Tag Archives: ocean

Oh god, they’ve discovered even more oil in Texas.

by ElliottClaudio Posted on November 18, 2016

Into the ocean, it seems. New satellite data show the total area of global sea ice dipping wayyy below the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s record for this time of year.

In fact, Arctic sea ice has dropped well below the next-lowest seasonal extent ever observed (which was in 2012). That year’s all-time record low was narrowly avoided in September, the month when Arctic sea ice levels typically are at their lowest. But the fact that ice levels are lower now than they were this same time in 2012 is part of what makes this latest data so alarming.

Meanwhile, Antarctic sea ice is also much lower than usual at the end of the Southern Hemisphere’s winter.

We’ve gotten somewhat used to broken records here, but watching sea ice levels flatten out when they should be peaking is well beyond normal understanding of record lows and highs.

Meanwhile, the temperature at the North Pole right now is a not-cool 36 degrees F above average. Is this what the Upside Down feels like?

Excerpt from – 

Oh god, they’ve discovered even more oil in Texas.

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An obscure disaster-relief law was used to clear the Dakota Access camp.

by LorrainJUC Posted on October 28, 2016

The Ross Sea marine reserve, which covers 600,000 square miles of the Southern Ocean off coast of the Antarctic, will be protected from commercial fishing for the next 35 years. Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an international consortium of governments, approved it unanimously on Thursday.

At nearly twice the size of Texas, the area is home to over 10,000 species of flora and fauna, including penguins, seals, whales, seabirds, and fish.

But Ross Sea is also important for the valuable role it plays in research on the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems.

Secretary of State John Kerry celebrated the park as “one of the last unspoiled ocean wilderness areas on the planet,” and a sign of “further proof that the world is finally beginning to understand the urgency of the threats facing our planet.”

There are some environmentalists who say the designation doesn’t go far enough. World Wildlife Foundation’s Chris Johnson noted that the agreement must be made permanent.

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An obscure disaster-relief law was used to clear the Dakota Access camp.

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The most accurate picture of the Dakota Access showdown is on social media.

by CarolineD27 Posted on October 28, 2016

The Ross Sea marine reserve, which covers 600,000 square miles of the Southern Ocean off coast of the Antarctic, will be protected from commercial fishing for the next 35 years. Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an international consortium of governments, approved it unanimously on Thursday.

At nearly twice the size of Texas, the area is home to over 10,000 species of flora and fauna, including penguins, seals, whales, seabirds, and fish.

But Ross Sea is also important for the valuable role it plays in research on the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems.

Secretary of State John Kerry celebrated the park as “one of the last unspoiled ocean wilderness areas on the planet,” and a sign of “further proof that the world is finally beginning to understand the urgency of the threats facing our planet.”

There are some environmentalists who say the designation doesn’t go far enough. World Wildlife Foundation’s Chris Johnson noted that the agreement must be made permanent.

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The most accurate picture of the Dakota Access showdown is on social media.

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Being a big fish in a small pond (or, uh, the ocean) could get you killed.

by LucianaCurrie Posted on September 14, 2016

Turns out the largest sea creatures are most likely to go extinct, according to research published today in Science.

The research, led by Stanford’s Jonathan Payne, compared modern marine vertebrates and mollusks to their ancestors in the fossil record, all the way up to the last mass extinction 66 million years ago. Today, unlike in any previous time studied, a 10 percent increase in body size means a 13 percent increase in extinction risk.

This differs from a run-of-the-mill mass extinction, when your likelihood of dying off has a lot more to do with, say, where you live in the ocean or where you fall on the evolutionary tree.

And the biggest-is-not-best pattern has human fingerprints all over it — just think of the mastodon and moa.

“Humans, with our technology, have made ourselves into predators that can go after very large animals,” says Payne. But there’s an upside. Unlike the huge environmental changes that spurred mass extinctions in the past (and perhaps the near future), human activity has been known to do a quick 180.

After all, the oceans have seen very little extinction in the Anthropocene. “We still have a huge opportunity to save almost everything,” Payne says.

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Being a big fish in a small pond (or, uh, the ocean) could get you killed.

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Antarctica is about to lose a chunk of ice the size of Delaware

by xf0ks040u Posted on August 24, 2016

the biggest loser

Antarctica is about to lose a chunk of ice the size of Delaware

By on Aug 24, 2016Share

This story was originally published by Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

A massive crack in one of Antarctica’s largest ice shelves has grown exponentially in recent months, and scientists worry a break-off could destabilize the entire structure.

