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Report Finds Agriculture A Leading Cause of Climate Change
If we want to combat our changing climate, we need to rethink the way we produce food, says new report by the United Nations
by Rodale Institute
August 9, 2019
If we want to combat our changing climate, we need to rethink the way we produce food, says new report by the United Nations.
The Problem
A new report released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which examines how land use changes have contributed to the warming of Earth’s atmosphere, has concluded that agriculture and forestry have contributed nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.
While fossil fuel usage is still identified as the largest driver of climate change, emissions from livestock, nitrogen fertilizers, and deforestation have significant effects on the warming of the atmosphere.
The only way to keep global warming below the 2-degree Celsius threshold is to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, partly by changing the way we use land and produce food.
The report underscores the urgency of adopting regenerative and holistic farming techniques that are able to sequester carbon, increase soil health, and reduce fossil fuel use.
Climate change can also negatively affect agriculture, states the report. As the Earth experiences more extreme weather events, agricultural systems must be resilient to flooding, droughts, and other meteorological anomalies in order to continue feeding the population.
READ THE REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Solution
Regenerative organic farming prioritizes working with natural systems to produce food, instead of relying on synthetic inputs, which can help mitigate climate change.
Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial has found that organic systems use 45% less energy, release 40% fewer carbon emissions, and have the potential to produce yields up to 40% higher in times of drought over conventional systems.
Utilizing methods like organic no-till allows the soil to remain undisturbed, capitalizing on its potential to sequester carbon in the ground and return nutrients to our food.
As illustrated by the IPCC’s report, changing our land use practices while maintaining food security is critical for the future of our society. Regenerative organic agriculture is one solution for the problem of continuing to feed the world while healing our planet.
The Farms of The Future Were Built For Outer Space. Will They Work On Earth?
It will be years until NASA is ready for a journey to the red planet, but if Earth continues to suffer from climate change, Mars could come to us.
It will be years until NASA is ready for a journey to the red planet, but if Earth continues to suffer from climate change, Mars could come to us.
August 13, 2019
Visitors look at vegetables growing under artificial light on a vertical farm, in the IKEA: Gardening Will Save the World garden, in London on May 20th, 2019. (Photo: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images)
On Mars, we'll all farm underground. Our crops will grow in a greenhouse, where large, parabolic mirrors focus the sun's weak rays and transmit them through fiber optic cables. We'll harvest vegetables to eat—but also the purified water that evaporates from their leaves. We'll all be vegan, because raising animals for food will be too expensive. And, most importantly, the plants will give us oxygen.
"That's the starting point to a whole civilization right there," says Utah State University researcher Bruce Bugbee. This is Bugbee's vision, one he's been dreaming of and testing and revising for years as a plant engineer with NASA.
Astronauts going to Mars can eat all the freeze-dried food they're able to ship, but if humans are going to survive on the planet they'll need to plants to produce oxygen. Not just any photosynthesizer will do: Mars is a difficult environment, with many challenges for farmers. Crops will need to be able to thrive in a small area, retain their nutrient content, and still taste good. Structures where they grow on the surface will need to withstand basketball-sized meteorites. The technology used to grow the plants will take massive amounts of energy. Mars also presents the ultimate recycling challenge, since astronauts can't pack all the water and nutrients they need on a two-and-a-half-year space flight.
Bugbee and his colleagues have been working on all these problems for decades, in a sometimes fantastical bid to support life on Mars (and, in the meantime, on space shuttles). Decades ago, NASA researchers ruled out some of the easiest plants to grow indoors, like algae: not enough sustenance, Bugbee says. Very tall crops like corn and sugarcane were also nixed because they wouldn't fit easily into the plant habitats.
What the astronauts really wanted was something green. "They say that having the texture and flavor and color and aromas of fresh foods apparently—and I believe it—really does add to the experience of eating," says NASA plant physiologist Raymond Wheeler.
Scientists started looking at traditional field crops like lettuce, tomatoes, and broccoli. Right now, astronauts are growing mixed greens 250 miles above Earth on the International Space Station, using two small, sealed greenhouse units called Veggie. NASA researchers have planned and adjusted and measured for everything—including which types of lettuce tastes best in space. Astronauts' clogged sinuses already make it so they "can't taste much of anything," according to Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, but the researchers are also curious to see whether the space environment affects a plant's flavor compounds and nutrient levels. Panels of specialists at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston typically conduct formal taste tests, but sometimes the researchers sample a leaf or two themselves.
What Bugbee and his team didn't expect is that the technology they created for this grandiose, futuristic mission would become somewhat eclipsed by those using it to farm on more familiar terrain.
In 2017, NASA commissioned a space farming project to figure out how to grow food on Mars, but they were also hoping to make some discoveries that could improve crop yields overall. The problems that space farmers of the future will face are similar to those already plaguing earthbound agriculture as climate change grows worse, including a dwindling water supply and poor soil. Now, researchers in Utah and three California universities—NASA's partners with the Center for the Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space—are working on projects that can sustain life not just on Mars, but on Earth.
"I think the reason NASA funds us is a powerful human fascination with being able to go inside a closed system and grow your own food," Bugbee says. "What if the atmosphere went bad and we had to build a big dome ... and go inside and live in it?"
In 1988, Wheeler built the first working vertical farm—growing plants on shelves, typically in a warehouse or storage container—at the agency's Kennedy Space Center. Wheeler's farm was 25 feet high and equipped with a hydroponic system for growing plants in water and high-pressure sodium lamps, the type commonly used for street lighting. All together, it was 20 square meters of growing space—almost 90,000 times less than the size of the average outdoor United States farm. According to Wheeler's calculations, it would take 50 square meters of plants to provide enough food and oxygen—and remove enough carbon dioxide—for one human in space. (Astronauts won't be using sodium lamps, though: A few years after Wheeler's innovation, a different group of NASA-funded researchers patented another significant piece of technology to indoor farmers: LEDs, which require much less electricity than sodium lights and are now used to power most greenhouses.)
Wheeler was focused on optimizing the area inside a chamber aboard a NASA space shuttle—and up seemed like the best way to go. "One of the things you have to think about in space is volume efficiency," he says. "You're vertically and dimensionally constrained." The team had to pick shorter crops: wheat, soybeans, potatoes, lettuce, and tomatoes.
In space, resources are limited: NASA scientists have to extract and reuse the nutrients from excess plant material and human waste; they collect water from the condensation that collects in the closed chambers. Here on Earth, water is also growing increasingly precious—climate change will make droughts more frequent and severe, devastating crop yields and making some staple crops like corn and soybeans obsolete. Every day, Earth looks a little more desolate, a little more like Mars.
When Wheeler started, the term "vertical farming" didn't exist yet. Today it's a $10 billion industry attracting interest from Silicon Valley and start-ups all over the world. Its acolytes believe the technology will one day completely replace conventional field agriculture, allowing businesses to grow crops year-round and indoors, insulated from the next drought or flood and the effects of climate change. "People imagine that we'll grow everything indoors, in skyscrapers in the middle of Manhattan," Bugbee says. "It's a wildly popular idea."
Sonio Lo, the chief executive officer of the biggest vertical farming company in the world, Crop One Holdings, says she believes vertical farming can "liberate agriculture from climate change and geography."
Crop One broke ground on the world's largest vertical farm last November in Dubai: a five-story, 130,000-square-feet warehouse, capable of producing three tons of leafy greens a day. The company is also growing chard, arugula, and other greens in large, sealed rooms—year-round. "I made my whole management team stand in the supermarket and give out samples of what we were growing in the middle of the Boston winter," Lo says.
Soon people across the U.S. can try it too. Crop One is building new farms in the northeast, southwest, and California, where it will grow food to sell through its FreshBox Farms brand.
While researchers have been quick to condemn vertical farming's promises as over-hyped, even the industry's greatest critics acknowledge that this approach eliminates some of the challenges with conventional agriculture: Since vertical farms are located in compact warehouses, they're often located much closer to their markets than, say, the corn belt is to a city, allowing producers to cut down on food waste and save on transportation costs—a major contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
The lettuce grows in a controlled environment, free of pests and pathogens, meaning farmers can grow food without pesticides or herbicides, which have a massive environmental and human-health cost. Vertical farmers can also recycle their nutrients—like astronauts do in space—preventing phosphorus or nitrogen from flooding into the world's waterways and wreaking havoc with algal blooms. And indoor growth systems can be very productive: When all the conditions are right, researchers have surpassed record crop yields in the field by as much as six times.
Lo says that a vertical farm using 100 percent renewables has one-tenth of the carbon impact of a conventional farm. But few companies have reached this goal; most are still moving toward a combination of renewable energy and non-renewables to power the electric lights used to grow the plants. It takes a lot of land to generate that much solar—about five acres of solar panels to supply the light for just one acre of indoor farm, Bugbee estimates. That's why many have resorted to fossil fuels, breaking one of vertical farming's great promises. "It takes massive amounts of fossil fuel energy, so, environmentally, it's really a disaster," Bugbee says. "Those people have used many of the principles that we've developed through NASA."
