Microbial species rule the planet, in a couple ways. We know that by mass, oceanic microbes alone make up 90% of the total weight of all oceanic species - that's a huge number of microbes, considering how non-huge these species are. A lot of people are also familiar with how critically important the world's microscopic species are for our survival, and for overall well-being of the earth. But how aware are we of how beautiful they can be?
Today, a talk on the Census of Marine Life opened my eyes to just how unbelievably awesome-looking some of these species are. These photos of newly-discovered microbes are definitely artshow worthy (and beat Andy Warhol any day):
Environmental artist du jour is the late Joseph Frank, whose aim with his crazy/beautiful textiles was to "bring a piece of "nature" into our rooms":
We just finished and presented our research poster on commercial ship noise impacts on the Southern Resident killer whale population's critical habitat.
Check it out:-)
More about our project and the whales&ships team here.
The undergraduate environmental science research group I'm a part of just presented for the first time! We showcased our work at UBC's multidisciplary undergraduate research conference (MURC). Even though we haven't completely finished our results, it was great to just talk about our progress thus far.
See our project website for details on our research on shipping noise impacts on British Columbia's Southern Resident killer whale. Here are some pictures from the day of taken by the wonderful Phillip Jeffrey and Jindra Ryvola:
Whales and Ships crew minus two
The below post is an update from the blog of the environmental science research team I'm on.
See here for a description of the research project.
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After long hours spent in the GIS lab and library playing with our data and poring over literature, we've decided to focus our research on shipping noise impacts on killer whales. More specifically, we're now looking at the noise impacts of various commercial ship types, going at various speeds, have on BC's southern resident (SR) killer whale population. Through our literature scour, we've found that, broadly:
To give you sense of where we're at currently, we've attached a couple of images. Below is one of the images we made during one of our GIS lab adventures that shows the speed distribution of ships coming in and out BC ports around the southern point of Vancouver Island.
Above, red shows upper limit speeds (roughly around 20 knots and higher). Yellow shows mid range speeds (roughly around 10 knots) and blue illustrates lowest speed (roughly around 0 - 10 knots).
Below, we've plotted container shipping routes for one month with 3 years worth of whale distribution to illustrate where container ships come into contact with whale habitat.
killer whale distribution (2008 - 2010) and shipping traffic (August 2008).
Our next steps are identifying categories for the container ships according to size and noise level emitted; figuring out the precise noise range affecting the SR killer whale population; and determining the critical speeds of ships in various categories for negative influence on the SR killer whale population.
Original Climate Science Watch post here.
2010 was a year of wild weather all over the world. Who doesn't remember the torrential monsoon rains that devastated Pakistan, Russia's raging wildfires that wiped out grain crops and burnt forests to a crisp, and the record breaking hot spells that struck around the globe? In short, 2010 was not a very happy weather year for many parts of the world. One place viewed as largely removed from weather calamities is Canada. Northern, cool, wet, and forested, Canada enjoys the prime location and conditions to escape pretty much scot-free from wild weather events. However, the weather of 2010 suggests that Canada may not be as safe and sound as commonly thought.
When volatile weather events strike globally, Canada is often viewed as the lucky nation too northern and cool to be scathed. In spite of this, in extreme weather-filled 2010, even Canada did not escape from the climate's erratic behavior. To ring in 2011, Environment Canada compiled a list of Canada's top ten weather stories which details some quite damaging events. Included here is the Vancouver Winter Olympics-disrupting mild temperatures of (non) winter 2009/2010; Alberta province's devastating July hailstorm during which golf ball - and up to baseball - sized hailstones shattered windows and windshields, stripped trees bare, and decimated crops; and the drought to flood conditions suffered by Canada's breadbasket, the central Prairies. Other weather highlights included monsoon rains on the west coast, near-hurricane conditions in the east, and intense and expensive fires throughout the province of British Columbia. While Canada's 2010 weather experience hardly compares with the large-scale devastation and human life tolls experienced in other nations, it's become clear that the US's northern neighbor is hardly exempt from weather volatility.
We are now capable of making informed scientific statements regarding the influence of human activities on the likelihood of extreme events (75, 76, 77).
As noted previously, computer models can be used to perform the control experiment (no human effects on climate) that we cannot perform in the real world. Using the "unforced" climate variability from a multi-century control run, it is possible to determine how many times an extreme event of a given magnitude should have been observed in the absence of human interference. The probability of obtaining the same extreme event is then calculated in a perturbed climate -- for example, in a model experiment with historical or future increases in greenhouse gases, or under some specified change in mean climate (78). Comparisons of the frequencies of extremes in the control and perturbed experiments allows climate scientists to make probabilistic statements about how human-induced climate change may have altered the likelihood of the extreme event (53, 78, 79). This is sometimes referred to as an assessment of "fractional attributable risk" (78).
Recently, a "fractional attributable risk" study of the 2003 European summer heat wave concluded that <em>"there is a greater than 90% chance that over half the risk of European summer temperatures exceeding a threshold of 1.6 K is attributable to human influence on climate" (78).
This study (and related work) illustrates that the "D&A" [Detection and Attribution] community has moved beyond analysis of changes in the mean state of the climate. We now apply rigorous statistical methods to the problem of estimating how human activities may alter the probability of occurrence [of] extreme events. The demonstration of human culpability in changing these risks is likely to have significant implications for the debate on policy responses to climate change.
As climate scientists learn more about fractional attributable risk, they will be able to know with greater confidence how much of the weather extremes we're seeing can be chalked up to our poor treatment of the atmosphere. Canada is a major greenhouse gas emitter. Hopefully, as Canadians begin to realize that they are not spared from extreme and harmful weather events that are attributable in part to human-caused climate change, they will give stronger support for action on curbing emissions and for preparedness in dealing with climate change impacts.
More on 2010's extreme weather:
"Wouldn't we do better to actually prepare for extreme weather?" Rick Piltz on Al Jazeera, January 5
"Warm Arctic, cold continents" - December 7, 2010
Ben Santer on the attribution of extreme weather events to climate change - November 24, 2010
House Science Committee: one last ‘rational’ climate science hearing?
