Floating Farms

July 8, 2014July 8, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

I always have a soft spot for illustrations of future visions. This image of seaweed carriers is no exception. A company called Seaweed Energy Solutions (SES) has developed and patented seaweed growing technology that it hopes will make possible the cultivation of seaweed on a vastly larger scale than we have seen thus far.

Mass Seaweed Carriers
Source: SES

Seaweed has so many uses – as I said on a recent post, some are calling it the potato of the 21st century when it comes to feeding large numbers of people. And it can be cultivated without the use of expensive land and water for irrigation.

Which brings me back to the SES floating farms. The goal for this kind of industrial seaweed farming is to grow enough seaweed to make biofuel. Ethanol, to be exact, using the high level of carbohydrates in the sea plants. It’s not the first time at the biofuel circus for seaweed enthusiasts.

Seagrapes (Botryocladia pseudodichotoma). From a great new book, An Ocean Garden.
Photo: Josie Iselin

Like algae, seaweed has long been the subject of renewable energy attention, for the same reasons it might be an alternative potato: It doesn’t compete with other food crops for land space or resources and it practically grows itself given the right foundation.

Regions with lots of coastline and little arable land could use a prolific cash crop like that.

I don’t know enough about the topic to say whether there aren’t environmental arguments to be made against the industrialization of seaweed cultivation, although the mass production of any mono-crop usually brings with it some concerns. I don’t know at what stage the seaweed-to-fuel processing technology finds itself, or what distribution channels are already in place.

Maybe, as with many future visions, the idea of seaweed as fuel will float away in time without becoming reality.

Still, I deeply appreciate a technological design that so nicely reflects the very crop it is meant to support.

Photo: Josie Iselin

Watery Treasure

June 27, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Draining swamps and wetlands has, over the course of human civilization, been seen as a way to grasp land from the greedy waters that cover most of the Earth’s surface.

Add to this that much of the drained, reclaimed land is then conveniently located on prime river or coastal property, and the terrestrial inclination to dry out wetlands makes even more sense. There’s gold in them there swamps.

A MODIS image from NASA’s OceanColor Web shows floodwaters and sediment emptying into the Gulf.
Source: PennNews/NASA

Conservationists usually look at the loss of ecosystems, plant and animal life, habitat degradation and so on. But the real price of the gold rush mentality is slowly revealing itself.

The impact of river levees on flooding has become well known over the past couple of decades. Heavily developed rivers areas around the world experiencing regular and expensive inundations when water flow in flooded rivers is blocked from flowing into tributaries, marshes or swamps.

I found a report from 2005 that shows the impact of land drainage on Florida – not in terms of habitat loss, but in terms of local and regional climate change.

Human influence has transformed southern Florida. The transformation occurred not only on land converted to cropland or cities, but even in protected and undeveloped areas like the Everglades. Changes in water flows transformed deep-water sloughs into drier sawgrass marshes, and mangrove forests have shrunk dramatically. Source: NASA

A multi-disciplinary team examined historical land cover and climate evidence from pre-development Florida (i.e. 19th-century), and found that in comparison to a drier, drained modern Florida, local climates were cooler and wetter in summer, and warmer in winter. The lack of local water cover changed local climate patterns.

This begins to get at the argument made by Sandra Postel, Director of the Global Water Policy Project, in a recent piece in National Geographic, namely, that wetlands in their watery form are worth more than the land we take from them.

She cites a new study in the journal Global Environmental Change, which shows that “the global area of freshwater wetlands and floodplains shrank by nearly two-thirds between 1997 and 2011, from an estimated 165 million hectares (408 million acres) to 60 million hectares (148 million acres).”

We’ve never been very good at weighing intangibles against objects of immediate human value, like land. But Postel makes the argument for putting wetland and watershed services in a language we understand: Money.

Landsat images clearly show different types of landcover in southern Florida.
Source: NASA/Robert Simmon

Citing the role of wetlands, like those that have been drained in Florida, as well as coral reefs, marshes and tropical forests, in mitigating flood and drought, the research team put together a list of water ‘services’ provided. These include recharging groundwater and filtering water in lakes and rivers, maintaining water levels that facilitate shipping, and several other long-term uses.

The total value of global ecosystem services to humans was evaluated at $120 trillion/year (for 2011). This is compared to a global GDP of $75.2 trillion/year for the same year.

