Study has bad news about sea level rise

Study has bad news about sea level rise 

A New Scientist article about a study by scientists at the institute of Arctic and Alpine Research of the University of Colorado, Boulder, has bad news for coastal areas around the world.

The team, led by Mark F. Meier, suggests in Science magazine that the latest International Panel on Climate Change projection of sea level rise in the 21st century by is too low by 10-25 centimeters because it leaves out the contributions of increasing glacier melt water.

To quote New Scientist , the IPCC report "predicted that sea levels worldwide will most probably rise between 21 and 47 cm by 2100, taking the averages of the six scenarios considered. Using the new figures on small glaciers, Meier calculates the rise to be between 27 and 97 cm.

"'This is an appreciable adjustment,' Meier says. He notes that more than 100 million people live within one meter of the current sea level."

Plastic duck armada is heading for Britain after 15-year global voyage

Plastic duck armada is heading for Britain after 15-year global voyage

A flotilla of plastic ducks is heading for Britain's beaches, according to an American oceanographer.

For the past 15 years Curtis Ebbesmeyer has been tracking nearly 30,000 plastic bath toys that were released into the Pacific Ocean when a container was washed off a cargo ship.

Some of the ducks, known as Friendly Floatees, are expected to reach Britain after a journey of nearly 17,000 miles, having crossed the Arctic Ocean frozen into pack ice, bobbed the length of Greenland and been carried down the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Mr Ebbesmeyer, who is based in Seattle, said yesterday that those that had not been trapped in circulating currents in the North Pacific, crushed by icebergs or blown ashore in Japan are bobbing across the Atlantic on the Gulf Stream.

Any beachcomber who finds one of the ducks will be able to claim a $100 (£50) reward from the toys' American distributor, First Years Inc.

The ducks began life in a Chinese factory and were being shipped to the US from Hong Kong when three 40ft containers fell into the Pacific during a storm on January 29, 1992. Two thirds of them floated south through the tropics, landing months later on the shores of Indonesia, Australia and South America. But 10,000 headed north and by the end of the year were off Alaska and heading back westwards. It took three years for the ducks to circle east to Japan, past the original drop site and then back to Alaska on a current known as the North Pacific Gyre before continuing north towards the Arctic.

Many were stranded as the currents took them through the Bering Strait, which divides Alaska from Russia. Mr Ebbesmeyer predicted that they would spend years trapped in the Arctic ice, moving at the rate of one mile a day towards the Atlantic.

In 2000, eight years after their journey began, the ducks were reported in the North Atlantic and in 2003, when they were expected to wash up on the east coast of America, First Years Inc announced the reward. By now the ducks had been bleached white by the sun and sea water. Sightings in the past two years have been scant, but oceanographers believe that their next port of call is southwest England, southern Ireland and western Scotland.

Simon Boxall, of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, said that the ducks offered a great opportunity for climate change research. "They are a nice tracer for what the currents are doing as they travel around the world, and currents are what determines our climate, and cycles of carbon.

"I would ask holidaymakers to keep an eye out, as they might be very few and far between by now. It's a real adventure story and the plastic should last 100 years, so we hope it will continue."

The landfalls have all been logged on a computer model called the Ocean Surface Currents Simulation, which is used to help fisheries and find people lost at sea. Two children's books have been written about the saga and the ducks have become collector's items, changing hands for £500.

WWF opposes plankton-global warming plan

WWF opposes plankton-global warming plan

World Wildlife Fund today announced its opposition to a plan by Planktos, Inc. (OTCBB: PLKT) to dump iron dust in the open ocean west of the Galapagos Islands. The experiment seeks to induce phytoplankton blooms in the hopes that the microscopic marine plants will absorb carbon dioxide. The company is speculating on lucrative ways to combat climate change.

"There are much safer and proven ways of preventing or lowering carbon dioxide levels than dumping iron into the ocean," said Dr. Lara Hansen, chief scientist, WWF International Climate Change Program. "This kind of experimentation with disregard for marine life and the lives of people who rely on the sea is unacceptable."

According to a summary by the United States Government submitted to the International Maritime Organization, Planktos, Inc.— a for-profit company — will dump up to 100 tons of iron dust this month in a 36 square mile area located approximately 350 miles west of the Galapagos Islands. Planktos, Inc. plans to dump the iron in international waters using vessels neither flagged under the United States nor leaving from the United States so U.S. regulations such as the U.S. Ocean Dumping Act do not apply and details do not need to be disclosed to U.S. entities.

"World Wildlife Fund's concern extends beyond the impact on individual species and extends to the changes that this dumping may cause in the interaction of species, affecting the entire ecosystem," said Dr. Sallie Chisholm, microbiologist, MIT and board member, World Wildlife Fund. "There's a real risk that this experiment may cause a domino effect through the food chain."

