Posts Tagged ‘climate change’

« Older Entries
The In Box front page

Tracking climate change with Canadian “RinkWatch” project

January 12th, 2013 by Lucy Martin

Massive wildfires in Australia, exacerbated by unusually high temperatures. Snow in Jerusalem. Bitter cold in China and parts of Russia. 2012 ranks as the hottest year on record for the U.S.

While some still challenge the notion that climate change is cause by human activity, people around the globe do seem to be facing more and more “extreme weather events”.

A recent New York Times article headlined “Heat, Flood or Icy Cold, Extreme Weather Rages Worldwide” includes a 25 photo slide show on these swings.

What’s going on? And what might it signify?

This post comes out during a January thaw. Those are not unheard of. But the lack of enough deep cold to build solid ice here in the cold north is starting to seem unusual. (Or like the new normal, since it keeps happening!) As reported for NCPR by Karen Kelly, and the Ottawa Citizen, this is looking like another challenging year for good ice on the Rideau Canal Skateway.

And sometimes it’s the ‘ordinary’ things that suddenly seem like an unacceptable loss, such as outdoor skating and hockey.

A 2012 study caused a stir here in Canada when it stated conditions necessary for back yard ice rinks are in decline – and may be endangered – due to climate change.  (“Observed decreases in the Canadian outdoor skating season due to recent weather warming” by Nikolay N Damyanov, H Damon Matthews and Lawrence A Mysak)

Dimming prospects for good outdoor ice in most populated sections of this country hits Canadians where it hurts.

Enter something called RinkWatch. From the website:

In 2012, scientists in Montreal warned Canadians to expect there will be fewer outdoor skating days in the future.* Their predictions are based on the results of data taken from weather stations across Canada over the last fifty years. In some parts of Canada, they warn there may one day be no more backyard rinks at all. Remember the story of how Wayne Gretzky learned to play hockey on the backyard rink his father made for him in Brantford, Ontario? The scientists’ report says some day that will no longer be possible – at least, not in Brantford.

This prompted a group of geographers at Wilfrid Laurier University to create RinkWatch. We want Canadians from coast to coast to coast to tell us about their rinks. We want you to pin the location of your rink on our map, and then each winter record every day that you are able to skate on it. Think of it as your rink diary. We will gather up all the information from all the backyard rinks across Canada, and use it to track the changes in our climate. The RinkWatch website will give you regular updates on the results. You will be able to compare the number of skating days at your rink with rinks elsewhere in Canada, and find out who is having the best winter for skating this year.

You may not think of it as science, but that’s exactly what you will be doing – making regular, systematic observations about environmental change in your own back yard. You will be joining a growing league of citizen-scientists from every province and territory in Canada (and hopefully some of our American neighbours as well). Is the backyard skating rink an endangered species? The first step in finding out for sure is to gather the statistics. If we want skate outside in the future, we have to find what’s going on today. So please, join RinkWatch, and help prevent backyard rinklessness.

This new effort, which is sort of like the long-running and useful Christmas Bird Count, is striking a chord in Canada. (Is there anything similar in the U.S.? Should there be?)

RinkWatch founders Robert McLeman, Colin Robertson and Haydn Lawrence. (photo courtesy of Wilfrid Laurier University press release)

Robert McLeman is a geography professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and one of the founders of RinkWatch. In this blog post McLeman writes about what skating means to him and why he wanted to start the project.

No indoor ice surface can compare with a hard, cold, outdoor pond or a well-maintained neighbourhood rink. The sound your blades make as they scratch across real ice, your steamy breath hanging in the air, not going inside until you can no longer feel your fingers or toe – those are the best parts of a southwestern Ontario winter when you’re a kid, even one who is a crummy skater.

Speaking with the Montreal Gazette, McLeman says there’s value in taking this to the public-at-large.

