Annual checkup of Earth’s climate says we’re in hotter water

Image Credit: AP Photo /Wilfredo Lee

WASHINGTON (AP) — In their annual, detailed physical of Earth’s climate, scientists say the world is in increasingly hot and rising water.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the American Meteorological Society’s annual state of the climate report, released Thursday, delves into the details of already reported record-smashing warmth globally in 2014, giving special attention to the world’s oceans.

NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt, co-editor of the report, said the seas last year “were just ridiculous.”

The report said ocean surface temperatures were the warmest in 135 years of records, with the seas holding record levels of heat energy down to 2,300 feet below the surface. Sea level also hit modern highs, partly because warmer water expands.

About 93 percent of the man-made heat energy from the burning of fossil fuels went into the world’s oceans, said NOAA oceanographer Greg Johnson. And that heat energy trapped in the ocean affects all sorts of weather, including providing more fuel for tropical cyclones, said Tom Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

All sorts of warming events shifted into overdrive, especially in the Pacific. In addition to a brewing El Nino — where weather worldwide is changed by warm water in parts of the central Pacific — there was a warming of the northeast Pacific nicknamed “The Blob” and a larger scale warming called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which often coincides with faster warming of the planet, Johnson said.

Johnson said subtropical fish not normally seen that far north were appearing off the coast of an unusually warm Alaska.

More than 400 scientists wrote the peer-reviewed 292-page study, the 25th year that the climate checkup was conducted. Its highlights include:

—Four different measuring systems concluded that 2014 was hottest year on record on Earth’s surface. However, because of margins of error, there’s a chance it could only be second hottest.

—Many places, such as Europe, not only had record heat on average, but record patches of extreme heat.

—There were 91 tropical cyclones worldwide in 2014, slightly more than the 30-year average of 82.

—Permafrost in Alaska measuring sites thawed, as temperatures at 65 feet underground set record highs for the second year in a row.

—Glaciers worldwide continued to shrink, but not at a record pace.

—Arctic sea ice, while not at a record setting low last year, is still declining over the long-term.

—However, Antarctic sea ice hit record high levels for the third straight year; different factors aside from temperature have been a cause, said NOAA climate scientist Jessica Blunden.

Read Full Article: AP

Suck it up: Carbon capture technologies may be able to remedy climate change

Image Credit: Jason Wachter/AP

 

In the wake of increasing carbon dioxide levels in the skies, scientists are working on technology that may tackle the problem that is believed to be the root cause of climate change.

Three startups – Carbon Engineering, Global Thermostat and Climeworks – are making machines capable of managing the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The new devises can literally suck carbon dioxide out of the air.

Harvard University scientist David Keith heads up Carbon Engineering – a startup funded partly by Bill Gates – that is developing technology to capture of carbon dioxide from the air, using liquid sodium hydroxide. This technology could help absorb the emissions created by 300,000 typical cars.

In April, Climeworks, a Swiss-based startup captured carbon dioxide from the air and supplied it to a German firm, which then recycled it into a zero-carbon diesel fuel, the Guardian reports.

In New York, Global Thermostat Lab led by Columbia University physicist Peter Eisenberger uses the same carbon-capture technology.

This potential solution to climate change is simple and scientists say it is effective; however its commercial viability is yet to be confirmed. “These companies are a long, long way from success, it must be said. Deploying direct air capture at a scale sufficient to make a difference to the climate would be a vast and costly undertaking,” says Marc Gunther a writer and speaker on business and sustainability

But the need for such technology could become urgent, adds Mr. Gunther. “Their work matters because of the increasing likelihood that we will need to deploy ‘negative emissions’ technologies like direct-air capture to avoid pushing through the 2 degrees of global warming that governments have agreed is a safe upper limit,” says Gunther.

Science writer Eli Kintisch notes, “The need for a carbon-sucking machine is easy to see. Most technologies for mitigating carbon dioxide work only where the gas is emitted in large concentrations, as in power plants. But air-capture machines, installed anywhere on earth, could deal with the 52 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions that are caused by distributed, smaller sources like cars, farms, and homes.”

