From Penn State
Polar climate change may lead to ecological change
Ice and frozen ground at the North and South Poles are affected by climate change induced warming, but the consequences of thawing at each pole differ due to the geography and geology, according to a Penn State hydrologist.
“The polar regions, particularly the Arctic, are warming faster than the rest of the world,” Michael N. Gooseff, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, told attendees today (Aug. 11) at the 96th annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Austin, Texas. “As a consequence, polar ecosystems respond directly to changes in the earth systems at the poles.”
These changes, though different at each pole, could be significant in their effects on not only the local environment, but also globally. While the central part of the Arctic is composed of ice over water, northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia and Greenland all have landmasses within the Arctic Circle. The associated land and water ecosystems are affected by melting ice and thawing soils, but in Antarctica, where much of the ice overlays a continent, the warming alters streams, lakes and the tiny plants and animals that live there.
“Our focus on the north is in part because it is inhabited, but it is also because the ice there is more vulnerable,” said Gooseff. “Temperatures and snow and rain across the tundra shifts annually and seasonally. We know that fall is beginning later than it once did.”
In the Arctic, where there is more immediate feedback from the higher temperatures, the warming is degrading permafrost, the layer of the ground that usually remains frozen during annual thawing events. This causes creation of a boggy, uneven landscape with a disturbed surface. Subsequent rain or snowmelt can erode this surface carrying silt and sediment into bodies of water, changing the paths of rivers and streams. Debris flows are also a common occurrence in degraded permafrost areas.
“Algae, insects and fish all must deal with this increased level of sediments,” said Gooseff.
Extended frost-free time causes soils that do thaw annually to have longer active periods when microbes can mineralize nutrients. While the soils remain frost free longer, plants continue their normal cycle dictated by the length and intensity of daylight, which has not changed. Microbes may continue to create nutrients, but the plants no longer use them, so that when rain or meltwater comes the nutrients leach into the rivers and streams.
“That is exactly what we are seeing,” said Gooseff. “In September and October, we see a substantial increase in nutrients in the water. Concentrations increase many times for nutrients such as nitrate and ammonium.”
Another problem with degrading permafrost is the release of the carbon that was permanently trapped in frozen organic materials in the frozen ground. Warming will eventually liberate carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.
“It is estimated that the permafrost contains twice the amount of carbon that is currently in our atmosphere,” said Gooseff.
We think of Antarctica as a vast empty place, but lakes and streams exist in several polar desert oases, including the McMurdo Dry Valleys. These bodies of water are filled with a variety of life including microbial mats, plankton and filamentous algae.
“While there are no bugs or fish in these waters, there are diverse microbial communities,” said Gooseff. “Some algae in the dry valleys go dormant for nine months or more and then begin to grown when hit by meltwater.”
Because there is so much permanent ice in Antarctica, the annual impact of increased temperatures on its environment is slower than in the Arctic. The huge expanse of white ice reflects some of the heat energy into the atmosphere.
“We expect in the next several decades that we will see the Antarctic start to warm up,” said Gooseff.
The Antarctic permafrost is very dry with high nitrogen concentrations in some places. When water reaches some of these dry soils, it will mobilize the nutrients and increase potential habitat for freshwater aquatic communities in Antarctica. This climate change will alter the flow patterns, expand the stream networks, and change both the location of habitats and the timing of life cycles.
“Beside the information that we can obtain about climate change on Earth, understanding what happens in Antarctica is important to understand what happens on Mars,” said Gooseff. “There is potential for microbial communities on Mars, and if they exist they will probably be similar to the McMurdo Dry Valley communities.”
The National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs supported this work.
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“We know that fall is beginning later than it once did.”
Later! Did he say? The leaves on the sycamore trees on the edge of my garden are turning yellow already. And this is the middle of August!
A. C. Osborn says:
August 12, 2011 at 8:44 am
Can this possibly have passed Peer Review?
Of course it did –
A peer is defined as: “a person who is equal to another in abilities, qualifications, age, background, and social status.”
Need we say more?
Interesting – 30+ comments and it doesn’t appear a SINGLE one is actually addressing what the study was about.
