Thawing Alaskan permafrost is unleashing more mercury, confirming scientists’ worst fears
“It has that sense of a bomb that’s going to go off.”
Alaska’s permafrost is melting and revealing high levels of mercury that could threaten Alaska Native peoples.
That’s according to a new study released earlier this month by the University of Southern California, analyzing sediment from melted permafrost along Alaska’s Yukon River.
Researchers already knew that the Arctic permafrost was releasing some mercury, but scientists weren’t sure how much. The new study — published in the journal Environmental Research Letters — found the situation isn’t good: As the river runs west, melted permafrost is depositing a lot of mercury into the riverbank, confirming some of scientists’ worst estimates and underscoring the potential threat to the environment and Indigenous peoples.
Acre’s communities face drinking water shortage amid Amazon drought
Rosineide de Lima, a resident of the Panorama community in Rio Branco, in the state of Acre, faces a daily struggle for survival amid the severe drought that has hit Acre’s capital and surrounding region. In her house, where seven people live, water is rationed daily. “My well will run dry in August,” she told Mongabay, worried about the health of her five children. “For now, I’m still managing to get some water from it to wash clothes once a week and do household chores, but for drinking I’ve started buying mineral water since my children started having health problems, such as dehydration.”
After experiencing an extreme drought in 2023, the Amazon is already feeling signs of a new drought this year. According to experts, the 2024 drought could be even worse. It has already affected 69% of the Amazon’s municipalities, an increase of 56% compared with the same period in 2023.
N.W.T.’s Scotty Creek Research Station rebuilt, now with its own fire-protection system
Peter Cazon of Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation says he’s ready to start up sprinklers at ‘drop of a dime’
Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation is preparing for the grand reopening of the Scotty Creek Research Station in the N.W.T. later this month. The site was almost entirely gutted by wildfire two years ago, and now the First Nation has taken steps to keep that from happening again.
Peter Cazon, a land guardian for the Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation (LKFN), has applied his more than two decades of experience in fighting forest fires to the task. He said he’s built a 75-metre-wide firebreak around the camp, and has helped set up a sprinkler system.
If pilots flying in the area notice fire, Cazon said they’ll call into the community’s airport and soon after he’ll be notified of the threat.
Hurricanes Debby and Beryl show how hot oceans fuel a deadly storm season
Weeks before the typical peak of Atlantic hurricane season, abnormally hot oceans spawned a record-shattering storm. And the trouble is just getting started.
For 15 straight months through June, global sea temperatures have hit all-time seasonal highs. In the Gulf of Mexico and east of Florida, coastal waters are already pushing 90F (32C). Not only is ocean heat breeding dangerous hurricanes like Beryl much earlier in the year than usual, but it’s also giving those storms the fuel to get stronger, faster. Debby slammed into Florida as a hurricane on Monday after rapidly gaining power in the Gulf.
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Deforestation harms climate less than other types of Amazon degradation, study finds
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came into office in 2023 pledging to tackle deforestation in the Amazon and restore his country as a climate leader after years of intense destruction in the world’s largest rainforest under predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula’s commitment to end deforestation by 2030 is on track with tighter enforcement helping to cut deforestation rates by more than half, according to government figures. But a new study indicates that deforestation alone accounts for a only fraction of climate damage involving the Amazon.
Geoengineering gains momentum, but governance is lacking, critics say
As climate change rapidly advances, with 2023 and 2024 vying for the hottest year on record, solar radiation modification (SRM) geoengineering strategies are gaining momentum as short-term climate fixes. These especially include proposals for the release of cooling aerosols into the Earth’s lower stratosphere.
But preliminary geoengineering efforts (represented by lots of computer modeling and a smattering of small-scale field tests) are proceeding against a backdrop of public mistrust and resistance, while also provoking urgent calls by experts for national and international policies and regulatory structures to govern this burgeoning field.
World’s forests failed to curb 2023 climate emissions, study finds
Forests and other land ecosystems failed to curb climate change in 2023 as intense drought in the Amazon rainforest and record wildfires in Canada hampered their natural ability to absorb carbon dioxide, according to a study presented on Monday.
That means a record amount of carbon dioxide entered Earth’s atmosphere last year, further feeding global warming, the researchers said.
Air quality monitoring to machine learning: Fund for Climate Solutions awards six new grants
The second round of 2024 Fund for Climate Solutions (FCS) awardees has been announced. The FCS advances innovative, solutions-oriented climate science through a competitive, internal, and cross-disciplinary funding process. Generous donor support has enabled us to raise more than $10 million towards the FCS, funding 69 research grants since 2018. The latest cohort of grantees includes three projects focused on driving impact through collaboration and community-building, and three projects exploring new horizons in technology with timely policy relevance.