Potential negative impacts of the Planktos experiment include:

* Shifts in the composition of species that make up plankton, the base of the marine food chain, would cause changes in all the species that depend on it.

* The impact of gases released by both the large amount of phytoplankton blooms induced by Planktos, Inc. and resulting bacteria after the phytoplankton die.

* Bacterial decay following the induced phytoplankton bloom will consume oxygen, lowering oxygen levels in the water and changing its chemistry. This change in chemistry could favor the growth of microbes that produce powerful greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide.

* The introduction of large amounts of iron to the ecosystem--unless it is in a very pure form, which is likely cost-prohibitive at the scales proposed--would probably be accompanied by other trace metals that would be toxic to some forms of marine life.

In the waters around the Galapagos, some 400 species of fish swim with turtles, penguins and marine iguanas above a vast array of urchins, sea cucumbers, crabs, anemones, sponges and corals. Many of these animals are found nowhere else on earth.

Reports indicate that Planktos, Inc. is planning other large-scale iron dumping in other locations in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Earth smaller than we thought

Earth smaller than we thought

Although the discrepancy is not large, it is significant: Geodesists from the University of Bonn have remeasured the size of the Earth in a long lasting international cooperation project. The blue planet is accordingly some millimeters smaller than up to now assumed. The results are important, for example, to be able to demonstrate a climate contingent rise in sea level. The results have now appeared in the renowned Journal of Geodesy.

The system of measurement used by the Bonn Geodesists is invisible. It consists of radiowaves that are transmitted into space from punctiform sources, the so-called Quasars. A network of more than 70 radio telescopes worldwide receives these waves. Because the gaging stations are so far apart from each other, the radio signals are received with a slight time-lag. „From this difference we can measure the distance betwen the radio telescopes—and to the preciseness of two millimeters per 1,000 kilometers," explained Dr. Axel Nothnagel, reasearch group leader for the Geodesy Institute of the University of Bonn.

The procedure is called VLBI, which stands for „Very Long Baseline Interferometry." The technique can be used, for example, to demonstrate that Europe and North America are distancing from each other at a rate of about 18 millimeters annually. The distance of the gaging stations from each other allows the the size of the Earth or the exact location of the center of the Earth to be determined. „We have analyzed the measurements and calculations from 34 partners in 17 countries," explained Nothnagel. „A combination of GPS and satellite laser measurements will enable the availability of the coordinates from almost 400 points on the surface of the Earth with unparalleled exactness."

The results are the basis for a new coordinate system for the planet. With this system it would be possible, for example, to determine the track of so-called Altimeter-Satellites within a few millimeters precision. Altimeter-Satellites measure their altitude over the Earth's surface and can, for example, register a rise in sea level. Deviations from the flight path, however, falsify the result. If the satellite flies higher than expected, the distance to the surface of the Earth differentiates from what is recorded—the sea level appears lower than it really is.

Investigating Life in Extreme Environments report gives hints on life

Investigating Life in Extreme Environments report gives hints on life

From the deepest seafloor to the highest mountain, from the hottest region to the cold Antarctic plateau, environments labelled as extreme are numerous on Earth and they present a wide variety of features and characteristics.

Investigating life processes in extreme environments not only can provide hints on how life first appeared and survived on Earth (as early earth was an extreme environment) but it can also give indication for the search for life on other planets.

To examine these issues and other matters the European Science Foundation (ESF) has published a 58-page report Investigating Life in Extreme Environments – A European Perspective. Among other issues, the report has stated how global changes in the recent decades have turned some environments setting into becoming "extreme" conditions for the normal ecosystems ( e.g. acidification of the oceans). Therefore the understanding of tolerance/adaptation/non-adaptation to extreme conditions and ecosystem functioning are able to help predicting the impact of global change on biodiversity.

This report is resulted from an ESF inter-committee initiative involving the Marine Board (MB-ESF), the European Polar Board (EPB), the European Space Science Committee (ESSC), the Life Earth and Environmental Sciences Standing Committee (LESC), the Standing Committee for Humanities (SCH) and the European Medical Research Councils (EMRC). This interdisciplinary initiative considered all types of life forms (from microbes to humans) evolving in a wide range of extreme environments (from deep sea to acidic rivers, polar regions or planetary bodies).

A series of recommendations were made from a large-scale interdisciplinary workshop (128 participants) organised in November 2005 with an additional workshop organised in March 2006. They have identified interdisciplinary (listed below) and disciplinary research priorities.

