U.K. bogs - and drinking water - threatened by climate change

Scientists warn an entire eco-system 

is under threat from climate change

Birds, bugs and blanket bogs -- scientists warn an entire eco-system is under threat from climate change.

Several rare upland bird species are being put at risk together with other ecosystem functions by the effects of climate change on the UK's blanket bogs, ecologists at the University of York have discovered.

Most of our drinking water comes from these upland peats and several iconic bird species such as the dunlin, golden plover and red grouse depend on these wetland habitats for nesting and feeding.

The scientists warn that climate change threatens these habitats, not only from rising temperatures increasing peat decomposition, but also via altered rainfall patterns -- with summer droughts drastically affecting the blanket bog hydrology.

The study, which involved collaboration with British Trust for Ornithology, Aberystwyth University and the University of Leeds and part-funded by the RSPB, showed that the humble crane fly, more commonly known as 'daddy longlegs', is a crucial link in determining the impact of climate change on these peatland bird species.

The birds depend on the protein rich crane flies as food for chicks, but scientists have discovered that summer droughts, which are predicted to increase, will cause significant declines in crane flies and subsequently the bird species that depend on them.

Based on a peatland model developed at the University of York and latest climate change predictions, the researchers warn that by 2051-80 the dunlin could see a 50% decline in numbers, with the golden plover down 30% and the red grouse down by 15%, all driven by declining abundance of the birds' crane fly prey.  The findings, highlight the complex relationship between climate, bog habitats, insects, and birds.

It suggests that large-scale projects to restore degraded and eroded blanket bogs could be critical in securing the future of these internationally important bird populations, alongside both water supplies and the crucial role of blanket bogs as a carbon store.

Dr Andreas Heinemeyer from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) based at the University of York, who developed the peatland model, said: "This is one of the first studies to follow this bug-to-bird link, down the food chain, between climate change and something happening to an entire eco-system with relevance to people."

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"There is a very strong relationship between the moisture of the peat and the survival of the larvae of the crane fly during summer. July and August are peak times: if it is too dry, the larvae just desiccate and die and are then not available for the bird chicks the following year.

"The crane fly link was made as part of several longer-term studies -- funded by The Natural Environment Research Council and Defra -- investigating blanket bog ecosystems across several UK upland sites, including the Yorkshire Dales, Peak District and North York Moors.Dr Heinemeyer, who is currently leading a £1m Defra-funded SEI project to further study the impacts of climate change and management on blanket bogs, said it wasn't only rare birds that were at risk from climate change.

"We might be in for big change. Not just in connection with our birds, but our drinking water as well," he added "If you end up being very dry as a blanket bog you store less water and your water quality seems to deteriorate as peat erodes and decomposes. So there seems to be a link, but it's not an easy link.

"It is a very messy picture as vegetation and bugs are also involved and everything works together like a jigsaw puzzle. If you change a piece, you will change others around it."

Dr Carroll, RSPB Conservation Scientist, said: "Our work shows that climate change could harm some of our most iconic upland bird species. The birds rely on crane flies for food during the breeding season, and the crane flies rely on the cool, wet conditions in blanket bogs.

"Large-scale peatland restoration projects such as the Sustainable Catchment Management Project run by United Utilities and RSPB are crucial in helping to make our blanket bogs resilient to climate change."

Story Source:  Materials provided by University of York.  Matthew J. Carroll, Andreas Heinemeyer, James W. Pearce-Higgins, Peter Dennis, Chris West, Joseph Holden, Zoe E. Wallage, Chris D. Thomas. Hydrologically driven ecosystem processes determine the distribution and persistence of ecosystem-specialist predators under climate change. Nature Communications, 2015

Global population and energy use

Study is first to quantify global population

growth compared to energy use

Ending 400-year trend, global population growth has begun

to catch up with energy consumption during past 50 years.

If you've lived between the year 1560 and the present day, more power to you. Literally.

