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ScienceDaily — The present rate of greenhouse carbon dioxide emissions through fossil fuel burning is higher than that associated with an ancient episode of severe global warming, according to new research. The findings are published online this week by the journal Nature Geoscience.

Around 55.9 million years ago, Earth experienced a period of intense global warming known as the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which lasted for around 170,000 years. During its main phase, average annual temperatures rose by around 5°C.

Scientists believe that the warming may have been initially triggered by an event such as the baking of organic-rich sediments by igneous activity that released the potent greenhouse gas, methane. This initial temperature increase warmed ocean bottom waters which allowed the break down of gas hydrates (clathrates), which are found under deep ocean sediments: this would have greatly amplified the initial warming by releasing even more vast volumes of methane. As the methane diffused from the seawater into the atmosphere it would have been oxidised to form carbon dioxide, another potent and longer-lived greenhouse gas.

Adam Charles and his PhD supervisor, Dr Ian Harding, both palaeoceanographers at the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES) based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, co-authored the report. Dr Harding said: "The PETM has been seen by many as a natural test bed for understanding modern human-made global warming, despite it not being a perfect analogy. However, the total amount of carbon released during this climatic perturbation and its rate of release have been unclear."

To help fill this gap in knowledge, the researchers measured carbon isotope ratios of marine organic matter preserved in sediments collected in Spitsbergen. The sedimentary section is important because it records the entirety of the PETM, from its initiation to through the recovery period, and as such is the most complete record of the warming event so far known in high northern latitudes.

Based on their carbon isotope measurements and computer simulations of Earth system, the researchers estimated that the rate of carbon emissions during the PETM peaked at between 300 million and 1,700 million metric tonnes per year, which is much slower than the present carbon emission rate.

"Our findings suggest that humankind may be causing atmospheric carbon dioxide to increase at rates never previously seen on Earth, which would suggest that current temperatures will potentially rise much faster than they did during the PETM," concluded Dr Harding.

This research was supported by The Worldwide Universities Network, Pennsylvania State University, and the US National Science Foundation.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110607121525.htm

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Brazil to replace oil rigs with 'underwater cities'

Traditional oil rigs will be replaced with “underwater cities” within a decade under ambitious plans being drawn up by Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned energy group.

Petrobras plans to turn science fiction into reality to extract oil from the vast pre-salt oil fields discovered off the south east coast of Brazil.

The plan is to construct 'cities’ more than 2,000 metres under water, containing machines, giant pieces of equipment and robots that could inspect the systems being used to extract millions of barrels of oil. Many operations would be fully automated while others would be controlled by humans at a distance.

“Our target is that we won’t need platforms in ten years from now,” said Carlos Tadeu Fraga, executive manager of the Petrobras Research Centre.

Petrobras already owns virtual reality laboratories where engineers can inspect 3D images of oil fields. But now they want to take a further technological leap by installing floating rig equipment on the sea bed.

The machinery under the sea would be capable of separating oil, gas, water and sand, compressing substances and generating enough energy to keep the operation functioning.

Petrobras will take the first step in turning its plans into reality when it installs machines to separate water and oil in the Marlim oil field in the Campos Basin.

It is having to ambitious to extract the huge reserves in the pre-salt fields, which lie below layers of sand, rock and salt as well as water .

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/8228548/Brazil-to-replace-oil-rigs-with-underwater-cities.html

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Scientists find ancient asphalt domes off California coast

High-resolution bathymetry shows extinct asphalt volcanoes on the sea-floor off California. Credit: Dana Yoerger, WHOI

About 35,000 years ago, a series of apparent undersea volcanoes deposited massive flows of petroleum 10 miles offshore. The deposits hardened into domes that were discovered recently by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and UC Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Their report—co-authored with researchers from UC Davis, the University of Sydney and the University of Rhode Island—appears online today (April 25) in the Journal Nature Geoscience. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy and the Seaver Institute.

"It was an amazing experience, driving along…and all of a sudden, this mountain is staring you in the face," said Christopher M. Reddy, director of WHOI's Coastal Ocean Institute and one of the study's senior authors, as he described the discovery of the domes using the deep submersible vehicle Alvin. Moreover, the dome was teeming with undersea life. "It was essentially an oasis," he said, "almost like an artificial reef."

