Climatide

Derek K. Miler / Flickr

Could woolly mammoths slow permafrost melting?

Imagine a global experiment whose effects last hundreds to thousands of years, and in which each and every living being – indeed, even the oceans, continents, and atmosphere – are all subjects. Sounds kinda scary, right?

The scary part, according to Dr. Max Holmes – a senior scientist at Woods Hole Research Center – is that we’re already doing that. It’s called climate change.

Holmes has spent years studying Arctic rivers, particularly how they’re changing due to both natural and human processes. With a boyish grin, he describes the excitement that he and his team feel each year when they return to find dramatic visible differences in their field sites – shorelines crumbling and eroding as permafrost melts. After all, they’re scientists who study change; seeing it happen before their very eyes is incredible! Then the father in him kicks in, and his face falls as he relives the moments (it happens again and again, he says) when he is forced to realize that the changes he’s watching aren’t part of some laboratory experiment. They are harbingers of changes happening across the globe as a result of rising greenhouse gas levels, and they are a reminder that things could get a lot worse than expected, a lot sooner than expected.

That’s because the Arctic’s frozen ground holds vast quantities of ancient carbon – twice what’s currently in the atmosphere. As global warming melts the permafrost, that carbon is released into the atmosphere in the form of methane – a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. That methane accelerates warming even more, leading to more melting, which leads to … you get the idea. It’s what scientists call a positive feedback loop. Melting permafrost is thought to be behind some of the most rapid and dramatic periods of warming in Earth’s past, and it has many scientists – like Holmes – very worried about the future.

That concern led Holmes to search for seriously outside-the-box ideas about how to slow global warming. And a budding relationship with Sergey Zimov, a Russian researcher that Holmes describes as passionate, if a bit eccentric, presented him with just such an idea. Continue reading →

Red, blue, green, purple … is there a connection? Maybe. The answer, such as it is, lies in a series of maps. You ready?

#1: Red state, blue state

Let’s start with one we’ve all seen before – the map of 2008 presidential election results mapped as red for Republican and blue for Democrat:

This morning, Grist’s Chris Mims wondered aloud whether, or to what extent, a state’s political leanings determine its energy efficiency. Which brings us to …

Continue reading →

My post yesterday about a new wind energy assessment produced by a conservative think tank sparked an interesting Twitter conversation with WindSector (@WindSector), a Boston-based wind energy consulting firm.

WindSector had two basic points:

1. Nobody can or should be trying to defend a single-source solution to our energy challenges. We’ll need a mix of clean alternatives to meet demands sustainably.
2. Even if an independent third party were to do an analysis of wind energy potential (the very thing I’d been saying I’d like to see), it would likely face the “wrath and scrutiny of competing stakeholders” – wind, solar, nuclear, etc.

To that last point, WindSector suggested this amusing video about the need for greater cooperation among clean energy sectors.

I can’t help but point out that natural gas is, in fact, a fossil fuel – one whose risks and merits are very much up for debate. But the points about the need for diversity and cooperation are well taken.