There’s nothing subtle about this deadly consequence of global warming.
[Pexels]
While the recent record-breaking temperatures in Europe have grabbed the headlines, it’s worth remembering that such record-shattering heatwaves are nothing new to other regions of the planet. And many of those regions are fast approaching a grim reality: heat events that will overwhelm the body’s ability to function.
Once this wetbulb temperature threshold is crossed, the air is so full of water vapour that sweat no longer evaporates. Without the means to dissipate heat, our core temperature rises, irrespective of how much water we drink, how much shade we seek, or how much rest we take. Without respite, death follows – soonest for the very young, elderly or those with pre-existing medical conditions.
Wetbulb temperatures of 35°C have not yet been widely reported, but there is some evidence that they are starting to occur in Southwest Asia. Climate change then offers the prospect that some of the most densely populated regions on Earth could pass this threshold by the end of the century, with the Persian Gulf, South Asia, and most recently the North China Plain on the front line. These regions are, together, home to billions of people.
Tom Matthews, Climate Scientist, Loughborough University, The Conversation.
Matthews goes on to warn of “grey swan” events (read his research here, via Nature Climate Change), where overwhelming heat and moisture is coupled with mass power outages triggered by anthropomorphic global warming-boosted extreme weather events to leave vast populated regions physically unable to keep cool.
While many effects of climate change may seem subtle or “something for future generations to worry about,” this extreme situation will happen sooner rather than later, and as Matthews discusses, it has probably already been experienced.
Any debate about the realities of climate change is a distant dot in the rear-view mirror, and, according to a recent study, the scientific consensus that humans are driving global warming has passed 99 percent. (In reality, the consensus that humans are causing the planet to heat up has been an overwhelming majority for years, likely decades.)
Sadly, scientific consensus isn’t enough to stymie the emissions of greenhouse gasses—if it was, the oil rigs and coal mines would have been shut down years ago. It’s the human disposition for greed and myopic politics that will turn this once ecologically-diverse planet into an increasingly inhospitable place for humans to thrive.
The pushback has been political rather than scientific. In the US, the rightwing thinktank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is reportedly putting pressure on Nasa to remove a reference to the 97% study from its webpage. The CEI has received event funding from the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and Charles Koch Institute, which have much to lose from a transition to a low-carbon economy.
Policy makers who claim to be “skeptical” about the overwhelming scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming aren’t necessarily uneducated fools. They simply do not care. Democracy has long been hijacked by special interest groups and corporations that care little about the future health of the environment and society. In the long run, their belligerent self-interest will undercut their bottom line. It won’t be long until our carbon-driven economy will collapse under the weight of relentless impacts caused by the continued burning of fossil fuels.
It’s the ultimate self-own, and it’s a shame they’ll take us with them.
The space exploration industry is booming, which is an encouraging sign for our future. But some pundits are arguing that rocket launches will exacerbate global warming.
A time-lapse photograph of a SpaceX launch at night [SpaceX]
When so many people, especially those in charge, seem so cavalier about the impact of global warming and climate change on our planet, it’s refreshing to see a perspective that worries about what we’re doing to our environment. Unfortunately, when that perspective focuses on a tiny contributor and seems to lack the understanding of what it criticizes, it needs to be called out. A number of pundits looked at the exploding private space industry and have grown concerned that rocket launches we will inject too much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, exacerbating global warming and the attendant problems that come with it. And while it’s true that rocket fuel is far from clean, releasing plenty of unwanted chemicals into the atmosphere as it burns, we have to keep the big picture in mind.
When it comes to launching things into space, there aren’t that many alternatives to rockets and their toxic fuel. You can’t use an ion drive or any of the other seemingly sci-fi but realistic propulsion methods for traveling to other worlds and solar systems. Earth’s gravity and atmospheric pressure at sea level are very different from the vacuum of the cosmos where the tiniest push can really add up in the long term. The only way to get tons of supplies and machinery into orbit and beyond is through controlled explosions harnessed by rockets. There is simply no other way currently feasible, and there won’t be until we figure out how to build giant electromagnetic railguns, or how to harness antimatter, although that would come with a high risk of exposure to gamma radiation.
