HOT AND COLD: LONG-SUSPECTED ANTARCTIC UNDERSEA VOLCANOES DISCOVERED

[Reproduced from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, July 18, 2011]

{OH MY GOD! WILL THEY ONE DAY ERUPT???}


The British Antarctic Survey has mapped 12 submarine volcanoes, which have created hydrothermal vents that support previously unseen life

UNDER THE SEA: A map of the sea floor around the South Sandwich Islands has revealed undersea volcanoes. The peaks here are colored red, whereas the ocean depths are blue. Full-sized image can be found here. Image: British Antarctic Survey

Iceland is known as the "land of ice and fire," but new findings suggest that the South Sandwich Islands in the southern Atlantic Ocean could easily take over that title. In addition to the seven volcanic islands that make up this Antarctic archipelago, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) recently discovered that 12 volcanoes lurk below the water's surface.

Despite their icy environs, the South Sandwich Islands have fiery origins thanks to the volcanoes, some of which are still active. "Eruptions have been observed over the last century or so," says BAS scientist Philip Leat. In addition to a large eruption observed in 1956, a low-level eruption that started in 2002 lasted for six years.

Between these two visible surface volcanic reactions, an underwater volcano blew in 1962. Although nobody directly observed that activity, scientists discovered the eruption when large amounts of pumice, a volcanic rock so filled with gas bubbles that it floats on water, washed up on the shores of Antarctica, New Zealand and South America.

Because of the 1962 eruption, "we knew there were underwater volcanoes somewhere in the vicinity," Leat says. And when the BAS sent the RRS James Clark Ross on a seafloor survey around the South Sandwiches, using multi-beam sonar to map the area, the researchers found them. Sonar bounces sound waves off of objects and detects the echoes to determine the distance to those objects; using multiple sonar beams maps larger areas, so the James Clark Ross could cover a greater expanse of the ocean floor more quickly.

The research team announced at a July 13 poster session of the 11th International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences that its survey discovered the presence of 12 active submarine volcanoes (some almost three kilometers high) and the remnants of more. The collapsed volcanoes had formed craters about five kilometers in width.

In addition to enhancing maps of the islands, the BAS survey may help scientists understand how undersea eruptions cause enormous reactions, such as tsunamis. The underwater volcanoes also create environments that are not only conducive to unique ecosystems, but also hold clues about an earlier era in Earth's history.

As a result of the volcanic activity around the South Sandwiches, molten rock lurks just under the seafloor. When ocean water leaks through cracks in the floor, it encounters that heat source, reacts, and spews back out as a mineral-rich, hot-water jet, creating a hydrothermal vent. Such vents, which are found in areas of the ocean where there is tectonic activity, create isolated hot-water ecosystems that are home to creatures very different from the more typical denizens of Antarctica's frigid waters.

"Above water it looks like a desert," says Andrew Clarke, a biologist formerly of BAS. "But below, it's far from it. There's a rich variety of life down there."

Although many of the species in Antarctic waters have adapted to live at near freezing temperatures, the denizens of hydrothermal vents have evolved to live comfortably in the heat. Water issues from a vent at temperatures that can exceed boiling. Moving away from a vent is a journey from one temperature extreme to the other, from boiling seas to ice water (think: a hot tub turned too high to a warm summer surf to just bearable New England waters in August to a winter swim at the same beach)—all within a range of several meters.

"Out of contact with light," Clarke says, "the whole system is driven by chemistry." The hot water emerging from the hydrothermal vents is rich in dissolved sulfur, which bacteria living around the vents oxidize to make energy, living off of chemical instead of solar energy. Meanwhile, larger predators such as crabs and shrimps feed off the bacteria.

"It's an ecosystem that builds up around the vents themselves," Leat says. The ecosystems of hydrothermal vents have been studied in oceans all over the world, from Samoa and Tonga to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Although there is a general set of organisms that tend to live around vents, each one supports a unique system. As Clarke says, "One of the interesting things is the animals growing around these things are quite different."

Although the map of the area has been released, BAS biologists are still studying the organisms living in the hydrothermal vents and will publish their results separately.