Bugbee's current project could help with that. His lab at Utah State is using LEDs and fiber optics to grow plants under different types of lights, with different ratios of colors—ultra violet, blue, green, red, far red (out of the limit of human vision)—to manipulate both photosynthesis and plant shape. The goal, he says, is to find "the most efficient system possible." Right now, the technology is too expensive: millions of dollars to light one building. But eventually, he believes fiber optics will replace electric lights for good.
But there are other qualms with vertical farming: Instead of helping to colonize space—the future that Mars researchers envision for their technology—vertical farms might take over city real estate, at a time when housing costs are extremely high. In some countries and some industries, it already has: Japan has had flourishing plant factories for the last 10 years. The fledgling cannabis industry has also started to ramp up its indoor production, poised to become even more profitable.
Lo says it won't be long until greens grown indoors cost the same as those in the field. "Field-grown food will continue to rise in cost, and course the climate is also changing," she says. "From a cost perspective, vertical farming will become competitive very quickly."
Others are more skeptical: "Economically, will they succeed? That question is still ongoing, because they always have to compete with field agriculture," Wheeler says. "What's their cost to pay for electric power? What are their labor costs? Are these operations sustainable? All of this is sort of a living experiment right now."
Technology for farming in climate change may be a by-product of NASA's research, but it has helped the agency ensure funding for its work in space. In response to the skeptic who doubts whether it's worth figuring out how to farm for a Mars mission we might never see, one only has to point to vertical farms in Boston or Seattle that already use some of NASA's innovations.
But Bugbee believes these earthly pursuits can be just as futuristic (or deluded) as those meant for space. "People that do it say they're going to save the planet ... but they have to have a lot of fossil fuels," he says. "It'll tell you all kinds of rosy pictures about it—that it saves water, it saves fertilizer."
He's not quite comfortable with his research being used to prop up this industry, now flooded with billions of dollars of venture capital. "I'm not doing it to make this more possible on Earth," he says. "We get asked all the time about the spinoffs: Could you do this, could you do that."
We may never make it to Mars. It will be years until NASA is ready for a journey to the red planet, and many more until Bugbee would be able to build his greenhouse underground, tucked away from meteorites. But if Earth continues on this collision course, Mars could come to us.
TAGS CLIMATE CHANGE VERTICAL FARMING NASA OUTER SPACE PLANTS AGRICULTURE
BY EMILY MOON
Emily Moon is a staff writer at Pacific Standard. Previously she worked at the Chicago Sun-Times and the Herald-Times in Bloomington, Indiana. She is a graduate of Northwestern University.
Get Ready For New Forms of Extreme Weather: Hurricanes Plus Heat Waves
Most discussion of climate change and extreme weather focuses on how existing weather hazards such as heat waves, floods, and droughts are likely to become more frequent and intense
by Sarah DeWeerdt | Jul 23, 2019
Most discussion of climate change and extreme weather focuses on how existing weather hazards such as heat waves, floods, and droughts are likely to become more frequent and intense.
But climate change could also spark the emergence of new forms of extreme weather that are especially difficult to prepare for because we’ve never seen them before.
Suppose, for example, a powerful tropical cyclone causes widespread power outages and then, before the grid can be repaired, a heat wave hits. The lack of power for air conditioning to mitigate the heat could put a lot of people at risk.
Until now, such events have been rare. But according to an analysis published yesterday in Nature Climate Change, if high carbon emissions continue these combined tropical cyclone-heat events could be an annual occurrence by the end of the century.
Researchers gathered records of 121 major tropical cyclones that made landfall in the Northwest Pacific, South Indian, and North Atlantic basins between 1979 and 2017. They computed the probability of a cyclone affecting given location on land for each day of the year.
They also used temperature records to compute the probability of locations experiencing a heat index of 40.6 °C (105 °F) for each day of the year. This enabled them to model the likelihood of a heat wave occurring in the 30 days after a storm’s landfall. A 2015 map of global population added the final piece: how many people might be affected by these tropical cyclone-heat events.
Such events can be expected to occur about once a decade, the researchers calculated, and to affect about 400,000 people. In fact, four tropical cyclones were followed by heat waves between 1979 and 2017. But as luck would have it, they all occurred in remote areas of northwest Australia, with only about 1,000 people affected.
Several other major storms have been followed by heat that fell just short of the 40.6 °C cutoff, including Cyclone Marian that hit Bangladesh in 1991, Hurricane Emily that struck the Caribbean and Mexico in 2007, and Typhoon Rammasun that smashed into the Philippines in 2014.
And as climate change proceeds, such storms will become more and more likely to be followed by heat waves. For example, with 2 °C of global warming, there’s a greater than 70% chance that a storm like Cyclone Marian would be followed by extreme heat.
Heat waves following tropical cyclones would be expected to occur 7 out of every 30 years and affect 1.2 million people with 1.5 °C of warming, and 11 out of every 30 years affecting 2 million people with 2 °C of warming. If global average temperature increases by 4 °C, they could occur once a year or more with 11.8 million people at risk.
If anything, the analysis probably underplays the risk. That’s because the calculations don’t take into account the fact that tropical cyclones are predicted to happen more often with climate change, nor do they account for future population growth in regions prone to both tropical cyclones and extreme heat. Plus, the heat index tends to be elevated in the days before a tropical storm – meaning evacuations in the path of a coming storm could also become increasingly dangerous.
Source: Matthews T. et al. “An emerging tropical cyclone-deadly heat compound hazard.” Nature Climate Change 2019..
Meteorologists Affirm Farmer Angst About Summer Heat, Early Frost
“The problem we’re facing is this is the wettest year in the last hundred and 24 years according to NASA.”
July 09, 2019
Mother Nature has thrown farmers curve ball after curve ball in the 2019 growing season. First a long, late and historically wet winter delayed planting for much of the Corn Belt. Now, many farmers are facing hot dry weather and losing sleep over the thought of an early frost. Unfortunately, Kirk Heinz and Michael Clark of BAMWX.com validated those fears on an episode of AgriTalk this week.
“Into the Ohio Valley and Tennessee Valley area, if you can envision from there to the desert southwest with a with a void in the middle, from [tropical storm] Barry, that's where the risk is keeping things too dry,” Heinz explained adding a pressure ridge will continue to keep that area dry between now and July 23. “It's been wet, but you know, hey, we're kind of turning things around.”
Basically, the areas that have been swampiest will be the hottest and driest until at least July 23. What’s special about that date? Well, forecasting models used by Clark and Heinz show that would be the timeframe where a weather pattern shake-up could occur.
“That that would be the date where we start raising the red flags in terms of, if that does not develop, we could see this extended warmer, drier period linger longer, deeper into July and maybe even early August,” Clark explains. “That's why it's a top priority for us.”
Farmers across the country are expressing concern about how their crops could endure a hot and dry growing season.
“We've spoken with some of our guys around here who are concerned. Everything's just way behind and there's not a good root system and so people are worried,” he said. “Throughout Central Indiana where we are if it's not a rock-solid ground it's brown grass and that just doesn't look. It's literally flashed dry, it's pretty crazy. I never would have thought that it could have gone like this that fast, but it has. Anyone can tell you that around here.”
Setting Records
While analysts, farmers and meteorologists search for analog years to compare 2019 to, Clark and Heinz point out at this is a year for the record books.
“The problem we're facing is this is the wettest year in the last hundred and 24 years according to NASA,” Clark said.
Still, 1977 is one of the years they are referencing as they seek to forecast long-range weather patterns for the remainder of the growing season.
“We try to base our data set off of similar occurrences but it's hard to do that when it's number one,” he said. “Our top years heading into August for example, is 1977. Additionally, 1991, 1993 and 2004 are some other loose fits.”
When the BAMWX team looks at an analog year, they’re looking for atmospheric similarities.
“What that means is the atmosphere behaved in a similar fashion during that time frame, so it gives us an idea of, based on our forecast methods and the some of the historical analogs, that we're not crazy when we say ‘hey, this should happen,’” Clark explained. “When I say ’93, I'm not saying that, we're going to mirror 1993. It's a lot of similarities and how the pattern was controlled by the atmosphere are still present now as they were in 93. It's not a one to one correlation.”
Early Frost On Tap?
“It's no surprise that we have a growing season that started significantly later than when it normally does,” Clark said. “So a normal frost date in this kind of scenario may be considered like an early frost or freeze.”
Still, according to him, sometimes when you're having a deeply lower, solar state it can just make it colder earlier.
“Some of the data sets, we were looking at show maybe late September and October that there is full potential earlier than normal there already and some of our analog years [point to that],” he said. “We need this growing season to last longer and there are things like lower solar, if this El Nino continue things like that, that would make that cold come earlier.”
Heinz agreed, pointing to the Southern Oscillation index or the pressure changes between Tahiti and Darwin as an indicator.
