Discovery exposes fragility of Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf

This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Roz Pidcock

Scientists have unearthed a 100m-thick river of ice beneath Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf, which they fear could accelerate its path to eventual collapse.

A team led by Prof Bryn Hubbard, director of the centre for glaciology at Aberystwyth University in Wales, lived on the ice shelf for several months examining what it looks like from the inside.

Their new paper describes how the layer of solid ice could be speeding up the flow of ice to the ocean, potentially leading Larsen C towards a similar fate to its now-collapsed sister ice shelves, Larsen A and B.

In January, Hubbard was awarded the prestigious Polar Medalin recognition of his services to polar science. He joins an illustrious list of explorers and pioneers, with Captain Robert F Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sir Ranulph Fiennes among its former recipients.

Carbon Brief has been speaking to Hubbard about his new research, the future of Antarctica and his reflections from a life spent on the ice.

‘Catastrophic breakup’

For more than 25 years, Hubbard has been studying the world’s icy expanses, venturing out each year to live and work on the ice for months at a time. He tells Carbon Brief:

“I am extremely fortunate to be able to recount research field trips to Greenland, Svalbard, Arctic Canada, as well as Antarctica (while most of my early research was actually undertaken in the Swiss and French Alps).”

Hubbard’s latest study has taken him to Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica, a floating mass of ice protruding from the Antarctica Peninsula in the northern part of the continent.

Several major ice shelves have collapsed almost completely, losing the vast majority of their mass in just a few months. The most widely reported of these “catastrophic breakup events” were the Larsen A and B ice shelves, which collapsed in 1995 and 2002, respectively.

Larsen C is the next ice shelf in line, geographically-speaking. It is also the largest of the three sister shelves, with a surface area two and a half times the size of Wales.

Credits | Images: NASA Earth Observatory. Gif: Rosamund Pearce for Carbon Brief.

Meltponds

The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming places on Earth. Temperatures have risen by 2.5C in the past 50 years. Warmer air is causing the surface of the ice to melt, forming pools of water known as “meltponds”.

Meltponds tend to form in a line “like a string of sausages” and are thought to have contributed to the collapse of ice shelves in the past, including Larsen B. Hubbard tells Carbon Brief:

“We started the work on Larsen C Ice Shelf for the simple reason that satellite images and a small number of aircraft flyovers indicated that melt ponds were forming on their surface regularly.”

Until now, scientists had suspected that meltponds exerted stress through the sheer weight of the water pushing down on the ice below it. But Hubbard and his team wondered if there was a different explanation. He tells Carbon Brief:

“The rationale for our project was to investigate whether the ponds had an influence on the internal structure of the underlying ice shelf.”

Drill deep

With the logistical support of the British Antarctic Survey, Hubbard and his team camped on the ice in traditional ‘Scott’ tents for several months in the summer of 2014/15.

The team drilled a 100m-long borehole in a part of the Larsen-C ice shelf called Cabinet Inlet, where scientists first spotted meltponds 15 years ago.

Just a few metres below the surface, they struck upon a layer of solid ice about 100 metres thick, formed as water from the meltponds percolates through the ice and refreezes.

The discovery was startling, says Hubbard, not only because of the ice layer’s thickness but because of its proximity to the surface. He tells Carbon Brief:

“Upon drilling our borehole in Cabinet Inlet, we were pretty amazed that the drill struck something solid at a depth of only 3m below the surface…To my knowledge, this is the first time that anybody has encountered massive ice of this nature.”

At these shallow depths in other ice sheets, such as Greenland and East Antarctica, scientists have found compacted snow, stacking up in layers as more snow falls on top. Solid ice is usually found much deeper, more like 50-70m below the surface, Hubbard explains.

The discovery of a massive ice layer beneath the surface at Cabinet Inlet on the Larsen-C ice shelf, Antarctic Peninsula. Source: Hubbard et al., (2016).

Cause for concern

The vast icy layer below Larsen C is a concern, says Hubbard. It is warmer than the compacted snow it replaced because of the latent heat that is released as the percolating meltwater refreezes at depth. Thi, in turn affects how the ice moves, Hubbard explains:

“Similar to syrup, warm ice flows more readily than cold ice.”

Hubbard and his team installed a string of instruments to take measurements within the icy layer, returning to collect the data a year later. They found temperatures of between -5C and -10C, a full 10C above what they expected for this depth range. Hubbard says:

“This suggests that not only is the massive ice layer denser than that which would be present in the absence of surface ponds, but that it is also substantially warmer, both having implications for the movement and stability of the ice shelf.”

Using ground-penetrating radar and satellite instruments, the scientists estimated that the icy layer was 16 km wide and several kilometers long. While icy layers have been found elsewhere in Antarctica, the Larsen-C discovery is exceptionally large. Hubbard tells Carbon Brief:

“In east Antarctica, working with the Belgians out of their (carbon neutral) Princess Elisabeth research station, we also found internal ice layers – but at the less extreme end of the scale.”

Nevertheless, it will be sometime before the consequences for Larsen-C are fully understood, Hubbard adds:

“We cannot really determine the implications yet without running all of the information for the entire ice shelf in a computer model, and unfortunately we do not have all of that information yet.”

Other recent research points to a thinning of Larsen C by four metres from 1998-2012, putting it at greater risk of collapse. Ice shelves can also melt from underneath as the ocean warms.

Hubbard suspects vast icy layers could be discovered in many of Antarctica’s other ice shelves in the coming decades. He says:

“[The changes we report] can in all likelihood be anticipated at an increasing number of Antarctica’s fringing ice shelves – and perhaps all of them – over the next century or so as surface warming continues.”

Since ice shelves float on the water, when an ice shelf collapses entirely it doesn’t directly affect sea levels. But once an ice shelf disappears, there’s little to stop the glaciers behind it from flowing into the ocean, causing sea level to rise faster.

A life less ordinary

Hubbard’s research has led him to some of the world’s most inhospitable landscapes. Part of the reason the ice layer below the surface of Larsen C hasn’t been discovered until now, he says, is because of the logistics of carrying out this kind of research in such a challenging place.

But Hubbard looks back fondly his quarter-century of polar expeditions, telling Carbon Brief:

“Each and every one of these trips has been interesting for various reasons; always challenging, always amazing, often fruitful, and occasionally somewhat disastrous.”

Hubbard’s services to science were honoured earlier this year, collecting the distinguished Polar Medal for his outstanding contribution to science under conditions of extreme hardship.

At the time, Prof April McMahon, vice-chancellor of Aberystwyth University called the award “a just recognition of a life dedicated to the discipline.” She added:

“Professor Hubbard and his colleagues at the Centre for Glaciology are at the cutting edge of understanding the effects of climate change on some of the Earth’s most extreme and inhospitable places, and of developing the scientific models that will help us understand better how our planet is likely to respond to an increasingly warm environment”.

Despite the challenges, Hubbard says always seems to go back for more. Though what keeps drawing him back is a mystery, he says:

“To tell the complete truth I don’t even like the cold.”

