This alarming missive just in from the: University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
As oxygen-deprived waters increase, they emit more greenhouse gasses into atmosphere
Above graphic from NOLA.COM click for details.
Cambridge, Md. (March 11, 2010) – The increased frequency and intensity of oxygen-deprived “dead zones” along the world’s coasts can negatively impact environmental conditions in far more than just local waters. In the March 12 edition of the journal Science, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science oceanographer Dr. Lou Codispoti explains that the increased amount of nitrous oxide (N2O) produced in low-oxygen (hypoxic) waters can elevate concentrations in the atmosphere, further exacerbating the impacts of global warming and contributing to ozone “holes” that cause an increase in our exposure to harmful UV radiation.
“As the volume of hypoxic waters move towards the sea surface and expands along our coasts, their ability to produce the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide increases,” explains Dr. Codispoti of the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory. “With low-oxygen waters currently producing about half of the ocean’s net nitrous oxide, we could see an additional significant atmospheric increase if these ‘dead zones’ continue to expand.”
Although present in minute concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere, nitrous oxide is a highly potent greenhouse gas and is becoming a key factor in stratospheric ozone destruction. For the past 400,000 years, changes in atmospheric N2O appear to have roughly paralleled changes in carbon dioxide CO2 and have had modest impacts on climate, but this may change. Just as human activities may be causing an unprecedented rise in the terrestrial N2O sources, marine N2O production may also rise substantially as a result of nutrient pollution, warming waters and ocean acidification. Because the marine environment is a net producer of N2O, much of this production will be lost to the atmosphere, thus further intensifying its climatic impact.
Increased N2O production occurs as dissolved oxygen levels decline. Under well-oxygenated conditions, microbes produce N2O at low rates. But at oxygen concentrations decrease to hypoxic levels, these waters can increase their production of N2O.
N2O production rates are particularly high in shallow suboxic and hypoxic waters because respiration and biological turnover rates are higher near the sunlit waters where phytoplankton produce the fuel for respiration.
When suboxic waters (oxygen essentially absent) occur at depths of less than 300 feet, the combination of high respiration rates, and the peculiarities of a process called denitrification can cause N2O production rates to be 10,000 times higher than the average for the open ocean. The future of marine N2O production depends critically on what will happen to the roughly ten percent of the ocean volume that is hypoxic and suboxic.
“Nitrous oxide data from many coastal zones that contain low oxygen waters are sparse, including Chesapeake Bay,” said Dr. Codispoti. “We should intensify our observations of the relationship between low oxygen concentrations and nitrous oxide in coastal waters.”
The article “Interesting Times for Nitrous Oxide” appears in the March 12, 2010 edition of the journal Science.
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I think David Bowie sums up AGW : ‘Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)’
The obvious thing in common with NO2 and CO2 is the O-oxygen. We must remove oxygen from the environment.
Oxygen is obviously a dangerous pollutant. It should be banned.
Peter Miller (14:05:06) :
Next it will probably be argon, the most abundant inert gas (circa 0.9%) in the atmosphere.
It’ll never catch on. Too many folks will wonder how a Lord of the Rings character can influence the climate…
Can anyone tell me why NOx is an ozone depleting substance in the stratosphere yet considered the primary reactant for creating ground level ozone?
So THIS is their long-lost feedback loop?!?!?
Feed-me-back-some-grant-money is more like it.
OTOH, we find other studies such as
“Fish kills in the floodplain billabongs of Magela Creek in Kakadu have been caused by the inflow of natural acidic water with high aluminium concentrations. This results from the acid sulphate soils in the
catchment. The high acidity mobilises naturally occurring aluminium which is absorbed onto the gills of fish, interfering with their ability to breathe. Other coastal plains with acid sulphate soils are likely to experience fish kills from this cause.”
See http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/publications/natres/pdf/FishKills.pdf and quite a few similar references.
This process is natural and is reported in formal literature from the early 1980s. I have not looked at the literature in depth, but have seen early rainfall fish kills in the wild in the 1970s.
The early papers that I have read did not mention global warming.
Haven’t had a chance to read all the comments yet so if this has already been mention, if so I am sorry.
The insanity of the politicians is increasing by leaps and bounds. The mega-corporations and the USDA/FDA food “safety” hoax is now pushing “sterile farming techniques modeled after the drug Good Manufacturing Practices. It is called HR 2749: Food Safety’s Scorched Earth Policy.
This is going to cause major run off problems effecting river delta areas as the grass filter strips and hedge and tree wind breaks are removed down to bare earth to form a 30 foot “sterile” barrier around farm fields. This will allow topsoil and fertilizer to run straight into the rivers. On my farm I have seen one rain storm remove four inches of top soil in a couple of hours. Even if it does not become law the mega-corporations are using contracts to require this type of practice from the farms they buy from.
