Freaky Fanged Frog Discovered in the Philippines

By UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS AUGUST 21, 2021

Mindoro Fanged Frog

Genetic samples of the new frog, known scientifically as Limnonectes beloncioi (or commonly as the Mindoro Fanged Frog), were collected years ago by KU scientists working in the field on Mindoro Island in the central Philippines but weren’t analyzed until recently. Credit: Scott Travers

Researchers at the University of Kansas have described a new species of fanged frog discovered in the Philippines that’s nearly indistinguishable from a species on a neighboring island except for its unique mating call and key differences in its genome.

The KU-led team has just published its findings in the peer-reviewed journal Ichthyology & Herpetology.

“This is what we call a cryptic species because it was hiding in plain sight in front of biologists for many, many years,” said lead author Mark Herr, a doctoral student at the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum and Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. “Scientists for the last 100 years thought that these frogs were just the same species as frogs on a different island in the Philippines because they couldn’t tell them apart physically. We ran a bunch of analyses — and they do indeed look identical to the naked eye — however, they are genetically isolated. We also found differences in their mating calls. They sound quite different. So, it was a case of using acoustics to determine that the species was different, as well as the new genetic information.”

Genetic samples of the new frog, known scientifically as Limnonectes beloncioi (or commonly as the Mindoro Fanged Frog), were collected years ago by KU scientists working in the field on Mindoro Island in the central Philippines but weren’t analyzed until recently. Because of its nearly identical physical similarity to a fanged frog on the island of Palawan, called Acanth’s Fanged Frog, it was assumed to be the same species.

Giant Luzon Fanged Frog

The Giant Luzon fanged frog, Limnonectes macrocephalus (from Luzon Island), has fangs similar to the Mindoro Fanged Frog. Credit: Rafe Brown

“You can look at two different things, but to the human eye without intensive investigation they might seem the same,” Herr said. “So, we took a bunch of measurements of hundreds of these frogs — how long their digits were specifically, how wide the tip of their toe was, the length of one specific segment of their leg, the diameter of their eye — in order to compare populations statistically, even if we thought they look the same. We ran statistical analyses on body shape and size, including a principal component analysis which uses all the measurements at once to compare the frog morphology in multivariate space. After all that, just like the scientists before us, we found nothing to differentiate the frogs based on the shape of their bodies and their size.”

However, because the fanged frogs inhabit islands separated by miles and miles of ocean, the researchers had doubts they were the same species, in part because they had different-sounding calls. They decided to analyze the frogs’ genome and determined the Mindoro Fanged Frog qualified as its own distinct species.

“We ran genetic analyses of these frogs using some specific genetic markers, and we used a molecular clock model just to get a very basic estimate how long we thought that these frogs may have been separated from one another,” Herr said. “We found they’re related to each other, they are each other’s close relatives, but we found they’d been separate for two to six million years — it’s a really long time for these frogs. And it’s very interesting that they still look so similar but sound different.”

The KU graduate student specializes in studying the many species of fanged frog across Southeast Asia, where he’s carried out extensive fieldwork. He said the frogs’ fangs likely are used in combat for access to prime mating sites and to protect themselves from predators. The Mindoro Fanged Frog, a stream frog, is sometimes hunted by people for food.

But the frog’s characteristic call, different from Acanth’s Fanged Frog, proved difficult for researchers to record.

“They’re really wary of us when we’re out there with our sound recorders trying to get recordings of these frogs — that’s a really tough aspect, and we were lucky in this project that we had people over many years that were out there and had recorded both of these frogs on Palawan and Mindoro. So, we had recordings from both islands, and that’s kind of rare with this group of fanged frogs because people eat them. They call at night, but the second a flashlight or human voice wanders into the equation they’re just going to take off — because they know that they can be killed by people.”

Herr’s description of the Mindoro Fanged Frog continues a long tradition of KU field research into the herpetological biodiversity of the Philippines and Southeast Asia, according to his faculty adviser Rafe Brown, professor of ecology & evolutionary biology and curator-in-charge of the Herpetology Division of the Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum.

“Mark’s discovery reinforces a lesson we’ve learned over and over through the years — things we thought we knew, combined with new information, emerge to teach us something completely unexpected,” Brown said. “A century ago, KU professor Edward Taylor identified the Mindoro Island population as Acanth’s Fanged Frog, the same species as he had named, a few years before, from Palawan Island — an arrangement that made very little sense. Zoom forward a hundred years, and we find with new technology, genetic information and bioacoustic data that the two islands’ populations are actually very well-differentiated, as we would expect. But not morphologically; their physical characteristics have not diverged. This is a case in which the formation of species has not been accompanied by morphological differentiation — so called ‘cryptic speciation.’”