We could conceivably launch human crews in single stage to orbit planes, but their spacecraft are going to have to rely on good old-fashioned rocketry. That said, however, the plan is not to simply keep launching things from earth with no regard to the pollution thousands of rockets launched every year would cause. Launching payloads from Earth is expensive, both financially and energetically, so ideally, we would want to launch them from somewhere else. We would want to take off from the Moon or asteroids, somewhere where the gravity is in a fraction of what it is on our world, and we could use the same engines to propel anywhere between six and a hundred times the cargo. This is what we mean by infrastructure for space exploration. Forget about turning Earth into a giant launchpad. The ideal gateway to the rest of the solar system is the Moon.
Lacking an atmosphere, the Moon doesn’t particularly care how toxic the fuel is or how much greenhouse gas each launch produces. For all intents and purposes, the moon is a harsh and the radioactive wilderness with no environment to conserve. The same goes for asteroids we want to use as refueling stations, which are simply chunks of radiation-battered rock and metal floating through space we could harvest for fuel and building materials by using, of all things, steam powered asteroid-hopping robots. So, while it’s understandable to worry about the carbon footprint of everything that we do, considering the current inaction by so many on pressing climate issues, it’s important to keep things in perspective when doing so. If global warming continues apace, it won’t be thanks to rockets. It will be thanks to stubborn clinging to fossil fuels across the world and pollution from heavy industry and manufacturing.
If we were to push for serious investments in green energy, which is thankfully something that’s already happening, rocket launchers wouldn’t even be a blip on our carbon radar. Before we start asking ourselves how much carbon dioxide a SpaceX Falcon Heavy releases, and how many greenhouse gases it saves by reusing its booster cores, we need to ask ourselves how many coal plants are still powering cities and why, and what it will take to switch them over to clean, renewable sources. Otherwise, we’re doing the equivalent of trying to pay off the national debt by scrimping and saving on how many pencils public school teachers are allowed to get from their school districts. Which would be a funny analogy if it wasn’t true.
Don’t forget your spacesuit: Complex lifeforms, such as humans, would not survive on many of the worlds we thought would be interstellar tropical getaways
[Pixabay]
Worlds like Earth may be even rarer than we thought.
We live on a planet that provides the perfect balance of ingredients to support a vast ecosystem. This amazing world orbits the Sun at just the right distance where water can exist in a liquid state—a substance that, as we all know, is an essential component for our biology to function. Earth is also an oddball in our solar system, being the only planet where these vast oceans of liquid water persist on its surface, all enshrouded in a thick atmosphere that provides the stage for a complex global interplay of chemical and biological cycles that, before we industrialized humans came along, has supported billions of years of uninterrupted evolution and biological diversity.
Humans, being the proud intelligent beings that we profess to be, are stress-testing this delicate balance by pumping an unending supply of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Being a potent greenhouse gas, we’re currently living through a new epoch in our planet’s biological history where an exponential increase in CO2 is being closely followed by an increase in global average temperatures. We are, in effect, altering Earth’s habitability. Well done, humans!
While this trend is a clear threat to the sustainability of our biosphere, spare a thought for other “habitable” worlds that may appear to have all the right stuff for complex lifeforms to evolve, but toxic levels of the very chemicals that keep these worlds habitable has curtailed the possibility of complex life from gaining a foothold.
Welcome to the Not-So-Habitable Zone
Habitable zone exoplanets are the Gold Standard for exoplanet-hunters and astrobiologists alike. Finding a distant alien world within this zone—a region surrounding any star where it’s not too hot and not too cold for water to exist on its surface, a region also known as the “Goldilocks Zone” for obvious reasons—spawns a host of questions that our most advanced telescopes in space and on the ground try to answer: Is that exoplanet Earth-sized? Does it have an atmosphere? What kind of star is it orbiting? Does its system possess a Jupiter-like gas giant? These questions are all trying to help us understand whether that world has the Earthly qualities that could support hypothetical extraterrestrial life.
(Of course, there’s the debate as to whether all life in the universe is Earth-life-like, but as we’re the only biological examples that we know of in the entire galaxy, it’s the best place to start when pondering what biological similarities extraterrestrial life may have to us.)
The habitable zone for exoplanets is a little more complicated than simply the distance at which they orbit their host stars, however. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, can extend the area of a star’s habitable zone. For example: If an atmosphere-less planet orbits beyond the outermost edge of its habitable zone, the water it has on its surface will remain in a solid, frozen state. Now, give that planet an atmosphere laced with greenhouse gases and its surface may become warm enough to maintain the water in a liquid state, thereby boosting its habitable potential.
But how much is too much of a good thing? And how might this determination impact our hunt for truly habitable worlds beyond our own?
