Lethal Heating: 10/16/17

16/10/2017

NASA's CO2-Tracking Satellite Deconstructs Earth's Carbon Cycle

Wired -

Artist rendition of the OCO-2 observatory. JPL/NASA

This much scientists know: Humans pump about 40 billion tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere every year. Less clear is where the planet puts it.
About half of it stays in the air, where it adds to the annual, two- to three-part-per-million increase in atmospheric CO₂ concentration and the gradual warming of the planet. The other half is hoovered up by the planet's carbon sinks—oceans and plants—in roughly equal quantities, slowing its accumulation in the atmosphere. But the rate of carbon dioxide removal, especially by vegetation, varies a lot from year to year. What's more, nobody's certain where or how this reuptake is happening, let alone when the globe's carbon sinks will overflow.
That’s because existing carbon-monitoring methods are predominantly ground-based—and in shockingly short supply. Some 150 of them dot the Earth, sniffing the air and reporting the carbon content of the local firmament. But to study how land and ocean sinks vary on a global scale, from season to season? There just aren't enough.

An artist's rendition of what the OCO-2 spacecraft sees. Debbi McLean/GSFC/NASA-JPL

"They're very precise, but there's very few of them," says Annmarie Eldering, an environmental engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "If you want to understand how the continent of Africa or the Pacific Ocean relate to the global carbon cycle, that data set isn't very sensitive."
For decades, climate scientists have been studying the carbon cycle from the ground, when what they really needed was a 30,000-foot view.
Or better yet: A 2.3-million-foot view.
In July 2014, NASA placed its first and only CO₂-monitoring spacecraft into Earth's orbit, some 435 miles above the planet's surface. Dubbed the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-1 died in 2009, when it failed to launch and crashed into the ocean near Antarctica), it's spent the last three years lapping the globe in a sun-synchronous orbit, collecting millions of measurements per month.
But OCO-2 doesn't measure CO₂ directly. Rather, it measures wavelengths of sunlight reflected off the Earth's surface.
The relative intensity of those wavelengths indicate how much CO₂ the sunlight passes through in the column of air separating the satellite from the ground below.
Every 16 days, NASA assembles these measurements into a map of sorts—a global carbon snapshot that helps researchers understand how Earth's carbon sinks respond to seasonal shifts, human CO₂ emissions, and major climate events. "It's a lot more data than has ever been collected," says Eldering, who serves as OCO-2's deputy project scientist. "And the fun is in the details of the data."
Those details are the subject of several studies published in this week's issue of Science. Taken together, they demonstrate OCO-2's abilities by filling important gaps in scientists' understanding of how carbon shifts between the Earth, the sky, and the sea—and why it moves the way it does.

In this visualization, reds and yellows depict regions of higher than average CO2, while blues show regions lower than average. Atmospheric CO2 levels plummet during spring and explode in the winter before peaking in April, when decomposing plants and humanity's fuel emissions drive atmospheric carbon levels to their annual maximum. A. Eldering et al., Science (2017)

One study reveals a dramatic ebb and flow in the Northern Hemisphere's carbon cycle: Atmospheric CO₂ levels plummet during spring and explode in the winter before peaking in April, when decomposing plants and humanity's fuel emissions drive atmospheric carbon levels to their annual maximum. A different investigation showcases OCO-2's ability to track carbon emissions from individual cities and volcanoes. Yet another study demonstrates the spacecraft's ability to not only detect the faint fluorescent glow emitted by photosynthesizing plants, but use those measurements to infer, from hundreds of miles overhead, the amount of carbon being consumed by vegetation down on Earth.
But the most impressive study illuminates the impact of a powerful El Niño event on the global carbon cycle—and how rising temperatures could push the planet's carbon sinks to their limits.
The 2014–2016 El Niño event was among the strongest in history (Nature, the august scientific journal, referred to it as "Godzilla"), which meant the world's tropical regions were less wet and a lot hotter than usual. It also coincided with the highest rate of atmospheric CO₂ increase ever recorded.
"El Niño provided a very big signal," Eldering says. Much of the world experienced that signal in the form of calamitous weather. But for OCO-2? "It was this great natural experiment where we had heat and drought outside the normal range, and we could study how the carbon system responded," Eldering says. It also let her team peer into the future: Many climate models suggest the world will be warmer and drier at the end of the century than it is today. The conditions precipitated by El Niño served as a dry run.
The event's role in the 2015 carbon spike appears to have been enormous. A study led by JPL climatologist Junjie Liu combined data from OCO-2 and other Earth-observing satellites to show that 80 percent of the record rise in atmospheric CO₂ levels could be attributed to tropical regions of South America, Africa, and Asia releasing more carbon than usual. Together these areas unloaded about 2.5-gigatons more carbon into the atmosphere in 2015 than in 2011—nearly one quarter the amount humans typically emit in a year.

