Environmental News

Recommended reading:

BBC - Earth - Nobody can really tell you what a flower is

 

The article mentioned here:

Indonesia haze may have led to 100,000 premature deaths, says report - BBC News

Is not yet on ERL website. 100k people is an awful lot though. Burn trees or coal, you get those pesky 2-micron particles. Understandable if it does not seem to square with personal experience. Here comes the verbage

You have been around a smoky campfire and not died. You were in the near field, with a lot of acrid chemicals. You coughed and retreated from high exposure.

Much further away, things happen. Larger particles sediment out, water-soluble stuff rains out, and PAH (among many others) react with hydroxyl radical. To a first approximation, what remains airborne is PM2*.

In the far field, a given exposure to PM2 is actually more palatable. Plus, well mixed, so you can't go somewhere else to breathe. PM2 (which has a very low deposition velocity**) can plunk down on alveoli. Then the unfun begins. One might suppose that evolution could sort that out somehow. It certainly has 'tried'. But 50ish meters of lung surface area is a lot to keep clean.

*I choose not to call it PM2.5, which adds an unmerited second digit of precision.

** Whatever that means

 

Cats and rats are extinction brats:

Invasive predators and global biodiversity loss

 

Letter from scientists about climate change

Responsible Scientists

Only a few signers have already been maligned as liars/tools/fools by folks who take on such tasks. So much more work for them...

 

Meteorites fall everywhere, but not as discernibly as in Antarctica:

FAQs | ANSMET, The Antarctic Search for Meteorites

(go down the page to 'Why Antarctica?')

What a thing. Ice flow and wind deflation leaves behind piles of (unearthly) rocks. You just 'glove up' and collect.

 

Science writing can can make a small (or maybe large) area accessible to general readers. Good work:

Bdellovibrio, the cannibalistic drug coming to humanity’s rescue | Ars Technica

 

Published this week in Science (magazine), that cosmic rays may not have much effect on cloud formation after all.

"...the relatively weak dependence on ion concentrations indicates that for the processes studied variations in cosmic ray intensity do not significantly affect climate via nucleation in the present-day atmosphere."

E. M. Dunne et al., Science DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf2649

 

Terraforming Mars is not a new topic, but if interested:

Global Warming Could Be The Best Way To Terraform Mars | Popular Science

What a thing if we still have doubters that CO2 warms Earth at a time when it is demonstrated for another planet.

It could not happen soon though. At present we are still either botching Mars landings or missing the planet entirely 1/3 of the time. But possibly, when the youngest here are still alive, it could get started.

Longer, 10^7 to 10^8 year time scale, solar output increases. Earth might get warmer than we'd like. Does not seem clever to oppose that by lowering [CO2] to below 100 ppm, unless photosynthesis can be made to work at such low levels. I mean it's not like we can eat canned food in the long run. What I find interesting over that time scale is that Mars might terraform itself without human intervention. Depends on how much H2O and CO2 are currently frozen there. Depends on a lot of things.

However many galactic civilizations there are, fewer for sure have a 'backup planet' of reasonable size further out. If physicists are wrong about stellar evolution and it goes cooler, Venus might constitute another backup closer in. I mean, how many 'just so' planetary systems could there be? If such things don't boggle your mind, I declare you boggle-proof.

 

We have previously looked at food production in terms of 'embodied' CO2 release. Here is another:


Stephen Clune, Enda Crossin, Karli Verghese (2017). Systematic review of greenhouse gas emissions for different fresh food categories. Journal of Cleaner Production 140, 766-783.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.082

Results seem as expected, with veggies about 2 and ruminant meats about 25. Something like this could be redone as protein yield per CO2. Or any aspect of food yield per amount of water required.

Not advocating meat-free here. Only advocating that y'all should know things.

 

A new +CO2 model (yeah, I know) publication suggests +2.5 oC during 21st century.

Friedrich T Timmermann A Tigchelaar M Timm OE Ganopolski A (2016). Nonlinear climate sensitivity and its implications for future greenhouse warming. Science Advances 2: e1501923 doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1501923

 

Youse guys read such things on your own and don't need prompting. Yeah right. Anyway, for environmental and science more broadly, websites are ranked and I'm happy to send you to realclearscience for "top 10 websites in science for 2016"

Not least because of
Quanta Magazine: Illuminating Science

and within that
Long-Term Evolution: The Richard Lenski Interview | Quanta Magazine

Richard might not mind me revealing that he is an awfully nice fellow Injecting a bit of such personal stuff is tricky in such writing. (I probably botched it here) But it is helpful for impedance matching.

 

This might fit better into 'amazing animals', but since I'm here:

The poison arrow frog’s toxin has an anti-toxic evil twin | Ars Technica

It 'ticks the boxes'. A gee-whiz animal, and why. A little bit about dissolves organic chemicalsrotating polarized light one way or the other. Probably among the things that made y'all hate taking Organic Chemistry class, but it's just so neat.

Don't recall ever reading before that an opposite optical isomer would exhibit an opposite biological effect. That is going to lead to some serious meditation

 

Another to read:

Worlds Within Us - Archaeology Magazine

A long article with several undefined technical terms, but still enjoyable. I hope.

Anyway you'll know the other thing that 'calculus' means.

Makes me wonder about effects of (those pesky) dental hygienists 'resetting' our oral ecosystems. It is an explorable scientific topic. Not that those are few

 

Basket of explorables

 

Antibiotic resistance:

How scientists are preparing for a world without antibiotics | Popular Science

If you can suspend judgement on the gloomy/doomy thing here, many ways to interact effectively with unwanted bacteria are well presented.

We have not yet scratched the surface of bacteria in soils that may help fight against other bacteria, fungi and viruses. Soil is such a war zone. Certainly could merit its own separate discussion.

 

As a soil-carbon enthusiast I am obliged to pass this along

Earth warming to climate tipping point, warns study - BBC News
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v540/n7631/full/nature20150.html?cookies=accepted

There are certainly uncertainties remaining and mitigation options to explore. But it is not good to disturb slumber of this massive beast.