It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
7-year study reveals plastic fragments from all over the globe are rising rapidly in the North Pacific Garbage Patch
IOP Publishing
image:
North Pacific Garbage Patch is growing quicker than predicted
A study published today in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters reveals that centimetre-sized plastic fragments are increasing much faster than larger floating plastics in the North Pacific Garbage Patch [NPGP], threatening the local ecosystem and potentially the global carbon cycle.
The research, which draws from not-for-profit The Ocean Cleanup’s systematic surveys of the NPGP between 2015 and 2022, found an unexpected rise in mass concentration of plastic fragments that are likely new to the region, and not resulting from degradation of already present objects. The researchers hypothesise that these fragments from the break-down of decades old plastics discarded globally are now accumulating and exponentially increasing in this remote region of the Pacific Ocean.
The study examines 917 manta trawl samples, 162 mega trawl samples, 74 aerial surveys, and 40 cleanup system extractions from 50 individual expeditions between 2015 and 2022.
Key findings include:
Plastic fragments rose from 2.9kg per km2 to 14.2kg per km2 in 7 years
74% - 96% of this rise may be originating from foreign sources.
Small debris hotspots increased in concentration from 1 million per km2 in 2015 to over 10 million per km2 in 2022
Per km2 , the average number of every size class of floating plastics has significantly increased:
- Microplastics (0.5mm-5mm) risen from 960,000 to 1,500,000 items
- Mesoplastics (5mm-50mm) risen from 34,000 to 235,000 items
- Macroplastics (50mm-500mm) risen from 800 to 1,800 items per km2
The volume of plastic debris in the region surpasses that of living organisms, threatening the ecosystem not only by the ingestion or entanglement of plastic by marine life, but also potentially impacting the global carbon cycle because of zooplankton grazing affected by the presence of floating microplastics. Due to the increase in floating plastics, endemic marine animals are now in direct competition with new species that have colonized plastic debris and drifted to this remote part of the ocean.
Laurent Lebreton, lead author of the paper says: “The exponential rise in plastic fragments observed in our field studies is a direct consequence of decades of inadequate plastic waste management, leading to the relentless accumulation of plastics in the marine environment. This pollution is inflicting harm on marine life, with impacts we are only now beginning to fully grasp. Our findings should serve as an urgent call to action for lawmakers engaged in negotiating a global treaty to end plastic pollution. Now, more than ever, decisive and unified global intervention is essential.”
The researchers emphasise that, while countries are prioritizing upstream plastic pollution prevention, the interception and removal of already present plastics from the global marine environment is essential to urgently mitigate the generation of increasingly smaller plastic fragments in the ocean for decades to come.
ENDS
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About The Ocean Cleanup
The Ocean Cleanup is an international non-profit that develops and scales technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. They aim to achieve this goal through a dual strategy: intercepting in rivers to stop the flow and cleaning up what has already accumulated in the ocean. For the latter, The Ocean Cleanup develops and deploys large-scale systems to efficiently concentrate the plastic for periodic removal. This plastic is tracked and traced to certify claims of origin when recycling it into new products. To curb the inflow, The Ocean Cleanup has developed Interceptor™ solutions to halt and extract plastic in rivers before it reaches the ocean. As of August 2024, the non-profit has collected over 16 million kilograms (35.3 million pounds) of trash from aquatic ecosystems around the world. Founded in 2013 by Boyan Slat, The Ocean Cleanup now employs a broadly multi-disciplined team of approximately 140. The foundation is headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and opened its first regional office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2023.
Seven years into the North Pacific Garbage Patch: legacy plastic fragments rising disproportionally faster than larger floating objects
Article Publication Date
19-Nov-2024
COI Statement
All authors are employed by The Ocean Cleanup, a not-for-profit organization developing and scaling technology to retrieve floating plastics from the ocean.
Unveiling hydrocarbon formation and accumulation in the North Sea Basin through a new perspective of multi-spheric interaction
Science China Press
image:
The ranges of the north and south Permian basins are from Legler et al. (2005). The range of the Carboniferous foreland basin is from Ziegler (1988), including the present-day southern North Sea Basin, Baltic Sea, England, and Ireland.
