Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Canada’s healthy oceans are worth billions more than what can simply be extracted from them.
Oceans and coastal ecosystems generated at minimum $7.1 billion in benefits in 2023, new figures from Statistics Canada suggest.
Continue reading Canada’s oceans provide billions in value beyond fishBesides calculating global warming by correlating it to the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere—which, incidentally has now risen from 280 ppm to nearly 430 ppm—another method is to measure the direct heating of Earth’s surface that comes from sunshine. This is done by measuring the energy that strikes the surface of our planet as watts per square metre. This energy is then reflected from Earth’s surface as radiant heat, blocked from escaping back into space primarily by the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Without the warming effect of any greenhouse atmospheric gases, the energy we get directly from the sun would only heat Earth to -18°C. In other words, the unique gaseous composition of the atmosphere enveloping our planet warms it to the so-called “Goldilocks Zone”—not too hot and not too cold for sustaining life as we understand it.
Unfortunately, writes Madeleine Cuff in New Scientist (“Earth Warms as Heat Trapping Doubles”, June 15, 2024). “Earth’s atmosphere is trapping more than twice as much excess heat as it did in 1993.” The surplus heat “in the climate system… is the difference between how much energy enters Earth’s atmosphere from the sun, and how much is radiated back into space.”
Continue reading Watts Up? – The Quadra ReportThe close connection that exists between the atmosphere and the ocean is not surprising considering that 70% of the planet is covered by water—about 360 million km2—and the few dozen km of air is extremely thin compared to the 12,750 km diameter of Earth. This means that about 90% of the atmospheric heating caused by rising concentrations of CO2 is transferred to the oceans.
In approximate terms, about one-third of the carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels stays there for centuries, about one-third is captured and sequestered in various land forms such as forests, soils and vegetation, although one recent United Nations study suggests the terrestrial sequestration may only be about 25%, possibly because forest and plant cover is being diminished by agriculture and fires, and because a higher global temperature is reducing the photosynthesis process by which plants process carbon dioxide into carbon, sugars and oxygen. Much of the remaining one-third of our CO2 emissions that is not absorbed by marine algae dissolves in the oceans to form carbonic acid.
Continue reading The Quadra Project – Warming Oceans
Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A collaborative cross-border study digging into forested tidal swamps in the Pacific Northwest has determined these ecosystems are carbon storage superheroes.
Found upstream from coastal estuaries and shorelines, but still subject to the flux of ocean tides, the woody wetlands feature a tangle of shrubs, grasses and trees, like willows and Sitka spruce, that can trap about nine million tonnes of organic carbon per hectare — the equivalent to the amount of carbon burned by two million gas-powered cars every year.
Continue reading The West Coast’s tidal swamps are supercharged carbon sinksOf the 37.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide we emitted into the atmosphere in 2024 from burning fossil fuels, about half was sequestered by the planet’s oceans, soils, forests and other natural processes. But evidence is suggesting a weakening of this service, some of which is related to heat—and 2024, was the hottest year ever recorded since we were a Homo species inhabiting Earth. Among other factors, photosynthesis—the process that plants use to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into sugars and an oxygen byproduct—begins to slow when temperatures rise too high, until it stops at 45°C. Consequently, certain areas of the planet sequestered absolutely no CO2 in 2023.
“We’re seeing cracks in the resilience of Earth’s systems. We’re seeing massive cracks on land—terrestrial ecosystems are losing their carbon store and uptake capacity, but the oceans are also showing signs of instability,” says Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (“Are Earth’s Carbon Sinks Collapsing?” by Patrick Greenfield, The Guardian Weekly, October 25, 2024). “Nature has so far balanced our abuse. This is coming to an end.” Should this happen, we will be unable to meet any of our climate goals.
Continue reading The Quadra Project: The Sinking of Carbon Sinks
