[GWSG] Cooling volcanoes; Canadian water woes; water woes generally; in the US; globally

[Tilley, Al]

1. Volcanic eruptions release CO2 into the atmosphere, leading to heating from the greenhouse effect. But two periods of volcanic activity over 400 million years ago were followed by cooling and a decrease of oxygen levels in the oceans severe enough to lead to massive extinctions. Weathering of lava from the eruptions appears to have led to a buildup of phosphorus in the oceans, leading to a great blooming of phytoplankton, which took their embodied carbon to the sea floor when they died, leading to a decrease in atmospheric carbon, leading to cooling, leading to extinctions. Oceanic oxygen levels have already suffered from blooms of algae due to agricultural runoff. We should be careful about fertilizing the oceans on any great scale to draw down carbon. That does seem to lead to the cooling we want, but requires careful tuning.  https://phys.org/news/2021-12-volcanic-fertilization-oceans-drove-severe.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter



2.  Hydrologic stationarity underlies the stability of the weather systems by which water, in its forms of vapor, liquid, and solid, is circulated. A consequence of the climate crisis is nonstationarity, the destabilization of the water cycle in a given region. The challenges of maintaining water supplies, or even of preserving a viable physical infrastructure, are becoming more daunting as hydrologic stationarity declines. https://www.straight.com/news/climate-stability-becomes-a-relic-of-past-in-bc-due-to-loss-of-hydrologic-stationarity



3. This handout from the course Water: Science and Society at Penn State discusses briefly the difficulty of water planning as stationarity declines. The handout links to other materials on the topic.  https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth111/node/904

I know we have people on the list knowledgeable on water and climate. We would all appreciate any guidance and further information they might be able to provide.



4. Marshall Shepherd reflects on the declining precipitation west of the Rockies and the general tendencies of hydrologic change elsewhere in the country. https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2021/12/04/the-feast-and-famine-perspective-on-precipitation-and-climate-change/?sh=10ac4b1e7859



5. Christian Thorsberg in Sierra gives a global retrospective account of disrupted weather globally in the past year, and of some effects of the disruptions. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-year-climate-change

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