“When you talk about climate change and global warming, it’s one of those big-picture ideas that people have trouble relating to on a personal or individual basis,” he said. “So we thought, let’s get kids and families to collect data about outdoor skating and use that as a bridge to pull them into citizen-engaged science.”

I heard an interview about RinkWatch on CBC Ottawa’s “All in a Day” this past Thursday. (That specific audio didn’t seem to be available when I wrote this post, but perhaps it will be posted later.) The speaker said the project is being well-received. Sometimes, after interviews like the one he was giving, the response overwhelms the server. (I’m pretty sure the person interviewed was McLeman, but I was driving and did not make note of the name at that time.)

So, there’s plenty of enthusiasm for outdoor ice in this part of the world. Even during a discouraging warm spell – like this one.

Perhaps this melt will be followed by enough cold for some really good ice after all.

Meanwhile, data from back-yard rink experts may lead to a better understanding of this particular challenge.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Got drought? Bring in the beavers.

November 24th, 2012 by Lucy Martin

Beaver atop a dam. Photo: Marcin Klapczynski, CC some rights reserved

Beavers. Where to start?

Yes, beavers are the animal that made Canada important thanks to the fur trade. The beaver remains a national symbol.

The critter was hailed in a popular beer ad /nationalistic rant from 2000 as a  ”truly proud and noble animal”

The word also become problematic slang - forcing a respected history magazine to change its name so children could search for it on line without stumbling into awkward territory.

Beavers are what many landowners and road crews curse as they deal with felled trees and unwanted dams.

With help from satellite imagery, researchers think they have identified the world’s largest beaver dam in Wood Buffalo National Park, Alberta. (An estimated 2,800 feet long in 2010, it is assumed to be the work of several generations of beavers over the last 40 years.)

Beavers are known for their ingenious, determined work ethic. They mate for life and are attentive parents. Watching them in the wild is a nice bonus for hikers and campers.

Beavers are all that and more. In fact, they are what ecologists call a keystone species.

Hunted to extinction in Great Britain, this BBC article describes how some beavers are being reestablished in Scotland.

Now a December article in Canadian Geographic by Frances Backhouse,”Rethinking the Beaver“, considers how beavers affect wetlands and watersheds with an eye on how that could be a plus in dealing with heightened risk of drought.

The material presented isn’t especially new. But if cycles of drought and flood become more regular spectres it’s worth looking at ways to mitigate those impacts.

Ironically, having done so much to prevent flooding in the Netherlands through human engineering, officials there are concerned that a growing beaver population there could threaten their dykes.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

What about “going Dutch” on flood protection?

November 18th, 2012 by Lucy Martin

Every few years news stories circulate about how advanced the Netherlands is at preventing devastating flooding.

Sometimes that’s because of current events like Katrina, or Sandy. Other times the tone of coverage is simple awe at stupendous feats of human engineering and national will.

Either way, it’s a fascinating subject with centuries of experience behind all that expertise.

Flood control is serious business in the Netherlands, as the 9-km long Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier demonstrates. A placque on the artificial island anchoring one end bears the message (translated) “Here the tide is ruled, by the wind, the moon and us (the Dutch).” Photo: Mark Fletcher, CC some rights reserved

The Netherlands learned old tricks – and keeps inventing new ones – out of sheer necessity. Roughly half of that coastal country’s land lies below sea level, and two-thirds of it would be unusable without flood-control measures.

It’s a small country with major rivers that drain into the turbulent North Sea. So lives, property and prosperity are at stake in no uncertain terms. Making sure water stays where it’s wanted takes committed planning, shared sacrifice and mountains of money. The high level of expertise developed in the Netherlands has become an exportable resource for which one can expect increasing demand.

David Wolman wrote about this for Wired Magazine back in Dec 2008, in a useful article with excellent photos and graphics. (Really, it’s worth a click and a read.)