For two years, United Kingdom-based Project MIDAS has been monitoring a large rift in the Larsen C ice shelf, located on the northern end of the Antarctic peninsula. And if the project’s latest findings are any indication, Larsen C could be headed for a similar fate as nearby Larsen A and Larsen B, which collapsed and disintegrated in 1995 and 2002, respectively.

Since March, the last time satellites were able to observe Larsen C, Project MIDAS said the crack has extended nearly 14 miles ― about three miles per month.

“As this rift continues to extend, it will eventually cause a large section of the ice shelf to break away as an iceberg,” according to the report.

Now, measuring some 80 miles in length, the crack could ultimately dislodge a chunk of ice the size of Delaware, The Washington Post reports.

At 21,000 square miles, Larsen C is the largest ice shelf in the region, according to a 2015 report. In recent years, however, what was once a small fracture has rapidly moved through the frozen structure, widening to more than 1,000 feet. The crack, scientists wrote in last year’s report, “is likely in the near future to generate the largest calving event since the 1980s and result in a new minimum area for the ice shelf.”

Project MIDAS previously estimated the breakaway would remove between 9 and 12 percent of the ice shelf.

“The trajectory of the rift now implies that the higher of these two estimates is more likely,” the MIDAS team wrote in its post last week. “Computer modeling suggests that the remaining ice could become unstable, and that Larsen C may follow the example of its neighbor Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 following a similar rift-induced calving event.”

In 2014, more than a decade after its collapse, scientists determined the event was triggered by warming air temperatures.

Since ice shelves float on the ocean’s surface, the calving event wouldn’t immediately raise sea levels. An event of this scale, however, could destabilize the entire shelf, resulting in its disintegration and the release of the glacier ice it holds back ― ultimately raising sea levels.

As for when the iceberg will make its break, that’s hard to say, Martin O’Leary, a glaciologist at Swansea University in the United Kingdom, told The Washington Post.

“It’s a lot like predicting an earthquake ― exact timings are hard to come by,” he told the Post. “Probably not tomorrow, probably not more than a few years.”

When it does, it could spark a vanishing act that resembles what happened at Larsen B, which NASA highlights in the video below:

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Antarctica is about to lose a chunk of ice the size of Delaware

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Climate activists arrested while protesting offshore drilling

by RonaldCatchpole Posted on August 24, 2016

Climate activists arrested while protesting offshore drilling

By on Aug 24, 2016Share

Four activists were arrested Tuesday in Louisiana for refusing to leave the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management office, the agency responsible for selling offshore drilling rights.

The activists were part of a group petitioning to end all new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, including the auction of 23.5 million acres in federal waters off the coast of Texas scheduled this week in the New Orleans Superdome. For the first time, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will close the auction to to the public and stream it live online to prevent disruption from protestors.

The activists delivered a petition with  184,000 signatures, according to the Associated Press, and demanded to meet with President Obama, who was in Baton Rouge touring damage from the worst disaster in the U.S. since Hurricane Sandy.

“In the midst of a climate-fueled disaster, which will most gravely impact those already marginalized in our society, moving forward with this auction is a terrible idea,” wrote the activist group Bold Louisiana in a statement. “Selling fossil fuels at the New Orleans Superdome — the site of one of the most visible and tragic instances of climate injustice in recent memory — is nothing short of insulting.”

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Climate activists arrested while protesting offshore drilling

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The Nation’s Scientists Have Some Questions for Donald Trump

by LillianCoppin Posted on August 13, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Every election cycle, science gets the short end of the stick. So a collective of scientists—56 scientific organizations representing 10 million scientists and engineers and spearheaded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science—tries to engage them in a debate by compiling a list of science-based questions, soliciting answers, and publishing them. (Disclosure: The author, Matt Miller, is currently completing an AAAS-sponsored fellowship at Slate.)

This year should be particularly interesting. As has been pointed out before, the two major presidential candidates this year hold vastly different views on science-related issues. Hillary Clinton actually read the line “I believe in science” as she accepted the Democratic nomination because apparently it’s come to that. Donald Trump seems to be the result of years of science denialism, as Phil Plait has argued in Slate. As Slate‘s Jordan Weissmann deftly points out, the Green Party’s Jill Stein, who’s polling way behind, isn’t so great on science-based evidence, either, despite being a medical doctor.

