Writing: The Research Project Booklet, 2007
1. The Topic
Write a research paper of about 2,500 words on the following topic:
Is global warming really a threat?
The articles that follow will give you some ideas to start with, but consult other sources to
look for more information. Base your paper on what you read and how you understand
the problem. Follow the academic procedures when writing.
Your research paper should be typed on A4 size paper and at least consist of the
following parts:
1) Title Page, which should look like this:
Research Project for Writing
Is global warming really a threat?
Student Name: __________
Student Number: __________
Group: 04-_
Supervisor: Shi Baohui
Date of Submission: January 11, 2008
2) Abstract;
3) The Paper;
4) Notes (if any);
5) References.
2. Submission
The deadline for the submission of this paper is Friday, January 11, 2008. Late
submissions will be penalized with a lower grade.
3. Readings
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1) Antarctic experts warn of global warming meltdown
By Jeremy Lovell
There is a one in 20 chance of a dramatic rise in world sea levels over the next
century due to global warming, according to a new risk assessment published
on Friday.
The survey -- by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Norwegian
environmental safety organisation, Det Norske Veritas -- said there was a five
percent chance of the giant West Antarctic Ice Sheet disintegrating due to
climate change and raising sea levels by one metre (yard) in the next 100
years.
“You have to balance the likelihood against the severity of the impacts, and
in this case even a five percent chance of this happening is really damn
serious,” said scientist David Vaughan of BAS, responsible for British scientific
research in Antarctica.
Scientists have already predicted a rise in sea levels of 50 cm (20 ins) over
the next century due to a combination of climate change and increased
extraction of ground water, even with no contribution from melting Antarctic
ice.
“So we might be looking at something like one and a half metres in the
next century,” Vaughan told Reuters.
Vaughan said the possible breakup of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which
accounts for 13 percent of ice on the frozen continent, had nothing to do with
the impact of human industrial activity on the climate, but was part of a far
older process.
But he said major world polluters could not walk away from the problem.
“The potential impacts of a major change in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
are severe -- sea level rise will be fantastically expensive for developed nations
with coastal cities and dire for poor populations in low-lying coastal areas,”
Vaughan said.
Not only would there be flooding on a potentially vast scale, but changes in
ocean currents could also have untold consequences on weather patterns, he
added.
Previous calculations have said low-lying countries such as Bangladesh
could lose 17 percent of its land area and as much as half of its farmland if sea
levels rose by one metre, and small island nations could be completely
swamped.
December 31, 2001
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/12/12312001/reu_global_45991.asp
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2) Biodiversity: a buffer against climate change
Biodiversity is an important factor in regulating how ecosystems will respond
to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, a component in global warming,
according to a research team at the University of Minnesota.
The team found that diverse plant ecosystems are better able to absorb
carbon dioxide and nitrogen, both of which are on the rise due to human
activities and industrial processes. The more species, the better job they do at
absorbing the greenhouse gases.
“The key implication of this research is that, in response to elevated levels
of CO2 and nitrogen, ecosystems with high biodiversity will take up and
sequester more carbon and nitrogen than do ecosystems with reduced
biodiversity,” said Brookhaven plant physiologist David Ellsworth, one of the
study’s authors.
The experiment, called BioCON, is the first field study to test the theory
that plant species diversity influences responses to elevated CO2 and nitrogen
levels in the ecosystem.
“These findings suggest that protecting biodiversity worldwide will
contribute to safeguarding the capacity of ecosystems to capture a larger
fraction of additional carbon and nitrogen entering our environment due to
industrial processes,” said Brookhaven ecologist George Hendrey.
The scientists say the greater uptake of CO2 and nitrogen may be due to
positive interactions among the species. For example, in areas with greater
diversity of species, some plants bloom all year and can absorb CO2 and
nitrogen over the entire growing season rather than just part of it.
Biodiversity is considered important by biologists because it ensures
continued possibilities for adaptation of species in a changing and uncertain
world. But biodiversity is decreasing worldwide. The United Nations
Convention on Biodiversity notes: “So far, about 1.75 million species have
been identified, mostly small creatures such as insects. Scientists reckon that
there are actually about 13 million species, though estimates range from 3
million to 100 million. Species have been disappearing at 50 to 100 times the
natural rate, and this is predicted to rise dramatically. Based on current trends,
an estimated 34,000 plant and 5,200 animal species, including one in eight of
the world’s bird species, face extinction.”
