Kilmanjaro ice melt- deforestation more than climate change

"Keipper grabbed his camera just in time to capture a section of Kilimanjaro's massive Furtwängler Glacier spilling onto the same trail his group had ascended the very night before.

Keipper's photos speak for themselves, dramatic proof of a scientific near-certainty: Kilimanjaro's glaciers are disappearing. The ice fields Ernest Hemingway once described as "wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun" have lost 82 percent of their ice since 1912—the year their full extent was first measured.

If current climatic conditions persist, the legendary glaciers, icing the peaks of Africa's highest summit for nearly 12,000 years, could be gone entirely by 2020.

"Just connect the dots," said Ohio State University geologist Lonnie Thompson. "If things remain as they have, in 15 years [Kilimanjaro's glaciers] will be gone."

The Heat Is On

When Thompson's reports of glacial recession on Kilimanjaro first emerged in 2002, the story was quickly picked up and trumpeted as another example of humans destroying nature. It's easy to see why: Ice fields in the tropics—Kilimanjaro lies about 220 miles (350 kilometers) south of the Equator—are particularly susceptible to climate change, and even the slightest temperature fluctuation can have devastating effects.

"There's a tendency for people to take this temperature increase and draw quick conclusions, which is a mistake," said Douglas R. Hardy, a climatologist at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, who monitored Kilimanjaro's glaciers from mountaintop weather stations since 2000. "The real explanations are much more complex. Global warming plays a part, but a variety of factors are really involved."

According to Hardy, forest reduction in the areas surrounding Kilimanjaro, and not global warming, might be the strongest human influence on glacial recession. "Clearing for agriculture and forest fires—often caused by honey collectors trying to smoke bees out of their hives—have greatly reduced the surrounding forests," he says. The loss of foliage causes less moisture to be pumped into the atmosphere, leading to reduced cloud cover and precipitation and increased solar radiation and glacial evaporation.

Evidence of glacial recession on Kilimanjaro is often dated from 1912, but most scientists believe tropical glaciers began receding as early as the 1850s. Stefan L. Hastenrath, a professor of atmospheric studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has found clues in local reports of a dramatic drop in East African lake levels after 1880. Lake evaporation indicates a decrease in precipitation and cloudiness around Kilimanjaro.

"Less cloud coverage lets more sunlight filter through and hit the glaciers," Hastenrath said. "That increase in sunlight then provides more energy for evaporation of the glacier."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0923_030923_kilimanjaroglaciers.html

Climate change - the innocent reaping the consequences

"Climate change is caused by the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) released from burning fossil fuels and from land use change, particularly the removal of forests which accounts for almost 20% of global emissions (more than the transport industry). The countries that developed first, for example the UK, US and France, have emitted vastly more GHGs then the countries currently called ‘developing’, such as Kenya, Namibia and Bangladesh.

Ironically, scientists say that it is the developing countries that will be hardest hit; African countries in particular. A just response to climate change must therefore include a comprehensive compensation package from the developed countries that have polluted the most to the developing countries whose total historical emissions are very low and are the most affected.. Climate change isn’t just about the ‘environment’. People around the world are suffering the effects of climate change now, and for these people climate change is an issue of justice." http://greenbeltmovement.org/w.php?id=98

Global Warming

Ok, so first of all, I think "Global Warming" is a misnomer, and that is being capitalized right now by nay-sayers. It's more accurate to go with "Climate Change." What I want to know is, why it's so important for people not to believe in it? Does it go against your religion? I don't think so. Is it that you don't think God would do something like that to you? That's like me not believing in cancer, I have to say. I don't really care one way or the other if the theory of global warming is "true." I think humans are very destructive to their world, overuse their resources, and it's biting them in the butt. The arguments between the religious and scientific worlds about it are silly to me. One of them that especially gets me is that the religious contingent is putting it off as a normal warming period that happens over the Earth's history. What history? The one that scientists have mapped as being billions of years old? But how's that possible if the Earth is only 6000 years old? So silly. The point is that regardless of what has happened in the past, no matter how long anyone thinks that is - since the 1950's the amount of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere has reached huge heights. It's from cutting trees, which use the carbon from the air, tilling soil, which stores carbon under the surface and burning fossil fuels for energy and plastic products. The main evidence and concern is sea level rise and glacial melt. Have these things happened before? Of course. Is it a natural course of the world? Yes. Does that mean we should ignore it? No. Whether or not we can stop it or slow it down at this point, we need to keep our eyes open and realize that we aren't immune to the powers of nature. We can't just waste our resources when it is very clear that we are rapidly approaching a state of major limitations. Most of the world has already gotten there, and the US is just starting to experience what it means to have the world say, "No, I'm sorry, you can't have everything you want." Maybe the world doesn't care so much about us. Maybe it's just a place, like our houses. Maybe it will go on living or being whatever it is even after we make it inhospitible for ourselves.

