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Category Archives: Ecosystem Stress

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30 July 2015, Science Daily, Drought’s lasting impact on forests. Forests across the planet take years to rebound from drought, storing far less carbon dioxide than widely assumed in climate models. In the virtual worlds of climate modeling, forests and other vegetation are assumed to bounce back quickly from extreme drought. But that assumption is far off the mark, according to a new study of drought impacts at forest sites worldwide. Living trees took an average of two to four years to recover and resume normal growth rates after droughts ended, researchers report today in the journal Science. “This really matters because in the future droughts are expected to increase in frequency and severity due to climate change,” says lead author William R.L. Anderegg, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah. “Some forests could be in a race to recover before the next drought strikes.” Forest trees play a big role in buffering the impact of human-induced climate change by removing massive amounts of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere and incorporating the carbon into woody tissues. The finding that drought stress sets back tree growth for years suggests that Earth’s forests are capable of storing less carbon than climate models have calculated. Read More here

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27 July 2015, The Guardian, The Daily Mail and Telegraph get it wrong on Arctic sea ice, again: Coverage of a recent paper on Arctic sea ice and climate change suggests conservative media can’t seem to grasp the concept of long-term trends. Cherry-picking is one of the five telltale techniques of climate change denial. By focusing on short-term blips in noisy data, those who want to maintain the status quo can distract from the long-term threats posed by climate change. Climate contrarians most frequently deploy this strategy using global temperature and Arctic sea ice data. A recent study in Nature Geoscience concluded that, not surprisingly, there is a strong relationship between the summer temperatures in the Arctic (specifically the number of “melting degree days”), and the amount of sea ice that melts in a given year. 2013 happened to be a relatively cool year in the Arctic – the coolest since 2004. As a result, there was relatively little ice melt in 2013. The annual minimum Arctic sea ice extent and volume were their largest since at least 2009, or perhaps as far back as 2005, according to the data used in this new study. The following figure from the paper is as clear as ice – while there was a short-term increase from 2012 to 2013, the Arctic has lost more than half its sea ice over the past three decades. Read More here

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26 July 2015, DeSmog, Senators Call For End To Arctic Drilling As Shell Gets Permits To Begin Work In Chukchi Sea: Shell received the final permits it needed to begin drilling exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea last Wednesday, but a group of Senators led by Oregon’s Jeff Merkley is calling for a ban on Arctic drilling altogether. According to the Associated Press, the permits are somewhat conditional: In granting the company the green light, the Department of the Interior said Shell can only drill the top sections of wells, or to about a depth of 1,300 feet, because critical emergency response gear, including a well-capping device in the event of a blowout or leak, will not be present for the foreseeable future. The capping stack and other emergency gear is on board the MSV Fennica, which is in Portland, Oregon for repairs after Shell opted to send the ship out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska on July 3 via a shallow and evidently treacherous route, choosing speed over safety. The Fennica is an icebreaker — a ship literally designed to break through ice, one of two such ships in Shell’s Arctic fleet meant to protect its drill rigs from unsafe ice conditions. But the Fennica somehow suffered a gash in its hull more than 3 feet long before even leaving the harbor and was forced to head immediately back to port. There is no word on how long the repairs will take. When the capping stack is available to be deployed within 24 hours, aDOI spokesperson told the Associated Press, Shell can apply for an amended permit that would allow the company to drill deeper. That is cold comfort to critics of Shell’s Arctic drilling plans, who have repeatedly pointed out that the remote Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea, where the company plans to drill, will make cleanup of any spill extremely difficult even if Shell has all of its emergency gear on hand. An oil spill would be devastating, environmentalists argue, but any drilling activities are likely to be incredibly disruptive in the fragile Arctic ecosystem. Read More here

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21 July 2015, The Conversation, The march of the king crabs: a warning from Antarctica: Changing wildlife: this article is part of a series looking at how key species such as bees, insects and fish respond to environmental change, and what this means for the rest of the planet. Hundreds of metres below the surface of the freezing ocean surrounding Antarctica, the seafloor is teeming with life. The animals living there have no idea that an army is on the brink of invading their tranquil environment. The army is composed of king crabs. Until 2003, there were no crabs in this fragile Antarctic ecosystem. Now, driven by warming waters, their arrival heralds a major upset. The unique communities living on the continental shelf off Antarctica are found in no other place on Earth. Delicate brittle stars, beautiful sea stars, vibrant sea lilies, and giant sea spiders are among the spectacular inhabitants found there. The animals live side by side, with almost no predators to upset the balance. For millions of years, the cold water temperatures in the Antarctic have stopped most predators from surviving in this harsh environment. But this situation is rapidly changing. Read More here

 

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