Recommendations:

Cross-cutting Scientific Recommendations
• Identify and agree on i) model organisms in different phyla (a group that has genetic relationship) and for different extreme environments; and ii) model extreme environments
• Favour an ecosystem-based multidisciplinary approach when considering scientific activities in extreme environments.
• Foster the use of Molecular Structural Biology and Genomics when considering life processes in extreme environments

Cross-cutting Technology Recommendations
• Laboratory simulation techniques and facilities (e.g. microcosms) should be wider developed and made available to the scientific community.
• Develop of in-situ sampling, measurement and monitoring technologies. The assessment and use of existing techniques is also recommended.
• Adopt a common approach (specific to research activities in extreme environments) on technology requirements, availability and development.

Structuring and Networking the Science community
• Favorise interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity approaches between scientific domains and between the technological and scientific spheres.
• Create as soon as possible an overarching interdisciplinary group of experts to define the necessary actions to build a critical European mass in the field of "Investigating Life in Extreme Environments"
• Improve the information exchange, coordination and networking of the European community involved in scientific activities in extreme environments.

The report also includes recommendations specific to i) Microbial life, ii) Life Strategy of plants, iii) Life Strategy of animals and iv) Human adaptation.

1,000-year-old Arctic ponds disappearing due to global warming

1,000-year-old Arctic ponds disappearing due to global warming

Research has uncovered alarming evidence that high Arctic ponds, many which have been permanent bodies of water for thousands of years, are completely drying out during the polar summer. These shallow ponds, which dot the Arctic landscape, are important indicators of environment change and are especially susceptible to the effects of climate change because of their low water volume.

As published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Marianne Douglas, Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Science and Director of the Canadian Circumpolar Institute at the University of Alberta, and John Smol, Professor of Biology at Queen's University, studied these unique Arctic ponds for the past 24 years, collecting detailed data such as water quality and water levels from approximately 40 ponds. Collectively, this data represents the longest record of systematic limnological (the science of the properties of fresh water) monitoring from the high Arctic.

Over the 24 years the researchers spent monitoring the ponds, they recorded evidence of recent lower water levels and changes in water chemistry consistent with an increase in evaporation/precipitation ratios (E/P) and warmer temperatures. Until recently, the ponds of the study sites were permanent features of the landscape, but in early July 2006, because of warming trends in the Arctic, several of the main study ponds dried up completely, whereas others had dramatically reduced water levels.

"It was quite shocking to see some of our largest study ponds dry up by early summer," said Douglas.

The ecological ramifications of these changes are likely severe and will be felt throughout the Arctic ecosystem, says Douglas. It would affect waterfowl habitat and breeding grounds, invertebrate population dynamics and food for insectivores and drinking water for animals, to name only a few.

"These surface water ponds are so important because they are often hotspots of biodiversity and production for microorganisms, plants and animals in this otherwise extreme terrestrial environment." said Douglas.

Giant, heat-loving penguins roamed Peru

Giant, heat-loving penguins roamed Peru

Giant prehistoric penguins? In Peru? It sounds more like something out of Hollywood than science, but a researcher from North Carolina State University along with U.S., Peruvian and Argentine collaborators has shown that two heretofore undiscovered penguin species reached equatorial regions tens of millions of years earlier than expected and during a period when the earth was much warmer than it is now.

Paleontologist Dr. Julia Clarke, assistant professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NC State with appointments at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues studied two newly discovered extinct species of penguins. Peruvian paleontologists discovered the new penguins' sites in 2005.

The research is published online the week of June 25 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It was funded by the National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering and the National Geographic Society.

The first of the new species, Icadyptes salasi, stood 5 feet tall and lived about 36 million years ago. The second new species, Perudyptes devriesi, lived about 42 million years ago, was approximately the same size as a living King Penguin (2 ½ to 3 feet tall) and represents a very early part of penguin evolutionary history. Both of these species lived on the southern coast of Peru.

These new penguin fossils are among the most complete yet recovered and call into question hypotheses about the timing and pattern of penguin evolution and expansion. Previous theories held that penguins probably evolved in high latitudes (Antarctica and New Zealand) and then moved into lower latitudes that are closer to the equator about 10 million years ago – long after significant global cooling that occurred about 34 million years ago.

"We tend to think of penguins as being cold-adapted species," Clarke says, "even the small penguins in equatorial regions today, but the new fossils date back to one of the warmest periods in the last 65 million years of Earth's history. The evidence indicates that penguins reached low latitude regions more than 30 million years prior to our previous estimates."

The new species are the first fossils to indicate a significant and diverse presence of penguins in equatorial areas during a period that predates one of the most important climatic shifts in Earth's history, the transition from extremely warm temperatures in the Paleocene and Eocene Epochs to the development of "icehouse" Earth conditions and permanent polar icecaps. Not only did penguins reach low latitudes during this warmer interval, but they thrived: more species are known from the new Peruvian localities than inhabit those regions today.