Referencing current interest in Dutch expertise in this Nov 14th article by Andrew Higgins, the New York Times cautions that:

The Dutch “way of thinking is completely different from the U.S.,” where disaster relief generally takes precedence over disaster avoidance, said Wim Kuijken, the Dutch government’s senior official for overall water control policy. “The U.S. is excellent at disaster management,” but “working to avoid disaster is completely different from working after a disaster.”

No kidding.

There are a lot of significant reasons the Dutch example may not transplant well.

For starters, unlike the Netherlands, the U.S. as a nation has yet to decide if global warming is for real.

Assuming it is, there would be further quarrels about the role of government in addressing the issue. The turf battles between government and the private sector, federal authority verses state or local control – how would all that get sorted out?

Betond politics, there would be questions of scale and affordability. The U.S. is w-a-y bigger than the Netherlands. (Just Vermont and New Hampshire combined are bigger.) What works there might have to be customized for each coast and major city on North America. At a staggering cost. (While this post is being framed in U.S. terms, most of the same issues apply to Canada as well.)

The Dutch have done the math. That nation has decided the situation demands massive spending to prevent massive disaster. A DeltaComittee was established, which identified proactive strategies for specific regions, meant to curtail flood and storm threats – for the next 200 years.

According to the Wired article, the Dutch have even faced the harsh reality that some areas warrant more spending and stronger protection than others.

Given the election-cycle and “what’s-in-it-for-my-district” thinking so dominent here, the Dutch ability to plan and commit is amazing. And yet, on a geologic scale, 200 years is a blink of an eye. Not to mention the worrisome fact predictions about melting ice caps and such have mostly underestimated the actual speed of current changes. But it’s a serious effort, anyway.

Serious as that is, is it enough? Let’s say the Dutch nail this, that everything they build works just as designed. Well, that’ll only buy relative flood safety for two centuries. If surprising change is the new normal, the whole superhuman effort may have to be continued or redone again and again – an expense that never relents.

Just imagine the “pay now or pay later” arguments. Or the possibility that the really big countries have a cheaper choice: falling back inland as sea levels rise.

On the other hand, thinking ahead, applying engineered solutions and/or working with natural forces is how the Netherlands became a prosperous nation in the first place.

In contrast, North America has sort of rested on its laurels of plenty, without needing that level of pro-active co-ordination in managing natural security on a country-wide basis.

There’s little consensus here on what lies ahead, in terms of weather events and climate change.

When you look at how a country like the Netherlands tries to deal with this murky reality, does their approach seem wise? Practical?

Or is it irrelevant to our lives – considering the size of the U.S. and deep political disagreement about climate issues?

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

Sperm banking coral reefs

July 29th, 2012 by Lucy Martin

A good many years ago on Car Talk, Tom and Ray got around to the part where they ask what the caller does for a living. The woman in question replied that she did field biology, or environmental science – something like that. The hosts asked what that was like. She said it tended to be depressing. On the whole, she felt like all she did was “document the decline”.

I’m sure that caller didn’t invent the concept. But it was the first time I’d heard the depressing state of so many plants, animals and ecosystems summed up in three short words.

The Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology lab is on Coconut Island in Kaneohe Bay

Which leads me to a recent news tidbit, courtesy of this article in the New York Times, by Michelle Nijhuis about efforts to establish a sperm bank for coral reefs.

You may well wonder what that has to do with the North Country. Not much – apart from how important healthy oceans are to all life on this planet.

The article caught my eye because some of the work is being done in my home state of Hawaii. And because it sounds quirky and cool. (“Fascinating” as Mr. Spock liked to say.)

Many readers know about seed saving organizations, about sperm banks for human and animal applications and about the ark-like frozen vaults in Norway that store thousands of seeds in case that’s needed some day. (Read more about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault here.)

But a sperm bank for coral? How does that work?

With labs at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in Kaneohe Bay, a reproductive physiologist with the Smithsonian Institution, Dr. Mary Hagedorn, is a pioneer in gathering reproductive material from corals in Hawaii, the Caribbean and Australia. Coral can reproduce asexually or sexually. But sexual reproduction offers more genetic diversity and the best chance to adapt to environmental changes.

