Sea-level rise is a well-studied climate change phenomenon. General explanation is that thermal expansion of water and water from melting ice caps and glaciers are responsible for the rise. Global sea-level rose about 1.8 millimetres every year in the last decades. 1.1mm from the 1.8 is explained by melting ice and ocean expansion combined which leaves 0.7mm unexplained. New study in Nature Geoscience suggests an additional component which can help to solve this equation: human use of terrestrial water.

The researchers state that human impacts on terrestrial water storage could account for as much as 0.77 millimetres per year, or 42%, of the observed sea-level rise between 1961 and 2003. They used an integrated model to estimate sea-level rise caused by human use of terrestrial water (e.g. irrigation, industrial use, reservoir management). Most of the extracted subsurface water is not restocked because it either evaporates or flows into rivers ending up in seas eventually. They found that unsustainable groundwater use, artificial reservoir water impoundment, climate-driven changes in terrestrial water storage and the loss of water from closed basins are the main drivers of rising sea levels. From those drivers, unsustainable groundwater use represents the largest contribution. Even Taikan Oki, one of the researchers, was surprised by their results: “I didn’t expect that human extraction of groundwater would matter so much”.

Groundwater provides up to 80% of public water supplies for large areas of England. The current drought and hosepipe bans in England already drew attention to this precious resource and the need for its sustainable use. Findings of this new research underline this need for the sake of mitigating sea-level rise.

Yadu N. Pokhrel, Naota Hanasaki, Pat J-F. Yeh, Tomohito J. Yamada, Shinjiro Kanae & Taikan Oki 2012 Model estimates of sea-level change due to anthropogenic impacts on terrestrial water storage. Nature Geoscience. doi:10.1038/ngeo1476

The rising level of atmospheric CO2 has led to several studies focussing on changes in terrestrial and water ecosystems that might occur as a consequence. Ocean acidification, which is caused mainly by the increasing amount of CO2 dissolved in sea water, is at the forefront of marine research topics. However, most of the studies focus on calcifying organisms (e.g. corals, crustaceans) and only a few looked at fish and changes in fish behaviour so far.

A recently published paper in Functional Ecology, a British Ecological Society journal, is aiming to fill in a knowledge gap by examining the links between ocean acidification and changes to coral reef fish behaviour based on visual effects. Behavioural studies have demonstrated already that elevated CO2 levels can cause chemosensory and auditory impairment.

Fish use various information to avoid predators. Coral reef fish use auditory and chemosensory cues to decide where to settle. Once settled, chemical and visual information become more important. The study by Ferrari et al. tested the changes in visual risk assessment by exposing juvenile damselfish to the sight of a predator, a spiny chromis. The chromis was put into a watertight bag to avoid the damselfish receiving chemosensory signals.

The researchers found that damselfish showed reduced antipredator behaviour when exposed to 850 µatm CO2 which is equivalent to the CO2 level projected by the end of this century. However, no difference in behaviour was detected for smaller amounts of CO2 (440, 550, 700 µatm) in this study; previous studies showed altered chemosensory and auditory responses at 700 and 600 µatm, respectively. This led to an interesting conclusion that visual risk assessment cannot entirely compensate for the loss of chemosensory or auditory assessment.

Current projections indicate that atmospheric CO2 will reach 500 µatm by mid-century and 850 µatm by the end of this century. This study shows therefore that the latter concentration can alter the behaviour of coral reef fish and may eventually change the dynamics of predator-prey interactions and biodiversity of coral reefs.

The researchers highlight the need for longer term experiments to answer questions about adaptation and selection. However, they proved an extra point on why we should act immediately on reducing CO2 emissions.

Ferrari, M.C.O., McCormick, M.I., Munday, P.L., Meekan, M.G., Dixson, D.L., Lonnstedt, O. & Chivers, D.P. 2012 Effects of ocean acidification on visual risk assessment of coral reef fishes. Functional Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2435.2011.01951.x

The original Open Access paper can be downloaded here.

The Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) launched its latest Report Card on 8th May at the World Fisheries Congress in Edinburgh. It focuses on how climate change is affecting the fish and shellfish we find in our seas, providing both opportunities and threats, and what the social and economic consequences could be.

Key findings in the 2012 MCCIP Report Card include:
• There are clear changes in the depth, distribution, migration and spawning behaviours of fish – many of which can be related to warming sea temperatures.
• Cultivated fish and shellfish are both susceptible to climate change, although fish farming technologies offer good potential for adaptation.
• Controlled or closed fishing areas (a type of protected area) that can be adapted in response to climate change have the potential to help protect commercial and vulnerable fish stocks.
• Recreational sea fishing is an important socio-economic activity that could be positively affected by climate change, due to the increasing abundance of species that are of interest to anglers.
• Shifting distributions of fish have led to a series of international disagreements and will continue to have implications for fisheries management across international boundaries.

Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Environment Richard Lochhead said:
“Climate change is affecting us all and understanding the impact on the marine environment is hugely important. Fisheries and aquaculture are vital to our economy – worth over 1 billion – and clear science is critical to secure the future of our valuable food industries. That is why I welcome the collaborative work of the MCCIP – the report card provides significant and robust scientific data which will help inform future policies to tackle climate change.”

UK Minister for the Marine Environment, Richard Benyon, said:
“I would like to thank the scientists who have contributed towards this valuable report and believe we have come a long way in a short time in understanding the impacts of climate change on the marine environment.
“The truth is that climate change is having a big impact on distribution of fish stocks and this is going to present some significant challenges for policy-makers, fisheries managers and for fishing industry itself.
“The Government will develop a National Adaptation Plan in response to the Climate Change Risk Assessment in which issues affecting the marine environment will be addressed.”

The 12-page report card is available here.

The report card draws on four Open Access reviews published in Aquatic Conservation this week and available here.

Blog post by Dr Davy McCracken, Team Leader, Scottish Agricultural College.

A new project to develop a series of ‘Climate Change Impacts Report Cards’ for the terrestrial and freshwater environments has started under the Living With Environmental Change programme, supported by Defra and NERC.

These report cards will be accessible, high level summaries of the science, based on more detailed supporting papers, with thorough peer review of both the supporting papers and the report card itself. The audience includes policy makers, business and a wide range of other stakeholders, as well as the research community. The concept is based on the very successful report cards produced by the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership for the marine environment.

Two cards are currently being developed, one on water issues and one on biodiversity. The development of the biodiversity card is being led by Mike Morecroft and Lydia Speakman at Natural England: if you are interested in getting involved, or would like to know more, please email Lydia.Speakman@naturalengland.org.uk.

The Royal Society yesterday published ‘People and the Planet‘, a report which marks the end of nearly two years of work by a group including both the British Ecological Society’s current President, Professor Georgina Mace FRS and a past-President of the Society, Professor Alastair Fitter FRS. Speaking to the Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme yesterday morning, Professor Mace warned that we are eroding the earth’s vital support systems through over-consumption and unfettered economic growth and that as a consequence we are not doing a very poor job of ‘gardening the planet’.

The study examines the links between global population and consumption and the implications for our finite planet. The aim of the report is to provide policy guidance to decision makers and to inform interested members of the public. Yesterday’s publication led to very interesting coverage on the Guardian’s environment blog, with members of the working group, including the group’s chair, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Sir John Sulston FRS, commentators and others offering their views on the content. Some of those commenting contended that the scientists were too negative in their assessment and that economic growth should not always be viewed as having negative consequences for the environment. One suggestion was that economic growth means that natural resources such as timber could be replaced with man-made materials for development purposes, so reducing environmental degradation. Another was that economic growth means technological and scientific advances, with humanity thereby innovating our way out of a crisis.

Aside from any external comment on the project’s conclusions, the overriding message of the study is that we must examine population growth and consumption patterns together and that it is the combination of these two factors that has an effect on the planet. The human population is set to reach 10 billion people, from the current seven billion, by the middle of this century. Over 1.3 billion people currently live in abject poverty, on less than $1.25 per day. It is clearly not desirable to see a world in which both the population increases and inequalities are exacerbated. Inequality must be addressed, people must be lifted out of poverty, but as their wealth and living standards increase, so too will the consumption of resources. Reducing consumption whilst also reducing inequalities and ensuring that those in poverty achieve an adequate living standard is a dilemma, and one which seems intractable.

Yet, speaking to the Today Programme yesterday morning, Sir John Sulston described tackling these pressures on the planet, what he characterised as ‘planning to flourish’, as ‘very simple’. Echoing the conclusions of the report he stated that we need to ‘dematerialise’ our economy, for example by investing in zero carbon forms of energy and by moving beyond GDP as a measure of economic growth to price in natural capital. In addition, tackling population growth will require countries to work together constructively, rather than the developed somehow lecturing the developing world in how to address birth rates. Contraception should be made available to those who want it in Africa, where two thirds of the anticipated growth in population is projected to occur, for example, but representatives of some African nations, such as Kenya, are requesting this, rather than this being imposed from outside.

