A little extra attention for 350 please

Today is 10/10/10, global day of climate action. After the disappointments of Copenhagen – where UN emission targets (‘staying below 2 degrees requires stabilisation at 450 ppm,’ says IPCC 4AR) were not met by great margins – the global climate movement simply went on. There’s not much science news in a massive attempt by consumers to lower their own carbon emissions, there is however in their political claim: 350 ppm.

NASA climate chief James Hansen argues positive feedbacks within the climate system are not properly taken into the IPCC equation. His own risk assessment shows ‘dangerous climate change’ can only be prevented when (a couple of years, perhaps decades of overshoot allowed) CO2 concentrations are stabilised at no more than 350 ppm. That means we actually need to get back, from 390 ppm – and start thinking in terms of negative emissions. Other leading climate experts, like Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, agree.

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Unravelling CCD: virus and fungus combinedly killing bees?

The mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder, a sudden die-off of bee populations that spread across the world since 2006, is slowly being solved. CCD may not have one single cause, but rather multiple factors adding up, including pollution and diseases – and causing bee keepers to suddenly loose bee colonies on a massive scale.

Yesterday the open-source science platform PLoS ONE published new research by the University of Montana. Jerry Bromenshenk, their leading bee expert, found out the combination of a parasitic microfungus and a virus could be the main risk factors. The bees would be able to survive either of the two alone, but when a colony gets infected with both microorganisms the bees suddenly die off.

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Today’s paradox: tropical ectotherms don’t like warming

Ecological damage of climate change is expected to be highest where the changes are most profound. That is, due to albedo feedbacks, at very high latitudes and at very high altitudes. So species loss is expected to be highest in for instance the Arctic tundra ecosystem. The decline of unique species of Alpine flora would also be above average. This is of course amplified because these climate zones often form the local extremes. If you like it chilly, it’s hard to keep finding new habitat once you run out of upward slopes. The same goes for Arctic warming. Your average snowy owl will have a hard time crossing the equator in search of a new life on Antarctica.

However symbolic such species may be, the ecological focus may be wrong. The total biodiversity is much higher in the tropics, forested areas especially. And today a new study in Nature claims tropical species are equally at risk – even at slight warming. This goes for the ectotherms at least, the ‘cold-blooded’ animals, like amfibians, fish, reptiles and insects.

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Graphene wins Nobel Prize

We recently reported on Andre Geim, the Dutch physicist (positions at Manchester, Nijmegen, Delft) of Russian descent, who discovered the one-atom-thick carbon-based material graphene – together with his colleague Konstantin Novoselov. Today the Nobel Prize Committee awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their joint work.

Graphene’s unique properties, being extremely thin, very stress-resistant and with an exceptionally high electron mobility (the carbon atoms are arranged in honeycomb structure – so each carbon atom only binds with 3 other carbon atoms, instead of the usual 4), make it especially useful as a tiny conductor in electronics, improving for instance battery power.

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Marine biodiversity baseline established

Ahead of the big UN biodiversity conference that starts on 18 October in Nagoya, Japan, the results of major biodiversity studies are seeping in. Today the findings of the biggest ever survey and inventory of marine life were presented – the Global Census of Marine Life.

It encompasses combined research of more than 2,700 scientists, 670 institutions, more than 540 expeditions and around 9,000 days at sea. Nearly 30 million observations of 120,000 species were made. More than 6,000 new species were discovered, as well as ‘blue highways’, migratory routes used by fish, such as the endangered bluefin tuna – using satellites and various electronic tools.

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Plant life does not escape 6th mass extinction

Twenty percent of the world’s plant species are directly threatened with extinction – mostly due to human activity, says a group of scientists from Britain’s Botanic Gardens at Kew, London’s Natural History Museum and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). We risk losing one out of 5 of the total estimated plant biodiversity of 380.000 unique species.

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Shellfish malformed by ocean acidification

A publication in next week’s edition of PNAS magazine elaborates on the effects of continued acidification of ocean waters on shellfish. Larvae of two species of shellfish commonly found along the American East Coast (Northern quahog and Atlantic bay scallop) were shown to form calcium carbonates (CaCO3) much faster in water with artificial pre-industrial CO2 levels (260 ppm) than at the present rate, which is around 390 ppm.

Moreover, by increasing CO2 concentration of the water to values over 400 ppm (expected to be reached within 5 years) malformation grew worse – with the larvae developing thinner and eroded shells.

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