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The London Conference Volume of Extended Abstracts & Commentary Notes, Third Revised Edition
Abstract and Figures
"New Dawn of Truth" is the theme of the London Conference on Climate Change: Science and Geoethics. Day-1 is devoted to observational facts on a predominant solar forcing of chi mate change on Planet Earth. Day-2 covers the small to negligible effects from the increase in atmospheric CO2 content, and the disastrous effect of the general fixation of a co2-driven global warming. The conference ends with an open multifaceted debate with mutual respect in the centre.
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Basic convictions, political regulations and cultural behaviour based on tradition and communication influence the management of the environment, and as such are an important corridor of power affecting natural habitats. This also depends on whether a disaster is seen as blow of fate, natural and irremediable, or as a problem caused by humans (Nature-Culture Dichotomy).
The Oceanic Crust of the Earth
The deep ocean water column is stratified, with cool (high-density) water masses generally ‘hugging’ the deepest portions of the oceans. The oceans cover about 72% of our planet’s surface, and have a mean depth of ca. 3,600 m. The deepest portions of the oceans are floored by ‘Oceanic Crust’ (OC), composed mainly of the high-density rock, basalt. Thus, the OC covers about 60% of the Earth’s surface.
In contrast to the Continental Crust, which consists of low-density, granitic rock, and reaches thicknesses of up to 200 km, the OC, is much thinner, with an average thickness of only 8 km. Because the upper mantle is partly molten, it has a temperature of about 1,100 – 1,200 °C, and because the overlying OC is so thin, it lets some of the heat from the interior of the Earth leak through, to the ocean floor, where the heat flux interacts with the ocean water column. Over 35 years of scientific ocean drilling (e.g., ODP ‘Ocean Drilling Program’), has shown that the OC is highly mobile and has a very complex structure, depending on where it is located relative to spreading centers and subduction zones. ODP-results have shown that the OC is surprisingly porous, with up to 25% regional porosity, which allows seawater to circulate in and out, and even lets water interact with the upper mantle.
Hydrothermal systems
One of the first documentations of high-temperature deep-water anomalies was made during the British ‘Discovery’-expedition to the Red Sea, in 1964. One oceanographic station was located in the middle of the 1,800 km long Red Sea, at a water depth of just over 2,000 m, the ‘Discovery Deep’. When the water sampler reached the decks of Discovery, the scientists were astonished to find hot, high-salinity water of 44 °C, and a pH-value of only 5.2!
What was heating the seawater, here? Why was the seawater so salty (158 ‰, whereas normal seawater has a salinity of 30 ‰)? Could there be heating of the seawater by volcanic eruption, or was seawater circulating into and out of the local crust? It took earth scientists another 30 years, before they finally witnessed how seawater is sucked into the OC and vented out of it after being heated by a magma chamber located near the seafloor surface.
In 1977, the deep-diving submarine ‘Alvin’ dove over the ‘East Pacific Rise’ (EPR), which was known to be a ‘spreading ridge’, where two OC-plates were rifting-apart, and partly exposing a magma chamber. Inside the Alvin were J.B. Corliss, and J.M. Edmond. For the very first time, the immense force of a hydrothermal system, a so-called ‘black smoker’ deep hot vent was visually documented. It billows water blackened by heavy loads of different minerals, some of which are metals. Inside the chimney structure from which the scolding hot water emits, there is supercritical water, a phase of water which is neither gas (vapor), nor a liquid, but something in between. It has a density of 0.3 and a temperature close to 400 °C.
Serpentinization
Today, about 50 years after the Discovery-expedition, we have documented about 300 of the estimated 11,000, or so deep-ocean hot vents of the Earth…In addition, we know that there are also other warm and hot vents, which are not ‘black smokers’. Perhaps the most important geo-process on our planet is the so-called serpentinization process, whereby seawater interacts directly with hot (ultramafic) rocks of the upper mantle.