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/299zizJ

This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Roz Pidcock

Scientists have unearthed a 100m-thick river of ice beneath Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf, which they fear could accelerate its path to eventual collapse.

A team led by Prof Bryn Hubbard, director of the centre for glaciology at Aberystwyth University in Wales, lived on the ice shelf for several months examining what it looks like from the inside.

Their new paper describes how the layer of solid ice could be speeding up the flow of ice to the ocean, potentially leading Larsen C towards a similar fate to its now-collapsed sister ice shelves, Larsen A and B.

In January, Hubbard was awarded the prestigious Polar Medalin recognition of his services to polar science. He joins an illustrious list of explorers and pioneers, with Captain Robert F Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sir Ranulph Fiennes among its former recipients.

Carbon Brief has been speaking to Hubbard about his new research, the future of Antarctica and his reflections from a life spent on the ice.

‘Catastrophic breakup’

For more than 25 years, Hubbard has been studying the world’s icy expanses, venturing out each year to live and work on the ice for months at a time. He tells Carbon Brief:

“I am extremely fortunate to be able to recount research field trips to Greenland, Svalbard, Arctic Canada, as well as Antarctica (while most of my early research was actually undertaken in the Swiss and French Alps).”

Hubbard’s latest study has taken him to Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica, a floating mass of ice protruding from the Antarctica Peninsula in the northern part of the continent.

Several major ice shelves have collapsed almost completely, losing the vast majority of their mass in just a few months. The most widely reported of these “catastrophic breakup events” were the Larsen A and B ice shelves, which collapsed in 1995 and 2002, respectively.

Larsen C is the next ice shelf in line, geographically-speaking. It is also the largest of the three sister shelves, with a surface area two and a half times the size of Wales.

Credits | Images: NASA Earth Observatory. Gif: Rosamund Pearce for Carbon Brief.

Meltponds

The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming places on Earth. Temperatures have risen by 2.5C in the past 50 years. Warmer air is causing the surface of the ice to melt, forming pools of water known as “meltponds”.

Meltponds tend to form in a line “like a string of sausages” and are thought to have contributed to the collapse of ice shelves in the past, including Larsen B. Hubbard tells Carbon Brief:

“We started the work on Larsen C Ice Shelf for the simple reason that satellite images and a small number of aircraft flyovers indicated that melt ponds were forming on their surface regularly.”

Until now, scientists had suspected that meltponds exerted stress through the sheer weight of the water pushing down on the ice below it. But Hubbard and his team wondered if there was a different explanation. He tells Carbon Brief:

“The rationale for our project was to investigate whether the ponds had an influence on the internal structure of the underlying ice shelf.”

Drill deep

With the logistical support of the British Antarctic Survey, Hubbard and his team camped on the ice in traditional ‘Scott’ tents for several months in the summer of 2014/15.

The team drilled a 100m-long borehole in a part of the Larsen-C ice shelf called Cabinet Inlet, where scientists first spotted meltponds 15 years ago.

Just a few metres below the surface, they struck upon a layer of solid ice about 100 metres thick, formed as water from the meltponds percolates through the ice and refreezes.

The discovery was startling, says Hubbard, not only because of the ice layer’s thickness but because of its proximity to the surface. He tells Carbon Brief:

“Upon drilling our borehole in Cabinet Inlet, we were pretty amazed that the drill struck something solid at a depth of only 3m below the surface…To my knowledge, this is the first time that anybody has encountered massive ice of this nature.”

At these shallow depths in other ice sheets, such as Greenland and East Antarctica, scientists have found compacted snow, stacking up in layers as more snow falls on top. Solid ice is usually found much deeper, more like 50-70m below the surface, Hubbard explains.

The discovery of a massive ice layer beneath the surface at Cabinet Inlet on the Larsen-C ice shelf, Antarctic Peninsula. Source: Hubbard et al., (2016).

Cause for concern

The vast icy layer below Larsen C is a concern, says Hubbard. It is warmer than the compacted snow it replaced because of the latent heat that is released as the percolating meltwater refreezes at depth. Thi, in turn affects how the ice moves, Hubbard explains:

“Similar to syrup, warm ice flows more readily than cold ice.”

Hubbard and his team installed a string of instruments to take measurements within the icy layer, returning to collect the data a year later. They found temperatures of between -5C and -10C, a full 10C above what they expected for this depth range. Hubbard says:

“This suggests that not only is the massive ice layer denser than that which would be present in the absence of surface ponds, but that it is also substantially warmer, both having implications for the movement and stability of the ice shelf.”

Using ground-penetrating radar and satellite instruments, the scientists estimated that the icy layer was 16 km wide and several kilometers long. While icy layers have been found elsewhere in Antarctica, the Larsen-C discovery is exceptionally large. Hubbard tells Carbon Brief:

“In east Antarctica, working with the Belgians out of their (carbon neutral) Princess Elisabeth research station, we also found internal ice layers – but at the less extreme end of the scale.”

Nevertheless, it will be sometime before the consequences for Larsen-C are fully understood, Hubbard adds:

“We cannot really determine the implications yet without running all of the information for the entire ice shelf in a computer model, and unfortunately we do not have all of that information yet.”

Other recent research points to a thinning of Larsen C by four metres from 1998-2012, putting it at greater risk of collapse. Ice shelves can also melt from underneath as the ocean warms.

Hubbard suspects vast icy layers could be discovered in many of Antarctica’s other ice shelves in the coming decades. He says:

“[The changes we report] can in all likelihood be anticipated at an increasing number of Antarctica’s fringing ice shelves – and perhaps all of them – over the next century or so as surface warming continues.”

Since ice shelves float on the water, when an ice shelf collapses entirely it doesn’t directly affect sea levels. But once an ice shelf disappears, there’s little to stop the glaciers behind it from flowing into the ocean, causing sea level to rise faster.

A life less ordinary

Hubbard’s research has led him to some of the world’s most inhospitable landscapes. Part of the reason the ice layer below the surface of Larsen C hasn’t been discovered until now, he says, is because of the logistics of carrying out this kind of research in such a challenging place.

But Hubbard looks back fondly his quarter-century of polar expeditions, telling Carbon Brief:

“Each and every one of these trips has been interesting for various reasons; always challenging, always amazing, often fruitful, and occasionally somewhat disastrous.”

Hubbard’s services to science were honoured earlier this year, collecting the distinguished Polar Medal for his outstanding contribution to science under conditions of extreme hardship.

At the time, Prof April McMahon, vice-chancellor of Aberystwyth University called the award “a just recognition of a life dedicated to the discipline.” She added:

“Professor Hubbard and his colleagues at the Centre for Glaciology are at the cutting edge of understanding the effects of climate change on some of the Earth’s most extreme and inhospitable places, and of developing the scientific models that will help us understand better how our planet is likely to respond to an increasingly warm environment”.

Despite the challenges, Hubbard says always seems to go back for more. Though what keeps drawing him back is a mystery, he says:

“To tell the complete truth I don’t even like the cold.”

