The blank spaces on the map of Google Earth are being filled in, as the company announced today that many of the flat blue oceans on its global replica have been replaced with detailed maps of the ocean floor. Now, users can soar from undersea mountains to the depths of the Marianas Trench, and can explore coral reefs and shipwrecks. Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer who was involved in the effort, says: “I cannot imagine a more effective way to inspire awareness and caring for the blue heart of the planet than the new Ocean in Google Earth. For the first time, everyone from curious kids to serious researchers can see the world, the whole world, with new eyes,” she added [BBC News].
Google’s usual satellite imaging can’t peer through deep water to map the seabed. Instead, sound is the tool of choice when mapping the ocean floor. Passing sonar arrays over every patch of ocean is beyond even Google’s means, so it has had to rely on the US navy for much of the information. As a result, some “sensitive” areas are blank. Other navies and research institutions around the world also provided data [New Scientist]. But the marine scientists who collaborated with Google note that only 5 percent of world’s sea floor is mapped in detail, and say they hope the Google Ocean will inspire the public to support further marine exploration.
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The surprising find of a freshwater, tropical turtle fossil in Arctic Canada suggests that the first turtles to migrate from Asia to North America may have taken the most direct route, swimming and island hopping straight through the Arctic Ocean. This was possible, researchers say, because the Arctic was warmer and ice-free 90 million years ago, when carbon dioxide levels were extraordinarily high. “The fossil record is giving us more and more information about how ancient animals responded to a warming world,” [says] geophysicist John Tarduno…. “They moved toward the poles” [Wired News].
The freshwater turtle was able to survive in the ocean, Tarduno says, because of a floating freshwater highway that led from Russia to Canada. Numerous rivers from the adjacent continents would have poured fresh water into the ancient Arctic sea…. Fresh water, which is lighter than marine water, may have rested on top of the salty ocean water allowing animals such as the turtle to migrate with relative ease [Telegraph].
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The devastating earthquake that killed 80,000 people in China’s Sichuan Province last May may have been triggered by a recently built hydropower dam that lies only three miles from the quake’s epicenter, some researchers are arguing. The several hundred million tons of water piled behind the Zipingpu Dam put just the wrong stresses on the adjacent Beichuan fault, [says] geophysical hazards researcher Christian Klose [Science, subscription required].
The 7.9 magnitude earthquake left more than five million people homeless. It remains a raw and emotional topic for most Chinese, and the government has been quick to quash any suggestion that Zipingpu may have been responsible for the catastrophe. Researchers have been denied access to seismological and geological data to examine the earthquake further [Telegraph]. The few researchers who have investigated the subject are now urging restraint in government plans to build more dams, but they say their advice is unlikely to be heeded.
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Sunshades in the stratosphere to reflect sunlight away from our planet. Dumping iron into the oceans to encourage algae blooms that would take up carbon dioxide. Painting every rooftop white. These are just a few of the geoengineering schemes that have been suggested to artificially alter the planet’s climate and counteract global warming.
Now researchers have helpfully ranked 17 proposals on their possible efficacy, saying that it’s past time to take a hard look at the ambitious ideas. “There is a worrying feeling that we’re not going to get our act together fast enough,” says [coauthor Tim] Lenton, referring to international efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists have reached a “social tipping point” and are starting to wonder which techniques might complement emissions cuts, he says [New Scientist]. The study, published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, didn’t include an analysis of costs and environmental impacts.
Lenton says there has been too much hype and not enough analysis regarding geoengineering schemes, so he decided to start by asking a straightforward question. At the most basic level, earth’s surface temperature is governed by a balance between incoming Solar radiation and outgoing terrestrial radiation [Physics World]. The researchers examined how each of the geoengineering schemes would sway that balance, either by reflecting away solar radiation or reducing carbon dioxide that traps heat in the atmosphere. They found that a few proposed technologies could have a planet-wide cooling impact, but say those would be extremely hard to pull off.