What really piqued the interest of Reddy—a marine geochemist who studies oil spills—was the chemical composition of the dome: "very unusual asphalt material," he said. "There aren't that many opportunities to study oil that's been sitting around on the bottom of the ocean for 35,000 years."

Reddy's unique chance came courtesy of UCSB earth scientist and lead author David L. Valentine, who first came upon the largest of the structures—named Il Duomo—and brought back a chunk of the brittle, black material in 2007 from an initial dive in Alvin, which WHOI operates for the US Navy. Valentine and Reddy were on a cruise aboard the WHOI-operated research vessel Atlantis, following up on undersea mapping survey by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and the work of UCSB earth scientist Ed Keller.

"The largest [dome] is about the size of two football fields, side by side and as tall as a six-story building," Valentine said. Alvin's robotic arm snapped off a piece of the unusual formation, secured it in a basket and delivered it to Reddy aboard Atlantis.

"I was sleeping," Reddy chuckled. "Somebody woke me up and wanted me to look at the rocks and test them."

It turned out to be quite an awakening. "I was amazed at how easy it was to break," Reddy recalls, "which confirmed it wasn't solid rock" and lent credence to Keller's theory that these structures might be made of asphalt.

Without access to the sophisticated equipment in his Woods Hole lab, Reddy employed a "25-cent glass tube, the back of a Bic pen and a little nail polish remover" to analyze the crusty substance. He used the crude tools like a mortar and pestle to grind the rock, "and literally within several minutes, it became a thick oil."

"This immediately said to me that this was asphalt," Reddy said. "And I remember turning to Dave [Valentine] and saying, 'We've got to back. Please take me back there'" to the dome.


Diagram showing formation of an asphalt volcano and associated release of methane and oil. Credit: Jack Cook, UCSB

After making some schedule changes, Valentine cleared the way for him and Reddy to take Alvin back to several sites in 2007. This work also set the stage for a follow-up study in September 2009, when the investigators returned to the domes with Alvin and the Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (AUV) Sentry to study the unique structures. They were joined by, among others, WHOI collaborators Dana Yoerger, Richard Camilli and Robert K. Nelson and Oscar Pizarro, now at the University of Sydney.

"With that combination, we were able to go in and do very detailed mapping of the site and very detailed sampling at the seafloor," Valentine said. Using mass spectrometers and radiocarbon dating in their respective laboratories, the scientists were able to confirm the nature and age of the domes.

"To me, as an oil-spill chemist, this was very exciting," said Reddy. "I got to find out what oil looks like after… 35,000 years."

What it looked like was "incredibly weathered," said Reddy. "That means nature had taken away a lot of compounds. These mounds of black material were the last remnants of oil that exploded up from below. To see nature doing this on its own was an unbelievable finding."

A few asphalt-like undersea structures have been reported, says Valentine, "but not anything exactly like these…no large structures like we see here." He estimates that the dome structures contain about 100,000 tons of residual asphalt and compares them to an underwater version of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, complete with the fossils of ancient animals.

The researchers are not sure exactly why sea life has taken up residence around the asphalt domes, but one possibility is that because the oil has become benign over the years that some creatures are able to actually feed off it and get energy from it. They may also be "thriving" on tiny holes in the dome areas that release minute amounts of methane gas, Reddy says.

The scientists plan to continue studying the domed structures. "We have some very fundamental questions that remain," Valentine says. "It would be nice to know what is going on deep down under these things.

"One future direction is to try and actually drill into them," he says. "We also need to turn it over to some geologists to figure out where this oil is really coming from. More fundamentally, we're going to look at the actual degradation of the oil by microorganisms and maybe even see what organisms are trapped in this…very much like the La Brea Tar Pits."

From a chemical point of view, Reddy says he will continue to probe the question of exactly which of the chemicals that make up the domes "stayed around" all these years.

"Instead of this taking place at a refinery, nature used a variety of its own tools," he said, to manufacture the asphalt substance. With some heating and a few chemical tweaks, he added, this is essentially the same material that paves highways and parking lots. After all, it is California.

Provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news191397828.html

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Toxic algae could be the next big threat

BY LES BLUMENTHAL
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- With a new theory surfacing that toxic algae rather than asteroids killed the dinosaurs, scientists are still trying to unravel the mystery of what caused a massive algae bloom off the Northwest Coast that left thousands of seabirds dead and may have sickened some surfers and kayakers.