Some in the scientific community, however, are skeptical. Given the serious questions about the economic feasiblity of this technology, Robert Socolow, director of the Princeton Environment Institute and co-director of the university’s carbon mitigation initiative, says he worries that talk of air capture as a remedy for carbon emissions could breed complacency when it comes to the need to cut down on fossil fuel consumption.

Read Full Article: The Christian Science Monitor

World’s largest steel company to use rabbit gut microbe to cut emissions

Image Credit: Jeff Morgan 01 / Alamy/Alamy

The world’s largest steel producer is planning to spend €87m to use a microbe originally found in a rabbit’s gut to turn a waste gas that contributes to global warming into fuel.

Bioengineering company LanzaTech’s technology will be installed at ArcelorMittal’s steel mill in Ghent, Belgium, with the customised Clostridiummicrobe capturing carbon monoxide and converting it into ethanol.

It is anticipated that the Ghent plant will eventually produce 47,000 tonnes of ethanol a year, which can be sold as a byproduct of the steel-making process and used to run cars and aeroplanes.

Although carbon monoxide is not considered a direct greenhouse gas, it can lead to greater ozone concentrations in the the lowest layer of the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. In a steel plant it is burned, releasing CO2, the main manmade greenhouse gas.

“What we are talking about is turning an environmental liability into a financial opportunity,” said Jennifer Holmgren, chief executive of LanzaTech, which is based in Chicago.

Factories using LanzaTech’s technology are also being built in China and Taiwan. Whichever comes online earliest will be a world first although the system to be built at the factory in Ghent is about 30 times larger than the one in China.

Construction of ArcelorMittal’s pilot should start later this year with bioethanol production beginning in 2017. If the commercial viability of the project is proven the technology would be rolled out across the company’s mills globally: it has factories in 19 countries and produced 93.1m tonnes of steel in 2014.

“This partnership is an example of how we are looking at all potential opportunities to reduce CO2 emissions and support a transition to a lower carbon economy,” said Carl Mare, ArcelorMittal’s vice president of innovation.

“Steel is produced through a chemical process that results in high levels of waste gases being emitted. This new technology will enable us to convert some of these waste gases into fuels that deliver significant environmental impacts.”

Read Full Article: The Guardian

Study: American, European bumblebees feeling climate sting

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NEW YORK (AP) — Climate change is shrinking the geographic range of many bumblebee species in North America and Europe, putting them in danger of future extinction, scientists say.

In a study of 67 species, researchers found that a geographic squeeze occurred on both continents over the past 40 years: While the northern borders of each species’ territory remained about the same on average, the southern borders generally moved northward.

That shift, by more than 100 miles in some cases, was most pronounced for species in the southern parts of the study areas. In North America, the study extended from the southern United States to northern Alaska.

The range loss implies that populations have declined and are on the road to disappearing, said study leader Jeremy Kerr, of the University of Ottawa in Canada. Results were released Thursday by the journal Science.

Analysis showed the changes were not due to differences in land use or the use of pesticides.

“The only explanation we’ve got is that it’s too hot for them,” Kerr said.

Bumblebees are furry-looking and wild cousins of honeybees. They play a crucial role in nature by pollinating wild plants and also some crops such as tomatoes and blueberries.

Kerr said that because the geographic ranges of species overlap, the new study does not mean that vast areas of the continents have lost bumblebees completely. Rather, it means that many areas host fewer species than they used to. Such loss of diversity can hamper an environment’s ability to cope with changes like droughts, he said in an interview.

The bee trend was surprising because other land creatures like butterflies have extended their range north while maintaining their southern boundaries, researchers said.

Kerr’s study drew on museum records of bumblebees captured by naturalists and researchers over decades. It focused on about 423,000 cases where the species, location and year of capture were known. Researchers set a baseline distribution of the species found between 1901 and 1974, and looked for changes at later time periods, most recently 1999 to 2010.