By comparing the pattern of evolutionary relationships with the geographic distribution of other fossil penguins, Clarke and colleagues estimate that the two Peruvian species are the product of two separate dispersal events. The ancestors of Perudyptes appear to have inhabited Antarctica, while those of Icadyptes may have originated near New Zealand.

The new penguin specimens are among the most complete yet discovered that show us what early penguins looked like. Both new species had long narrow pointed beaks – now believed to be an ancestral beak shape for all penguins. Perudyptes devriesi has a slightly longer beak than seen in some living penguins but the giant Icadyptes salasi exhibits a grossly elongated beak with features not known in any extinct or living species. This species' beak is sharply pointed, almost spear-like in appearance, and its neck is robustly built with strong muscle attachment sites. Icadyptes salasi is among the largest species of penguin yet described.

Although these fossils seem to contradict some of what we think we know about the relationship between penguins and climate, Clarke cautions against assuming that just because prehistoric penguins may not have been cold-adapted, living penguins won't be negatively affected by climate change.

"These Peruvian species are early branches off the penguin family tree, that are comparatively distant cousins of living penguins," Clarke says. "In addition, current global warming is occurring on a significantly shorter timescale. The data from these new fossil species cannot be used to argue that warming wouldn't negatively impact living penguins."

Marine worm opens new window on early cell development

Marine worm opens new window on early cell development

University of Oregon biologists studying a common ocean-dwelling worm have uncovered potentially fundamental insights into the evolutionary origin of genetic mechanisms, which when compromised in humans play a role in many forms of cancer.

Their research, appearing in the July issue of the journal Developmental Cell, also increases the visibility of a three-year effort at the UO to promote use of the bristle worm Platynereis dumerilii as a model organism for the study of evolutionary origins of cell types and animal forms.

The marine worm develops by a stereotypic pattern of asymmetric cell divisions generating differently sized embryonic cells. Platynereis dumerilii, the researchers wrote, "appears to have retained ancestral morphological and genomic features, including a slowly evolving protein complement," and, therefore, can be considered a living fossil.

"Our studies of this organism, called a polychaete annelid, a marine relative of earthworms, have provided potentially fundamental insights into the evolutionary origin of the genetic mechanisms that determine how different cell types are produced during animal embryogenesis," said lead author Stephan Q. Schneider, a postdoctoral researcher in the UO Institute of Molecular Biology.

The genetic mechanism, in this case, is the beta-catenin signaling pathway and its regulation after cell divisions. Beta-catenin is a cellular protein, which regulates cell proliferation and communication between cells.

"This ancient mechanism remains a central feature of animal development in all animals today, and malfunction of this mechanism in humans is associated with some of the most common and deadly forms of cancer, including colon cancer and melanoma," Schneider said.

Schneider and co-author Bruce Bowerman, a professor of molecular biology, identified a highly conserved beta-catenin in this ancient worm and documented the protein's subcellular accumulation in 390 cells produced during the division of fertilized eggs during 195 separate embryonic cell cycles.

Surprisingly, they said, they found an accumulation of beta-catenin in only one of the two daughter cells after each cell division. They showed that the regulation of beta-catenin accumulation forms a molecular switch between two new daughter cells, causing the cells to be different from one another. This universal mechanism operates in embryos as a binary decision-maker, creating an organism with a diversity of cell types.

Beta-catenin has been the focus of research in other model systems, such as mice, fruit flies and roundworms, but never in these ancient slowly evolving invertebrates used in the UO research. The protein appears to be conserved throughout the animal kingdom.

In humans suffering from a variety of cancers, a breakdown in the normal regulation of beta-catenin signaling is thought to be responsible for the growth of related tumors. Coupled with similar findings involving beta-catenin in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a roundworm found in soil, the new UO report suggests an ancient metazoan origin and role for beta-catenin protein in the earliest stages of cellular development.

The findings, Bowerman said, suggest that the genetic pathway in the marine worm may be one of the earliest mechanisms used in embryogenesis to make cells adopt different roles during development. The worms used in the UO study originated from the Mediterranean.

"It is intriguing that key components of the widely conserved beta-catenin cell-signaling pathway appear to specify cell fate throughout development in an embryo that, given the invariance of the embryonic cell lineage and the prevalence of asymmetric cell divisions, has been viewed as a classic example of mosaic development," Schneider and Bowerman wrote in their conclusion.

There are some 10,000 species of polychaete annelids, dating back to the Paleozoic era, which started 542 million years ago. Polychaete refers to "many hairs" or "many bristles" that come off protrusions of the worms' bodies, which consist of fluid-filled tubes within tubes. These worms are bilaterally symmetrical with closed circulatory systems. Their ancient simplicity, Bowerman said, makes the Platynereis a rather uncomplicated model system for studying such protein interactions.