Insulation: Very Important
Especially if you are a cat. Insulate, save money, reduce heating costs, save the planet, and the kitties.
“Dark Energy”: Life Beneath The Seafloor
Scientists present recent findings on the subsurface biosphere
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“Who in his wildest dreams could have imagined that, beneath the crust of our Earth, there could exist a real ocean…a sea that has given shelter to species unknown?”
So wrote Jules Verne almost 150 years ago in A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Verne probably couldn’t have imagined the diversity of life that researchers observe today under the ocean floor.
Scientists affiliated with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI) will discuss recent progress in understanding life beneath the seafloor at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting, held in San Francisco from Dec. 3-7, 2012.
Once considered a barren plain dotted with hydrothermal vents, the seafloor and the crust beneath it are humming with microbial life–with “dark energy,” says Katrina Edwards of the University of Southern California, director of C-DEBI.
Seafloor and subseafloor bacteria not only exist, they’re more abundant and diverse than previously thought. The bacteria “feed” on the planet’s oceanic crust, posing questions about ocean chemistry and the co-evolution of Earth and life.
“We now know that this remote region is teeming with microbes, more so than anyone guessed,” says David Garrison, program director in NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences, which funds C-DEBI.
While scientists have estimated that microbes living in deep ocean sediments may represent as much as one-third of Earth’s total biomass, the habitable part of the ocean crust may be ten times as great.
Dark environments appeared to offer little energy for sustaining life. But the abundance of microbes in the subseafloor causes scientists to wonder how long life may have thrived there.
Researchers are working to answer such questions as:
What is the nature of subseafloor microbial communities, and what is their role in the alteration of young ocean crust?
Are these communities unique, especially in comparison with seafloor and sedimentary communities?
Where do microbes in the ocean crust come from–sediment, rock, seawater or another source?
C-DEBI-related sessions at AGU include:
InterRidge Session: The Deep Subseafloor Biosphere
Understanding the subseafloor biosphere and its relationship to energy and material fluxes transported by fluid flow has the potential to answer questions about the evolution of life on Earth. This session provides an opportunity to hear results and ideas from various scientific disciplines.
- OS13A. InterRidge Session on: Deep Subseafloor Biosphere I Posters
Monday 12/3/12 1:40 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.; Hall A-C (Moscone South) - OS22A. InterRidge Session on: Deep Subseafloor Biosphere II
Tuesday 12/4/12 10:20 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.; 3024 (Moscone West) - OS23B. InterRidge Session on: Deep Subseafloor Biosphere III
Tuesday 12/4/12 1:40 p.m. – 3:40 p.m.; 3024 (Moscone West) - OS24B. InterRidge Session on: Deep Subseafloor Biosphere IV
Tuesday 12/4/12 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.; 3024 (Moscone West)
The Deep Biosphere: Recent Progress in Understanding Life in the Deep Subsurface
This interdisciplinary session brings together researchers studying the size, distribution, activity and consequence of a microbial deep biosphere in the Earth’s subsurface. Scientists involved in recent ocean drilling program expeditions and other deep biosphere programs will take part.
- B42C. The Deep Biosphere: Recent Progress in Understanding Life in the Deep Subsurface I
Thursday 12/6/12 10:20 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.; 2004 (Moscone West) - B43G. The Deep Biosphere: Recent Progress in Understanding Life in the Deep Subsurface II Posters
Thursday 12/6/12 1:40 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.; Hall A-C (Moscone South)
InterRidge Session: Fast Moving Research at Slow Spreading Ridges
The range of processes that occurs at slow and ultra-slow spreading ridges has stimulated several multi-national research programs. The findings are relevant for understanding tectonic plate accretion, marine minerals, and chemosynthetic life. With an emphasis on previously overlooked ridge systems in the Northern Hemisphere (Arctic Ridges, Red Sea, Mid-Cayman Rise), and on new findings in the Southern Hemisphere, this session highlights recent results in the geophysical, geological, ocean and life sciences.
- OS11E. InterRidge Session on: Fast Moving Research at Slow Spreading Ridges I
Monday 12/3/12 8:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m; 3011 (Moscone West) - OS12A. InterRidge Session on: Fast Moving Research at Slow Spreading Ridges II
Monday 12/3/12 10:20 a.m – 12:20 p.m.; 3011 (Moscone West) - OS13B. InterRidge Session on: Fast Moving Research at Slow Spreading Ridges III Posters
Monday 12/3/12 1:40 p.m – 6:00 p.m.; Hall A-C (Moscone South) - OS22B. InterRidge Session on: Fast Moving Research at Slow Spreading Ridges IV
Tuesday 12/4/12 10:20 a.m – 12:20 p.m.; 3022 (Moscone West)
Sleeping Hummingbirds Are Adorable
350.org Does The Math
I attended the Do The Math tour last night put on by Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben describes the simple math of global warming:
If we want to avoid a climate catastrophe we need to keep our warming below a 2 degree Celsius rise.
To avoid that we will need to keep the amount of carbon below 565 gigatons of CO2
Current proven reserves of oil/gas/coal are 2795 gigatons of CO2. Five times more than we will need to doom us to runaway global warming.
These companies will dig up and burn that carbon, its how they make money. They should no longer be considered companies, and be reclassified as radical enemies of humanity.
So what do we do with these companies? We go after the only thing they care about.
We need to make schools, colleges, pensions, unions, etc to divest from these companies. We can no longer offer these companies a profit for destroying our earth.
If you are a college who invests in Exxon, what is the point of educating your students if there will not be a viable climate for them to use that education in. If you are a pension fund manager what is the point of investing in Shell if there is no future for your pensioners to use their retirement in.
And if all that wasn’t enough Bill explained it all in a metaphor we can all understand Beer.
Learn how you can get your institutions to divest from these big carbon companies at GoFossilFree.org
The State Of The Climate October 2012
Click to enlarge
NOAA has released its State Of The Climate report for October.
Here are some highlights:
Global Highlights
- The average combined global land and ocean surface temperature for October 2012 tied with 2008 as the fifth warmest October on record, at 0.63°C (1.13°F) above the 20th century average of 14.0°C (57.1°F). Records began in 1880.
- The globally-averaged land surface temperature for October 2012 was the eighth warmest October on record, at 0.92°C (1.66°F) above average. The globally-averaged ocean surface temperature tied with 2004 as the fourth warmest October on record, at 0.52°C (0.94°F) above average.
- The average combined global land and ocean surface temperature for January–October 2012 was the eighth warmest such period on record, at 0.58°C (1.04°F) above the 20th century average.
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