The bloom, which stretches roughly 300 miles from Newport, Ore., north to the Canadian border, still persists, though it's a shadow of its September and October peak.

Whipped by waves and storms, the microscopic phytoplankton, which had turned the ocean a rust color, broke apart, releasing toxins and creating meringue-like foam that coated the feathers of birds like spilled oil. Up to 10,000 birds died of hypothermia in September, and researchers are still trying to come up with a count for October.

Researchers are also checking reports that surfers and kayakers who came in contact with the foam may have suffered cold-like symptoms, including temporary loss of smell and taste. The toxins also may have become aerosolized and affected beachcombers. In another strange twist, pathologists performing necropsies found that some of the birds lacked normal bacteria in their stomachs and other internal organs.

"It's definitely a warning sign of something," said Julia Parrish, a professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at the University of Washington. "We don't know what."

Blooms of the single-cell, saltwater algae species known as Akashiwo sanguinea have been found in Puget Sound, the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere around the world. The bloom off the Northwest coast, however, is huge compared with others. At its height, there were 1.5 million algae cells per quart of water. The bloom was up to 65 feet deep and miles wide.

In only one other instance - a smaller bloom in 2007 in California's Monterey Bay - have the cells broken apart to create a toxic froth. And this particular specie of algae usually likes warmer water than that found off the Northwest Coast.

No one is sure what ignited the bloom. Some scientists think it could be caused by climate change, which has raised ocean temperatures and made the water more acidic - both conditions could favor this algae species. Others say it could be the result of such weather conditions as El Nino or the Pacific decadel oscillation, a long-lived El Nino-like pattern of Pacific climate variability.

The bloom could have been fed by nutrients washed down the Columbia River from farms in eastern Washington and Oregon, or from an ocean condition known as upwelling, where cold water rich with nutrients is pushed toward the surface by the wind.

Or, it could just be the rhythms of the ocean, which scientists are just starting to understand.

"The ocean does have a natural pulse," said Vera Trainer, a Seattle-based research oceanographer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Is this part of the pulse or is this something different? We want to find out. But some of this is very unusual. We are looking at this very intensely."

Even as Trainer, Parrish and others study the bloom off the Northwest Coast, one of the scientists who developed the theory linking toxic algae to mass extinctions said it fit in with the research he and his partner were working on.

"That's exactly what we are talking about," said John Rodgers, an ecotoxicologist at Clemson University in South Carolina, who along with James Castle, a geologist at Clemson, developed the killer algae theory.

Rodgers was on the road last week in the Midwest, collecting samples of algae to analyze back in his lab. He said he and Castle have found ancient deposits of blue-green algae that produce toxins and deplete oxygen that coincide with five mass extinctions millions of years ago. Though he said algae may not have been the only cause for the extinctions, he said it was a major factor.

The blue-green algae was freshwater algae in ponds, lakes and rivers that could have been ingested by prehistoric animals. The toxins also may have been absorbed by plants that were later eaten by animals or become airborne and breathed in by animals.

"They certainly didn't die on the same day or week," Rodgers said. "This happened over hundreds of years."

Even though there are thousands of species of algae, only several hundred produce toxins, he said.

Though the bloom off the Northwest coast is in salt water rather than fresh water, Rodgers said such blooms were well worth keeping an eye on.

"They are changing, expanding their ranges into places never seen before and in densities never seen before," Rodgers said. "It's hard to ignore, and as the data grows, we are becoming more and more convinced."

Rodgers said his theory has been peer reviewed and is gaining acceptance among scientists.

Current climate conditions are becoming strikingly similar to those that existed during the time of the mass extinctions, he said.

In a paper published in March in the journal Environment Geosciences, Rodgers and Castle wrote that their findings "gives us cause for concern and underscores the importance of careful and strategic monitoring as we move into an era of global climate change."

Scientists studying the bloom off the Northwest are wary when asked about Rodgers' and Castle's theory.

"I would be cautious about it," Trainer said.

Raphael Kudela, a toxic algae expert and ocean sciences professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, thinks algae blooms such as those off the Northwest Coast are becoming more frequent.

"It is consistent with climate change," Kudela said, adding that a bloom like this in the chilly waters of the Northwest was "very unusual."