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One of the most controversial geoengineering schemes that has been proposed to slow the course of global warming, ocean fertilization, received mixed reviews from a new study. The idea involves dumping iron into the ocean to nourish plankton and spur enormous blooms, which would then die off and fall to the sea floor, bringing the carbon dioxide they’d absorbed with them. Now, researchers studying natural plankton blooms near Antarctica have new evidence to fuel the debate over the efficacy of the process, and whether or not it can get our planet out of hot water.
Scientists took measurements around the Crozet Islands, where there are naturally occurring fluxes in iron levels. To the north of the islands levels of iron are boosted each year as iron-rich volcanic rocks are eroded and the nutrients are carried off by the current [Times Online]. Researchers observed a huge plankton bloom there that covered an area the size of Ireland and lasted for more than two months, while also studying the water to the south of the islands, where the prevailing ocean currents don’t carry dissolved iron and therefore plankton blooms don’t form naturally. The results, to be published tomorrow in Nature [subscription required], showed that iron-enriched waters do, as hoped, encourage more carbon to be stored on the ocean floor. But the efficiency of artificial iron fertilisation could be as much as 50 times lower than previous estimates [New Scientist].
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The predicted loss of sea ice around Antarctica over the next century may doom one of the celebrities of the animal world to extinction. Emperor penguins, the species of these aquatic flightless birds featured in the Oscar-winning 2005 documentary “March of the Penguins,” breed on Antarctic sea ice and dive from the sea ice to feed on krill, fish and squid [Reuters]. In a new study, researchers examined the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) projections on how global warming will alter sea ice coverage around Antarctica, and say the models don’t auger well for the emperor penguins.
The researchers combined ten different climate projections with a “population dynamics” model describing the mating patterns and breeding success of emperor penguins. The model has been honed using 43 years’ worth of observations of an emperor colony in Antarctica’s Terre Adelie…. They then ran 1,000 simulations of penguin population growth or decline under each of those 10 climate scenarios [BBC News]. The results predicted that the 6,000 breeding pairs in Terre Adelie could be reduced to 400 pairs by 2100. Researchers say this 95 percent decline qualifies as a “quasi-extinction,” as the colony’s tiny remaining population would be vulnerable to diseases and genetic defects. They also say that the possible demise of the Terre Adelie colony could indicate the fate of the entire species (about 200,000 breeding pairs currently live in 40 colonies around Antarctica).
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To kick off the second week of his administration and signal his commitment to environmental and energy issues, President Barack Obama today asked the Environmental Protection Agency to consider allowing states to set their own strict standards for auto emissions. He also ordered the Department of Transportation to develop national standards for fuel efficiency. The moves are aimed at reversing decisions by [the] Bush administration, which he said had stood in the way of bold action by California and other states to limit greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. “The days of Washington dragging its heels are over,” Obama said [Washington Post].
In 2007, the EPA administrator denied requests from California and 13 other states for waivers allowing them to set stricter standards for vehicles’ carbon dioxide emissions, despite the fact that the agency’s own staff scientists recommended granting the waivers. During a signing ceremony in the East Room at the White House, Obama made it clear that he sees a pressing need to address the United States’ dependence on foreign oil and the planet-wide threat of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. “Year after year, decade after decade, we’ve chosen delay over decisive action. Rigid ideology has overruled sound science. Special interests have overshadowed common sense” [ABC News], he said.
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Three pods of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest have now earned the unfortunate title of being the most contaminated wildlife on Earth, according to a new study. These killer whales, known as southern residents, live in the coastal waters near the U.S.-Canadian border and survive almost exclusively on contaminated Chinook salmon. The salmon contain high levels of polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs) and other industrial chemicals, which accumulate in even higher levels in the killer whales. Researcher Peter Ross says whales are particularly sensitive because they eat massive amounts of fish over a long life – killer whales can live for 80 or 90 years – creating a massive buildup of toxins. That means the whales, particularly the southern resident population, have become some of the most contaminated marine mammals in the world [AP].
