Abrupt climate change, Fukushima and geoengineering: the cascading triggers that are leading to the near-term extinction of humans

California soils are STERILE from the super-hot fires and from Fukushima radionuclides

Right now I can think of little that is more important for that part of the world apart from the rapid loss of habitat due to rapid warming of the planet.

I have been most affected by listening to a discussion from last week between Jeff Rense and Dane Wigington on the fires in California.

Forget any distaste you might have and listen to the following excerpt:

 
Wigington more or less places his date for when the human race loses its habitat for different reasons - 2025 or 2026.

Without any bacteria etc. in the soil nothing can grow and doesn't.

Wigington describes his own experience with having about 90% success rate in growing planets 8 or so years ago: now he reports having zero success.

Nothing will grow.

He points out here that Fukushima has been with us for 8 years. It is, in itself, a slow-moving human extinction event that is only getting worse.  During that time it has been entering the soils as described in short clip.

All of the above has shocked me as much as anything I have heard.

Whether one thinks that geoengineering is a primary driver of our move to extinction (and I cannot agree with that) it seems quite possible that the authorities are already trying to put off the evil day when the wider public at last understands what is happening by carrying out short-term cooling through manipulation of the weather at the expense of slightly longer-term heating of the planet leading to the cessation of higher life on the planet.

It makes sense to be arguing what is driving this warming if you still harbour the illusions that it can be 'solved'.

I agree with Wigington that abrupt anthropogenic climate change, the catastrophe at Fukushima and geoengineering are all parts of the puzzle and what we have is a cascading problem with many heads all of which indicate the demise of the human species in the near-term.

Listen to the following interview.  In my view it is worthwhile

Accelerating climate change

Another positive feedback

Carbon loss from soil accelerating climate change

Research published in Science today found that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cause soil microbes to produce more carbon dioxide, accelerating climate change.

Research published in Science found that increased levels of carbon dioxide in theatmosphere cause soil microbes to produce more carbon dioxide, accelerating climate change. Credit: NAU IDEA Lab

Science Daily,

24 April, 2013

Two Northern Arizona University researchers led the study, which challenges previous understanding about how carbon accumulates in soil. Increased levels of CO₂ accelerate plant growth, which causes more absorption of CO₂ through photosynthesis.

Until now, the accepted belief was that carbon is then stored in wood and soil for a long time, slowing climate change. Yet this new research suggests that the extra carbon provides fuel to microorganisms in the soil whose byproducts (such as CO₂) are released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.

"Our findings mean that nature is not as efficient in slowing global warming as we previously thought," said Kees Jan van Groenigen, research fellow at the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society at NAU and lead author of the study. "By overlooking this effect of increased CO₂ on soil microbes, models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may have overestimated the potential of soil to store carbon and mitigate the greenhouse effect."

In order to better understand how soil microbes respond to the changing atmosphere, the study's authors utilized statistical techniques that compare data to models and test for general patterns across studies. They analyzed published results from 53 different experiments in forests, grasslands and agricultural fields around the world. These experiments all measured how extra CO₂ in the atmosphere affects plant growth, microbial production of carbon dioxide, and the total amount of soil carbon at the end of the experiment.

"We've long thought soils to be a stable, safe place to store carbon, but our results show soil carbon is not as stable as we previously thought," said Bruce Hungate, director of the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society at NAU and study author. "We should not be complacent about continued subsidies from nature in slowing climate change."

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Northern Arizona University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

Kees Jan van Groenigen, Xuan Qi, Craig W. Osenberg, Yiqi Luo, and Bruce A. Hungate. Faster Decomposition Under Increased Atmospheric CO₂ Limits Soil Carbon Storage. Science, 2014 DOI: 10.1126/science.1249534

Climate change science

The water cycle amplifies abrupt climate change

Phys.org

19 January, 2014

During the abrupt cooling at the onset of the so-called Younger Dryas period 12680 years ago changes in the water cycle were the main drivers of widespread environmental change in western Europe. Thus, the regional impacts of future climate changes can be largely driven by hydrological changes, not only in the monsoonal areas of the world, but also in temperate areas.

The role of the hydrological cycle during abrupt temperature changes is of prime importance for the actual impact of climate change on the continents. In a new study published in Nature Geoscience online (January 19, 2014) scientists from the University of Potsdam, Germany and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences show that during the abrupt cooling at the onset of the so-called Younger Dryas period 12,680 years ago changes in the water cycle were the main drivers of widespread environmental change in western Europe. The team of scientists analyzed organic remains extracted from Meerfelder maar lake sediments from the Eifel region, western Germany, to reconstruct changes in precipitation patterns in unprecedented detail. They were able to show that the intrusion of dry polar air into western Europe lead to the collapse of local ecosystems and resulted in the observed widespread environmental changes at that time.

Organic remains of plants from lake sediments as molecular rain gauges

The exact sequence of events during abrupt climate changes occurring over only a few years is one of the great unknowns in paleoclimate research. The new results presented here were obtained by using a novel method, where molecular organic remains derived from plant fossils were extracted from precisely dated annually laminated lake sediments. The ratio of the heavy Deuterium to the light Hydrogen isotopes in these biomarkers can be used to reconstruct changes in precipitation regime and moisture sources with unprecedented detail.