“HR 2749 is being rushed through Congress, and the house may look to suspend the rules and fast track the bill at Obama’s request….
Invisible to a public that sees only the headlines of the latest food-safety scare – spinach, peppers and now cookie dough – ponds are being poisoned and bulldozed. Vegetation harboring pollinators and filtering storm runoff is being cleared. Fences and poison baits line wildlife corridors. Birds, frogs, mice and deer – and anything that shelters them – are caught in a raging battle in the Salinas Valley against E. coli O157:H7, a lethal, food-borne bacteria. (Lochhead, C.)
In fact, in the fierce battle to sanitize the earth, one thing has been overlooked:Â
Some science suggests that removing vegetation near field crops could make food less safe. Vegetation and wetlands are a landscape’s lungs and kidneys, filtering out not just fertilizers, sediments and pesticides, but also pathogens. UC Davis scientists found that vegetation buffers can remove as much as 98 percent of E. coli from surface water. UC Davis advisers warn that some rodents prefer cleared areas. (Lochhead, C.)Â
Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides.
He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind.
“I was driving by a field where a squirrel fed off the end of the field, and so 30 feet in we had to destroy the crop,” he said. “On one field where a deer walked through, didn’t eat anything, just walked through and you could see the tracks, we had to take out 30 feet on each side of the tracks and annihilate the crop.”
In the verdant farmland surrounding Monterey Bay, a national marine sanctuary and one of the world’s biological jewels, scorched-earth strategies are being imposed on hundreds of thousands of acres in the quest for an antiseptic field of greens. And the scheme is about to go national. (Lochhead, C. )….” http://farmwars.info/?p=1284
“And did you really just make a blanket declaration that genetically modified crops have little nutrition? You better have a lot of reputable research to back that one up. Also, some are modified to grow under harsh conditions where other crops fail. Isn’t some food better than none at all?”
Sorry, I meant when farming on depleted soil there isn’t the proper nutes in the soil and therefore cannot be taken up via the plants. I’ve grown many plants and there is a difference in the quality of the food. I bet if I give my children veggies, raw milk, fruit, homemade foods from organic sources or, as you say, non-organic sources–with high contents of nutes already in the non-depleted soil, and you raise your children on McDonald’s and little debbie, I wonder who will be the more healthy child.
What do you call reputable? How about many studies that are NOT funded by the agencies doing the dirty (like agw)… in the US we are starving ourselves by eating too much :). Maybe I shouldn’t have made such a statement since Monsanto’s reports and the MSM tend to say it is completely safe to eat.
All this food research isn’t free and they aren’t giving away food to the hungry for free, even if it seems like the UN does so. The patenting of organisms WAS ONCE illegal, why do you think corporations and their benevolence wanted that changed? So they could help everyone afford higher quality foods? No, of course not.
Anyway, this is not the place for this discussion at length… the real problem with the US is not using a precautionary principle and using the opposite first and foremost, then covering up the mistakes, then blame some political party, then maybe, maybe correct the problem.
I do use the local farmers market whenever possible… one more question: Why is it that many countries don’t allow GMOs for import, are illegal and others DEMAND GMOs have a label on them and the US does not, but allows fraudsters like gore to promote junk science without consequence for profit?
“Wayne Delbeke (13:57:43) :
Everyone should be concerned about our oceans, rivers, lakes, and land. We should be concerned about overfishing, appropriate resource development, health care, chemical and industrial pollution, management of our own wastes and so on.”
Wayne, you’re absolutely right, but it would be nice to hear some good news on the environmental front occasionally.
I grew up in South Wales, next to the River Taff. In those days it ran black from coal pollution and other industrial run-offs. If you’d cast a fishing line into the river the only thing you would reel in would be an occasional diseased eel or a lump of something which would be more at home in a Sci-Fi movie. It was a dead river. Now it is clear!
kadaka (12:55:34) :
Seemingly balanced article on nitrogen in agriculture by (is it “a” or “an”?) MIT graduate student, published February 23 2010.
I scanned the article quickly and it seems to hit the correct points. As a farmer and a chemist I would consider nitrogen a bit more dangerous than CO2. I see no downsides of CO2 except for frost burns or smothering at very high concentrations. CO is the killer in fires since it bonds with hemoglobin and only blood transfusions get rid of it in bad cases of smoke inhalation.
Nitrogen has scientifically verified problems.
Tim (14:34:17) said
” Mooloo (14:05:27) :” – You can’t be serious. …
One last question for you. If GMO foods are so safe and great why not label foods that have GMO ingredients and let the consumers make a choice? You know that free market thing that only gets lip service from companies like Monsanto.’
Tim. You name me any food not harvested from the sea and eaten by man that is NOT genetically modified.
Doug
The sound of science. Coming off the RAILS. And HOW many faeries dance on the head of a pin?