Top priority is afforded to lifting people out of poverty, in the report’s conclusions. The international community is urged to address inequality through investment in education, family planning and economic development. The other recommendations are (to paraphrase):

- Most developed and developing economies must stabilise and reduce material consumption levels (de-coupling economic growth from environmental impacts and improving the efficiency of resource use, for example);
- Reproductive health and voluntary family planning programmes should be supported by political leadership and financial commitments;
- Population and the environment should not be considered separately. Demographic changes should be factored in to Rio +20 negotiations, for example;
- Governments should invest appropriately in urbanisation, for example supporting waste collection, which has the potential to reduce environmental impacts through allowing resource efficiencies;
- High quality primary and secondary education should be available for all young people;
- Governments should accelerate the development of a comprehensive wealth measure, including improving national natural asset accounting;
- Governments should collaborate to develop socio-economic systems and institutions not dependent on continued material consumption.

Natural and social scientists have an important role to play. The seventh recommendation calls for scientists to increase their research into the interactions between consumption, demographic changes and environmental impacts, providing policy-makers with the information they require in order to ensure that both the planet and the human population under pressure can continue not only to survive but also to thrive.

Climate change and the continual rise in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are well established in the environmental policy agenda. However, although the general scientific evidence for climate change is now rarely refuted, the issue continues to be a very large, complex and wide-reaching challenge and there is still significant ongoing research in the field. These studies often produce novel findings with implications for the policy response to climate change.

The importance of nitrogen
In the current climate change forum, discussion of GHG emissions more often becomes a discussion of carbon emissions and the carbon cycle. However, the European Nitrogen Assessment produced last year by a team of scientists led by Mark Sutton and Clare Howard, stresses that human disruption of the nitrogen cycle has been just as severe and could have consequences just as serious as those related to carbon.

In its natural state, nitrogen exists mainly in the form of stable nitrogen gas. However, over the past century, intensive fertiliser production and burning of fossil fuels have led to a doubling of the rate at which more reactive nitrogen is formed. This has resulted in increased formation of the GHG nitrous oxide as well as other gases and particulate matter harmful to human health. Deposition is also leading to a change in soil fertility, altering plant growth rates and community composition.

Nitrogen presents a unique challenge to policy as the cycle is very complex meaning that a response will require cooperation between actors from a wide range of disciplines. However, within Europe, progress in addressing this challenge has already been made with the establishment of NitroEurope which brings together 64 institutions to collaborate on understanding and addressing the impact of nitrogen on the GHG balance. The result of this work is the European Nitrogen Assessment which has now been adopted as an activity under the international Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution.

Critically, the ENA estimates the economic cost of nitrogen damage – increasingly seen as the most effective way to communicate environmental issues to policy makers and industry – which it puts at €70-320 billion/year in the EU, making a compelling argument for urgent attention. Recommended actions for policymakers to pursue include improving the efficiency of agriculture, improving fossil fuel combustion methods, and reducing consumption of energy and animal products.

Link between emissions, ocean temperatures and ‘extreme’ weather
The link between industrial emissions and climate change is now widely accepted, but a study published in Nature this month is the first to clearly show a link between industrial air pollution and recorded variations in ocean temperature.

Findings of the study, which used a state-of-the-art Met Office climate model to simulate physical processes in the Earth’s atmosphere, show a link between aerosol pollution in the atmosphere and changes in the pattern of temperature shifts in the Atlantic Ocean. These shifts, known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, see warm and cold fluctuations in the ocean’s temperature over several decades and are widely believed to result in changes to hurricane activity in the North Atlantic and rainfall patterns in Africa, South America and India, often leading to humanitarian disasters.

The new study is significant as, until now, these fluctuations were thought to be due to natural variability but, according to Ben Booth, a Met Office climate processes scientist and lead author of the research, the findings now suggest that ‘natural disasters…such as persistent African drought…may not be so natural after all’.

The model shows a clear correlation between Atlantic variations and industrial pollution levels; peaks in emissions coincide with cooler ocean temperatures whilst the introduction of clean air policy in the 90s resulted in warming of the seas. This has significant implications for climate change and emission policy of the future as it shows a clear link between air pollution, regional climate variability and natural disasters.

Warning that biomass may increase rather than reduce EU carbon emissions
A call was made to policymakers at the European Parliament at the end of March for Brussels to rethink its carbon accounting rules for biomass energy, stating that the current EU definition of wood biomass as a ‘carbon neutral’ fuel is inaccurate.

Currently, wood makes up the bulk of the EU’s biomass energy – alongside agricultural crops and residues, and vegetation waste – and is awarded subsidies, feed-in tariffs and electricity premiums in order to encourage its adoption as one of the EU’s main sources of renewable energy.