I used to think that the Creation/Evolution argument was there so that one side could have an excuse not to learn anything new, and the other side could go on creating technology without a conscience. When taken together, the two sides never seemed mutually exclusive to me. Now, I feel like "Climate Change" and most environmental issues are the same with reversed roles. The science side is seeing the results of their behavior and wanting to correct the mistakes their technology has produced, and the religious side is saying, "No, we want to keep using that technology without a conscience." Why?

I love this picture, because it has so many levels of thought and understanding to it. At first glance, it's this totally awesome picture of blue and white, ocean and sky, awe and power. Looking closer, there's an iceberg poking it's head out of the water's surface. Looking closer, there's the rest of the iceberg, huge and massive lingering below the ocean's surface. I've heard it said that only half of the iceberg is visible above the water, and that people don't realize there is just as much mass sitting below the surface as well. That's what got the Titanic - the mass of iceberg under the water that couldn't be seen. Imagine how cold the water must be to maintain so much ice in it's depths. How quickly might that iceberg disappear if the water heats up even a degree or two? Where will the mass of all that frozen water go when it thaws? Will our descendants ever see this amazing sight?

water inspired art

Pabloe Neruda - water poetry

The Sea

I need the sea, because it touches me.

I don't know if I learn music or awareness,

if it's a single wave or its vast existence,

or only its harsh voice or its shining

suggestion of fishes and ships,

in some magnetic way I move in

the university of waves.

It's not simply the shells crunched

as if some shivering planet

were giving signs of its gradual death;

no, I reconstruct the day out of a fragment,

the stalactite from a sliver of salt,

and the great god out of a spoonful.

What it taught me before, I keep. It's air

ceaseless wind, water and sand.

It seems a small thing for a young man,

to have come here to live with his own fire;

nevertheless, the pulse that rose

and fell in its abyss,

the crackling of the blue cold,

the gradual wearing away of the star,

the soft unfolding of the wave

squandering snow with its foam,

the quiet power out there, sure

as a stone shrine in the depths,

replaced my world in which were growing

stubborn sorrow, gathering oblivion,

and my life changed suddenly:

as I became part of its movement.

A reforestation project in Colombia

"In the early 1980's Gaviotas began planting a Caribbean pine tree in the otherwise barren llanos of eastern Colombia. These trees were able to survive in the highly acidic soil with the help of mycorrhizal fungus applied to their roots. Over the years, this forest has expanded to approximately 8,000 hectares, or 20,000 acres. The presence of the forest has altered the local climate by generating an additional 10 percent rainfall, which also supports Gaviotas' water bottling initiative.

Over the years the pine trees have provided a shady understory for other plants and animals to thrive. Some of these species may be dormant seeds of ancient rainforest that once covered the region. The pines are slowly being crowded out by the regeneration of indigenous species. The community is generating power with turbine engines fueled by the aging pines in their forest."

http://www.friendsofgaviotas.org/Friends_of_Gaviotas/Gaviotas_Forest/Gaviotas_Forest.html

Why a rainforest can't be replanted

Rainforests as we know are in very wet areas. The temperature and humidity are just right here for water to be constantly cycling through the ecosystem. Since water is the major chemical weatherer of soil, this means that these soils get "old" really fast. An old soil means that most of the minerals have been leached out or used up, and all that is left is the skeleton of the minerals that stick around forever. These aren't especially useful to plants, in fact some of them are totally useless to plants. So, this means that the trees that are there are well-established and adapted to living off of the nutrients that are cycling in the their ecosystem. The moisture level and temperature are perfect for supporting so many kinds of life, that they thrive on one another. Unlike most places, the plants and animals that die don't contribute their organic matter (Carbon) to the soil, they contribute it right back into the other plants and animals that come along and instantly consume it. The long and short of it is that planting a new tree in this environment is a pretty fruitless effort. And, since these forests have enormous carbon cycling capabilities, destroying them is like removing the Earth's lungs. People destroy them to make roads, convert land to agriculture and to burn as fuel, because they can't afford another source.