Researchers estimate that the southern resident killer whales carry 6.6 times more PCBs than a different group of whales just 200 miles to the north, known as the northern residents. They found that the Chinook salmon in the southern waters, including Puget Sound near Washington state, not only had the highest concentrations of contaminants but also the least amount of body fat. This means the southern residents are suffering a “double whammy” because they are forced to eat extra helpings of heavily contaminated salmon. Ross and his colleagues discovered that 97 percent to 99 percent of contaminants in the Chinook eaten by these whales originated from the salmon’s time at sea, in the near-shore waters of the Pacific. Only a small amount came from the time the salmon spent in rivers, although many of the rivers are contaminated, too, Ross said. “Salmon are telling us something about what is happening in the Pacific Ocean,” Ross said. “They are going out to sea and by the time they come back, they have accumulated contaminants over their entire time in the Pacific Ocean” [Scientific American].
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Behind closed doors, members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) have been discussing a proposal that would give give Japan the right to hunt whales in its coastal waters. IWC officials say the controversial proposal is a compromise measure, as Japan would also have to agree to limit its hunts in the Southern Ocean, but opponents say it amounts to an official sanction of Japan’s whale hunts. The International Fund for Animal Welfare argues that the proposal is part of a dangerous drift towards commercial whaling in the 21st century.”This is Whalergate,” the global director of the fund’s whale program, Patrick Ramage, said [Sydney Morning Herald].
The proposal was put forward by American commission member William Hogarth, a Bush appointee, who has argued that a compromise is necessary to keep Japan from withdrawing from the commission. In recent years, the whaling commission … has been deadlocked between the anti- and pro-whaling camps. Rather than setting a clear direction for conserving and managing whale populations worldwide, its meetings have become contentious donnybrooks in which the two sides have competed for influence while little changed. Worldwide, three countries — Japan, Iceland and Norway — continue to hunt whales, either in the name of research or, in Norway’s case, under a commercial exception established more than 20 years ago [Washington Post].
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Every winter, a thick cloud of brown smog settles over South Asia, stretching from southern China, across India and Pakistan, to the northern reaches of the Indian Ocean. For everyone who lives with the so-called “Asian brown cloud,” this air pollution is just a fact of life. Pilot John Horwood says the worse part about flying into Hong Kong is the suffocating, two-mile-thick blanket of pollution that hovers between 15 and 18,000 feet. “The whole cockpit fills with an acrid smell,” says Horwood, who started noticing the cloud in 1997. “Each year it just gets worse and worse” [Time]. But scientists have long puzzled over the cloud’s source: Is it produced by burning biomass, or by the combustion of fossil fuels?
Now researchers have analyzed the cloud’s composition, and found that two-thirds of the haze is produced by burning biomass, primarily the wood and dung burned to heat houses and cook food throughout the region. This research is the first step to doing something about the brown haze, which is linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths — mainly from lung and heart disease — each year in the region, they said. “Doing something about this brown cloud has been difficult because the sources are poorly understood,” said Orjan Gustafsson [Reuters], the study’s lead author.
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Trees in the old-growth forests of the American West are dying at an accelerating pace, and researchers say that the early impacts of global warming are probably to blame. The bad news was found in California, the Pacific Northwest, and in the interior Western states. Says study coauthor Phillip van Mantgem: “Tree death rates have more than doubled over the last few decades in old-growth forests across the Western United States.” … The researchers found rising death rates across a wide variety of forest types, at different elevations, in trees of all sizes and among major species, including pine, fir and hemlock [Los Angeles Times].
Van Mantgem says that average temperatures in the West have risen by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last few decades. “While this may not sound like much, it has been enough to reduce winter snowpack, cause earlier snowmelt, and lengthen the summer drought” [Reuters], he says. Droughts make trees more stressed and vulnerable to disease, and warmer temperatures have also allowed the spread of pine beetles and other pests that attack trees. And while the death rate of old trees is increasing, the rate of new trees sprouting and surviving has not risen.
