Hopeful news.
Spreading coffee pulp, a waste product from coffee production, over degraded lands helps them recover quickly, a recent study found. By dumping 30 truck-loads of coffee pulp on a plot of degraded land in Costa Rica, researchers watched a small forest grow at a remarkable speed in just two years.
Researchers from ETH-Zurich and the University of Hawaii discovered the coffee pulp treated plot grew 80 percent of a canopy cover, compared to the control plot, which only grew 20 percent. The canopy was also four times taller than the control area's, BES reported.
@lovendures. I love the idea of using coffee pulp. I throw all our coffee grounds into the garden every morning.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57232644
Mast Upgrade: UK experiment could sweep aside fusion hurdle
"Initial results from a UK experiment could help clear a hurdle to achieving commercial power based on nuclear fusion, experts say.
The researchers believe they now have a better way to remove the excess heat produced by fusion reactions."
Wow, this could really transform our way of producing energy. I just wish it would come sooner.
"A major study says by 2025 there's a 40% chance of at least one year being 1.5C hotter than the pre-industrial level."
We seriously need to accelerate our plans into climate change preparation. It stiĺl feels like many countries are totally unprepared.
This website is quite an eye opener to the sea level rise impact around the globe.
In the UK where I live, if the sea level rises to 40 meters then my town is completely flooded.
If sea levels rise to 70 meters in the next 30-40 years from the ice caps melting then many coastal city's will be totally gone, as well as much of the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark etc. Many people will either die or have to migrate elsewhere.
I think the US will have an advantage due to its large land mass, but that doesn't discount the huge scale damages and losses to many of the large cities and coastline states such as Florida, New York and California.
I don't know if the ice caps will melt by 2050, but if they do, then it will mean globally we have massively underestimated the impact of climate change - because from what I've read, many scientists believe the sea level will rise a maximum of 2.5 meters by 2100 and that the ice caps will not have fully melted, but a part of me feels they are underestimating this.
@luminous That's a really good map. Thanks for posting the link.
Earth is an incredibly complicated system and we still do not understand all the variables affecting climate change and sea level. The atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere (ice), biosphere, and solid Earth are all involved and can affect each other in ways that can easily tip the balance one way or another. There are many, many other factors that can come into play, some predictable, some not. For example, emissions from a major volcanic eruption can block enough sunlight to lower average global temperature a up to degree for a year or two. (Examples: Mt Pinatubo, 1991; El Chichon 1982, and most famously, Mt. Tambora, 1812, which led to the "Year Without a Summer" . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer) I remember El Chichon 1982 because we had to fire up the heater in August, which was totally bizarre.
Honestly, I keep hoping for a few major eruptions to occur and give us some extra time.
The folks who work on climate modeling do their best and have been doing so for decades. Only recently are they getting due attention to their work. It may become necessary to artificially intervene in climate by putting dust or aerosols into the atmosphere but that is very risky-- we cannot be certain exactly how much we could tip the balance and/or what the side effects might be.
Anyhow after that pendantic ramble, the map shows that sea level has to go up over 50 meters before I get beachfront property in an archipelago.
Thats a good resource. The website Climate Central offers flood maps, but only up to 3 meters. Jeanne has seen global sea levels rising 20 feet/6 meters by the end of the century. All of the icecaps will eventually melt after that, though.
As you probably know, even a rise of 0.5 meters per decade would be catastrophic. But that’s the trajectory we’re on. Here in the US, people will start moving away from the coast when banks stop underwriting mortgages for flood prone property. I think that development will happen this decade, and the current boomtown atmosphere in South Florida is a sign that we’re at the brink.
Here's a comprehensive resource for climate change in the US. It's the National Climate Assessment report prepared by a consortium of US government agencies, particularly NOAA:
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/
It's a lot to wade through but if you go to the "Chapters" link you will see some chapters that focus on different topics and regions of the country. You don't need to be a scientist or expert to understand most of it.
But that’s the trajectory we’re on. Here in the US, people will start moving away from the coast when banks stop underwriting mortgages for flood prone property.
Being located on a high spot makes me feel like the people in the full Titanic lifeboats who had to stop desperate others from crawling on board and sinking the boats. ? We've already got too much so-called "growth" in this area.
@luminous Thank you for posting that climate map. I've been using something over the years that is not nearly as good as that one. Big help and big awakening. I noticed that it explains a prediction I had had in 2013.
In 2013, I was trying to figure out how high the seas would rise by end of century. First a figure of 80 feet popped in my head, and that would mean all of Florida would be gone. But then I did a visioning and saw that south Florida would be underwater, not all of Florida. Looking at @luminous' map, shows that the total flooding over of south Florida would mean 20 foot sea level rise.
20 feet sea level rise is the figure projected by James Hansen in his worst case scenarios. Hansen in the former outspoken NASA scientist under Bush who has had both the most dire and the most accurate predictions for sea level rise.