The rocks of the upper mantle consist of magnesium silicates, called ‘peridotite’ and ‘pyroxenites’ (Holm et al., 2015), which contain olivine, (Mg,Fe)2SiO4. In 2001, the ‘Lost City’ vents were discovered, - again, with ‘Alvin’, diving near the Mid Atlantic Ridge, south of the Azores. This time, no black smokers were seen, but up to 60 m high spires of seeping, white carbonate. The temperature of the emitting water was 90 °C, and the pH-value of the water was up to 10 (highly alkaline)! The process producing these warm, highly alkaline fluids turned out to be serpentinization, a reaction between seawater and the mantle magnesium silicates. The reason why this is such an important process, is that it produces large amounts of free hydrogen (H2), which combines with CO and CO2 to produce enormous volumes of methane (CH4) and other hydrocarbons (Holm et al., 2015).
Cold vents
In addition to the thousands of hot and warm vents in the deep ocean, there are also cooler venting systems, associated with the deep sedimentary basins of the world, like those found in river deltas, and collision zones, ‘accretionary prisms’. In these locations, there is active natural production of light and heavy hydrocarbons and seeps of brines and petroleum. The study of these ‘cold vents’ started about 40 years ago, and is still taking place. Judging from the rate of discovery so far, there must be hundreds of thousands of such seeps. All of them interact with the seawater, both chemically and thermally, and therefore also perturbing the local near-seafloor pH-value (Hovland et al., 2012).
Conclusions
We are just about to embark on understanding the interactions between the lower part of the ocean water column and the seafloor, including the Ocean Crust (OC). We know that such interaction is much more dynamic than previously thought, and we have to find out how these processes feed into the rest of the ocean, including its surface waters, and the general and global marine environment.
References
- Holm, N.G., Oze, C., Mousis, O., Waite, J.H., Guilbert-Leoutre, A., 2015. Serpentinization and the formation of H2 and CH4 on celestial bodies (planets, moons, comets). Astrobiology 15 (7), Doi:10.1089/ast.2014.1188
- Hovland, M., Jensen, S., Fichler, C., 2012. Methane and minor oil macro-seep systems — Their complexity and environmental significance. Marine Geology 332-334, 163-173. Doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2012.02.014
Superflares are large explosive events on stellar surfaces one to six orders-of-magnitude larger than the largest flares observed on the Sun throughout the space age. Due to the huge amount of energy released in these superflares, it has been speculated if the underlying mechanism is the same as for solar flares, which are caused by magnetic reconnection in the solar corona. Here, we analyse observations made with the LAMOST telescope of 5,648 solar-like stars, including 48 superflare stars. These observations show that superflare stars are generally characterized by larger chromospheric emissions than other stars, including the Sun. However, superflare stars with activity levels lower than, or comparable to, the Sun do exist, suggesting that solar flares and superflares most likely share the same origin. The very large ensemble of solar-like stars included in this study enables detailed and robust estimates of the relation between chromospheric activity and the occurrence of superflares.
Observational facts recorded and controllable in the field tell a quite different story of actual sea-level rise than the ones based on model simulations, especially all those who try to endorse a preconceived scenario of disastrous flooding to come. "Poster sites" like Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Kiribati in the Pacific have tide gauge stations indicating stable sea-level conditions over the last 20-30. years. The Maldives, Goa, Bangladesh, and several additional sites in the Indian Ocean provide firm field evidence of stable sea-level conditions over the last 40-50. years. Northeast Europe provides excellent opportunities to test regional eustasy, now firmly being set at+1.0. ±0.1. mm/year. Other test areas like Venice, Guyana-Surinam, Qatar, and Perth provide a eustatic factor of ±0.0. mm/year. We now have a congruent picture of actual global sea-level changes, ie, between ±0.0 to+1.0. mm/year. This implies little or no threat for future sea-level problems.
Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations ([CO2]) are expected to enhance photosynthesis and reduce crop water use1. However, there is high uncertainty about the global implications of these effects for future crop production and agricultural water requirements under climate change. Here we combine results from networks of field experiments1, 2 and global crop models3 to present a spatially explicit global perspective on crop water productivity (CWP, the ratio of crop yield to evapotranspiration) for wheat, maize, rice and soybean under elevated [CO2] and associated climate change projected for a high-end greenhouse gas emissions scenario. We find CO2 effects increase global CWP by 10[0;47]%–27[7;37]% (median[interquartile range] across the model ensemble) by the 2080s depending on crop types, with particularly large increases in arid regions (by up to 48[25;56]% for rainfed wheat). If realized in the fields, the effects of elevated [CO2] could considerably mitigate global yield losses whilst reducing agricultural consumptive water use (4–17%). We identify regional disparities driven by differences in growing conditions across agro-ecosystems that could have implications for increasing food production without compromising water security. Finally, our results demonstrate the need to expand field experiments and encourage greater consistency in modelling the effects of rising [CO2] across crop and hydrological modelling communities.