Reference: “A New, Morphologically Cryptic Species of Fanged Frog, Genus Limnonectes (Amphibia: Anura: Dicroglossidae), from Mindoro Island, Central Philippines” by Mark W. Herr, Johana Goyes Vallejos, Camila G. Meneses, Robin K. Abraham, Rayanna Otterholt, Cameron D. Siler, Edmund Leo B. Rico and Rafe M. Brown, 13 April 2021, Ichthyology & Herpetology.

DOI: 10.1643/h2020095

Herr’s co-authors on the new paper are Brown; KU graduate students Johana Goyes Vallejos and Robin Abraham; Camila Meneses of the University of the Philippines at Los Baños; Rayanna Otterholt of Haskell Indian Nations University; Cameron Siler of the University of Oklahoma; and Edmund Leo B. Rico of the Center for Conservation Innovations and College of Sciences De La Salle University-Dasmariñas, Philippines.

When Greenland was green: rapid global warming 55 million years ago shows us what the future may hold

                              Milo Barham, Author provided

August 23, 2021 

Frozen northeast Greenland seems an unlikely place to gain insight into our ever-warming world. Between 50 million and 60 million years ago, however, the region was a different place.

Back then Greenland had a subtropical climate befitting of its name. It was host to volcanic activity that restructured the land and ocean connections and drove rapid warming.

The abrupt global warming event 56 million years ago, known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), is often used as a worrying analogue for our current climate crisis.

Our research, published today in Communications Earth and Environment, provides crucial details about the event — with a focus on Greenland’s role in it.

Read more: Volcanic emissions caused the warmest period in past 56m years – new study

Lessons from Earth’s past

About 56 million years ago, increased volcanic activity resulted in the eruption of huge volumes of molten rock, in a vast area surrounding what would eventually become Iceland. Underground, the magma essentially “cooked” sediments rich in organic material, converting the stored carbon into gas.

This led to trillions of tonnes of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere. It drove an increase in ocean acidity and a rise in global temperatures to the tune of 5-8℃.

The environmental and ecological consequences were immense. Mass extinctions and animal migrations took place over just a few thousand years. Fast-forward to the release of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, and there has never been a greater need to understand Earth’s climate systems.

The geological record provides an opportunity to learn from past climate events that occurred on a timescale far longer than human lifespans or any written history.

Most importantly, it could forewarn us of the outcomes of Earth’s current climate upheaval which is unfolding much more rapidly.

Greenland’s exotic land

Northeast Greenland is the world’s largest national park, and one of the most remote and unexplored areas on the planet.

For our study, we set out to map the environmental evolution and geographic response to volcanic activity throughout the PETM event in northeast Greenland. Volcanic activity has been identified as the “smoking gun” for what drove the PETM warming.

Greenland also acted as a gatekeeper for the once-narrow seaway that connected the Arctic and Atlantic oceans (before movement of the tectonic plates opened the Atlantic more fully).

Greenland therefore played a significant role in regulating climate-critical ocean connections. These channels control the distribution of heat, dissolved gasses such as oxygen and carbon dioxide, nutrients and moisture in the atmosphere.

Midnight sunset in the pristine northeast Greenland wilderness. Milo Barham

Our international team of geologists carefully mapped sediments and lava flows onshore in northeast Greenland, and in rock cores extracted from the nearby sea bed.

We identified and dated various microscopic plant and plankton fossils, which provided detailed information about the environment they would have lived in. This was combined with findings gleaned from tracing the echoes of sound waves under the seabed.

By measuring how sound waves are reflected by buried sediment, we mapped the thickness and development of the geological layers. This revealed how the landscape, now partly covered by ocean, evolved over time.

With this, we carefully resurrected an image of northeast Greenland as it was between 47 and 63 million years ago.

A hotter, wetter planet

We discovered that around the time of the PETM, volcanic uplift turned deeper marine environments around northeast Greenland into shallow estuaries, rivers and vegetated swampy floodplains.

Some carbonised fossil leaf impressions in finely laminated sediment, retrieved from the Wollaston Forland peninsula in northeast Greenland. Jussi Hovikoski

Around 56 million years ago lava began erupting across the region, building volcanic rock piles hundreds of metres high. As successive lava flows emerged, the hot, wet climate of the time eventually caused the surface to break down into a red soil called laterite.