Arctic wildfire pollutants: Towards improving emissions estimates and developing tribally-led monitoring
Lead: Scott Zolkos
Collaborators: Brendan Rogers, Sue Natali, Kyle Arndt, Elise Sunderland (Harvard University)
Increasing wildfire activity in northern high-latitude regions is threatening global climate goals and public health. When organic matter in soils and vegetation burns, greenhouse gasses, fine particulates (PM2.5), and contaminants including mercury are released to the environment. Currently, there is sparse data for understanding how wildfires contribute to the northern mercury cycle, as well as gaps in infrastructure for monitoring PM2.5 in Alaska Native communities. This project will develop a network to measure and monitor the release of mercury and PM2.5 from wildfire, with an emphasis on peatlands. Leveraging ongoing work by Permafrost Pathways, the team will install mercury sampling equipment on existing eddy covariance flux towers across Alaska and Canada. Alongside Permafrost Pathways and their tribal partners, the team will also consult with Alaska Native communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta to co-develop a tribally-led air quality monitoring program.
Workshop: Innovative sensors and applications in environmental research
Lead: Kathleen Savage
Collaborators: Zoë Dietrich, Marcia Macedo
Many of the Woods Hole science community’s cutting-edge researchers, including several scientists at Woodwell Climate, are developing creative, do-it-yourself (DIY) tools using relatively simple components to further explore their research questions. However, despite the six institutions’ similar applications and geographic proximity, there are few opportunities for exchange and knowledge, both across Woods Hole institutions and more broadly with Cape Cod educational institutions. The project team will convene a one-day workshop to bring together aquatic, atmospheric, and terrestrial science researchers and educators from the Woods Hole science community and local community colleges. The event will focus on three main themes: development of new sensor systems that use existing technologies in novel ways; new data storage or transmission solutions; and community initiatives to facilitate continued creation and sharing of new technologies. Sessions will foster knowledge exchange, build networks, and develop community resources focused on innovative DIY research solutions, and a hybrid virtual option will be offered for oral presentations to broaden participation.
Soil Spectroscopy for Global Good network
Lead: José Lucas Safanelli
Collaborators: Jonathan Sanderman
The Soil Spectroscopy for Global Good (SS4GG) initiative is a collaborative network of hundreds of soil scientists and others focused on using soil spectroscopy as a means to generate high-quality soil data at significantly reduced costs. It was created in 2020 by the Woodwell Climate Research Center, the University of Florida, and the OpenGeoHub Foundation (the Netherlands) with support from many national and international institutions and researchers. SS4GG created and supports the Open Soil Spectral Library (OSSL), an open source of soil spectroscopy data, and a broad community of practitioners uses the library and collaborates on related science. This award will extend the activities of the SS4GG initiative with a focus on training and further engagement with the soil science community. The project team will continue to add data sets and new models to the OSSL, as well as engage with the soil science community by attending international conferences and providing a training workshop. The funds will also support hosting a visiting soil biogeochemist at the Woodwell Climate campus—Dr. Raj Setia from the Punjab Remote Sensing Center.
Pathways of carbon metabolism under cover crops
Lead: Taniya RoyChowdhury
Collaborator: Jonathan Sanderman
Sequestering, or capturing carbon in soils has a high potential to mitigate climate change. It is challenging to specifically predict how successful carbon sequestration may be, as current models used to evaluate agronomic management oversimplify soil microbial properties. This project will test for the key pathways of carbon transformations using soil samples taken under cover crops from a long-term study site. The team will quantify the chemical diversity of carbon substrates that microbes in the soil take up, and use data mining to predict the impacts of that diversity on soil carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling. The research outcomes will also lay a foundation for future collaborative research within the Department of Energy scientific community, and the soil health research community more broadly.
Bringing confidence to carbon markets through improved monitoring
Lead: Seth Gorelik
Collaborator: Wayne Walker
The protection, improved management, and restoration of forests are key nature-based solutions to the climate crisis, yet implementation and maintenance of these forest-based solutions requires sustainable and substantial financing. The voluntary carbon market (VCM) has the potential to deliver the necessary level of financing; however, a significant gap exists between its potential and actual performance. Improving the accuracy of forest carbon monitoring is crucial for the VCM to deliver effective, meaningful climate change mitigation. This project will enhance the credibility and effectiveness of forest carbon markets by evaluating new remote sensing methods for measuring forest carbon and showing that these methods provide more robust data than the conventional approach. Research findings could lead to updated global standards and policies for issuing carbon credits, which would increase market confidence and promote sustainable forest management.
Applying machine learning models to link river hydrology and fire risk forecasting in the Amazon
Lead: Andrea D. de Almeida Castanho
Collaborators: Michael Coe, Marcia Macedo
In recent decades, extreme drought events have increased forest flammability, fire severity, and the likelihood of fire escaping and spreading into adjacent forests and working lands, as illustrated by the wildfires seen throughout Amazonia during the 2023-24 drought. The project team will explore the potential of using river stage (water level) data as a proxy for landscape dryness, to ultimately reveal the short-term risk of wildfires spreading into forests. If confirmed, this innovative hypothesis could provide the scientific basis for developing new metrics of river stage to improve early-warning systems that forecast high fire risk days to weeks in advance. These improvements would create benefits not only for tropical forest protection, but also for biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, and human health.