Bob Berwyn:
"SUMMIT COUNTY — Coral reefs may get all the glory when it comes to biodiversity, but new research shows that relatively unsung seagrass communities may play a vital role in sequestering atmospheric carbon.
Any carbon that’s not in the atmosphere means it’s not trapping heat, so cultivating and protecting existing coastal seagrass communities could be a vital part of the solution to climate change, according to the first global analysis of carbon storage in seagrass.
The results of the study suggest that seagrass meadows can store up to twice as much carbon as the world’s temperate and tropical forests — up to 83,000 metric tons of carbon per square kilometer, mostly in the soils beneath them, as compared to typical terrestrial forests, which store about 30,000 metric tons per square kilometer, most of which is in the form of wood.
The research also estimates that, although seagrass meadows occupy less than 0.2 percent of the world’s oceans, they are responsible for more than 10 percent of all carbon buried annually in the sea.
“Seagrasses only take up a small percentage of global coastal area, but this assessment shows that they’re a dynamic ecosystem for carbon transformation,” said James Fourqurean, the lead author of the paper and a scientist at Florida International University and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site.
The Florida Coastal Everglades LTER site is one of 26 such NSF LTER sites around the world in ecosystems from forests to tundra, coral reefs to barrier islands.
“Seagrasses have the unique ability to continue to store carbon in their roots and soil in coastal seas,” said Fourqurean. “We found places where seagrass beds have been storing carbon for thousands of years.”...."
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"Unapologetic pursuit and tracking of patterns within the news others make since 2010."
Showing posts with label natural cycle explanations for climate change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label natural cycle explanations for climate change. Show all posts
May 26, 2012
May 17, 2012
SandBoxBlogs: Summit County Citizens Voice "Study suggests Southwest fires driven by year-to-year weather cycles rather than long-term climate variations"
Bob Berwyn:
"SUMMIT COUNTY — A detailed analysis of historic fire-scar records and tree-ring data going back centuries offers more evidence that recent mega-fires in the Southwest are unprecedented and likely a result of widespread fire suppression.
While many of today’s southwestern forests haven’t seen a fire in more than 100 years, historical records show that, in the pre-suppression era, they rarely went as long as 40 or 50 years without a low-intensity ground fire.
To reach their conclusions, researchers at Southern Methodist University used a statistical model that encompassed 1,500 years of climate and fire patterns. They wanted to test if today’s dry, hot climate alone is causing the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest.
The results were striking. Year-to-year weather patterns that drive fire activity seemed to stay the same against the backdrop of larger climate cycles, according to SMU fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos.
“The U.S. would not be experiencing massive large-canopy-killing crown fires today if human activities had not begun to suppress the low-severity surface fires that were so common more than a century ago,” said Roos, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology....."
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"Unapologetic pursuit and tracking of patterns within the news others make since 2010."
"SUMMIT COUNTY — A detailed analysis of historic fire-scar records and tree-ring data going back centuries offers more evidence that recent mega-fires in the Southwest are unprecedented and likely a result of widespread fire suppression.
While many of today’s southwestern forests haven’t seen a fire in more than 100 years, historical records show that, in the pre-suppression era, they rarely went as long as 40 or 50 years without a low-intensity ground fire.
To reach their conclusions, researchers at Southern Methodist University used a statistical model that encompassed 1,500 years of climate and fire patterns. They wanted to test if today’s dry, hot climate alone is causing the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest.
The results were striking. Year-to-year weather patterns that drive fire activity seemed to stay the same against the backdrop of larger climate cycles, according to SMU fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos.
“The U.S. would not be experiencing massive large-canopy-killing crown fires today if human activities had not begun to suppress the low-severity surface fires that were so common more than a century ago,” said Roos, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology....."
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"Unapologetic pursuit and tracking of patterns within the news others make since 2010."
May 8, 2012
SandBoxBlogs: Summit County Citizens Voice "Study suggests link between solar cycles and climate"
Bob Berwyn:
"— European scientists say they’ve used a detailed analysis of distinct sediment layers in a German lake to link a drop in solar activity with an increase in humidity and windiness about 2,800 years ago.
Many other studies have shown that the changes in solar radiation have minimum effect on climate, but this newest research effort suggests that incoming UV radiation could have an effect on stratosphere that trickles down to tropospheric wind patterns.
"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."
"— European scientists say they’ve used a detailed analysis of distinct sediment layers in a German lake to link a drop in solar activity with an increase in humidity and windiness about 2,800 years ago.
The researchers from the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ in collaboration with Swedish and Dutch colleagues, claim their study provides evidence for a direct solar-climate linkage.
Many other studies have shown that the changes in solar radiation have minimum effect on climate, but this newest research effort suggests that incoming UV radiation could have an effect on stratosphere that trickles down to tropospheric wind patterns.
The sediment samples came from the Lake Meerfelder Maar, in the Eifel region and helped determine annual variations in climate proxies and solar activity. The study was published online this week in Nature Geoscience....." (Read more? Click title)
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