Dr Steven Andrews inspecting the boundary between successive lava flows in Wollaston Forland in northeast Greenland. The faint red band directly above the geologists head represents the eruption surface of a lava flow that was broken down into laterite by the hot wet climate. Milo Barham

Our data from northeast Greenland are consistent with broader Arctic greenhouse reconstructions of the time. Both paint a picture of lush, swampy woodlands inhabited by cold-blooded reptiles, primates and hippo-like beasts unlike anything you’d see in today’s cooler world.
Ocean gateways and land bridges

Our work also reconstructs seabed uplift, and the emergence of large areas of land from the ocean. This is important as it would have caused a severe obstruction of the seaway that separated Greenland and Norway.

Such blockages are bad news. We know from the geological record that if critical ocean circulation stops, it can lead to dangerously acidic and oxygen-starved oceans, as well as enhanced climate disturbance.

That said, when the flow of water between the Atlantic and Arctic was constricted because of emerging land during the PETM, there was more opportunity for plants and animals to move around. The continental connection allowed species to migrate into cooler climates and escape the effects of the warming

.

This schematic diagram of the Arctic 50 to 60 million years ago shows how volcanic uplift would have narrowed the seaway between Greenland and Norway, restricting ocean exchange and consequently boosting flora and fauna migration. modified from Ron Blakey (2021) - https://doi.org/10.4138/atlgeol.2021.002 and Jussi Hovikoski et al. (2021) - https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00249-w

Back to the future

Today’s environments have been largely broken up by human activity through agriculture and urbanisation, which gives species under environmental stress less opportunity to move elsewhere to survive any change.

And although we’re still some way from matching the overall volume of greenhouse gas emissions released during the PETM, today’s emission rates are rising almost ten times faster. Our ecosystems are already displaying signs of destabilisation.

Recent studies have warned of weakening ocean circulation, which may lead to climatic tipping points. Without urgent intervention, the unfolding climate and ecological crisis could prove to be a far greater burden than the world can bear.

Authors

Milo Barham
Senior Lecturer, Curtin University

Jussi Hovikoski
Senior scientist, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland

Michael B.W. Fyhn
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland
Disclosure statement

Milo Barham works is a Senior Lecturer at Curtin University. He has received funding from industry partners and state geoscience bodies. He is affiliated with the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group and The Institute of Geoscience Research at Curtin University.

Jussi Hovikoski works as a Senior Scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. He has received funding from GEUS, Greenland authorities and industry.

Michael B.W. Fyhn works as Senior Scientist for the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS). He receives funding from GEUS, Greenlandic Authorities and industry.
Partners



Curtin University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

Rise and fall of water blisters offers glimpse beneath Greenland’s thick ice sheet

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: A STUDY LED BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS FOUND THAT AS MELTWATER LAKES ON THE SURFACE OF GREENLAND’S ICE SHEET (PICTURED) RAPIDLY DRAIN, THEY CREATE WATER BLISTERS BETWEEN THE ICE AND THE BEDROCK THAT SCIENTISTS COULD USE TO UNDERSTAND THE HYDROLOGICAL NETWORK BELOW GREENLAND’S THICK INLAND ICE SHEET. THESE NETWORKS COULD AFFECT THE STABILITY OF THE ICE SHEET AS EARTH’S CLIMATE WARMS. view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE FROM GOOGLE EARTH

Water “blisters” trapped beneath the thick interior of Greenland’s ice sheet could provide critical insight into the hydrological network coursing deep below Earth’s second largest body of ice — and how it might be destabilized by climate change, according to a new study.

Each year, thousands of natural meltwater lakes form on the surface of the ice sheet’s high-elevation interior, where ice can be more than a half-mile thick. As these lakes drain, they form large water-filled cavities between the ice and the bedrock.

By combining field observations with mathematical models and laboratory experiments, Princeton University-led researchers discovered that these blisters push the surface of the ice upward, then cause it to gradually drop down as the water permeates into the subglacial drainage system, according to a report in the journal Nature Communications.

The team shows for the first time that the rise and fall of the ice sheet caused by rapid lake drainages can be used to estimate a property known as transmissivity, which characterizes the efficiency of the water networks that form between the ice and the bedrock. Lake drainage presents a new tool for gauging transmissivity beneath inland regions of the ice sheet, where transmissivity is otherwise difficult to measure, the researchers reported. They found that transmissivity can increase by as much as two orders of magnitude during Greenland’s summer melt season.

The findings could shed light on how climate change will affect Greenland’s vast frozen interior as the planet warms and surface melting increases, said first author Ching-Yao Lai, an assistant professor of geosciences and atmospheric and oceanic sciences at Princeton. Water from surface melting can act as a lubricant, she said, causing the glacier to slide more easily across the bedrock.

