Eideard

The first plants to take root on dry land may have cooled the Earth enough to bring on a series of ice ages…As plants spread across the continents, they extracted minerals from the rocks they clung to and drew down levels of atmospheric carbon, causing temperatures to drop markedly, the researchers say.

The scenario explains puzzling glaciations that saw ice sheets advance in the Ordovician period between 488m and 444m years ago. At the time, Earth’s continents were clustered over the south pole and stretched as far north as the equator.

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team led by Timothy Lenton at Exeter University describes experiments to investigate the environmental impact of Earth’s first land plants. They took rocks and covered some with moss to mimic the simple plant life that thrived in the Ordovician, then incubated them for three months…

As the plants grew, they dissolved silicate rocks, such as granite, to release calcium and magnesium ions. These ions combine with atmospheric carbon and wash into oceans where they precipitate as carbonate rocks. This process alone might have caused temperatures to fall by around five degrees Celsius.

In another process, plants extracted phosphorus and iron from rocks, but as the plants died these elements would have found their way to the sea. The rise in nutrients there was likely to have fuelled the growth of plankton, microscopic creatures that sequester carbon as they grow and ultimately carry it to the seabed when they die, where it forms rock.

The scientists assumed that 15% of the Earth’s land mass was covered with early plant life, but even with 5% land coverage, the cooling effect would have been substantial, Lenton said.

“Although plants are still cooling the Earth’s climate by reducing the atmospheric carbon levels, they cannot keep up with the speed of today’s human-induced climate change,” Lenton said. “It would take millions of years for plants to remove current carbon emissions from the atmosphere.”

Not that there is much political will for our species to either take responsibility for what we have wrought – or to get serious about countering the process.

It’s easier for politicians and pundits to focus on whining and profits. Two dominant sports of the entertainment society.

Threat as real as most MOD scenarios

The Navy normally provides a minimum coverage of a frigate or destroyer fulfilling the role of Fleet Ready Escort (FRE) in order to be able to respond quickly to a potential threat at home or abroad. However, slashed Defence budgets and the war in Libya has meant there hasn’t been a vessel available since the start of October.

The last ship to fill the role…was HMS Portland but that left for war games off the coast of Scotland in October, and it is now having a rest period in Plymouth on the south coast.

Former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord Alan West said: “…It’s a big problem. If we haven’t got a ship ready to do this role then it’s worrying. It’s a very unsatisfactory position to be in…”

Critics warned the cuts would leave the navy overstretched. Since February nine warships have been deployed to Libya, leaving none left to be on hand in the UK…

Lord West added: “What it shows is that the number of frigates and destroyers we’ve got now is insufficient. We need more ships as a matter of urgency.”

I’m certain my friends in the UK are trembling in their boots.

Hopefully, no one will notify the Duchy of Grand Fenwick of this opportunity for invasion.

Along with its massive high-speed rail network, China has officially surpassed the United States in yet another piece of transportation infrastructure: the world’s longest sea bridge.

The new bridge spans Jiaozhou Bay, on the southern coast of China’s Shandong Peninsula in northeastern China. At 26.4 miles long, it beats Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain Causeway — the previous world-record holder — by at least 2 miles, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Chinese workers toiled at marathon pace to build the bridge in four years, starting at each side and meeting in the middle. The structure has 5,200 pillars and cost at least $2.3 billion, according to Chinese state-run media.

The Guinness officials say the bridge is earthquake- and typhoon-proof, and designed to withstand the impact of a 300,000-ton vessel. It links the port city of Qingdao to the island of Huangdao, cutting drive time from 40 to 20 minutes, according to the state-run China Daily.

Click through to the article. There’s a short video with a helicopter view of the bridge.

A dog rescued off the Japanese coast floating on top of a house is on her way back to her owner Monday.

The dog wagged its tail and jumped up to a woman described by local media as a relative of the owner as she collected her to deliver back to her family for what promises to be a warm reunion.

It turns out the lucky dog’s name is “Ban,” and she was originally living in Kessenuma before being separated from her master after the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and subsequent fire that swept through the coastal village…

An employee at the Miyagi Animal Care Center told CNN by phone that the owner had been staying in a temporary relocation center in Sendai since being evacuated from Kessenuma.

