Planet Earth Needs You

The cooling patch of ocean south of Greenland Credit:  Nature Climate Change By Michael Coppola and Nancy Lazar What drives a significant part of the planet’s weather and climate and is responsible for feeding a good portion of the world? It is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC. This is the movement of surface and deep ocean water by a convection cell between the warm equatorial Atlantic and the cold North Atlantic waters. It is part of the global thermohaline ocean circulation that distributes and mixes surface and deep water throughout all the world's oceans. These currents move as part of various convection cells within the ocean waters. Credit: Wikipedia Commons The circulation system of the global ocean Simply speaking, warm surface water in the tropics flows north; when it reaches the colder northern latitudes it becomes denser, sinking down when it reaches the glacial area of the Arctic . It then flows back south as a deep water current to again ri

Lessons from the Pandemic and Actions that can Reduce Global Warming The Covid 19 pandemic has brought us much death and hardship but surprisingly one positive thing has occurred, the amount of many harmful greenhouse gasses being put into the atmosphere by mankind has reduced. This is the result of the decrease in air and land travel and the large number of factories that have closed or reduced their operating capacity.  This may have created an opportunity to make some much needed gains in reducing the amount of emissions and mitigate the effects of global warming on our lives. As we struggle with the anxiety of this pandemic it may do us all some good to direct our energy to the one good thing this pandemic has caused- a reduction in harmful emissions.  This begs the question of how each of us can help reduce harmful emissions and thus, the rate of global warming. In a discussion on the ways to reduce global warming, Bill Nye “The Science Guy” was asked which one we should d

By Michael Coppola and Nancy Lazar Some proponents of continuing to eat beef at the rate that we do now say that there is a greener, less greenhouse gas producing way of raising cattle. It is referred to as grass-fed. Comparing grass-fed beef to factory farming methods we find both graze the cattle for around a year; however the difference between the two begins when the rancher wants to ready his product for market. The industry calls this process “finishing” getting the animal at the optimal weight to slaughter. To be called grass-fed, a year old calf will be allowed to continue grazing for another year to year and a half. For grass fed cattle more land is required during both periods, as much as three times the acreage. But on a factory farm the cattle will be moved to pens and fed grains, corn, and other feeds for around six months to fatten them up faster. The result will be grain fed cattle that reach a higher weight than the grass-fed cattle at the time they are sold to be sla

  Why Polar Bears Get Stranded on Sea Ice and How to Help We have all seen the pictures of the polar bear stranded on the sea ice unable to make it safely back to land. We also know that ocean sea level is rising at a faster rate each year and threatening the welfare of those living on the coast. Well, there is a lot going on in the ocean that we know affects global warming, but what can we do about it? It turns out there are things each of us can do to save the polar bear and reduce coastal flooding. Let's talk a little bit about where polar bears live; among glaciers and on sea ice. Glaciers are the result of the accumulation of snow and they are always formed on land. Sea ice is the result of the accumulation of frozen seawater and the snow which falls on top and always occurs over water. This sea ice increases and decreases with the changing temperatures. Polar bears walk on these ice bridges to fish in the ocean and get stranded when they melt. Sea ice itself doesn’t add