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/299zizJ

After 6 years of working on climate at Harvard, I implore it to show the courage to divest

One morning in the summer of 2014, I found myself in the city of Tacloban in the Philippines. The city and surrounding area had been devastated less than a year earlier by Super Typhoon Yolanda. Thousands had been killed; bodies were found for months afterwards. 

As part of an international research collaboration, I was interviewing government officials and others throughout the Philippines to assess how to improve preparedness for and response to climate-related disasters. I had already interviewed survivors in cities and villages across the country about the impacts of extreme weather. (And, incidentally, a few weeks later, I would contract dengue and chikungunya—two mosquito-borne diseases aided by climate changein their ongoing spread.) With my prior experience, I thought I was prepared for what I would hear that morning, but I wasn’t.

As I prepared for the day’s interviews, I spoke with a man of about fifty who was helping us to navigate. He described the impact of the storm, the thousands of bodies lying about, his attempts to somehow help despite the overwhelming magnitude of the destruction and death. His own son had gone missing, but there was no time to search; the need for attention to those around him was too immediate and great. The destruction’s scale made the attempted cleanup a kind of futile, obligatory madness—but one that seemed necessary by the standards of human decency. 

The madness, the decency, the inhuman work of cleaning a mountain of death and sadness continued for weeks, until someone informed him that they had found his son. He was miles away, his body in a mangrove patch, decomposing. The father collected his son’s remains, like so many others did, and then returned to the never-ending work. There was too much to do.

And as the father spoke to me, some half a year later, there was still too much to do. The coastline had been reoccupied with shanties. Another typhoon season was coming. The father looked at me, and I could see his eyes. I cannot forget what I saw: trauma, grief, fear…all unprocessed, all repressed and pushed aside for months because there was no time to grieve, no time to come to peace, because there was too much to do; too much to do just to survive, just to live.

A theatre of the absurd

The next spring, I was in Massachusetts, on Harvard’s campus. People were awakening to the dangers of climate change. Massive demonstrations were occurring on campus to protest Harvard’s considerable investments in the fossil fuel sector (which constituted one-third of Harvard’s disclosed investments at the end of 2014). Student and alumni protestors had set up camp around the central administrative building. To avoid the protestors, the administration had moved operations to Loeb House, a small mansion on campus, which was surrounded by barricades and police to prevent protestors from approaching.

The former Harvard professor Cornel West whipped up the crowd with a characteristically fiery speech and led a march to Loeb House to deliver a letter to the administration. Hundreds, including myself, participated. As we approached, I could see administrative staff peering out at us past the velvet curtains.

When we got to the barricades, the police informed us that no one was in the building. Despite the human-looking figures inside poking their heads above the corners of windows to sneak a peak at the rabble outside, the police insisted the building was empty. I remember feeling confused—to be lied to blatantly is more disorienting than to be lied to subtly—and the crowd began to chant, calling for someone to come outside.

As hundreds stayed and chanted for ten, then twenty minutes—calling to the individuals they could see through the windows—individuals who were looking right back while the police insisted that no one was inside—I thought of the father in the Philippines. He did not choose to be surrounded by death; he did not choose to be tasked with the retrieval of his own son’s remains. He was not afforded even the basic privilege of time and space to grieve. He was afforded no choice but to repress his trauma and continue. And I thought of his son, who did not choose death. And yet in that moment I saw those who did have the luxury of choice, those who live lives of comfort, looking down from the windows of a mansion at a crowd whose request was to deliver a letter for the sake of human decency.

And yet, for the people in that house, to come outside to accept such a letter was below them—while hiding from their own students, and lying boldly to them, was not.

Finally—after it was clear that the protestors would not be leaving—someone did emerge from the empty house, accepting the contentious piece of paper and taking it inside. The protestors wanted Harvard to stand up to powerful interests by moving away from its fossil fuel stakes, yet its management was unwilling to accept a simple piece of paper—an arguably much easier task—without a theatre of the absurd.

It was in that moment that I realized that if our children look back to how we failed them, it will not have been for lack of scientific understanding or even technological prowess; it will have been due, fundamentally, to cowardice. A profound cowardice among those who actually do have a choice in this matter, a cowardice that confuses arrogance with intelligence, pettiness with importance, and, most fatally, comfort with necessity. 

Divestment’s controversy

Essentially all of the climate change controversy at Harvard has revolved around divestment. The idea of reducing investments in fossil fuels as a matter of policy began as an audacious suggestion designed to shock people into seeing the contradiction between our words and our actions on climate. After institutions began adopting the idea, it became a method to call attention to theobstructionism and denial propagated by fossil fuel companies. Institutions that were afraid of making enemies in industry—like Harvard and MIT—were, rather predictably, reluctant to take a public stand. But since the Paris climate agreement in 2015, the idea of divestment has evolved into something much more fundamental and unignorable.

In polite society—at least the kind that self-identifies with science—the Paris agreement is applauded, in essence, universally. Yet the implications of the agreement for investments are beginning to be reckoned with, and they are stark: by the IPCC’s most recent estimate, $100 billion per year needs to be disinvested from the fossil fuel extraction industry for the next twenty years. And when it comes to infrastructure, a recent study has found that no new fossil-fuel-using power plants can be built after next year (unless they are decommissioned prematurely—making them a bad investment). In other words, if we are serious about the Paris agreement, then there needs to be a deliberate shift of investments out of fossil fuels and into clean replacements at this moment. This is, technically speaking, the definition of divestment.

The catch, though, is that this is something that Harvard’s administration has vowed never to do. To analyze why is an exercise in theorizing—it may be due to the logic of economic Darwinism that underlies Harvard’s culture and wealth, a psychology of indignant authoritarianism among Harvard’s governing board, pervasive conflicts of interest (Harvard trustee Ted Wells is currently legal counsel for Exxon Mobil, for example), or nothing more than simple bureaucratic group-think—but regardless of the reason, the fact that the richest private university in the world openly defies the Paris agreement with its investment policies—while praising the agreement with words—is troubling. 

And this brings us to an uncomfortable but unavoidable question: does Harvard actually wantto fix climate change, or does it merely want to look like it wants to fix it? And perhaps more troublingly: do we actually want to fix climate change, or are we just going through the motions to save face, to avoid admitting to ourselves that, deep down, we aren’t who we thought we were, that we actually don’t care that much what happens to our children—or what happens to the world?

Fake it ‘til you make it

What does it look like to pretend to care? Harvard has announced that “green is the new crimson” and, to much fanfare, spends a special $1 million per year on climate research. But in the face of a civilizational crisis—and for an institution whose research spending is on the order of a billion dollars per year already—what is the intended purpose of this much-publicized $1 million? Harvard spends the same to pay its president (more than the president of the US)—and fifty times more just to pay half a dozen of its money managers. Meanwhile, Harvard likely has hundreds of millions—or more—invested in fossil fuels. If we look past the fanfare and see the world’s richest private university spending $1 million per year to address a civilizational crisis, congratulating itself while investing hundreds of times more in the root cause of that crisis, are we supposed to feel reassured? Or can this only be interpreted as the most illuminating kind of satire of all—that is, the kind that is real?