As global population grew from about 500 million in 1560 to more than 7 billion, energy usage outpaced population growth. This in effect increased the world's carrying capacity and allowed population to grow exponentially. Since 1963, however, the ratio between energy increases and population growth has narrowed. This change could restrict future population growth.

That's one of several conclusions reached by University of Nebraska-Lincoln ecologist John DeLong, who has co-authored the first study to quantify the relationship between human population growth and energy use on an international scale.

The study compiled several centuries' worth of data from Great Britain, the United States and Sweden to profile the dynamics between a skyrocketing population and its consumption of energy from fossil fuels and renewable sources.

The data showed that energy use has generally outpaced population growth over the last few hundred years. Each generation has thus produced more energy per person than its predecessor, the study reported, even as the population has climbed from about 500 million to more than 7 billion in the 450 years analyzed by the authors.

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This increasing per capita energy supply has also hiked up Earth's carrying capacity -- the number of people it can sustain at equilibrium -- and allowed the population to grow at an ever-faster, or exponential, rate.

"Broadly speaking, no one's really (quantified) this," said DeLong, assistant professor of biological sciences. "But it was important, because there are studies going back decades that assume this kind of positive feedback loop: We grow, we expand our capacity to extract energy, and then we grow some more."

However, DeLong and colleague Oskar Burger also found that this dynamic has shifted in the decades following 1963, when the world's population was growing faster than ever before or since.

During the subsequent half-century, the ratio between energy increases and population growth has narrowed, with the former now aligning more closely to the latter. A 1:1 ratio would theoretically limit the planet's population to a linear rather than exponential growth rate.

"I do think this should challenge our assumptions about future population growth," DeLong said. "The study supports conventional wisdom to a degree, but it also reminds us that (abundant energy) is maybe not something that we can count on indefinitely.

"Our study sort of plays into a deep cultural philosophy that we have the creativity and ability to solve whatever problem comes our way. The evidence shows that, from an energy point of view, we've done that a lot. But maybe that's not a guarantee."

While analyzing the data, the researchers also spotted unexpected fluctuations in the population-energy relationship at certain points in history. After closer scrutiny, they discovered that per capita energy yields fluctuated during times of socio-economic and environmental upheaval: the Little Ice Age, the Industrial Revolution, World War I and II, the oil crises of the 1970s.

Though DeLong emphasized that the data will not allow researchers to determine whether this instability actually drove changes in energy use -- or vice versa -- he acknowledged that the overlaps warrant further study.

"It's a cautionary tale, perhaps," DeLong said. "The human socio-economic system is a complex one with a lot of moving parts. Those things are really unpredictable, but generally speaking, we think about complex systems as relying on a stable throughput of energy.

"I think the timing of those peaks in variability tells us that we should be thinking about this in two ways: how what other countries do influences the energy supply, and how to maintain those flows without generating downstream problems."

DeLong said the study's insights might also help inform and refine population projections. The United Nations currently projects, with 95 percent confidence, that Earth's population in the year 2100 will sit between 9 billion and 13 billion people.

"In the back of our minds, it definitely is a goal to make better, more mechanistic forecasts," said DeLong. "What we're saying is: Every other population on the planet depends on energy to fuel their activities and maintain their bodies. Ours must, too."

Related stories:

• The Good Earth:  The Latest Science on Climate Change & More

Story Source: Materials provided by University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  John P. DeLong, Oskar Burger. Socio-Economic Instability and the Scaling of Energy Use with Population Size. PLOS ONE, 2015

THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

Our planet is a tremendously complex set of systems that is very confusing to the average citizen.  To make it simpler to understand the current state of the overall global environment, posts about the latest science found on reputable sites are listed below for each of the nine planetary systems identified in 2010 by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. 

After each category title is a brief explanation of the system as written by the Stockholm Centre.  The stories posted are based on hard, vetted science - not someone's personal opinion.  To be considered vetted, the story is evaluated by qualified scientists to ensure that correct scientific procedures have been followed and that all and any data is included whether or not it supports the study's conclusions.