Existing research has shown that a major way for surface melting to impact the stability of the Greenland ice sheet is by meltwater lubricating the ice-sheet bed, Lai said. The majority of these studies, however, have focused on low-elevation areas where the ice sheet is thinner. Previous studies also have suggested that increased surface melt could accelerate the velocity of the high-elevation, interior ice sheet, but these findings are based on computational models, rather than observations, Lai said.

The paper in Nature Communications provides a rare, observation-based glimpse into the largely inaccessible water networks underlying Greenland’s high-elevation ice sheet. The study was supported by Princeton’s High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) and the HMEI Carbon Mitigation Initiative.

“We know that as the climate warms in the future, the surface melt zone can expand and migrate to higher elevations than currently observed. A big question that remains to be answered, however, is how much transmissivity can increase further inland,” said Lai, who is an associated faculty member in HMEI.

“A potential impact is that the link between surface melt and subglacial water-network development could be activated not only at lower elevations, as currently observed, but also at higher elevations,” she said. “More observations of seasonal changes of subglacial transmissivity in response to surface melting would be needed to really understand what would happen when melt migrates to higher elevation regions.”

Co-authors of the paper from Princeton are HMEI associated faculty member Howard Stone, Princeton’s Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Danielle Chase, a graduate student in Stone’s Complex Fluids Group.

The study co-authors also included Laura Stevens, an associate professor of climate and earth surface processes at the University of Oxford who has extensive experience studying lake drainages and ice dynamics. Stevens helped collect the field observations in Greenland with co-authors Mark Behn, an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at Boston College, and Sarah Das, an associate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Timothy Creyts from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University also is a co-author on the study.

The researchers used GPS data and field observations of five lake-drainage events that occurred between 2006-12 to estimate drainage volume and to observe surface displacements caused by lake drainage and subsequent blister formation.

“We observed in the GPS data a wide range of ice-sheet uplift relaxation times following the five drainage events,” Stevens said. “We had an inkling that this spread in relaxation times might be indicative of some characteristic of the subglacial drainage system. Our understanding was significantly improved as this collaboration between researchers with expertise in observational, theoretical and experimental approaches catalyzed.”

Chase — who received a HMEI Walbridge Fund Graduate Award to study fluid-driven fracturing — then designed a series of experiments using a type of silicone that mimics the deformable ice overtop a porous material that represents the bedrock. She injected fluid between the deformable sheet and the porous substrate, observing the time it took for a blister to form and then drain into the porous substrate. Working with Stone and Lai, Chase also developed a mathematical model that explains the physics that govern the surface uplift and relaxation due to water blister formation. Her work is the topic of a paper recently accepted by the journal Physical Review Fluids.

“Experiments can be helpful because, in the lab, we can control and measure all the parameters in the system, which allowed us to test our model,” Chase said. “We also can choose ideal materials. The system is small enough to be held in one hand and the material is transparent, so we were able to directly observe the shape of the blister and the drainage into the porous substrate over time.”

The study is unique for using laboratory experiments to investigate natural processes such as blister formation that are difficult to analyze in the field where researchers cannot control the parameters.

“It is valuable to have laboratory models to better understand the mechanisms behind the complex shape changes that occur in nature,” Stone said. “Here, the laboratory experiments captured the main mechanical features observed in the field and helped us understand the relaxation of the ice sheet as water drains along the glacial bed.”

The paper, “Hydraulic transmissivity inferred from ice-sheet relaxation following Greenland supraglacial lake drainages,” was published in Nature Communications. The work was supported by Lamont Postdoctoral Fellowships from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship; the NSF Office of Polar Programs (OPP-1643970) and Cryospheric Sciences Program (OPP-1838410, ARC-1023364, ARC-0520077, and NNX10AI30G); NASA (NNX16AJ95G); the Vetlesen Foundation; the High Meadows Environmental Institute and the HMEI Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University; and the Princeton University Library Open Access Fund.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-021-24186-6 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Hydraulic transmissivity inferred from ice-sheet relaxation following Greenland supraglacial lake drainages

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Jun-2021

VIDEO  

https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/797324

 

CAPTION

Meltwater-filled cavities push the surface of the ice sheet upward (left), then cause it to gradually drop down (right) as the water permeates the subglacial drainage system. This rise and fall can be used to estimate a property of the subglacial drainage system known as transmissivity.

CREDIT

Image by Ching-Yao Lai, Department of Geosciences

 

CAPTION

The study used GPS observations of surface uplift caused by lake drainage events. Above, meltwater lakes on the surface (left) empty through fractures in the ice sheet (right). Water from surface melting can act as a lubricant that loosens the ice sheet’s grip on the ground.

