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Analyzing Climate Change On Carbon Rich Peat Bogs

Posted by samzenpus on from the bogged-down dept.

eldavojohn writes "A new report (PDF) from Climate Central shows that climate change has been affecting some states more than others for the past 100 years. As you can see from a video released by NASA, things have become most problematic since the 70s. Among the states most affected is Minnesota, where moose populations are estimated to have dropped 50% in the past six years. Now the U.S. Department of Energy is spending $50 million on a massive project at the Marcell Experimental Forest to build controlled sections of 36 feet wide and 32 feet tall transparent chambers over peatland ecosystems. Although peat bogs only account for 3% of Earth's surface, they contain over 30% of carbon stored in soil. They aim to manipulate these enclosures to see the effects of warming up to 15 degrees, searching for a tipping point and also observing what new ecosystems might arise. The project hopes to draw attention and analysis from hundreds of scientists and researchers around the globe."

3 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. My two cents... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I seriously hope people reduce pollution for the sake of reducing pollution, regardless of whether it helps fight "climate change", "global warming", "intergalactic global warming", or whatever you want to call it. Regardless of the cause, cut pollution for the sake of cutting pollution.

    I hope people take these studies with a grain of salt. There seems to be so much conflicting information out there as to what the cause is or how to reduce it, it seems hopeless. So I'll say this again. Cut pollution for the sake of cutting pollution.

    1. Re:My two cents... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What is so conflicting about people pumping up 75million years worth of hydrocarbons, burning it all over a period of 200 years, releasing a shit load of greenhouse gasses in the process, and nature going out of whack because of it?

      Everybody is trying to figure out what the possible consequences of this are going to be, some predicting the end of the world, others wondering what could possibly go wrong, we've been burning fossil fuel as fast as we can for the past 50 years, and we're still here, right? Wouldn't it be more conservative to play it on the safe side, and find a way away from our gasoline addiction, instead of trying to be the kind of conservative when keeping up the unrestrained growth, consumption, and related pollution? The fact that there are probable consequences of all of this pollution, especially on a scale as large as this, should encourage us to play it safe.

  2. Re:Somewhat welcome news by KeensMustard · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Or your understanding is botched. The purpose of the law is essentially to prevent predictions form climate models being used in planning. See this similar mockup: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/republican/bill-bars-climate-models-in-projecting-sea-levels . It's the projection component of climate models which is specifically barred. In my illustration, this translates to using a GPS to predict when the driver will arrive in Ansonville. Do make this prediction, the GPS baselines various variables (speed, distance to travel, road data) and then predicts when the vehicle will arrive.

    A climate model does the same thing but with many more dimensions. The legislation is based on the notion that climate doesn't change and hence historical trends will be sufficient for predicting future climate. This, as another poster accurately quipped, is like a GPS based on travel times from a 100 years ago.