In a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal, researchers have taken another look at the much-coveted habitable zone exoplanets to find that, while some of the atmospheric gases are essential to maintain a temperature balance, should there be too much of the stuff keeping some of those worlds at a habitable temperature, their toxicity could curtail any lifeforms more complex than a single-celled microbe from evolving.
“This is the first time the physiological limits of life on Earth have been considered to predict the distribution of complex life elsewhere in the universe,” said Timothy Lyons, of the University of California, Riverside, and director of the Alternative Earths Astrobiology Center.
“Imagine a ‘habitable zone for complex life’ defined as a safe zone where it would be plausible to support rich ecosystems like we find on Earth today,” he said in a statement. “Our results indicate that complex ecosystems like ours cannot exist in most regions of the habitable zone as traditionally defined.”
Toxic Limits
Carbon dioxide is an essential component of our ecosystem, particularly as it’s a greenhouse gas. Acting like an insulator, CO2 absorbs energy from the Sun and heats our atmosphere. When in balance, it stops too much energy from being radiated back out into space, thereby preventing our planet from being turned into a snowball. Levels of CO2 have ebbed and flowed throughout the biological history of our planet and it has always been a minor component of atmospheric gases, but its greenhouse effect (i.e. the atmospheric heating effect) is extremely potent and the human-driven 400+ppm levels are causing dramatic climate changes that modern biological systems haven’t experienced for millions of years. That said, the CO2 levels required to keep some “habitable” exoplanets in a warm enough state would need to be a lot more concentrated than the current terrestrial levels, potentially making their atmospheres toxic.
“To sustain liquid water at the outer edge of the conventional habitable zone, a planet would need tens of thousands of times more carbon dioxide than Earth has today,” said lead author Edward Schwieterman, of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. “That’s far beyond the levels known to be toxic to human and animal life on Earth.”
In the blue zone: some of the known exoplanets that fall within the habitable zones of their stars may have an overabundance of CO (yellow/brown), at a level that is toxic to human life. Likewise, the more CO2 (from blue to white) will become toxic at a certain point. The sweet-spot is where Earth sits, with Kepler 442b (if it has a habitable atmosphere) coming in second [Schwieterman et al., 2019. Link to paper]
From their computer simulations, to keep CO2 at acceptable non-toxic levels, while maintaining planetary habitability, the researchers realized that for simple animal life to survive, the habitable zone will shrink to no more than half of the traditional habitable zone. For more complex lifeforms—like humans—to survive, that zone will shrink even more, to less than one third. In other words, to strike the right balance between keeping a hypothetical planet warm enough, but not succumbing to CO2 toxicity, the more complex the lifeform, the more compact the habitable zone.
This issue doesn’t stop with CO2. Carbon monoxide (CO) doesn’t exist at toxic levels in Earth’s atmosphere as our hot and bright Sun drives chemical reactions that remove dangerous levels of the molecule. But for exoplanets orbiting cooler stars that emit lower levels of ultraviolet radiation, such as those that orbit red dwarf stars (re: Proxima Centauri and TRAPPIST-1), dangerous levels of this gas can accumulate. Interestingly, though CO is a very well-known toxic gas that prevents animal blood from carrying oxygen around the body, it is harmless to microbes on Earth. So it may be that habitable zone exoplanets orbiting red dwarfs could be a microbial heaven, but an asphyxiation hell for more complex lifeforms that have cardiovascular systems.
While it could be argued that life finds a way—extraterrestrial organisms may have evolved into more complex states after adapting to their environments, thereby circumventing the problems complex terrestrial life has with CO2 and CO—if we are to find a truly “Earth-like” habitable world that could support human biology, these factors need to be considered before declaring an exoplanet habitable. And, besides, we might want to make the interstellar journey to one of these alien destinations in the distant future; it would be nice to chill on an extraterrestrial beach without having to wear a spacesuit.
“Our discoveries provide one way to decide which of these myriad planets we should observe in more detail,” said Christopher Reinhard, of the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-leader of the Alternative Earths team. “We could identify otherwise habitable planets with carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide levels that are likely too high to support complex life.”
Earth: Unique, Precious
Like many astronomical and astrobiological studies, our ongoing quest to explore strange, new (and habitable) worlds has inevitably led back to our home and the relationship we have with our delicate ecosystem.
“I think showing how rare and special our planet is only enhances the case for protecting it,” Schwieterman said. “As far as we know, Earth is the only planet in the universe that can sustain human life.”