This infographic depicts the unusually high levels of carbon dioxide release from three tropical continents during 2015 El Niño. NASA-JPL/Caltech

More importantly, though, Liu and her colleagues showed that the processes driving this carbon flux varied from continent to continent. In Asia, the principal drivers were massive fires. In South America it was a lack of rain. And Africa? The continent actually saw typical plant growth but hotter than usual temperatures, which accelerated the decomposition of plant matter and the release of CO₂.
Those last two cases carry grave implications for the future of Earth's carbon sinks: The anomalous heat and drought that the researchers observed in Africa and South America are expected to be commonplace by the end of this century. If these regions react in 2100 the way they did in 2015, more of the carbon emissions humans expel into the atmosphere will stay in the atmosphere.
The OCO-2 studies clarify how carbon's movement between Earth's tropics and the atmosphere varies, depending on the region you're looking at. That kind of nuance will be a boon to climate research. "It’s really impressive," says Josep Canadell, director of the Global Carbon Project. "It produces a novel, complex picture of the processes behind changes in global CO₂ levels. To me, it signals the beginning of a new era of carbon cycle sciences and the study of the Earth’s carbon sources and sinks."
Not that there isn't a need for more tools. Remember: OCO-2 detects CO₂ indirectly, by measuring light; unlike ground-based measurements, you can't test its accuracy by comparing its readings to known quantities of gas. "This is my hobby horse, but the Achilles heel of the whole carbon-tracking endeavor has been an underinvestment in calibrated measurements," says Pieter Tans, director of NOAA's Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases Group. Remote sensing satellites like OCO-2 offer climatologists a valuable but insufficient vantage point, he says; a comprehensive monitoring network will require more greenhouse gas sensors—not just on the ground, but in the sky. Tans envisions a scenario in which hundreds of commercial airplanes equipped with sensors produce a dense vertical profile of atmospheric gasses. A fleet of high-altitude balloons could collect measurements, as well.
All of which, of course, will require money—a disquieting reality in light of the Trump administration's proposed cuts to science funding and abandonment of Obama-era climate policies. "Obviously I'm worried about budgets," Tans says. "Climate research is a scientific need, but what can I do? Leave the US? Do I have to go to Europe to get science done?"
Perhaps. But then, many of today's most important scientific findings are the product of collaborative, multinational efforts—and the OCO-2 mission is no exception. NASA's CO₂-monitoring spacecraft is but one in a constellation of Earth-observing satellites known in climate circles as the A-Train. "We’ve benefitted from the fact that cooperation across the world manifests in this constellation, and that we can use these satellites together," Eldering says. "If you want to pull things apart—did fire cause this or did heat and drought cause that—you have to look at as many pieces of information as possible."
This much scientists know: Humans pump about 40 billion tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere every year. To trace its course through the earth, air, and oceans, they'll need all the sensors, all the satellites, and all the help they can get.

How Climate Change Is Already Affecting Earth
Though the planet has only warmed by one-degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution, climate change's effect on earth has been anything but subtle. Here are some of the most astonishing developments over the past few years.

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See It, Say It: Climate Change

Washington Post - Editorial Board

A firefighter works to defend homes from the approaching wildfire in Sonoma, Calif., on Saturday. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters)

“NOTHING MORE than ash and bones.”
That grim description of how some victims were found underscores the horror of the wildfires that swept through and devastated Northern California.
At least 38 people were killed, including a 14-year-old boy found dead in the driveway of the home he was trying to flee, a 28-year-woman confined to a wheelchair and a couple who recently had celebrated their 75th anniversary. In addition to the lives lost, approximately 5,700 homes and businesses were destroyed, including entire neighborhoods turned into smoldering ruins.
Some 220,000 acres, including prized vineyards, have been scorched, and the danger is not over, as some fires are still burning and officials fear the return of winds could spread more catastrophe.
Fire season is part of life in California, something that residents know and prepare for after the hot, dry summer months.
But the events that began last Sunday have been unprecedented, and so the question that must be confronted is what caused the deadliest week of wildfires in the state’s history.
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) pointed the finger at climate change.
“With a warming climate, dry weather and reducing moisture, these kinds of catastrophes have happened and will continue to happen and we have to be ready to mitigate, and it’s going to cost a lot of money,” he said last week.
No single fire can be specifically linked to climate change, and certainly other factors, such as increased development or logging and grazing activities, are involved. But scientists say there is a clear connection between global warming and the increase in recent years in the severity and frequency of wildfires in the West.
“Climate change is kind of turning up the dial on everything,” expert LeRoy Westerling told CBS News. “Dry periods become more extreme. Wet periods become more extreme.”
While California prepares for what promises to be an arduous rebuilding, Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and other places hit by this year’s unprecedented back-to-back-to-back hurricanes are still mopping up and, in Puerto Rico’s case, just beginning to rebuild. So it would seem to be a natural time to talk about the possible role climate change played in these disasters and about measures the nation should be taking to slow global warming.
Instead, we have an administration that refuses even to consider the possibility of a connection, much less talk about solutions. Worse, it is taking steps in the wrong direction: pulling out of the Paris climate accord, reversing rules on power plant emissions, staffing key agencies with climate-change deniers.
Sadly, that will increase the likelihood and frequency of tragedies such as the fires in California’s wine country.