However, groups including the European Environment Agency’s independent Scientific Committee, have warned that the time lag between the carbon debt created when a tree is felled, transported and combusted as fuel, and the carbon credit gained when a new tree has grown to absorb carbon in place of the old one (‘bio-recovery time’), will result in a rise in CO2 concentrations in the interim. More critically, the carbon balance will depend on what is grown to replace felled forests – under the current accounting rules of the EU, energy crops can be grown on the footprint of previous woodland, even though these tend to absorb and store less CO2 with the result that net carbon emissions may in fact increase.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that biomass can only be classified as carbon neutral if all land use impacts have been considered, something which the EU has acknowledged with proposals for binding criteria designed to identify truly carbon-neutral biomass sources.

These proposals are due to be released later this year but have been repeatedly postponed due to opposition from countries including forest-rich Finland and Sweden. According to sources quoted by EurActiv, there is an apparent lack of enthusiasm amongst the EU’s energy directorate to pursue these criteria, and it is possible their release could be put back yet again.

Implications for environmental policy
Such advances in climate change and emissions research can reveal current environmental policy to be ineffective in tackling the issues they are designed to address, or – such as in the case of biomass energy – even unintentionally damaging. Ensuring ongoing research and effective communication across the science-policy interface within the field of climate change is therefore critical.

The persistent dry weather which has led to the current hosepipe ban in South East England is also threatening the future of one of Britain’s rarest amphibians, the natterjack toad.

With fewer than 50 breeding populations remaining in mainland Britain, the natterjack is highly vulnerable to the drying-out of the shallow coastal dune slacks it relies on as breeding habitat. Low rainfall for the past two years means that these wet hollows have begun disappearing before natterjack tadpoles have metamorphosed into toads, causing a significant drop in breeding success.

In response, Natural England has introduced a programme of water saving techniques and pond management across a number of its National Nature Reserves (NNRs), which support a large proportion of the remaining natterjack population. For example, at Saltfleetby Theddlethorpe Dunes NNR in Lincolnshire, staff have created captive pools in which water levels are controlled to allow tadpoles to mature before being they are allowed to escape into the surrounding dunes. Dr Pete Brotherton, Natural England’s Head of Biodiversity is optimistic about the success of the scheme saying ‘we are confident that the toad can bounce back if conditions prove wetter next year’.

Further afield, targeted conservation interventions to protect amphibians are also taking place in Central America. In this region, in addition to the threat of a changing climate, species of frog are being severely impacted by the spread of ‘chytrid’ – a virulent fungal disease. In some regions, the fungus is spreading at a rate of around 20 miles a year and can reduce frog populations by up to 90%. In response, scientists have started a programme of collecting healthy frogs from their forest habitats and transporting them to specially designed ‘arks’ to be held until ongoing research provides a solution to eradicate the fungus. Such a seemingly drastic response is partly due to the considerable potential value of amphibian diversity for human health. For example, a species of tree frog from Australia has been found to produce compounds that destroy HIV cells, whilst the phantasmal poison frog produces a painkiller 200 times more powerful than morphine. Already, the gastric-brooding frog – thought to offer a possible cure for peptic ulcers – has gone extinct.

In order to prevent the loss of further amphibian species with significant human, ecological and intrinsic value, such conservation efforts may need to be become more widely applied in the future.

For more on the natterjack toad, see Natural England’s press release on the subject. Further detail on amphibian conservation and the chytrid fungus can be found on the BBC news website.

A new £1 billion competition has been announced by the UK Government to support the development of industrial scale Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology. So far CCS has been developed on small scales but no commercial scale test of the technology has ever been undertaken.

The Government’s previous attempt to incentivise the development of commercial-scale CCS collapsed in October 2011 following the withdrawal of all nine companies participating in the scheme, citing concerns over the financial viability of the programme.

Changes have now been made, meaning that the competition announced today will accept applications from schemes that trap carbon dioxide pre-combustion, as well as post-combustion, and will also be open to both gas as well as coal fired power plants.

One or more demonstration plants will be funded and it is anticipated that the selected projects will be up and running by 2016 – 2020. By the end of the 2020’s the Government expects 12 – 20 new plants to be fitted with the technology.

Alongside the £1 billion fund, Ministers have also announced £125 million to support research and development of CCS, including a new £13m CCS Research Centre; a virtual network coordinated by the University of Edinburgh. Ministers will also announce shortly the details of how the technology can be supported in the long-term. One approach that the Government favours is believed to be to encourage ‘clusters’ of power plants to develop, with these then supporting each other and sharing best practice in the development and utilisation of CCS.