It might be suggested that universities are places of discourse, not action. Yet when confronted with its stake in and connections to the fossil fuel industry, the discourse at Harvard rapidly morphs into non-sequiturs and censorship. Harvard’s president suggested to me that if we were to move investments out of fossil fuels, then we might have to do the same for sugar, because sugar is harmful, too. Is this real? For those dying around the world, for those living in cities or societies that face destruction from climate change, how is this anything other than a modern-day “let them eat cake”?

When faced with calls for divestment, another Harvard trustee suggested that we should instead be thanking oil companies like BP for investing in renewable energy—which is awkward, because there’s not a lot of that going on. At what point does “daddy knows best” become “I think daddy might be losing touch with reality”? Have we arrived?

In court, Harvard has formally argued that students’ desire for reduced investments in fossil fuels is as trivial and arbitrary as the desire for a new academic calendar or different housing options. Again, does Harvard truly believe that the existence of species, the stability of societies, and the lives of the vulnerable around the world are choices on the same level as whether to start classes on a Wednesday or a Thursday? When we play dumb, are we being clever and bluffing—or are we fools telling the truth? Which is more terrifying to the future of human society?

Harvard staff members have told me they are prohibited from discussing the issue of fossil fuel divestment at all—even outside of work. Imagine if staff were prohibited from talking about greenhouse gas reductions. When the future depends on our actions today, why is a university suppressing discussion?

Click here to read the rest

Benjamin Franta has a PhD in applied physics from Harvard University and from 2014—2016 was a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/29gKXA9

One morning in the summer of 2014, I found myself in the city of Tacloban in the Philippines. The city and surrounding area had been devastated less than a year earlier by Super Typhoon Yolanda. Thousands had been killed; bodies were found for months afterwards. 

As part of an international research collaboration, I was interviewing government officials and others throughout the Philippines to assess how to improve preparedness for and response to climate-related disasters. I had already interviewed survivors in cities and villages across the country about the impacts of extreme weather. (And, incidentally, a few weeks later, I would contract dengue and chikungunya—two mosquito-borne diseases aided by climate changein their ongoing spread.) With my prior experience, I thought I was prepared for what I would hear that morning, but I wasn’t.

As I prepared for the day’s interviews, I spoke with a man of about fifty who was helping us to navigate. He described the impact of the storm, the thousands of bodies lying about, his attempts to somehow help despite the overwhelming magnitude of the destruction and death. His own son had gone missing, but there was no time to search; the need for attention to those around him was too immediate and great. The destruction’s scale made the attempted cleanup a kind of futile, obligatory madness—but one that seemed necessary by the standards of human decency. 

The madness, the decency, the inhuman work of cleaning a mountain of death and sadness continued for weeks, until someone informed him that they had found his son. He was miles away, his body in a mangrove patch, decomposing. The father collected his son’s remains, like so many others did, and then returned to the never-ending work. There was too much to do.

And as the father spoke to me, some half a year later, there was still too much to do. The coastline had been reoccupied with shanties. Another typhoon season was coming. The father looked at me, and I could see his eyes. I cannot forget what I saw: trauma, grief, fear…all unprocessed, all repressed and pushed aside for months because there was no time to grieve, no time to come to peace, because there was too much to do; too much to do just to survive, just to live.

A theatre of the absurd

The next spring, I was in Massachusetts, on Harvard’s campus. People were awakening to the dangers of climate change. Massive demonstrations were occurring on campus to protest Harvard’s considerable investments in the fossil fuel sector (which constituted one-third of Harvard’s disclosed investments at the end of 2014). Student and alumni protestors had set up camp around the central administrative building. To avoid the protestors, the administration had moved operations to Loeb House, a small mansion on campus, which was surrounded by barricades and police to prevent protestors from approaching.

The former Harvard professor Cornel West whipped up the crowd with a characteristically fiery speech and led a march to Loeb House to deliver a letter to the administration. Hundreds, including myself, participated. As we approached, I could see administrative staff peering out at us past the velvet curtains.

When we got to the barricades, the police informed us that no one was in the building. Despite the human-looking figures inside poking their heads above the corners of windows to sneak a peak at the rabble outside, the police insisted the building was empty. I remember feeling confused—to be lied to blatantly is more disorienting than to be lied to subtly—and the crowd began to chant, calling for someone to come outside.

As hundreds stayed and chanted for ten, then twenty minutes—calling to the individuals they could see through the windows—individuals who were looking right back while the police insisted that no one was inside—I thought of the father in the Philippines. He did not choose to be surrounded by death; he did not choose to be tasked with the retrieval of his own son’s remains. He was not afforded even the basic privilege of time and space to grieve. He was afforded no choice but to repress his trauma and continue. And I thought of his son, who did not choose death. And yet in that moment I saw those who did have the luxury of choice, those who live lives of comfort, looking down from the windows of a mansion at a crowd whose request was to deliver a letter for the sake of human decency.

And yet, for the people in that house, to come outside to accept such a letter was below them—while hiding from their own students, and lying boldly to them, was not.

Finally—after it was clear that the protestors would not be leaving—someone did emerge from the empty house, accepting the contentious piece of paper and taking it inside. The protestors wanted Harvard to stand up to powerful interests by moving away from its fossil fuel stakes, yet its management was unwilling to accept a simple piece of paper—an arguably much easier task—without a theatre of the absurd.

It was in that moment that I realized that if our children look back to how we failed them, it will not have been for lack of scientific understanding or even technological prowess; it will have been due, fundamentally, to cowardice. A profound cowardice among those who actually do have a choice in this matter, a cowardice that confuses arrogance with intelligence, pettiness with importance, and, most fatally, comfort with necessity. 

Divestment’s controversy

Essentially all of the climate change controversy at Harvard has revolved around divestment. The idea of reducing investments in fossil fuels as a matter of policy began as an audacious suggestion designed to shock people into seeing the contradiction between our words and our actions on climate. After institutions began adopting the idea, it became a method to call attention to theobstructionism and denial propagated by fossil fuel companies. Institutions that were afraid of making enemies in industry—like Harvard and MIT—were, rather predictably, reluctant to take a public stand. But since the Paris climate agreement in 2015, the idea of divestment has evolved into something much more fundamental and unignorable.

In polite society—at least the kind that self-identifies with science—the Paris agreement is applauded, in essence, universally. Yet the implications of the agreement for investments are beginning to be reckoned with, and they are stark: by the IPCC’s most recent estimate, $100 billion per year needs to be disinvested from the fossil fuel extraction industry for the next twenty years. And when it comes to infrastructure, a recent study has found that no new fossil-fuel-using power plants can be built after next year (unless they are decommissioned prematurely—making them a bad investment). In other words, if we are serious about the Paris agreement, then there needs to be a deliberate shift of investments out of fossil fuels and into clean replacements at this moment. This is, technically speaking, the definition of divestment.