The list of questions has been offered up to Clinton, Trump, Stein, and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. They have until September 6 to send in their answers.

Most of the questions are entirely unsurprising (and sadly still controversial): AAAS asks how candidates plan to address climate change and growing global energy needs. But a few of the questions are new this year. For one thing, below a large picture of Prince, the group writes, “There is a growing opioid problem in the United States, with tragic costs to lives, families and society. How would your administration enlist researchers, medical doctors and pharmaceutical companies in addressing this issue?” Other new issues included immigration (presumably in response to Trump’s repeated anti-immigration remarks, though AAAS makes it relevant to scientists who studied here but live abroad), mental health, and biodiversity.

After failing to appear in the 2012 list of questions, scientific integrity was one issue that reappeared on this year’s list, following a high-profile case of fabricated data and more widespread concern over the state of the scientific community’s ability to properly conduct research.

It’s also important to note what’s not on the list. From the now-antiquated issue of stem cell research on 2008’s list to a complete lack of questions regarding potential dangers of artificial intelligence or emerging gene-editing techniques, the omissions indicate progress on various fronts. It is, after all, written by scientific luminaries who might take significantly less stock in fears over “mad scientism” than the general public.

Of course, many of the questions are framed ambitiously. “What efforts would your administration make to improve the health of our ocean and coastlines and increase the long-term sustainability of ocean fisheries?” posits one. “How will your administration support vaccine science?” asks another. The president obviously lacks the power to unilaterally pass laws that regulate emissions or mandate universal vaccinations for children. Sure, there is the power of executive action, which is often used to dial up or down on the extent to which the executive branch enforces a law or to mandate what federal employees do, but that’s pretty limited. This presidential power would probably have the largest effect on issues such as cybersecurity and biosecurity, which depend on efforts out of the Pentagon and the Defense Department, which the president has more control over.

Of course, the much more important result of this is understanding how our presidential hopefuls think about science. The president’s rhetoric allows him or her to set the tone of an administration and a country. If for no other reason, these questions are important because they will elicit an in-depth look into how each candidate views science, both generally and on an issue-by-issue basis. The responses will show us how the president thinks about data and research, questions that won’t come up in other places in all likelihood. A president appoints people—judges, Cabinet members, etc.—with similar attitudes and occasionally helps them get elected, both directly and indirectly.

The point being: When all levels of government see science as a benevolent force rather than an elite conspiracy, the result is sound, evidence-based policy. Let’s see how they do.

Taken from – 

The Nation’s Scientists Have Some Questions for Donald Trump

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Energy-Saving Technologies You Should Adopt

by CarmellE15 Posted on August 9, 2016

When it comes to saving energy, many people think investing in solar power or buying an electric car are the only options. But conserving doesn’t have to be so expensive. There are numerous ways you can adopt energy-saving technologies. Between smartphones and smart appliances, you can start saving dollars and energy all at the same time. Here are a few ways to do this:

Refrigerator

Today’s smart refrigerators are more than appliances that keep food fresh. They are also energy-efficient and come with computerized touch screens that help you keep track of what’s inside, what you need to replace or buy, and help you find recipes online. The Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator is rated one of the best smart refrigerators on the market.

While they aren’t cheap, your savings in the long run come from not wasting as much food since keeping track of it all is that much simpler. You can pair some devices with the touch screen allowing you to make phone calls without even picking up your phone. Pair up your smartphone or tablet to access your refrigerator even when you aren’t home. How’s that for convenience?

Washer/Dryer

Smart washers and dryers allow you to connect to your appliances when you aren’t home. You can activate their options through an app on your smartphone or tablet, and track how much energy they are using. You can start a load of laundry when you are out and about, and you can sign up to receive notifications on its progress. These appliances also allow you to keep track of maintenance and repairs.

Range

Cut down on the amount of time you spend in the kitchen with a new smart range. Some of the newer models allow you to download an app to your smartphone or tablet and send recipes straight to the stove automatically setting the temperature and cooking time. You can also monitor a food’s cooking time and progress. This same app also lets users monitor their food’s cooking progress. Smart ranges cut back on cooking time by using infrared cooking. Perfect for the home cook who prepares several meals a day.

Nest Thermostat and Smoke Alarm

A Nest Learning Thermostat learns your heating and air preferences allowing you to save the time of programming it yourself. This can also save you money over time. The company also makes carbon monoxide alarms and smoke detectors that will alert you through your smartphone when the batteries are running low, as well as when there is a pending emergency.