Now, the question is this:

If we look at everything through the lens of cost effectiveness, do we really believe humans can provide all the same services at a better price, even assuming we could develop the technology to do so?

Is a new condo development, mall, golf course or business center really the most cost efficient way to make use of the golden value of the world’s wetlands?

Source: Texas Living Waters

Weaving a New Mantle

May 22, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Moving at a glacial pace is how we’ve always described something so sluggish as to be practically immobile. Geological time is what we sometimes say when we talk about things that take forever to occur, at least when using the yardstick of human life spans.

The Earth’s mantle, that layer between the outer core of the planet and the surface, is mostly solid and we like to think of it that way.

But in what we consider geological time, it moves like a thick liquid. As it turns out, though, it moves a little more quickly than that, especially when a tectonic plate is sinking or rising. Sometimes at speeds 20-30 times faster than expected.

Embroidering the Earth's Mantle Artist: Remedios Varo

Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle (1961)
Artist: Remedios Varo

And then there’s the news that the ice of the Antarctic is melting faster than expected, great chunks of it breaking off and raising the sea level like to many ice cubes added to a glass of water.

What’s happening to the land that’s been beneath the ice all this time? What happens when the weight of eons is lifted and dispersed? The land rises.

However, the land is rising at a pace that is not very glacial. The land ‘rebound’ was expected to move in geological time. Instead, according to a recent study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, it’s moving so quickly that researchers can chart its rise of over 15 mm (0.59 in.) per year using GPS. In some areas, the uplift could reach 47 mm (1.85 in.).

The cause is thought to be temperature or chemical changes in the composition to the Earth’s mantle, making it ‘runnier’ beneath the Antarctic than elsewhere.

The climate change we fashion in human time nudges the hand of the planetary clock to speeds we might just be able to see with the human eye.

Pulse Taking

May 8, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

‘Long memory’ is a term used in probability analysis. It originated in hydrology to predict flood patterns on the Nile River.

But do rivers remember where they once flowed?

Floraskin – Huth & Domenig
Via: Data Is Nature

A large pulse of water was released along the Colorado River this year, an historic ecological undertaking meant to restore the once-lush downriver sections and delta. The goal of the 130 billion-liter (34 bn gallon) pulse was to imitate the spring floodwaters that once coursed the length of the river, but which have been diverted for other uses further upstream.

These images show the river before and after the water pulse was released. The river bed and tributary channels have been little more than dry markers for the memory of a river that once carried 18.5 trillion liters (4.9 trillion gallons) of water every year.

Before: An April 2013 view shows the dry river shell in northern Mexico.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Landsat 8 data from the U.S. Geological Survey

After: Water flows through the same area, April 2014.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Landsat 8 data from the U.S. Geological Survey

The final destination of the water is the Colorado Delta, which once formed a rich connection between the river and the Gulf of Mexico. The Delta has rarely seen river water since 1960.

As it turns out, the water pulse may not reach the Delta at all. Sand bars and shrubs are slowing the flow, even as conservationists work to re-establish trees and wetlands in its wake.

If there is such a thing, the long memory of the Colorado River may have to wait a while longer before it once again meets the Gulf of Mexico at the end of a long journey home.

http://www.livescience.com/45281-colorado-river-pulse-satellite.html

The Big Picture

April 12, 2014April 10, 2014 / PK Read / 1 Comment

A vast dust plume blows off Northern Africa.
Photo: NASA/USGS

The dust of the Sahara is one of the world’s great transport methods for depositing minerals around the world. An estimated 60 – 200 million tons of mineral dust per year gets blown from the Sahara to points all across the globe, fertilizing the Amazon, affecting the weather, causing hazy skies, blanketing land and sea alike while providing the phytoplankton of the Mediterranean Sea with nutrients and adversely affecting the growth of coral reefs.

It’s a major global phenomenon that I only mention here and now because of this: The dust of the Sahara on our car in eastern France.

Photo: PK Read

On everyone’s cars, on all the plants and furniture outside, on the solar panels, on the windows and swirling on the streets.

At least I can feel a part of something much larger while I wait in line at the car wash.

A River Runs Through It

March 14, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

There’s the old saying about never crossing the same river twice, and that’s truer now than ever. Rivers have changed dramatically over the past few decades.

I probably crossed a few undammed, unhindered rivers on family trips when I was a kid, but if I tried to do the same thing today, I would need a good map and some determination.

Less that 1% of major rivers in the United States remain wild. And while the Amazon has neither dam nor bridge, many of its tributaries have both.