Source: Global Warming – An ENN Special Report
URL: <http://www.enn.com/indepth/warming/prevention2.asp>
ENN is a registered trademark of the Environmental News Network Inc.
Copyright © 2001 Environmental News Network Inc.
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3) Global warming thaws tropical ice caps
The famous snows of Kilimanjaro are rapidly receding, according to Lonnie
Thompson, a professor of geological sciences. At least one-third of the massive
ice field atop Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa has melted over the past
dozen years. Since the glacier was first mapped in 1912, about 82 percent of it
has been lost.
Kilimanjaro joins the list of ice caps atop mountains in Africa and South
America that Thompson and others predict to disappear over the next 15 years
as a result of global warming.
Peru’s Quelccaya ice cap in the Southern Andes Mountains has shrunk by
at least 20 percent since 1963. Most disconcerting, Thompson warns, is that
the rate of decline for one of the main glaciers flowing out from the ice cap,
Qori Kalis, has been 32 times greater in the past three years than it was in the
period between 1963 and 1978.
Scientists have long predicted that the first signs of climate change will
appear at the fragile high-altitude glaciers within the tropics. The thaw of the
Kilimanjaro and Quelccaya ice caps are the most dramatic evidence to date.
“These glaciers are very much like the canaries once used in coal mines,”
Thompson said. “They’re an indicator of massive changes taking place and a
response to the changes in climate in the tropics.”
As the glaciers recede, so will the amount of water that feeds rivers and
valleys below the mountaintops.
“The loss of these frozen reservoirs threaten water resources for
hydroelectric power production in the region and for crop irrigation and
municipal water supplies,” Thompson said. It is likely that many developing
countries will replace the power source by burning more fossil fuels.
“What they’re really doing now is cashing in on a bank account that was
built over thousands of years but isn’t being replenished. Once it’s gone, it will
be difficult to re-form.”
Source: Global Warming – An ENN Special Report
URL: < http://www.enn.com/indepth/warming/sign1.asp>
ENN is a registered trademark of the Environmental News Network Inc.
Copyright © 2001 Environmental News Network Inc.
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4) Global warming triggers public health warning
By Margot Higgins
Climate change could have a far-reaching impact on health patterns in the
United States, according to a recent assessment by a broad coalition of
scientists from academia, government and private industry.
The evaluation, published in the May 2001 issue of the Journal of
Environmental Health Perspectives, identifies and examines five key health
problems that could be influenced by global climate change. Those problems
include heat-related illness and death, health effects related to extreme
weather events, health effects related to air pollution, water-borne and
food-borne diseases, and vector-borne and rodent-borne diseases.
“This assessment is not one of doom and gloom, but does warrant concern
within the public health community,” said co-chairman of the report Jonathan
Patz, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the Bloomberg
School of Public Health. According to the report, those people who face the
highest health risk from climate change include the poor, the elderly, children
and people with weak immune systems.
In order to reverse that threat, the report recommends improving the
nation’s public health infrastructure and increasing research efforts to fill
crucial knowledge gaps about the connections between climate and health.
The assessment follows a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change. It found that Northern Hemisphere countries are expected to
become hotter, leading to a rise in deaths from heat stroke in cities and the
arrival of diseases that until now have been restricted to more tropical areas.
According to a 2001 National Assessment Document that was reported to
Congress, annual temperatures in the U.S. are expected to rise between five
and seven degrees Fahrenheit during the 21st century. With warmer air
temperatures, certain regions in the United States can expect to receive an
increase in events of heavy precipitation and drought.
More than 950 communities in the United States currently have combined
sewer systems that service both sewage and storm water runoff. During
periods of heavy rainfall these systems often discharge excess wastewater
directly into surface water that may be used for drinking.
Source: Global Warming – An ENN Special Report
URL: <http://www.enn.com/indepth/warming/impact5.asp>
ENN is a registered trademark of the Environmental News Network Inc.
Copyright © 2001 Environmental News Network Inc.
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5) Arctic explorers postpone sea ice study
By Jeremy Lovell
Three British polar explorers have postponed for a year a trip to the North
Pole they were due to make in early 2008 to try to establish when Arctic
summer sea ice will vanish because of global warming.