The systems that scientists agree have deteriorated to or beyond a practical tipping point based on the latest science are highlighted in red.  

• About the Nine Planetary Boundaries: These were developed as a project of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, founded in 2007, as a joint project of Stockholm University and the Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics at The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.  The vision of the Centre is to work toward a world where social-ecological systems are understood, governed and managed, to enhance human well-being and the capacity to deal with complexity and change, for the sustainable co-evolution of human civilizations with the biosphere. The framework of Nine Boundaries was introduced in 2009, when a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists identified and quantified the first set of nine planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come.
• You Tube video:  2010 - Introducing the Planetary Boundaries Concept
• Four of Nine Systems Crucial to Stability of Earth Compromised
• The nine planetary boundaries explained (complete draft)
• Current status of the nine boundaries (chart)

• The nine planetary boundaries
• Climate change 



Global Warming
and
Climate Change
(Science Foundations)
by Stephen M. Tomece
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• Recent evidence suggests that the Earth, now passing 390 ppmv CO2 in the atmosphere, has already transgressed the planetary boundary and is approaching several Earth system thresholds. We have reached a point at which the loss of summer polar sea-ice is almost certainly irreversible.    
• Wind energy provides 8% of Europe's electricity July 24, 2015
• Abrupt climate change may have rocked the cradle of civilization July 23, 2015
• Mammoths killed by abrupt climate change July 23, 2015

• Are We at Risk of a Midwest Mega-flood?
• By itself, abundant shale gas unlikely to alter climate projections
• Changing climate lengthens forest fire season
• Climate Change: It's Not All Bad News
• ‘Eco-towers’ will fight climate change
• Fiction, Global Warming, and the Writer
• Global sea levels have risen six meters or more with just slight global warming
• How to engage the population with climate change? Frame it as a public health issue
• How do we talk about climate change? The need for strategic conversations
• Oceans slowed global temperature rise, until now
• Extreme wildfires in Western U.S. likely fueled by climate change
• Hiatus in global average temperatures has little effect on projected temperatures in 2100
• Introducing CLI-FI: Fiction to Prepare Us for Global Warming
• Mongol Empire Grew Because of a Mild Climate
• New study examines the media's response to the IPCC
• Reporters using more 'hedging' words in climate change articles
• Risk of major sea level rise in England, Northern Europe
• Scientists outline long-term sea-level rise in response to warming of planet
• Sea levels to continue to rise for 500 years? Long-term climate calculations suggest so
• Warming slow-down not the end of climate change
• When the Midwest U.S. Becomes Desert, What Then?

The Sixth Extinction:
An Unnatural History
by Elizabeth Kolbert
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• Change in biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss and species extinction)
• The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005 concluded that changes to ecosystems due to human activities were more rapid in the past 50 years than at any time in human history, increasing the risks of abrupt and irreversible changes. The main drivers of change are the demand for food, water, and natural resources, causing severe biodiversity loss and leading to changes in ecosystem services. 
• Closing roads to save tigers July 27, 2015
• Diversity of European butterflies could be seriously underestimated, DNA suggests July 24, 2015

• A breakthrough approach to addressing the causes of biodiversity loss
• Amazon deforestation 'threshold' causes species loss to accelerate
• Are We Driving Species Extinctions?
• Biodiversity reduces human, wildlife diseases and crop pests
• Major study shows some biodiversity losses can be reversed
• Oil spills affecting fish population
• Polar bears threatened: Experience limited energy savings in summer
• Sixth mass extinction is here: Humanity's existence threatened
• Space-eye-view could help stop global wildlife decline
• Stop misuse of biodiversity offsets, conservation experts say
• Wild fish ecosystems resist impact of biodiversity loss, may be masking serious rapid decline in fish production potential

