[GWSG] New Arctic CH4; aridity to grow; The Future We Choose; backing a biodiversity treaty; planned retreat; leave plankton alone

[Tilley, Al]

1. A new airborne sampling device has allowed NASA to detect millions of methane sources in the Arctic, typically within about 44 yards of a body of water, and typically associated with abrupt thawing. https://phys.org/news/2020-02-nasa-flights-millions-arctic-methane.html



2. Arid land crosses three thresholds toward desertification. 20% of land will cross one or more thresholds by the end of the century, and cease providing ecosystem services to about two billion people. https://phys.org/news/2020-02-climate-abrupt-shifts-dryland-ecosystems.html



3. Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carmac, leaders of the Paris Climate Accords, have published The Future We Choose, describing two versions of earth in 2050. This extract describes life in a world which did not succeed in controlling emissions so as to complete the transition away from fossil fuels. “The only uncertainty is how long we’ll last.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/15/worst-case-scenario-2050-climate-crisis-future-we-choose-christiana-figueres-tom-rivett-carnac

If you read the extract, you deserve to see the more desirable version of 2050. Most of the book describes life at 1.5C of heat, and how we could achieve that.  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/15/best-case-scenario-2050-climate-crisis-future-we-choose-christiana-figueres-tom-rivett-carnac



4. Christiana Figueres discusses her new book and “the most consequential fork in the road” we face now. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/15/christiana-figueres-climate-emergency-this-is-the-decade-the-future-we-choose



5. 23 former foreign ministers, including Madeline Albright, have called on leaders to back a UN agreement to preserve biodiversity by protecting 30% of the earth’s surface, controlling invasive species, and reducing pollution from plastic waste and excess nutrients by 50%. The meeting on the agreement will begin next week in Rome. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/18/world-leaders-urged-to-step-back-from-precipice-of-ecological-ruin-aoe



6. Two planners from New Orleans observe that it is time for serious attention to the project of retreating from rising seas. “Moving existing cities, retrofitting old ones for explosive growth, creating new settlements and mitigating thousands of miles of polluted shorelines will be expensive and complicated. Even if properly planned, this will be a messy and even brutal process; if unplanned and ad hoc, in all likelihood, it will descend into a chaos straight out of science fiction.”  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/17/climate-hope-best-prepare-worst/



7. Iron stimulates the growth of phytoplankton, fixing carbon which the algae take to the bottom when they die and sink. A common proposal is to scatter iron in some form on the surface of the ocean so that carbon would be fixed and sequestered. But stimulating phytoplankton growth in one area of the ocean depresses it in another. It appears that we have just the right conditions for phytoplankton support already. https://phys.org/news/2020-02-seeding-oceans-iron-impact-climate.html

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