a decrease in the shell-making ability of microscopic marine organisms.
Dr Will Howard of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre and colleagues report their findings today in the journal Nature Geoscience.
"The ocean is currently taking up somewhere in the neighbourhood of a third of our fossil fuel emissions," the palaeo-climatologist said.
Scientists have predicted this absorption of carbon dioxide would boost the acidity of oceans and interfere with the ability of some marine species to build their shells.
"It was predicted and now we're seeing it," Dr Howard said.
"This is not an issue for the future any more. This is an issue for now."
The researchers studied the shells of a protozoa called foraminifera (Globigerina bulloides), in the Southern Ocean south of Tasmania .
They collected current-day foraminifera as they fell to the bottom of the ocean and compared them to foraminifera dating back in time, taken from cores taken from the sea bed.
"[The method] gives us access to times when the carbon dioxide chemistry in the atmosphere and the ocean has changed measurably and noticeably, and we can see how the organisms responded," Dr Howard said.
He and colleagues linked changes in shell formation with the amount of carbon dioxide around at the time.
"[The foraminifera] have more heavily calcified shells during intervals when carbon dioxide content was lower and thus the pH of the ocean was higher," Dr Howard said.
By contrast, the researchers found modern shells were 30 to 35 per cent lighter than those formed prior to the industrial period.
"When you're looking at the modern counterparts, they're making thinner shells than anything in the cores," he said.
He says the team has evidence that modern shells are thinner than at any time in the past 200,000 years.
Dr Howard says previous research has confirmed the carbon dioxide affecting the shells has a unique isotopic signature which confirms it is from fossil fuels.
"We know independently that the carbon dioxide that they're picking up is at least partly anthropogenic," he said.
He says calcium carbonate shells of foraminifera, which fall to the bottom of the deep sea when they die, are a major vehicle for removing carbon from atmospheric circulation.
"One of the things we're concerned about is that if their shell-making ability is compromised that we might be reducing the efficiency of the ocean carbon pump," he said.
Dr Howard says that over time, the ocean may be able to counteract acidity by dissolving accumulated shells of dead marine organisms on the ocean floor, thus raising ocean pH and its ability to take up CO2.
But he says this will take a long time and come at the cost of living marine organisms.
"The buffering mechanisms in the ocean are quite slow compared to the rate at which we are putting fossil fuel carbon into the atmosphere and into the ocean.," he said.
The research was funded by the Australian Government's Department of Climate Change.
There is alarming evidence that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are harming ocean-based animal life.
When CO2 enters the atmosphere it is absorbed by the ocean, causing increased acidity in the water.
A new study has found a link between this process and a decrease in the shell-making ability of microscopic marine organisms.
Dr Will Howard of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre and colleagues report their findings today in the journal Nature Geoscience.
"The ocean is currently taking up somewhere in the neighbourhood of a third of our fossil fuel emissions," the palaeo-climatologist said.
Scientists have predicted this absorption of carbon dioxide would boost the acidity of oceans and interfere with the ability of some marine species to build their shells.
"It was predicted and now we're seeing it," Dr Howard said.
"This is not an issue for the future any more. This is an issue for now."
Changing chemistry
The researchers studied the shells of a protozoa called foraminifera (Globigerina bulloides), in the Southern Ocean south of Tasmania .
They collected current-day foraminifera as they fell to the bottom of the ocean and compared them to foraminifera dating back in time, taken from cores taken from the sea bed.
"[The method] gives us access to times when the carbon dioxide chemistry in the atmosphere and the ocean has changed measurably and noticeably, and we can see how the organisms responded," Dr Howard said.
He and colleagues linked changes in shell formation with the amount of carbon dioxide around at the time.
"[The foraminifera] have more heavily calcified shells during intervals when carbon dioxide content was lower and thus the pH of the ocean was higher," Dr Howard said.
By contrast, the researchers found modern shells were 30 to 35 per cent lighter than those formed prior to the industrial period.
"When you're looking at the modern counterparts, they're making thinner shells than anything in the cores," he said.
He says the team has evidence that modern shells are thinner than at any time in the past 200,000 years.
Fossil fuel signature
Dr Howard says previous research has confirmed the carbon dioxide affecting the shells has a unique isotopic signature which confirms it is from fossil fuels.
"We know independently that the carbon dioxide that they're picking up is at least partly anthropogenic," he said.
