Hi Ron, It was great to meet you and Andrew Heggie. You set me thinking about biodiversity, the Arctic, and the current biodiversity conference you are attending.
Re biodiversity and Prof Lloyd Peck see [1]. He's been leading on the biodiversity theme [2]. SEA ORGANISMS Peck is more of expert on Antarctic than the Arctic. Here's the kind of thing he talked about at the Royal Geographical Society event [3]. Many organisms can only survive in a narrow range of water temperature - this could be a key factor for biodiversity reduction as Arctic waters warm. The water from Gulf Stream entering the Arctic through the Fram Strait has warmed 2 degrees. But local warming could be much more. It's sufficient to be melting permafrost below seabed in the ESAS (East Siberian Arctic Shelf). POLAR BEARS etc Many polar mammals rely on sea ice, which could be gone by 2015 during summer months. SHELLS The other big biodiversity problem is acidification - greatest in cold water - Arctic has undersaturation in calcite and/or aragonite which is crucial for shells, so that all shelled organisms in Arctic are at risk - hence the whole marine food chain [4]. It's worth reading all of this. BTW when I spoke to Peter Wadhams about ocean acidification, he said has already observed shells of minute sea organisms dissolving away in the Arctic water! ANOXIA There is a danger of anoxia in Arctic waters, as the aerobic microbes that breakdown methane are de-oxygenating the water. CONCLUSION It is vital to have SRM to halt Arctic warming and enough CDR to actually reduce the CO2 level in the atmosphere. We also need more direct techniques to reduce the Arctic methane threat and risk of anoxia. I would welcome ideas on reducing these threats for the London workshop on 3-4 September Cheers, John [1] http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/releases/2007/38-champions.asp [2] http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/themes/tap/documents/tap-biodiversity.pdf [3] http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=13 [4] http://thefastertimes.com/earthmatters/2011/02/23/the-arctic-food-web-is-unraveling-endangering-polar-bears-and-humans-alike/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