This study is led by Dr. Rixiang Zhu (Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) and his team, in collaboration with research groups of China, including the Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development (China National Petroleum Corporation), China University of Petroleum (East China), and Peking University. By applying a new perspective of multi-spheric interactions within the Earth, the researchers reexamined the mechanisms of hydrocarbon formation and accumulation in the North Sea Basin. Located in northwestern Europe, the North Sea Basin is a region of significant importance for oil and gas production, accounting for 69.8 percent of the total oil and gas reserves of Europe, with strata rich in oil in the north and strata rich in gas in the south.
The researchers reconstructed the evolution of tectonics and processes of sedimentary filling in the basin, revealing that processes of deep thermal and dynamic forces drove block collision orogeny, mantle plume uplift, and intra-continental deformation. A series of tectonic events including post-Caledonian crustal extension, Variscan orogenic compression, mantle plume uplift, and subsequent thermal subsidence led to the formation of the Devonian rift basin, the Carboniferous foreland basin, and multiple stages of rift basin development since the Late Permian. Temporal and spatial variations, along with the superposition of systems of deposition, formed the framework of structure and stratigraphy observed in the basin today.
The study also analyzed how interactions among multiple spheres influenced the systems of petroleum in the basin, driving the distinct distribution of strata rich in oil in the north and strata rich in gas in the south. As the basin drifted northward since the Carboniferous, it passed through the Hadley and Ferrel Cells, contributing to the formation of coal and coal measures of the Upper Carboniferous as primary rocks of gas sources and marine shales of the Upper Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay as key rocks of oil sources, respectively. Tectonics, cycles of transgression and regression, oceanic currents, and evolution of climate controlled the distribution and properties of source rocks, reservoirs, and seals, resulting in the formation of a gas-rich system of the Carboniferous–Lower Triassic in the southern basin and an oil-rich system of the Upper Triassic–Paleogene in the northern basin.
Additionally, the study examines the potential of exploration of hydrocarbons in regions of mid to high latitudes. Comparative analysis reveals similarities between the basin of the Okhotsk Sea and the basin of the North Sea in development of tectonics, influences of climate, and favorable combinations of sources, reservoirs, and seals. These findings suggest that the basin of the Okhotsk Sea is a promising target for future discoveries of hydrocarbons. It also highlights the importance of the Ferrel Cell of mid latitudes in the enrichment of hydrocarbons throughout the history of geology.
Finally, the team emphasizes the role of artificial intelligence in advancing digital geological innovation and supporting the carbon-neutral utilization of resources, which contributes to a sustainable approach to energy exploration.
See the article:
Zhu R, Zhang S, Wang H, Wang X, Liu Y, Zhang W, Hao F, Jin Z. 2024. Multi-spheric interactions driven differential formation and accumulation of hydrocarbon resources in the North Sea Basin. Science China Earth Sciences, 67(11): 3397–3420, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-024-1421-8
Model of the evolution of the North Sea Basin
a) The terrestrial Old Red Sandstone dominated the Devonian sediments in the North Sea Basin. b) The Varisian orogeny occurred in the Late Carboniferous, forming a foreland basin at the front of the orogenic belt. The sediments in the North Sea Basin were mainly deposited in the continental and transitional facies. c) The Varisian orogeny and mantle plume uplift during the Early and Middle Permian led to overall uplift of the North Sea Basin, and a limited number of lacustrine sediments developed in the center of the basin. d) The Viking Basin began to form during the Permian and underwent a southward Zechstein transgression at the end of the Permian. The expansion of the Paleo−Tethys Ocean caused Gondwana to move away from the blocks surrounding the North Sea Basin. Concurrently, the Paleo−Tethys Ocean subducted at a low angle towards the southern part of the North Sea Basin, causing the lithosphere to begin to thin. e) During the Triassic, the Viking Corridor gradually opened up, and the Rhaetian transgression led to integration of the Paleo−Arctic and Paleo−Tethys oceans. f) In the Middle Jurassic, mantle plume uplift resulted in uplift and erosion in the central part of the North Sea Basin. g) The thermal subsidence after the uplift caused by the mantle plume formed trigeminal rift grabens and caused extensive marine sedimentation in the Late Jurassic. In the Late Cretaceous, the Alpine micro-block collided and proliferated in the southern part of the North Sea Basin, forming the Alpine orogenic belt. The connection between the North Sea Basin and Mediterranean was terminated. h) The uplift of the Iceland mantle plume since the Miocene led to uplift of the British Islands and Norwegian into land, basically forming the present structural framework of the North Sea Basin.
