Though climate change is driving sea level rise over time, researchers also believe that differences in surface height from place to place in the ocean can affect Earth’s climate. These highs and lows are associated with currents and eddies, swirling rivers in the ocean, that influence how it absorbs atmospheric heat and carbon.

Enter the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, a joint effort of NASA and French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the United Kingdom Space Agency. Launching in November 2022, SWOT will collect data on ocean heights to study currents and eddies up to five times smaller than have been previously detectable. It will also gather detailed information on freshwater lakes and rivers.

Observing the ocean at relatively small scales will help scientists assess its role in moderating climate change. The planet’s largest storehouse of atmospheric heat and carbon, the ocean has absorbed more than 90% of the heat trapped by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Much of the continued uptake of that heat – and the excess carbon dioxide and methane that produced it – is thought to occur around currents and eddies less than 12 miles (20 kilometers) across. These flows are small relative to currents such as the Gulf Stream and the California Current, but researchers estimate that in the aggregate they transfer up to half the heat and carbon from surface waters to the ocean’s depths.

Better understanding this phenomenon may be key to determining whether there’s a ceiling to the ocean’s ability to absorb heat and carbon from human activities.

“What is the turning point at which the ocean starts releasing huge amounts of heat back into the atmosphere and accelerating global warming, rather than limiting it?” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, SWOT’s program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “SWOT can help answer one of the most critical climate questions of our time.”

Thinking Small

Existing satellites can’t detect smaller-scale currents and eddies, limiting research into how those features interact with each other and with larger-scale flows.

“That’s a place where we will learn a lot from having better observations of the small scales,” said J. Thomas Farrar, a SWOT oceanography science lead with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

In addition to helping researchers study the climate impacts of small currents, SWOT’s ability to “see” smaller areas of Earth’s surface will allow it to collect more precise data along coastlines, where rising ocean levels and the flow of currents can have immediate impacts on land ecosystems and human activity.

Higher seas, for example, can cause storm surges to penetrate farther inland. Also, currents intensified by sea level rise may increase saltwater intrusion into deltas, estuaries, and wetlands, as well as groundwater supplies.

“In the open ocean, the whole phenomenon of drawing down heat and carbon will affect humanity for years to come,” said Lee-Lueng Fu, the SWOT project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “But in coastal waters, the effects of currents and sea height are felt over days and weeks. They affect human lives directly.”

So how will measuring ocean height lead to better knowledge of currents and eddies?

Researchers use height differences between points – known as the slope – to calculate the motion of currents. The math accounts for the force of Earth’s gravity, which pulls water from high to low, and the planet’s rotation, which, in the Northern Hemisphere, bends the flow clockwise around high points and counterclockwise around low points. The effect is the opposite in the south.

Systems of currents hundreds of miles wide flow around broad expanses of the ocean. Along the way, smaller currents and eddies spin off and interact with one another. When they come together, they drive water from the surface downward to colder depths, taking along heat and carbon from the atmosphere. When those smaller currents and eddies flow apart, water from those colder depths rises to the surface, ready to absorb heat and carbon again.

This vertical movement of heat and carbon also occurs at eddies themselves. In the Northern Hemisphere, clockwise eddies generate downward flows, while counterclockwise eddies create upward flows. The reverse occurs in the Southern Hemisphere.

Filling in the Gaps

By measuring ocean heights down to 0.16-inch (0.4-centimeter) increments, as well as their slopes, SWOT’s two Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) antennas will help researchers discern currents and eddies as small as 12 miles (20 kilometers) across.

SWOT will also employ a nadir altimeter, an older technology that can identify currents and eddies down to about 60 miles (100 kilometers) wide. Where the nadir altimeter will point straight down and take data in one dimension, the KaRIn antennas will tilt. This will enable the KaRIn antennas to scan the surface in two dimensions and, working in tandem, collect data with greater precision than the nadir altimeter alone.

“Currently, to get a two-dimensional view from a one-dimensional line, we take all of our one-dimensional lines and estimate what’s happening between them,” said Rosemary Morrow, a SWOT oceanography science lead at Laboratoire d’Études en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales in Toulouse, France. “SWOT will directly observe what’s in the gaps.”

More About the Mission

SWOT is being jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the CSA and the UK Space Agency. JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA is providing the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. CNES is providing the Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) system, nadir altimeter, the KaRIn RF subsystem (with support from the UK Space Agency), the platform, and ground control segment. CSA is providing the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA is providing the launch vehicle and associated launch services.

