Final Blog Paper

Casey Saladino

Ms. Kochis

AP Environmental Science, Period 2

30 April 2014

Final Blog Project

            "No More Super-Storm Sandys" explored new simulations that suggest that the atmospheric conditions that allowed the Hurricane Sandy to follow its unusual path will become less frequent in the future. From this article, I learned that typically, North Atlantic hurricanes travel roughly parallel to the East Coast and make landfall approaching from the south. The October 2012 storm that slammed New Jersey was an unusual occurrence because it took a left turn and approached from the east, hitting New Jersey at a right angle. This nearly perpendicular angle to the shore intensified its destructive storm surge. Recently, Elizabeth Barnes, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and her team ran simulations of an extreme warming situation where carbon dioxide emissions quadruple over the 21st century in order to understand how climate change might change atmospheric patterns and alter that frequency. Overall, this article interested me because it described research about Hurricane Sandy, which affected my community. Additionally, it explains to readers that this hurricane was a rare occurrence, and is predicted to not happen again for some time.

            "The Mendenhall Glacier" article explored the story of an Alaskan glacier that recently thawed, revealing an ancient forest beneath. The Mendenhall Glacier is an icy expanse of 36.8 square miles that has withdrawn about 170 feet each year since 2005. Many tree stumps are now being exposed to the sunlight due to this thawing. About five feet of gravel most likely encased the bases of the trees when the glacier first advanced, keeping the stumps upright even as the glacier plowed over and snapped the stumps' trunks and limbs. Cathy Connor, an Alaskan geology professor who participated in research on the thawing glacier explained that there are a lot of the tree stumps, and this case is especially exciting because it is possible to see the outermost part of the tree and count back to see how old the tree was. Although the research performed on this glacier is interesting and helpful, the thawing glacier represents the bigger ide of Earth's climate change.

            "Coral Reefs and Climate Change" discussed how coral reefs are improving their chances of surviving through the end of the century because they may be able to adapt to moderate climate warning if there are large reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. The study was conducted by the NOAA's scientists and its academic partners. An interesting and convincing result of the study shows that coral reefs have already adapted to part of the warming that has occurred. The study mainly explores a variety of possible coral adaptive responses to thermal stress previously identified by other scientists and research. It suggests that coral reefs may be more resilient than otherwise thought in studies that did not consider effects of possible adaptation. Through genetic adaptation, the reefs could reduce their projected rate of temperature-induced bleaching by 20 to 80 percent of levels expected by the year 2100, if there are large reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. Many of the articles that I summarized for my blog discussed how many species are having trouble adapting to Earth's climate change. This article, however; discussed quite the opposite. 

"Pesticides make the life of earthworms miserable"

March 2014

"Pesticides make the life of earthworms miserable"

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140325113232.htm

     Although pesticides are sprayed on crops to help them grow, the effect they have on earthworms living in the soil under the plants is devastating. New research shows that because worms have developed methods to detoxify themselves so that they can live in soil sprayed with fungicide, they only grow to half their normal weight and they do not reproduce as well as worms in fields that are not sprayed, according to a Danish/French research team that studied earthworms that were exposed to pesticides over generations.

The researchers set up an experiment to study the behavior of the earthworm species Aporectodea caliginosa. They moved two portions of farmed soil with worms into the lab. One portion was taken from a local organic field, the other from a local conventionally cultivated field that had been sprayed with fungicide for 20 years. This soil had leftovers of the internationally commonly used fungicide Opus at a level common in fields. When crops are sprayed with fungicide, only a small part of the chemical is absorbed by the plant. The waste can be up to 70 per cent, and much of the fungicide ends up in the soil. Over generations the worms have developed a method to detoxify themselves.

"Salamanders shrinking as their mountain havens heat up"

March 2014

"Salamanders shrinking as their mountain havens heat up"

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140325154230.htm

     Salamanders in some of North America's best habitat are shrinking fast as their surroundings get warmer and drier. As a result, the salamanders are forced to burn more energy. Specimens caught in the Appalachian Mountains from 1957 to 2007 and wild salamanders caught at the same sites in 2011-2012 have recently been studied. Animals measured after 1980 averaged 8 percent smaller than those caught in 2011-2012 - one of the fastest rates of changing body size ever recorded.
     The study was prompted by the work of University of Maryland Prof. Emeritus Richard Highton and headed by Karen R. Lips, an associate professor of biology at the University of Maryland. The study found that between 1957 and 2012, six salamander species got significantly smaller, while only one got slightly larger. On average, each generation was one percent smaller than its parents' generation, the researchers found.The researchers compared changes in body size to the animals' location and their sites' elevation, temperature and rainfall. They found the salamanders shrank the most at southerly sites, where temperatures rose and rainfall decreased over the 55-year study.
     Furthermore, to discover how climate change affected the animals, Clemson University biologist Michael W. Sears used a computer program to create an artificial salamander, which allowed him to estimate a typical salamander's daily activity and the number of calories it burned. Using detailed weather records for the study sites, Sears was able to simulate the behavior of individual salamanders. The simulation showed the modern salamanders were just as active as their forbears had been. But to maintain that activity, they had to burn 7 to 8 percent more energy and Sears explained that cold-blooded animals' metabolisms speed up as temperatures rise. In order to get the extra needed energy, salamanders may spend more time foraging for food or resting in cool ponds, and less time hunting for mates. The smaller animals may have fewer young, and may be more easily picked off by predators.