May Berenbaum, who heads the entomology department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, praised the scope of the study and said it shows bumblebees will not simply shift northward to cope with rising temperatures.

Read Full Article: AP

Stress from heat, drought on fish spurs push to reduce kills

Image Credit: Bob Pennell/The Mail Tribune via AP, File

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Drought and record hot weather are producing lethal conditions for salmon and trout in rivers across the West.

A recent survey released Wednesday of the lower reaches of 54 rivers in Oregon, California and Washington by the conservation group Wild Fish Conservancy showed nearly three-quarters had temperatures higher than 70 degrees, considered potentially deadly for salmon and trout.

Low river flows from the record low winter snowpack, which normally feeds rivers through the summer, combined with record hot weather have created a “perfect storm” of bad conditions for salmon and trout, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supervisory fisheries biologist Rich Johnson.

“It’s unprecedented, I’d say,” Johnson said.

Oregon Climate Center Associate Director Kathie Dello says the entire West Coast saw record low snowpack last winter, leading to low rivers this summer. All three states had record high temperatures for June, with Oregon breaking the record by 3 degrees, and the three-month outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is for continued warmer and drier-than-normal weather made worse by the ocean-warming condition known as El Nino, she added.

“This is the worst case scenario playing out right now, a warm winter and then a warm and dry summer,” she said.

The Willamette River saw scores of dead salmon in June.

This week, state biologists examined about 50 dead sockeye salmon in the mouth of the Deschutes River. State fisheries biologist Rod French said they appeared to have been infected with a gill rot disease associated with warm water, and had probably left the warm waters of the Columbia River in search of cooler water.

In California, inland fisheries manager Roger Bloom says they are considering emergency fishing closures on several rivers so that fish weakened by the warm water do not die from being played by an angler, even if they are released. They include the lower Merced, the American and the Klamath.

In Washington, two federal fish hatcheries in the Columbia Gorge released 6 million juvenile salmon two weeks early in the Columbia River, in hopes they would have a better chance of reaching the ocean before temperatures got even warmer, said Johnson.

“It’s just a perfect storm of bad weather conditions for salmon,” he said. “Pray for rain and snow.”

River flows are so low, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is sending out crews to clear out impromptu dams people build with rocks to create a pool to cool off in, so the salmon can swim upstream to spawn, said department drought coordinator Teresa Scott. Rivers are at levels normally not expected until September, and no one knows if they will drop even further.

“This is such a huge magnitude compared to previous droughts,” she said. “Records available from before don’t come close to preparing us for what we are encountering this year.”

In Oregon, deputy fisheries chief Bruce McIntosh says they have imposed closures around cool water areas where salmon seek refuge at the mouths of tributaries flowing into the lower Umpqua River, but he did do not anticipate any more closures unless things get worse.

“Certainly we’ve had significant droughts in the past, such as the late 70’s,” he said. “But the challenge this year has been not only are there drought conditions, we’re having August temperatures in June. That combination we really have not seen before.”

Liz Hamilton of the Northwest Sportfishing Association, said closures are not needed, because when temperatures get too warm, fish go off the bite, and anglers quit fishing anyway.

Read Full Article: AP

15-Year-Old Climate Activist Speaks To UN General Assembly

This 15-year-old has got something to say, and on June 29th, the United Nations General Assembly heard him loud and clear.

Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez stood before the representatives and spoke earnestly and boldly (without notes, for the record) about the urgency of climate change, urging them to take action immediately. “What’s at stake right now is the existence of my generation,” he said in his speech. “In the last 20 years of negotiations, almost no agreements have been made on a bonding climate recovery plan,” he said.

Roske acknowledged that conversations are indeed taking place in an interview with Upworthy, saying “a lot was addressed about needing to take action and wanting to do something, and that’s great… It’s reassuring there’s a conversation going on,” he said. But, he added, “we have to speed up the conversation.”