CREDIT

Photos from Sentinel-2 imagery

Nuclear storage plans for north of England stir up local opposition

Communities react with shock to news they are being considered as locations for underground facility

A banner protesting against a proposal to build a nuclear waste facility in

 the Lake District. Photograph: Alamy

Tommy Greene
Mon 23 Aug 2021 18.12 BST

The long-running battle to build an underground nuclear waste facility in the north of England has run into fresh problems, as communities reacted with shock to the news that they were being considered as locations.

The north-east port town of Hartlepool is one of the sites in the frame as a potential site for a geological disposal facility (GDF), while a former gas terminal point at Theddlethorpe, near the Lincolnshire coast, is another. Cumbria, where much of the waste is stored above ground, is also being considered.

Victoria Atkins, a government minister and the MP for Louth and Horncastle, said she was “stunned” by the prospect that her constituency could host a GDF, claiming that the Conservative-controlled Lincolnshire county council’s engagement with the government’s radioactive waste management group had been kept hidden from her.

The facility is intended to deal with the long-running problem of nuclear waste storage by providing a safe deposit for approximately 750,000 cubic metres of high-activity waste hundreds of metres underground in areas thought to have suitable geology to securely isolate the radioactive material. The waste would be solidified, packaged and placed into deep subterranean vaults. The vaults would then be backfilled and the surrounding network of tunnels and chambers sealed.

The UK would be following the example of Finland, where a geological repository for high-level spent nuclear fuel is under construction at Olkiluoto. A handful of other countries are considering similar schemes in an attempt to tackle the long-term dilemma of radioactive waste management.

Between 70% and 75% of the UK’s high-activity radioactive waste, which would be designated for the GDF, is stored at the Sellafield facility in west Cumbria. The sources of the waste include power generation, military, medical and civil uses.

Existing international treaties prohibit countries from exporting the waste overseas, leading some scientists to argue for underground burial that, they say, would require no further human intervention once storage is complete.

Politicians first started talking about a GDF in the 1980s. This latest attempt would need a public consultation plus varying levels of approval, and would mean that, at the earliest, waste could be deposited there in the 2040s. It would resolve the long-term dilemma of radioactive waste storage “for a generation”, according to Prof Geraldine Thomas, a molecular pathologist at Imperial College London who also sits on the government’s radioactive waste management committee (RWM).

“People sometimes think storage will mean a lot more waste is going to accrue from new nuclear activity. But, actually, new nuclear developments are producing less and less waste. And we’ve got so much legacy waste that we need to get on and do something about it soon.”

Alongside job creation and investment promises, financial incentives worth £1m and £2.5m are on offer for communities that sign up to the engagement process, which has already led to nominations for two Cumbrian boroughs. Drop-in sessions are being held across Copeland and Allerdale by area-specific working groups that would help deliver the GDF.

“We try to stress as best we can that engagement does not commit communities to anything and they can always pull out at a later stage,” said Steve Reece, head of siting at the RWM. “We see it more as the beginning of a long journey.”

However, the proposals have stirred up strong local feeling among both community leaders and residents, and accusations of secrecy have been levelled at councils and the RWM in recent weeks.

In north-east England, the political fallout generated by news of the GDF “early stage” discussions triggered the resignation of Hartlepool council’s deputy leader, Mike Young, on Tuesday evening.

“We are making huge strides in Hartlepool and across Teesside and Darlington,” the Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, said following the decision. “And the last thing we need as we sell our region to the world is to be known as the dumping ground for the UK’s nuclear waste.”

Cumbria county council, which resisted the last efforts to site a GDF locally in 2013, has declined to take part in either of the two existing working groups, saying its involvement would give the process “a credibility it doesn’t deserve”.

There is already considerable opposition from local groups. “The vast majority of people here are horrified by the GDF,” said Jane Bright, a Mablethorpe resident and spokesperson for the Guardians of the East Coast campaign. “I should think it’s no more welcome elsewhere. But there’s a lot of pride in this area and we’ll fight this for as long as it takes.”

Marianne Birkby, a Cumbrian resident and founder of the Radiation-Free Lakeland group, said: “We’re seen as the line of least resistance here. In Cumbria, we’ve been there before with this. Now people are now trying to get their heads around it again, in the middle of a pandemic. This dump would essentially make us a sacrifice zone to the nuclear industry.”

 British Columbia

From open burning to open dialogue, these actions can mitigate the climate crisis, scientists say

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Modern technology, age-old practices and greater

 connectivity and communication offer hope

Bridgette Watson · CBC News · Posted: Aug 23, 2021 

Climate change is expected to exacerbate wildfires, with estimates of anywhere from a 74 to 118 per cent increase in Canadian land burned by 2100. British Columbians are already experiencing the impact as raging fires lay waste to large swaths of land and poison the air. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

Beaches and Mountains is an audio series exclusive to CBC Listen's On Demand streaming platform hosted by scientist Johanna Wagstaffe and storyteller Rohit Joseph.