For more extensive information on raiforest issues and how our consumer choices affect them see: http://ran.org/issues/forests/

water and soil

Soil is essential to the hydrologic cycle and the use of water for all life. Soil stores, filters and releases water for future use. When a raindrop hits the earth, it has the potential to either dislodge soil and cause erosion or to infiltrate into the soil to become available to microorganisms, plants, animals and humans. Erosion is mostly caused by the uplifting of soil particles by raindrop impact or wind disruption. Wind can lift soil particles and then sort of bounce them across the surface, causing more soil particles to dislodge. In streams, water creates the same kind of action by carrying sediments, which bounce along the streambed, dislodging other particles, which add to the sediment load of the stream.

Soil is essential to filtering water for almost all uses. In nature, it filters animal excrement and minerals. This means that these things don't enter waterways in toxic concentrations. Some things are filtered by attaching to the clay minerals in the soils or adhering to other soil particles, and others are filtered by the billions of organisms that live in the soil. A new technology called "bioremediation" uses soil microorganisms to clean contaminants out of water, some of which are extremely toxic. For more information on bioremediation, see the USGS page: http://water.usgs.gov/wid/html/bioremed.html.

Human activities such as tilling, running too much livestock and driving cause soil compaction. This reduces the soil's ability to store and filter water. Over fertilizing or fertilizing at the wrong time of the year, causes runoff with pollution loads that are sometimes too great for the soil to effectively filter. This causes pollution in rivers and ultimately the ocean, which creates a chain reaction of algae population explosions followed by massive deaths of aquatic wildlife. This is one reason why no-till practices are starting to become the preferred agricultural practice, especially among organic farmers. It is also being suggested that fertilizer only be applied during the season when the plants will use it, so it isn't wasted. In most cases, the fertilizer is applied in the dormant season, and most of it runs off in the water, rather than being used by plants.

Our new toilet

We got a new, low flow toilet this week. Although I'm always trying to make improvements to our resource use, I am very leery of low flow toilets. My parents were the original water conservationists in my life, and they always replaced their toilets with low flow. The things were much smaller and more space-aged looking back in the 80's, but they weren't the greatest feats of engineering in my opinion. It tended to take two flushes to get things down, and some things just wouldn't budge with the small amount of force and shallow bowl angle of those toilets. My sister developed an entire system of getting difficult deposits to go down the drain. Avoiding the gory details, I'll just say it involved going outside to get a stick and having another person turn the water valve at the wall on and off with just the right timing. The long and short of it was that I don't think we ended up saving water. We probably used more.

So, here we are in 2010. The world is finally figuring out that we need to slow down on our resource use, or at least slow down on the money we spend on resources, and new an improved technology is emerging to help us with this. Enter, our new toilet. It's made by Glacier Bay. We bought it at Home Depot for $98. The box includes the bowl, tank, seat and even the wax ring. We just took it home and installed it. So, the cool thing is that the tank doesn't actually fill. I'm happy for this not only because I think it saves water, but because maybe the tank won't get so icky inside. Instead, there is a sort of bucket at the top of the tank that collects the water. When it is flushed, the bucket dumps the water from this high position, creating the force it needs to flush things down. The height of the seat is also 3" taller than other toilets, so the angle at which things go down is less steep. Yay. Good engineering. So far so good. I'll let you know how it goes.

Global affects of desertification - Millenium Report

From the Millenium Report on Desertification:

"The low level of human well-being and high poverty of dry-
land populations vary according to level of aridity and global
region. This is further exacerbated by high population growth
rates in drylands. For example, the population in drylands grew
at an average rate of 18.5% during the 1990s—the highest
growth rate of any MA system. A number of policy factors also
contribute to the poor human well-being, such as political mar-
ginalization and the slow growth of health and education infra-
structure, facilities, and services. The uneven level of these
driving factors in various locations and at different times has
diverse societal impacts across drylands. The worst situations can
be found in the drylands of Asia and Africa; these regions lag
well behind drylands in the rest of the world. (C22.6.2, C6.6).
Dryland populations are often socially and politically mar-
ginalized due to their impoverishment and remoteness from
centers of decision-making. This holds true even in some indus-
trial countries. As a consequence, these dryland populations are
Regional and Global Consequences of
Desertification beyond Drylands
Desertification has environmental impacts at the global
and regional scale. Affected areas may sometimes be located
thousands of kilometers away from the desertified areas.
Desertification-related processes such as reduction of vegetation
cover, for instance, increase the formation of aerosols and dust.
These, in turn, affect cloud formation and rainfall patterns, the
global carbon cycle, and plant and animal biodiversity. For
example, visibility in Beijing is often adversely affected by dust
storms originating in the Gobi Desert in springtime. Large dust
storms emanating from China affect the Korean peninsula and
Japan and are observed to even have an impact on North Ameri-
can air quality.
An increase in desertification-related dust storms is widely
considered to be a cause of ill health (fever, coughing, and
sore eyes) during the dry season. Dust emanating from the
East Asian region and the Sahara has also been implicated in
respiratory problems as far away as North America and has
affected coral reefs in the Caribbean. "