This was his third time addressing the UN, and one of many of his public efforts to raise awareness and inspire action around climate change, which he refers to in his speech as “the defining issue of our time,” and “a human rights issue.” His work in this realm began when he was juts six years old (!), when he made his first speech on the topic.

In more recent years, he’s given an inspiring TED Talk on the matter, serving on President Obama’s 2013 Youth Council (after he received the 2013 United States Community Service Award of course), and working as the Youth Director of non-profit organization, Earth Guardians, which seeks to promote young activists and artists interested in helping to protect the planet.

Read Full Article: The Huffington Post

12 tools for communicating climate change more effectively

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Uncertainty is an unavoidable feature of the climate change debate – just like any other complex scientific and societal issue. But sceptics have used (and in some cases abused) the presence of uncertainty in climate projections to argue that the science is not sufficiently settled to warrant policies to cut carbon.

In response, scientists – who naturally tend towards nuance, caution and tentativeness in their communicative style – have often felt compelled to foreground the uncertainties and caveats in their work instead of focusing on the many aspects of climate science on which there is strong consensus.

Sadly, the norms that govern dialogue between scientists are often in direct conflict with the tenets of effective communication. Simple, concise messages are difficult to extract from messy, complex data.

But while scientists, campaigners and other communicators should never downplay or hide the intricacies inherent in climate models, there are better and worse ways of communicating uncertainty. A new Uncertainty Handbook released by the University of Bristol and the Climate Outreach and Information Network distills research finding and expert advice to set out 12 principles of smarter communication around climate change uncertainty. It’s intended to provide scientists, policymakers and campaigners with the tools they need to communicate more effectively around climate change.

1. Manage your audience’s expectations

People expect science to provide definite answers, whereas in reality it is a method for asking questions about the world. So manage people’s expectations and use plenty of analogies from everyday life so people can see that uncertainties are everywhere, not just in climate science.

2. Start with what you know, not what you don’t know

Too often, communicators give the caveats before the take-home message. On many fundamental questions, such as “are humans causing climate change?” and “will we cause unprecedented changes to our climate if we don’t reduce the amount of carbon that we burn?”, the science is effectively settled.

3. Be clear about the scientific consensus

Having a clear and consistent message about the scientific consensus is important as it influences whether people see climate change as a problem that requires an urgent societal response. Use clear graphics like a pie-chart, a messenger who is trustworthy to communicate the consensus, and try to find the closest match between the values of your audience and those of the person communicating the consensus message.

4. Shift from “uncertainty” to “risk”

Most people are used to dealing with the idea of risk. It is the language of the insurance, health and national security sectors. So for many audiences – politicians, business leaders or the military – talking about the risks of climate change is likely to be more effective than talking about the uncertainties.

5. Be clear about the type of risk you are talking about

A common strategy of sceptics is to intentionally confuse and conflate different types of uncertainty. It’s therefore critical to be clear about what type you’re talking about – causes, impacts, policies or solutions – and adopt appropriate language for each.

6. Understand what is driving people’s views

Uncertainty about climate change is higher among people with right-leaning political values. However, a growing body of research points to ways of communicating about climate change that do not threaten conservative belief systems, using language that better resonates with the values of the centre-right.

7. The most important question is “when”, not “if”

Climate change predictions are usually communicated using a standard uncertain outcome format. So a statement might say that sea levels will rise by “between 25cm and 68cm, with 50cm being the average projection, by 2072”. But flip the statement around – using an uncertain time framing – and suddenly it is clear that the question is when (not if) sea levels will rise by 50cm: “sea levels will rise by at least 50 cm, and this will occur at some time between 2060 and 2093”.

8. Communicate through images and stories

Most people understand the world through stories and images, not lists of numbers, probability statements or technical graphs, and so it is crucial to find ways of translating and interpreting the technical language found in scientific reports into something more engaging. A visual artist can capture the concept of sea-level rise better than any graph, and still be factually accurate if scientific projections are used to inform the work.