Jeremy (13:15:45) : said
“…They’d get more done if they simply demonstrated what dead areas are like to farmers and jointly looked for a solution.”
Responsible farmers who care about their land try to use good farming practices. Unfortunately farmers got conned by the Committee for Economic Development.
“…CED determined that the problem with American agriculture was that there were too many farmers. But the CED had a “solution”: millions of farmers would just have to be eliminated…. CED complained that “the excess of human resources engaged in agriculture is probably the most important single factor in the “farm problem'” and describes how agricultural production can be better organized to fit to business needs…” http://www.opednews.com/articles/History-HACCP-and-the-Foo-by-Nicole-Johnson-090906-229.html
This is the real reason behind the “Green Revolution” and why the USDA started introducing the poor farming practices of monoculture chemical intensive farming.
No I am not an “Organic Farmer” I use chemicals, sparingly as needed. There are good practices from both schools and I use what ever optimizes my yield and minimizes the damage to my land.
People really need to start paying attention to what is happening in farming. It is being attacked by the same idiotic type of propaganda as the energy industry. The goal is the same regulations that will result in the transfer of wealth from your pocket to the mega-corporations.
Climategate: Once Respected Nature Now Staffed By Moaning Ninnies
“Let us condemn them to reading out their own editorials to each other until they realize how silly they are, or for all eternity, whichever be the sooner.”
March 12, 2010 – by Christopher Monckton
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-once-respected-nature-now-staffed-by-moaning-ninnies/?singlepage=true
Stephen Brown (13:33:44) :
“Even cow dung worked back into the soil is a good thing… ”
Sorry, but that is incorrect. Animal dung spread on a field is the cause of more eutrophication than the correct usage and application of “chemical” fertilizers. It is a pracitce which is actively discouraged here in the UK.”
There is a BIG difference between spread on the top of a field and worked into the soil so it is near the roots. If it is placed on the top you are correct it will wash away. Also here in the USA, at least with chicken and pig manures they are placed in a covered containment area, composted and then applied to the fields otherwise they will “burn the plants.
In 2005 Maryland passed a “Flush Tax” to clean up the bay. This $30 per year per house tax was supposed to pay for bonds to upgrade sewage treatment plants.
70% of that money now goes to pay for winter cover crops, and no Sewage plants have been upgraded yet.
The Flush Tax might have been a good idea, but as usual, the money gets funneled off by powerful lobbies, like the farm lobby.
Nutty Science distracts the politicians from the real issues.
““As a result, Sweden and neighbouring Finland have been granted an exemption from the EU directive and can continue to sell the fish on their national markets until the end of 2006.
A condition of this is that the health authorities of both countries must tell people how much Baltic Sea fish can be consumed without harmful effects.”
Yummy yummy.
I seem to recall hearing that there isn’t a safe level of dioxin. There are much more toxic substances in the environment to worry about.”
But pickled Baltic herring is so yummy especially with the first new harvest potatoes, butter and fresh dill (+ some ice cold vodka & lager)!
Actually it is assumed that eating reasonable amouts (once or twice a week) baltic fish is healtier than not eating any fish at all. Furhermore, the risks can be minimized by avoiding the oldest samples of the catch (largest salmons, baltic herrings longer than 20 cm etc.)
It should be also noted that the actual level of toxicity of dioxin is yet unknown and that the rat tests in this case seem to give inaccurate results. After all, the fatalities and diseases caused by Seveso disaster seem to be far from estimates and Yushchenko did not die despite of presumeably fatal dose of dioxin.
Those that are overly concerned about GM foods don’t seem to appreciate how a lot of the non GM crops were developed. Plants were zapped with radiation to cause random mutations and they chose those showing some beneficial aspect.Or different seed types were artificially fused together – a we don’t have any idea what is going to happen process. Some I am somewhat confused why the splicing of some particular genes that we have some idea what they do is of concern while the purely random process is not.
The only reason this conversation occurs is that those involved are not hungry.
We are being told not to to use GM, not to irradiate the food supply, while at the same time use less fertilizer, less pesticide, less land, less water and feed the world. We can’t and those that try to impose this irrational belief put everyone at great risk. I
Last point we don’t have to worry about ocean Nitrites if the ocean acidity increases– the lack of alkalinity will shut the nitrification process down. It always the same- you can’t have it all- you either get ocean acidification or nitrites— you can’t have them both—-if nothing else its just greedy.
BBC, give it up:
12 March: BBC: Matt Walker Earth News: Climate change ‘makes birds shrink’ in North America
However, there is little evidence that the change is harmful to the birds.
Details of the discovery are published in the journal Oikos..
Quite why this happens is not clear, but it prompted one group of scientists to ask the question: would animals respond in the same way to climate change?