To learn more about the mission, visit:

https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/

News Media Contacts

Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307

[email protected] / [email protected]

In 2018, an international research group bored for soil samples in three sites around the Isfjorden fjord in Svalbard, which is part of Norway. The same phenomenon was seen each boring site: mineral soil covered by a thin layer of organic matter. In other words, this layer contains a lot of carbon extracted from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

The research group headed by researcher Minna Väliranta from the University of Helsinki has given the name ‘proto-peat’ to such organic soil accumulations, which are composed mostly of moss formed in increasingly warm arctic climate conditions.

“It’s not yet peat in the actual sense of the word, but you could say it’s the starting point for the formation of peat,” says Väliranta, who works at the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences. The research group also includes Teemu Juselius and Sanna Piilo, doctoral researchers under Väliranta’s supervision.

Such proto-peat deposits elicit interest also internationally. Väliranta is involved in a larger project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), a British institution corresponding to the Academy of Finland. This project investigates precisely the same phenomenon, that is, whether global warming has already led to the spread of peatland vegetation into the Arctic. This spread of vegetation is part of a more extensive phenomenon known as ‘arctic greening’, which commonly refers to increasing shrub growth in the Arctic, as vascular plants spread to regions previously barren.

“If this process that generates proto-peat occurs extensively, an unexpected carbon reservoir, or a plant community that mitigates climate change, may be in the process of establishing itself in the north. This reservoir has not been included in the modelling of ecosystems and the atmosphere, as it has traditionally been thought that no new peatlands are formed,” Väliranta notes.

Climate-ecosystem models are continually evolving, and only recently have attempts been made to include the impact of peatlands in such models.

“You can say that the discovery of new carbon sinks brings into play a new component that must be considered in models to better predict the functioning of ecosystems in a warming climate,” Väliranta says.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Helsinki. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Taking action for the Earth shouldn’t be limited to Earth Day. So Earth911 is honoring the 52 years that Earth Day has been inspiring action with 52 Actions for the Earth. The Earth Day theme this year is investing in the planet. Each week from Earth Day 2022 to Earth Day 2023, we will share an action you can take to invest in the Earth and make your own life more sustainable.

This week, you can invest in the Earth by supporting global climate literacy.

Climate Literacy

To halt climate change, we need a global shift to a green economy. That kind of change requires significant action from individuals, governments, and businesses. But people don’t act for change when they don’t understand the problem, and right now, scientists seem to be the only ones who really understand the essential principles of Earth’s climate system. Too many of us don’t even meet the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce) standard for basic climate literacy: understanding your influence on climate and climate’s influence on you and your society.

Just as the industrial revolution prompted the establishment of a public education system and the space race spurred a focus on STEM, climate literacy is a prerequisite for a green economy. That’s why EarthDay.org is campaigning for universal climate education. As part of their STEM education, every student in every school in the world should receive fully integrated, assessed climate and environmental education with a strong civic engagement component.

Climate Illiterate

This is far from the case right now. In the U.S., K-12 curriculum standards are determined at the state level. Twenty-nine states and Washington, D.C., have state science standards that include human-caused climate change. Fifteen states require climate change but don’t specify its cause. Five states only require including climate change in elective high school science courses. Pennsylvania’s standards do not address climate change at all. This lack of education means that only 60% of Americans understand that climate change is a major threat.

Across 33 African countries, climate change literacy varies substantially, but the knowledge level appears to be slightly higher than in the U.S. Overall, 71% of Africans say climate change needs to be stopped and 51% feel they can do something to help. Across Europe, 47% of people view climate change as the biggest challenge, but there’s some indication that nearly that many believe it’s too late to make a difference. Meanwhile, in China nearly three-quarters of Chinese people consider climate change a major threat. Even more — nearly 80% — confidently believe that climate change can be reversed.

Action:  Tell Global Leaders to Commit to Climate and Environmental Education

COP27

It seems like COP26 in Glasgow just wrapped up, but it’s not too early to prepare for COP27. Governments will meet at the Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November for further discussion of actions to meet the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

EarthDay.org will submit a letter to the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Patricia Espinosa requesting the Paris Agreement signatory governments to give climate literacy the same importance as any other key subject. To that end, they request governments to make climate education:

• compulsory,
• assessed,
• linked to civic engagement,
• and integrated into the standard curriculum for all K-12 students.