The 50-year-old man reportedly recognized Ban after footage of the brown and black dog was shown being hugged by Japanese rescue workers while being unloaded from a boat in Shiogama Port this past Friday.

Japanese Coast Guard teams had spotted Ban during a helicopter patrol over debris fields nearly two kilometers off shore. When a patrol boat got the hungry and shivering dog, they found no identification on her other than a brown collar.

Best news I’ve read, today.

Regular readers of this blog know how I feel about the importance, positive effects of humans and their companion relationship with other animals. Fortunately – for our species – I think most people feel that way.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

A 60-year-old man has been found on the roof of his floating house nearly 10 miles out at sea, two days after the tsunami that devastated the north-east coast of Japan.

Hiromitsu Shinkawa must have resigned himself to his fate when he was swept away by the retreating tsunami that roared ashore in his home town of Minami Soma in Fukushima prefecture…

Incredibly, he was spotted by a maritime self-defence force destroyer taking part in the rescue effort as he clung to the wreckage with one hand and waved a self-made red flag with the other. He had been at sea for two days.

Reports said that on being handed a drink aboard the rescue boat, Shinkawa gulped it down and immediately burst into tears. His wife, with whom he had returned home as the tsunami approached, is still missing.

He was quoted as saying: “No helicopters or boats that came nearby noticed me. I thought that day was going to be the last day of my life.”

Officials said Shinkawa was in good condition after being taken to hospital by helicopter.

“I ran away after I heard a tsunami was coming,” he told Jiji Press. “But I turned back to fetch something from home and was swept away. I was rescued while hanging on to the roof of my house.”

The self-defence forces said the good weather and calm waters had allowed Shinkawa to stay alive during his 48-hour drift.

We’ve had this discussion before. Some days you have good luck. Some days you have bad luck.

The only silliness that gets added on top of that is prattle about some invisible being or spirit guiding your destiny. Poisonally, I would save up to prepare a hell of a thank-you meal for the folks aboard the Choukai who finally spotted me.

In case you forgot how insignificant nature can make you feel…

Daylife/AP Photo by Luigi Costantini

Global sea level is rising, and faster than expected. We need to honestly discuss this risk rather than trying to play it down.

Measurements from tide gauge stations around the world show that the global sea level has risen by almost 20cm since 1880. Since 1993, global sea level has been measured accurately from satellites; since 1993 figures have shown levels rising at a rate of 3.2cm per decade.

The two main causes of this rise are extra water entering the ocean from melting land-ice and the expansion of ocean water as it gets warmer. Both are inevitable physical consequences of global warming. Both contributions can be estimated independently from satellite and other data, and their sum is consistent with the observed rise. Depending on the time period considered, 50% to 80% of the rise is due to melting ice.

Despite knowing the causes, we cannot predict future sea level rise very well. Particularly uncertain is how ice sheets will respond to warming, as this involves complex flow processes. For example, warming ocean waters destroy the floating tongues of ice that form when glaciers meet the sea. These ice tongues are pinned to rock outcrops and hold back the glacier behind them. When the ice tongue goes, the glacier speeds up its flow. This has happened to the Jakobshavn Isbrae and other glaciers in Greenland as well as many outlet glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that sea level has been rising 50% faster since 1961 than its computer models predict…

Even after we have stopped global warming, sea level rise set in motion by our emissions of the coming decades will continue for centuries. Such is the inertia in the response of the deep ocean and the ice sheets to warming. While we can bail out banks, there is no way to turn back sea level — our only chance is to stop the warming soon enough to keep it within manageable limits.

Hopefully, with full understanding and cooperation – by the end of the century or sooner.

Carole Dunham, 69, loved the ocean. Last July, she was diagnosed with cancer and had only a few months to live. Dunham knew her last footprint had to be a green one, and she started looking into eco-friendly alternatives to traditional burial. Carole Dunham, 69, had her remains memorialized on an offshore reef.

The concept of “going green” has taken new life in the death care industry as eco-minded companies tap into the needs of those like Dunham.

From biodegradable caskets to natural burial sites, death is becoming less of a dark matter than a green one.

Dunham, an avid scuba diver, chose an eco-friendly company that would combine her cremated remains to form an artificial memorial reef.