He says calcium carbonate shells of foraminifera, which fall to the bottom of the deep sea when they die, are a major vehicle for removing carbon from atmospheric circulation.
"One of the things we're concerned about is that if their shell-making ability is compromised that we might be reducing the efficiency of the ocean carbon pump," he said.
Dr Howard says that over time, the ocean may be able to counteract acidity by dissolving accumulated shells of dead marine organisms on the ocean floor, thus raising ocean pH and its ability to take up CO2.
But he says this will take a long time and come at the cost of living marine organisms.
"The buffering mechanisms in the ocean are quite slow compared to the rate at which we are putting fossil fuel carbon into the atmosphere and into the ocean.," he said.
The research was funded by the Australian Government's Department of Climate Change.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Wildlife on the attack as Indonesia backs logging
THE Indonesian Government has approved a big increase in logging of its tropical forests, a decision that will lead to a rise in carbon emissions and, most likely, lead to further deadly attacks on villagers by tigers and elephants.
The end of a 14-month moratorium on logging comes amid a spate of macabre maulings of Indonesians by animals struggling to survive in their dwindling habitats.
On Wednesday, an 83-year-old man on the island of Sumatra was killed after 30 wild elephants stampeded through his village. The death followed a month of elephants running amok in the village, which is close to a trail commonly used by the threatened species.
"The elephant routes are almost gone," said Johny Mundung, the co-ordinator for the Indonesian environmental group Wahli in the Sumatran province of Riau, where the attack occurred.
Four people have died in Sumatra in the past 3½ months due to wild elephant attacks. However the deaths caused by Sumatran tigers have been even more dramatic.
The death by mauling of an illegal logger in Sumatra on Wednesday was the ninth in five weeks. About half of Sumatra's forests have been destroyed, the trees logged and, in some cases, replaced with palm oil and pulp plantations.
All the deaths caused by elephants and tigers occurred in areas where such plantations abound.
Indonesia's deforestation has earned it the title of the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China and the United States. More than 80 per cent of the emissions are caused by deforestation.
Indonesia has destroyed more than 28 million hectares of forest since 1990, much of it on swampy, densely forested peatlands that are the world's most potent carbon sinks, absorbing greenhouse gases spewed out by a rapidly industrialising world.
In 2007, the Indonesian Government announced it would stop the clearing of the peatlands, shortly before Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged to reduce carbon emissions from forests by 50 per cent in 2009 and 95 per cent by 2025.
But last month, Indonesia's ministry of agriculture quietly announced it would issue permits for the destruction of another 2 million hectares of peatlands.
"SBY's goal is now mission impossible," said Yuyun Adradi, a Greenpeace forests campaigner.
A sharp fall in palm oil prices has led to calls from the industry, many of them substantial political donors, for more land concessions.
Officials from the agriculture ministry said the new permits would be carefully managed and represented only 8 per cent of the remaining peatlands.
But Greenpeace said that the logging will lead to a huge increase in carbon emissions, as much as 10 times the annual emissions from fossil fuel consumption in Indonesia.
The logging of marshy peatlands creates a environmental triple whammy. The cutting down of the forests and draining of the peat destroys the carbon sinks. Then the oxidisation of the exposed peat - created from thousands of years of organic matter composting - emits more carbon gases.
The third climate change calamity is caused when the denuded and drained peatlands catch fire during the dry season.
Peat is highly combustible and the fires typically burn underground and cannot be doused with traditional firefighting methods, creating smoky haze that drifts across the archipelago and neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia for months.
The end of a 14-month moratorium on logging comes amid a spate of macabre maulings of Indonesians by animals struggling to survive in their dwindling habitats.
On Wednesday, an 83-year-old man on the island of Sumatra was killed after 30 wild elephants stampeded through his village. The death followed a month of elephants running amok in the village, which is close to a trail commonly used by the threatened species.
"The elephant routes are almost gone," said Johny Mundung, the co-ordinator for the Indonesian environmental group Wahli in the Sumatran province of Riau, where the attack occurred.
Four people have died in Sumatra in the past 3½ months due to wild elephant attacks. However the deaths caused by Sumatran tigers have been even more dramatic.
The death by mauling of an illegal logger in Sumatra on Wednesday was the ninth in five weeks. About half of Sumatra's forests have been destroyed, the trees logged and, in some cases, replaced with palm oil and pulp plantations.