It explores the many connections between our favourite natural spaces to be in, why they matter to us as humans, and how we have to fight to preserve them in the face of climate change. 

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The writing is on the wall that climate change is already taking its toll on British Columbians.

Rising sea levels, raging fires and crop-crippling drought have, or will, affect livelihoods and alter the beautiful landscapes that provide recreation and respite to so many.

Yet as the coast erodes, the province burns and people choke on smoke, climate experts say there are some actions that have been taken — and some that still could be — to help combat the problems we are seeing now and whatever damage is yet to come.

• As B.C. bakes and burns, residents say their climate anxiety is peaking

"We have to find hope," says Alan Shapiro, a B.C.-based ocean scientist and environmental consultant. 

Fortunately, he has.

Solutions at sea

Shapiro says in the last year, he has seen an emergence of businesses and solutions that are "genuinely trying to engage" with climate change challenges.

He says one of the best homegrown solutions-based ideas he has seen so far is in Victoria, where a company has developed unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) that can remain at sea for months and collect data.

Open Ocean Robotics, founded by former National Geographic explorers Julie and Colin Angus, is using the data collected to help plot fuel-efficient shipping routes, learn more about rising sea levels and temperatures, monitor for oil spills and track illegal fishing and dumping. 

• Q&A
  Rising sea levels a threat to Metro Vancouver, prof says

A West Vancouver Secondary School holds a sign that says "Like the ocean, we rise" during a climate protest event in 2019. Sea levels could rise by as much as two metres by 2100 in a worst-case scenario involving melting ice caps and high CO2 emissions. (Rafferty Baker/CBC)

The information is also critical for scientists.

"Just even understanding climate impacts on oceans, we need more data," says Shapiro. "They're helping us by mapping the oceans, especially in this time of climate change."

Fight fire with fire

While robots monitor sea levels — which are expected to rise half a metre by 2050 — many British Columbians are, right now, more worried about fire than water.

Thousands of people have fled or are on edge as wildfires rip through the Interior, and while it is starting to feel like a seasonal normality, experts say it doesn't have to be.

For generations, Indigenous people used controlled burning to get rid of underbrush and other excess fire fuel that could enable a wildfire to grow out of control.

Former Yuneŝit'in government chief Russell Myers Ross, who leads his community's fire management program, told CBC in July those burns are also a way for Indigenous people to regain knowledge lost to colonialism.

• Thousands could die and costs could reach billions if wildfire response doesn't change, scientists say

"This is something that has been done by our ancestors for hundreds of years, if not longer," he said. "It's a real chance for us to regain that practice."

Carli Pierrot watches firefighters working to control part of the Sparks Lake wildfire complex burning on Skeetchetsn territory, near Kamloops, B.C., on July 14. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Fire ecologist Robert Gray says it's time the province works with Indigenous people to put that knowledge into action. He says it is a long-term solution that can work.

"Historically, average fire size was less than 50 hectares and we can actually get back to that," said Gray.

As of Sunday, more than 8,600 square kilometres of B.C. has burned since April 1.

Spread the word

While it may sound like a small contribution, talking to other people about the climate dilemma is important, Shapiro says. He says research shows most deniers who change their minds, or people who start to engage more with the topic, do so because of human interaction.

"Helping people convert climate into concrete instead of this abstract climate change crisis that we're not engaged with, I think that's the biggest thing that we can do as individuals," says Shapiro.

Thousands of demonstrators attend a climate strike in Vancouver in 2019. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

A silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic is how it created a shared experience people all over the world can speak to each other about, he said. It also brought international leaders and policy makers together to tackle something that put everyone on the planet in jeopardy.

• 10 tips for talking with kids about climate change

This increased connectivity and communication could come in handy, says Shapiro.

"That shared experience, I think, is such a great jumping-off point for the kinds of collaborations we need for climate work," he said.

28:03Episode 3: How to help our beaches and mountains

Heat domes, wildfires, melting snow packs and rising sea levels. In this final episode, Johanna and Rohit will examine the consequences of climate change that will forever change our relationship with beaches and mountains. The solutions are there, from business innovation to Indigenous stewardship, they just need to be taken. This episode features the voices of Alan Shapiro, Nathan Gillet, Robert Gray, Karen Hodges, Mike Greer, Menetiye Eliot, James McGuire, and Kwulasultun. 28:03

With files from Rohit Joseph, Johanna Wagstaffe and Ethan Sawyer

Investors see green hydrogen advancing as China signals support

Bloomberg News | August 23, 2021 

Image: Joseph Brent | Flickr Commons.