Multi-spheric interactions and the development of the petroleum systems in the North Sea Basin
a) Key geological events in the North Sea Basin (see main text for references). b) Global average temperature curve (Scotese et al., 2021), global oceanic 87Sr/86Sr curve (McArthur et al., 2020), Jurassic−Cretaceous oceanic anoxic events (Jenkyns, 2010), and major hydrocarbon source rocks in the North Sea Basin (see reference in the main text). c) Drift paths of the North Sea Basin and simulated annual precipitation at different latitudes (Li et al., 2022). d) Global sea level changes (Boulila et al., 2021) and key transgression events in the North Sea Basin (see references in the main text). e) Important source rocks, reservoirs, and seals in the petroleum systems in the North Sea Basin (see reference in the main text)
Map showing the tectonic units in the Okhotsk Basin and adjacent areas.
The base map is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States (https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov). The unit names are from He et al. (2016).
Populations overheat as major cities fail canopy goals: new research
A new study led by RMIT University in Australia measuring access to nature for eight major global cities found most still have inadequate canopy cover, despite access to an abundance of trees.
A new study led by RMIT University in Australia measuring access to nature for eight major global cities found most still have inadequate canopy cover, despite access to an abundance of trees.
Less than 30% of buildings in New York City, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, Denver, central Sydney and central Melbourne were in neighbourhoods with adequate canopy cover.
New York and Amsterdam both scored almost 0% for canopy cover despite 92% and 50% of buildings having views of at least three trees, respectively.
The research, a collaboration with the Technical University of Munich, studied over 2.5 million buildings across eight cities using an emerging sustainable cities measure, known as the ‘3-30-300' rule.
The rule states every house, school and workplace should have a view of at least three trees, be in a neighbourhood with at least 30% canopy cover, and be within 300 metres of a park.
Only Seattle and Singapore passed the 30% canopy benchmark, with 45% and 75% of buildings in these cities enjoying adequate shade, respectively.
Access to parks was also patchy, with Singapore and Amsterdam scoring high while Buenos Aires and New York City scored poorly.
Lead researcher and RMIT University research fellow, Dr Thami Croeser, said it was concerning that most of the buildings in the study failed the 30% tree canopy test.
With 2023 being the hottest year on record and 25% of the global population experiencing dangerous levels of extreme heat, canopy cover was urgently needed to cool down our cities, he said.
“Previous research has shown depression, anxiety, obesity and heatstroke are more prevalent in urban areas that lack access to shady tree canopy and green open spaces,” said Croeser, from RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research.
“Canopy cover doesn’t just increase cooling, it can also reduce flood risk as well as benefit mental and physical health and support urban biodiversity.
“Studies say we actually need at least 40% canopy cover to substantially lower daytime air temperatures, so the ‘30’ metric is the absolute bare minimum - and most buildings we studied don't even reach that goal.”
Croeser said current ways of designing or retrofitting streets did not support healthy canopy growth as planning prioritised infrastructure such as cabling and pipelines over tree growth.
“We need to stop thinking that allocated spaces for buildings and roads are permanent when they could be reallocated to prioritise green infrastructure,” he said.
“30% canopy cover seems like a high bar if we keep doing things the same way, but it’s totally achievable if we change a bit of our practice.
“Currently, we put trees last, and if it gets in the way of cabling or pipes, we remove the tree or replace it with a sapling.
"Designing trees into streets early, and then figuring out win-win solutions to get in utilities and traffic access, is one of the big changes we need to make a difference.”
Trees currently tend to be planted in conditions that were not easy for them to grow in, Croeser said.
“The soil is compacted, there’s asphalt over them and when it rains, the water runs off into the gutters instead of into the soil.”
“Earlier research shows that if urban trees are planted in better quality soil with enough space for them to grow, where rainwater can run directly into the soil, it will help trees grow bigger faster to address our lack of canopy cover.
