Going Green News

Monday, March 18, 2013

Katrina-Like Storm Surges Could Become Norm

Last year's devastating flooding in New York City from Hurricane Sandy was the city's largest storm surge on record. Though Hurricane Sandy was considered a 100-year-event - a storm that lashes a region only once a century - a new study finds global warming could bring similar destructive storm surges to the Gulf and East Coasts of the United States every other year before 2100.

Severe storms generate both high waves and storm surge, which can combine to erode beaches and dunes and flood coastal communities. Storm surge is seawater pushed ahead of a storm, mainly by strong winds. Onshore, the surge can rise several feet in just a few minutes. High waves travel on top of the surge, and cresting waves raise the sea's height even more.

Looking at extreme events, which researchers called 'Katrinas' after the 2005 hurricane that flooded the Gulf Coast, a new model predicts Katrina-like storm surges will hit every other year if the climate warms 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius).

That would be 10 times the rate seen since 1923, after which there has been a Katrina-magnitude storm surge every 20 years, the study, published in the March 18 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,found.

In 2009, the world's nations agreed to try to limit climate change to a 2 C increase by 2100, but recent studies show temperatures could rise 7.2 F (4 C) before the century ends.

But the tenfold increase in Katrina-like storm surges does not have to translate into a tenfold increase in disasters, said Aslak Grinsted, a climate scientist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the lead study author. 'Every Katrina-magnitude event is not necessarily going to be a Katrina-magnitude disaster. It's all about planning smartly,' he told OurAmazingPlanet.

Warmer seas spin stronger storms

Scientists know that warmer oceans will change how the Atlantic Ocean spawns hurricanes. More heat means more energy, and many models predict global warming will bring bigger, stronger storms, though the details between the model scenarios differ. But the models could be biased by changes in hurricane observational methods, such as the switch to satellites from planes and ships, which may impact records of wind speed and other storm data, Grinsted said.

Many studies have looked at how the frequency and size of hurricanes will change as global warming raises ocean temperatures, but few have investigated their impact on the Atlantic coast.

To better assess which model does the best job of divining the future, Grinsted and his colleagues constructed a record of storm surges from tide gauges along the Atlantic coast dating back to 1923. 'Big storm surges give me a new view of hurricane variability in the past,' Grinsted said.

Grinsted weighed each statistical model according to how well they explained past extreme storm surges. One way scientists test climate models is by seeing how well they predict the weather in the past.

Of the competing models, the top performer was one of the simplest. It relied on regional sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean hurricane birthing ground. The researchers also created a new global 'gridded' model, incorporating ocean temperatures around the world. Grinsted said the top models agree roughly on the magnitude of the increase in storm surges, giving him confidence in the results. [Hurricanes from Above: See Nature's Biggest Storms]

A 0.4 C warming corresponded to doubling of the frequency of extreme storm surges, the study found. 'With the global warming we have had during the 20th century, we have already crossed the threshold where more than half of all 'Katrinas' are due to global warming,' Grinsted said.

James Elsner, a climate scientist at the University of Florida, said he agrees with the study's main finding, but thinks the modeling underestimates the effects of climate factors such as the El Niño/ La Niña Southern Oscillation (ENSO) index, and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Studies have shown that the warm El Niño events mean fewer hurricanes in the Atlantic, while the NAO influences storm tracks across the ocean basin.

'As the planet warms up and the oceans get warmer, the chances of stronger storms goes up,' Elsner said. 'I think it's an interesting exercise, but I think statistically, it's got some issues,' he told OurAmazingPlanet.

Storm surges and sea level rise

Grinsted is concerned about the combined effects of future storm surge flooding and sea level rise, which adds to the base of the storm surge.

'I think what will be even more important is the background sea level rise, and that is something that is very hard to model,' he said.

Hurricane Sandy brought an 11.9-foot (3.6 meters) surge to southern Manhattan, plus a boost from the high tide, creating a storm tide as high as 13.88 feet (4.2 m).

