Slipping on the Ice week 5 Climate Change MOOC

After the first video for week 5 of Exeter University's Futurelearn MOOC on climate change I knew I was going to find the week a little bit slippery. This week for me was a MOOC with 2 halves the first half impacts on Cryosphere I must admit has been the most complicated part of the course since week 1. I had to read a couple of simpler articles to get the gist of it and my understanding now is more a precis understanding rather than an technical understanding. This was probably reflected in my mark for this week's test where I got 9 out of 15 not reaching the recommended 10 - the last question being my nemesis

Which of the following factors control ice flow - ice geometry, properties, terminal environment and mass balance - all are correct!

On my third attempt I got 3 out of the 4 which was a failure. The good thing about the tests in this MOOC is that you can see the correct answer and can also go back to the test.

I did, however, get a basic understanding that about how climate change has impacted on Greenland Over the last 2 decades as a result of global

warming there has been an increase in ice loss, an increase in glacial flow speed, and a thinning of ice, on Greenland. Half of the total mass loss is surface melt the rest is due to blocks of ice breaking off from ice shelves to form a icebergs this is called calving. An Ice shelf is a thick floating platform formed where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to the coastline and onto the ocean's surface.  Collapsing ice shelves do not directly contribute to the sea rise but do buttress tributary glaciers regulating flow. According to Antartic Glaciers.org  as a result of glaciers thinning, accelerating and receding in response to ice shelf collapse more ice is going into the oceans making the sea level rise (I just about got the last sentence!).

The second half of the week was about ocean acidification I did understand a little bit more, possibly because it is a process with less dependencies than the impact on cryosphere, or maybe understood the correlations a little bit more.

According Ceri Lewis in her excellent video presentation oceans make-up 70% of the planet's surface and acidification is the greatest threat to biodiversity. Oceans absorb a third of atmospheric CO2. When CO2 dissolves into the sea water it reacts with the water to form carbonic acid. The carbonic acid dissociates into 2 irons bicarbonate and hydrogen, the hydrogen concentration determines the PH which is presently 8.1.  If  CO2 levels increase hydrogen and bicarbonate increase in seawater. The ocean has a natural buffering system the carbonate buffer. Carbonate ions soak up hydrogen ions keeping the PH system stable. Carbonate ions enter sea water through natural weathering and shells from dead marine life. Carbonate ions are the building blocks of carbonate skeletons and shells. The danger is when the amount of CO2 exceeds the amount of carbonate ions in the sea water, which will lead to a fall in PH. Ocean acidification can impact on calcification of organisms water as the under saturated in calcium carbonate leaves shells vulnerable to dissolution. Increased acidity can alter the physiology of mature organisms impacting on the development of carbonate skeletons and fertilisation. This is turn has an impact on the whole food chain.

I have just passed the mid-point of the MOOC and the first one I have stuck with on Futurelearn, I have done a couple on Coursera. The user interface is very simple, it is helpful that you can track your progress as well as easily review content from previous weeks, as well as test results. The learning and teaching style with a combination of video, articles, discussion and reflection has helped to consolidated my learning. Much of what I am learning is extremely new to me and as I said at the beginning my background is in the social sciences not sciences so getting a grasp of some of the technical aspects has been challenging but I think I am learning and yes it is interesting. My pace has probably been pedestrian because of previous limited knowledge and I have had to seek out simpler explanations for some things and yes Wikipedia is still one of my go to sites. I think there was too much content in the first couple weeks despite me being a novice I have experience of elearning delivery and I think there was an underestimation of how much time it would take to review all the content to complete the test at the end, although this appears to have eased a little. I must admit my contribution to the discussions has been scant but as you can see I have reflected every week and this has assisted in my review process. Another useful aspect is being be able to see the PDF transcript of the videos which has helped to fill in anything that I missed in my watching. I also haven't completely abandoned analogue and using a notebook to write notes.