“Those can, those can magnify the strength of our cold fronts and here in the last two to three weeks, we've had 30 and 40 points swings, which is very significant,” he said. “So that can also that can even be a sign of some pretty strong cold fronts late August early September even so certainly in the in the cards at least.”
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‘Climate Grief’: Fears About The Planet’s Future Weigh On Americans’ Mental Health
Therapist Andrew Bryant says the landmark United Nations climate report last October brought a new mental health concern to his patients
JULY 18, 2019
Therapist Andrew Bryant says the landmark United Nations climate report last October brought a new mental health concern to his patients.
“I remember being in sessions with folks the next day. They had never mentioned climate change before, and they were like, ‘I keep hearing about this report,’” Bryant said. “Some of them expressed anxious feelings, and we kept talking about it over our next sessions.”
The study, conducted by the world’s leading climate scientists, said that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, by 2040 the Earth will warm by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius). Predictions say that increase in temperature will cause extreme weather events, rising sea levels, species extinction and reduced capacity to produce food.
Bryant works at North Seattle Therapy & Counseling in Washington state. Recently, he said, he has been seeing patients with anxiety or depression related to climate change and the Earth’s future.
Often these patients want to do something to reduce global warming but are overwhelmed and depressed by the scope of the problem and difficulty in finding solutions. And they’re anxious about how the Earth will change over the rest of their or their children’s lifetimes.
Although it is not an official clinical diagnosis, the psychiatric and psychological communities have names for the phenomenon: “climate distress,” “climate grief,” “climate anxiety” or “eco-anxiety.”
The concept also is gradually making its way into the public consciousness.
In a June 23 episode of the HBO series “Big Little Lies,” one of the main character’s young daughters has a panic attack after hearing about climate change in school.
Other recently released TV shows and movies have addressed the idea.
An April survey by Yale and George Mason universities found that 62% of Americans were at least “somewhat worried” about climate change. Of those, 23% were “very worried.”
Both younger and older generations express worry, although younger Americans generally seem more concerned: A 2019 Gallup poll reported that 54% of those ages 18 to 34, 38% of those 35 to 54 and 44% of those 55 or older worry a “great deal” about global warming.
There is no epidemiological data yet to show how common distress or anxiety related to climate change is. But, people say these feelings are real and affect their life decisions.
Los Angeles residents Mary Dacuma, 33, and her husband decided not to have children because they worry about how difficult the world might be for the next generation.
“The general anxiety about climate change made that decision for us, and now we can plan for that,” said Dacuma, who works in public relations. “Having it already decided has helped to ease my state of mind.”
Alyson Laura started seeing a counselor for anxiety and depression in college. Eventually, she began working in building sustainability, where she helped businesses reduce their energy and water consumption.
But, a few years ago, she began talking to her therapist about the contradictions in her life.
“I saw corporations destroying the environment, but I was working for them, and I knew what they were doing was wrong,” said Laura, 36, who lives in Atlanta. “It was causing me mental anguish. My therapist advised me to take action on what I could control and try to find another area of work. I just couldn’t work in an industry that was harming the Earth.”
So how do people alleviate feelings of stress, anxiety or depression surrounding the planet’s fate?
Bryant, the Seattle therapist, said the No. 1 action he recommends is sharing these concerns with others, whether a counselor, psychiatrist, family, friends or an activist group.
“There is a lot of underlying worry, but not a lot of dialogue or discussion, and so people feel isolated,” Bryant said. “Talking about it makes you feel less isolated, and it’s also a way to relieve the tension, find a pathway forward and find a purpose.”
In that vein, Dr. Janet Lewis, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester in New York, recommends building relationships within a like-minded group. That could involve group therapy, environmental activist groups or online communities.
For Laura, becoming involved with the international activist group Extinction Rebellion has helped her build a network of people who share her values and made her feel as if she’s making a positive contribution to society. With the group, she has participated in nonviolent protests and is organizing the Atlanta chapter’s first grief circle, where people can share their anxiety and grief about the destruction of the Earth.
“Activism is also therapy for me,” said Laura.
Personal action is a way to take control of a situation in which you feel powerless, said Dr. Elizabeth Haase, a psychiatrist at Carson Tahoe Health in Carson City, Nev.
“Small gestures, such as taking fewer airplane rides or buying local produce, can actually make a difference,” Haase said.
Susan Clayton, a psychology professor at the College of Wooster in Ohio, said one way to tackle the uncertainty of environmental change is learning how it might specifically affect your community by viewing climate model predictions.
“If you know what you’re going to face, it’s not quite as scary,” said Clayton, who also co-authored the American Psychological Association’s 2017 report on how climate change can affect mental health.
Lewis said it’s also crucial for people to remember that their mental response to climate change is often valid.
“Most of the kinds of pathologies that we’re accustomed to treating in psychiatry, they tend to be out of proportion to whatever is going on. But with climate change, this is not inappropriate,” she explained.
“The goal is not to get rid of the anxiety. The goal is to transform it into what is bearable and useful and motivating.”
(Ikon Images/Getty Images)
Victoria Knight: vknight@kff.org, @victoriaregisk
RELATED TOPICS MENTAL HEALTH PUBLIC HEALTH ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
This story also ran on People.com.This story can be republished for free (details).
Climate Change Made Europe's Heatwave At Least Five Times More Likely
The team of European researchers who conducted the work also found humanity’s warming of the planet made the heatwave about 4°C hotter than it would otherwise have been. The findings came as new data showed that the average European temperature last month was the hottest ever for June
2 July 2019
By Adam Vaughan
Climate change made last week’s deadly heatwave in Europe at least five times more likely, according to a rapid analysis.
The team of European researchers who conducted the work also found humanity’s warming of the planet made the heatwave about 4°C hotter than it would otherwise have been. The findings came as new data showed that the average European temperature last month was the hottest ever for June.
The intense heatwave affected large areas of Europe, setting temperature records in Germany, Austria, Spain, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and the Netherlands. France saw the hottest temperatures, including an all-time high of 45.9°C near the city of Nîmes, a level more typical of Death Valley, California. Manure self-ignited in Spain, causing a wildfire.
Hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2003 heatwave which killed more than 70,000, authorities in France postponed exams and set up ‘cool rooms’ for people, while Germany imposed motorway speed restrictions over fears of roads cracking. At least seven deaths have been linked to the heatwave; the true toll will not become clear until much later.
Read more: Weather forecasts could soon pin extreme events on climate change
But we now know the exceptional heatwave was made much more likely by global warming, due to an assessment published on Tuesday by the World Weather Attribution group.
They used computer models to calculate the temperatures we would expect to see in France with the 1°C of warming – our current level above pre-industrial temperatures – and also without it.
They then looked at the average temperature in three days in June across France and in the French city of Toulouse and compare the observations with the models.
The results for France as a whole showed that climate change increased the probability of the heatwave by at least a factor five. The results were similar for Toulouse.
While the researchers were very confident in the heatwave being made at least five times more likely, they said the real world temperature data shows the probability could have been increased by as much as 100 times.
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute says although five times is the minimum, the true figure “could be much higher.” Up to 100 times is a possibility but should not be taken too seriously, the team says, because of the difficult of modelling clouds, the interaction between atmosphere and soil, and reproducing such extreme, record-breaking temperatures in models.
Compared to a heatwave in June in 1901, last week’s one was about 4°C hotter. “This is a strong reminder again, that climate change is happening here and now,” said Friederike Otto of the University of Oxford.
More on these topics: climate change
Parts of India: Heat Wave Causes Vegetable Prices To Rise 40% in one week
The heatwave sweeping through large parts of India has made vegetable prices skyrocket with some areas seeing a 25-40% rise in bills in the past 10 days
June 17, 2017
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com
The heatwave sweeping through large parts of India has made vegetable prices skyrocket with some areas seeing a 25-40% rise in bills in the past 10 days. Traders said prices are likely to remain volatile until monsoon rain covers the main growing areas in the country. In April, wholesale prices of food rose 3.4%, but fruits and vegetable prices were up 14%.
Kailash Tajne, president of the Vashi Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), said that vegetables were selling for 30-40% more than usual price since the past 10 days. “The heat is immense, and planting has been less due to water shortage in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, leading to a shortage of vegetables,” he said.
He said other vegetables such as bottle gourd, bitter gourd and cabbage have also seen a similar increase. “Vegetables are coming from Gujarat and Delhi, making them costlier,” he said.
In the Delhi’s Azadpur mandi, traders said prices of coriander, lemon, tomato, onions and green vegetables have risen gradually. They said expected arrivals from Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh should bring some respite in two weeks.
“Farmers will now plant tomato and onion in July. This has led to an increase in prices by Rs 2-3 a kg in wholesale to Rs 14-15 a kg for onion and Rs 20-25 a kg for tomato since the past 7-10 days,” he said.
Gadhave said prices will continue to rise over the next few days, even after the progress of monsoon towards south and western India. “It will take at least two months for the new crop to be harvested.”