The catch, though, is that this is something that Harvard’s administration has vowed never to do. To analyze why is an exercise in theorizing—it may be due to the logic of economic Darwinism that underlies Harvard’s culture and wealth, a psychology of indignant authoritarianism among Harvard’s governing board, pervasive conflicts of interest (Harvard trustee Ted Wells is currently legal counsel for Exxon Mobil, for example), or nothing more than simple bureaucratic group-think—but regardless of the reason, the fact that the richest private university in the world openly defies the Paris agreement with its investment policies—while praising the agreement with words—is troubling. 

And this brings us to an uncomfortable but unavoidable question: does Harvard actually wantto fix climate change, or does it merely want to look like it wants to fix it? And perhaps more troublingly: do we actually want to fix climate change, or are we just going through the motions to save face, to avoid admitting to ourselves that, deep down, we aren’t who we thought we were, that we actually don’t care that much what happens to our children—or what happens to the world?

Fake it ‘til you make it

What does it look like to pretend to care? Harvard has announced that “green is the new crimson” and, to much fanfare, spends a special $1 million per year on climate research. But in the face of a civilizational crisis—and for an institution whose research spending is on the order of a billion dollars per year already—what is the intended purpose of this much-publicized $1 million? Harvard spends the same to pay its president (more than the president of the US)—and fifty times more just to pay half a dozen of its money managers. Meanwhile, Harvard likely has hundreds of millions—or more—invested in fossil fuels. If we look past the fanfare and see the world’s richest private university spending $1 million per year to address a civilizational crisis, congratulating itself while investing hundreds of times more in the root cause of that crisis, are we supposed to feel reassured? Or can this only be interpreted as the most illuminating kind of satire of all—that is, the kind that is real?

It might be suggested that universities are places of discourse, not action. Yet when confronted with its stake in and connections to the fossil fuel industry, the discourse at Harvard rapidly morphs into non-sequiturs and censorship. Harvard’s president suggested to me that if we were to move investments out of fossil fuels, then we might have to do the same for sugar, because sugar is harmful, too. Is this real? For those dying around the world, for those living in cities or societies that face destruction from climate change, how is this anything other than a modern-day “let them eat cake”?

When faced with calls for divestment, another Harvard trustee suggested that we should instead be thanking oil companies like BP for investing in renewable energy—which is awkward, because there’s not a lot of that going on. At what point does “daddy knows best” become “I think daddy might be losing touch with reality”? Have we arrived?

In court, Harvard has formally argued that students’ desire for reduced investments in fossil fuels is as trivial and arbitrary as the desire for a new academic calendar or different housing options. Again, does Harvard truly believe that the existence of species, the stability of societies, and the lives of the vulnerable around the world are choices on the same level as whether to start classes on a Wednesday or a Thursday? When we play dumb, are we being clever and bluffing—or are we fools telling the truth? Which is more terrifying to the future of human society?

Harvard staff members have told me they are prohibited from discussing the issue of fossil fuel divestment at all—even outside of work. Imagine if staff were prohibited from talking about greenhouse gas reductions. When the future depends on our actions today, why is a university suppressing discussion?

Click here to read the rest

Benjamin Franta has a PhD in applied physics from Harvard University and from 2014—2016 was a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/29gKXA9

Alpine soils storing up to a third less carbon as summers warm

This is a re-post from Robert McSweeney at Carbon Brief

The top metre of the world’s soils contains three times as much carbon as the entire atmosphere. This means that losing carbon from the soil can quicken the pace of human-caused climate warming.

A new paper, published today in Nature Geoscience, finds this is already happening in the forests of the German Alps. Soils there are losing carbon as summer temperatures rise, the researchers say.

In the last three decades, soil carbon across the German Alps has decreased by an average of 14% – and by as much as 32% for certain types of soils.

The findings might be a sign of how soils could amplify warming in future, other scientists say.

Crucial role

Soils play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle. The figure below, from a News & Views article that accompanies the paper, illustrates how carbon is taken up and released by soils.

Plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, and transfer carbon into the ground when dead roots and leaves decompose in the soil. Here, carbon is “immobilised” for anything from a week to thousands of years.

Eventually, the carbon is broken down completely, or “mineralized”, releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere.

Soil carbon cycle. Source: Kirk et al. (2016).

The researchers collected samples of soil carbon from 24 sites in forests and 11 sites in pastures and meadows across the Alps of southern Germany.

“Set 1” of the sample sites (shown as black dots in the map below) is distributed across much of the German Alps – covering an area of around 4,500 square kilometres. “Set 2” (shown as triangles) is concentrated on a 600 square kilometre area of the Berchtesgaden region.

Map of study sites across Germany. Credit: Dr Jörg Prietze.

The scientists chose these sites to match up with samples collected in 1976 and 1987, allowing them to see how carbon levels in the soil has changed over time.

Across the forest sites, they find that levels of soil carbon has decreased by an average of 14% since the first samples were collected.

The size of the decrease is almost identical for the two different locations, the researchers note, with an average decline in carbon of 14.0% for Set 1 and 14.5% for Set 2.

The scientists also find that soils with a higher carbon content to begin with lost more of their carbon over the 30-year study period, averaging 32%.

While the researchers found a decrease in carbon in forest soils, they didn’t find a change in the samples taken from pasture soils.

Carbon appears to be more stable in these soils because of their high mineral content, says Dr Jörg Prietze, lead author of the paper and associate professor of soil science at the Technical University of Munich. The carbon in the soil clings to these minerals and isn’t released into the atmosphere as easily, he explains.

Warming summers

So, what role do rising temperatures play in the decline of soil carbon in the Alps?

Warmer conditions can speed up the turnover of carbon through the soil. Microbes in soils that break down organic carbon work harder in warmer temperatures, releasing more carbon, Prietze explains to Carbon Brief:

“In many soils under a temperate humid climate, an increase of air temperature results in increased microbial soil organic carbon decomposition rates.”

Overall, as conditions in the Alps get warmer, more carbon is lost from the soil than is added back in from dead plants, the paper explains.

Average temperatures between May and October across Set 1 of the sample locations (see earlier map) have increased by 0.5C per decade over the last 25 years, the study says. The equivalent temperature change for Set 2 is 0.3C per decade, but this warming isn’t statistically significant. This means the scientists can’t be certain that the warming hasn’t happened by chance.

The results suggest that forest soils in the German Alps have changed from a net sink of carbon to a net source, says Prietze. This means the soils are now releasing more carbon to the atmosphere than they are taking up.

Prof Guy Kirk, professor of soil systems at Cranfield University and author of the News & Views article, writes that the findings of this “exemplary” monitoring study might be a sign of how soils could amplify warming in future, perhaps triggering a self-reinforcing loop. He writes:

“[The study’s] evidence that climate change has already started depleting soil carbon in the German Alps raises the possibility that a positive feedback between climate and ecosystems is beginning.“

This positive feedback would see warming conditions speed up the release of carbon from the world’s soils, which would in turn warm the climate further.