9. Highlight the positivesof uncertainty

Research has found that uncertainty is not an inevitable barrier to action, provided communicators frame climate change messages in ways that trigger caution in the face of uncertainty. A positive framing of uncertain information would indicate that losses might not happen if preventative action was taken.

10. Communicate effectively about climate impacts

The question “is this weather event caused by climate change?” is misplaced. When someone has a weak immune system, they are more susceptible to a range of diseases, and no one asks whether each illness was caused by a weak immune system. The same logic applies to climate change and some extreme weather events: they are made more likely, and more severe, by climate change.

11. Have a conversation, not an argument

Despite the disproportionate media attention given to sceptics, most people simply don’t talk or think about climate change all that much. This means that the very act of having a conversation about climate change – not an argument or repeating a one-shot slogan – can be a powerful method of public engagement.

12. Tell a human story

The amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted over the next 50 years will determine the extent to which our climate changes.

Read Full Article: The Guardian

Jane Fonda sounds climate change alarm in Toronto

Jane Fonda used to be a Blue Jays fan.

“I loved them,” she says, perched cross-legged on a sofa at a downtown Toronto hotel. “Until I married somebody that owned another team.”

But Fonda’s not in town to revive her fandom or her past betrothals. The 77-year-old actor and activist comes with a solar-fuelled fire in her belly.

“The climate change problem is the issue of our civilization. It will affect everything about our lives if we don’t do something about it,” she says.

Touching down Friday night from Los Angeles, the two-time Oscar winner is part of a parade of celebrities and distinguished guests who are putting foot to pavement in Sunday’s March for Jobs, Justice and the Climate.

The demonstration, organized by environmental group 350.org two days before Toronto hosts the Climate Summit of the Americas, has wrangledparticipants from more than 100 organizations, from Greenpeace to Unifor, a union representing 40,000 oil and gas workers among its 300,000 members.

“I’m really amped up about the participation of the unions, because it’s a false choice that either you stay with the fossil fuel economy or you lose jobs,” Fonda says, her voice firm.

Active for nearly half a century in causes ranging from anti-war campaigns to gender equality, she insists it was Canadian author Naomi Klein’s 2014 bestseller on climate change, This Changes Everything, that jolted her out of complacency and lit her fire, as she puts it.

“It changed my life,” she says, unblinking.

Soon Fonda called up Klein, who passed on the digits of Greenpeace Canada’s executive director Joanna Kerr.

“I said, ‘What can I do?’ ” Fonda recalls.

Days later, a straw hat on her head, she was speaking at last month’s rally in Vancouverto protest planned offshore drilling by Shell.

The former fitness guru, who deliberately uses her influence as a film star to “amplify” important issues, says she is “moved” and “inspired” by the resilience of many of Canada’s First Nations.

“They’re really on the front lines.”

Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a Greenpeace energy campaigner, is a rising leader in that battle.

A member of the Lubicon Cree First Nation in northern Alberta, she remembers clearly when a pipeline rupture sent more than three million litres of oil gushing through the ground about 10 kilometres from her family home in the village of Little Buffalo in 2011. It was the biggest oil spill in Alberta since the mid-1970s.

“My family is breathing in the toxins. My family is sick, nauseous. Their eyes are burning,” she says.

Small communities have often been among the first to face the brunt of environmental blunders, in places like northern Alberta and Lac-Mégantic, Que., notes Laboucan-Massimo, 33.

Now many First Nations leaders feel like “economic hostages,” she says. They’re caught “between a rock and a hard place” due to the conflicting pressures of turning on the oil valve in their community — and reaping the royalties — and ensuring the health and safety of their people.

“But we do have a choice. We have to make that initiative and we have to do it now,” she says.

Laboucan-Massimo has raised money to install a photovoltaic power generator at the school in Little Buffalo. “Panel by panel, we’re showing politicians what true leadership is.”

As she and Fonda sit elbow to elbow, and with Mohawk and labour leaders poised to speak side by side at Sunday’s rally, the film star’s declaration that “trust is building” between non-aboriginal and indigenous communities resonates.