Call For Videos: 2019 Greenroofs & Walls of The World Virtual Summit
Linda Velazquez on April 19, 2019
Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summit 2019
The 2019 Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summit – Greenroofs.com’s 5th completely online conference – will be held Live in September.
Held biennially since 2011, the Mission of the Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summits is to inform, share, and create a global social media experience online for learning and networking via the power of the Internet.
The theme of the 2019 Virtual Summit:
“Cooling a Warming Planet with Living Architecture”
The climate crisis is now and we need to embrace bold solutions and address it in many ways, especially with nature-based design and projects that promote green infrastructure as well as those with social and socially equitable benefits.
Encompassing a broad range of design solutions and a diverse community of multi-disciplinary professionals are crucial in our effort to mitigate and reverse the cataclysmic effects of human induced global warming.
Unique in our industry, the Greenroofs.com Virtual Summits are community destinations that allow you to connect with everyone and experience greenroofs, greenwalls, and green living infrastructure online. Participants have an incredible opportunity to learn about innovative site-specific, cultural, and climatic approaches in living architecture and – this time around – some transformative climate policy.
And with our social media and live events, you can connect and meet awesome experts and practitioners – all with with no carbon footprint!
#VirtualSummit2019
Earth. Image: NASA
Call for Videos
New this year and for the first time, we are issuing an Open Call for Videos! Do you have something unique and interesting to share with the world regarding “Cooling a Warming Planet with Living Architecture?” We’d love to hear from you!
What
Think of your video as an interactive live presentation that is prerecorded by you. We are looking for creative videos about 10 – 30 minutes in length of ideas, people & projects talking about how design can and does address climate change. We are open to videos from both individuals and multi-speakers either in a panel-type or multiple interview format.
Watch previous speaker videos on our Albums / GreenroofsTV channels: 2017, 2015, 2013 and 2011.
Send us an Abstract of your proposed video, either in writing or short under 1-minute video format (much more fun!). But it’s up to you.
Please include: Video Title; Primary Presenter(s); Contact Info; Type(s) of vegetated LID (Low Impact Development) Living Architecture (for example greenroof, greenwall, green street, bioswale, bioretention pond, storm barrier, etc.); Abstract (300 word maximum); and Biography: (100 word maximum).
We need engaged speakers: you MUST be available to participate in social media and make time for a Live Q & A!
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Just Another Day on Aerosol Earth. Image: NASA/Joshua Stevens/Adam Voiland
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Earth. Image: NASA Earth Observatory by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Chris Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center)
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ARCHITECTURE, CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE, GREEN ROOFS, GREEN WALLS
New York Passes Mandatory Green Roof Legislation
Linda Velazquez on April 18, 2019
Javits Convention Center. Image: Aramis Velazquez
Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Celebrates Historic Passing of The Climate Mobilization Act in New York City – Green Roofs Required on New Buildings
Green Roofs for Healthy Cities shares the historic win for all New Yorkers as well as the larger green infrastructure community: Today, April 18, 2019 at 1:30 pm EST time the New York City Council passed The Climate Mobilization Act, a suite of measures to reduce greenhouse gases released from buildings in New York City, including a requirement for green roofs and/or solar panels on newly constructed buildings.
Brooklyn Grange. Image: Linda Velazquez
The package of bills includes three pieces of legislation from New York City Council members Rafael Espinal, Donovan Richards and Stephen Levin.
“For the past two years Green Roofs for Healthy Cities has been advocating for new measures to grow the green roof market in New York City, and we are very pleased with the passage of this new legislation”, said Steven W. Peck, GRP, Honorary ASLA, Founder and President, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities. “New York now joins cities like Denver, San Francisco, Toronto and Portland, Oregon in making green roofs a requirement.” he added. “Through direct lobbying efforts from Green Roofs for Healthy Cities members and other partners, New York City will quickly become a leader in reducing the effects of climate change from its buildings. Thanks to all of the individuals involved!” he added.
Rafael Espinal, NYC Council Member, 37th District, who has been at the forefront of this push for a greener New York City said,
“Today, we are passing a bill that won’t just make our skyline prettier – it will also improve the quality of life for New Yorkers for generations to come. My legislation will require green roofs to be installed on new residential and commercial buildings, making New York the largest city in the nation to pass such a law. We’ve already seen the revolutionary benefits of green roofs in action thanks to places around the city like Brooklyn Steel, the Barclays Center, the Javits Center, the USPS Morgan Processing and Distribution Center, and many others. They cool down cities by mitigating Urban Heat Island Effect, cut energy costs, absorb air pollution, reduce storm-water runoff, promote biodiversity, provide sound-proofing, and make our cities more livable for all.”
“I want to thank the advocates who were instrumental in pushing this forward, Council Members Donovan Richards and Stephen Levin for partnering with me on this effort, and Speaker Johnson for his leadership. These bills show that New York will not be idle in the face of an existential threat like climate change. At a time when the federal government is taking us backward, it is up to cities to lead us into a sustainable future. The time to act is now.”
Kingsland Wildflower Rooftop. Image: Kingsland Wildflowers Green Roof & Community Space
The Climate Mobilization Act covers eight initiatives and two resolutions, among which includes:
• Int. 1031 – Green Roof Information
• Int. 1032 – Green Roofs for New Construction
• Res. 66 – Green Roof Tax Abatement increase
The Climate Mobilization Act is the largest single act to cut climate pollution of any city. In a densely packed metropolitan of over seven million residents, commercial and residential buildings are the largest source of emissions and sit at the center of the policy change. The Act will set emission caps with the goal of reducing emissions by 2030. Depending on the size and property assessments of the buildings, owners will be able to meet targets, ranging from a cut of emissions by 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050 for larger buildings. Smaller buildings will reduce emissions in more modest measures.
Also see today’s article from Brooklyn Eagle.
Congratulations to New York City and to all whose hard and persistent work made this important Climate Mobilization Act happen!
Climate Labels On Food To Become A Reality In Denmark
Research from the University of Technology Sydney and Duke University suggests that using labels that are easy to understand may create demand for responsibly produced food. Lead author of the research
The Danish Government has announced that a climate labeling system on food products will accompany its plan to become carbon neutral by 2050. Officials from the Danish Ministry of Energy, Utilities, and Climate stated that the Government is proposing to work with supermarkets to place stickers on all food products that clearly indicate their carbon footprint. The proposal would help consumers make informed choices, with Denmark’s Minister for the Environment, Lars Christian Lilleholt, explaining, “We want to give consumers the means to assess in supermarkets the environmental impact of products.”
Research from the University of Technology Sydney and Duke University suggests that using labels that are easy to understand may create demand for responsibly produced food. Lead author of the research, Dr. Adrian Camilleri, describes the current lack of transparency, “With an appliance such as a heater you can feel the energy used and see an electricity bill at the end of the month, so the impact is quite salient, whereas the impact of food production is largely invisible.”
Minister Lilleholt says that giving consumers easy access to information is important, but accurate labeling comes with a long list of challenges. The labels may have to consider water and land usage, life-cycle analysis, greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon footprint from transport. Director of the Danish Agriculture & Food Council, Morten Høyer, approves of the proposal, but notes a challenging component: nutritional value. “It might be necessary to weigh up the environmental impact against the nutritional value of the product. A bottle of soda may have a low environmental impact, but it is not a product you can live on,” says Høyer.
Developing a comprehensive labeling system that spans all food products in Denmark’s supermarkets may take time, and a formal launch date has not yet been set. If successful, climate labeling could shed light on which practices produce healthy food more sustainably and may even inspire competitive innovation from producers. “My impression is that there is a demand for knowledge about how individual consumers can contribute to improving world climate,” Lilleholt says.
Denmark, which ranked 17th in the world in the Climate Change Performance Index, announced the proposal last year in the wake of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report highlighting the consequences of global warming
Hershey GC Sees Climate Change As Compliance Challenge
By Alison Noon
Law360 (March 14, 2019, 7:21 PM EDT) -- The Hershey Co. is exploring the possibility of moving its cocoa production indoors to save chocolate production from the effects of climate change, the company's general counsel said Thursday, delving into his expectation that global warming will jump from corporate research and risk management to the compliance desk.
The Hershey Co. is exploring indoor farming in light of climate change and the company's top lawyer thinks compliance officers should take note. (Credit: AeroFarms)
Speaking at a corporate ethics conference, Damien Atkins said one of the world's leading chocolate manufacturers is exploring not only the science of indoor cocoa, but whether it could insulate Hershey's supply chain and ease the stress over global warming that will come down the line for his coworkers in compliance.
"I think the geopolitical risk is something you have to manage," Atkins told a ballroom of compliance officers in Manhattan. "With respect to climate change, you see it now in terms of the quality and nature and types of trees and the way that you manage trees, and we're looking at things like indoor farming."
He indicated it's not a far-fetched idea, mentioning that one of the world's largest indoor agriculture facilities was located in nearby New Jersey, where AeroFarms LLC grows vegetables in trays stacked high in climate-controlled warehouses.