Models & Geogengineering - yes believe the hype Week 4 Climate Change MOOC

It appears that the future is a little bit foggy with respect to predicting the impact of human activity on climate change. However, it looks like we are gradually getting there and the science is helping to lift the fog.

Week 4 University of Exeter's Climate Change MOOC began with an overview of climate modelling. There has been a lot controversy within the press with respect to accuracy of climate modelling including accusations of fiddling data, for example climate change sceptic Christopher Brooker's article Fiddling with Temperature Data is the Biggest Science Scandal Ever published in the Telegraph. However there have been counter arguments like this article in the Washington Post article No Climate Models Aren't exaggerating Global Warming . It is very challenging for the person in the street to know what believe is right.  Scientist are the first to admit that predicting climate change is a complex business. If I have learnt one thing from this MOOC, is that data from a vast amount of sources e.g from proxy data to mathematical modelling is used to help with the predictions. If journalists had a greater understanding of the processes (for example taking a MOOC like this) rather than cherry picking their information they may form a less sceptic opinion.

Peter Cox says in first video for week 4 climate projection is a huge computational model. The accuracy of these models is tested by seeing if they can reproduce aspects of the past, by including factors that affected the climate including natural things, e.g. sun output volcanoes and by adding human factors such as the increase in carbon dioxide as a result of burning fossil fuels and deforestation. As a result scientists have found they can construct models that can reproduce aspects of the climate until about 1970, after that model simulations diverge, predicting a cooling climate rather than warming. However, if human factors such as the increase in carbon dioxide are put in warming is reproduced. This would seem to imply modelling helps with predictions, also how much natural phenomena has an impact of warming and how much human activity. Peter Cox says predicting what will happen in the next 100 years is the challenge, this is where there is uncertainty e.g. how much carbon dioxide will be produced by human activity? how will population change impact on this and will the way we generate energy change. Also we do not know what percentage of carbon dioxide emissions will be absorbed by oceans, trees and soil. The IPCC have used scenarios to help with these predictions e.g. differing amounts of carbon dioxide emissions and the impact on global warming.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated that since the 1950s the ocean and atmosphere have warmed and there has been a reduction in snow and ice and over the last 3 decades the earth's surface has warmed. One of the drivers they have identified for climate change, is the total positive radioactive forcing leading to an uptake of energy in the climate system, caused by an increase in CO2 since 1750. It is extremely like that human activity has caused this. The IPCC says that there needs to be a reduction in the Green House Gases to counteract this. On top of this it is predicted that the complex area of climate feedbacks could more than double the amount of warming, due to the melting of snow and ice, water vapour, clouds and the carbon cycle.

So what can be done to combat the increase in global warming other than reducing the amount of anthropogenic CO2. This part requires a shift in the imagination. Mathew Watson in his article Why We'd Be Mad to Rule out climate engineering 

We are better off knowing everything we can about all our options, however unpalatable, while being mindful of undermining efforts on greening our energy sector and, more than that, our own lives. Deployment of technologies at global-scale with trans-boundary effects must be a last resort.

So what is the last resort? Geoengineering - the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climatic system with the aim of reducing global warming  There are 2 categories of geoengineering. Carbon dioxide removal e.g. creation of biochar; bioenergy with carbon capture and storage; carbon air capture to remove carbon dioxide; planting trees to offset and ocean fertilisation. The second is surface radiation management, reducing sunlight absorbed, This would be by deflecting sunlight away from the Earth, or by increasing the reflectivity (albedo) of the atmosphere or the Earth's surface, which would reduce GHGs and would address ocean acidification created by CO2.