"Trees in urban environments are also removed and replaced with saplings, or pruned very heavily, so not many trees get the opportunity to grow into big old canopy trees except in a few lucky areas.”
A new nature access metric with potential
While the ‘3-30-300' rule, devised by Dutch urban forestry expert Professor Cecil Konijnendijk, is still relatively new in Australia, it is gaining momentum internationally, with at least six cities in Europe, the US and Canada implementing the measure in their urban forestry strategies.
Konijnendijk said he devised the benchmark to help set a ‘bare minimum’ for nature in cities.
“Getting more parks and trees into cities is complicated work, and I realised that a simple metric could take the mystery out of it and set a proper benchmark based on evidence,” he said.
“I reviewed decades of science linking nature to human health – and found that views to nature, canopy cover and parks are all really essential if we want to be mentally healthy, physically active and safe from heatwave impacts.”
Professor Wolfgang Weisser, from the Technical University of Munich, said metrics that benchmark the adequacy of green infrastructure at a neighbourhood level in relation to human wellbeing were still rare.
“Some of the metrics we use now are not really sufficient whereas the ‘3-30-300' metric really demands that nature is brought to the areas that people actually live and work in,” Weisser said.
“A municipality with almost treeless streets and a few large, well-forested parks may score well on aggregated metrics of canopy and per-capita greenery but will be exposed as inadequate by the highly local ‘3’ and ‘30’ requirements.”
The researchers collaborated with Dutch firm Cobra Groeninzicht (Green Insights) to visualise the results.
“With the techniques our team has developed, we can calculate the ‘3-30-300’ benchmark for any city in the world,” said Dirk Voets, Senior Advisor Geospatial at Cobra Groeninzicht.
“Acute canopy deficits in global cities exposed by the 3-30-300 benchmark for urban nature”, with Thami Croeser, Roshan Sharma, Wolfgang Weisser and Sarah Bekessy, is published in Nature Communications. (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53402-2))
Forests with few tree species pose considerably higher risk of being damaged and especially vulnerable is the introduced lodgepole pine. This is shown in a new study by researchers from Umeå University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Science in Uppsala. The results can be useful for preventing forest damages and financial losses related to the forest industry.
Fungi, insects, fires and cervids, such as moose, are examples of natural factors behind tree damages in Swedish forests. Sometimes, the damages become so extensive that they impact the function of forest ecosystems, not least the ability of forests to provide wood and other tree products.
“In a warmer climate with more extreme weather and new pest organisms, and with a more intense forestry, forest damages are expected to become more common and more severe. It is therefore important to understand causes of forest damages and whether it can be prevented,” says researcher Micael Jonsson at Umeå University, who led the study.
The Swedish national forest inventory has collected extensive data from Swedish forests. Since 2003, data on forest damages have also been collected.
In the current study, the research group has analyzed 15 years of these data from all over Sweden, to investigate which damages are most common and which factors determine the risk of a tree becoming damaged. The study is more extensive both in time and geographically than previous studies.
The results show that wind and snow are the most common causes of tree damage, followed by forestry and then fungi. Damages from cervids – mostly moose – are on fifth place. 94 percent of all trees showed some kind of damage. Coniferous trees and young stands showed the highest risk of damage, and in warmer parts of Sweden, stands with few tree species showed a considerably higher risk of being damaged compared to stands with a higher number of tree species.
“Our results show that there is a potential to reduce the risk of forest damages via a changed forest management. Especially, a higher proportion of broadleaf trees in the otherwise so coniferous-dominated production forest would result in fewer damages. We can for example see that the lodgepole pine, introduced by the forestry industry, has the highest risk of damage. Its introduction therefore counteracts a profitable forestry,” says Micael Jonsson.
The results also indicate that a higher number of tree species in a stand act as an insurance against extensive forest damages in a warmer climate.
“We must adapt Swedish forests and forest management methods to a future warmer climate. Including more tree species in production forests seems to be an adaptation that could work!” says co-author Jan Bengtsson at the Swedish University of Agricultural Science.
However, the study also shows that the data material has some weaknesses. For example, it has not been possible to establish the cause behind a large proportion of the damages.