In addition to sulfur, the hot water also carries other minerals, such as the metals copper, lead, zinc and gold. When they drift to cooler water, they solidify and form deposits. Historically, many metal-bearing ores on land originated in a very similar environment to that of these hydrothermal vents. "Going back though history, there were huge numbers of these kinds of volcanoes," Leat says. Studying them can help us understand the process through which metals now inland gradually moved from the ocean to continental interiors.

UNBELIEVABLE!!! POORER NATIONS LEAD GLOBAL MOVEMENT TOWARD LOW CARBON ENERGY

[Reproduced from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, July 18, 2011]

Developing nations spend as much developing clean energy as developed countries

By Lisa Friedman and ClimateWire


Poorer nations spend nearly as much--and in some cases more--than more developed countries on developing alternative energy. Image: Popolon/Wikimedia Commons

Poor countries have spent just as much as rich ones -- and in the case of China, more -- to develop low-carbon energy, according to a study coming out this week. Its conclusions could turn the conventional wisdom about the differences among nations over mitigation efforts on its head.

The report by former World Bank economist David Wheeler, who now leads the climate change division at the think tank Center for Global Development, finds that China spent 94 cents of every $10,000 of average income on clean energy between 1990 and 2008. The United States, by contrast, spent 44 cents of every $10,000.

Meanwhile, all other industrialized countries combined spent only a penny more per year than their less developed counterparts.

"We all had this idea that [climate change] was a rich country problem and that poor countries shouldn't have to do anything until they get to a certain stage of development, and that rich countries need to make it worth their while. But what I had seen suggested [was] that poor countries were already doing a lot," Wheeler said.

The data bore that out. Wheeler examined International Energy Agency data for 174 countries on investments in six low-carbon power sources (hydro, geothermal, nuclear, biomass, wind and solar) to find the incremental costs of clean power compared to a cheaper, carbon-intensive option like a conventional coal-fired power plant. He then computed the average income share in countries to compare how much people in poor countries are paying for carbon mitigation compared to those in rich nations.

"Lo and behold, you get a world in which the shares that poor countries have been devoting to low-carbon technologies over the past 18 years is really comparable to the rich countries," Wheeler said.

The study comes as countries continue to debate whether to develop a new international climate change treaty. Developing countries, which currently are not obligated to curb emissions, have long argued that they should not be required to help solve a problem caused by industrialized nations.

Many maintain that they also have "atmospheric rights" -- that is, the right to pollute -- in order to develop. Wealthy countries, meanwhile, argue that fast-growing developing countries like China and India are not doing enough to mitigate emissions. U.S. lawmakers in particular have argued that cutting carbon would put America at a competitive disadvantage to China.

Developing nations attracted to hydropower
But the fact is, countries are working steadily to develop clean energy. And, Wheeler's study argues, they've been doing so for a long time.

Since 1990, developing countries have accounted for 55 percent of the global increase in low-carbon energy generation, he found. China accounted for 15 percent of it alone.

In fact, because of the growth of hydroelectric generation in particular, developing nations like the Kyrgyz Republic, Bhutan, Mozambique, Paraguay and Zimbabwe crowd out the few top-spending developed countries like Iceland, Germany and Finland.

Tajikistan actually tops the list, spending $12.27 for the incremental costs of clean energy for every $10,000. But Wheeler noted that might be an anomaly because the country underwent a civil war. A push in hydro development in 1992-1993 might have been a restart of war-idled energy capacity rather than new development, he noted.

Iceland is the only high-income country in the top 10 list. With a gross domestic product per capita of $29,752, the country spends $11.56 per person annually -- mostly on geothermal power. But the Kyrgyz Republic, with a per capita GDP of just $1,634, has spent only slightly less -- $11.22 per person.

Wheeler said he purposely included the controversial energy sources hydro and nuclear. While environmental groups fighting for action on climate change don't like to include those options, Wheeler said he felt it was important to look simply at what sources produce low or zero emissions. At the same time, he argued, despite the safety risks and environmental hazards posed by nuclear and large hydro, respectively, the climate would be in far worse condition had countries not developed those sources.