The typical “I reject this because…..”
Refute this – ‘In September and October, we see a substantial increase in nutrients in the water. Concentrations increase many times for nutrients such as nitrate and ammonium.”’
How else does that happen?
You guys can’t claim to be defenders of science and then respond as you have above – it’s just a bunch of political ranting at this point based on your responses….
“We know that fall is beginning later than it once did.”
Who are “we”? And as Richard111 amply points out, so turneth the leaves of my neighbor’s poplar/cottonwood/aspen, at the beginning of August. The above statement is pure garbage, standing starkly against a backdrop of conjecture in the rest of the article. This arm of science has ceased to be scientific.
Joe Bastardi must be beside himself, seeing this kind of alarmist tripe emanating, like a bad odor, from his alma mater.
Bystander says:
August 12, 2011 at 10:03 am
“Interesting – 30+ comments and it doesn’t appear a SINGLE one is actually addressing what the study was about.”
Given what the author wrote, the study was not about anything.
Bystander says:
August 12, 2011 at 10:03 am
“Interesting – 30+ comments and it doesn’t appear a SINGLE one is actually addressing what the study was about.”
WHAT SCIENCE?
Do you actually have the nerve to call that paper Scientific?
@Nuke, August 12, 2011 at 8:25 am: The City of San Francisco could import some of those homeless polar bears to feed on the population of seals that currently inhabits Pier 39. The tourists would also enjoy them. They might even feed them!
@Bystander And the level of discourse is getting worse. You can say anything you want unless your post mentions the nouns for an acronym of Denali
Your are really missing the point: Nobody refutes that climate change will alter the ecology. That’s why so many posters decried the study as pointless, a waste of time and money, politically motivated, etc.
You gotta break these things down. You know, deconstruct what’s really going on. In street language, that’s called breaking down what’s going down, as in let me break down for you why this study is a pointless waste of time and money.
Savvy?
Nuke says:
August 12, 2011 at 8:25 am
“Slightly OT, but still….
About this polar bear thing: Has anybody actually confirmed that a reduced ice pack is actually bad for the polar bear population, or is it just an assumption? What studies have been done?”
Good questions. I thought Polar bears swim in search of food… like me driving to New York City in search of a paycheck.
I don’t drive to New York when i can get my paycheck in New Jersey. I stay where the paycheck is. i think polar bears are atleast as smart as me, and i think they will stay where they can find their food, namely Seals and “boat rowing enviros”.
Any study that contradicts that conclusion is most probably a grant grabbing work…
At least here in Finland there has been NO warming above Polar Circle.Period.
Our own Finnish Meteorogical Institute is lead by a person who also is a member of the WWF, so anyone who wants to get real temperature data has to do little extra work, but real measurements show no real warming in Lapland for the last 100 years.
As mentioned ,our FMI is a corrupted club of leftist greens, but Finns are starting to see how they have been fooled by FMI and MSM. It is one of the reasons our biggest party is now the “Perussuomalaiset”, “True Finns”in English.The real translation is more like “Down-to
-earth, honest , and common sense Finns”, as “perus” is a word with many meanings.
People are getting tired to lies.
I am quite sure that Anthony Watts has already earned a well deserved place in the World History.
In the future, Abraham Lincoln is not going to be the only person that comes to mind when the Thruth is mentioned.The proof of that is the fact that all Finnish greens know(and fear/hate) the name Anthony Watts.That says something, doesn’t it?
Yes, I can see it from my front gate, all of that frozen ground at the north pole; which seems to have melted, and flooded, and then refrozen again. I tell you it’s a tragedy !
Bystander says:
August 12, 2011 at 10:03 am
Interesting – 30+ comments and it doesn’t appear a SINGLE one is actually addressing what the study was about.
The typical “I reject this because…..”
Refute this – ‘In September and October, we see a substantial increase in nutrients in the water. Concentrations increase many times for nutrients such as nitrate and ammonium.”’
Bystander,
Does Michael N. Gooseff give any citation that we can get a hold of? i did not see any in anthony’s note
@RayG,
San Francisco is well known for being friend to the homeless. I’m sure they won’t like you feeding the homeless to the polar bears!