Forty-five years ago Fonda herself was arrested along with dozens of indigenous protesters as they attempted to occupy a U.S. army base in Seattle.

Her sense of social justice runs even further back.

“My dad” — Henry Fonda — “was not a man who talked a lot, but he did these movies, like Grapes of Wrath, Young Mr. Lincoln, 12 Angry Men, and he had a special relationship to those kinds of characters because of their values,” she says. “They were characters who stood up for justice.”

Fonda carries that conscience with her still.

“When my time comes, I don’t want regret. And I know the regrets that I would have would not be about what I did; they’d be about what I didn’t do,” she said, referring to action on climate change.

Toronto is proof positive to Fonda that the planet is worth preserving.

“I discovered the parks and creeks and bike paths of Toronto in the 1970s, and they are unlike anywhere else. I would go (on my bike) for hours and hours and hours,” she recalls.

An indulgence every now and then never hurts, though: “Number two — the restaurants, oh the restaurants.

“I come through customs and I cross the border and I feel, I just feel right here,” she sighs. “I love Toronto and I love Canada.”

Read Full Article: The Star

CO2 emissions threaten ocean crisis

Image Credit: NOAA

Scientists have warned that marine life will be irreversibly changed unless CO2 emissions are drastically cut.

Writing in Science, experts say the oceans are heating, losing oxygen and becoming more acidic because of CO2.

They warn that the 2C maximum temperature rise for climate change agreed by governments will not prevent dramatic impacts on ocean systems.

And they say the range of options is dwindling as the cost of those options is skyrocketing.

Twenty-two world-leading marine scientists have collaborated in the synthesis report in a special section of Science journal. They say the oceans are at parlous risk from the combination of threats related to CO2.

They believe politicians trying to solve climate change have paid far too little attention to the impacts of climate change on the oceans.

It is clear, they say, that CO2 from burning fossil fuels is changing the chemistry of the seas faster than at any time since a cataclysmic natural event known as the Great Dying 250 million years ago.

They warn that the ocean has absorbed nearly 30% of the carbon dioxide we have produced since 1750 and, as CO2 is a mildly acidic gas, it is making seawater more acidic.

It has also buffered climate change by absorbing over 90% of the additional heat created by industrial society since 1970. The extra heat makes it harder for the ocean to hold oxygen.

‘Radical change’

Several recent experiments suggest that many organisms can withstand the future warming that CO2 is expected to bring, or the decrease in pH, or lower oxygen… but not all at once.

Jean-Pierre Gattuso, lead author of the study, said: “The ocean has been minimally considered at previous climate negotiations. Our study provides compelling arguments for a radical change at the UN conference (in Paris) on climate change”.

The oceans are at parlous risk from a combination of threats

They warn that the carbon we emit today may change the earth system irreversibly for many generations to come.

Carol Turley, of Plymouth Marine Laboratory, a co-author, said: “The ocean is at the frontline of climate change with its physics and chemistry being altered at an unprecedented rate so much so that ecosystems and organisms are already changing and will continue to do so as we emit more CO2.

“The ocean provides us with food, energy, minerals, drugs and half the oxygen in the atmosphere, and it regulates our climate and weather.

“We are asking policy makers to recognise the potential consequences of these dramatic changes and raise the profile of the ocean in international talks where, up to now, it has barely got a mention.”

The scientists say ocean acidification is likely to impact reproduction, larval survival and feeding, and growth rates of marine organisms – especially those with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons.

Dangerous path

The authors say when the multiple stressors work together they occasionally cancel each other out, but more often they multiply negative effects.

The experts say coastal protection, fisheries, aquaculture and human health and tourism will all be affected by the changes.

They warn: “Immediate and substantial reduction of CO2 emissions is required in order to prevent the massive and effectively irreversible impacts on ocean ecosystems and their services”.

Professor Manuel Barange, director of science at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, said: “Climate change will continue to affect ocean ecosystems in very significant ways, and society needs to take notice and respond.

