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New Delhi, Jun 26 () In his biggest push for clean and affordable energy, billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Friday said it was imperative to adopt technologies that can recycle to set the carbon balance right. <p>With Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud, Energy Minister of the world's largest oil exporter Saudi Arabia, listening, Ambani said there is a need to provide efficient, clean, and affordable energy. </p><p>"The way I see is that in the progress that humankind has made (between) industrial revolutions, we have disturbed the carbon cycle and now it is time to use technology... to reset that balance and adopt the carbon cycle right," he said speaking at the FII Investment Institute Conference over a video link. </p><p>He went on to stress the need for technologies that can recycle carbon dioxide. </p><p>Statement by the Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Ltd, India's most valuable company, is significant considering that his firm operates the world's biggest oil refining complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat. </p><p>"I think that, where we are, if we take a clean sheet of paper and adopt technologies whereby we can complete the energy cycle, we can adopt new technologies particularly biochemical photosynthesis. Instead of treating carbon dioxide as a liability - we can make that as raw material," he said. </p><p>"It's not only imperative for us to be net carbon zero but I think that we should opt to recycle carbon." </p><p>Ambani said for those in the energy business, it is not so much about the decarbonisation but about completing the cycle for zero carbon emission. </p><p>"Energy is an essential requirement for all 8 billion people on this earth. There is a need to provide efficient, clean, affordable energy. And we have to do it in a responsible way. That's the business. We should not confuse that between clean and unclean," he said. </p><p>The oil-to-telecom conglomerate head said no one solution will fit all. </p><p>"The important thing also is to allow energy equally. That means, everybody has to have access to clean energy for their quality of life at an affordable price," he said. </p><p>Ambani's company buys a significant quantity of crude oil from Saudi Arabia for processing at its twin refinery complex at Jamnagar. </p><p>It is in talks to sell a fifth of its oil-to-chemical business to Saudi Aramco for an asking of USD 15 billion. </p><p>"The new supply of energy on an affordable basis is the prosperity of the planet. And only after these two, there can be prosperity for the companies and the shareholders, and I think with where we are today, in the coming decades we have no choice, but to meet these challenges to complete the carbon cycle. </p><p>"And serve the energy needs of all its customers rather than thinking in terms of fossil and renewable and wind and so forth," he added. </p><p>Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF has picked up a 2.3 per cent stake in Ambani's digital arm Jio Platforms Ltd. </p><p>"For us, particularly in India, we have high growth so it is important that one works with consumers in spreading awareness. This virus itself has helped everybody realise the benefit of low carbon mindset," he said. </p>"Real touch with the community, understanding the community on the ground level and understanding different sectors of the economy and getting them involved in the energy movement is critical as for having a part of restoring the carbon cycle." ANZ BAL

Ambani pushes for clean, affordable energy; tech to decarbonise

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/a-sky-view-of-earth-from-suomi-npp">NASA GSFC/NOAA</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The world has crossed a major greenhouse-gas milestone, and it may never turn back.</p><p>The Manua Loa Observatory in Hawaii has maintained a continuous record of atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels since 1958. Here's the complete record of readings from the observatory over that time period:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NOAA</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>As you can see, atmospheric CO2 cycles every year, but there's a significant upward trend in the measurements.</p><p>Right now we're at the low point in that cycle, just at the end of September. And, according to a post from the <a href="https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2016/09/23/note-on-reaching-the-annual-low-point/">Scripps Institute of Oceanography</a> (which we first saw covered <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/goodbye-world-weve-passed-the-carbon-tipping-point-for-good">over at Motherboard</a>), atmospheric CO2 is holding at 401 parts per million. That's the first time in recorded history that the annual carbon cycle has bottomed out at over 400 ppm. And it means the 2016 carbon trough is about 25% higher than the 1958 peak <span>- just</span> under 320 ppm.</p><p>As Scripps points out, there have been a few years when the readings in October have been a bit lower than September. But they've never seen a full 1 ppm drop, so it's unlikely we'll see a reading under 400 ppm this year.</p><p>And given the steady upward trend in atmospheric CO2, it also means we'll likely never see a reading under 400 ppm in the foreseeable climate future.</p><p>The last time atmospheric carbon held above 400 ppm was <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394">15 million years ago</a>. The world was three to six degrees warmer, and sea levels were between 75 and 120 feet higher, according to <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394">research published in the journal Science</a>.</p><p>Which is to say: This is perhaps a milestone to note.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/earth-500-years-climate-change-life-humans-2016-6">Here's what could happen to Earth over the next 500 years</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="E1ZW5lNDE6gcPjr63ABCM7QB34U834m8" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Earth's atmosphere now has carbon dioxide levels unseen for 15 million years, and we might be past the point of no return

