Author: situs toto

Maxim Kleyer

Professor Vejdemo-Johansson

HON 223 Seminar

November 22, 2021

Over the last couple of decades, scientists have researched ways to keep massive carbon pockets from rising to the atmosphere through deforestation and other methods. The steady skyward climb of redwoods, the tangled march of mangroves along tropical coasts and the slow submersion of carbon-rich soil in peatlands has locked away billions of tons of carbon. The damage to the environment and world will be noticeable if these vaults were to ever open. With the new mapping project being conducted by scientists, we can now measure how much “irrecoverable” carbon there is, so we can protect these areas from deforestation and impacting our climate. Monica Noon, an environmental data scientist at Conservation International in Arlington, Va, states “Current efforts to keep global warming below the ambitious target of 1.5 degrees C require that we reach net-zero emissions by 2050, and that carbon stored in nature stays put.” The massive amount of carbon stored in the world is estimated to be up to 139 gigatons, and with almost none of these being released, the average temperature of the Earth can become stable. In comparison to the actual research article, Monica Moon and her colleagues develop a step by step strategy detailing important places on the globe where carbon is stored. She states, “Our irrecoverable carbon map  identifies irrecoverable carbon reserves that are manageable …. “ and to add onto her statement, the few places with the most carbon stored is the northwest United States, the Amazon Rainforest, and Central Africa. Also, under business as usual all over the globe, it is possible for irrecoverable carbon to be lost each decade due to deforestation alone. In conclusion, deforestation is a major cause of massive carbon emission and the warming of our planet. To stop this, we need to cut down on deforestation on massive carbon vaults to limit the potential disasters looming ahead. 

Citations:

• https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-natural-carbon-stores-new-map
• M.L. Noon et al. Mapping the irrecoverable carbon in Earth’s ecosystems. Nature Sustainability. Published online November 18, 2021. doi: 10.1038/s41893-021-00803-6.

Maxim Kleyer

Professor Vejdemo-Johansson

HON 223 Seminar

November 8, 2021

The science article I chose this week was about the findings of tropical birds shrinking in size due to climate change. In the article Climate change may be shrinking tropical birds by Jonathan Lambert, talks about how the change in size of some animals help them stay cooler as temperatures rise. Over the last 40 years, in a remote corner of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, researchers have spent decades catching and measuring birds in a large swath of forest unmarred by roads or deforestation. To the surprise of the researchers, in this pocket of the wilderness, the birds are shrinking. To see if birds that stay put have also been shrinking, Jirinec and colleagues analyzed data on nonmigratory birds collected from 1979 to 2019 in an intact region of the Amazon that spans 43 kilometers. The dataset includes measurements such as mass and wing length for over 11,000 individual birds of 77 species. The researchers also examined climate data for the region. In conclusion, each birds’ mass decreased the most in the year or two after especially hot and dry spells, which tracks with the idea that birds are getting smaller to deal with heat stress. In comparison to the actual research article, the news article and the research article go together very well. Just like any news article, the most important facts are stated. The research article presented by Jirinec and his colleagues provide more evidence for the shrinking of the birds over the years. The research article lists every step taken to identify each birds mass and height without disturbing the wildlife around them. In the results sub-section of the article, Jirinec explains what they used to find the climate trend of the area and how it affected the birds and wildlife. And finally, the results of the shrinkage of the birds were to keep them cool. Just like every animal that sweat, having a larger body mass means more struggle when living in a dry and hot area. 

Citations:

• https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-shrinking-birds-tropical
• V. Jirinec et al. Morphological consequences of climate change for resident birds in intact Amazonian rainforest. Science Advances. Published online November 12, 2021. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abk1743.
• B.C. Weeks et al. Shared morphological consequences of global warming in North American migratory birds. Ecology Letters. Vol. 23, February 2020, p. 316. doi: 10.1111/ele.13434.