Read Full Article: BBC News

Study: Polar bears could feel global warming’s sting by 2025

Image Credit: Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP, File

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — About a third of the world’s polar bears could be in imminent danger from greenhouse gas emissions in as soon as a decade, a U.S. government report shows.

The U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department’s research arm, said updated scientific models don’t bode well for polar bear populations across the world, especially in Alaska, the only state in the nation with the white bears.

The report released this week is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s recovery plan for the polar bear. It is expected to be published Thursday in the Federal Register.

Greenhouse gases are blamed for the climate warming that’s reducing the polar bear’s summer sea ice habitat.

The effects of diminished sea ice will lead to population declines throughout the century. Scientists saw no rebound in population numbers in the projections that stretched to the year 2100.

The scientific models attempted to predict the effects on polar bear populations under two scenarios: one in which greenhouse gas emissions stabilized, and the other in which they continued unabated.

Under either scenario, the bears in the Alaska, Russia and Norway group — with an estimated population of about 8,500 — would start to be affected in either 2025 or 2030, said lead author Todd Atwood, an Alaska-based USGS research wildlife biologist.

He said the main reason is this part of the Arctic has suffered some of the most dramatic declines in summer sea ice.

Polar bears feed primarily on seals and use sea ice for feeding, mating and giving birth. When the sea ice retreats in the summer, polar bears are forced to land. A study earlier this year found the land-based food would not help a polar bear adapt to the loss of sea ice. The Office of Naval Research said the past eight years have had the eight lowest amounts of summer sea ice on record.

The USGS didn’t predict specific number declines and instead projected whether a population would see a decreased or a greatly decreased population.

“That’s not to say that we’ll lose polar bears completely out of the area, but we think that they’ll be at a greatly decreased distribution than what they currently are,” Atwood said.

Polar bears in Canada and Greenland also could see dramatic population drops by 2050. Bears in the high Canadian Arctic fared the best in the two scientific models. They saw a “greatly decreased” population only under the worst-case scenario.

“Polar bears are in big trouble,” said Rebecca Noblin, Alaska director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “There are other steps we can take to slow the decline of polar bears, but in the long run, the only way to save polar bears in the Arctic is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Read Full Article: AP

Too hot: Temperatures messing with sex of Australian lizards

Image Credit: Arthur Georges/University of Canberra, Australia via AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hotter temperatures are messing with the gender of Australia’s bearded dragon lizards, a new study finds.

Dragons that are genetically male hatch as females and give birth to other lizards. And the way the lizards’ gender is determined is getting changed so much that the female sex chromosome may eventually disappear entirely, the study authors say.

“This is the first time we have proved that sex reversal happens in the wild in any reptile at all,” said Clare Holleley of the University of Canberra, lead author of the study in the journal Nature Wednesday. The study, she said, “is showing that climate extremes can very rapidly fundamentally alter the biology of an organism.”

To understand what’s happening, it helps to a have a quick lesson in the birds and the bees — and the bearded dragons and other reptiles. Some reptiles, like alligators and some turtles, have their genders determined not by sex chromosomes, like humans and other mammals, but by temperature during incubation.

Until now, bearded dragons had their gender based on chromosomes. Like birds, their sex chromosomes are Z and W instead of X and Y. Males are ZZ. Females are ZW. In humans, everyone has an X and the presence of Y makes a person genetically male. In bearded dragons, everyone has a Z and the presence of a W makes them a genetic female.

In the past, scientists have shown in the lab that hot temperatures can switch that natural chromosome-based gender.

Holleley and colleagues examined the genetic sex markers of 131 wild-caught bearded dragons in Queensland province and found that 11 of them were female outwardly — even having offspring — but had the ZZ chromosomes of a genetic male. Their sex determination was “switched into overdrive,” Holleley said.

Holleley concedes 11 dragons is a small sample size, so she and colleagues will continue and expand their research.