Full text of report at: http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx

Millenium Report - Desertification

Exerpt from the Millenium report on Desertification:

"Desertification is a result of a long-term failure to balance
demand for and supply of ecosystem services in drylands. The
pressure is increasing on dryland ecosystems for providing ser-
vices such as food, forage, fuel, building materials, and water for
humans and livestock, for irrigation, and for sanitation. This
increase is attributed to a combination of human factors and cli-
matic factors. The former includes indirect factors like popula-
tion pressure, socioeconomic and policy factors, and
globalization phenomena like distortions to international food
markets and direct factors like land use patterns and practices
and climate-related processes. The climatic factors of concern
include droughts and projected reduction in freshwater availabil-
ity due to global warming. While the global and regional inter-
play of these factors is complex, it is possible to understand it at
the local scale.

Some 10–20% of drylands are already degraded (medium cer-
tainty). Based on these rough estimates, about 1–6% of the dry-
land people live in desertified areas, while a much larger number
is under threat from further desertification. Scenarios of future
development show that, if unchecked, desertification and degra-
dation of ecosystem services in drylands will threaten future
improvements in human well-being and possibly reverse gains in
some regions. Therefore, desertification ranks among the greatest
environmental challenges today and is a major impediment to
meeting basic human needs in drylands. "

Himalayan ice melt

The following is quoted from a National Geographic Article by James Owen in 2006:

In India (see map) the Gangotri Glacier, the source of the Ganges (or Ganga) River, is retreating at a rate of 75 feet (23 meters) annually.

The report also noted that air temperatures in the region have risen by 1.8°F (1°C) since the 1970s—twice as much as average warming in other northern hemisphere countries over the same time period.
Jennifer Morgan, director of WWF's Global Climate Change Program, says glacial melting will also increase the volume of water in rivers, causing widespread flooding.

"But in a few decades this situation will change, and the water level in rivers will decline," she added.

Over time, as the glaciers become smaller, seasonal melt will decrease and contribute less water to annual river flows.

For example, researchers at the National Institute of Hydrology in Roorkee, India, estimate that reduced glacier meltwater would cut July-through-September river flow of the Ganges by two-thirds.

This decline would leave 500 million people and 37 percent of India's irrigated land short of water.

Raindrop formation

Raindrops are formed when water inside a cloud condenses onto a nucleus. Other water molecules are attracted to the nucleus and the to each other, and they also condense. A nucleus can be a particle of ice, dust or pollution. As the mass of the droplet increases, the raindrop becomes heavier and may start to fall toward the earth. Most raindrops evaporate back into the air before hitting the ground. In order for a raindrop to hold together and become "rain," the droplet has to be between 0.5 and 5 mm. Some scientists think that all raindrops actually start out as ice or snow and melt on the way to the ground.

Global water distribution

This is the best image I could find for showing where the water on our planet is. This image is from someone in India. It suggests that freshwater lakes and streams are "renewable." I would change that word to "rechargeable." New water isn't being created, it's just being redeposited or redistributed.

The Hydrologic Cycle

Double-click on this image to get

a good look at the basic ways water travels through land, plants, streams, oceans and the atmosphere. For a brief explanation of the hydrologic cycle, see: http://www.buffer.forestry.iastate.edu/Photogallery/illustrations/Images/Hydrologic-Cycle.jpg

Joining the blogosphere

This is my first blog. I don't love writing about myself, so I haven't blogged before, but it has been suggested that I start a blog about water and other natural resources, so that sounds good to me. As I get this thing figured out more, I'll post things I learn, answers to questions (if I can) and recommend, books, movies and articles about water and other natural resource issues and ideas for solving them.