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Whales are the biggest animals on Earth and their huge bodies play a role in the carbon cycle.</li><li>They capture carbon in their body as they live and encourage biodiversity with their poop. </li></ul><p>Whales naturally help divert carbon away from the atmosphere in life and death, scientists said in a review published Thursday. </p><p>Because they are so large — with the largest whales bigger even than the dinosaurs — the amount of carbon they capture throughout their lifetime is substantial. </p><p>Though it may not be a solution to the climate crisis on its own, their ability to store carbon is another reason to encourage their numbers to rise in the oceans, the scientists said.</p><p>The results of their analysis <a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(22)00279-8">were published</a> in the peer-reviewed journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.</p><h2>Whales naturally store carbon by living their life</h2><p>Whales capture carbon mainly by pooping and dying. The diagram below explains how. </p><div type="image" title="A diagram shows how whales help capture carbon from the athmosphere. Two types of great whales are shown pooping, feeding local phytoplankton growth, feeding on the plankton or the animals that eat the plankton, then dying and sinking to the ocean floor." height="2103" width="2000" msid="96259969" hostid="261" sizebytes="230116"></div><p>Any animal, big or small, is part of a carbon cycle. Carbon is present in every lifeform on Earth. Animals get carbon by eating plants and animal products, and plants get it from the atmosphere. </p><p>That carbon is either stored in the body until the animal's death or shed as feces. These byproducts are then nibbled on by other animals and plants, putting that carbon back into the food chain. </p><p>When you're as big as a whale, what happens to your body and your poop can have a huge effect.</p><p>"Because whales are so large, they have the potential to store vast amounts of carbon," said Heidi Pearson, a study author and biologist from the University of Alaska Southeast, in an interview with Insider. </p><p>Whales weigh up to 150 tons and can live more than 100 years. That's a lot of carbon stored in their body, away from the atmosphere, until they die.</p><p>"You can think of whales as like big floating trees in the ocean," Pearson said. </p><div type="image" title="a humpback whale is seen from above, feeding." height="1887" width="2517" msid="96259971" hostid="261" sizebytes="904448"></div><h2>Eating, pooping, and peeing the ecosystem back to life</h2><p>What they don't store in their body, the whales poop and pee back into the ocean. </p><p>Previous studies have shown that this is incredibly important for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/study-whales-eat-thought-crucial-environment-2021-11">the ecosystem. </a>When whale populations dropped after the widespread whaling of the 1900s, plankton populations counterintuitively plummeted as well.</p><p>That is because plankton feeds on whale poop, so the disappearance of even one whale causes a huge deficit in the ocean ecosystem. This is called the whale pump effect.</p><p>By encouraging new life, the whales are creating more organisms that can capture carbon away from the atmosphere.</p><p>The whales can then feed on these new lifeforms, in huge quantities, locking that carbon in their body for many decades. </p><p>Finally, when they die, the whales' bodies tend to sink all the way down to the bottom of the ocean, where the carbon stays out of the atmosphere.</p><p>"It's going to remain out of contact with the atmosphere for hundreds, thousands of years, maybe even longer. And whales do this naturally," Pearson said. </p><div type="image" title="A humpback whale breaches." height="2847" width="3797" msid="96259974" hostid="261" sizebytes="691144"></div><h2>Not a silver bullet</h2><p>By encouraging <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-largest-container-line-reroutes-around-endangered-blue-whales-2022-9">whale numbers to grow</a>, their carbon-locking effect can be amplified. </p><p>"We feel it's worth conserving whales for many reasons. They're important components of healthy ecosystems and they help to promote biodiversity, given that we are also in a biodiversity crisis," Pearson said. </p><p>"This potential climate benefit is just another reason," she said.</p><p>Conservation today is less about whaling and more about creating protected areas in the ocean to avoid <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cargo-ships-kill-blue-whales-solution-change-route-marine-biologist-2022-2">collisions with ships</a>, keeping the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cargo-ships-in-japan-are-changing-whales-songs-2018-10">oceans quiet</a>, and avoiding whales getting tangled in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rescuers-right-whale-north-atlantic-noaa-2017-1">fishing gear</a>, Pearson said. </p><p>"Another big thing is climate change. So it kind of goes full circle," she said. </p><p>Pearson warned, however, that she doesn't think it should be seen as a viable solution to the climate crisis on its own.</p><p>Advocates of <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tsinghua-s-institute-for-climate-change-and-asian-development-bank-jointly-call-for-good-nature-based-solutions-practices-in-asia-1031962182">nature-based solutions</a> suggest that by bringing back biodiversity, for instance by planting trees and encouraging re-wilding, a substantial amount of the excess carbon in the atmosphere could be captured in living organisms.</p><p>This is true, and this approach has obvious positive knock-on benefits for the environment, but it's not the full story. </p><p>Estimates suggest that nature-based solutions can provide 37% of the climate change mitigation by 2030 that is needed to meet the goal of keeping climate warming below 2 degrees Celsius, <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2022/05/19/what-you-need-to-know-about-nature-based-solutions-to-climate-change">according to the World Bank. </a></p><p>"They're not the silver bullet. Even if we could really get strong conservation measures and recover whale populations to their pre-industrial whaling abundance, that's still not gonna solve the climate crisis," she said. </p><p>"It's gonna be one small piece of everything we need to do," she said. </p>

Whales help mitigate climate change by pooping carbon into the ocean and taking more with them when they die, scientists say

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<p><span>An ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe.</span><br><br><span>Plumes of carbon dioxide in the simulation swirl and shift as winds disperse the greenhouse gas away from its sources. The simulation also illustrates differences in carbon dioxide levels in the northern and southern hemispheres and distinct swings in global carbon dioxide concentrations as the growth cycle of plants and trees changes with the seasons.<br><em><br>Produced by&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/author/devan-joseph" title="Devan Joseph">Devan Joseph</a></br></em><em>. Video courtesy of <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/">NASA</a>.</em><br><br><br /></br></br></br></span></br></br></p>

Amazing Supercomputer Animation Shows How CO2 In The Atmosphere Travels Around The Globe