Survey map (1876) of the Fly River in Papua New Guinea. Approximately 25th in terms of size and volume when it comes to the world’s major rivers, it is the largest remaining river that is still completely undammed.
Source: Wikipedia

The group International Rivers posts on its website:

“Free-flowing rivers have become so rare that they would be classified as an endangered species if they were considered living things rather than merely support systems for all living things. What have we lost in the rush to dam our rivers?

Of the world’s 177 largest rivers, only one-third are free flowing, and just 21 rivers longer than 1,000 km retain a direct connection to the sea. Damming has led to species extinctions, loss of prime farmland and forests, social upheaval, loss of clean water supplies, dessicated wetlands, destroyed fisheries and more.”

The Gulf of Papua, the delta of the Fly River.
Image: NASA

A new Oxford study show that major river dams are one of the least efficient economic investments a nation can make when it comes to generating energy – and that’s before the environmental costs are factored in.

Since the dawn of civilization, humans have made their settlements and livelihoods on the banks of rivers around the world. Rivers have connected communities and carried us to sea, across borders and continents. From the water they bring to their constant flow, rivers are, across cultures and time, the very symbol of life itself.

It’s International Day of Action for Rivers 2014 today. Here’s a list of events, and some suggestions for action you can take to help your favorite river flow free. #RiversUniteUs

Via: International Rivers

Old Water Ways

February 19, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Satellite images of California.
Source: NOAA/Washington Post

These satellite images show winter snow levels in California in early 2013, when the state was already experiencing drought conditions, and in 2014, when the state is officially in the worst drought on record. Much of the annual fresh water in the state is the result of snow melt.

California is no stranger to the challenges of access to fresh water. The state was practically built on water conflict – too little in the south, enough in the north (or at least, until recently). Anyone who grew up there, as I did, knows about water scarcity – or at least they should, since it is one of California’s defining characteristics.

Now, with several counties and communities on the brink of running completely dry, drastic action is being called for. Desalination technology, an expensive proposition, is looking like the more affordable alternative to parched earth.

But none of this is new. People have known for decades which way the river flows. In the midst of this, there are California farmers using water imported from the Colorado River to grow hay for export to China, a place that has far outpaced its own water resources.

Based on data from the MODIS instrument aboard both the Terra and Aqua satellites, this map contrasts plant health from Jan. 17 to Feb. 1, 2014, against average conditions for the same period over the past decade.
Source: NASA Earth Observatory / Discover Magazine

Even with some of the most progressive environmental laws in the United States, water was always going to be the fly in the ointment for further expansion in the state. Climate change hasn’t helped matters.

Back in 1977, California went through a long drought, its worst before the current dry spell. I remember it well. The normally lush green hills of winter were the color of straw. By spring, the fire season had begun, months early. I used to drive by a local Marin County water resource, the Nicasio Reservoir. Usually it was full of glittering blue water, but by 1978 it was all cracked soil.

There was an old road that once ran through what is now the bottom of the reservoir. It was lost with the building in 1961 of the Seeger dam, a past path submerged beneath the sweet vision of plentiful water that dams and wet years always bring. The drought of 1977-79 – and the current drought – have exposed it again, a defunct road with neither a beginning nor an end.

Nicasio Reservoir, California. December 2013.
Photo: Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal

Sunspot Window

December 3, 2013 / PK Read / 1 Comment

Coils of magnetic field lines. The bundles of coils are charged particles swirling along magnetic field lines. Image: NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

Coils of magnetic field lines on the Sun.
The bundles of coils are charged particles swirling along magnetic field lines.
Image: NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

Besides being the sole source of warmth here on the third planet in its orbit, the Sun displays surface activity that is beautiful as well as relevant. These images from NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) were taken and processed with a number of techniques that highlight sunspot phases.

Sunspots are temporary areas of high magnetic activity that appear as dark spots on the surface of the sun.

A low frequency of sunspots can lead to lower temperatures here on Earth; a high sunspot frequency can support higher temperatures.

The current phase of sunspots, known as Sunspot Cycle 24, has seen the lowest number of sunspots since the space age began, and all the way back to 1906.

Image: NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

There are those who continue to argue that the current upwards trend in the temperature of our climate is largely due to solar activity rather than to any man-made influences.

For those who insist that the mitigation of global climate change doesn’t require weaning the world energy supply from fossil fuels, the lack of a sharper rise in atmospheric warming during Sunspot Cycle 24 might be just the window of opportunity needed to support the ongoing expansion and exploitation of fossil fuels.