Hurricane Katrina caused storm surge flooding of 25 to 28 feet (7.6 to 8.5 m) above normal tide level along portions of the Mississippi coast and 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6.1 m) above normal tide levels along the southeastern Louisiana coast.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Novartis says Alcon's eye drug Jetrea gets EU approval

ZURICH (Reuters) - Novartis said its Alcon unit got a green light from the European Commission for Jetrea, a drug that treats an eye condition that can lead to blindness.

Jetrea is the first eye drug to treat vitreomacular traction (VMT) associated with macular hole that can cause progressive sight-threatening symptoms and irreversible vision loss, Novartis said in a statement on Monday.

Novartis has acquired the rights to sell Jetrea outside the United States from ThromboGenics NV. In October 2012, Jetrea was approved in the U.S. for the treatment of patients with symptomatic vitreomacular adhesion (VMA).

Stuart Raetzman, Area President Europe, Middle East and Africa at Alcon, said the EU approval was a major breakthrough because it allowed eye care professionals to treat the disease early with a one-time injection instead of using surgery.

The condition is estimated to affect 250,000 to 300,000 people in Europe alone, Novartis said.

(Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Microbes flourish in deepest spot in world's oceans: study

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) - Microbes are thriving in surprising numbers at the deepest spot in the oceans, the 11,000-metre (36,000 ft) Mariana Trench in the Pacific, despite crushing pressures in sunless waters, scientists said.

Dead plants and fish were falling as food for microscopic bugs even to the little-known hadal depths, parts of the seabed deeper than 6,000 meters and named after Hades, the god of the underworld in Greek mythology, they said.

The presence of life in the trench also shows how the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, vital for the growth of tiny marine plants at the ocean surface, can eventually get buried in the depths in a natural process that slows climate change.

A Danish-led team of scientists, using a robot to take samples, found double the amount of bacteria and other microbes munching away on debris at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific than at a nearby site 6,000 meters deep.

'It's surprising there was so much bacterial activity,' said Ronnie Glud, of the University of Southern Denmark and lead author of the study in Monday's edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.

'Normally life gets scarcer the deeper you go. But when you go very deep, more things start happening again,' he told Reuters of the report that also involved research institutes in Scotland, Greenland, Germany and Japan.

The finding backed up a theory that dead plants and fish falling onto the steep sides of the Mariana Trench often slide to the bottom to form a 'hot spot' for microbes. Earthquakes also trigger mudslides that carry debris down.

GRAND CANYON

The Mariana Trench is five times longer than the Grand Canyon and could easily swallow the world's highest mountain Mount Everest, which stands 8,848 meters tall.

Life has been detected at the bottom before, but its extent is little known. The scientists' video cameras also spotted a few shrimp-like crustaceans at the bottom of the trench.

'It's most likely that more carbon is deposited' in the hadal depths than previously believed, Glud said.

'We have a small exotic piece of the puzzle which has never been studied before,' Glud said of the way that the oceans recycle or bury carbon.

Only about 2 percent of the world's oceans are deeper than 6,000 meters.

Until now, scientists had suspected that life in most of the ocean depths, where waters are just above freezing, was severely limited by a lack of food.

Only about one or two percent of living material in the upper waters is expected to sink even to the average ocean floor depth of 3,700 meters, the study said. Most food gets scavenged and carried up towards the surface before it falls so deep.

And water pressure at the bottom of the trench is about 16,000 lbs per square inch (1,125 kg per sq cm), about the same as being stepped on by an elephant wearing high-heeled shoes.

The scientists were also studying the genetic makeup of the microbes, living in temperatures just above freezing.

The ability to survive crushing depths may mean they have enzymes that could be used by industries that use high pressures, ranging from fermentation to oil and gas.