"You have to think of ways of how you actually get that product when your core supply can disappear," said Atkins, who worked at Oath Inc. predecessor AOL and Panasonic before Hershey.
But throwing supply chains into disorder will only be the beginning of the disruptive effects of climate change on business, Atkins said. Global warming could sneak up on compliance departments years from now if they let it, which they may — compliance officers interviewed by Law360 at the conference said they did not foresee global warming earning a place in their work. Atkins indicated they have another thing coming.
"Climate change is one of those things that has a slow velocity but high impact, and those are the worst things to plan against, right, because there's no immediate pressure but you know that it's coming," he said on stage at the Ethisphere conference.
He further explained to Law360 after the panel that raising the stakes will increase pressure on employees. As compliance officers know, high pressure invites white collar misconduct.
"As that comes under stress, the dollars to process the systems, the procedures, all kinds of bad things happen," he said.
The prospect of growing cocoa indoors is in research and development, Atkins said. The company currently sources cocoa from family-run farms in Africa and South America that employ 2 million people, according to the company's website. Atkins said the company is wholeheartedly committed to them, recently pledging to invest $500 million over the next decade in West African cocoa communities.
The flip side, Atkins told the conference, is the occasional report that Hershey's family-run farms are employing children. Nothing is without risk, especially in the age of social media.
"You just have to, as my former CEO [at Panasonic] would say, stay on strategy," Atkins said on stage. "You have to keep doing it."
Hershey and other major chocolate manufacturers recently beat several lawsuits that sought to put a disclaimer on chocolate products saying it may have been made using child or slave labor. A Massachusetts federal judge and the Ninth Circuit dismissed those claims.
Increasingly, Atkins said, Hershey's supply chain is thrown off course due to political unrest.
"We have areas in Mexico now where we ship trucks of chocolate and raw material and maybe once or twice a month these trucks get hijacked," Atkins said. "I mean, it's a common occurrence. And how do you plan around areas where you can't go to the police because the police were probably into it?"
He said the hijacking has become "more pervasive" absent government intervention.
"That happens to us a lot."
--Editing by Michael Watanabe.
Dramatic Rainfall Changes For Key Crops Expected Even With Reduced Greenhouse Gas Emissions
by CIAT Comunicaciones | Mar 11, 2019
By 2040, rainfall on wheat, soybean, rice and maize will have changed, even if Paris Agreement emissions targets are met. Projections show parts of Europe, Africa, the Americas and Australia will be drier, while the tropics and north will be wetter.
Even if humans radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the short term, important crop-growing regions of the world can expect changes to rainfall patterns by 2040. In fact, some regions are already experiencing new climatic regimes compared with just a generation ago. The study, published March 11 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, warns that up to 14 percent of land dedicated to wheat, maize, rice and soybean will be drier, while up to 31 percent will be wetter.
The study uses four emissions scenarios from low to high to predict time of emergence (TOE) of permanent precipitation changes, meaning the year by which precipitation changes remain permanently outside their historical variation in a specific location. The research shows that quick action on emissions – in line with 2015’s Paris Agreement – would push TOE projections deeper into the future or reduce the size of affected areas.
Drier regions include Southwestern Australia, Southern Africa, southwestern South America, and the Mediterranean, according to the study. Wheat cropland in Central Mexico is also headed for a drier future. Wetter areas include Canada, Russia, India and the Eastern United States.
The four crops in the study represent about 40 percent of global caloric intake and the authors say that, regardless of how much mitigation is achieved, all regions – both wetter and drier – need to invest in adaptation, and do so urgently in areas expected to see major changes in the next couple of decades. However, in the scenarios with low greenhouse gas emissions, most regions have two-three decades more to adapt than under high-emission scenarios.
Low-emission scenarios, the authors stressed, likely imply less need for potentially costly adaptation to new rainfall regimes.
Wheat under heat
Drier conditions are expected for many major wheat producers. In Australia, about 27 percent of wheat-growing land will see less precipitation, under a mid-emissions scenario. Algeria (100 percent), Morocco (91 percent), South Africa (79 percent), Mexico (74 percent), Spain (55 percent), Chile (40 percent), Turkey (28 percent), Italy (20 percent) and Egypt (15 percent) are other major producers that will be affected. Higher emissions mean a larger amount of land will become dry sooner, the study found.
“These are definitely countries that will need to think rather quickly what they’d like to do with their wheat production,” said Maisa Rojas, the study’s lead author and climatologist at Universidad de Chile. Colleagues at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, the University of Leeds, Chile’s Center for Climate and Resilience Research, and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC) co-authored the study.
“What we’re predicting are probably conservative years for time of emergence,” said Rojas. “Detectable precipitation changes are of course not only important for agriculture, but for water resource management more in general, so our results are relevant for other sectors as well.”
Speed of change
One stunning aspect of the study is how quickly global precipitation is changing. The baseline for comparison is 20 years spanning 1986-2005. A handful of regions already have crossed that “historical” average into an entirely new rainfall regime, including Russia, Norway, Canada and the parts of the East Coast of the United States. The study projects that up to 36 percent of all land area will be wetter or drier under a high-emission scenario.
“Farmers growing crops in those areas are going to experience significantly different conditions than what they are used to,” said Julian Ramirez-Villegas, a scientist with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). “They’re going to be completely outside their normal historical environments and many farmers are already struggling with historic variability.”
Areas not reflected in the study are likely to have precipitation changes as well, said Rojas. But because natural variation in those areas is high, extreme change is needed before researchers can detect their times of emergence.
“Other studies have examined time of emergence in global temperature and precipitation,” said Fabrice Lambert, a UC professor and co-author. “The interesting thing about this study is that we overlay the climatic results with spatial cropland distribution and growing seasons to show which agricultural production regions will be impacted by precipitation changes, and how much time they have to prepare.”
The world’s most populous countries – China and India – are among those that will have much wetter fields for the four crops included in the study, under any emission scenario. Percentage of cropland that will extend into high double-digits. Asia’s other big rice producers, including Japan, Korea and the Philippines will have TOEs for increased rainfall.
Wheat fields northern Europe, the United States, Canada and Russia will have higher precipitation.
More precipitation may mean higher production, but when coupled with rising sea levels, higher temperatures and increased potential for flooding, higher production is not assured, said the authors.
“The precise nature of the changes is impossible to predict,” said Andy Challinor, a co-author and Professor at the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds. “What this study tells us is that adaptation needs to be agile. For the first time, we can tell what changes to be ready for – and when they are expected – in our major crop-growing regions. Prior to this study, the rainfall changes experienced by crops were thought to be so unpredictable that no real advice could be given.”
Major crops facing drier conditions without reductions in greenhouse gas emissions
Major crops facing wetter conditions without reductions in greenhouse gas emissions
This infographic shows a selection of areas and crops that will be affected by reduced rainfall in coming decades due to climate change, according to a 2019 study in PNAS. Percentages refer to the area of land currently dedicated to cultivation of the specified crops.
CREDIT: Lucelly Anaconas / International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).
Funding and partners
The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) contributed funding to this project, which is carried out with support from CGIAR Fund Donors and through bilateral funding agreements. For details, please visit https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors.
The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) is a CGIAR research center. CIAT develops technologies, innovative methods and knowledge that enable farmers, especially smallholders, to make agriculture more competitive, profitable, sustainable and resilient. Headquartered in Cali, Colombia, CIAT conducts research for development in tropical regions of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. https://ciat.cgiar.org
CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future. Its science is carried out by 15 research centers in collaboration with hundreds of partners across the globe. https://www.cgiar.org
Funding was also provided by the Center for Climate and Resilience Research, (CR2), a center of excellence of the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT) of Chile. Its objective is to deepen the understanding of the processes and impacts of the climate system in Chile and globally from an interdisciplinary perspective. It also aims at contributing to the definition of adaptation and mitigation measures for climate change that contribute to social resilience. www.cr2.cl
The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, with more than 38,000 students from more than 150 different countries, and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. The University plays a significant role in the Turing, Rosalind Franklin and Royce Institutes. www.leeds.ac.uk
California Rains Continue To Play Havoc On Markets
BY DAVID ROBIDOUX | FEBRUARY 12, 2019
As the rain continues in California the markets also continue their march higher. All commodities currently coming from the coastal regions of California have seen excessive rain over the past month leading to decreased supplies and major issues with quality. Strawberries, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes and celery have all seen prices rise again this past week due to the heavy storms over the weekend — and there is more rain to come this week.
“The biggest impacts from these rains is damage to ripe strawberries, which turn to mush when they get that wet and can’t be sold for fresh fruit," according to John Krist, chief executive officer of the California Farm Bureau. "That damaged fruit ends up getting stripped and sold for juice or jam, which is a money-losing proposition at this time of year, but one that can’t be avoided — if left in the fields that damaged fruit will spread fungus.
“We also had harvest delays in just about everything, including citrus, which can’t be picked when wet. And there’s a heightened risk of fungal disease in vegetables, too, particularly celery," said Krist.