Quick Charge Technology

You can change the way you charge your smartphone or tablet with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 Technology. Devices with Snapdragon mobile processors can receive the energy-efficient, “lightning-fast” charging. This technology decreases the amount of time you spend connected to a charging cable. Select devices equipped with this technology include LG G5, HTC 10, and Lenovo ZUK Z2 Pro, to name a few

Power Adapter

Energy savings don’t always need to come by installing or doing something big. In fact, there are quite a few things you can do on a smaller scale. Charging and powering up your electronic devices can use a considerable amount of home energy.

However, companies such as Belkin offer solutions. Instead of continuously charging, these types of adapters can be set to for 30 minutes, three hours, or six hours. Once the time is up, they automatically shut off. This reduces standby power.

Saving energy doesn’t only mean installing solar panels on your roof or buying an electric car. There are many other ways people can go green. Whether you install a learning thermostat, invest in a smart appliance or find easy ways to save power with your every-day electronics, there are several energy-saving technologies that you should adopt.

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Jessica Oaks

Jessica Oaks is Associate Editor for Freshly Techy and a freelance technology writer.You can find her at the intersection of technology and sustainability.

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Energy-Saving Technologies You Should Adopt – August 9, 2016
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Energy-Saving Technologies You Should Adopt

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Solar Powered Airplane ‘Explores The Impossible’

by GeorgiannaRead Posted on July 28, 2016

When you get on an airplane to fly across the country – or even across the ocean – you probably don’t think too much about how much fuel is actually being used by that airplane you’re sitting on. You probably also don’t think about exactly what the environmental impact of that one flight might be, not to mention the collective environmental impact of all of the flights that happen around the world each and every day. The numbers add up pretty quickly!

According to this article, one flight from New York to Phoenix consumes approximately 6,900 gallons of fuel.
It’s estimated that there are approximately 100,000 flights around the world each day. If you do the math, that’s approximately 3.7 million flights per year throughout the world.

This data adds up to a whole lot of fuel usage and contribution to the world’s pollution problem – not to mention any other environmental issues that go with the petroleum and transportation industries.

An impulse for a solar powered airplane

Swiss pioneers Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg are trying to change the conversation on clean energy and the possibilities of solar powered airplane transportation. Image credit: Solar Impulse SA

If we’re looking honestly at ways to significantly reduce our impact on this earth, reducing fuel use is certainly one area worth looking at. We can buy hybrid and electric cars now, but the options aren’t so simple for flying. We have our choice of airlines, but the planes are all pretty much the same. For now, anyways.

Swiss pioneers Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg are trying to change the conversation and prove that energy doesn’t have to be a dirty word. Piccard (a psychiatrist and explorer with an avant-gardist vision) and Borschberg (an engineer and entrepreneur with managerial experience) have set out to achieve something that sounds pretty much impossible with our knowledge of energy and technology today. Piccard and Borschberg are attempting the first around the world solar powered airplane flight, using no fuel with absolutely no harmful emissions.

Can you imagine if every flight around the world every day could make that claim? How would that change the world?

Be the change you want to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi

That famous quote is most certainly appropriate in this inspiring story. Instead of huffing and puffing about the state our planet is currently in, Piccard, Borschberg and their team are doing something about it. They are pouring everything they have into demonstrating that solar technology can do far more than power a few lightbulbs in your home – it can power the world if that’s where we set our intentions.

Solar Impulse 2

Solar Impulse 2, a completely solar powered airplane, is the result of the dreams of these two men. This airplane is powered only by the sun, with absolutely no fuel or polluting emissions. And there is no back-up to the solar powered energy.

This solar powered airplane has the wingspan of a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, the weight of a typical family car and the power of a small motorcycle. Solar Impulse 2 is the largest aircraft ever built with such a low weight. Even though the plane has a huge wingspan, the pilot is the only person that can be on the plane – so every flight is a solo flight.

A lot of work went into the design and construction of Solar Impulse 2. It took 12 years of research and development to develop this aircraft, which is powered by dozens of environmentally friendly products and processes.

Some of these features include:

Ultralight material
Solar cells
Energy dense batteries
Lightweight LEDs
Low density thermal insulation
Energy efficient electric motors
Smart energy system
Protective resins

This amazing 360 degree video below shows you what it’s like for this aircraft to take off and land – and see the inside of the cockpit. 