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?id=tag%3Areuters.com%2C2015%3Anewsml_GF10000234621&amp;share=true">Bruno Kelly/Reuters</a></span></p><p class="caption">Francisco da Silva Vale and his son Hercules navigate during a fishing session at Vila Nova do Amana in the Sustainable Development Reserve, Amazonas state, Brazil, September 23, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-rainforest-experiencing-record-breaking-deforestation-2019-7">Record-breaking fires</a> have hit the Amazon rainforest this year, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fires-in-the-amazon-rainforest-were-started-by-humans-2019-8">most of which were lit by people clearing land for farming</a>.</li><li>If too much of the Amazon disappears, that could put the rainforest on an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-losing-3-football-fields-worth-of-rainforest-per-minute-2019-8">irreversible path</a> towards <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-fires-may-help-dieback-emit-carbon-hurry-climate-change-2019-8">becoming a savannah</a>.</li><li>If we lose the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/amazon-rainforest">Amazon</a>, we lose a crucial part of the world's life support system: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-help-amazon-rainforest-what-charities-to-donate-to-2019">The Amazon</a> produces up to 20% of the oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, cycles water that regulates our weather, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-forest-is-disappearing-2015-11">hosts a wealth of undiscovered species</a> with potential for new medicines. </li><li>It's also one of our best tools for keeping heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</strong></li></ul><p>The Amazon rainforest is burning: <span>Brazil has seen more than 74,000 fires this year ⁠- nearly double 2018's total of about 40,000 fires. About 10,000 new fires <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-rainforest-experiencing-record-number-of-wildfires-this-year-2019-8">started in the last week alone</a>, mostly <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fires-in-the-amazon-rainforest-were-started-by-humans-2019-8">lit by people clearing land</a> for crops and grazing.</span></p><p>David Sirota, a political commentator who writes speeches for Bernie Sanders, put the problem like this in a <a href="https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1164278087564980224?s=20">tweet</a>: "We're all on a spaceship hurtling through a vacuum. The Amazon rainforest is our spaceship's life support system. Our spaceship's life support system is on fire." </p><p>It's a fitting analogy, since the Amazon plays a major role in many of the processes that make our planet habitable: water cycles, weather patterns, and the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The rainforest is also home to more than 30 million <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/drone-footage-reveals-tribe-amazon-no-contact-outside-world-2018-8">people</a> and over 10% of the world's biodiversity. Scientists see potential for new medicines in unstudied Amazon plants. </p><p>The more than 2.5 million square miles of Amazon rainforest are also one of our greatest buffers against the climate crisis, since the trees absorb carbon dioxide, thereby keeping it out of the atmosphere. </p><p>But deforestation threatens all of that. Humans have cut down nearly 20% of the Amazon in the last 50 years, according to the <a href="http://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/amazon/about_the_amazon/">World Wildlife Fund</a> (WWF). If <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/35041539">another 20%</a> of the Amazon disappears, that could trigger <span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-fires-may-help-dieback-emit-carbon-hurry-climate-change-2019-8">a "dieback" scenario</a> in which the forest would dry out and become a savannah. That process would release billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and raise global temperatures. </span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?id=tag%3Areuters.com%2C2019%3Anewsml_RC1AF7C54AA0&amp;share=true">Bruno Kelly/Reuters</a></span></p><p class="caption">A man works in a burning tract of Amazon jungle as it is being cleared by loggers and farmers in Iranduba, Amazonas state, Brazil August 20, 2019.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>Here is what's at risk if we lose the Amazon.</span></p><h2>The 'lungs of the planet'</h2><p>The Amazon helps keep the atmosphere's carbon-dioxide levels in check.</p><p>Plants and trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen back into the air through the process of photosynthesis. This is why the Amazon is often referred to as the "lungs of the planet": It's estimated to produce between 6% and 20% of the oxygen in Earth's atmosphere.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">The Amazon produces up to 20% of the world's oxygen, as plants absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen via photosynthesis.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Researchers <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2373903/">have calculated</a> that the Amazon holds up to 140 billion tons of carbon dioxide - the equivalent of 14 decades' worth of human emissions.</p><p>"The Amazon is a major bank of carbon," Ruth DeFries, an ecology professor at Columbia University, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjw5bb/the-amazon-wildfires-arent-natural-blame-humans">told Vice.</a> "When trees gets burned and carbon is released into the atmosphere, that exacerbates our global warming."</p><p>Fires aside, deforestation in the Amazon already releases half a billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, according to <a href="http://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/amazon/about_the_amazon/">WWF</a>.</p><p>Last month, the Amazon saw <span>record-breaking rates of deforestation, primarily due to </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bolsonaro-plan-to-develop-amazon-rainforest-2019-1">infrastructure projects</a><span>, logging, mining, and farming - much of which is not legal.</span> Data from Brazilian satellites have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-losing-3-football-fields-worth-of-rainforest-per-minute-2019-8">indicated</a> that about three football fields' worth of Amazonian trees are falling every minute.</p><h2>An anchor for weather patterns</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?id=tag%3Areuters.com%2C2015%3Anewsml_GF10000234640&amp;share=true">Bruno Kelly/Reuters</a></span></p><p class="caption">A man swims with his kid on the waters of the Parana do Amana river at Vila Nova do Amana community in the Sustainable Development Reserve, in Amazonas state, Brazil, September 22, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>A <a href="https://www.wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/ending-tropical-deforestation-tropical-forests-climate-change.pdf">2018 report</a> from the World Resources Institute (WRI) found that tropical deforestation disrupts the water cycle so much that it can threaten agriculture halfway around the globe.</p><p>"Tropical forest loss is having a larger impact on the climate than has been commonly understood," the report authors wrote.</p><p>The Amazon plays a large role in rain patterns because the moisture that its vegetation traps and releases travels as clouds for thousands of miles.</p><p><a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JHM406.1">Climate models</a> show that the Amazon's moisture affects rainfall as far away as the US. If the Amazon were completely deforested, that would cut Texas rainfall by 25%, <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00775.1">cut the Sierra Nevada snowpack in half</a>, and reduce precipitation by up to 20% in the US coastal northwest.</p><p>For that reason, large-scale deforestation in the Amazon can "pose a substantial risk to agriculture in key breadbaskets halfway around the world in parts of the US, India, and China," according to the WRI report.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Bruno Kelly</span></p><p class="caption">Villagers from the Rumao Island community paddle their canoes loaded with arapaima or pirarucu, the largest freshwater fish species in South America, while fishing in the Solimoes river, one of the main tributaries of the Amazon, in the Mamiraua nature reserve, November 24, 2013.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The Amazon may also play a role in ocean currents, since the Amazon River accounts for over 15% of all fresh water that enters the oceans. Changes in the ocean's balance of fresh water and salt water <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/will_climate_change_jam_the_global_ocean_conveyor_belt">can slow down or speed up ocean currents</a>, which regulate weather across the globe.</p><p>But scientists aren't yet sure how changes in the Amazon River would affect this complicated meteorological system.</p><p>Degradation of the rainforest could also affect the biology of the Atlantic Ocean in unknown ways, since the Amazon River <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/7021/amazon-river-in-the-atlantic-ocean">dumps debris from the forest into the Atlantic</a>, and those nutrients feed phytoplankton that form the base of the ocean's food chain.</p><h2>Biodiversity that 'brims with promise' for new medicines</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?id=tag%3Areuters.com%2C2009%3Anewsml_GM1E5BH0ZOA01&amp;share=true">Sergio Moraes/Reuters</a></span></p><p class="caption">Brazilian researchers inspect plants in the search for new cancer drugs in Sao Sebastiao de Cuieiras in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, October 30, 2009.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The Amazon is home to at least 10% of the world's known <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK_vRtHJZu4">biodiversity</a> - and that's just the life that we know about. A new species is discovered in the Amazon every <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/08/amazon-brazil-new-species-discovered-spd/">two</a> or <a href="https://www.wwf.org.uk/where-we-work/places/amazon">three</a> days. </p><p>"Every species in this incredibly biodiverse system represents solutions to a set of biological challenges - any one of which has transformative potential and could generate global human benefits," ecologist Thomas Lovejoy told <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/05/22/why-the-amazons-biodiversity-is-critical-for-the-globe">the World Bank</a>. "This rich wealth of species brims with promise, awaiting discovery."