Act now: Sign the letter.

The study, published in the Ecological Society of America’s journal, Ecology, said these declines are expected not only because of climate-related stressors, but also because of the expanding influence of new invasive predators whose impacts are occurring much farther up the estuary.

“Our study found that climate change and biological invasions can interact in coastal estuaries in unpredictable ways,” said lead author Benjamin Rubinoff, a Ph.D. student in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy when the research was conducted. “This increased risk of predation makes it difficult for native species that are already dealing with increasingly stressful environmental conditions.”

The researchers tested the influence of environmental stress and predation on sessile invertebrates in Tomales Bay, California during the summer of 2019. Sessile invertebrates are animals without backbones that attach to reefs or seagrasses and barely move, such as bryozoans and ascidians. Their predators include sea stars, crabs, and snails, among other species.

Estuaries a unique environment

In estuaries, changes in salinity and water temperature strongly influence the distribution of many invertebrate species, from mussels to crabs to sea squirts. These gradients can be especially steep in the estuaries of California, which are highly vulnerable to climate change and invasive species.

In most estuaries, stressful conditions for marine organisms such as low salinity and high temperature increase as you move inland from the ocean. With increased stress, native predators typically consume fewer prey.

But the study found that biological invasions are changing this equation, since many non-native predators tolerate stress better than native ones. So highly stressed native prey species are subjected to large numbers of stress-tolerant invaders that compete with them for resources, if not consume them.

Stressful situation

“The stress gradients typical of West Coast estuaries are being rapidly altered by climate change,” said co-leading author Edwin “Ted” Grosholz, a UC Davis professor with the Department of Environmental Science and Policy and the Bodega Marine Laboratory. “These changing gradients are scrambling the historical predator-prey landscape, creating novel matchups and putting native prey at much higher risk from invaders.”

Grosholz adds that such changes are hard to predict, and only experimental studies like this can disentangle the interacting effects of climate change and invasions on struggling native species.

For the study, the researchers deployed square plates made of PVC with different caging treatments at three locations across Tomales Bay from June to October 2019. Some plates were protected from predators while others allowed predator access. At the end of the period, the researchers brought the plates back into the lab and identified organisms using a microscope and determined percent cover.

The study was funded by grants from UC Davis and Point Reyes National Seashore Association.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of California – Davis. Original written by Kat Kerlin. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The study is issued by researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago who have been studying the effects of early life binge drinking on health later in life.

In prior research, the UIC team found that binge drinking in adolescence alters brain chemistry at the enhancer region of the Arc gene — for activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein immediate-early gene — and decreases Arc expression in the amygdala of both rodents and humans. This epigenetic reprogramming of the Arc gene in the brain’s emotion and memory center contributes to a predisposition to anxiety and alcohol use disorder in adulthood.

In the new study, the researchers show that this epigenetic reprogramming, which persists throughout life, actually can be reversed with gene editing.

“Early binge drinking can have long-lasting and significant effects on the brain and the results of this study offer evidence that gene editing is a potential antidote to these effects, offering a kind of factory reset for the brain, if you will,” said study senior author Subhash Pandey, the Joseph A. Flaherty Endowed Professor of Psychiatry and director of the Center for Alcohol Research in Epigenetics at UIC.

Pandey and his team used a gene-editing tool called CRISPR-dCas9 in their experiments to manipulate the histone acetylation and methylation processes at the Arc gene in models of adult rats. These processes make genes more or less accessible for activation.

First, the researchers studied adult rats with intermittent alcohol exposure in their adolescence, corresponding to about age 10 to 18 in human years. They observed that when dCas9 was used to promote acetylation, a process that loosens chromatin and allows transcription factors to bind to the DNA, Arc gene expression normalized. And, indicators of anxiety and alcohol consumption decreased.

Anxiety was measured through behavioral testing, such as by documenting the exploratory activity of rats placed in maze tests, and preference for alcohol was measured by monitoring the amount of liquid consumed when the rats were presented with a choice of two bottles consisting of options such as tap water, sugar water and varying concentrations of alcohol (3%, 7% and 9%).