• Stratospheric ozone depletion



Stratospheric
Ozone Depletion
by Ann M. Middlebrook
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• The stratospheric ozone layer in the atmosphere filters out ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. If this layer decreases, increasing amounts of UV radiation will reach ground level. This can cause a higher incidence of skin cancer in humans as well as damage to terrestrial and marine biological systems. The appearance of the Antarctic ozone hole was proof that increased concentrations of anthropogenic ozone-depleting chemical substances, interacting with polar stratospheric clouds, had passed a threshold and moved the Antarctic stratosphere into a new regime. Fortunately, because of the actions taken as a result of the Montreal Protocol, we appear to be on the path that will allow us to stay within this boundary. 
• Climate change linked to ozone loss: May result in more skin cancer
• Earth's ozone layer on track to recovery, scientists report
• Four new human-made ozone depleting gases found in the atmosphere
• Gas that triggers ozone destruction revealed
• Ozone-depleting compound persists, NASA research shows
• Severe ozone depletion avoided

• Ocean acidification
• Around a quarter of the CO2 that humanity emits into the atmosphere is ultimately dissolved in the oceans. Here it forms carbonic acid, altering ocean chemistry and decreasing the pH of the surface water. This increased acidity reduces the amount of available carbonate ions, an essential 'building block' used by many marine species for shell and skeleton formation. Beyond a threshold concentration, this rising acidity makes it hard for organisms such as corals and some shellfish and plankton species to grow and survive. Losses of these species would change the structure and dynamics of ocean ecosystems and could potentially lead to drastic reductions in fish stocks. Compared to pre-industrial times, surface ocean acidity has already increased by 30 percent.  Unlike most other human impacts on the marine environment, which are often local in scale, the ocean acidification boundary has ramifications for the whole planet. It is also an example of how tightly interconnected the boundaries are, since atmospheric CO2 concentration is the underlying controlling variable for both the climate and the ocean acidification boundaries, although they are defined in terms of different Earth system thresholds.
• Are marine ecosystems headed toward a new productivity regime?
• Carbon dioxide pools discovered in Aegean Sea
• Climate change reduces coral reefs' ability to protect coasts
• Commercial Food Fish Moving Away From Tropics
• Global sea levels have risen six meters or more with just slight global warming
• Ocean acidification may cause dramatic changes to phytoplankton
• Overfishing and the Survival of Us
• Pacific reef growth can match rising sea, study suggests
• Phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass are expected to decrease by 6% and 11% respectively by the end of century due to climate change

• Biogeochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles)
• The biogeochemical cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus have been radically changed by humans as a result of many industrial and agricultural processes. Nitrogen and phosphorus are both essential elements for plant growth, so fertilizer production and application is the main concern. Much of this new reactive nitrogen is emitted to the atmosphere in various forms rather than taken up by crops. When it is rained out, it pollutes waterways and coastal zones or accumulates in the terrestrial biosphere. Similarly, a relatively small proportion of phosphorus fertilizers applied to food production systems is taken up by plants; much of the phosphorus mobilized by humans also ends up in aquatic systems. These can become oxygen-starved as bacteria consume the blooms of algae that grow in response to the high nutrient supply. A significant fraction of the applied nitrogen and phosphorus makes its way to the sea, and can push marine and aquatic systems across ecological thresholds of their own.  One regional-scale example of this effect is the decline in the shrimp catch in the Gulf of Mexico's 'dead zone' caused by fertilizer transported in rivers from the US Midwest.
• Fertilizer nutrient imbalance to limit food production in Africa 