As for the killer algae theory, Kudela said, "People who study harmful algae don't dismiss it. But it can't be proved."

Parrish doesn't quite know what to make of the theory that algae killed dinosaurs. Back when life was just starting, she said, algae and other single-cell organisms excreted oxygen that created the atmosphere.

"The claim algae had a humongous effect on the atmosphere is correct," Parrish said. "Whether it caused mass extinctions, I don't know."

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/v-fullstory/story/1379798.html

Proposal to exclude Canada from the Commonwealth

In the past, the Commonwealth has suspended several countries for human rights reasons. Now, campaigners, politicians and scientists have proposed suspending Canada because of its climate policy.

This weekend's summit of Commonwealth leaders beginning in Trinidad is the last major international gathering before the Copenhagen climate change conference in December. Here too, climate change will be on top of the agenda.

The Commonwealth’s 53 members include not only developed countries like Britain, Australia and Canada, but also emerging economies like India and South Africa as well as poor developing states comprising some of the world’s most vulnerable to global warming, like the Maldives and Bangladesh.

In the past, the Commonwealth has suspended Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and South Africa for electoral or human rights reasons. Now, The World Development Movement, the Polaris Institute in Canada and Greenpeace have called for Canada to be suspended from the Commonwealth over its climate change policies, the Guardian reports.

"Countries that fail to help (tackle global warming) should be suspended from membership, as are those that breach human rights," says Clare Short, the former International Development Secretary according to the Guardian.

"If the Commonwealth is serious about holding its members to account, then threatening the lives of millions of people in developing countries should lead to the suspension of Canada's membership immediately," says Saleemul Huq, a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change according to the newspaper.

Canada's greenhouse gas emissions are among the world's highest, and the country will not meet the cut required under the Kyoto protocol: by 2007 its emissions were 34% above its reduction target. Canada's environment department has refused to comment on the call for the country to be suspended, the Guardian reports.

Source: COP15

Coral 'cryobank' saves reef species

SHOULD the Great Barrier Reef perish as a result of rising ocean temperatures and acidity levels, it appears scientists will have, at least, a small consolation prize.

The Zoological Society of London is planning the world's first coral "cryobank", which would preserve hundreds of samples of each species in liquid nitrogen.

Samples taken from the Great Barrier Reef would be included in the radical preservation effort, although none has so far been removed for this purpose.

For some marine scientists, however, the concept is deeply flawed since it fails to tackle the root of the problem -- the feared obliteration of coral reefs by mid-century.

Charlie Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, said he supported the effort but warned it was no consolation for the eradication of reefs.

Creating coral-style aquariums, similar to the zoos of today, or preserving the genetic make-up of coral samples to "resurrect" reef systems in the future, were not meaningful options, according to Dr Veron.

"These are not solutions," he said. "Because Australia is home to the biggest coral reef in the world, it should concentrate all its efforts into helping the Great Barrier Reef survive.

"Personally, I feel it's no compensation to know that the genetic information of corals is kept in machines."

Dr Veron said reefs across the globe would be wiped out by century's end if current trends continued.

"By mid-century, all shallow-water corals will have been wiped out by mass bleaching and by mid-century ocean acidification will be slowing or stopping the growth of corals on the Great Barrier Reef. Reef growth will have ceased."

As for the Great Barrier Reef -- said to be more biodiverse than all of Europe -- Dr Veron warned it would be "in tatters' by 2030.

"Young children today will see the Great Barrier Reef come to an end," he said.

The problem arises because most of the carbon in the atmosphere is taken up by the oceans where it is dissolved, forming carbonic acid.

This raises acidity levels and attacks the carbonate platform on which reefs are built, preventing corals from forming skeletons.

"Most carbon in the atmosphere is taken up by the oceans. A coral reef is a carbonate platform. They are made of carbonates and carbon dioxide directly attacks carbonates," Dr Veron said.

He said the solution to the problem was to reduce levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"It's easy to stop. Stop producing carbon dioxide. We've got to cut the greenhouse emissions and that is what the Copenhagen meeting is all about," Dr Veron said.

Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26259162-5006786,00.html

Cabinet Ministers Illustrate Global Warming Issues

Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed dos scuba gear as he signs a document in Girifushi, Maldives, on Saturday that calls on all countries to cut down their carbon dioxide emissions ahead of a U.N. climate change conference.