In a second model, the researchers studied adult rats without early alcohol exposure. When inhibitory dCas9 was used to promote methylation, which tightens chromatin and prevents transcription factors from binding to DNA, Arc expression decreased and indicators of anxiety and alcohol consumption increased.

“These results demonstrate that epigenomic editing in the amygdala can ameliorate adult psychopathology after adolescent alcohol exposure,” the authors report.

“Adolescent binge drinking is a serious public health issue, and this study not only helps us better understand what happens in developing brains when they are exposed to high concentrations of alcohol but more importantly gives us hope that one day we will have effective treatments for the complex and multifaceted diseases of anxiety and alcohol use disorder,” said Pandey, who is also a senior research career scientist at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. “That this effect was seen bidirectionally validates the significance of the Arc enhancer gene in the amygdala in epigenetic reprogramming from adolescent binge drinking.”

The research was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (U01AA019971, U24AA024605, P50AA022538, and F32AA027410) and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Illinois Chicago. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

“As the planet continues to warm, we expect a number of species to move out of some protected areas and into others as they shift their ranges in response to climate change,” says lead-author Sean Parks, a research ecologist with the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute.

The researchers found that some species currently in protected areas may have to cross international boundaries to find more suitable climate conditions. As they move, they may face physical barriers, such as border fences, and non-physical barriers, such as inconsistent conservation policies in different areas and countries.

Climate conditions are expected to change in over a quarter of the current land-based global network of protected areas under a scenario of 2°C warming. The study found that more than a third of protected lands could gain new climates. Understanding these shifts away from known to new climate conditions within protected areas helps the international conservation community forecast planning needs and make more strategic investment decisions for limited conservation funding.

“The Rocky Mountain Research Station is committed to addressing the threat of climate change, by providing research needed to support new strategies for stewarding protected areas and other wildlands within the United States and internationally,” says Jason Taylor, Director of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute.

Story Source:

Materials provided by USDA Forest Service – Rocky Mountain Research Station. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Because we shouldn’t only act for the Earth on April 22, Earth911 is honoring Earth Day’s 52 years of inspiring action with 52 Actions for the Earth. The Earth Day theme this year is investing in the planet. Each week from Earth Day 2022 to Earth Day 2023, we will share an action you can take to invest in the Earth and make your own life more sustainable.

This week, you can invest in the Earth by helping to create a green economy.

Action: Tell Congress to Support Green Economic Legislation

Build Back Better

Last year, President Biden proposed the Build Back Better Plan. The plan offered a legislative framework to build the foundation of a new green economy that will return the country to pre-pandemic economic prosperity. The plan contained three parts:

• The American Rescue Plan was a COVID-19 relief package. It became law in March 2021.
• The American Families Plan was a social policy proposal that included spending on welfare and social services.
• The American Jobs Plan was a proposal to fund infrastructure and reduce the effects of climate change.

American Jobs Plan

The American Jobs Plan would have put the U.S. on course to utilize 100% clean power by 2035; laid the foundation to electrify the nation’s vehicle fleets; and retrofit homes, schools, and buildings to be energy efficient. The plan prioritized equity by targeting 40% of the benefits from green economy infrastructure investments in disadvantaged communities.

Some of the infrastructure spending in the American Jobs Plan was incorporated into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was signed into law on November 15, 2021. Other portions of the American Jobs Plan – such as funding related to climate change and home care – were merged with the American Families Plan to form the Build Back Better Act, which passed the House but was effectively killed by Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). For those who want to know more about the legislative process surrounding the bill, Vox explored possible paths forward.

Take Action for Green Legislation

A lot of the infrastructure and climate elements from the original plan have been adopted piecemeal through other legislation. But many elements remain unfulfilled, in particular, the climate change provisions. The House COMPETES Act includes many of them. Congress is currently resolving differences between this bill and the Senate’s Innovation and Competition Act.

To take action for the green economy, you can write a letter to your Congressional representatives. Let them know that you supported the American Jobs Plan and want to see a final resolution of the current House and Senate bills that includes provisions for action against climate change and support for the green economy. Encourage your representatives to continue proposing and voting for legislation that supports clean power, lower emissions, and environmental justice.

You can send your letter any way that you like. Congressional office staff record and catalog every communication they receive. So use your best stationery, fire off an email, or use the form on the EarthDay.org website that will autofill your representatives’ contact information based on your mailing address. But do tell your representatives that you want them to work towards a green economy.