Here is a video by Hagedorn on the subject:

Ideally, there would be no worries that coral reefs could be imperiled on a global scale. Unfortunately, according to the NYT article, they are.

If this decline continues, almost all of the world’s reefs will be on their way to oblivion by 2050. An estimated one-fourth of all known marine species have some association with coral reefs; some may be able to survive on seaweed, but not all. This month, researchers at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Cairns, Australia, summed up the situation: “Together, this combination of climate-related stressors represents an unprecedented challenge for the future of coral reefs and to the services they provide to people.”

So, it’s bad news that the need exists. But I’d argue it’s a good move to build some back-up measures.

For marine scientists whose careers depend on coral reefs, Dr. Hagedorn’s collection can be reassuring. “Mary is my insurance policy,” said Greta Aeby, a biologist who works in a dockside laboratory on Coconut Island and studies coral disease throughout the Pacific.

It’s not just marine scientists, or fishermen, or divers who should care about the health of reefs. And a coral reef sperm bank is no easy thing to master.

“Sometimes the next step is getting punched repeatedly in the face,” said Kenneth Storey, a cryopreservation researcher at Carleton University in Ottawa. “This is hard work, hard empirical work. It’s uphill.”

Good going, Dr. Hagedorn and the Reef Recovery Initiative.  And good luck to those who toil to remedy these predicaments.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Climate change group targets Syracuse Republican in 2012 vote

July 24th, 2012 by Brian Mann

 

Ann Marie Buerkle is being targeted by environmentalists because of her stance on climate change (Photo: Buerkle campaign)

The Washington Post is reporting that a group called the League of Conservation Voters will target five Republicans across the US who are “climate change deniers” in this year’s campaign.

One of their objectives is unseating a GOP House member from Syracuse, Ann Marie Buerkle, who is locked in a tight contest with Democrat Dan Maffei.  This from the Post’s story:

During a televised campaign debate in 2010, Buerkle said that “a lot of the global warming myth has been exposed.” While she later explained that she was specifically referring to pirated e-mails from climate scientists, which came to light in an incident known as Climate-gate, she added that “the jury’s still out” on whether fossil fuel burning contributes to global warming.

The League of Conservation Voters says it will try to brand its political targets as the “Flat Earth Five.”  The group only has about $1.5 million to spend, but in closely fought House races, those dollars could be significant.

According to the Post, Buerkle’s campaign manager, David Ray, declined to talk about the specifics of climate change science, but he said Buerkle rejects using the cap and trade policy pioneered in part by Republicans to reduce carbon pollution.

“What she doesn’t support is Dan Maffei and Nancy Pelosi’s cap-and-trade energy tax that would raise electricity rates by 40 percent without doing anything to help the environment.”

The Post says the group has announced that one of its other campaigns will be aimed at a GOP lawmaker in Michigan.  The remaining three targets for spending haven’t yet been revealed.

 

 

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 73 Comments »

Are you on board with alternative, local energy?

July 12th, 2012 by Brian Mann

This week, we’ve been kicking the tires on the regional push for more locally produced, renewable energy.  This idea lies at the heart of a vision for the North Country’s economic future shared by many local and state leaders.

The Regional Economic Development Council grants awarded to the North Country included more than $6 million in subsidies and grants to jumpstart biomass and hydro projects.

Local governments have invested in renewables from Potsdam to Massena.  And business leaders are putting their own dollars into projects, from wind farms in Clinton County to hydro in Essex and Franklin Counties.

But in our reporting, we’ve found some surprising challenges.  For one thing, despite all the talk about “peak oil” and the specter of high gas and fuel oil prices, there is actually a glut of cheap biomass and hydro power.

Dam operators in the region are receiving rock-bottom prices for their electricity.  And pellet manufacturers are struggling to find markets to buy their burnable fuel.