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/299zdM7

This is a re-post from Robert McSweeney at Carbon Brief

The top metre of the world’s soils contains three times as much carbon as the entire atmosphere. This means that losing carbon from the soil can quicken the pace of human-caused climate warming.

A new paper, published today in Nature Geoscience, finds this is already happening in the forests of the German Alps. Soils there are losing carbon as summer temperatures rise, the researchers say.

In the last three decades, soil carbon across the German Alps has decreased by an average of 14% – and by as much as 32% for certain types of soils.

The findings might be a sign of how soils could amplify warming in future, other scientists say.

Crucial role

Soils play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle. The figure below, from a News & Views article that accompanies the paper, illustrates how carbon is taken up and released by soils.

Plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, and transfer carbon into the ground when dead roots and leaves decompose in the soil. Here, carbon is “immobilised” for anything from a week to thousands of years.

Eventually, the carbon is broken down completely, or “mineralized”, releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere.

Soil carbon cycle. Source: Kirk et al. (2016).

The researchers collected samples of soil carbon from 24 sites in forests and 11 sites in pastures and meadows across the Alps of southern Germany.

“Set 1” of the sample sites (shown as black dots in the map below) is distributed across much of the German Alps – covering an area of around 4,500 square kilometres. “Set 2” (shown as triangles) is concentrated on a 600 square kilometre area of the Berchtesgaden region.

Map of study sites across Germany. Credit: Dr Jörg Prietze.

The scientists chose these sites to match up with samples collected in 1976 and 1987, allowing them to see how carbon levels in the soil has changed over time.

Across the forest sites, they find that levels of soil carbon has decreased by an average of 14% since the first samples were collected.

The size of the decrease is almost identical for the two different locations, the researchers note, with an average decline in carbon of 14.0% for Set 1 and 14.5% for Set 2.

The scientists also find that soils with a higher carbon content to begin with lost more of their carbon over the 30-year study period, averaging 32%.

While the researchers found a decrease in carbon in forest soils, they didn’t find a change in the samples taken from pasture soils.

Carbon appears to be more stable in these soils because of their high mineral content, says Dr Jörg Prietze, lead author of the paper and associate professor of soil science at the Technical University of Munich. The carbon in the soil clings to these minerals and isn’t released into the atmosphere as easily, he explains.

Warming summers

So, what role do rising temperatures play in the decline of soil carbon in the Alps?

Warmer conditions can speed up the turnover of carbon through the soil. Microbes in soils that break down organic carbon work harder in warmer temperatures, releasing more carbon, Prietze explains to Carbon Brief:

“In many soils under a temperate humid climate, an increase of air temperature results in increased microbial soil organic carbon decomposition rates.”

Overall, as conditions in the Alps get warmer, more carbon is lost from the soil than is added back in from dead plants, the paper explains.

Average temperatures between May and October across Set 1 of the sample locations (see earlier map) have increased by 0.5C per decade over the last 25 years, the study says. The equivalent temperature change for Set 2 is 0.3C per decade, but this warming isn’t statistically significant. This means the scientists can’t be certain that the warming hasn’t happened by chance.

The results suggest that forest soils in the German Alps have changed from a net sink of carbon to a net source, says Prietze. This means the soils are now releasing more carbon to the atmosphere than they are taking up.

Prof Guy Kirk, professor of soil systems at Cranfield University and author of the News & Views article, writes that the findings of this “exemplary” monitoring study might be a sign of how soils could amplify warming in future, perhaps triggering a self-reinforcing loop. He writes:

“[The study’s] evidence that climate change has already started depleting soil carbon in the German Alps raises the possibility that a positive feedback between climate and ecosystems is beginning.“

This positive feedback would see warming conditions speed up the release of carbon from the world’s soils, which would in turn warm the climate further.

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/299zdM7

Here’s the Next Big Story on Climate Change

The coming food crisis, and what we can do about it.

A man carries animal feed in the Sitti Zone of Ethiopia, Friday, April 8, 2016, near the border with Somalia. The region is afflicted by a severe drought. Mulugeta Ayene/AP

Last December, the climate summit in Paris offered journalists an unprecedented opportunity to reframe the global warming story. Climate reporting used to rest on the tacit understanding that the problem is overwhelming and intractable. That no longer rings true. While we have a better understanding than ever of the potential calamity in store, we finally have a clear vision of a path forward—and momentum for actually getting there.

To that end, Paris was a turning point for me personally, too: It was the end of the beginning of my career as an environmental journalist. This week I’m leaving Mother Jones after five years covering climate and other green stories. Paris underscored that it’s past time for me to look beyond the borders of the United States. That’s why, this fall, I’m going to undertake a Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship. For at least nine months, I’ll move between Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria to document how climate change is impacting food security.

I see agriculture in Africa as one of the most important, yet under-reported, stories about climate change happening today. It’s a fascinating intersection of science, politics, technology, culture, and all the other things that make climate such a rich vein of reporting. At that intersection, the scale of the challenge posed by global warming is matched only by the scale of opportunity to innovate and adapt. There are countless stories waiting to be told, featuring a brilliant and diverse cast of scientists, entrepreneurs, politicians, farmers, families, and more.

East Africa is already the hungriest place on Earth: One in every three people lives without sufficient access to nutritious food, according to the United Nations. Crop yields in the region are the lowest on the planet. African farms have one-tenth the productivity of Western farms on average, and sub-Saharan Africa is the only place on the planet where per-capita food production is actually falling.

Now, climate change threatens to compound those problems by raising temperatures and disrupting the seasonal rains on which many farmers depend. An index produced by the University of Notre Dame ranks 180 of the world’s countries based on their vulnerability to climate change impacts (#1, New Zealand, is the least vulnerable; the United State is ranked #11). The best-ranked mainland African country is South Africa, down at #84; Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda rank at #147, #154, and #160 respectively. In other words, these are among the places that will be hit hardest by climate change. More often than not, the agricultural sector will experience some of the worst impacts. Emerging research indicates that climate change could drive down yields of staples such as rice, wheat, and maize 20 percent by 2050. Worsening and widespread drought could shorten the growing season in some places by up to 40 percent.

This isn’t just a matter of putting food on the table. Agricultural productivity also lies at the root of broader economic development, since farming is Africa’s number-one form of employment. So, even when hunger isn’t an issue, per se, lost agricultural productivity can stymie rural communities’ efforts to get the money they need for roads, schools, clinics, and other necessities. “We only produce enough to eat,” lamented Amelia Tonito, a farmer I met recently in Mozambique. “We’d like to produce enough to eat and to sell.” More food means more money in more pockets; the process of alleviating poverty starts on farms.

The story goes beyond money. Hunger, increased water scarcity, and mass migrations sparked by natural-resource depletion can amplify the risk of conflict. Al-Shabaab in Kenya and Boko Haram in Nigeria have both drawn strength from drought-related hunger.

This is also a story about new applications for technology at the dawn of Africa’s digital age. It’s a story about gender—most African farmers are women—and the struggle to empower marginalized sectors of society. It’s about globalization and the growth of corporate power, as large-scale land investors from Wall Street to Dubai to Shanghai see a potential windfall in turning East and West Africa into a global breadbasket. Such interventions could boost rural economies—or disenfranchise small-scale farmers and further degrade the landscape.