Bystander says:
August 12, 2011 at 10:03 am
Interesting – 30+ comments and it doesn’t appear a SINGLE one is actually addressing what the study was about.
The typical “I reject this because…..”
Refute this – ‘In September and October, we see a substantial increase in nutrients in the water. Concentrations increase many times for nutrients such as nitrate and ammonium.”’
How else does that happen?
You guys can’t claim to be defenders of science and then respond as you have above – it’s just a bunch of political ranting at this point based on your responses….
Why would we refute something that has been known for over a century? As temperatures warm, microbial activity increases, meaning the presence of more of the by-products of that activity. In a watershed environment, said materials flow down stream to be deposited in deltas. The microbial aspect is only a century old, but the general effect has been known since the time of the Pharaohs in Egypt, i.e. the annual flood of the Nile fertilizing the soil.
And that is the point of most disparaging comments – this is common knowledge and common sense stuff. It is also the most scientific comment that is presented by Gooseff. I would be ashamed to present this “study” at any scholastic level higher than middle school.
Post Glacial Rebound. Google it.
‘In September and October, we see a substantial increase in nutrients in the water. ‘
So its that actual usual for this time of year or usual given the natural variation of a yearly cycle ?
In the end is this not just a claim of ‘things could get worse ‘based on a ‘we don’t understand’ backed up with ‘what I think is ‘
Bottom line speculation of doom which requires ‘of course ‘ more research and so funded , although they been smart enough to put the time of doom long enough in the future so they will be long gone once it turns out to be BS.
Gooseff: “Some algae in the dry valleys go dormant for nine months or more and then begin to grown when hit by meltwater.”
I know how they feel. Meltwater can be mighty cold.
Mostly though, I groan whenever I see “studies” like these.
I keep seeing references to thawing permafrost, as if it is a current situation. Often, a careful reading reveals that it is being discussed in a particular paper or report as a possible future event. In other cases, it’s being discussed as something observers in road cuts, construction sites and mining operations. Sorry, these latter do not count.
It is thinking like this that happens when you do it with virtual models instead of live ones.
Thanks to R Taylor and Dusty for bringing me up to date on environmental engineering – little did I realise when I worked on sewage treatment plants 40 years ago that I was engaged in something as cool sounding as that. I was in a work study team at the time and we just thought it was a matter of timing the motions, and going with the flow (chart). How much more impressive it would have been to tell people that I was in environmental engineering. Ah well, too late now…
How do peer reviewers not catch such blatant bias in a paper?
“In the Arctic, where there is more immediate feedback from the higher temperatures, the warming is degrading permafrost, the layer of the ground that usually remains frozen during annual thawing events. This causes creation of a boggy, uneven landscape with a disturbed surface…”
Why use the word “degrading”? Why not “changing”? “Degrading” is a plea to emotion and a judgement that boggy, uneven landscape with a disturbed surface is somehow worse than “frozen”.
The paper says nothing new. Why publish emotive opinion?
Nuke says:
August 12, 2011 at 8:25 am
About this polar bear thing: Has anybody actually confirmed that a reduced ice pack is actually bad for the polar bear population, or is it just an assumption? What studies have been done?
There is an excellent article on the resurgence of polar bear populations in today’s UK Spectator by Matt Ridley. The important studies are referenced.
“We expect in the next several decades that we will see the Antarctic start to warm up,” said Gooseff.
Maybe he got something right – two things, actually: (1) the Antarctic has not been warming, (2) Henrik Svensmark’s “polar see-saw” http://www.scribd.com/doc/338170/svensmark-2007cosmoclimatology Figure 6. Or see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_see-saw, but note two things about the Wikipedia entry: (a) it implies that clouds drive climate, and (b) the statement “the air there is largely isolated from the rest of the atmosphere by vortices in the ocean and air” is not supported by CO2 measurements at the S Pole which are very much in line with CO2 measurements elsewhere http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/CO2AtVariousStations.JPG. In fact, CO2 tends to reach the S Pole at about the same time as it gets to Mauna Loa, and before it gets to Barrow http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/CO2ChangesAt3Stations.JPG.