Chinese investors see potential for further gains in companies making equipment needed to produce or use green hydrogen, a clean energy source most governments are betting will help them meet mid-century climate targets.


The sector has so far offered a haven from government crackdowns on technology and education companies that Beijing blames for exacerbating inequality and increasing financial risk. As China tightens oversight, industries driving growth through innovation and technology are seen gaining support.

“Hydrogen power is one of the ultimate solutions to achieve net-zero emissions,” said Li Weiqing, fund manager at JH Investment Management, which purchased shares of LONGi Green Energy Technology Co. due to the company’s hydrogen investments. The sector will get “heavy policy support.”

Although a surge in hydrogen-related stocks earlier this month that buoyed shares of companies like fueling-station equipment maker Houpu Clean Energy Co. and fuel cell engine maker Zhongshan Broad Ocean Motor Co. has leveled off, there remains plenty of upside potential, according to Li.

Government support for green hydrogen isn’t likely to come through direct central government subsidies, according to Xiaoting Wang, a BloombergNEF analyst based in San Francisco, who cited the high cost of that approach. Rather, Beijing will support large state-backed firms developing the energy.

However, the sector is benefiting as local governments, including Beijing and Inner Mongolia, introduce strategies aimed at cultivating green hydrogen firms to show compliance with net-zero targets. China will account for about two-thirds of the world’s electrolyzers, the equipment used to produce hydrogen by separating water, by the end of 2022, according to BNEF.

More than 20 provinces and 40 cities in China have published development plans worth trillions of yuan for hydrogen energy facilities, according to the state-run Economic Daily. The country delivered 558 fuel-cell buses in the first six months of 2021, compared with 17,000 battery electric buses deployed in the second quarter of this year alone, according to BNEF.

(With assistance from Jeff Sutherland)

China Muscles In on Middle East Renewables With Alcazar Deal

Nicolas Parasie
Mon, August 23, 2021,


(Bloomberg) --

China is making one of its biggest pushes yet into Middle Eastern renewable energy.

A group led by state power firm China Three Gorges Corp. is buying Alcazar Energy Partners, a Dubai-based wind and solar developer. The announcement on Monday confirmed a Bloomberg News report last week.

While financial details weren’t disclosed, Bloomberg reported earlier that a deal could value Alcazar at about $1 billion, including debt.

“The region has really high growth prospects,” Daniel Calderon, Alcazar’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Alcazar and its backers saw a large number of bidders and selected a “blue-chip investor” with a strategy to grow the portfolio in the region.

The deal could serve as a springboard for China to increase clean energy investments in the Middle East. Chinese companies have put their money into oil and gas in the likes of Iraq and the United Arab Emirates for years, but have rarely invested in renewables.

Previous Chinese investments include JinkoSolar Holding Co. and Jinko Power Technology Co., two affiliated solar-panel makers, taking minority stakes in solar projects in the UAE.

Power Grids

Several Middle Eastern governments, including the major oil producers in the Persian Gulf, are trying to cut the use of fossil fuels in their power grids. China Three Gorges South Asia Investment Ltd., or CSAIL, the unit leading the Alcazar transaction, said the region could attract $175 billion of clean-energy investments in the next decade.

Founded in 2014, Alcazar has projects in Egypt and Jordan with a total generation capacity of around 410 megawatts. Its investors include a fund linked to Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co., Dubai-based BluStone Management Ltd. and the World Bank’s International Finance Corp.

Alcazar’s projects have helped power 275,000 households and saved over 15.6 million tons of carbon dioxide, according to Calderon. He was previously an executive at Masdar, an Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy firm owned by Mubadala, and General Electric.

CSAIL is an overseas investment company controlled by China Three Gorges. Its aim is to acquire and develop renewable power assets, primarily in Asia. The IFC and Chinese sovereign wealth fund Silk Road are minority shareholders.

China Three Gorges listed its renewable energy subsidiary earlier this year in Shanghai, raising $3.6 billion. It has been acquiring foreign assets for more than a decade. Since early 2020, it’s invested roughly 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in Spanish solar projects.

Standard Chartered Plc advised Alcazar on the deal. They began a strategic review last year, with the process taking longer than expected due to the coronavirus pandemic.

CSAIL was advised by Natixis and its affiliates by Vermilion Partners and EFG Hermes. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer provided legal advice to Alcazar


©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Purple bacteria turn sewage into hydrogen fuel
Purple is the new black.

Purple bacteria are poised to turn your toilet into a source of energy and useable organic material.

 by Alexandru Micu

ZME
August 23, 2021

Dried sewage sludge.
Image credits: Hannes Grobe.