Aerial view of Lake Meerfelder Maar in the Eifel region (Western Germany). The lake covers the northern part of the maar crater while the village Meerfeld and agricultural land is seen in the southern part of the crater. Credit: Achim Brauer, 

The Younger Dryas period was the last major cold period at the end of the last glaciation with a duration of about 1100 years, when an abrupt change in the pathway of westerly wind systems over Europe lead to massive environmental change within a few years, as GFZ scientists showed in an earlier study. Dirk Sachse, the head of the workgroup at the Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences of the Potsdam University explains: "In our new study we can show for the first time that this change in the pathway of westerly wind systems brought dry polar air into western Europe and this was the ultimate cause for the widespread disappearance of forests in the area."

Soil Microbes Alter DNA in Response to Climate Change

EcoNews

20 January, 2014

A 10-year study of soil ecosystems has determined that microbes alter their genetic code in response to a warming climate so they can process excess carbon being absorbed by plants from the atmosphere, a team of U.S. researchers reports in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

New research shows soil microbes can alter their DNA to adapt to the warming climate. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

A two degree Celsius temperature increase spurred microbes in soil ecosystems to—over many generations—tweak their DNA, amping up their respiratory systems and converting extra organic carbon in the soil to carbon dioxide.

The soil contained extra carbon because the two degree temperature increase made plants grow faster and higher; when those plants began to die, the carbon in their leaves, stems, and roots was added to the soil and taken up by the microbial community. Understanding the “black box” of carbon’s fate in soil ecosystems holds important clues for better forecasting an ecosystem’s response to climate change, says Georgia Institute of Technology researcher Kostas Konstantinidis, an author of the study.

“One reason that models of climate change have such big room for variation is because we don’t understand the microbial activities that control carbon in the soil,” Konstantinidis said.

Climate change and soils

Impacts of climate change on soils

The increased aridity expected this century as a result of climate change may disrupt the balance of key soil nutrients with a knock-on effect on soil fertility threatening livelihoods of more than two billion people, a study finds.

ENN,

1 November, 2013

The drop in nitrogen and carbon concentrations that occurs as soils become dryer could have serious effects on ecosystem services such as food production, carbon storage and biodiversity, according to the Nature paper published today.

Loss of nitrogen and carbon, which are the basic building blocks of living organisms, drastically affects land’s productivity, says Fernando T. Maestre, a biologist and geologist from King Juan Carlos University, Spain, and a co-author of the report.

"If plant productivity is reduced, the capability of the land to support livestock and crops will be affected and this will have a big impact on people who depend on them," he tells SciDev.Net.

Drylands make up more than 40 per cent of the world's land area, and host a similar proportion of the world's population. Many are expected to get drier because of climate change.

Read more at ENN Affiliate SciDevNet.

Climate change and soil fertility

Climate will alter the soil that feeds us

One of the main species of microbes that hold the soil together is likely to be affected by rising temperatures, with unpredictable consequences for fertility and erosion.

By Tim Radford

Climate News Network,

4 July, 2013

 Global warming may be about to change the ground under our feet – and perhaps not in a good way. It could be about to affect one of the most important communities on the planet: the tiny microbes that make life possible for the rest of creation, according to new research by scientists in the US and Spain.

Cyanobacteria are almost everywhere, have been around for the whole of life’s 3.5 billion-year history, and fix nitrogen from the atmosphere to fertilise plants and feed animals.

They are so common, and so numerous, that they form collectives that can be picked up by hand, and be seen even from space. As photosynthesisers, these blue-green algae also deliver the oxygen to keep the animal world on the move.

Ferrari Garcia-Pichel and colleagues report in the journal Science that they examined cyanobacteria in desert soils through the whole of North America. They found that two species dominated. One, calledMicroceleus steenstrupii, lives in the hot deserts while the other, M. vaginatus, prefers cold dry places.

But, of course, the planet is becoming warmer with each decade. “By using our data with current climate models, we can predict that in 50 years, the cyanobacterium that fares better in warm temperatures will push the cold-loving one off our map,” said Professor Garcia-Pichel.

“M. steenstrupii could completely dominate the crusts everywhere in our study area by then. Unfortunately we don’t know much about this microbe or what will happen to the ecosystem in the absence of M. vaginatus.”

“This study tells us we can no longer neglect microbes in our considerations”

The real hazard, for humans and other creatures that depend on cyanobacteria – and that adds up to all life on Earth – is that there is likely to be a knock-on effect on soil fertility, and soil erosion: it is the “living crusts” formed by these microbes that in many places hold the soil together, and sometimes researchers try to combat cases of severe erosion by injecting these cyanobacteria into the dust to act as soil stabilisers.

The finding is ominous: but an omen of what? Once again, researchers have unearthed – to use an appropriate metaphor – evidence of the intricacy of the connections between air, water, rock, temperature, life and climate.

But this same discovery is a reminder of just how little science yet knows about the microbiology of the world beneath our feet. Before this research, nobody had expected cyanobacteria to have divided the deserts into two separate kingdoms, with presumably two separate ecologies.

“Our study is relevant beyond desert ecology”, says Garcia-Pichel. “It exemplifies that microbial distributions and the partitioning of their habitats can be affected by global change, something we’ve long known for plants and animals. This study tells us we can no longer neglect microbes in our considerations.” – Climate News Network