Solar Impulse 2 sets record for solo flights

The Solar Impulse 2 took its maiden flight from Abu Dhabi to Muscat, Oman on March 9, 2015. They have since made it quite far along in their journey and will soon make it back to Abu Dhabi and complete their around the world flight goals.

Earlier this year, the Solar Impluse 2 team set a record for solo flights (so far, the Solar Impulse prototype has set 8 world records). The pilot flew non-stop for 5 days and 5 nights without fuel from Nagoya, Japan to Hawaii. After 117 hours and 52 minutes and approximately 8,900 km in the air, the pilot had to land the plane in Hawaii due to unforeseen battery damage due to overheating.

Image Credit: Solar Impulse SA

After many tests and repairs were completed, the Solar Impluse 2 was able to cross the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco, where it landed safely. The pilots (Piccard and Borschberg both pilot the aircraft) are currently continuing on their journey around the world. This is a truly historic event to watch, as every day puts them one step closer to completing the first around-the-world trip without a drop of carbon-based fuel.

Follow along

While the Solar Impluse 2’s exact travel dates are undetermined, you can sign up to receive flash updates on the plane’s adventures here. It’s a lot of fun to keep up to date and watch where the Solar Impulse 2 is in its journey. I can’t wait to see it make its final landing in Abu Dhabi! What a great feeling that will be for Piccard and Borschberg, and what a great step forward in clean energy for our world.

A message to the world

This historic attempt to fly a solar powered airplane around the world is certainly sending all of us a clear message about our energy consumption. If we can harness the plane’s clean energy technologies on the ground in our day-to-day lives, its speculated that we could cut the world’s energy consumption in half, saving precious natural resources and improving our overall quality of life.

The pilots have made it their mission to spread this message to the general public at large, students that will shape the world’s future, key decision-makers in government and business, and entrepreneurs all around the world.

Where would you like to see solar powered airplane technology go?

Feature image credit: Solar Impulse SA

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Solar Powered Airplane ‘Explores The Impossible’

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Forget recycling. Let’s turn old plastic into fuel.

by LaraKiek280 Posted on July 8, 2016

fanplastic

Forget recycling. Let’s turn old plastic into fuel.

By on Jul 8, 2016 6:07 amShare

Plastic is a big problem, like, bigger-than-Texas big. Giant islands of plastic trash — one in the North Pacific Ocean is estimated by some to cover an area twice the size of the Lone Star State — are accumulating at sea, with some 9 million metric tons added to the oceans in 2015 alone. That’s a lot of sippy cups.

One possible way to mitigate the mind-boggling volume of waste: Make it valuable. Scientists envision a future where, instead of dumping more plastic trash into the sea, we convert it all into fuel. Chemists at UC Irvine recently devised a new method to break down polyethylene — the most common form of plastic — into its constituent elements, including diesel.

Existing methods of breaking down the material involve heating it to 700 degrees F, or using corrosive chemicals to do the job. The new process uses certain hydrocarbons and a metal catalyst to scramble plastic molecules into useful fuel compounds. Their process, report the scientists, is both less toxic and twice as energy efficient as alternatives.

Before you ask: No, the technology is not yet ready to go commercial. “The catalyst has to be 10,000 or even one million times more efficient than it is now, before it’s practical enough for real-world application,” says Zheng Huang, one of the study’s authors. His team is now working on improving these — honestly, not terrific — odds.

Moreover, the mission to hoover up all the plastic already in our oceans is quixotic, at best. And almost certainly not carbon neutral, with all the boats, nets, money, and manpower involved. The best thing to do, obvs, is to not use more plastic. Just stop.

In the meantime, however, people are thinking seriously about managing what is likely to be an ongoing deluge of plastic. New companies such as Agilyx and Vadxx are gearing up to use existing plastic-to-fuel technology to take on trash at a large scale. According to the Vadxx website, each facility will be able to transform 40 million pounds of plastic into 4 million gallons of fuel each year, with no hazardous byproducts and minimal emissions. That’s enough to fuel about 60,000 cars for an entire year.

Or — stretch goal — we could build a society with walkable cities and zero-waste economies. None of this would be a problem in the first place, and there’d be no need for trail-blazing plastic-to-fuel startups. Sorry, Vadxx.

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Forget recycling. Let’s turn old plastic into fuel.

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