"Whales dive to nearly two miles depth, for over two hours"

March 2014

"Whales dive to nearly two miles depth, for over two hours"

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140326182037.htm

     Dispersed throughout the world's oceans, the Cuvier's beaked whales' frequent dives deep into the ocean make them difficult for researchers to study. However, recently Scientists Gregory Schorr from Cascadia Research Collective and colleagues monitored Cuvier's beaked whales' record-breaking dives to depths of nearly two miles below the ocean surface and some dives lasted for over two hours.

     The scientists analyzed the whales' dive data from satellite-linked tags that recorded the diving behavior and locations of eight Cuvier's beaked whales off the Southern California coast. Researchers collected over 3,700 hours of diving data, including depth and time of each dive. The scientists recorded 1100 deep-dives, averaging 0.87 miles deep, and 5600 shallow-dives, averaging about 0.17 miles deep. The deepest dive recorded was one that reached nearly two miles below the ocean surface, and the longest lasted 137 minutes.
     This dive not only exceeded the previous Cuvier's beaked whale diving records of about 1 mile deep and 95 minutes, but also the current mammalian dive record previously set by the southern elephant seal at about 1.5 miles deep and 120 minutes. W\What sets the Cuvier beaked whale apart from the deep-diving elephant seals and sperm whales is that the elephant seals and sperm whales require an extended recovery period after long, deep dives, whereas Cuvier's beaked whales average less than two minutes at the surface between dives.

"Coal plant closure in China led to improvements in children's health"

March 2014

"Coal plant closure in China led to improvements in children's health"

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140326142311.htm

     According to a study led by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, decreased exposure to air pollution in utero has proven to be linked with improved childhood developmental scores and higher levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a key protein for brain development. This study, the first to assess BDNF and cognitive development with respect to prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (component of air pollution commonly emitted from coal burning), looks at the closure of a coal-burning power plant in China.
     Deliang Tang, MD, DrPH, and his colleagues pursued two groups of mother-child pairs from pregnancy into early childhood. One group was made up of mothers pregnant while the coal power plant was still open and the other after it closed. Using the standardized test the Gesell Developmental Schedule (GDS), developmental delay was determined.
     The researchers found that decreased PAH exposure resulting from the power plant closure was associated with both increased BDNF levels and increased developmental scores. PAH-DNA adducts were significantly lower in the babies born after the coal power plant shutdown as compared to those born before the closure, indicating a significant exposure reduction. The impacts of PAH exposure and BDNF on developmental scores was also analyzed considering all the children, including both the pre- and post-closure groups. Increased scores in the average, motor, and social areas (seen in the GDS) were linked with higher levels of BDNF. "The results provide important insight into the relationship between PAH exposure, BDNF, and developmental outcomes, and evidence for BDNF as a marker for the neurodevelopment effects of exposure to air pollution."

"Food packaging chemicals may be harmful to human health over long term"

February 2014

"Food Packaging Chemicals May be Harmful to Human Health Over Long Term"

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140219205215.htm

     The synthetic chemicals used in the packaging, storage, and processing of foodstuffs might be harmful to human health over the long term. This is due to the fact that most of these substances are not inert and can leach into the foods we eat. Although some of these chemicals are regulated, people who eat packaged and/or processed foods are likely to be chronically exposed to low levels of these substances throughout their lives, and not too much is known about their long term impact.
      Lifelong exposure to food contact materials or FCMs, substances used in packaging, storage, processing, or preparation equipment, "is a cause for concern for several reasons." These include the fact that known toxicants like formaldehyde, a cancer causing substance, are legally used in these materials. Formaldehyde is indeed present, though at low levels, in plastic bottles used for fizzy drinks and melamine tableware. In addition, other chemicals known to disrupt hormone production also show up in FCMs, including bisphenol A, tributyltin, triclosan, and phthalates.

The Restoration of Diverse Sea Meadows

February 2014

The Restoration of Diverse Sea Meadows

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140221184758.htm

     A new study shows that placing seedpods in a pearl net, tethered by a rope but still able sway with the tides, may be an especially effective way of restoring eelgrass meadows. "The resulting crop of eelgrass grown for this study was as genetically diverse as the beds from which the seeds were harvested, which San Francisco State University researchers say can make restoration efforts more likely to succeed." Because eelgrass meadows are threatened by a number of human activities, effective restoration plans that maintain diversity are more likely to succeed. Genetic diversity is a relatively new concern in ecosystem restoration projects, where there has been a clear necessity to move plants and animals back into an area as quickly as possible.
     But, eelgrass restoration projects are challenging because it is not easy to plant seedlings under the water, and seeds scattered over a large area have a good chance of being washed away from the restoration site. Instead, Romberg Tiburon Center researchers tested the Buoy Deployed Seeding (BuDS) restoration technique. To begin, the team harvested eelgrass seedpods from several eelgrass beds in San Francisco Bay. Then, they suspended the pods within floating nets over experimental tanks (called mesocosms) supplied with Bay water and with or without sediment from the original eelgrass areas. As the seeds inside each pod ripened, they fell out of the nets and began to grow in the tanks.
     "The researchers then examined "genetic fingerprints" called microsatellites from the plants to measure the genetic diversity in each new crop." This being just one of the many ways to measure genetic diversity. Based on these measurements and others, the new crops were nearly as genetically diverse as their parent grass beds. The research found that the offspring had remarkably maintained the genetic diversity and distinctiveness of their source beds in their new mesocosm environments at the RTC-SFSU lab.

     "Sea grass meadows are a key marine environment under siege. In their healthy state, they stabilize coastal sediment and provide a huge nursery for a variety of algae, fish, shellfish and birds." However, a variety of human influences such as bridge building, runoff pollution and smothering loads of sediment have threatened these grass beds on a global level.