Maxim Kleyer

Professor Vejdemo-Johansson

Hon 223

10/17/2021

The science article I chose this week to read and describe was about climate change and how our lower atmosphere has been rising over the past decades. The article I found Earth’s lower atmosphere is rising due to climate change  by Freida Kreier is a very short article that talks about the increase of distance the lower atmosphere has moved from our planet. She mentions that the readings collected by a water balloon in the Northern Hemisphere have indicated the upper boundary of the troposphere is being pushed due to climate change. Jane Liu, an environmental scientist, says that the troposphere height from the earth ranges depending on where you are, 20km in the tropics and 7km in the poles, and the range increases and decreases as air expands in hot temperatures and contracts in cold ones. However, she mentions that greenhouse gases are being stored in the atmosphere, slightly expanding the troposphere every year. In comparison with the actual research article made by Jane Liu and her colleagues, the results go more into detail about their findings. Liu and her colleagues’ studies ranged from 1980-2020 and found that the troposphere is expanding at specific coordinates (20°N – 80°N) by 50-80m per decade. The reason for a wide range of expansion is because over 40 years there have been different temperatures in regards to climate change. Liu explains, “Variability in tropopause height is closely related to the thermal structure below and above. On the monthly scale, monthly anomalies of tropopause height are positively correlated with tropospheric temperature anomalies and negatively correlated with stratospheric temperature anomalies.“ In other words, the troposphere expansion is not only related to the rapid climate change, but also the stratosphere’s temperature changes as well. According to the trend analysis shown by Liu and her colleagues and correlation analysis on monthly and multidecadal scales, a combined influence of the continuous increase in GHG emissions and partial recovery of stratospheric ozone is directly related to the warming of the troposphere. In short, the troposphere is more prone to expanding and increase in temperature than the stratosphere.

Works Cited:
– L. Meng et al. Continuous rise of the tropopause in the Northern Hemisphere over 1980–2020. Science Advances. Published online November 5, 2021. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abi8065.

– Kreier, Freda. “Earth’s Lower Atmosphere Is Rising Due to Climate Change.” Science News, 5 Nov. 2021, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/earth-lower-atmosphere-rising-climate-change-troposphere. 

My article was an interesting discovery made by a group of researchers that could rewrite textbooks. My article “‘Ghost tracks’ suggest people came to the Americas earlier than once thought” by Freda Kreier, talks about the recent discovery of footprints in White Sands National Park in New Mexico that date further back than the people that came to America by the Bering land bridge. Geoscientist Matthew Bennett and his colleagues report that these footprints date back to 23,000 to 21,000 years ago, during the peak of the last ice age. Furthermore, there have been recent findings of animal bones and stone tools that date back up to 30,000 years ago to possibly add as evidence to these footprints. Bennett tells us that he and his colleagues used “…several dating methods such as radiocarbon dating of the aquatic plants embedded in and between the footprints.” The article goes on to tell us that some archeologists are not totally convinced that this discovery is legit. They counter by saying, “…the researchers should use other validation techniques to check the dates before ‘breaking out the champagne.’” One archeologist by the name of Loren Davis, says if the dates are validated, then this discovery will provide evidence that humans can survive the harshest weather for a long period of time.

Compared to the journal, Kreier mentions the basic and most important information that the journal mentions. The journal’s abstract mentions almost everything Kreier mentions but the last sentence. Bennett talks about how this discovery adds evidence “to the antiquity of human colonization of the Americas and providing a temporal range extension for the coexistence of early inhabitants and Pleistocene megafauna.” What I find interesting about this statement is that this is a crucial piece of information that can be expanded upon in Kreier’s article. I find it interesting that this could possibly shape history and Kreier decides not to include this because archeologists believe this discovery is not valid. On another note, Bennett digs deep to make sure that his and his colleagues’ findings are not in vain. He mentions his use of radiocarbon dating, which is mentioned in Kreier’s article, to solidify the ‘ghost prints’ into human feet. On another note, Kreier mentions this in her article but does not go into detail. Overall, Kreier’s article is very interesting, but she puts out the important information with little to none of what Bennett was trying to portray.

CITATIONS

Bennett et al. Evidence of humans in North America during the last Glacial Maximum. Science. Vol. 373, September 24, 2021, p. 1528. doi: 10.1126/science.abg7586.