“It’s worth remembering, however, that this is what a normal year used to look like," said Krist. "Our frame of reference has been skewed by nearly seven years of drought or below-average rainfall. Dealing with these issues is par for the course."
This year is more in line with historical norms. The historical average combined rainfall for January and February in Oxnard, CA, is approximate seven inches. Over the last seven years, when California has been in a drought cycle, the average combined rainfall for these two months is less than four inches. This year nine inches of rain have already fallen in Oxnard and we have two more weeks to go in February.
This next shot coming on Wednesday and Thursday will drop another 1.5 inches of rain and bring the total close to 11 inches. It’s no wonder harvests are being delayed.
Santa Maria and Salinas will also see another inch-plus of rain this week.
The National Weather Service issued freeze warnings for yesterday morning and this morning in the San Joaquin Valley as temps dropped below freezing for up to six hours the last two nights. Some locations, such as Visalia, saw temps drop down to 28 Monday morning and 29 this morning.
Rain is coming to all current growing regions in Florida today. From Plant City all the way south to Homestead, all growing locations can expect approximately 0.25 inches of rain today. Behind this storm expect one day of cooler temps on Wednesday. Temperatures will drop by about 10 to 15 degrees across the board tomorrow. On Thursday temperatures will be back to normal in the low 80s during the day and the low 60s at night. There is another opportunity for light rain on Friday and Saturday.
Starting Sunday Florida will be feeling the effects of a heat wave. Up and down the state expect maximum temps close to 90 and minimum temps in the mid- to upper 60s. These temps will last at least through Wednesday of next week. Expect production to heavier as we head into next week.
Tomato supplies out of Mexico have tightened a bit and prices have moved off the minimum where they had been for the past several weeks, which could be a result of bloom drop caused by the cold temps back in the late December.
Temperatures in Culiacan will get progressively hotter throughout the week, peaking this Friday with a max temp of 94 and a minimum temp of 61. On Saturday Culiacan will begin a cooling trend, and by Wednesday, Feb. 20 they will see a minimum temp of 50. This should slow down production somewhat by the end of next week.
The Weathermelon app offers consolidated lists of global growing regions for each commodity; a 10-day detail forecast for each region; current radar maps (U.S. only); estimated harvest start/end dates for each commodity; monthly average high/low temps for each region; and custom daily alerts for temperature, precipitation and severe weather based on 10-day forecasts.
(David Robidoux is a co-founder Weathermelon)
Deep-Sea Drilling To Shed New Light on The Stability of The Antarctic Ice Sheet
AWI geoscientists lead international IODP expeditions to the Antarctic Ocean
Over the next few months, geophysicists and geologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research will gain unprecedented insights into the climatic history of the Antarctic Ice Sheet as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). The experts will take part in three Antarctic expeditions on board the IODP drilling ship “JOIDES Resolution”, and will lead two of the three legs. By collecting the drilled cores, the researchers hope to find evidence of how the ice masses of the Antarctic have reacted to sudden temperature climbs in past interglacial periods – information that is urgently needed in order to more accurately predict future sea-level rise. In terms of modelling, the behaviour of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is still considered one of the greatest question marks.
How will Antarctic ice masses respond to climate change, and to what extent will they contribute to sea-level rise? Climate researchers still don’t have a satisfactory answer to that question, partly because they lack information on how ice sheets have behaved in previous interglacial periods. Geophysicists and geologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven have now made it their goal to remedy the situation. Over the next seven months, they will join three international expeditions to the Antarctic Ocean on board the US-based drilling ship “JOIDES Resolution”, and will serve as the scientific directors for two of the three expedition legs. These journeys will be undertaken as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), which is dedicated to investigating the history of our planet and its climate on the basis of deep-sea cores.
The first expedition (IODP 379) started in Punta Arenas (Chile) on 23 January 2019, and takes the 29-member team of international researchers, accompanied by technicians, drilling experts and ship’s crew (altogether 125 people) to the Amundsen Sea – and with it, to the region broadly considered to be the Achilles heel of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. “Large sections of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet lie on land that is below sea level, which means these ice masses can easily be reached by warm ocean currents, and are therefore especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change,” explains Dr Karsten Gohl, an AWI geophysicist and one of the expedition’s two chief scientists.
Seeking signs of an eroding West Antarctic Ice Sheet
At the moment, those glaciers that empty into the Amundsen Sea are losing ice faster than all other ice streams in the Antarctic or in Greenland. Moreover, ice sheet simulations and sediment samples from the Ross Sea indicate that the ice masses of the West Antarctic retreated extensively during past interglacial periods – e.g., 3 million years ago in the Middle Pliocene, when the average global temperature was roughly 3 degrees higher than today. In other words, it was essentially the same temperature as that predicted for the year 2100 if greenhouse-gas emissions remain constant.
Back then, the researchers believe, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet suffered a near-total collapse. However, there’s still no evidence to back their hypothesis. The planned deep-sea drilling missions in the Amundsen Sea are intended to change all that. “By drilling down as far as 100 metres below the seafloor, we hope to find sediment deposits from the Pliocene and other warm epochs, where we should be able to see the remains of algae, foraminifera and other typical pelagic organisms. And these remains will prove that, in these warmer periods, there was little to no ice in West Antarctica,” says AWI geologist and expedition member Dr Johann Klages.
Finding these microfossils would also allow the researchers to reconstruct the past water temperatures, and to investigate which climate changes led to the retreat or decline of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. For example, insights into how warm the deep-sea currents were back then are desperately needed. The researchers plan to subsequently compare these historical values with current observations of deep-sea currents in the Amundsen Sea, in order to determine whether or not they could be considered the harbingers of a potential future collapse.
In addition, the experts hope to find evidence of increased iceberg occurrence. “As they drift, icebergs lose sand, gravel and pebbles that were trapped in their ice,” explains Johann Klages. “If we encounter coarse sand and gravel deposits when we drill, it will tell us that large quantities of ice broke off from the ice sheet in past interglacial periods and drifted through the Antarctic Ocean.” Further, these stony deposits’ geochemical fingerprint would allow the researchers to identify the ice masses’ region of origin, and to reconstruct which glaciers lost the most ice in each respective interglacial period.
Drilling on a main route for icebergs
The participants in the second expedition (IODP 382), which will take them to the Scotia Sea from 20 March to 20 May, will rely on the same research principle. The waters between the Antarctic Peninsula and the Falkland Islands are considered both the main route for large icebergs and their graveyard. If the Antarctic did indeed lose substantial ice during the interglacial periods of the Pliocene and Pleistocene, there should be corresponding deposits in these waters – from West Antarctica and East Antarctica alike. But if they are there, they’re quite far down; as AWI geologist and expedition member Dr Thomas Ronge explains: “At the planned drilling sites, the water is roughly 4,000 metres deep. We’ll have to drill for several days before we reach our target depth of 600 metres below the seafloor. Another important consideration: while we’re drilling, we have to hope that we don’t cross paths with any icebergs.”
For any other research ship, the moment an iceberg drew near, the drilling site would have to be abandoned – but not for the “JOIDES Resolution”: in the event the 143-metre-long drilling ship has to evade an iceberg, the borehole on the seafloor will be sealed with a specially designed, funnel-shaped borehole plug. The plug can be relocated later, so that, once the ship has successfully avoided the iceberg, the team can easily resume drilling, right where they left off.
In the world’s largest ocean current
The third leg of the expedition (IODP 383), which will be co-led by AWI geologist Dr Frank Lamy and the German climate researcher Gisela Winckler from Columbia University (USA), will take the ship to waters west of the Drake Passage, starting in late May. Once they’ve arrived there, in the southeast Pacific region of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the most powerful ocean current in the world, the researchers will have to drill 500 metres down into the seafloor in order to gather sediment samples from the Pliocene and Pleistocene. “For our work, above all we’ll be considering the question of how wind and ocean currents in the Southern Hemisphere reacted to global warming trends in the past, and what major interactions there were between the atmosphere, the ocean, and the ice masses of the Antarctic,” relates Frank Lamy.
Once analysed and combined, the outcomes of the three expeditions are expected to allow the researchers to precisely reconstruct the ice masses’ behaviour during past interglacial periods. If all goes as planned, they will not only arrive at a much better grasp of one of the most central, yet poorly understood processes in the Earth’s climate system, but will also be able to more accurately predict the future development of the West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets. Taken together, the two sheets contain enough freshwater to raise the global sea level by roughly 58 metres.
The IODP is an international research programme in which the USA, Japan, China, South Korea, India, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia and 15 European countries, including Germany, are participating. The US-based IODP ship “JOIDES Resolution” can accommodate up to 50 researchers and 65 crewmembers. Its operations are financed by the National Science Foundation (USA), and by support organisations in all other IODP member states.