The overwhelming scientific consensus, however, holds that while Sunspot Cycle 24 might mean that temperatures will rise at a slower level than they would during a period of higher sunspot activity, they will continue rise due to anthropogenic influence unless major changes are made in human activity and behavior.

From this perspective, a slow sunspot phase might offer a bit more time to adapt, to cooperate, to develop new solutions for a warming world. A window of opportunity to be seized.

All things considered, I’m hoping this slow sunspot phase will be a long one.

The Sun now
Image/Caption: NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

A note on the Solar Dynamics Observatory from the SDO website: “The SDO is a sun-pointing semi-autonomous spacecraft that will allow nearly continuous observations of the Sun,” and is “the first mission to be launched for NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) Program, a program designed to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth.”

The Proverbial Drop

November 26, 2013 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Image: Pranav Singh

The recent Warsaw Climate Change Conference ended with a couple of modest successes, the main one being that the conversation will continue between nations as to what to do about man-made impact on the climate.

An initiative to support efforts at slowing deforestation received funding to the tune of $280 million from three countries.

Developed countries couldn’t quite bring themselves to say more than they would be willing to ‘contribute’ to emission cuts, rather than ‘commit’ to them.

Mainly, the nations who use the most keep insisting that change will be slow, and expensive.

Developing countries requested the twenty developed nations which have contributed to and profited most from the fossil fuel economy to pledge funds to mitigate, adapt and readjust this economy and its effects.

Amounts requested were between $70 billion per year by 2016, or $100 billion by 2020.

Meanwhile, an editorial piece by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in the New York Times today states that the developed countries currently subsidize the fossil fuel economy to the tune of $485 billion.

That’s $485 billion every single year.

Not all expensive habits are worth keeping.

So here’s hoping that even a drop in the bucket will create enough ripples to make a change.

Input and Loss

November 21, 2013November 21, 2013 / PK Read / 2 Comments

At the UNFCCC COP19 in Warsaw this week, a new programme was launched under the auspices of the World Bank: The BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL).

The initial funding amount is set at $280 million USD. Norway has pledged up to $135 million to the initiative, Britain $120 million and the United States $25 million. The fund also hopes to attract further private and public funding.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to use the Global Forest Change tool released this week to look at forest change in each of the contributing countries, also in relation to their contribution to this new initiative.

Forest change Norway 2000-2012. The blue and red colors indicate net forest gain and loss, respectively. The colors here are almost exclusively seen on the Swedish side of the border. Norway does not rank among the top 50 nations in terms of deforestation, Sweden ranks 13th.
Image via Global Forest Change / Earth Engine Partners

With a goal of encouraging reduced greenhouse gas emissions from the land sector, including REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), ISFL is intended to “help countries identify and promote climate-smart agricultural and low-carbon land-use practices in selected geographical areas where agriculture is a major cause of deforestation.”

The deforestation culprit in question is, by and large, commercial agriculture in regions including Latin America; subsistence and commercial agriculture contribute equally to an estimated two-thirds of deforestation in other areas like Africa and subtropical Asia.

The initiative sets itself the task of “adopting a landscape approach, (which) means implementing a development strategy that is climate smart, equitable, productive and profitable at scale and strives for environmental, social, and economic impact.”

Forest change in the United Kingdom 2000-2012, which is not among the top 50 nations in terms of forest loss.
Image via Global Forest Change / Earth Energy Partners

Measures include “protecting forests, restoring degraded lands, enhancing agricultural productivity, and improving livelihoods and local environments.”

According to this Reuters article, one of the key problems faced by initiatives seeking to reduce deforestation is that “parties are focusing all their energy arguing about the politics of who governs REDD+ finance, when the real issue is a lack of demand.”

This is according to Matt Leggett, head of policy at forest think-tank Global Canopy Programme, who also stated that “the program must create demand for nearly 1.5 billion tones of carbon dioxide equivalent to cut deforestation by half, but current projects are only set to cut emissions by 160 million tones.”

Forest change in the United States 2000-2012. The US ranks 3rd globally in terms of net forest loss. Image via Global Forest Change / Earth Energy Partners

Forest change in the United States 2000-2012. The US ranks 3rd globally in terms of net forest loss. (Canada ranks 4th.)
Image via Global Forest Change / Earth Energy Partners

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