So, before we test the breaking point of our atmosphere’s sustainability, perhaps we should consider our own existential habitability before its too late to repair the damage of carbon dioxide emissions. That’s the only way that we, as complex (and allegedly intelligent) lifeforms, can continue to ask the biggest questions of our rich and mysterious universe.
A view from the Viking 1 deck, showing trenches its robotic arm dug out to acquire samples for testing [NASA/JPL-Caltech/Roel van der Hoorn]
When rains came to one of the driest places on Earth, an unprecedented mass extinction ensued.
The assumption was that this rainfall would turn this remote region of the Atacama Desert in Chile into a wondrous, floral haven — dormant seeds hidden in the parched landscape would suddenly awake, triggered by the “life-giving” substance they hadn’t seen for centuries — but it instead decimated over three quarters of the native bacterial life, microbes that shun water in favor of the nitrogen-rich compounds the region has locked in its dry soil.
In other words, death fell from the skies.
“We were hoping for majestic blooms and deserts springing to life. Instead, we learned the contrary, as we found that rain in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert caused a massive extinction of most of the indigenous microbial species there,” said astrobiologist Alberto Fairen, who works at Cornell Cornell University and the Centro de Astrobiología, Madrid. Fairien is co-author of a new study published in Nature’s Scientific Reports.
“The hyperdry soils before the rains were inhabited by up to 16 different, ancient microbe species. After it rained, there were only two to four microbe species found in the lagoons,” he added in a statement. “The extinction event was massive.”
El Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) near San Pedro de Atacama looks very Mars-like [photo taken during #MeetESO in 2016, Ian O’Neill]
Climate models suggest that these rains shouldn’t hit the core regions of Atacama more than once every century, though there is little evidence of rainfall for at least 500 years. Because of the changing climate over the Pacific Ocean, however, modern weather patterns have shifted, causing the weird rain events of March 25 and Aug. 9, 2015. It also rained more recently, on June 7, 2017. Besides being yet another reminder about how climate change impacts some of the most delicate ecosystems on our planet, this new research could have some surprise implications for our search for life on Mars.
Over forty years ago, NASA carried out a profound experiment on the Martian surface: the Viking 1 and 2 landers had instruments on board that would explicitly search for life. After scooping Mars regolith samples into their chemical labs and adding a nutrient-rich water mix, one test detected a sudden release of carbon dioxide laced with carbon-14, a radioisotope that was added to the mix. This result alone pointed to signs that Martian microbes in the regolith could be metabolizing the mixture, belching out the CO2.
Alas, the result couldn’t be replicated and other tests threw negative results for biological activity. Scientists have suggested that this false positive was caused by inorganic reactions, especially as, in 2008, NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander discovered toxic and highly reactive perchlorates is likely common all over Mars. Since Viking, no other mission has attempted a direct search for life on Mars and the missions since have focused on seeking out water and past habitable environments rather than directly testing for Mars germs living on modern Mars.
With this in mind, the new Atacama microbe study could shed some light on the Viking tests. Though the out-gassing result was likely a false positive, even if all the samples collected by the two landers contained microscopic Martians, the addition of the liquid mix may well have sterilized the samples — the sudden addition of a large quantity of water is no friend to microbial life that has adapted to such an arid environment.
“Our results show for the first time that providing suddenly large amounts of water to microorganisms — exquisitely adapted to extract meager and elusive moisture from the most hyperdry environments — will kill them from osmotic shock,” said Fairen.
Another interesting twist to this research is that NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity discovered nitrate-rich deposits in the ancient lakebed in Gale Crater. These deposits might provide sustenance to Mars bacteria (and may be a byproduct of their metabolic activity), like their interplanetary alien cousins in Atacama.
As water-loving organisms, humans have traditionally assumed life elsewhere will bare similar traits to life as we know it. But as this study shows, some life on Earth can appear quite alien; the mass extinction event in the high deserts of Chile could teach us about how to (and how not to) seek out microbes on other planets.
The Flying Speghetti Monster. I wonder if this is what Lord May had in mind? (Church of the FSM)
This one comes direct from the UK’s Department for Wacky Ex-Chief Science Advisors, and I’m not too sure which I’m more shocked with; the fact that Lord May actually suggested that religion (i.e. fear of the All Mighty) could save the world from a climate meltdown or that the Telegraph reported May’s views so candidly.
Ex-government officials certainly are not afraid to share their views with the world, and that’s fine, but sometimes they sound a little crazy in doing so. Take last year’s discussion between Prof. Brian Cox and Sir David King.