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The trick to controlling invasive blood-sucking sea lampreys—sometimes known as vampire fish—may be a love pheromone, according to a new study. Researchers have designed a synthetic version of the male lamprey pheromone that ovulating female lampreys find irresistible, and could be used to lure them into traps. This would be the first instance of using pheromones to control non-insect pests. “There’s been extensive study of pheromones in animals and even in humans,” said lead researcher Weiming Li… “But most researchers have presumed that as animals get more complex, their behaviour is regulated in a more complex way, not by just one pheromone,” [BBC News].
When Li’s team placed traps laced with the synthetic pheromone in a stream, female lampreys swam eagerly towards the trap. Only a whiff of the pheromone was needed to attract females from hundreds of meters away, the researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The pheromone is expensive to synthesize… But only a very small amount is needed for it to work successfully. It’s very potent. Only a few hundred grams, less than a pound, would be used each year” [LiveScience] said Li, who discovered the natural lamprey pheromone in 2002. Currently, lampreys are controlled mainly by adding TFN, a compound that kills the larval stage, to freshwater streams where lampreys spawn. But there are environmental concerns about adding the chemical to streams, as well as the possibility that lampreys could develop resistance to TFN [LiveScience].
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It may be a platitude that fresh, clean air is good for you, but now researchers have quantified how much cleaning up air pollution has improved the public health: It has boosted the lifespan of the average American city-dweller by five months.
Coauthor Majid Ezzatin explains that when his team examined three decades of health data from 51 U.S. cities, researchers found that people are living about three years longer than they did before. Controlling for changes in income, education, demographics and smoking, about five months of that can be chalked up to air improvements…. “Rather than just saying pollution is bad for health,” he said, “we can say that regulations are good for health” [Wired News].
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Researchers say they have an answer to a question that’s been befuddling climate scientists for years: Was it possible that Antarctica, alone among the earth’s seven continents, wasn’t feeling the effects of global warming? As recently as 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared that the jury was still out on the question, but now, finally, researchers say they have conclusive proof that the icy southern continent is also heating up. In October, a separate group of researchers came to much the same conclusion using computer models, but the new study bolsters previous research with empirical evidence.
The confusion over conditions in Antarctica arose mostly from strange weather patterns created by ozone depletion in the Southern Hemisphere, and allowed “climate skeptics” who deny the existence of global warming to use the continent as a talking point. Scientists had long thought that while some isolated parts of Antarctica had been warming, much of the continent had been cooling over the past 50 years. But the new analysis found that since 1957, when measured as a whole, the continent’s temperature has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit. “The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling — and that’s not the case,” says study lead author Eric Steig [USA Today].
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Contrary to conventional wisdom, fish in the Nile delta are thriving in waters polluted with fertilizers and sewage, according to a new study. While nitrogen-rich runoff usually causes excessive growths of algae and plankton that suffocate other marine life, the Nile delta is different because it has suffered from a lack of autotrophs (that fish feed on) ever since the Aswan Dam was built in the 1960s. Researchers found that more than 60 percent of the current fishery production in the region can be attributed to human-generated runoff. “This is really a story about how people unintentionally impact ecosystems,” explained co-author Autumn Oczkowski [BBC News].
The building of the Aswan Dam on the Nile blocked off much of the fertile floodwater that drains into the Mediterranean Sea, which in turn produced a sharp fall in the number of fish being landed by Egypt’s fishermen. “But in the late 1980s, the coastal fishery began to exhibit a surprising recovery,” the researchers observed. “Today, landings are more than three times the pre-dam level” [BBC News]. The increase in fish production coincided with the rise in fertilizer use along the Mediterranean coast. To quantify the effect, researchers collected more than 600 fish from four regions contaminated by runoff and two regions that were not. In regions affected by runoff, the fish contained nitrogen isotopes that could be traced to anthropogenic sources of nitrogen, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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