“She loved the idea of always being in the water as an alternative to being cremated and scattered,” said her daughter Nina Dunham.

Along with its dead, the United States buries 1.6 million tons of reinforced concrete, 827,060 tons of toxic embalming fluid, 90,000 tons of steel (from caskets), and 30 million tons of hardwood board each year, according to the Green Burial Council, an independent nonprofit organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“We can rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge with that amount of metal,” said Joe Sehee, the council’s executive director. “The amount of concrete is enough to build a two-line highway from New York to Detroit.”

RTFA. Plenty of interesting anecdotal detail.

Maybe we’re getting educated?

Traditional salt-making, hand harvesting
Daylife/AFP/Getty Images

In the early 1990s, João Navalho, a microbiologist fresh out of graduate school, came to the salt marshes in the Algarve region with a handful of young partners to grow and harvest microalgae. The business foundered…After years of frustrated effort, the partners suddenly changed course. “We looked around and said, ‘We’re stupid!”‘ Navalho recalled. “We have a lot of land here. What we should do with the salinas is produce salt!”…

Like everything else in this undertaking, the answer was staring them in the face. Living on the edge of the marshes was Maximino António Guerreiro, a sunburned retired salt worker with a grizzled beard and missing teeth, who started harvesting here with his father more than four decades ago.

In 1997, the salt project began. Guerreiro cleaned out and rebuilt the long-abandoned patchwork of rectangular, clay-lined salt beds. With young workers from Eastern Europe, he opened sluices from the sea and set up a damming system to control the water flow. He shared the secrets of salt: how to measure evaporation levels and determine the correct salt density and water temperature, when to add water and to rake and skim.

Two years later, Necton, the salt company that Navalho created here, produced its first salt crop. Now it is one of the region’s new salt pioneers, struggling to revive what was once a flourishing trade in this part of Portugal. They are trying to persuade consumers of the health and taste benefits of handmade, nonindustrial salt and to compete in an increasingly sophisticated global salt market. “Life begins in the ocean,” Navalho said. “What we are selling is ocean salt water without the water. Call it sea dust.”

To many people, salt is salt. But to those for whom it is a gourmet condiment, few varieties compare to the crème de la crème of salt known as fleur de sel, harvested by gently skimming the white, lacy film from the surface of salty beds when weather conditions in summer allow.

RTFA. Lots of interesting history. A fair piece of info about the craft.

I have a favorite sea salt – though I won’t bring it up since it has naught to do with the article. I think all the methods and styles have a place – just like all the denominations of olive oil or where your favorite scallops grow. The flavor is in the taste buds of the taster.

Artist’s rendition added to satellite photo
Daylife/Reuters Pictures

Today, just as they have for centuries, the Dutch need more land to house an expanding population. They also need to confront a new threat to their lands, roughly two-thirds of which lie below sea level: the specter of rising ocean levels associated with global warming.

So a government commission recently proposed pushing out the Netherlands’ shoreline to meet the challenge of an increase in the ocean’s levels; another commission proposed the construction of islands off the Dutch coast, like barrier reefs in the North Sea.

One such commission, inspired by Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which built several islands off its coast to form giant palm trees as part of a major urban development plan, suggested a bit whimsically that the Dutch islands be given the shape of plants, specifically tulips. One waggish blogger, alluding to the Netherlands’ traditional tolerance of marijuana, suggested cannabis leaves instead…

Dutch companies have gained renown in recent years by helping other countries reclaim lands from the sea. In addition to Dubai’s islands, the island for Hong Kong’s international airport was built by Van Oord, the dredging company. So, the Dutch government is asking its engineers and builders to come home and help battle the sea.

“It is better and more economical to extend the coast one kilometer,” or 0.6 of a mile, “into the sea and strengthen the dunes along the seashore by dumping in a lot of sand,” he said.

“In the old days,” he mused, “the dikes were rigid, of concrete, but now we favor a soft coastline, in harmony with nature. It’s a return to the 17th century.”

I have to agree with the folks wanting to extend out from the shoreline. I’ve witnessed a couple of major dredging projects, especially as a lad in New England. They can be a boon to so many aspects of coastal life.