All the deaths caused by elephants and tigers occurred in areas where such plantations abound.
Indonesia's deforestation has earned it the title of the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China and the United States. More than 80 per cent of the emissions are caused by deforestation.
Indonesia has destroyed more than 28 million hectares of forest since 1990, much of it on swampy, densely forested peatlands that are the world's most potent carbon sinks, absorbing greenhouse gases spewed out by a rapidly industrialising world.
In 2007, the Indonesian Government announced it would stop the clearing of the peatlands, shortly before Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged to reduce carbon emissions from forests by 50 per cent in 2009 and 95 per cent by 2025.
But last month, Indonesia's ministry of agriculture quietly announced it would issue permits for the destruction of another 2 million hectares of peatlands.
"SBY's goal is now mission impossible," said Yuyun Adradi, a Greenpeace forests campaigner.
A sharp fall in palm oil prices has led to calls from the industry, many of them substantial political donors, for more land concessions.
Officials from the agriculture ministry said the new permits would be carefully managed and represented only 8 per cent of the remaining peatlands.
But Greenpeace said that the logging will lead to a huge increase in carbon emissions, as much as 10 times the annual emissions from fossil fuel consumption in Indonesia.
The logging of marshy peatlands creates a environmental triple whammy. The cutting down of the forests and draining of the peat destroys the carbon sinks. Then the oxidisation of the exposed peat - created from thousands of years of organic matter composting - emits more carbon gases.
The third climate change calamity is caused when the denuded and drained peatlands catch fire during the dry season.
Peat is highly combustible and the fires typically burn underground and cannot be doused with traditional firefighting methods, creating smoky haze that drifts across the archipelago and neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia for months.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Time to chill from the doom, some further hornbags..
Yes, once again I am pleased to purvey some more fotographic efforts, compliments of Amsterdam Bier, and some brand of Vodka I,er, forgot.
Lah.
Poles apart but warming greater than thought
Marian Wilkinson Environment Editor
February 27, 2009
A TWO-YEAR research effort by the world's leading scientists has uncovered evidence of global warming's widespread effect.
Snow and ice continue to decline in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica, affecting sea-level rise and weather patterns, as well as human, animal and plant life.
The findings of International Polar Year, a global research project involving 60 nations, were released yesterday. They confirmed that warming in Antarctica was greater than previously understood and the rate of ice loss from Greenland was increasing.
Dr Ian Allison, of the Australian Antarctic Division, who co-chaired the project told the Herald the effect of global warming in Greenland was clear.
"In Greenland the rate of ice loss is getting greater over the last 10 years and the surface [ice] melt is definitely related to the warming," Dr Allison said.
The project's scientists summed up their findings, saying: "It now appears certain that both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and thus raising sea level, and that the rate of ice loss from Greenland is growing."
They also warned "the potential for these ice sheets to undergo further rapid ice discharge remains the largest unknown in projections of the rate of sea-level rise by the [United Nations] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change".
Projections for the NSW coast released by the State Government suggest sea levels are expected to rise up to 40 centimetres by 2050 and 90 centimetres by 2100. One centimetre of sea-level rise can have erosion effects of up to one metre in low-lying areas.
The popular belief that Antarctica may be resistant to global warming has been undercut by International Polar Year's research. Data from satellites and weather stations confirmed that for the past 50 years it has been warming at the same rate as the rest of the planet.
Until recently it was only the fragile Antarctic Peninsula that juts up from West Antarctica, which was considered vulnerable to global warming. The peninsula is warming more rapidly than much of the rest of the world with temperatures rising 2.5 degrees in the past 50 years and ice loss increasing 140 per cent in the past decade.
The recent research confirms the Arctic sea ice shrank last year to its second-lowest extent since satellite monitoring began in 1979. The previous low was the summer of 2007. Some scientists are predicting there will be an ice-free Arctic in summer by 2012.
Since the findings by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, it has been widely accepted that the planet's warming is almost certainly due to greenhouse gases being released from the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing and cement manufacturing.
The new research warns greenhouse emissions could rapidly increase from the Arctic warming. The Arctic contains large amounts of greenhouse gas that has been locked in permafrost and below the Arctic Ocean.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Time to relax, some further hornbags..
Chinese New Year in town, and a few quick grab shots whilst taking a somewhat circular route to the pub.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