The bottom of the Mariana Trench was first reached by scientists in a submarine in 1960. Film director James Cameron also descended in 2012 and reported few signs of life.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Sophie Hares)

5 Fun Facts About St. Patrick's Day

Every year on March 17, millions of people gussy themselves up in green attire, hold big parades and drink lots of beer, all in the name of an old Irish saint. But what's the history of this emerald-hued holiday, and why do we celebrate it with shamrocks and alcohol?

Who was St. Patrick?

St. Patrick was a Christian missionary, bishop and a patron saint of Ireland. He was born in Roman Britain to a wealthy family near the end of the fourth century. At age 16, he was captured by Irish raiders and brought to Ireland, where he spent six years in captivity, working as a shepherd. He became a devout Christian and, it's believed, began to dream of converting the Irish to Christianity. He then escaped back to England. He wrote that a voice - God's - spoke to him in a dream telling him to leave Ireland.

After reaching England, Patrick described having a second dream in which an angel told him to go back to Ireland as a missionary. He started religious training to become a priest. He was later sent to Ireland on a mission to convert the Irish to Christianity and minister to Christians already there. Rather than replacing pagan Irish rituals, he incorporated them into his teachings. For instance, the Irish used to honor their gods with fire, so Patrick used bonfires to celebrate Easter. He died in A.D. 461 on March 17, which became St. Patrick's Day.

Why green clothes?

Wearing green has become a staple of St. Patrick's Day, but the holiday was originally associated with the color blue. It's thought that the shift to green happened because of Ireland's nickname 'The Emerald Isle,' the green in the Irish flag and the shamrock, or clover. Green ribbons and shamrocks were worn as early as the 17th century. During the Irish Rebellion of 1798, an uprising against British rule in Ireland, Irish soldiers wore full green uniforms on March 17 to make a political statement. Legend has it that wearing green makes a person invisible to leprechauns that will pinch someone if they see them. [Image Gallery: One-of-a-Kind Places on Earth]

In Ireland, some people still adhere to the tradition of Catholics wearing green and Protestants wearing orange, the colors that represent their respective religious sects on the Irish flag.

Where the shamrock came from

According to folklore, St. Patrick used the shamrock, the familiar three-leafed clover, to explain the Christian Holy Trinity. The word 'shamrock' comes from the Irish word 'seamróg,' meaning 'little clover.' It is the symbol of Ireland, and wearing and displaying shamrocks has become a widespread practice on St. Patrick's Day.

Why so much beer?

Beer is one of the most widely consumed beverages on St. Patrick's Day.

While the Irish beer Guinness remains a top St. Patty's Day choice, a disturbing trend is the consumption of green beer, dyed with food coloring. Some studies have linked food coloring to cancer (at least in lab animals) and headaches, though revelers would probably have to drink a lot more dye than the beers contain to cause health problems, according to nutrition expert Keri Glassman, founder and president of a nutrition practice based in New York City.

It's no surprise that imbibing beer or other alcoholic beverages affects brain function, and a new study helps reveal what's going on. The ethanol in these drinks disrupts connections between the brain's visual and motor areas, hindering muscle coordination, a recent study found.

Parades and celebration

Celebrations of St. Patrick's Day would not be complete without parades, festivals and Céilithe, a social gathering that typically involves Gaelic folk music and dancing. Céilithe, also known as Céilidh, has its origins in Ireland and Scotland, but has spread with the Irish and Scottish diasporas.

Many cities hold parades in honor of the holiday. The New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade is the largest parade in the world. It was first held in 1762, 14 years before the Declaration of Independence, by a group of homesick Irish expats and soldiers who served with the British Army in the American colonies, according to the parade's website.

The world's shortest St. Patrick's Day parade is held in the Irish village of Dripsey. It lasts only 100 yards, spanning the distance between the village's two pubs.

Follow Tanya Lewis @tanyalewis314. Follow us @livescience, Facebook or Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Obama says US must shift cars, trucks off of oil

LEMONT, Ill. (AP) - Envisioning cars that can go 'coast to coast without using a drop of oil,' President Barack Obama on Friday urged Congress to authorize spending $2 billion over the next decade to expand research into electric cars and biofuels to wean automobiles off gasoline.