</p><p>People have used Amazonian plants to produce <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/rainforests-are-fast-becoming-a-laboratory-for-cancer-drugs">anti-cancer drugs</a> and the first anti-malarial drug, quinine. Yet scientists estimate that they have only studied 0.5% of the world's flowering plants for their <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-medicine/in-amazon-a-frustrated-search-for-cancer-cures-idUSTRE5AG00V20091117">medicinal potential</a>. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Nacho Doce/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">A rainbow is seen over a tract of Amazon rainforest which has been cleared by loggers and farmers for agriculture, near Uruara, Brazil on April 22, 2013.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The rich array of species in the Amazon are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/people-killed-half-of-forest-animals-on-earth-since-1970-2019-8">crucial to the rainforest's other functions</a>, too.</p><p>The South American trees that absorb the most carbon dioxide rely on large birds and primates to eat their fruits and spread the large seeds inside, according to a recent WWF <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/below-the-canopy">report</a>. Thick vines also hold up the structures of the trees whose leaves send water vapor into the atmosphere. And a variety of animals pollinate forest plants, disperse seeds, and nourish the soil with their waste. </p><p>"Amazon biodiversity also plays a critical role as part of global systems, influencing the global carbon cycle and thus climate change," Lovejoy said.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-rainforest-mysterious-geoglyphs-2017-2">These designs in the Amazon rainforest were created 2,000 years ago - and archaeologists are still baffled by them</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Earth is a spaceship, and the Amazon is a crucial part of our life-support system. Here's why we need the world's largest rainforest.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The story of climate change is closely tied to that of the carbon cycle.</p><p>The increasing amounts of carbon dioxide hanging in our atmosphere - as opposed to being locked up in the world's oceans, soils, and forests - are leading to broken heat <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/7-months-of-hottest-records-october-2014-11">records</a> and scary <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-earth-would-look-like-if-ice-melted-world-map-animation-2015-2">predictions</a> of what our world might look like without ice sheets.</p><p>To better understand how big a role trees play in this carbon cycle, NASA has recently granted a spot aboard the International Space Station to an instrument to measure the carbon in Earth's forests.</p><p>The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation lidar, or GEDI (pronounced "Jedi", à la Star Wars) will determine the total volume of trees on Earth, and analyze how that figure might have changed over time. That's juicy data, because <a href="http://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/gtr/gtr_nrs90/gtr-nrs-90-chapter-5.5.pdf">fully half</a> of a tree's dry weight is carbon.</p><p>"If you were to cut the tree down, let it dry out and weigh it, half of its biomass that's there is carbon," Ralph Dubayah, of the University of Maryland, College Park, told Business Insider.</p><p>The university designed GEDI, which will be built (at a cost of $94 million) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center a few miles away. The instrument will make its way to space in 2018.</p><p>"The biggest natural sink of terrestrial carbon lies in our forests and trees," Steve Running, of the University of Montana, <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ForestCarbon/">told</a> NASA's Earth Observatory. "So one of the most important things we can do for understanding the carbon budget is to get a better inventory of the carbon we have in our trees."</p><p>The Earth Observatory says that of the nine billion tons of carbon (mostly carbon dioxide) burnt by fossil fuels every year, four end up in the atmosphere, two in the oceans, and three in "ecosystems on land," including forests, but it's still unknown where those sinks are located.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Dubayah describes this land-bound carbon as a missing link in the carbon cycle. Much of it is unaccounted for, but not unlike dark matter, scientists know it's there.</p><p>Conversely, some tropical forests may in fact be acting as carbon sources, especially during strong El Niño years in which drought leads to tree death, decomposition, and carbon release.</p><p>"We're not quite sure what is happening in terms of are these forests acting as sources or are they acting as sinks, and that's part of what we're trying to figure out," Dubayah said.</p><p>A 2004 <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1693329/">study</a> on the "source versus sink" question laments that "there are no tropical forest sites for which existing plot data are sufficient to determine whether the forest is acting as a carbon sink or source." Its author, Deborah Clark of the University of Missouri-St. Louis' biology department, told Business Insider that the data gap still stands.</p><p>Speaking with Business Insider, Steve Running explained that "we have a good enough idea of the status quo" regarding forest cover across the world. But beyond that, GEDI "would be a real important part of a monitoring system globally that would allow us to very accurately see change."</p><p>"We would simply know from one year to the next whether what we thought was on this hectare is still there," Running said.</p><p>Brent Mitchell, a lidar specialist at the Remote Sensing Applications Center in Salt Lake City, agrees. "The biggest piece [about GEDI] is having that repeat coverage and being able to monitor things over time," he told Business Insider.</p><p>Mitchell has used fixed-wing aircraft in his lidar research for the past five years, but flights aren't frequent enough and don't cover a big enough area to track change on a useful scale.</p><p>A space-based instrument could solve that problem.</p><p><strong>That's why GEDI matters. Here's how it works.</strong></p><p>Lidar technology (a combination of the words "light" and "radar") beams light to a target and analyzes how it bounces back.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>"So you have this kind of bell-shaped distribution of energy, that's going towards the surface," said Dubayah. "If it hits a totally flat surface it gets reflected straight back as a bell."</p><p>Of course, that's not the case for most of Earth's surfaces.</p><p>"When it hits a tree, the tree does weird stuff to this bell," he added. "The tree kind of starts to extend it, distorts it, makes it look kind of like an echocardiogram." These changes in the laser light are detected by the instrument when they return.</p><p>The information they get back is precise enough to "detect subtle variations, including the tops of trees, the ground, and the vertical distribution of above ground biomass in forests," according to NASA's <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/new-nasa-probe-will-study-earth-s-forests-in-3-d/#.VOOd57DF_fN">release</a> about the project.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>At any one time, GEDI will shoot three beams across several tracks each 500 meters apart. "We'll take those facts and we'll make estimates of the distribution of canopy height within 500 meter cells," said Dubayah.</p><p>The team will also combine their data with other satellite data - including that from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/landsat-8-satellite-images-from-space-2014-11">the Landsat program</a> - to fill in the blanks.</p><p>The measurement they're after is metric tons per hectare. To help them convert their data - height and distribution of the woody material - into mass, researchers will bring in their knowledge of the type of trees lying underfoot. Coniferous trees, for instance, aren't as dense as deciduous ones, according to Dubayah: "Oak is a lot heavier than pine."</p><p>During a year aboard the ISS, GEDI will fire about 15 billion pulses of light, according to Dubayah (out of concerns for power, the instrument will ramped down when trained over Earth's oceans).</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Because of the ISS's orbit, only surfaces between 50th parallel north and 50th parallel south will be subject to GEDI's scrutiny. The instrument can be pointed slightly left or right to maximize coverage, but that still leaves out most of Canada and Russia's boreal (or taiga) forests, which according to TV series <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/habitats/Taiga#p02d9v40">Planet Earth</a> make up a third of the trees on Earth.</p><p>Another limitation is the sensor is time. GEDI only gets one year on the International Space Station - there are only ten instrument spots in the exposed facility, which makes them very coveted.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>"What we would really want, though, is to have our own satellite in space so we that don't have this kind of limitation, and so that we can cover boreal forests," said Dubayah.</p><p>"Our nominal mission length is one year, which means that we accomplish our <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> objectives in one year." It would then be up to NASA to decide whether GEDI is worth more valuable time and space aboard the station.</p><p>"But our lasers have shown that they can last in space conditions in the lab for now going north of six years," said Dubayah.</p><p>"If something's giving great data, you hate to get rid of it."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-earth-would-look-like-if-ice-melted-world-map-animation-2015-2">Animated map of what Earth would look like if all the ice melted</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="5xam5iczrSx4Ibx8MvarDsu3zOG88omE" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