Geoengineering requires considerable consistent investment. Also radiation management can change the mean temperature but according to Jim Haywood we would not be able to control regional and trasnational temperatures and precipitation patterns, so there would sill be warming in the polar region and a cooling around the equator. And with geoengineering some parts of the planets will be winners whilst others will be losers, this is my concern will the societies of have nots lose out to the geoengineering societies of the the haves. There is also the issue that geoengineering solutions could give a false sense of security and could lead to greater anthropogenic carbon emissions as individuals think that these solutions are equivalent offsets. In addition to this there is the moral dilemma should we be messing around with the earth's climate but can we afford not too.  The IPCC says we need to act now despite the opposition, even if we do not look at SRM we need to look at carbon capture.

Week 3 Climate Change MOOC stats, variability and sinks

This week in Exeter's climate change MOOC there was lots of comparative data to wade through, but its graphical presentation made it even more fascinating for a librarian like me.

The met office's global surface map which illustrates temperature anomalies clearly illustrates which parts of the world were colder or warmer in the recent month. The met office also allows people in the UK to dig deeper presenting a wealth of information including case studies of past weather events together with extremes. This data is an excellent springboard into investigating whether an extreme weather event is the result of climate change or just merely an extreme weather event.

For example, in 2013 the UK experienced the coldest March and May since 1962 and 1966. Investigating this I found out about the Arctic Oscillation which is an index of the dominant pattern of non-seasonal sea level pressures and that March 2013 was most negative since records began, When the AO is negative there tends to be high pressure in the polar region causing greater movement to middle latitudes. Associating this with climate change appears to be quite a complex activity although the climate anomaly maps are compelling.

I, also learned more about the impact of the jet stream. In 2012 the UK was the wettest on record according to the met office the jet stream was persistent remaining in the South of the UK therefore it did not drag the weather system away. As I mentioned in week 1 after undertaking some initial research on the UK climate some scientists have predicted more extremes in wet and dry weather in the UK because of there is a 4-5 percent increase in atmospheric moisture, as a result of changes in sea temperature and reductions in the amount of ice.  Again it appears to be a challenge to look at rainfall patterns and to associate them with climate change because of natural variability.

I also found that ice is not just ice!  According The National Snow and Data Centre the Antarctica and the Arctic are reacting differently to climate change partly because of their geographic differences, Antarctica is a continent surrounded by water and wind and ocean currents appear to isolate the continent from global weather patterns, keeping it cold. The Arctic, however, is an ocean surrounded by land, linked to the climate systems around it making it more sensitive to climate change.

I was surprised to see that the US still has the highest carbon emissions per capita, after looking at some of the climate maps, as I thought this may have changed because of the increase in industrial production in places like China, as 90% of carbon emission comes from burning fossil fuel.

The most difficult aspect of the course for me to understand this week was that the majority of CO2 is being absorbed by land and the ocean not the atmosphere. They act as a carbon sinks, draining CO2 back out of the atmosphere, absorbing and storing it away, the deep ocean being largest reservoir.   About 80 percent of CO2 in the atmosphere is from the burning of fossil fuels, a reduction in the burning would help to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions, however carbon sinks can also help to address the balance. Deforestation and the warming of oceans (consequence of global warming) could change the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed and sinks may not be able to keep pace with the amount of global carbon emissions. The carbon brief sates that researchers have found that less organic carbon sinks to the deep ocean  in warmer water, leaving more carbon dissolved in the surface ocean, which can then return to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, However ,there is still considerable debate on best way to manage forests see this article in Nature Carbon Sequestration managing forests in uncertain times.

So I suppose the take away message this week is that although we can see that the climate is changing it is more difficult to predict whether extreme weather patterns are a result of climate change, although there is much research into this and the data sets can assist with this. Also, we should not underestimate the importance of nature in helping to control CO2, in particular carbon sinks, although it will be challenging for these sinks to keep a natural balance if the amount of CO2 increases - especially if oceans warm decreasing the amount of CO2 oceans can hold, which will release more CO2 into atomosphere, which will raise global temperatures - a positive feedback loop.

Useful references
Forests as a Carbon Sink  
What are Climate Change Feedback Loops