Obama, expanding on an initiative he addressed in his State of the Union speech last month, said the United States must shift its cars and trucks entirely off oil to avoid perpetual fluctuations in gas prices. Citing policies that already require automakers to increase gas mileage, he said he expects that by the middle of the next decade, Americans will only have to fill up their cars half as often.

'We've set some achievable but ambitious goals,' Obama said, speaking at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago

'The only way to break this cycle of spiking gas prices - the only way to break that cycle for good - is to shift our cars entirely, our cars and trucks, off oil,' the president said.

Friday's speech, with its focus on energy, was designed to draw attention to what the White House says is one of Obama's top agenda items for his second term. That focus, however, has been overshadowed as the administration and Congress work on an immigration overhaul, gun legislation and deficit-reduction measures.

Obama cast his proposal as not only a clean energy plan, but as one meant to create opportunities for economic growth.

'I want the next great job-creating breakthroughs, whether it's in energy or nanotechnology or bio-engineering , I want those breakthroughs to be right here in the United States of America, creating American jobs and maintaining our technological lead,' he said.

Obama spoke from inside Argonne's Advanced Photon Source, a ring-shaped facility a mile and a half around. The facility acts as a giant extra-bright X-ray that allows scientists to look inside objects at the atomic level.

The initiative, proposing to spend $200 million a year on research, would be paid for with revenue from federal oil and gas leases on offshore drilling and would not add to the deficit.

The money would fund research on 'breakthrough' technologies such as batteries for electric cars and biofuels made from switch grass or other materials. Researchers also would look to improve use of natural gas as a fuel for cars and trucks.

Obama's motorcade passed a couple dozen protesters standing in the rain at the Argonne entrance, protesting against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport oil from Canada's tar sands to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. The Obama administration is considering whether to clear the project. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force one that 'there's no question' that the types of green energy initiatives the president was talking about at Argonne would have more impact on climate change than whether Keystone is built.

'Thousands of miles of pipelines have been built since President Obama took office inside the United States of America and it hasn't had a measurable impact on climate change' Earnest said. 'But what has had an impact, measurable impact, on climate change has been, for example, the car rule that the president has put in place that has greatly increased fuel efficiency and reduced carbon emissions.'

Inside the national lab, Obama got a firsthand look at some of the cutting-edge vehicle research, including a room that can go to extreme temperatures to test the impact on fuel efficiency. He talked to engineers working on electric car batteries and on an engine that runs on diesel and gasoline to reduce fuel costs.

'We want to keep on funding them,' the president said as he looked at the engine, developed with public and private funding from Chrysler. 'That's what I'm trying to tell Congress.'

The proposal is modeled after a plan submitted by a group of business executives and former military leaders who are committed to reducing U.S. oil dependence. The group, called Securing America's Future Energy, or SAFE, is headed by FedEx Corp. Chairman and CEO Frederick W. Smith and retired Marine Corps Gen. P.X. Kelley.

Creation of the trust would require congressional approval at a time of partisan divide over energy issues. Republicans have pushed to expand oil and gas drilling on federal land and water, while Obama and many Democrats have worked to boost renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

There were signs agreement may be possible. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has called it 'an idea I may agree with.'

Murkowski, senior Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, did not fully endorse the plan, which is similar to one she has proposed to use revenue from drilling for oil and natural gas on public lands that previously were off-limits to energy production to pay for research on new energy technologies.

White House officials said the president's proposal would not require expansion of drilling to federal lands or water where it is now prohibited. Instead, they are counting on increased production from existing sites, along with efficiencies from an administration plan to streamline drilling permits. The government collects more than $6 billion a year in royalties from production on federal lands and waters.

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said Obama needs to expand drilling to get his support.

'For this proposal to even be plausible, oil and gas leasing on federal land would need to increase dramatically,' the spokesman, Brendan Buck, said. 'Unfortunately, this administration has consistently slowed, delayed and blocked American energy production.'