Of course, all the data points I’ve just mentioned are only that: Cold, lifeless data. They work as an entry point for those of us who are thousands of miles away from Africa. But they don’t tell a story, and they won’t lead to action. They won’t help Amelia Tonito improve her income. My hope is my coverage of this story will help provide the depth of understanding that is a prerequisite for holding public and corporate officials accountable, so that the aspirations of the Paris Agreement can start to come to fruition.

I’ve loved my time at Mother Jones and I’m truly at a loss to express my gratitude to my editors for the experiences they have afforded me. I’ve seen the devastating impacts of global warming, from the vanishing Louisiana coastline to the smoldering wreckage of Breezy Point, Queens, after Hurricane Sandy. And I’ve seen the cost of our fossil fuel addiction, from the dystopian fracking fields of North Dakota to Germany’s yawning open-pit coal mines. But I’ve also seen the fortitude of the young Arizonans who spent weeks sweating in the woods to protect their community from wildfires. And I’ve seen the compassion of a caretaker who, in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, stayed with her elderly patient on the top floor of a Lower East Side high-rise with no electricity or running water.

Encounters like these are what draw me to climate change as a beat. The story is just getting started.

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/293DXRu

The coming food crisis, and what we can do about it.

A man carries animal feed in the Sitti Zone of Ethiopia, Friday, April 8, 2016, near the border with Somalia. The region is afflicted by a severe drought. Mulugeta Ayene/AP

Last December, the climate summit in Paris offered journalists an unprecedented opportunity to reframe the global warming story. Climate reporting used to rest on the tacit understanding that the problem is overwhelming and intractable. That no longer rings true. While we have a better understanding than ever of the potential calamity in store, we finally have a clear vision of a path forward—and momentum for actually getting there.

To that end, Paris was a turning point for me personally, too: It was the end of the beginning of my career as an environmental journalist. This week I’m leaving Mother Jones after five years covering climate and other green stories. Paris underscored that it’s past time for me to look beyond the borders of the United States. That’s why, this fall, I’m going to undertake a Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship. For at least nine months, I’ll move between Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria to document how climate change is impacting food security.

I see agriculture in Africa as one of the most important, yet under-reported, stories about climate change happening today. It’s a fascinating intersection of science, politics, technology, culture, and all the other things that make climate such a rich vein of reporting. At that intersection, the scale of the challenge posed by global warming is matched only by the scale of opportunity to innovate and adapt. There are countless stories waiting to be told, featuring a brilliant and diverse cast of scientists, entrepreneurs, politicians, farmers, families, and more.

East Africa is already the hungriest place on Earth: One in every three people lives without sufficient access to nutritious food, according to the United Nations. Crop yields in the region are the lowest on the planet. African farms have one-tenth the productivity of Western farms on average, and sub-Saharan Africa is the only place on the planet where per-capita food production is actually falling.

Now, climate change threatens to compound those problems by raising temperatures and disrupting the seasonal rains on which many farmers depend. An index produced by the University of Notre Dame ranks 180 of the world’s countries based on their vulnerability to climate change impacts (#1, New Zealand, is the least vulnerable; the United State is ranked #11). The best-ranked mainland African country is South Africa, down at #84; Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda rank at #147, #154, and #160 respectively. In other words, these are among the places that will be hit hardest by climate change. More often than not, the agricultural sector will experience some of the worst impacts. Emerging research indicates that climate change could drive down yields of staples such as rice, wheat, and maize 20 percent by 2050. Worsening and widespread drought could shorten the growing season in some places by up to 40 percent.

This isn’t just a matter of putting food on the table. Agricultural productivity also lies at the root of broader economic development, since farming is Africa’s number-one form of employment. So, even when hunger isn’t an issue, per se, lost agricultural productivity can stymie rural communities’ efforts to get the money they need for roads, schools, clinics, and other necessities. “We only produce enough to eat,” lamented Amelia Tonito, a farmer I met recently in Mozambique. “We’d like to produce enough to eat and to sell.” More food means more money in more pockets; the process of alleviating poverty starts on farms.

The story goes beyond money. Hunger, increased water scarcity, and mass migrations sparked by natural-resource depletion can amplify the risk of conflict. Al-Shabaab in Kenya and Boko Haram in Nigeria have both drawn strength from drought-related hunger.

This is also a story about new applications for technology at the dawn of Africa’s digital age. It’s a story about gender—most African farmers are women—and the struggle to empower marginalized sectors of society. It’s about globalization and the growth of corporate power, as large-scale land investors from Wall Street to Dubai to Shanghai see a potential windfall in turning East and West Africa into a global breadbasket. Such interventions could boost rural economies—or disenfranchise small-scale farmers and further degrade the landscape.

Of course, all the data points I’ve just mentioned are only that: Cold, lifeless data. They work as an entry point for those of us who are thousands of miles away from Africa. But they don’t tell a story, and they won’t lead to action. They won’t help Amelia Tonito improve her income. My hope is my coverage of this story will help provide the depth of understanding that is a prerequisite for holding public and corporate officials accountable, so that the aspirations of the Paris Agreement can start to come to fruition.

I’ve loved my time at Mother Jones and I’m truly at a loss to express my gratitude to my editors for the experiences they have afforded me. I’ve seen the devastating impacts of global warming, from the vanishing Louisiana coastline to the smoldering wreckage of Breezy Point, Queens, after Hurricane Sandy. And I’ve seen the cost of our fossil fuel addiction, from the dystopian fracking fields of North Dakota to Germany’s yawning open-pit coal mines. But I’ve also seen the fortitude of the young Arizonans who spent weeks sweating in the woods to protect their community from wildfires. And I’ve seen the compassion of a caretaker who, in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, stayed with her elderly patient on the top floor of a Lower East Side high-rise with no electricity or running water.

Encounters like these are what draw me to climate change as a beat. The story is just getting started.

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/293DXRu

How does octopus change its color?

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Bottom line: Two-minute video from the California Academy of Sciences on the color-changing ability of the octopus, squid, and cuttlefish.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1FY2NLq

Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Bottom line: Two-minute video from the California Academy of Sciences on the color-changing ability of the octopus, squid, and cuttlefish.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1FY2NLq

Make Your Own Kazoo

In this family STEM activity, perfect timed for summer parades, kids make kazoos and experiment to find out what gives a kazoo its sound.

Kazoo Science

With just a few household and craft materials, kids can make their own kazoos and explore the physics behind this classic noisemaker. A kazoo resembles a flute or clarinet, but your kids may be surprised to learn that a kazoo is more closely related to a drum!

Following the steps of this week's family science activity, kids make their own kazoos and test at each stage of assembly to better understand the physics behind how a kazoo makes noise. Once the kazoo is complete, kids can experiment to find ways to improve their instrument's noisemaking abilities! This science project is perfect for summer noisemaking fun!

