Earth Day 2021 Quiz

Earth Day 2021 Quiz (April 22, 2021)

    Test your knowledge of a few Earth related topics on Earth Day. Note that when you Google some of these topics, you can get rather wide ranges of answers. Make sure you are looking at the US (if that is the target region), rather current information, and rather reliable sources. Or, just wait a day to see what we think the correct answer should be. 

Answers will be forthcoming today or tomorrow.

1.  Plastics. Approximately what % of the US’s plastic gets recycled?

a.  8-10%

b.  14-15%

c.  25-30%

d.  45-50%

2.  Plastics. Approximately what % of the US’s plastic makes its way into lakes, rivers, oceans?

a.  0.5%

b.  1%

c.  3%

d.  5%

3.  Plastic in the environment (on land or in ocean). About how many years does it take to decompose a plastic bottle in the ocean?

a.  Plastic decomposes in about 20 years.

b.  Plastic decomposes in about 50 years.

c.  Plastic decomposes in about 150 years.

d.  Plastic doesn’t really decompose, but let’s go with 450 years.

4.  Plastic in the oceans. Approximately how many years before the plastic in the oceans will exceed the fish? (by weight). 

a.  Too last, plastic already exceeds fish in oceans (by weight).

b.  2030. In 10 years, plastic should exceed fish (by weight).

c.  2050. In 30 years, plastic should exceed fish (by weight).

d.  2100. In 80 years, plastic should exceed fish (by weight).

5.  Manatees in Florida are dying at an unusually high rate recently. What is the primary cause of deaths in 2021?

a.  Boats

b.  Cold

c.  Disease

d.  Starvation

6.  The artic is melting enough that ships can now travel through the Arctic to the North during the summer and avoid the Panama Canal or longer routes? Approximately how long during the summer can ships now navigate through the Arctic?

a) About 4 weeks of thaw sufficient to navigate in the summer.

b) About 8 weeks of thaw sufficient to navigate in the summer.

c)  About 3 months of thaw sufficient to navigate in the summer.

d)  About 365 days a year.

7.  About, what percentage of the US lakes, rivers and streams are polluted (according to US EPA)?  (Polluted, as in no swimming and you should not eat the fish, if there are any.)

a.  4%-5%

b.  10%-15%

c.  25%-30%

d.  40%-45%

8.  Soil. The current “industrial” farming methods deplete the topsoil. No topsoil, little or no farm crops. At the current rate of topsoil depletion, how many years do we have before we “run out” of topsoil? [Ooops.... Things changed... problems with this question... Well, with the answers...]

a.  About 20 years until the world’s topsoil will be effectively depleted.

b.  About 30 years until the world’s topsoil will be effectively depleted.

c.  About 60 years until the world’s topsoil will be effectively depleted.

d.  About 100 years until the world’s topsoil will be effectively depleted.

9.  Extinction. Out of about 8 million plant and animal species on earth, approximately how many are in threat of extinction?

a.  100K, 1.2%

b.  300K, 3.7%

c.  500K, 6.2%

d.  1M, 12.5%

10.  Earths. Current estimates are that we significantly overuse the earth’s resources (overshoot the earth’s carrying capacity). We currently need part of another earth to be “sustainable”. But, if the rest of the world consumed at the same rate per person as we do in the US, how many earths do we need?

a.  2 earths (+1)

b.  3 earths (+2)

c.  4 earths (+3)

d.  5 earths (+4)

11.  What is the depth of the oceans? (Plus, water expands when warmed about 0.000214 per +1C for seawater, so how much would sea levels rise based on a +1 degree Centigrade increase in global temperature that transferred throughout the oceans.)

a.  Average ocean depth is 1,000ft (+1C temp increase = +2.6in increase in avg ocean level.)

b.  Average ocean depth is 2,500ft (+1C temp increase = +6.4in increase in avg ocean level.)

c.  Average ocean depth is 1.2 mile (+1C temp increase = +16.3in in increase avg ocean level.)

d.  Average ocean depth is 2.3 miles (+1C temp increase = +31.2in increase in avg ocean level.) 

Oh my... The invasion of the Octopi!

Swarms of Octopus Are Taking Over the Oceans:

That is interesting. I had not heard Octopuses (octopi) were the "weeds" of the oceans. But it is interesting to find larger animals that can be a litmus test of the ocean environment.

Oceans are not sucking up CO2 at the same rate as they used to. Acidification is moving up quickly. Reefs are under massive threat.

Weeds are mother natures way of getting something growing in bad soil and going in destroyed areas.

Here's the original study in Scientific America:

Octopus and Squid Populations Exploding Worldwide

Fast-breeding cephalopods exploit gaps left by extreme climate change and overfishing 

By Alexander Arkhipkin, The Conversation on May 25, 2016

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2015 Earth fails another annual physical. Ugly Temp Rise!:-(

BAMS State of the Climate | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) formerly known as National Climatic Data Center (NCDC):

State of the Climate: Earth fails another annual physical. Or, maybe better stated, human activity resulted in another horrible annual reading of Earths temps. Beyond time to move Earth from a Private room to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Unfortunately, 2015 blasted past all records set in 2014. The El Nino effect help somewhat, and looks like it will assist somewhat with 2016 setting even more records. Although el Nino is a natural occurrence, the effects can be removed statistically; plus, it should have less of an effect on 2016 which is on pace to shoot past the monthly and annual records of 2015.