A spokesman said on Friday expedition leader and veteran Polar explorer
Pen Hadow had postponed the trip until February 2009 to expand the range
of scientists and sponsors involved.
"It will only take a few months to organize this. But that means having to
delay for a year because there is only one Arctic season in which you can do this,"
the group spokesman told Reuters. "So, reluctantly Pen took this decision."
The ice is already receding at a rate of 300,000 square km (115,000 square
miles) a year -- about the size of the British Isles -- but despite some
submarine and satellite measurements there is no accurate measure of how
rapidly it is also thinning.
The decision to postpone came as U.N. environment ministers faced
deadlock on the Indonesian island of Bali as they try to agree an outline for
talks to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on cutting carbon emissions
which expires in 2009.
Estimates of final total disappearance of the summer sea ice range from 16
to 100 years, and the four-month expedition aims to fine-tune that by getting
accurate readings of the ice's thickness from the surface.
It is not just polar bears and global sea levels that are at risk. As the ice
retreats, countries surrounding the region are starting to stake their claims on
some of the richest untapped mineral and marine resources on the planet.
Russia has already claimed half of the Arctic sea bed where an estimated
25 percent of the earth's known reserves of gas and oil lie, and the summer
opening of the Northwest Passage off Canada could cut weeks off east-west sea
voyages.
The three explorers -- Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley -- will walk,
swim and ski the 2,000-km (1,250-mile) route over some of the toughest
terrain in the world in temperatures down to minus 50 Celsius (minus 58
Fahrenheit), towing behind them an ice-penetrating impulse radar.
The specially designed radar will measure and transmit readings of the
depth of snow and underlying ice every 20 cm (8 inches) -- providing 10
million readings during the journey.
December 14, 2007
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/27376
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6) Climate Change 'Boosts Plant Health In China'
Wang Shu and Jia Hepeng
Climate change has helped plants in China become more robust, according to a
study by Chinese scientists. Scientists at the Beijing Normal University studied the
link between climate factors and changes in plants' net primary productivity — a term
used to evaluate the net reserve energy plants need during growth — between 1982
and 1999.
"If the net primary productivity of a plant is high, it means the plant grows more
healthily," says lead author Zhu Wenquan of the College of Resources at the
university.
Zhu and colleagues analysed climate-observation data for the period alongside
remote-sensing data on plantations in different regions in China. They then determined
the specific climate factors — sunshine, temperature and precipitation — that had the
biggest impact on plant growth in these regions.
They found that low temperatures in northeast China and the Tibet–Qinghai
highlands contribute most to poor plant growth. In northwestern China it is reduced
precipitation. And in southern and eastern China it is lack of sunshine that hinders
growth.
But over the period studied, temperature, precipitation or sunshine increased
markedly in these respective regions — effects that the scientists attribute to global
warming. "We are not denying the role of other factors, but the three factors
(sunshine, temperature and precipitation) have played a much more important role
than others," Zhu told SciDev.Net. As a result, the net primary productivity of land
plants in China grew by 11.5 per cent because of climate change, which the authors
say is consistent with the global trend of an increase of about six per cent worldwide.
Zhu says this does not contradict the widely believed negative impacts of global
warming. "For crops, for example, the growth in net primary productivity does not
necessarily translate into increased output. The plant stem may grow more than fruits,
for example."
He adds that climate change could cause severe disasters in individual regions,
which would not be offset by increased plant productivity. A previous study,
published in 2004 by Gao Zhiqiang and colleagues from the Institute of Geographical
Sciences and Nature Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences,
concluded that climate change between 1978 and 1998 had caused a decrease in plant
productivity in northeast China.
Referring to Zhu's studies, Gao says various aspects of climate change could
combine to complicate the impact on plant growth, and it is difficult to associate a
change in net primary productivity with variation of a single "major" climate factor.
December 15, 2007
http://www.enn.com/business/article/27440
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7) Immediate action needed to save corals from
climate change
Scientists call for increased protection against effects of global warming;
fashion industry joins fight for coral conservation.
Julia Roberson and Corinne Knutson
The journal Science has published a paper today that is the most
comprehensive review to date of the effects rising ocean temperatures are having
on the world’s coral reefs. Coral Reefs under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean
Acidification, co-authored by seventeen marine scientists from seven different
countries, reveals that most coral reefs will not survive the drastic increases in
global temperatures and atmospheric CO2 unless governments act immediately
to combat current trends.