King, Chief Science Advisor for the UK government from 2000-2007, came out with the astonishing statement that the Large Hadron Collider was “more navel searching than searching for potential future developments for the benefit of mankind.” He made this astounding point during a discussion on the BBC’s Newsnight, on the day the LHC was switched on. Buzz kill. Fortunately, Cox offloaded a round of common sense in the direction of Sir King, proving that it probably should have been a practising scientist, not a guy with a knighthood, advising the Prime Minister about UK science between the years of 2000 and 2007.
Unfortunately, a Lord might not be up to the task either, judging by this most recent statement by the UK Chief Science Advisor who reigned from 1995-2000.
“Given that punishment is a useful mechanism, how much more effective it would be if you invested that power not in an individual you don’t like, but an all-seeing, all powerful deity that controls the world,” he said
“It makes for rigid, doctrinaire societies, but it makes for co-operation.”
And how would this supernatural being help modern society? We’ll all be so scared to avoid getting struck down by “God” that the whole planet will band together, human cultures would stabilize and cooperate to find a quick solution to carbon emissions and climate change.
Yeah, ‘cuz that’s how religion works: scare the crap out of the commoners! Tell them that if they don’t recycle, or use public transportation, they’ll piss off God so much that he’ll fry them with a thunderbolt from heaven. That will solve all our climate woes!
The odd thing is that May is apparently an Atheist, so I’m even more confused as to where his faith in religion comes from. Sure, religion is integrated into society, and yes, it’s provided a structure to people’s lives for thousands of years. But this is not a solution for the international community to suddenly become best of friends. I’m not even sure how May thinks believing in a “supernatural punisher” will change a thing. Who’s going to evangelize this God? How do you drive the fear into the hearts of billions in an effort to save the planet? He does point out that fundamentalism isn’t good either, and that he’s not a big fan of the Pope.
This sounds more like a description of some conspiracy-driven New World Order than an answer to rising carbon emissions.
No, don’t confuse the world’s inability to coordinate an effective plan to slow (or reverse) the effects of greenhouse gases with a world without a “supernatural punisher.” Besides, shouldn’t Lord May be promoting good science rather than thinking religion might save us all? As, let’s face it, religion isn’t the best catalyst for world collaboration (no matter how moderate it is).
My belief is that science is our best bet at finding a solution. Unfortunately it’s international politics that often lets us down, not a world that doesn’t have the fear for a divine being.
To raise awareness about global climate change, at 8:30pm local time wherever you are in the world (I realise as I post this, half of the world has already passed this time, sorry), switch your lights off for one hour. Communities the world over are doing this to save energy, but primarily to bring awareness to the damage we are causing to the environment by our insatiable desire to use unnecessary lighting and electrical hardware.
I can think of many thrilling things you could be doing during this hour of darkness, if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comment box below… keep it clean… or not, it’s up to you.
The fairing of the Taurus XL rocket upper stage failed to separate correctly in this morning's OCO launch (Vandenberg Air Force Base/NASA)
In the early hours of this morning at 1:55am PST, a carbon dioxide monitoring mission was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) was being carried into a 700 km polar orbit by a Taurus XL rocket. Unfortunately, 12 minutes and 30 seconds into the flight, the rocket upper stage suffered an anomaly, and the fairing failed to separate. Although it appears the rocket attained the desired altitude The vehicle did not attain the desired altitude and the $270 million satellite was doomed, trapped inside the the nose cone. The upper stage fairing was protecting the OCO as it ascended through the atmosphere; once in space it should have separated, peeled off and dropped away. That didn’t happen. Continue reading “Not Just a Satellite: NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory Fails (Update)”
The Aztecs, affected atmospheric carbon levels? (Getty)
Global warming anyone? I ask as I don’t want to upset anybody. Forget it, I’m going to talk about it anyway.
Climate change is an important subject worthy of debate. But for a debate to develop into something constructive, all sides need to have some scientific merit. Clearly, if we listen to Leo DiCaprio, Al Gore and the world’s carbon-cutting politicians, we might be led to believe we are damaging the environment… hell, we might even be warming the whole planet through carbon emissions! So, strip the Hollywood glamour and political spin from the debate, does the global warming debate have any science linking human activity with increased global temperatures?
In a new study, focusing on Central and South America, scientists have uncovered possibly one of the earliest recorded cases of human-induced climate change, possibly amplifying (or even triggering) the Little Ice Age in Europe throughout the 16th century and beyond… Continue reading “Climate Change, More Human Than We Thought”
astroengine.com 