Ouch!

The word used to describe the report was "Grim".

"Ugly", would be descriptive too.

Of the 50 or so metrics used, only Antarctica showed a few positive signs, mixed with some serious negatives. Highlights include:

• Greenhouse gases hit records, passing the 400ppm of CO2, to blast past all modern records.
• Surface temps set records by a mile, breaking the record set in 2014.
• Sea surface temps set a record, breaking the record set in 2014. (Part of the El Nino effect as it pertains to the Pacific.)
• Globally, upper ocean heat content exceeded the record set in 2014, "reflecting the continuing accumulation of thermal energy in the upper layer of the oceans. Oceans absorb over 90 percent of Earth’s excess heat from global warming."  Which brings us to thermal expansion, as water heats it expands. If average depths of oceans are 2 miles, that thermal expansion eventually adds up as temps permeate throughout the oceans.
• Global Seal Levels highest on record. (Especially precises since the use of satellites over the last 20 years.) 
• Extremes in water cycles and precipitation. 
• And extreme weather. Thousands of people dies from heat in India/Pakistan, for example. 
• In North America we don't realize what an ugly year 2015 was for cyclones because it was very tame for hurricanes. "There were 101 tropical cyclones across all ocean basins in 2015, well above the 1981–2010 average of 82 storms. The eastern/central Pacific had 26 named storms, the most since 1992." 

The main report site (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams) said this:

"The report, led by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, is based on contributions from more than 450 scientists from 62 countries around the world and reflects tens of thousands of measurements from multiple independent datasets (highlights, full report (link is external)). It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water, ice and in space."

Lots of good places to go view more details about any and all discussions, statistics and assertions.

You choose the word: Ugly? Grim? @#$@#$@ ???

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Study Confirms World's Coastal Cities Unsavable If We Don't Slash Carbon Pollution | ThinkProgress

Study Confirms World's Coastal Cities Unsavable If We Don't Slash Carbon Pollution | ThinkProgress:

This article discusses the melt-off of Antarctica as discussed in a new Nature article. They did a better and more detailed analysis of the volume of water that would move into oceans as the Antarctic melts. They resolved a few of the issues that were not fully addressed by other studies. In addition to the models of ice volume/dynamics, they compared current warming with other times in history, thus offering benchmarks for validating their analysis.

Even as many areas of Antarctica have been collapsing at an alarming rate, there has also been evidence of the snow building in the center of the (island? of Antarctica). This Nature study seems to resolve these apparent inconsistencies. They build a strong argument that we need to do a LOT now, not later. Many coastal cities will partially or totally under water if we continue for several more decades under the old business-as-usual model of carbon emissions.

DeConto and Pollard (2016) in their article Contribution of Antarctica to Past and Future Sea-Level Rise look at ice dynamics to better analyze the volume of ice that should be displaced into the ocean waters as temperatures rise. They ran models under business-as-usual and more aggressive action scenarios. Then, they paired their results with key times in history where temperatures where high and sea-levels rose.

They concluded that a likely scenario if we delay action is 1 meter (3.28 ft.)  of sea-level rise by end of century and 15 meters (~50 ft) by 2500 that would be attributable to antarctic ice melt. Add thermal expansion and other factors and this represents an ugly, ugly prospect.

Reference

DeConto, R. M., & Pollard, D. (2016). Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise. Nature, 531(7596), 591–597. doi:10.1038/nature17145

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Holding back the oceans... The Cost of Energy... Compounding and getting worse.

Holding back the ocean (via The Cost of Energy)

The inevitability of sea level rise (emphasis added): Small numbers can imply big things. Global sea level rose by a little less than 0.2 metres during the 20th century – mainly in response to the 0.8 °C of warming humans have caused through greenhouse…

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Sea levels set for a 'continuing rise' for generations...The Daily Climate ... Like baking a cake.

Sea levels set for a 'continuing rise' for generations — The Daily Climate:

So here's the story. It's already baked into the cake.

The current setting has sea levels rising for decades. Even if we all went to carbon neutral tomorrow.

The basics are that greenhouse gasses will persist in the atmosphere for decades, even centuries. The most prevalent is Carbon Dioxide (CO2) which will stay in the atmosphere for 70 years, maybe 100.

So, we can expect temperatures to rise 2, 3, maybe 4 or 5 degrees C. And, as the ocean waters warm, the water expands (thermal expansion). If the oceans are about 2 miles deep, on average, the heat expansion really makes a difference. We're talking yards here, not feet.

Some estimates seem to show only the top, maybe the top 10% of the oceans heating and expanding. But that's because they are using a short planning horizon. If you wait another 50 to 100 years, you should expect far more of the oceans to warm, and expand.

That is, the heating is already "baked into the cake"... Or in our case, baked into the atmosphere, which will eventually bake into the oceans, which will eventually...

Well, you get the picture.

Make no doubt, I'm looking and hoping that this scenario is not the most likely to play forward.

We do have lower solar and volcanic activities which should serve as a cooling damper for the atmosphere.

But we appear to be overshadowing that offset. At least from all I can see.

As always, the best and first place to start is conservation and efficiency.

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