To find out, Dr Josh Van Buskirk of the University of Zurich, Switzerland and colleagues Mr Robert Mulvihill and Mr Robert Leberman of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Rector, Pennsylvania, US decided to evaluate the sizes of hundreds of thousands of birds that pass through the Carnegie Museum’s Powdermill ringing station, also in Pennsylvania…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8560000/8560694.stm
Ecospeak 204 (ozone & NO2):
9. How to ring the alarm —
Align terms in any order from the following list but always keep your sentences short and to the point. Term number one should always appear someplace in all assignments.
– we should intensify our observations
– present in minute concentrations
– further exacerbating the impacts of global warming
– microbes produce N2O
– human activities may be
– marine environment is a net producer of N2O
– key factor in stratospheric ozone destruction
– increased frequency and intensity
– shallow suboxic and hypoxic waters
– process called denitrification
– volume of hypoxic waters
– increased amount of nitrous oxide (N2O)
– waters can increase their production of N2O
– low-oxygen (hypoxic) waters
– low oxygen waters are sparse
– negatively impact environmental conditions
– greenhouse gas nitrous oxide increases
– low-oxygen waters
– half of the ocean’s net nitrous oxide
– ‘dead zones’ continue to expand
– increase in our exposure to harmful UV radiation
– phytoplankton produce the fuel
– nitrous oxide is a highly potent greenhouse gas
– had modest impacts on climate
– terrestrial N2O sources
– ocean acidification
– future of marine N2O production
– far more than just local waters
– further intensifying its climatic impact
– decrease to hypoxic levels
– rates are higher near the sunlit waters
A couple of points:
The dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi has always been there but both flood control and agriculture have greatly increased the affect.
Proper use of chemical fertilizer actually reduces the problem compared with some of the modern methods of handling animal wastes. Dairy farms,chicken farms and hog farms often store the waste in large pools allowing it to decompose partly before it is applied back onto/into the soil. Many of these pools leak which provides a concentrated stream of run-off. Also the decomposition in the pools increases the nitrogen concentration which is a great benefit to the farmers if it can be absorbed into the soil. The problem is to get the manure applied and the soil tilled immediately to mix and trap as much as possible before rain washes the very soluable nitrates away.
Having been a farmer and also trying organic farming I can say from my experience it doesn’t work all that well compared to more commercial type agriculture. I think the big difference many people see is actually as stated above by kadaka the freshness is often improved by the supply line of organic foods. The yield from organic crops without using excess manure which would not be available for large commercial enterprizes is small compared to modern chemical based practice.
Anyway, there is a real problem. I don’t know if it is dramatic but indeed we could at least do what we know work to reduce the impact without destroying our agriculture base. I kind of doubt there is any danger of runaway nitrous oxide warming though.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
Barry Strayer
Nitrous oxide makes viagra work. So who will be complaining? A dip in the ocean in stead of a blue pill?
An earlier “thread” on WUWT discussed biochar, and by extension, Tera Preta, the dark earth of the Amazon. These are biologically active soils that tend to chelate phosphates and nitrogen compounds.
If most of the corn in the corn belt was planted on such organically positive soils, it is likely that the Dead Zones would be much smaller. Fertilizer elements incorporated in composted manures are a, unfortunately expensive, source of slow release fertilizer.
One wonders how long we will get away with abusing our farmlands. The Indians have a phosphate rock-manure compost called PROM, for phosphate rich organic manure. It actually has a much higher nutrient efficiency than DAP, Di-Ammonium Phosphate. see http://www.promsociety.net/profile.htm
IIRC, the “dead zone” in the Gulf is about 200 to 300 miles offshore, and at the BOTTOM of the gulf, not on the surface. Part of the problem is that the Gulf has very little in the way of “normal” ocean turnover, where upwelling cold currents exchange nutrients and oxygenate deep waters. The problem IS growing, and it’s serious, but I think this article does a disservice to what is actually involved.
About a third of the amount of sediments the Mississippi USED to carry now is captured by dozens of locks and dams that allow river commerce. This has reduced the growth rate of the Mississippi delta, and is part of the problem with the Port of New Orleans – and the city. Without the constant replenishment of sediments that occurred before the levees were built, New Orleans sinks at a rate of about a half-inch a year (I wouldn’t bet money on that last statement – I can’t remember the exact rate of sinking from an article I read several years ago – but that should be close.).
One thing that drives the greenies crazy is that offshore drilling actually helps to disperse the dead zones nearer to shore, as well as offering a place for fish and shellfish to breed. More drilling would actually help the situation.
Re: rick d (Mar 12 15:00),
Can anyone tell me why NOx is an ozone depleting substance in the stratosphere yet considered the primary reactant for creating ground level ozone?
Different oxides. The ozone producers at ground level are higher oxides (NO2, NO, N2O4). N2O is not so reactive at ground level, but important at high altitude.