The genetic-male-into-female dragons not only laid eggs, but in a way were better mothers than genetically determined females, laying more eggs, said study co-author Arthur Georges, chief scientist for the Institute for Applied Ecology at the University of Canberra.

The team also found that the offspring of these dragons no longer have their gender determined by chromosomes, but by temperature.

“They’re throwing away the equivalent of the Y, which we call the W, chromosome,” Georges said. “If the climate warms not much more at all, the percentage of sex reversal will increase and the W chromosome will be lost from the population.”

This is happening in an area that is one of the fastest warming places in Australia over the past 40 years, Holleley said. Lab tests show that the switch from genetic sex determination to temperature sex determination seems to start at about 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) and occurs 100 percent of the time at about 97 degrees (36 degrees Celsius), Holleley said.

Outside scientist Frederic Janzen at Iowa State University praised the work as thorough and convincing. He said in an email that the study can help “to better understand these remarkable animals in a rapidly changing world.”

Read Full Article: AP

Robert Redford Urges Heads of States to Agree on Climate Change at U.N.

Image Credit: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS

Oscar-winning actor and director Robert Redford addressed the United Nations Monday, urging world leaders to take bold and immediate action on climate change and to adopt a climate agreement at a global climate conference in December.

Redford, who referred to himself as “an actor by trade but…an activist by nature,” spoke at a high-level event on climate change attended by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, international diplomats and climate activists. The 78-year-old, who founded the Sundance Film Festival and is best known for such films as All the President’s Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kidand The Sting, said he has been an environmental campaigner for more than 40 years.

At the climate change event, which was held Monday, discussions were held to generate “political momentum” ahead of the global conference in December.

“Nothing less than the state of our planet is hanging in the balance, and the imperative for action should not be more clear,” Redford said at the event. “Today we can no longer claim ignorance as an excuse for inaction.”

“Unless we move quickly away from fossil fuels, we’re going to destroy the air we breathe, the water we drink, the health of our children, grandchildren and future generations,” Redford said.

Redford is the latest prominent American actor to address climate change at the U.N. In September, “What’s Possible,” a short film narrated by Morgan Freeman focusing on ways to combat climate change, was screened at the U.N.’s Climate Summit in New York, where the newly minted U.N. “messenger for peace,” Leonardo DiCaprio, spoke.

Redford mentioned Pope Francis’s recent public stance on climate change and said taking action on climate change is a “moral imperative.” Earlier this month, the pope tweeted that “the earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.” Redford also mentioned the heat wave in Pakistan earlier this month, which has claimed more than 1,200 lives and saw temperatures reach as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit in Karachi last week. Last month, a heat wave in India also claimed the lives of hundreds of people.

“Everywhere we look, moderate weather seems to be going extinct,” Redford said.

In December, more than 190 world governments will meet in Paris to try to create a new climate agreement that would limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit—from what temperatures were before the Industrial Revolution—by 2020. In addition to environmental disaster, some studies suggest that climate change is related to violent conflicts throughout the world, most recently the ongoing civil war in Syria. At the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen, the world’s richest countries agreed to provide $30 billion in “fast-start” financial assistance to poorer countries to help them invest in clean technology. Assistance is expected to increase to $100 billion by 2020, although recipient countries want an agreement in place beyond 2020, The Guardian reports.

At the Paris conference, the European Union is expected to agree to cut its emissions by 40 percent by 2030, compared with levels in 1990, and the U.S. will offer to slash carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels, The Guardian reports. China, whose carbon emissions surpassed those of the entire EU in September, says its carbon levels will peak in 2030 as part of the agreement.

On Monday, Ban expressed his frustration over the pace of the U.N. climate change talks and said negotiations are moving “far too slow” during opening remarks at the meeting.

“It’s like snails, moving [at] snail’s pace. The key political issues are still on the table,” said Ban. “With only 10 days left, negotiating days, I really count on leaders, presidents, prime ministers and ministers to exercise their political direction so that this negotiation will move much faster.”

Read Full Article: Newsweek