Consumers are also finding that the start-up costs for converting to alternatives are high.

Wind, solar, pellet furnaces, they’re all costly, and government incentives designed to nudge us toward a greener future are confusing.

There are some bright spots.  It may be that the best steady consumers for alternative energy, at least in the first wave of the transition, won’t be homeowners.

Instead, school districts, local governments and other institutional consumers may find that local power is more affordable, and more reliable.

That’s the hope anyway.  Meanwhile, some incredibly courageous entrepreneurs (check out Jasmine Wallace’s profile of Pat Curran in Massena) are leading the way, taking incredible risks.

And a lot of local government leaders are staking big tax dollars on the hope that this sector of the economy will ignite.

So here’s my question to you:  What kind of alternative or local energy are you using?  Have you dipped your toe into this new energy frontier?  Is there a solar panel on your barn? A wind turbine in your backyard?

And what do you think of the idea that energy will be a bigger part of our local economy going forward?

 

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 34 Comments »

Intense Arctic phytoplankton bloom makes news

June 9th, 2012 by Lucy Martin

A two-year research project funded by NASA called ICESCAPE is in the news. Findings of a team lead by Kevin Arrigo (the study’s chief scientist and a biological oceanographer at Stanford University) were published the  journal Science on June 7th.

NASA's ICESCAPE mission onboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy. Photo: NASA/Kathryn Hansen

As described by  this article in the National Post:

The team was on a U.S. icebreaker smashing its way across the Chukchi Sea between Siberia and Alaska last July when equipment used to measure phytoplankton went “haywire.”

“We thought there was something wrong with the instruments,” Arrigo told Postmedia News.

Then the scientists made their first scheduled stop to take ice samples and got a good look at the ocean below.

“The water was completely green,” Arrigo said. “It was like pea soup.”

The farther they ventured into the ice-covered sea for their NASA-funded project to study ice, the more intense the under-ice algae bloom, says Arrigo, a veteran of many trips to the Arctic and Antarctic.

“It was shocking,” he says.

Shocking as in totally unexpected? Shocking as in terrible news? Basically, it’s new information that demands more study and understanding. (Hence this post.) Pea soup waters in the Arctic could be a big deal.

A news blog post on Nature.com put it this way:

As Arctic ice melts earlier in the summer thanks to climate change, these blooms could grow in extent or happen earlier in the year. The implications of that are unknown, but it could be bad news for fish that feed on open-water phytoplankton, or animals that time their summer trips to the Arctic to match what has traditionally been the peak of phytoplankton blooms. “There’s going to be winners and losers,” says Arrigo.

The Christian Science Monitor has a good write-up on the topic (Don Perovich, is the study’s co-chief scientist):

Despite the concerns, the thrill of discovery remains an undercurrent as the researchers talk about their results.

“This is what you live for as a scientist,” uncovering something “beyond unexpected,” Perovich says. “This is a new Arctic Ocean, full of surprises.”

Stay tuned, eh?

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 49 Comments »

More debate on counting polar bears

April 8th, 2012 by Lucy Martin

Polarcentric map showing in green the range of the polar bear across North America, Asia and Europe

The Globe and Mail reports that an an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut indicates a healthy (perhaps growing?) population of polar bears on the western shore of Hudson’s Bay. While you’d think this would count as good news, the politics of climate change are such that it’s bound to become fodder in that persistent fight.

Is the count accurate? Is the information biased? What, if anything, does it mean? As the article explains:

The debate over the polar-bear population has been raging for years, frequently pitting scientists against Inuit. In 2004, Environment Canada researchers concluded that the numbers in the region had dropped by 22 per cent since 1984, to 935. They also estimated that by 2011, the population would decrease to about 610. That sparked worldwide concern about the future of the bears and prompted the Canadian and American governments to introduce legislation to protect them.

But many Inuit communities said the researchers were wrong. They said the bear population was increasing and they cited reports from hunters who kept seeing more bears.