NASA has a plan to take the most detailed scans the world's forests ever

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02893">NASA</a></span></p><p class="caption">The "Grand Canyon of Mars."</p></div><p></p></div></div>Like Earth, Mars has some deep canyons. Those on the Red Planet were carved out of its surface around 3.8 billion years ago. Scientists have debated about how they actually got there, and new research could hold the answer. </p><p>A new study from Penn State University <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X16304794" target="_blank">published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters</a> suggests that Mars may have gone through its own version of (non-human-driven) climate change, with dramatic climate cycles triggered by a buildup of greenhouse gases. </p><p>These cycles may have caused extended warm periods on the planet, sometimes lasting up to 10 million years at a time. This would mean that enough water would have been produced for rivers to flow and wear away the ground, somewhat like the Colorado River did when it created the Grand Canyon. </p><p>Previous research has suggested that some of these warm periods may have been the result of an asteroid impact. If this was the case, however, the warm periods would have had much shorter durations, the researchers wrote in their paper. Plus, it's doubtful that enough water would have been produced to create craters of the size they've observed, they added. </p><p>"In terms of water, we need millions of meters of rainfall, and [previous studies] can get hundreds of meters," <a href="http://news.psu.edu/story/440075/2016/12/01/climate-cycles-may-explain-how-running-water-carved-mars-surface-features" target="_blank">Professor Jim Kasting</a>, a geosciences professor at Penn State and coauthor of the study, said in a statement.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.futurity.org/greenhouse-gases-canyons-mars-1311742-2/">William Dietrich/UC Berkley</a></span></p><p class="caption">The Gale Crater on Mars filled with liquid water.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Instead, greenhouse gases would have accumulated in the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions, cooling lava on the surface or escaping from the planet's crust. Rain usually removes some of these gases when it falls, but because Mars was cold in its early years, there was less rain, so this the process didn't keep up. </p><p>"Mars is in this precarious position where it's at the outer edge of the habitable zone," said Natasha Batalha, a graduate student in astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State. "Because you are colder, you don't get the same deposition of carbon back into the planet's surface. Instead, you get this atmospheric buildup and your planet slowly starts to rise in temperature."</p><p>At least that's what the research suggests. Now, the scientists will have to find out whether enough carbon dioxide and hydrogen could have been produced on Mars. To answer that question, they will most likely look for evidence of carbonate rocks deposited deep down in Mars' surface that would get produced from acidic rain produced by high amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide.</p><p>"If the next Mars mission was able to dig down deeper, you might be able to uncover these different carbonates," Kasting said. "That would be a sort of smoking gun for the carbon dioxide."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-iphone-6s-shut-down-early-battery-life-2016-12">Apple revealed why some iPhones are randomly shutting down despite having battery life left</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="poMzUzODE6rjADYnB8MWm2MWkiV9uyTd" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

4 billion-year-old Grand Canyon-like craters on Mars could have been carved thanks to climate change

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5BGRCryrOU">Movieclips Trailers / YouTube</a></span></p><p class="caption">You could say that we never left the current ice age.</p></div><p></p></div></div>For the past million years or so, the Earth has gone through an ice age every 100,000 years. Nobody knows precisely why. Before that, colder summers occurred about every 40,000 years until the Earth entered a <a href="http://www.geo.oregonstate.edu/files/geo/Clark%20etal.-2006-QSR.pdf">phase called the middle Pleistocene transition</a> where the intervals became over twice as long.</p><p>Researchers at Cardiff University have just put forward their new theory - <a href="http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2016/10/20/G38636.1.full.pdf" target="_blank">published in the journal Geology</a> - about why this cycle changed so dramatically. As it turns out, some of the answers may lie at the bottom of the ocean.</p><p>The team studied the fossils of tiny marine algae, small photosynthetic organisms that act like the trees of the ocean by sucking up carbon dioxide. Algae in the different layers of sediment were shown to have stored varying levels of carbon dioxide, and there were much higher levels in the particular layers which were formed every 100,000 years.</p><p><strong>This means there was probably less carbon dioxide left in the atmosphere at these points, and this could have influenced lower temperatures, potentially allowing vast sheets of ice to engulf North America, Europe, and Asia.</strong></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Iceage_north-intergl_glac_hg.png">Hannes Grobe / Wikimedia Commons</a></span></p><p class="caption">The shadows show the Northern hemisphere glaciers that formed during the most recent ice age.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The team looked towards the ocean for answers because of the vast amount of information that can be gained there compared to other sources.</p><p>"It's really difficult to get good records of past climate changes on land, especially from this time period, because the ice sheets themselves are really good at destroying their own geological record," lead researcher Professor Carrie Lear, a professor of Earth Science at Cardiff University told Business Insider. "But there is a continuous accumulation of sediment on the seafloor, which we can study."</p><p>As for why this happens in a 100,000 year cycle, Lear said it's probably down to a combination of factors. For example, ocean circulation patterns - the movement of water through the seas - adjusts the amount of carbon dioxide that can be trapped underwater due to its salinity and temperature.</p><h2>The temperature of the ocean can have a huge impact on the earth.</h2><p>When oceans are colder, they can absorb more carbon dioxide. As the temperature increases, more gas molecules leave the water than enter it. This theory also provides an explanation for how global warming and the increase of carbon in the atmosphere are connected.</p><p>"You can start with a small change in climate, which changes the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and then leads to a bigger change in climate," Lear said.</p><p>The Earth is currently in a warm spell, as the last ice age occurred about 11,000 years ago. There is no particular temperature that signifies an ice age, they are just defined as periods of time when large ice sheets cover the planet.</p><p>"Technically we are still in an ice age now, as we have a large ice sheet on Antarctica and Greenland," Lear said.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-apple-product-time-941-2016-10">Here's why the time is always 9:41 in Apple product photos</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="U1dHBoMjE6KIwaBrpClUTpurURFSpqCf" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