“The national forest inventory collects important data for our understanding of the forest, but when it comes to the damage inventory, the data quality needs to improve to be fully usable in forestry practices,” says Jon Moen, co-author at Umeå University.
Tree damage risk across gradients in tree species richness and stand age: implications for adaptive forest management
Article Publication Date
19-Nov-2024
What are the belowground responses to long-term soil warming among different types of trees?
Wiley
Through a 20-year experiment, investigators have shown how different trees adjust their strategies for acquiring nutrients through their roots as soil warms with climate change.
The research, which is published in Global Change Biology, included trees that associate with different fungi that help roots absorb nutrients. Measurements showed that when exposed to warmer soils, oak trees associated with ectomycorrhizal fungi reduce interactions with soil microbes while increasing fine root exploration, whereas maple trees that associate with arbuscular mycorrhizal largely maintain their belowground patterns.
The findings suggest that the root systems of arbuscular mycorrhizal trees may not need to adjust their belowground foraging strategies as much as ectomycorrhizal trees to remain competitive as global temperatures rise.
“The structure of future forests under global warming will probably be influenced by the ability of tree roots and their fungal partners to compete belowground in warmer soils,” said corresponding author Nikhil R. Chari, a PhD student at Harvard University.
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About the Journal Global Change Biology is an environmental change journal dedicated to shaping the future and solving the world's most challenging problems by tackling sustainability, climate change and environmental protection, food and water safety and provision, as well as global health.
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Long-term soil warming drives different belowground responses in arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal trees
Article Publication Date
20-Nov-2024
More energy and more oil: photovoltaic plants and hedgerow olive groves are more productive on the same land
A model developed by the University of Cordoba simulates the interaction between solar collectors and crops at an “agrivoltaic” plant, proving that the two activities are more efficient when conducted jointly, as they create synergies
Researchers Rafael López Luque, Marta Varo Martínez, Luis Manuel Fernández de Ahumada and Álvaro López Bernal in the Rabanales Campus (University of Cordoba)
The construction of photovoltaic plants on land traditionally put to agricultural use has been generating discussion and controversy for years. In a world that is increasingly demanding clean energy, but also food, the possibility has arisen of combining both activities so that, instead of competing, they might complement each other. This is “agrivoltaic” technology, which explores the possibilities of integrating solar collectors into agricultural plantations, thus generating energy without sacrificing crop production. A team from the University of Cordoba has now developed a model to test the integration of photovoltaic plants with solar collectors, arranged in rows, amidst those of a hedgerow olive plantation. Their conclusion is that the activities can not only coexist, but that their combined productivity is actually greater; a win-win.
The project is the fruit of work by five researchers, members of two research groups: Marta Varo Martínez, Luis Manuel Fernández de Ahumada and Rafael López Luque, with the Physics for Renewable Energies and Resources group; and Álvaro López Bernal and Francisco Villalobos, with the Soil-Water-Plane Relations group, at the María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence, in the Department of Agronomy. The team explains that simulation models such as the one developed are very powerful tools in research because they make it possible to test the effectiveness of an idea before putting it into practice in the "real world" with the consequent cost and time savings. In this case, models that simulate oil production by a hedgerow olive plantation have been combined with others that make it possible to predict how solar collectors, arranged in rows, intercept radiation and convert it into electrical energy.
If the ultimate goal is to optimize land use as much as possible, this model has proven that agrivoltaics deliver. The study's main conclusion is that joint production is more efficient than it would be separately. In a kind of mutualism, both activities benefit: agricultural production, due to the shading produced by solar collectors, which also act as windbreaks, without competing for available water; and photovoltaic production, due to the reduction in the temperature of solar collectors as aresult of the plants' evapotranspiration, which can have an impact on greater energy production.
As the researchers explain, the model developed makes it possible to test different combinations of collectors, varying their heights and widths, and the spacing between the rows, analyzing each configuration to choose the most advantageous final design. Although in most of the scenarios studied the results are positive, there are many factors that must be taken into account. For example, the study shows that densifying the use of land, narrowing the rows, and increasing the width and height of the collectors, favors more efficient radiation use by the solar collectors and olive grove hedges, but the consequent reduction of free space could hinder some olive grove management operations, or access by agricultural machinery. The key, as in any symbiosis, is balance.