According to the article, Andrew Derocher, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta, said it was premature to draw many conclusions and added that some details in the survey pointed to a bear population in trouble.

This issue is complicated by the fact that it also involves money. Money raised by environmental organizations for which the polar bear is a poster child of looming extinction. Money needed by Inuit communities that still hunt polar bears under a quota system.

There’s much at stake in the debate. Population figures are used to calculate quotas for hunting, a lucrative industry for many northern communities. Hunting polar bears is highly regulated but Inuit communities can sell their quota to sport hunters, who must hunt with Inuit guides. A polar-bear hunting trip can cost up to $50,000. Demand for polar-bear fur is also soaring in places like China and Russia and prices for some pelts have doubled in the past couple of years, reaching as high as $15,000.

The Nunavut hunting quota in the western Hudson Bay area fell to 8 from 56 after the 2004 report from Environment Canada. The Nunavut government increased it slightly last year but faced a storm of protest. Over all, about 450 polar bears are killed annually across Nunavut. Mr. Gissing said a new quota is expected to be announced in June. (Editor’s not: Drikus Gissing is Nunavut’s director of wildlife management)

A glance at the comment page for the Globe and Mail article rings with a chorus of climate-change skeptics, who consider news reports of this type sweet vindication.

Because this matters most to the people who live in that area, here’s a link to the Government of Nunavut’s webpage on polar bears. Also, ‘local’ news coverage of this from Nunatsiaq online.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 39 Comments »

A jump on Spring

March 12th, 2012 by Martha Foley

Amy Ivy and I talk today about satisfying that itch to rush the gardening season. It’s always there, as the days get longer and the snow clears. There are mornings you walk outside and smell earth and water in a mix that is unmistakeably spring.

Usually it’s pure fantasy until we get farther along on the calendar. But as this winter was a puzzlement of mild temperatures and little snow, this shoulder season is proving to be more of the same.

Snow drops in Potsdam. (Photo: Mimi Van Deusen)

Things are early. We’ve heard reports on bluebirds, in West Potsdam and on my road outside Canton. Waves of robins are passing through. And then there are these snowdrops, from this morning in Potsdam. Leroy St. according to our alert photographer, Mimi Van Deusen.

And the forecast this week is for more mild weather, and more sun after tomorrow. Amy has great ideas for “low tunnels” to make out of ABS pipe or sturdy wire and row cover fabric available at hardware stores and gardening centers. They’re good for experiments with early spinach and lettuce seeds. And why not? Live it up!

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

Morning Read: Ag experts say region’s farms must prep for climate change

February 27th, 2012 by Brian Mann

While politicians dither over climate change, a growing number of experts in fields like engineering, public planning, and agriculture are preparing for what they view as an inevitably changed planet.

That view was shared again on Friday by an expert from Monsanto, who spoke at a USDA conference in Washington, according to the Watertown Daily Times.

[T]he change isn’t that far away. Surface warming in the Northern Hemisphere has accelerated since the late 1960s, equivalent to moving Earth a million miles closer to the sun, said David Gustafson, senior fellow for water quality and agricultural sustainability with the Monsanto Co.  Prospects for lessening the global warming effect are increasingly dim, Mr. Gustafson said. “Agriculture will, in fact, be forced to deal,” he said.

Change could affect the North Country’s dairy interesting in particular, writes the Times’ Mark Heller.

In New York, the trend toward warmer conditions could cost the state part of its advantage in the dairy industry: cool weather. Cows begin to experience heat stress when temperatures reach the mid-70s, and production suffers sharply as readings reach into the 80s and 90s.

“Dairy farmers could adapt to this by renovating barns with better cooling systems, but these costs would have to be weighed against potential risks and benefits,” wrote David W. Wolfe, a professor at Cornell University, Ithaca, in a paper on climate change and Northeast agriculture.

Read the full article here.

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 61 Comments »

« Older Entries