Environmental News

EPA has issued new rules for methane emissions from oil and gas works. Would have to read it all to whether coal works are covered. I'd suspect not though.

Regulatory Actions | Oil and Natural Gas Air Pollution Standards | Air & Radiation | U.S. EPA

There can be methane in coal mines, explaining why they sometimes blow up. Note, carbon monoxide (see canaries) is also explosive in the presence of oxygen. Mountaintop removal exposing coal seams releases methane (if it is there) directly to atmosphere. AFAIK neither path to the atmosphere has ever been quantified.

Ah but coal is on the way out in US, I hear you say. That may be so, but all emissions to the atmosphere get globalized. Except those that regional rain can wash out.

 

Act Now or Pay Later: Protecting a billion people in climate-threatened coastal cities

Newly released by Christian Aid, and easy to find.

They focus on combined effects of increased flooding and (as generally predicted) sea level rise. Most interesting is the conclusion that $1 spend on mitigation (things like coastal defenses) prevents $7 in loss and damage. They may be right. Of 21 citations, 2 are to the primary literature.

 

Very preliminary work that may lead to higher crop yields. We like higher. But it also is 'GMO' and not everyone likes that.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160517122311.htm

 

So many chemicals...

US chemical regulations finally updated | Chemistry World

 

Air pollution vs. human health

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160609222226.htm

 

A new climate model is described here:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160718132957.htm

Frankly I thought they were already at the stage of subtracting out these apparent ocean downturns, and letting CO2 shine through. Because this one is still empirical at that level. When someone presents even an ocean only model that sloshes in (sort of) the right way, that will be news.

Should you desire to read the publication, and not pay $32 (or whatever it is) I report that the author responded to my email request within one hour. Not a record, but close. Obviously not everyone fritters their time away on internet chats

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A forest fire in a 'hot' place:

In Ukraine, forest burning in Chernobyl zone | Donbass International News Agency

It is not reported if anybody is collecting airborne particulates, downwind, for counting Sr and Cs. Should be done, with due attention paid to protect human workers unlucky enough to be assigned that sampling task.

 

UN releases its first "Sustainable Development Goals Report". Easy enough to find where to download the 56-page report.

Whether or not one agrees with all the 17 goals, it might be worth knowing how things stand in re.

 

Link below is lurid and low-science (by my standards), but let's stretch the envelope a bit and make the best of it:

The Horrifying Reason Siberia Is Dealing With an Anthrax Outbreak

Reindeers is a darn good hook. Who doesn't love them? Besides the whole Santa thing, they are tastier than venison (to me). Survive part of the year on lichen, and that should be extreme in anyone's book.

Anthrax is a soil bacterium. I don't know what it does, most of the time. Most soil bacteria are poorly known; probably they are either decomposers (make the exoenzymes) or thieves (feed on enzyme products that somebody else 'paid for'). One can readily appreciate that soil environments are 'fight club' for microbes, with workers and cheaters and police and all sorts of mayhem. Bacillus anthracis, for their part, make some unpleasant toxins that presumably have a purpose in their real lives. They are quite common and rarely get nasty on humans. They were 'weaponized' by converting their resting stage (spores) into form that could form an aerosol that be readily inhaled. You all know something about that part.

Reideer subject above apparently got exposed to prior dead ones killed by anthrax. Corpses 'melted out' and there you go. If we are to learn anything from this, it is that the current (quite widespread) 'melting out' can present problems needing to be watched for. Does not only present wonderfulness like Otzi.

Yes this has elements of a gruesome movie plot, else Gizmodo would not be on the job...

 

I reflect for a moment on climate models. Have expressed here many times that I find them unsatisfying. Also, that I would not have explored them without stimulus from mojo (who has been thanked).

But I wonder if this modeling may not have things the wrong way around. Obviously we live in the atmosphere (bottom), not the sea. Here we have thermometers etc. All (meaningful) external energy enters through the top, and different energy exits there as well. So climate models start with the atmosphere and are all 'physics and thermodynamics' there. So far so good. The ocean gets included in much more empirical ways. It is too big, too complicated, and poorly instrumented.

That ocean is about 270 times larger than the atmosphere in terms of mass and energetic goings-on. A completely different way to begin modeling the earth system is to start with a hydrographic model, known (as well as they are) currents and 'physics and thermodynamics' there. Model is 'working' when it produces (unforced) annual, decadal, and slower variations that are well known to occur. Until that point, everything about the atmosphere would have been empirical. Then comes the big join.

If modelers can't really do oceans, the larger system product will always be uncertain, thus assailable, thus possibly unfit to drive policy decisions.

 

The oceans also contain about 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere. Mostly as dissolved inorganic bicarbonate ion. Thus in both ways, things related to climate mostly happen in oceans.

A good starting point. One would reach the same conclusion if the only thing known about the planet was a faraway photo. "That place is mostly water".

Starting over does not mean throw away the atmosphere model. In isolation it is pretty good (and the cloud parts are getting better). Simply suggesting to build a (real, mechanistic) ocean model. Then you can bolt the atmosphere onto it.

 

BAMS' 2015 state of the climate is available now:

State of the Climate - American Meteorological Society

 

Publication of a book isn't news, especially 9 months after. But this one seems rather nice and useful

Even reading just the parts on Amazon's look inside gave me happy feelings. Don't know if that is compelling or not

 

Journal = PNAS. First author = Swann. Subject = at higher [CO2], plants are more resistant to drought.

This is not quite news, but perhaps somebody here wants to to stay current in such matters.

It has been a while since anybody here has suggested that journals refuse to publish 'good news' about +CO2. Perhaps that misconception has faded from view.

 

A surprising number of new mammal species have recently been found in Philippines. The journal article title "Doubling diversity: a cautionary tale of previously unsuspected mammalian diversity on a tropical oceanic island". New finds are all ~mouse sized, and baited with fried coconut and peanut butter (will have to try that...). A few things:

An ecology 'truth' is that large islands are speciation hotspots. OK.
Another is that mid-elevation sites are particularly species rich. OK again.
There could very well be many unknown mammal species elsewhere, although probably not large ones. You may find it surprising that 'the search' has not been aggressive.
This place gets a lot of typhoons. but animal diversity manages. Somehow.
Tropical lands that have been 'repurposed' are mainly in lowlands so far. Higher lands, wherever they are, well somebody ought to look. And not just for 'mice'.

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The largest reforestation projects are in China. Usually planted with one or few tree species. This approach under performs in terms of 'everything else' biodiversity.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160907125303.htm

To be fair, almost everybody everywhere else also does few-species reforestation. If system diversity is any sort of a goal, it might not be too much cost/trouble to boost that. This is a sideways 'ad' for my employer Xishuangbanna, who are researching 'everything else' biodiversity in forest restoration. But our geographical reach is small within China.

 

Library for glacial ice cores:

It’s Too Late to Save the Glaciers, but Scientists Are Saving Some Pieces in an Antarctic Vault | WIRED

I think this is good 'media on science' because it emphasizes human side of the activity, and leaves out 'all you people are responsible, for riding the CO2 wagon'. Nobody wants to hear that anyway.

It would appeal to me more with details about what can be 'read' from layered ice, and how, and why it does not survive melting. Perhaps that is a minority viewpoint.

 

The US SW coast has now a large human population requiring water. current undersupply could persist for a long time:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160915131524.htm

But let us suppose that this gloom is wrong. Previous century's best water supply is still not enough for current and growing population. That is the matter needing attention.