The paper, the cover story for this week’s issue of Science, paints a bleak picture
of a future without all but the most resilient coral species if atmospheric CO2 levels
continue on their current trajectory. Marine biodiversity, tourism and fishing
industries and the food security of millions are at risk, the paper warns. Coral reef
fisheries in Asia currently provide protein for one billion people and the total net
economic value of services provided by corals is estimated to be $30 billion.
Dr. Bob Steneck, of the University of Maine and co-author of the paper, said
the time was right for international leaders to commit to meaningful action to
save the world’s coral reefs: “The science speaks for itself. We have created
conditions on Earth unlike anything most species alive today have experienced in
their evolutionary history. Corals are feeling the effects of our actions and it is
now or never if we want to safeguard these marine creatures and the livelihoods
that depend on them.”
Scientists have long thought that the effects of climate change and the
resulting acidification of the oceans spells trouble for reefs. Coral skeletons are
made of calcium, and reef development requires plenty of carbonate ions to build
these skeletons, a process called calcification. When carbon dioxide is absorbed in
the ocean, the pH level drops, along with the amount of carbonate ions, slowing
the growth of coral reefs. Atmospheric CO2 levels are currently at 380 parts per
million (ppm) and the paper’s authors, members of the Coral Reef Targeted
Research & Capacity Building for Management Program (CRTR), calculate that
once levels reach 560ppm, the calcification process could be reduced by up to 40
percent. Recent science also suggests that by 2100 the oceans will be so acidic that
70 percent of the habitat for deep-water corals, once considered relatively safe
from the effects of climate change, will be uninhabitable.
Ocean acidification is just one example of the threats corals are facing.
Bleaching, a process that is triggered when summer sea temperatures rise above
normal for weeks at a time, causes corals to expel the algae that gives them their
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colour and nutrients. This phenomenon killed 16 percent of reefbuilding corals in
1997, according to the paper’s authors. Destructive fishing methods, oil and gas
exploration and pollution have also contributed to the global decline of coral reefs,
with 20 percent already destroyed and another 50 percent threatened or verging
on collapse in just the past few decades.
Consumer demand has also placed corals at risk. Popular products include
coral jewelry, home décor items and live animals used in home aquaria. Corals
grow so slowly it can take decades for them to recover, if at all. Catches of
precious red corals, the most valuable of all coral species, provide a striking
example of how demand for a fashion item can decimate a species. Red coral
populations have plummeted 89 percent in the past two decades. Conscientious
companies such as Tiffany & Co. removed real coral from their product lines over
five years ago.
Fernanda Kellogg, president of The Tiffany & Co. Foundation, said, “Tiffany &
Co. is committed to obtaining precious materials in ways that are socially and
environmentally responsible. We decided to stop using real coral in our jewelry
and feel that there are much better alternatives that celebrate the beauty of the
ocean without destroying it.”
Yet there is hope for corals and the life that depends on them. Scientists are
calling for a reduction of carbon emissions to ensure corals’ survival. It is also
vitally important to reduce local pressures on corals such as overfishing, removal
for consumer items, and pollution. If these local pressures are addressed, coral
populations will be stronger and will have a better chance of surviving climate
change.
Tiffany & Co. is forming new partnerships with fashion designers, scientists
and conservation organizations to raise awareness of the urgent need for coral
conservation.
Dawn M. Martin, president of SeaWeb, said, “Corals belong in the ocean, not
in our homes or in our jewelry boxes. Consumers and the fashion industry can
play an important role in the ocean’s recovery by simply avoiding purchases of
red and other corals. These jewels of the sea are simply too precious to wear.”
In 2008, scientists, conservationists and governments will mobilize around
the world to celebrate the International Year of the Reef (IYOR), a worldwide
initiative to raise awareness of the importance of corals and coral reefs. The 11th
International Coral Reef Symposium will be held July 7-11, 2008, in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida. Over 2,500 attendees from academic, government and
conservation organizations are expected to attend to discuss the latest coral
science and its implications for the survival of these international treasures.
December 13, 2007
http://www.seaweb.org/programs/coral/documents/TPTWScienceDec13releaseFINAL.pdf
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