Original articles:
Fiona Harvey, the Guardian, 3 April 2012 – New push for carbon capture and storage with £1 bn competitionDavid Shukman, BBC, 3 April 2012 – New UK attempt to capture carbon

According to climate researchers, who compared tree-ring temperature reconstructions with model simulations of past temperature changes, climate cooling caused by past volcanic eruptions may not be evident. This is due to shortened or even absent growing seasons as a result of large temperature drops.

Michael Mann, professor of meteorology and geosciences and the director of the Penn State Earth System Science Centre, said “We know these tree rings capture most temperature changes quite well, but the problem appears to be in their response to the intense short-term cooling that occurs following a very large volcanic eruption. Explosive volcanic eruptions place particulates called aerosols into the stratosphere, reflecting back some fraction of incoming sunlight and cooling the planet for several years following the eruption”.

Tree-rings are used as a proxy measure for past climates. Unique rings are created each year that often reflect the weather conditions that influenced that particular growing season. The study, carried out by professor Mann, compared temperature reconstructions from actual tree-ring data with temperature estimates from the climate models driven with past volcanic eruptions. The report, published in Nature Geoscience, found that the overall agreement between models was good, apart from “one glaring inconsistency; the response to the three largest tropical eruptions – AD 1258/1259, 1452/1453 and the 1809+1815 double pulse of eruptions – is sharply reduced in the reconstruction”. In conclusion, Mann states that “Scientists look at the past response of the climate to natural factors like volcanoes to better understand how sensitive Earth’s climate might be to the human impact of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Our findings suggest that past studies using tree-ring data to infer this sensitivity have likely underestimated it”.

Over the past 40 years the EU has set up a relatively comprehensive and dense body of environmental legislation which, although far from perfect, is certainly a success story. Times are changing and increasing complexity of inter-linkages between policies on climate change, biodiversity and natural resources, coupled with financial and political volatility mean EU policy is likely to move in a new direction in the coming decade. That is the suggestion made by the recent report produced by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Environment Group (APPEG). Here are some of the key areas of EU environmental policy that the IEEP has identified as being high on the agenda over the next few years.

Climate Change and Energy

Despite being among some of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the world, EU member states are also among the most active in seeking to address the issue. The Kyoto Protocol commits the EU-15 to reducing average GHG emissions by 8 per cent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. In 2009 the EU implemented the 20-20-20 target, which aims to reduce GHG emission by 20 per cent, increase the share of renewable energy by 20 per cent and reduce energy consumption by 20 per cent, all by the year 2020. Progress towards these targets is mixed with the steady rise in the share of renewable energy sources in stark contrast to the energy saving estimates. A number of studies have demonstrated that more ambitious climate mitigation polices are needed in Europe which could modernise the EU economy and infrastructure, create jobs and enhance competitiveness in fast growing global markets for low-carbon goods and services.

Transport

Emissions from transport are a major source of the EU’s GHG emissions, in 2010 it accounted for more than a fifth of GHG emissions from the EU. Increasing demand has offset potential gains from improvements in the energy efficiency of new vehicles. Further impacts of transport include problems with poor air quality, noise and transport infrastructure also puts huge pressure on Europe’s ecosystems and biodiversity. Currently there is a major effort to promote the use of biofuels and accelerate the process of electrifying road vehicles, however, many challenges exist in ensuring that these alternative fuels and energy sources are sustainable and are in fact low carbon.

Water

The EU environmental policies regarding water pollution have improved freshwater quality for many of its member states, including the UK. There are, however, growing problems in relation to water quantity, in particular in the south of Europe. EU water policy provides a comprehensive legislative framework that aims to address issues related to water quality as well as water demand and availability. 2012 will be an important year for EU water policy with the current “fitness-check” being undertaken by the Commission.

Biodiversity

Despite the establishment of a European network of protected areas (Natura 2000) and wide ranging regulatory framework, biodiversity continues to decline. 2010 targets of halting biodiversity loss within the EU were not met, mainly due to continuing increases in key pressures such as intensification of agriculture and habitat fragmentation. Over the last few years there has been increasing recognition of the economic value of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the policy process. A new EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 was produced in 2011 which sets out six main targets relating to: full implementation of the birds and habitats Directives, maintaining and restoring ecosystems and their services, increasing the contribution of agriculture and forestry to maintaining and enhancing biodiversity, ensuring the sustainable use of fisheries resources, combating invasive alien species and helping to avert global biodiversity loss.