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Aristotle To Abbott: Climate Change Sceptics Through The Ages

Fairfax - Ian Warden

For atheists (this columnist's mob and guild), all Christians are equally mystifying. But some Christians are more equally mystifying than others. Roman Catholics are the most equally mystifying of all.
For example, atheists are marvelling this week, how can it be that Tony Abbott, a conspicuous Catholic, can have global warming beliefs so totally at odds with those of the CEO of his faith, Pope Francis?

Abbott has just given a much reported speech in London, scoffing at climate change science. John Shakespeare

Abbott has just given a much reported, idiocy-pocked, banality-sprinkled speech in London, scoffing at climate change science. In this same week Labor leader Bill Shorten has deplored the Turnbull government's apparent plans to abandon a clean energy target. Shorten says this is the PM capitulating to Tony Abbott and other "knuckle draggers" of the coalition parties.
But back to the Tony Abbott/Pope Francis climate change schism and clash. Isn't it a hallmark of Catholicism, atheists ask, that rank and file Catholics defer obediently to the wisdom and the rank of the pope, the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church? (The pope has eight official titles and today's column will respectfully use some of the biggest and best of them.)
Did the Pope prick up his ears at reports of Abbott's speech, a delivery so at odds with his, the Pope's, 2015 encyclical titled Laudato Si? In Laudato Si, Francis insists that the scientists are right, that global warming is happening, that it is substantially mankind-driven and that we must act, now.
What if, now, Abbott is summoned to the Vatican to explain himself?
In one's mind's eye we see him ushered into the papal presence. In the long walk up to the papal throne one can see his, Abbott's, knuckles dragging on the Vatican's deep and sumptuous crimson carpets. They, the two pairs of the recalcitrant's knuckles, leave a parallel trail in the carpet's sumptuous pile, a bit like wheelchair tracks in snow.
Surely, at our imagined audience, The Successor of the Prince of Apostles will present the erring Abbott with a copy of his, His Holiness's, Laudato Si.
Earlier this year, the Pope handed a copy to the Kuckledragger In Chief, President Trump. But of course to present a novella-length read (Laudato Si is 38,000 words long) to Trump suggests a triumph of optimism over what's likely to happen. At 38,000 words, Laudato Si is longer than C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Trump, with the attention span of a soap bubble, is not a reader.
In our imagination we see Abbott, after our imagined audience, leaving the Vatican with a signed copy of Laudato Si. Will he read it? Probably not. A knuckle dragging man like Abbott reads what he wants to read and disregards the rest.
This seems a shame. Given the climate-based events of this week (including the Abbott speech, the political imbroglio over the abandoned clean energy target and the unprecedented fires in California) I have begun reading Laudato Si.
Once the atheist reader has forgiven it for one or two small, recurring errors of fact (for example, it says mistakenly that there is a God and that He made our planet) Laudato Si is a terrific and often very beautiful read. It bristles with sincere love of and heartfelt anxiety for our tender and fragile planet we are so sinfully buggering up.
The sensitively green St Francis of Assissi is recommended as our role model. "Just as happens when we fall in love with someone," the impassioned pontiff writes, "whenever he [St Francis] would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise. He felt called to care for all that exists."
Such a conviction cannot be written off as naive romanticism, for if we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters …"
Thus far today's column has been spiteful to Tony Abbott. And so in a pathetic, token attempt to appear open-minded about him I point out that not all climate change deniers are necessarily knuckle draggers.
For example, few men have walked with their knuckles further from the ground than Aristotle, the towering philosopher and scientist of ancient Greece. In the latest online Lapham's Quarterly the cerebral Lewis Lapham looks at climate change denial - ancient and modern - and reflects that, "While today environmental scientists warn of rising sea levels, ancient Athenians worried that the sea was going to dry up."

U.S. secretary of agriculture Sonny Perdue meets with German minister of food and agriculture Christian Schmidt, 2017. Photograph by Preston Keres / USDA Office of Communications.

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right) arguing in The School of Athens, by Raphael, c. 1509–10. Apostolic Palace, Vatican City.

"Any fluctuation in climate was understandably disastrous for an agricultural society, and natural philosophers took the issue seriously. Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus discussed permanent weather change …concluding that if the Cretans are correct about colder winters, a certain type of wind must be increasing in frequency.
''But Aristotle himself disagreed and argued against climate-change fearmongering in his geological treatise Meteorology, telling us we have nothing to worry about – climate is cyclical."
Perhaps Aristotle was right, then, in 350BC. But Lapham reminds us that today, according to NASA, 97 per cent of published scientists agree that global warming is occurring.

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