There's a fascinating new theory about why the world plummets into ice ages every 100,000 years

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="12069433" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ups" source="Orion">UPS</keyword> will start delivering packages from its new, battery-powered, four-wheeled cycles in NYC.</li><li>Called the "eQuad" by UPS, the cycles are meant to be more efficient for congested streets.</li></ul><p>A smaller, battery-powered version of the UPS <keyword id="11922166" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="delivery" source="Orion">delivery</keyword> truck is hitting the streets of <keyword id="11921345" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="new-york-city" source="Orion">New York City</keyword>. </p><p>On Tuesday, the company's four-wheeled eQuad electric bikes made their debut in the city, as part of the <a href="https://pix11.com/news/local-news/ups-unveils-tiny-battery-powered-cycles-in-nyc/">UPS' trial run</a> of the delivery cycles in congested cities like NYC and cities in <keyword id="11897120" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="europe" source="Orion">Europe</keyword>, like Paris and Stockholm. </p><p>"We're testing out in New York just based on the blueprint of New York City, and the complexities," Nicole Pilet, UPS industrial engineer, said in <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-06-15/ups-tries-electric-bikes-for-deliveries">a video shared by Bloomberg</a>. "If we can have success here in the city, then we can see how we implement in other cities throughout the US."</p><p>UPS is already moving toward <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/22/british-ev-start-up-arrival-north-carolina-factory-to-build-a-ups-fleet.html">more electric</a> delivery vehicles, and has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-new-york-carbon-neutrality-climate-and-environment-2db493a93386182d3ed549c9e885ea9e">more than 1,000 electric vehicles</a> in its delivery fleet. The eQuad is only 34 inches wide, and can go up to 15.53 mph, even though the city has a 12 mph speed limit, Sarah Shatan, media relations and global communications supervisor at UPS, said. On a single charge, the bike can travel 40/4 miles, she added.</p><p>"Last-mile deliveries via cycle can support a more sustainable way to deliver in dense urban environments and navigate zero-emission zones," Shatan said. "They're the latest leap forward in UPS's innovative <keyword id="11896309" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="sustainability" source="Orion">sustainability</keyword> driven strategy to test new ways to serve customers while reducing carbon footprint and traffic congestion."</p><p>UPS has a goal to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-new-york-carbon-neutrality-climate-and-environment-2db493a93386182d3ed549c9e885ea9e">reach carbon neutrality</a> by 2050. </p><p>UPS isn't the first delivery company to experiment with e-bikes. FedEx <a href="https://newsroom.fedex.com/newsroom/fedex-express-continues-journey-towards-zero-emissions-delivery-as-edinburgh-glasgow-and-cambridge-become-the-next-uk-cities-to-welcome-e-cargo-bikes/#:~:text=FedEx%20has%20already%20introduced%20e,method%20of%20zero%20emissions%20delivery">added e-cargo bikes</a> to its delivery services in London in December 2021, and <a href="https://newsroom.fedex.com/newsroom/fedex-express-continues-journey-towards-zero-emissions-delivery-as-edinburgh-glasgow-and-cambridge-become-the-next-uk-cities-to-welcome-e-cargo-bikes/#:~:text=FedEx%20has%20already%20introduced%20e,method%20of%20zero%20emissions%20delivery">has plans to extend</a> the bike service to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Cambridge. Like UPS, FedEx wants to cut its carbon emissions too, but 10 years earlier <a href="https://newsroom.fedex.com/newsroom/fedex-express-continues-journey-towards-zero-emissions-delivery-as-edinburgh-glasgow-and-cambridge-become-the-next-uk-cities-to-welcome-e-cargo-bikes/#:~:text=FedEx%20has%20already%20introduced%20e,method%20of%20zero%20emissions%20delivery">by 2040</a>.</p><p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-new-york-carbon-neutrality-climate-and-environment-2db493a93386182d3ed549c9e885ea9e">Talking to AP</a>, Mohammad Islam said the eQuad bike was "cool stuff."</p><p>"Big trucks always blocking the traffic," <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-new-york-carbon-neutrality-climate-and-environment-2db493a93386182d3ed549c9e885ea9e">he told AP</a>. "If they do that kind of stuff, it's 10 times better for everybody."</p><p>During deliveries, the ebikes have curbside access to park. So far, there have been no incidents reported from the pilot launch in NYC.</p><p>Even some UPS delivery drivers agree that the electric fleet might be better. Dyghton Anderson, a 22-year-old UPS delivery driver working in the pilot program, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-new-york-carbon-neutrality-climate-and-environment-2db493a93386182d3ed549c9e885ea9e">told AP</a> the program fit his interests as a cyclist.</p><p>"I ride to and from work — from all the way from the Bronx all the way to here on 43rd — so it's pretty comfortable for me," <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-new-york-carbon-neutrality-climate-and-environment-2db493a93386182d3ed549c9e885ea9e">Anderson said</a>.</p>

Check out UPS's new battery-powered cargo cycles, which are hitting the streets of NYC and parts of Europe