Obama's push for the energy trust came as the Environmental Protection Agency released a report Friday indicating that fuel economy standards rose last year by 1.4 miles per gallon, the largest annual increase since EPA started keeping track. The agency said the improvement was due to better availability of high-performing cars and more options for consumers.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers suggested that rather than encouraging research on fuel-efficient cars, the government should focus on making diverse fuels more available and improving transportation infrastructure.

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Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nedrapickler and Matthew Daly at https://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC

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Daly reported from Washington.

Global warming may have fueled Somali drought

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Global warming may have contributed to low rain levels in Somali in 2011 where tens of thousands died in a famine, research by British climate scientists suggests.

Scientists with Britain's weather service studied weather patterns in East Africa in 2010 and 2011 and found that yearly precipitation known as the short rains failed in late 2010 because of the natural effects of the weather pattern La Nina.

But the lack of the long rains in early 2011 was an effect of 'the systematic warming due to influence on greenhouse gas concentrations,' said Peter Stott of Britain's Met Office, speaking to The Associated Press in a phone interview.

The British government estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 people died from the famine. But the new research doesn't mean global warming directly caused those deaths.

Ethiopia and Kenya were also affected by the lack of rains in 2011, but aid agencies were able to work more easily in those countries than in war-ravaged Somalia, where the al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremist group al-Shabab refused to allow food aid into the wide areas under its control.

The peer reviewed study will appear in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Senait Gebregziabher, the Somalia country director for the aid group Oxfam, said climate change is increasing humanitarian needs.

'In the coming decades, unless urgent action is taken to slash greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures in East Africa will continue to rise and rainfall patterns will change. This will create major problems for food production and availability,' Gebregziabher said.

Stott said that the evidence is 'very strong' that the planet is warming due to an increase in greenhouse gases. He noted that the study indicates that both natural causes - La Nina and the short rains - and man-made causes contributed to Somalia's drought.

The Met Office's computer modeling study found that between 24 percent and 99 percent of the cause of the failure of the 2011 rains can be attributed to the presence of man-made greenhouse gases, Stott said.

Global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas - which sends heat-trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide, into the air, changing the climate, scientists say.

Ahmed Awale works for the non-profit group Candlelight, which is dedicated to improving conservation and the environment. He believes Somalia's climate has been changing for many decades, with rainfall patterns becoming more erratic.

'If you miss one of the two rainy seasons we have a very severe drought. The other indicator is that there is a rise in temperature,' he said, adding later: 'This all negatively impacts the livelihood of the people. Most of Somalis depend mostly on pastoral production.'

Arctic Storm Shatters Thin Sea Ice

Though every day brings more sunlight, February is still one of the coldest months in the Arctic. The sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is now nearing its winter maximum, but the effects of a February storm markedly illustrate the changes that have happened with the Arctic sea ice cover under the effects of climate change.

In past decades, winter meant thick, years-old pack ice would extend over much of the Arctic Ocean. But the modern Arctic's thinner ice cover is more easily pushed by wind, according to Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University. Other factors, such as global warming, weather patterns and solar heating, also play a role in the loss.

As the Feb. 8 storm passed over the North Pole, it created a strong offshore ice motion, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The fracturing progressed through relatively weak, thin, year-old pack ice during February, as seen in a series of images from the NSIDC.

Similar patterns were observed in early 2011 and 2008, but the 2013 fracturing is quite extensive, the NSIDC said in a statement. The fractured area extends through the Beaufort Sea from Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic to Barrow, Alaska.

The overall February ice extent remains below average, in part due to warmer-than-average temperatures, the NSIDC said. The average sea ice cover in February was 5.66 million square miles (14.66 million square kilometers), the seventh-lowest on record for the month.

Overall, the Arctic has lost more than 606,000 square miles (1.57 million square km) of winter sea ice since 1979, an area slightly smaller than Alaska, the biggest state.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.