• Land-system change (for example deforestation)
• Forests, grasslands, wetlands and other vegetation types have primarily been converted to agricultural land, driving the serious reductions in biodiversity. While each incident of land cover change occurs on a local scale, the aggregated impacts can have consequences for Earth system processes on a global scale. A boundary for human changes to land systems needs to reflect not just the absolute quantity of land, but also its function, quality and spatial distribution. Forests play a particularly important role in controlling the linked dynamics of land use and climate, and is the focus of the boundary for land system change.
• The Coming War Between the Haves and Have-nots
• Changing climate lengthens forest fire season
• Continued destruction of Earth's plant life places humans in jeopardy
• Drivers of temporal changes in temperate forest plant diversity
• Ecological collapse over 6,000 years of Egyptian history
• Extreme wildfires in Western U.S. likely fueled by climate change
• Forest emissions, wildfires explain why ancient Earth was so hot
• Human-wrought environmental changes impacting crops, pollinators could harm millions
• Is Our Population Boom Creating a Permanent Underclass?
• More, bigger wildfires burning western US over last 30 years
• Wildfires and other burns play bigger role in climate change
• Wildfire Videos -- ScienceDaily

• Freshwater use



The Ripple Effect:
The Fate of Fresh Water
in the Twenty-First Century 
by Alex Prud'homme
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• The freshwater cycle is strongly affected by climate change and its boundary is closely linked to the climate boundary, yet human pressure is now the dominant driving force determining the functioning and distribution of global freshwater systems. Water is becoming increasingly scarce - by 2050 about half a billion people are likely to be subject to water-stress, increasing the pressure to intervene in water systems.  A water boundary related to consumptive freshwater use and environmental flow requirements has been proposed to maintain the overall resilience of the Earth system and to avoid the risk of 'cascading' local and regional thresholds.
• Awareness and labeling initiatives can benefit inland fisheries
• Climate change threatens extinction for 82 percent of California native fish
• Global freshwater consumption crossing its planetary boundary
• Natural contaminants, arsenic and uranium, in one-fifth of California's groundwater
• North American freshwater fishes race to extinction: Rate of loss of species exceeds that of terrestrial animals
• Over 50% Chance of Mega-drought In Southwest U.S.
• Shorter Arctic Winters & The California Water Shortage

• Atmospheric aerosol loading (microscopic particles in the atmosphere that affect climate and living organisms)
• An atmospheric aerosol planetary boundary was proposed primarily because of the influence of aerosols on Earth's climate system. 
• Aerosols play a critically important role in the hydrological cycle affecting cloud formation and global-scale and regional patterns of atmospheric circulation, such as the monsoon systems in tropical regions.
• Aerosols have a direct effect on climate, by changing how much solar radiation is reflected or absorbed in the atmosphere. Shifts in climate regimes and monsoon systems have already been seen in highly polluted environments, giving a quantifiable regional measure for an aerosol boundary. 
• Aerosols have adverse effects on many living organisms. Inhaling highly polluted air causes roughly 800,000 people to die prematurely each year. 
• No limits to human effects on clouds
• Climate change scientists must turn their attention to clean skies, experts urge

• Introduction of novel entities (e.g. organic pollutants, radioactive materials, nanomaterials, and micro-plastics). 
• Emissions of toxic and long-lived substances such as synthetic organic pollutants, heavy metal compounds and radioactive materials represent some of the key human-driven changes to the planetary environment. These compounds can have potentially irreversible effects on living organisms and on the physical environment. Even when the uptake and bioaccumulation of chemical pollution is at sub-lethal levels for organisms, the effects of reduced fertility and the potential of permanent genetic damage can have severe effects on ecosystems far removed from the source of the pollution. For example, persistent organic compounds have caused dramatic reductions in bird populations and impaired reproduction and development in marine mammals. 
• Pesticides found in most pollen collected from foraging bees in Massachusetts  July 23, 2015

• Certain air filters using photocatalytic oxidation have dangerous by-product, study shows
• Consumers need better protection from chemicals in products, experts urge
• Emissions have declined, but sulfur dioxide air pollutant still a concern for asthmatics
• Sharp decline in pollution from U.S. coal power plants, NASA satellite confirms
• Sub-lethal exposure to neonicotinoids and colony collapse disorder 
• Bee Experts Dismantle Touted 'Harvard' Neonics-Colony Collapse Disorder