Household sewage and industrial wastewater are very rich in organic compounds, and organic compounds can be very useful. But there’s a catch: we don’t know of any efficient way to extract them from the eww goo yet. So these resource-laden liquids get treated, and the material they contain is handled as a contaminant.

New research plans to address this problem — and by using an environmentally-friendly and cost-efficient solution to boot.

The future is purple (and bacterial)

“One of the most important problems of current wastewater treatment plants is high carbon emissions,” says co-author Dr. Daniel Puyol of King Juan Carlos University, Spain.

“Our light-based biorefinery process could provide a means to harvest green energy from wastewater, with zero carbon footprint.”

The study is the first effort to apply purple phototrophic bacteria — phototrophic means they absorb photons, i.e. light, as they’re feeding — together with electrical stimulation for organic waste recovery. The team showed that this approach can recover up to 100% of the carbon in any type of organic waste, supplying hydrogen gas in return — which is very nice, as hydrogen gas can be used to create power cells or energy directly.

Although green is the poster-color for photosynthesis, it’s far from the only one. Chlorophyll’s role is to absorb energy from light — we perceive this absorption as color. Green chlorophyll, for example, absorbs the wavelengths we perceive as red (which sits opposite green on the color wheel). If you’ve ever toyed around with the color-correction feature in graphical software (a la Photoshop, for example), you know that taking out the reds in a picture will make it look green. The same principle applies here.

Plants are generally green because red wavelengths carry the most energy — and plants need energy to create organic molecules. But the substance comes in all sorts of colors in a variety of different organisms. Phototrophic bacteria also capture energy from sunlight, but they use a different range of pigment — from orange, reds, and browns, to shades of purple — for the job. However, the color itself isn’t important here.

“Purple phototrophic bacteria make an ideal tool for resource recovery from organic waste, thanks to their highly diverse metabolism,” explains Puyol.

These bacteria use organic molecules and nitrogen gas in lieu of CO2 and water as food. This supplies all the carbon, electrons, and nitrogen they need for photosynthesis. The end result is that they tend to grow faster than other phototrophic bacteria or algae and generate hydrogen gas, proteins, and a biodegradable type of polyester as waste.

But what really sealed the deal for the team is that they can decide which of these waste products the bacteria churn out. Depending on environmental conditions such as light intensity, temperature, and the nutrients available, one of these products will predominate in the material they excrete.

The team doubled-down on this property by flooding the bacteria’s environment with electricity.

“Our group manipulates these conditions to tune the metabolism of purple bacteria to different applications, depending on the organic waste source and market requirements,” says co-author Professor Abraham Esteve-Núñez of University of Alcalá, Spain.

“But what is unique about our approach is the use of an external electric current to optimize the productive output of purple bacteria.”

This concept — a “bioelectrochemical system” — works because all of the purple bacteria’s metabolic pathways use electrons as energy carriers. They use up electrons when capturing light, for example. On the other hand, turning nitrogen into ammonia releases electrons, which the bacteria need to dissipate. By applying an electrical current to the bacteria (i.e. by pumping electrons into their environment) or by taking electrons out, the team can cause the bacteria to switch from one process to the other. It also helps improve the overall efficiency of both processes (see Le Chatelier’s principle).

The team included an analysis of the optimum conditions for hydrogen production in the paper (it relies on a mixture of purple bacteria species). They also tested the effect of a negative current (electrons supplied by metal electrodes in the growth medium) on the metabolic behavior of the bacteria.

Their first key finding was that the nutrient blend that fed the highest rate of hydrogen production also minimized the production of CO2 — this would allow the bacteria to recover biofuel from wastewater with a low carbon footprint, the team explains. The negative current experiment proved that these bacteria can use cathode electrons to perform photosynthesis.

Even more striking were the results using electrodes, which demonstrated for the first time that purple bacteria are capable of using electrons from a negative electrode, or “cathode“, to capture CO2 via photosynthesis.

“Recordings from our bioelectrochemical system showed a clear interaction between the purple bacteria and the electrodes: negative polarization of the electrode caused a detectable consumption of electrons, associated with a reduction in carbon dioxide production,” says Esteve-Núñez.

“This indicates that the purple bacteria were using electrons from the cathode to capture more carbon from organic compounds via photosynthesis, so less is released as CO2.”

The paper “Biological and Bioelectrochemical Systems for Hydrogen Production and Carbon Fixation Using Purple Phototrophic Bacteria” has been published in the journal Frontiers in Energy Research.



Alexandru Micu
Stunningly charming pun connoisseur, I have been fascinated by the world around me since I first laid eyes on it. Always curious, I'm just having a little fun with some very serious science.