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source">Global Thermostat</p></div><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">If you haven't heard, our airplanes are already </span><a href="http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/algae-jet-fuel-helps-power-united-airlines-flight/10248">getting some of their gas from algae</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p>But that <keyword id="55579" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ALGAE">algae</keyword> needs its own power source — in the form of <keyword id="66463" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Carbon">carbon</keyword> dioxide, or CO2 — to produce the jet fuel.</p>
<p>That's where Columbia professors Graciela Chichilnisky and Peter Eisenberger come in.</p>
<p>Their company, <a href="http://globalthermostat.com/">Global Thermostat</a>, has developed a technology Chichilnisky says can suck carbon dioxide out of the air, store it up, and sell it back to companies that need it.</p>
<p><span>Chichilnisky</span><span> recently came by our offices to show off the product.</span></p>
<p>The profit motive is just a necessary evil, she told us.</p>
<p>The real reason behind their carbon capture invention is tackling <keyword id="6361617" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Climate-Change">climate change</keyword>, since more carbon dioxide in the air increases <keyword id="6366055" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="global-warming">global warming</keyword>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"It's no longer enough to reduce emissions," she said. "We've procrastinated enough, and so to avoid the worst, catastrophic risks, what we need is to take it down from air to close the carbon cycle, which means whatever we put up, bring it down. And that's what our technology does."</span></p>
<p>Of course, removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would only get at part of the problem underlying climate change. But <span>Chichilnisky says the product could save large carbon-emitting businesses from a lot of grief.</span> </p>
<p><table class="image-container float_left" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div><p class="source">Rob Wile/Business Insider</p><p class="caption">Sample of Global Thermostat's carbon capture cube.</p></td></tr></table></p>
<p>It works by coating cubes just slightly larger than your hand — like the one at left — with a nitrogen-based compound developed by Global Thermostat that absorbs carbon dioxide.</p>
<p>Stack a bunch of the cubes on top of one another, add some exhaust pipes, and you get a full facility, like the one shown above.</p>
<p>The plants are capable of processing <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">100,00 cubic feet of air per minute. The end product is 97-percent-pure CO2. <br /></span></p>
<p>Chichilnisky compares the technology to a dehumidifier.</p>
<p>"You plug it in, air circles inside dehumidifier, there's a chemical that loves water, so water is captured," she said. "And then the water, as it cools, condenses and falls down on tray, then you change the tray.</p>
<p>"Now replace water molecules by CO2, and replace the chemical that the loves water by a chemical that loves CO2, and that's what it is."</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The company's first commercial partnership is with Algae Systems, a company that's utilizing Global Thermostat's packaged CO2 to produce the aforementioned jet fuel. A factory to do so is currently under construction in Alabama. </span></p>
<p>Edgar Bronfman Jr., former Vivendi and Seagram CEO, is a minority owner in Global Thermostat, and the firm has received a loan from Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>The Alabama factory won't be finished before the end of the year.</p>
<p>But Chichilinksy says she's already received interest from companies in India and Saudi Arabia for their own carbon capturing facilities. T<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">he company made $1 million last year.</span></p>
<p>Her elevator pitch, while over the top, is not totally inaccurate.</p>
<p>"We transform [CO2] into money, we make it into cash." </p>

How Carbon Capture Technology Can Almost Turn CO2 Into Cash

<p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Nacho Doce</span></p><p class="caption">An aerial view of the Amazon rainforest at the Bom Futuro National Forest near Rio Pardo in Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil.</p></div><p></p></div></div>In the last few months, wildfires have ravaged through Alberta's boreal forests and California. According to the Climate Central Wildfire tracker, there are <a href="http://wxshift.com/climate-change/climate-indicators/us-wildfires">66 large fires burning right now</a> in the western US. And now, <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=88308&amp;src=eoa-iotd">NASA is warning</a> that the Amazon rainforest might be in store for an epic wildfire season this summer due to the long-lasting effects of El Niño. </span></p><p><span>El Niño conditions in 2015 and early 2016 altered rainfall patterns around the world, resulting in less rain in the Amazon basin during the wet season, plunging part of the forests into drought, and setting it up for an intense burning season that could last from July through September. </span></p><p><span>In fact, this is the driest the Amazon has been at the beginning of its annual dry season since 2002. According to <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=88308&amp;src=eoa-iotd"><span>NASA's Amazon fire forecast</span></a>, the forest is so dry that the <a href="http://www.ess.uci.edu/~amazonfirerisk/ForecastWeb/SAMFSS2016.html"><span>risk of wildfire</span></a> for the coming months now exceeds the fire risk of 2005 and 2010 - both drought years that saw wildfires burn large sections of the forest. </span></p><p><span>"When trees have less moisture to draw upon at the beginning of the dry season, they become more vulnerable to fire and evaporate less water into the atmosphere," Jim Randerson, one of the UC-Irvine scientist who built the Amazon fire forecast model, <a href="https://news.uci.edu/research/el-nino-could-drive-intense-season-for-amazon-fires/"><span>said in a statement</span></a>. "This puts millions of trees under stress and lowers humidity across the region, allowing fires to grow bigger than they normally would." </span></p><p><span>The Amazon rainforest stores an estimated 120 billion metric tons of carbon in its trees, making it a very important carbon reservoir, or "<a href="https://www.pik-potsdam.de/members/rammig/worldbank2010-assessmentriskamazondieback-edited.pdf"><span>carbon sink</span></a>" in scientific terms. This means that it absorbs more carbon dioxide than it creates. The rainforest is also crucial in regulating most of South America's rainfall cycle. </span></p><p><span>So, a massive Amazonian wildfire could potentially release huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, damage nearby croplands, harm wildlife, and smother the region in smoke, thereby degrading the air quality in major Brazilian cities, such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. There is also always the potential that a massive wildfire in this region could <a href="https://www.pik-potsdam.de/members/rammig/worldbank2010-assessmentriskamazondieback-edited.pdf"><span>damage the forest so badly</span></a> that it makes it unable to recover its carbon-absorbing, water-cycling role, which would have massive consequences not only on this ecosystem, but also on the entire planet.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Nacho Doce</span></p><p class="caption">An aerial view of a tract of Amazon jungle burning as it is being cleared by loggers and farmers near the city of Novo Progresso, Para state, September 23, 2013.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>It's important to note that the Amazon's fires don't start spontaneously. As The Washington Post reports, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/07/12/the-ultimate-forest-fire-whatll-happen-when-the-amazon-burns/"><span>logging, slash-and-burn agriculture, and other human-induced changes</span></a> have altered the rainforest landscape, making it more and more susceptible to fires. The forest is now much more fragmented and the thinning of trees has allowed more light to get through the canopy, making the ground leaf layer hotter, drier, and more flammable. Agricultural fires can also easily spread. </span></p><p><span>The scientists at UC-Irvine and NASA have been working with South American officials to broadcast their forecasts and increase awareness of the elevated fire risk, and they are hoping that this will encourage local authorities to take necessary precautions this season. </span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/malaria-mosquitoes-deadliest-disease-human-history-2016-7">This is the deadliest disease known to humans</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="NpcjdvNDE6d9_A8EprkMhdSLBr739t5V" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The Amazon rainforest might catch fire this summer - here's why that could be devastating