Notes for Editors
For further information on the International Ocean Discovery Program and the individual expeditions, please visit: http://iodp.tamu.edu/scienceops/expeditions.html
Printable images and graphics can be downloaded using the following link:
https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press/press-release/deep-sea-drilling-to-shed-new-light-on-the-stability-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet.html
Your academic contact partners at the Alfred Wegener Institute are:
IODP Expedition 379 to the Amundsen Sea:
∞ Chief Scientist Dr Karsten Gohl (tel.: +49(471)4831-1361; e-mail: Karsten.Gohl@awi.de)
∞ Dr Johann Klages (tel.: +49(471)4831-1574; e-mail: Johann.Klages@awi.de)
The expedition’s second chief scientist is the American Prof. Julia Wellner from the University of Houston (tel. +1(713)743-2887; e-mail: jwellner@uh.edu).
IODP Expedition 382 to the Scotia Sea
∞ Dr Thomas Ronge (tel.: +49(471)4831-2087; e-mail: Thomas.Ronge@awi.de)
IODP Expedition 383 to the Southeast Pacific / Circumpolar Current
• Chief Scientist Dr Frank Lamy (tel.: +49(471)4831-2124; e-mail: Frank.Lamy@awi.de)
The expedition’s second chief scientist is Prof. Gisela Winckler (tel.: +1(845)365-8756; e-mail: winckler@ldeo.columbia.edu).
At the AWI’s Communications and Media Relations department, Folke Mehrtens (tel.: +49(471)4831-2007; e-mail: medien@awi.de) will be pleased to help you with any questions.
The Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) conducts research in the Arctic, Antarctic and oceans of the high and mid-latitudes. It coordinates polar research in Germany and provides major infrastructure to the international scientific community, such as the research icebreaker Polarstern and stations in the Arctic and Antarctica. The Alfred Wegener Institute is one of the 19 research centres of the Helmholtz Association, the largest scientific organisation in Germany.
The Pace At Which The World’s Permafrost Soils Are Warming
New global study reveals rising soil temperatures in permafrost regions around the world
[16. January 2019]
Global warming is leaving more and more apparent scars in the world’s permafrost regions. As the new global comparative study conducted by the international permafrost network GTN-P shows, in all regions with permafrost soils the temperature of the frozen ground at a depth of more than 10 metres rose by an average of 0.3 degrees Celsius between 2007 and 2016 – in the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as the high mountain ranges of Europe and Central Asia. The effect was most pronounced in Siberia, where the temperature of the frozen soil rose by nearly 1 degree Celsius. The pioneering study has just been released in the online journal Nature Communications.
Roughly one sixth of the land areas on our planet are considered to be permafrost regions, which means the soils there have remained permanently frozen for at least two consecutive years. In most of these regions, however, the cold penetrated the ground millennia ago; as a result, in the most extreme cases, the permafrost continues to a depth of 1.6 kilometres. Especially in the Arctic, people rely on the permafrost soil as a stable foundation for houses, roads, pipelines and airports. Yet in the wake of global warming, the integrity of these structures is increasingly jeopardised, creating enormous costs. In addition, permafrost soils contain massive quantities of preserved plant and animal matter. If this organic material thaws along with the permafrost, microorganisms will begin breaking it down – a process that could produce enough carbon dioxide and methane emissions to potentially raise the global mean temperature by an additional 0.13 to 0.27 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.
A new comparative study released by the GTN-P (Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost) shows for the first time the extent to which permafrost soils around the world have already warmed. For the purposes of the study, the participating researchers monitored and analysed the soil temperature in boreholes in the Arctic, Antarctic and various high mountain ranges around the world for ten years. The data was gathered at depths greater than 10 metres, so as to rule out the influence of seasonal temperature variations.
The complete dataset encompasses 154 boreholes, 123 of which allow conclusions to be drawn for an entire decade, while the remainder can be used to refine calculations on annual deviation. The results show that, in the ten years from 2007 to 2016, the temperature of the permafrost soil rose at 71 of the 123 measuring sites; in five of the boreholes, the permafrost was already thawing. In contrast, the soil temperature sank at 12 boreholes, e.g. at individual sites in eastern Canada, southern Eurasia and on the Antarctic Peninsula; at 40 boreholes, the temperature remained virtually unchanged.
In individual cases, temperature spiked up to 1 degree Celsius
The researchers observed the most dramatic warming in the Arctic: “There, in regions with more than 90 percent permafrost content, the soil temperature rose by an average of 0.30 degrees Celsius within ten years,” reports first author Dr Boris Biskaborn, a member of the research group Polar Terrestrial Environmental Systems at the Potsdam facilities of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research. In northeast and northwest Siberia, the temperature increase at some boreholes was 0.90 degrees Celsius or even higher. For the sake of comparison: the air temperature in the respective regions rose by an average of 0.61 degrees Celsius in the same period.
Farther south, in Arctic regions with less than 90 percent permafrost, the frozen ground only warmed by 0.2 degrees Celsius on average. “In these regions there is more and more snowfall, which insulates the permafrost in two ways, following the igloo principle: in winter the snow protects the soil from extreme cold, which on average produces a warming effect. In spring it reflects the sunlight, and prevents the soil from being exposed to too much warmth, at least until the snow has completely melted away,” Biskaborn explains.
Significant warming can also be seen in the permafrost regions of the high mountain ranges, and in the Antarctic. The temperature of the permanently frozen soils in the Alps, in the Himalayas and in the mountain ranges of the Nordic countries rose by an average of 0.19 degrees Celsius. In the shallow boreholes in the Antarctic, the researchers measured a rise of 0.37 degrees.
“All this data tells us that the permafrost isn’t simply warming on a local and regional scale, but worldwide and at virtually the same pace as climate warming, which is producing a substantial warming of the air and increased snow thickness, especially in the Arctic. These two factors in turn produce a warming of the once permanently frozen ground,” says Prof. Guido Grosse, Head of the Permafrost Research Section at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Potsdam.
Permafrost monitoring calls for an institutional framework
These revealing insights are the reward for a decade-long international collaboration that involved experts from 26 countries. The majority of the boreholes used in the study were drilled and equipped with measuring equipment during the International Polar Year 2007/08, and offered a first “snapshot” of the permafrost temperatures. Since then, more than 50 different research groups have performed regular maintenance on the measuring stations, and recorded their readings on an annual basis. In the virtual network GTN-P, the findings were subsequently collated and standardised, ensuring their inter comparability.
According to Prof. Hanne H. Christiansen, co-author of the study and President of the International Permafrost Association (IPA), “Monitoring global permafrost temperatures and gathering the data in the freely accessible GTN-P database is tremendously important – and not just for researchers, educators and communicators, but for various other users.”
“The permafrost temperature is one of the most universally accepted climate variables. It offers a direct insight into how the frozen ground is reacting to climate change,” the researcher explains. This information is above all essential in those permafrost regions where the soil has already grown warmer or begun thawing, producing major damage when the ground buckles, destabilising roads and buildings. Accordingly, the researchers plan to continue monitoring the boreholes.
Unlike weather observations, there is still no single international institution that, following in the footsteps of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), successfully bundles national interests. Such an institution would be an essential asset in terms of coordinating these important scientific measurements, and to ensure the monitoring sites continue to be used in the future.
To date, the permafrost boreholes and the temperature sensors installed in them have been kept up and running by individual research groups in the context of various small-scale projects. The Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) offers a web-based data management system (gtnpdatabase.org), which was jointly developed by the Alfred Wegener Institute and the Iceland-based Arctic Portal, and was made possible by the financial support of the European Union.
Original publication
Biskaborn, B.K., Smith, S.L., Noetzli, J., Matthes, H., Vieira, G., Streletskiy, D.A., Schoeneich, P., Romanovsky, V.E., Lewkowicz, A.G., Abramov, A., Allard, M., Boike, J., Cable, W.L., Christiansen, H.H., Delaloye, R., Diekmann, B., Drozdov, D., Etzelmüller, B., Grosse, G., Guglielmin, M., Ingeman-Nielsen, T., Isaksen, K., Ishikawa, M., Johansson, M., Johannsson, H., Joo, A., Kaverin, D., Kholodov, A., Konstantinov, P., Kröger, T., Lambiel, C., Lanckman, J.-P., Luo, D., Malkova, G., Meiklejohn, I., Moskalenko, N., Oliva, M., Phillips, M., Ramos, M., Sannel, A.B.K., Sergeev, D., Seybold, C., Skryabin, P., Vasiliev, A., Wu, Q., Yoshikawa, K., Zheleznyak, M., Lantuit, H., 2019: Permafrost is warming at a global scale. Nature Communications 10, 264. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-08240-4
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AWI permafrost scientists investigate the, jpg | 2 MB
Image from the Lena spring flood at Samoylov., jpg | 2 MB
Lena spring flood at Samoylov jpg | 2 MB
Aerial photo of the Russian tundra jpg | 3 MB
Lake and ponds at the foothills of the Brooks, jpg | 3 MB
AWI permafrost expert Dr. Guido Grosse (left), jpg | 3 MB
AWI permafrost expert Dr. Guido Grosse, jpg | 4 MB
AWI permafrost expert Dr. Guido Grosse, jpg | 2 MB
AWI permafrost scientists investigate the, jpg | 4 MB
Drainage channel of a freshly drained basin, jpg | 3 MB
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Boris.Biskaborn@awi.de
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Hugues Lantuit
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Hugues.Lantuit@awi.de
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The Alfred Wegener Institute pursues research in the polar regions and the oceans of mid and high latitudes. As one of the 18 centres of the Helmholtz Association it coordinates polar research in Germany and provides ships like the research icebreaker Polarstern and stations for the international scientific community.