GIRIFUSHI, Maldives - Members of the Maldives' Cabinet donned scuba gear and used hand signals Saturday at an underwater meeting staged to highlight the threat of global warming to the lowest-lying nation on earth.

President Mohammed Nasheed and 13 other government officials submerged and took their seats at a table on the sea floor — 20 feet below the surface of a lagoon off Girifushi, an island usually used for military training.

With a backdrop of coral, the meeting was a bid to draw attention to fears that rising sea levels caused by the melting of polar ice caps could swamp this Indian Ocean archipelago within a century. Its islands average 7 feet above sea level.

"What we are trying to make people realize is that the Maldives is a frontline state. This is not merely an issue for the Maldives but for the world," Nasheed said.

As bubbles floated up from their face masks, the president, vice president, Cabinet secretary and 11 ministers signed a document calling on all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.

Urgency
The issue has taken on urgency ahead of a major U.N. climate change conference scheduled for December in Copenhagen. At that meeting countries will negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol with aims to cut the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that scientists blame for causing global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Wealthy nations want broad emissions cuts from all countries, while poorer ones say industrialized countries should carry most of the burden.

Dozens of Maldives soldiers guarded the event Saturday, but the only intruders were groupers and other fish.

Nasheed had already announced plans for a fund to buy a new homeland for his people if the 1,192 low-lying coral islands are submerged. He has promised to make the Maldives, with a population of 350,000, the world's first carbon-neutral nation within a decade.

"We have to get the message across by being more imaginative, more creative and so this is what we are doing," he said in an interview on a boat en route to the dive site.

Nasheed, who has emerged as a key, and colorful, voice on climate change, is a certified diver, but the others had to take diving lessons in recent weeks.

Three ministers missed the underwater meeting because two were not given medical permission and another was abroad.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33354627/ns/world_news-weird_news/

High Carbon Dioxide Levels Cause Abnormally Large Fish Ear Bones

ScienceDaily — Rising carbon dioxide levels in the ocean have been shown to adversely affect shell-forming creatures and corals, and now a new study by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has shown for the first time that CO2 can impact a fundamental bodily structure in fish.

A brief paper published in the June 26 issue of the journal Science describes experiments in which fish that were exposed to high levels of carbon dioxide experienced abnormally large growth in their otoliths, or ear bones. Otoliths serve a vital function in fish by helping them sense orientation and acceleration.

The researchers had hypothesized that otoliths in young white seabass growing in waters with elevated carbon dioxide would grow more slowly than a comparable group growing in seawater with normal CO2 levels. They were surprised to discover the reverse, finding "significantly larger" otoliths in fish developing in high-CO2 water.

The fish in high-CO2 water were not larger in overall size, only the otoliths grew demonstrably bigger.

"At this point one doesn't know what the effects are in terms of anything damaging to the behavior or the survival of the fish with larger otoliths," said David Checkley, a Scripps Oceanography professor and lead author of the new study. "The assumption is that anything that departs significantly from normality is an abnormality and abnormalities at least have the potential for having deleterious effects."

With carbon dioxide levels rising due to human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning, resulting in both increased ocean CO2 and ocean acidification, the researchers intend to broaden their studies to examine specific areas, such as determining whether the otolith growth abnormality exists in fish other than white seabass; locating the physical mechanism that causes the enhanced otolith growth; and assessing whether the larger otoliths have a functional effect on the survival and the behavior of the fish.

"Number three is the big one," said Checkley. "If fish can do just fine or better with larger otoliths then there's no great concern. But fish have evolved to have their bodies the way they are. The assumption is that if you tweak them in a certain way it's going to change the dynamics of how the otolith helps the fish stay upright, navigate and survive."

In addition to serving in orientation and acceleration, otoliths help reveal physical characteristics of fish. Because otoliths grow in onion-like layers, scientists use otoliths to determine the age of fish, counting the increments similar to tree-ring dating.

Coauthors of the paper include Andrew Dickson, John Radich and Rebecca Asch of Scripps Oceanography; Motomitsu Takahashi of the Seikai National Fisheries Research Institute in Nagasaki, Japan; and Nadine Eisenkolb of the University of Southern California.

The research was supported by the Academic Senate of UC San Diego.

Adapted from materials provided by University of California - San Diego, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.