The 18.61-year lunar nodal oscillation (LNO) synchronizes sea-level oscillations with period lengths at rational factors (multiples) of the LNO-period, i.e., at factors 1, 11/2, 3, 4 and 6 of 18.61 years. In agreement with classic wave theory it is shown here that the amplitudes of these five harmonic oscillations of the North Sea and Baltic embayment are also being locked to amplitudes at rational ratios of the amplitude of LNO and the other oscillations. Periods and amplitudes of the region's three largest harmonic sea-level oscillations correspond to the LNO, NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) and AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) of which AMO sea-level oscillations are nearly completely synchronized and amplitude locked (entrained) with the LNO, whereas NAO sea-level oscillations are still in the process of being completely entrained with the LNO. The sum (superposition) of the five identified harmonic oscillations plus a constant sealevel rise by ~1.18 mm/year during the region's instrumental period (1849-2009) precisely reproduces the region's sea-level fluctuations (correlation 0.997; confidence >99.9%). The temporal phase distribution (in-phase, anti-phase) of AMO and NAO largely controls the region's sea-level fluctuations. It is shown that in-phase distribution of these two oscillations produced relatively strong sea-level rises in the periods 1883- 1905 (maximum in 1893: 3.6 mm/year) and in the period 1971-2009 (maximum in 2001: 3.2 mm/year). Anti-phase distribution of AMO and NAO prevailed in the period 1905- 1970, where sea-level rise has mostly been less than the long-term general rise of 1.18 mm/year.
The interchange of angular momentum between the solid-earth and hydrosphere is an important mechanism in the terrestrial system operating on the time-scales of El Niño, Super-ENSO (or various oceanic ?oscillations?), the ~60 yr cycle, the 208 yr cycle, the Grand Solar Maxima/Minima and the Bölling-Alleröd/Younger Dryas changes. The driving forces may be searched for in an internal feedback coupling between the hydrosphere and the solid Earth, in the tidal forces within the Earth-Moon system, or the LOD effects from the interaction of the Solar Wind with the Earth's magnetosphere. New data on the ~60 yr cycle indicate that there are observational facts of lunar tidal cycles ~56 and ~74 yr. Several celestial bodies provide a planetary beat in the order of 60 years. This beat is recorded in the changes in luminosity (as recorded by temperature and climate), in the Solar Wind interaction with the magnetosphere (as seen in multiple terrestrial variables like: geomagnetism, Earth's rate of rotation, ocean circulation, sea level and probably also cosmic ray shielding), and in the direct beat on the Earth-Moon system (as seen in lunar tides, Earth's rotation, ocean circulation and coastal sea level changes). Consequently, the ~60 yr cycle as recorded in different terrestrial variables has a triple planetary beat origin in solar luminosity variations, in multiple effects of the Solar Wind interaction with the magnetosphere, and in a direct beat on the Earth-Moon system.
This study investigates the existence of a multi-frequency spectral coherence between planetary and global surface temperature oscillations by using advanced techniques of coherence analysis and statistical significance tests. The performance of the standard Matlab mscohere algorithms is compared versus high resolution coherence analysis methodologies such as the canonical coordinates analysis. The Matlab mscohere function highlights large coherence peaks at 20 and 60-year periods although, due to the shortness of the global surface temperature record (1850-2014), the statistical significance of the result depends on the specific window function adopted for pre-processing the data. In fact, the window functions disrupt the low frequency component of the spectrum. On the contrary, using the canonical coordinates analysis at least five coherent frequencies at the 95% significance level are found at the following periods: 6.6, 7.4, 14, 20 and 60 years. Thus, high resolution coherence analysis confirms that the climate system can be partially modulated by astronomical forces of gravitational, electromagnetic and solar origin. A possible chain of the physical causes explaining this coherence is briefly discussed.