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Even if the world were to stop emitting greenhouse gases right now, the Earth would keep warming for centuries, a new study shows.</li><li>The researchers suggest <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-to-stop-gobal-warming-plan-carbon-capture-2018-10">sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere</a> and storing it underground — a solution known as <keyword id="2101323" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="carbon-capture">carbon capture</keyword> and storage.</li><li>That's considered a type of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/geoengineering-how-to-reverse-climate-change-2019-4">geoengineering</a>. Other <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/geoengineering-how-to-reverse-climate-change-2019-4">climate-hacking</a> proposals in the same category are far riskier.</li></ul><p>Even if we stopped emitting <keyword id="56310" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="greenhouse-gas">greenhouse gas</keyword> today, the Earth would continue warming for centuries. Arctic ice and permafrost are already on an irreversible path of melting.</p><p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75481-z">That's the finding of new research</a> published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. The model suggests that even if emissions were to drop to zero this year, global temperatures would ultimately rise to be 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit higher in 2500 than they were in 1850 (that's 3 degrees Celsius).</p><p>"The tundra will continue to melt over the next 500 years — irrespective of how quickly humanity cuts its greenhouse-gas emissions," Jørgen Randers, the lead author of the new study, told Business Insider.</p><p>That's because <keyword id="6361617" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change">climate change</keyword> is a vicious, self-sustaining cycle: As permafrost thaws, it releases more greenhouse gases, like methane and carbon dioxide, which sustains warming over time. To stop that cycle, Randers said, we'll need to suck carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere.</p><h2>8 feet of sea-level rise</h2><p>Randers' study modeled the effect of various emissions-reductions scenarios on Earth's climate between 1850 and 2500.</p><p>The data showed that if emissions stopped for good in 2020, sea levels in 2500 would still be more than 8 feet (2.5 meters) higher than in 1850.</p><div type="image" title="FILE - In this Aug. 16, 2019, photo, large Icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland. The Trump administration is poised to announce an expanded diplomatic presence in Greenland and a new assistance package for the vast island aimed at thwarting growing Chinese and Russian influence in the Arctic. The announcement, expected Thursday, April 23, 2020, will come less than a year after President Donald Trump drew derision for expressing an interest in buying Greenland. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)" height="2665" width="3557" msid="79196364" hostid="261"></div><p>To prevent the projected 3-degree-Celsius temperature increase, greenhouse-gas emissions would need to have ceased entirely between 1960 and 1970, the model found. In that sense, Earth blew by a climactic point of no return 50 years ago — before much of the public understood the realities of climate change.</p><p>"Yes, that is an irony," Randers said. "But of course the scientific community knew about <keyword id="6366055" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="global-warming">global warming</keyword> already in the 1960s."</p><h2>We need to suck carbon out of the atmosphere</h2><p>The Paris climate agreement was created with the intention to cut greenhouse-gas emissions enough to keep the world's temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. But even if all emissions stopped by 2100, according to Randers' model, sea levels in 2500 would be nearly 10 feet (3 meters) higher than they were in 1850.</p><p>Earth's temperatures are already on track to blow past the Paris agreement's goals. Last year was the <a href="https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/projected-ranks#:~:text=The%20warmest%20years%20globally%20have,Courtesy%20of%20NOAA%20NCEI.">second warmest on record</a> for surface temperatures and <a href="https://time.com/5765489/ocean-temperatures-warmest-ever/">the hottest ever for oceans</a>. Polar melting is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sea-level-rise-3-feet-in-80-years-un-report-2019-9">on track to raise seas 3 feet by 2100</a> and threatens to displace hundreds of millions of people.</p><p>What's needed, Randers said, is for companies and governments to "start developing the technologies for large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere."</p><p>In technical terms, that strategy is known as carbon capture and storage (CCS). To prevent further warming after emissions have stopped, the new study found, at least 33 gigatonnes (36.5 billion tons) of carbon dioxide would need to be sucked out of the atmosphere each year. That's roughly the total amount of carbon dioxide the global fossil-fuel industry emitted in 2018 (<a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/12/new-global-co2-emissions-numbers-are-they-re-not-good#:~:text=Record%20Carbon%20Dioxide%20Emissions%20in%202018&amp;text=This%20year's%20numbers%20confirm%20their,2017%20to%2036.2%20gigatonnes%20CO20CO2">36 gigatonnes</a>).</p><p>Power plants in the US, Canada, and Switzerland have already started utilizing CCS to lower their emissions. In 2014, the Boundary Dam Power Station in Saskatchewan became one of the first in the world to successfully use the technology.</p><p>In total, 21 commercial-scale carbon-capture projects are operating around the world, and 22 more are in development, <a href="https://www.c2es.org/content/carbon-capture/">according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions</a>. These projects typically store carbon deep underground in depleted oil and gas fields or in bioreactor containers filled with algae that eats carbon dioxide.</p><div type="image" title="bioreactor" height="3744" width="4992" msid="79196368" hostid="261"></div><p>Two US carbon-capture completed in 2017 — <a href="https://www.c2es.org/content/carbon-capture/">one in Illinois, one in Texas</a> — can capture 1.1 million and 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide, respectively, per year. But the amount of CO2 that needs to be removed from the atmosphere requires far more plants than any current plans call for.</p><p>"In other words, building 33,000 big CCS plants and keep them running for ever," the study authors wrote.</p><h2>The pros and cons of <keyword id="811589" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="geoengineering">geoengineering</keyword></h2><p>Carbon capture is becoming widely accepted as a safe and potentially effective form of geoengineering. This and other climate interventions are increasingly being floated <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03036-4">by scientists</a> and politicians alike; Andrew Yang, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, suggested <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/andrew-yang-thinks-geoengineering-could-lead-to-war-2019-4">budgeting $800 million</a> for further geoengineering research in the US.</p><p>But most climate-hacking proposals would be far riskier than CCS. Take solar geoengineering, for example, which involves injecting aerosols into the sky to reflect sunlight back into space. Critics of this idea point out that <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01606-0">most models predict</a> the effects of solar geoengineering wouldn't stay localized. If a country decided to independently deploy such measures, varying and unpredictable effects would likely be seen in other spots around the globe.</p><p>Aerosol injections deployed in the southern hemisphere, for instance, could impact ocean temperatures and wind speeds, leading to more hurricanes in the northern hemisphere. </p><div type="image" title="Clouds above earth" height="2848" width="3797" msid="79196372" hostid="261"></div><p>"Solar geoengineering has geopolitical ramifications, unlike carbon capture," Juan Moreno-Cruz, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo who studies geoengineering, previously told Business Insider.</p><p>Randers said his study advocates just for carbon capture, not other more experimental forms of geoengineering. </p><p>"I am generally against geoengineering because of its unintended side effects. But if the world continues to delay meaningful and feasible action to phase out fossil fuels, we may have to resort to geoengineering," Randers said. </p><p>As an immediate priority, he added, countries should invest equally in efforts to cut emissions and build more CCS plants.</p><p>"This would be a wonderful task for a government-financed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-green-new-deal-2019-1">Green New Deal</a>," he said.</p>

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