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Last update: 16.01.2019
The Number One Reason Why Indoor Vertical Farming Makes Sense?
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Netherlands: Additional Research Facilities At Delphy
The facility has now been extended with the addition of two climate cells.
For years, Delphy Improvement Centre in Bleijswijk and Certhon have shared the same ambition: to contribute to global solutions in the field of health, food safety and sustainability, through knowledge sharing and knowledge development. This is reflected in the Improvement Centre, which was opened a few years ago and has been used for various research projects since. The facility has now been extended with the addition of two climate cells.
Following the research facilities in the greenhouse, Delphy wanted to make an in-depth study of research and research methods. With the two climate cells realized by Certhon last summer, Delphy can gain more knowledge about daylight-free cultivation and physiological aspects of plants. This knowledge can also be applied in the greenhouse.
The two climate cells can be found in the reception area of the research centre. The doors of the cells are equipped with two small windows, so visitors can see which test set-up with which crops are inside. A few weeks ago, the first tomato and cucumber plants were placed and the research started. During the cultivation process there will be frequent consultation between Delphy and Certhon, to share advice and knowledge.
For more information:
Certhon
www.certhon.com
Publication date : 12/17/2018
Key Findings From Climate Adaptation Report
By Joyce Coffee
At the request of Kresge, a leading philanthropy focused on adaptation in the US, I joined with Dr. Susi Moser with Susanne Moser Research and Consulting and Aleka Seville at the time with Four Twenty Seven Inc. to conduct interviews and surveys with almost 100 leaders representing the public, private, and NGO/civic sectors and academia, covering a wide range of adaptation-related expertise and perspectives.
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The U.S. Government’s Fourth National Climate Assessment (November, 2018) Highlights The Need To Adopt Aquaponics At A Large Scale Nationwide
Aquaponics Association
By Brian Filipowich, Chairman
The report states: “over the next few decades, overall, yields from major U.S. crops are expected to decline as a consequence of increases in temperatures and possibly changes in water availability, soil erosion, and disease and pest outbreaks”; furthermore: “[c]limate change is also expected to lead to large-scale shifts in the availability and prices of many agricultural products across the world, with corresponding impacts on U.S. agricultural producers and the U.S. economy.”
So how can aquaponics help?
Aquaponics is a method of growing fish and plants in efficient, recirculating systems. Aquaponics does not require soil, and is practiced across the nation from cities to deserts. The ability to grow food anywhere allows all regions of the U.S. to create their own food supply without relying on long-distance, carbon-intensive food transport.
Aquaponics requires over 90% less water than traditional soil growth, making production far less susceptible to water shortages.
Aquaponics does not require synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, or antibiotics.
Also, aquaponic systems not only produce fruits and vegetables, but also edible fish — an extremely efficient source of healthy protein that can be grown in any environment.
Unfortunately, the U.S. economy is not set up to incentivise efficient food production methods like aquaponics, hydroponics, and vertical agriculture. A free market economy is based on producers incorporating all costs of production into the prices for goods. But certain costs of agriculture are not realized at the time of production and are passed to other parties or future generations, creating artificially low prices for inefficient goods.
Modern large-scale agriculture uses excessive amounts of water, carbon, pesticides, antibiotics and fertilizers. These elements create enormous costs passed to others such as climate change adaptation, healthcare costs, food waste, antibiotic resistance, and toxic nutrient runoff.
Conversely, aquaponic systems can grow much more efficiently, but without a means to monetize this efficiency.
The U.S. Government Climate Report highlights the need to change the current system: “[n]umerous adaptation strategies are available to cope with adverse impacts of climate variability and change on agricultural production. These include altering what is produced, modifying the inputs used for production, adopting new technologies, and adjusting management strategies.”
It will take a large-scale, concerted nationwide effort to change the way we incentivize food production. Until that point, our economic system will steer consumers towards produce that adds to the problem of climate change, and is less able to adapt to climate change.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/23/health/climate-change-report-bn/index.html?no-st=1543264267
5 Major Crops In The Crosshairs Of Climate Change
October 25, 2018
Heather Kim/NPR
Climate change is coming like a freight train, or a rising tide. And our food, so dependent on rain and suitable temperatures, sits right in its path.
The plants that nourish us won't disappear entirely. But they may have to move to higher and cooler latitudes, or farther up a mountainside. Some places may find it harder to grow anything at all, because there's not enough water.
Here are five foods, and food-growing places, that will see the impact.
Wheat
Wheat, source of bread and a foundation of life in much of the world, will suffer from hotter temperatures — and the country where the impact may be greatest also is among least well-equipped to cope with a shortfall. India is likely to see a large drop in wheat production due to heat stress — about 8 percent if average global temperatures rise by 1 degree Celsius, according to one recent study. Temperatures are expected to rise more than that; according to a recent report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius will require heroic and dramatic action. It will take significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions within 15 years, plus efforts to recapture some of the carbon that's already been emitted, perhaps by planting new forests.
Globally, though, wheat may not be in short supply in a warmer world. Russia, which is already a major wheat exporter, may be able to expand the amount of land devoted to this crop.
Mary Mathis and Heather Kim/NPR
Peaches
Despite Georgia's claim to be the Peach State, California is the country's biggest peach producer. Farmers there grow about half of the country's fresh peaches, and almost all of the fruit that's canned and processed in other ways.
Many fruit trees, including peaches, have a peculiar requirement. If they don't experience enough chill during wintertime, they get confused and don't bloom properly. No bloom, no harvest. The peach trees currently grown in California's Central Valley require about 700 "chilling hours" during the winter. But scientists are predicting that by the end of the century, only 10 percent of the valley will reliably see that much chilling. And even if plant breeders create peach varieties that need less chilling, there's another problem: Peach trees also yield less fruit when it gets too hot in summertime.
Heather Kim/NPR
Coffee
Coffee can't take freezing temperatures, but it doesn't like extreme heat, either — at least the highly prized Arabica type doesn't. So it's mainly grown on relatively cool mountainsides in the tropics. Brazil is the biggest coffee producer in the world, by far, but as the globe warms up, most of its main coffee-growing regions probably won't be suitable for growing this crop anymore, due to heat as well as more frequent rainstorms. Coffee could move to cooler parts of the country, but researchers don't think those new growing areas will make up for what's lost.
Meanwhile, rising temperatures could threaten native coffee trees that grow wild in the forests of Ethiopia and central Africa. The wild trees represent an irreplaceable storehouse of coffee's original genetic diversity. The world's commercial coffee trees are genetically very similar to each other, and those genetically diverse wild trees could be the source of genetic traits that plant breeders may need in order to create commercial trees that can thrive in tomorrow's climate. Some of the wild trees, however, are preserved in "gene banks" in Ethiopia and Latin America.
Mary Mathis and Heather Kim/NPR
Corn
Nothing says Iowa quite like fields of corn. Climate models, though, see a different future. They're predicting that a warming climate will bring several changes, most of them bad for growing corn. Rain will come less often, and when it comes, the storms will be more intense — neither of which is helpful for a crop that demands frequent rains, but doesn't do a good job of preventing soil erosion. In addition, corn suffers when it gets too hot — especially when it's too hot at night. Add it all up, and one study estimates that corn yields in Iowa will fall substantially, anywhere from 15 percent to an astounding 50 percent. "By 2100, the Corn Belt is going to be in Canada, not in the United States," says Jason Clay, senior vice president for food and markets at the World Wildlife Fund.
So what will replace corn on Iowa's fertile land? According to one study, by the end of the century this part of the Midwest will be more suited for growing cotton, soybeans, grass and forests.
Mary Mathis and Heather Kim/NPR
Almonds
California, the biggest single source of America's fresh vegetables and nuts, and the primary source of almonds for the entire world, is a dramatic illustration of how subtle shifts in climate can have huge effects. California's farms rely heavily on snow that piles up in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter, and then slowly melts during the summer, delivering a vital flow of water to the state's irrigation canals. As the climate warms, though, winter precipitation will arrive more often as rain, and the snow that does fall will melt much more quickly, leaving farmers scrambling for water to keep crops alive in late summer. Also, there will be more variation from year to year; wet years will be wetter, and dry years will be even dryer.
Both trends increase the chances that from time to time, farmers will face catastrophic shortages of water. And that's especially bad for tree crops, of which almonds are the biggest, because losing an orchard is much more devastating than losing a single crop of, say, tomatoes. California's farmers may be forced to reduce the amount of land devoted to orchards, since there there's a chance that they will not survive a major drought.