The Eco News Roundup brings stories and commentary about issues related to climate change, renewable energy and the environment.

Arctic Ocean freshwater bulge detected

UK scientists have detected a huge dome of fresh water that is developing in the western Arctic Ocean.

The bulge is some 8,000 cubic km in size and has risen by about 15cm since 2002.

See Also: Arctic ice hits second-lowest level, US scientists say
See Also: Arctic ice thickness ‘plummets’

Big Tokyo earthquake likely ‘within the next few years’

The chance of a big earthquake hitting the Japanese capital in the next few years is much greater than official predictions suggest, researchers say.

Accumulating ‘microplastic’ threat to shores

Microscopic plastic debris from washing clothes is accumulating in the marine environment and could be entering the food chain, a study has warned.

An Illustrated Guide to Climate Change in 2011

A few simple and clear pictures (and links) showing how the planet continued to warm and change around us in 2011

New estimates of Atlantic, Gulf fishing will help determine limits

WASHINGTON — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday announced that it’s using a new way to estimate the amount of fish caught by recreational saltwater anglers on the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, the result of years of work on how to make the numbers more accurate.

Unprecedented, Human-Made Trends in Ocean’s Acidity

ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2012) — Nearly one-third of CO2 emissions due to human activities enters the world’s oceans. By reacting with seawater, CO2 increases the water’s acidity, which may significantly reduce the calcification rate of such marine organisms as corals and mollusks. The extent to which human activities have raised the surface level of acidity, however, has been difficult to detect on regional scales because it varies naturally from one season and one year to the next, and between regions, and direct observations go back only 30 years.

Overgrazed Grasslands Tied to Locust Outbreaks

ienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2012) — While residents of the United States and much of Europe think of locust plagues as biblical references, locust swarms still have devastating effects on agriculture today, especially in developing countries in Asia and Africa. In a study to be released in the journal Science on Jan. 27, scientists from Arizona State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences show that insect nutrition and agricultural land management practices may partially explain modern day locust outbreaks.

Cumulative Impact of Mountaintop Mining Documented

ScienceDaily (Dec. 12, 2011) — Increased salinity and concentrations of trace elements in one West Virginia watershed have been tied directly to multiple surface coal mines upstream by a detailed new survey of stream chemistry. The Duke University team that conducted the study said it provides new evidence of the cumulative effects multiple mountaintop mining permits can have in a river network.

Restored wetlands rarely equal condition of original wetlands

Wetland restoration is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States that aims to create ecosystems similar to those that disappeared over the past century. But a new analysis of restoration projects shows that restored wetlands seldom reach the quality of a natural wetland. “Once you degrade a wetland, it doesn’t recover its normal assemblage of plants or its rich stores of organic soil carbon, which both affect natural cycles of water and nutrients, for many years,” said David Moreno-Mateos, a University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral fellow. “Even after 100 years, the restored wetland is still different from what was there before, and it may never recover.”

Injecting sulfate particles into stratosphere won’t fully offset climate change

As the reality and the impact of climate warming have become clearer in the last decade, researchers have looked for possible engineering solutions — such as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or directing the sun’s heat away from Earth — to help offset rising temperatures. New University of Washington research demonstrates that one suggested method, injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere, would likely achieve only part of the desired effect, and could carry serious, if unintended, consequences.

Here are some other links you may find worthwhile:
• Climate Change News Digest
• Climate Progress from Center for American Progress
• Rocky Mountain Institute “an independent, entrepreneurial nonprofit think-and-do tank™ that drives the efficient and restorative use of resources.”

At BPI Campus our Progressive Agenda is:
1. People matter more than profits.
2. The earth is our home, not our trash can.
3. We need good government for both #1 and #2.

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