The following Science Buddies activity on the Scientific American website has all the information you need to do this science activity with your students at home: Can You Kazoo?.

Making Connections

Students intrigued by this science activity or interested in other music-themed science projects may also enjoy the following student science projects:

• Blowing Bottle Tops: Making Music with Bottles
• Building Banjos
• Customize Your Own Drum Set!
• Do-Re-Mi with Straws
• How to Make a Guitar Sing
• How to Make a Piano Sing
• Make Music in Your Kitchen
• Take a Musical Step Back in Time: Make Your Own Phonograph from Everyday Items

from Science Buddies Blog http://ift.tt/297OSQl

In this family STEM activity, perfect timed for summer parades, kids make kazoos and experiment to find out what gives a kazoo its sound.

Kazoo Science

With just a few household and craft materials, kids can make their own kazoos and explore the physics behind this classic noisemaker. A kazoo resembles a flute or clarinet, but your kids may be surprised to learn that a kazoo is more closely related to a drum!

Following the steps of this week's family science activity, kids make their own kazoos and test at each stage of assembly to better understand the physics behind how a kazoo makes noise. Once the kazoo is complete, kids can experiment to find ways to improve their instrument's noisemaking abilities! This science project is perfect for summer noisemaking fun!

The following Science Buddies activity on the Scientific American website has all the information you need to do this science activity with your students at home: Can You Kazoo?.

Making Connections

Students intrigued by this science activity or interested in other music-themed science projects may also enjoy the following student science projects:

• Blowing Bottle Tops: Making Music with Bottles
• Building Banjos
• Customize Your Own Drum Set!
• Do-Re-Mi with Straws
• How to Make a Guitar Sing
• How to Make a Piano Sing
• Make Music in Your Kitchen
• Take a Musical Step Back in Time: Make Your Own Phonograph from Everyday Items

from Science Buddies Blog http://ift.tt/297OSQl

It’s a Lawn Mower! It’s a Weed Whacker! No…it’s a Herd of Goats!

By Sara Ernst

EPA’s research facility in Narragansett, Rhode Island recently enlisted the help of a highly skilled landscaping team to create more pollinator-friendly habitat on the premises.  The team doesn’t use chemicals or pollute the air with carbon emissions, can work on just about any terrain or slope, and loves to eat poison ivy.  So, who is this slightly peculiar dream team? A herd of goats from Laurel Hill MicroFarm in Hope, Rhode Island!

Before the goats and their herders arrived, the facility had a maze of invasive plants plaguing the perimeter of the property, however, over the course of 10 days, these impressive eaters were able to safely consume all the poison ivy and invasive vegetation in the area.

My family always says I have a hole in my foot because of how much I can eat, but let me tell you, I’ve got nothing on these goats!  One goat can eat about 100 square feet of vegetation a day, varying with density – and we were working with a team of 16!  The goats were constantly frolicking back and forth between various plants, small trees, and shrubs, eating to their hearts content and only stopping when they needed short digestion breaks.  When a designated area was cleared, they’d look at their herder as if to say, “Okay what’s next? We’re hungry!”

 

Habitat loss is one of the main reasons pollinators such as bees, birds, and butterflies have declined in abundance over the past few decades.  By removing overgrown landscaping and nuisance plant species from our property, the goats are protecting native plants that serve as pollinator habitat from invasive vegetation that could have easily disturbed their growth and threatened their survival.  Space has also been created so new pollinator-friendly vegetation has room to grow, and areas have been left free of plant life to provide habitat for ground-nesting pollinators like bumble bees.

Taking steps to protect and increase habitat for pollinators helps to mitigate their decline and strengthen their numbers.  These efforts are essential in protecting the health of the environment and in ensuring the sustainability of our food production systems, as well as their continued economic contribution to the agriculture industry.  EPA is committed to helping restore pollinator populations to healthy levels, consistent with the June 2014 Presidential Memorandum “Creating a Federal Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators”.

This is the first time EPA has used conservation grazing or “goatscaping”, and I doubt it will be the last.  Goats are efficient workers, environmentally-friendly, and able to work safely and easily in areas that may be dangerous or difficult for humans and heavy equipment.  Best of all, by using goats to clear overgrown landscaping, especially invasive plant life, we are helping pollinators prosper.  Visit EPA’s pollinator protection page to learn more about pollinator health, what EPA is doing, and how you can help!

About the Author:  Sara Ernst is an Oak Ridge Associated Universities contractor and works as the Science Communications Specialist in the Atlantic Ecology Division of EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/29fWCQ5

By Sara Ernst

EPA’s research facility in Narragansett, Rhode Island recently enlisted the help of a highly skilled landscaping team to create more pollinator-friendly habitat on the premises.  The team doesn’t use chemicals or pollute the air with carbon emissions, can work on just about any terrain or slope, and loves to eat poison ivy.  So, who is this slightly peculiar dream team? A herd of goats from Laurel Hill MicroFarm in Hope, Rhode Island!

Before the goats and their herders arrived, the facility had a maze of invasive plants plaguing the perimeter of the property, however, over the course of 10 days, these impressive eaters were able to safely consume all the poison ivy and invasive vegetation in the area.

My family always says I have a hole in my foot because of how much I can eat, but let me tell you, I’ve got nothing on these goats!  One goat can eat about 100 square feet of vegetation a day, varying with density – and we were working with a team of 16!  The goats were constantly frolicking back and forth between various plants, small trees, and shrubs, eating to their hearts content and only stopping when they needed short digestion breaks.  When a designated area was cleared, they’d look at their herder as if to say, “Okay what’s next? We’re hungry!”

 

Habitat loss is one of the main reasons pollinators such as bees, birds, and butterflies have declined in abundance over the past few decades.  By removing overgrown landscaping and nuisance plant species from our property, the goats are protecting native plants that serve as pollinator habitat from invasive vegetation that could have easily disturbed their growth and threatened their survival.  Space has also been created so new pollinator-friendly vegetation has room to grow, and areas have been left free of plant life to provide habitat for ground-nesting pollinators like bumble bees.

Taking steps to protect and increase habitat for pollinators helps to mitigate their decline and strengthen their numbers.  These efforts are essential in protecting the health of the environment and in ensuring the sustainability of our food production systems, as well as their continued economic contribution to the agriculture industry.  EPA is committed to helping restore pollinator populations to healthy levels, consistent with the June 2014 Presidential Memorandum “Creating a Federal Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators”.

This is the first time EPA has used conservation grazing or “goatscaping”, and I doubt it will be the last.  Goats are efficient workers, environmentally-friendly, and able to work safely and easily in areas that may be dangerous or difficult for humans and heavy equipment.  Best of all, by using goats to clear overgrown landscaping, especially invasive plant life, we are helping pollinators prosper.  Visit EPA’s pollinator protection page to learn more about pollinator health, what EPA is doing, and how you can help!

About the Author:  Sara Ernst is an Oak Ridge Associated Universities contractor and works as the Science Communications Specialist in the Atlantic Ecology Division of EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/29fWCQ5