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Intelligence as a planetary scale process

Intelligence as a planetary scale process

“A group of researchers have posed a fascinating — and downright mind bending — thought experiment: If a planet like Earth can be “alive,” can it also have a mind of its own? The team published a paper exploring this question in the International Journal of Astrobiology. In it, they present the idea of “planetary intelligence,” which describes the collective knowledge and cognition of an entire planet. The researchers point to evidence that underground networks of fungi can communicate to suggest that large-scale networks of life could form a vast invisible intelligence that profoundly alters the condition of the entire planet.” Source

Our approach follows the recognition among researchers that the correct scale to understand key aspects of life and its evolution is planetary, as opposed to the more traditional focus on individual species. […] We argue that explorations of planetary intelligence, defined as the acquisition and application of collective knowledge operating at a planetary scale and integrated into the function of coupled planetary systems, can prove a useful framework for understanding possible paths of the long-term evolution of inhabited planets including future trajectories for life on Earth and predicting features of intelligentially steered planetary evolution on other worlds.

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Does Climate Change cause Extreme Weather?

Does Climate Change cause Extreme Weather?

Interesting explanation on the why/how/if of extreme weather attribution maths: In the past two years or so we have seen many headlines about extreme weather events: floods, droughts, heat waves, hurricanes. In some cases, climate scientists claim they can “attribute” those extreme weather events to climate change. But what exactly does that mean? How does one calculate this? And how reliable are those estimates? This video is a brief intro into the young research area of extreme event attribution.

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The Unseen Effects of Deforestation: Biophysical Effects on Climate

The Unseen Effects of Deforestation: Biophysical Effects on Climate

Don’t only look at carbon!

We find that tropical deforestation leads to strong net global warming as a result of both CO2 and biophysical effects. From the tropics to a point between 30◦N and 40◦N, biophysical cooling by standing forests is both local and global, adding to the global cooling effect of CO2 sequestered by forests. In the mid- latitudes up to 50◦N, deforestation leads to modest net global warming as warming from released forest carbon outweighs a small opposing biophysical cooling. Beyond 50◦N large scale deforestation leads to a net global cooling due to the dominance of biophysical processes (particularly increased albedo) over warming from CO2 released. Locally at all latitudes, forest biophysical impacts far outweigh CO2 effects, promoting local climate stability by reducing extreme temperatures in all seasons and times of day. The importance of forests for both global climate change mitigation and local adaptation by human and non-human species is not adequately captured by current carbon-centric metrics, particularly in the context of future climate warming.

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Chilean lake turns to desert, sounding climate change alarm

Chilean lake turns to desert, sounding climate change alarm

Lake in Chile is disappearing:

The Penuelas reservoir in central Chile was until twenty years ago the main source of water for the city of Valparaiso, holding enough water for 38,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. Water for only two pools now remains.

Normally, low-pressure storms from the Pacific unload precipitation over Chile in winter, recharging aquifers and packing the Andes mountains with snow.

But naturally occurring warming of the sea off Chile’s coast, which blocks storms from arriving, has been intensified by rising global sea temperature, according to a global study on sea temperature and rainfall deficits. Ozone depletion and greenhouse gasses in the Antarctic, meanwhile, exacerbate weather patterns that draw storms away from Chile, according to a study on variables affecting Antarctic weather.

Analysis of tree rings going back 400 years shows how rare the current drought is[…]. It is totally unrivalled for duration or intensity.

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What Are Climate Models Missing?

What Are Climate Models Missing?

Not sure if this article is still correct after 10 years of further model refining. I presume that yes, as these water interactions are really difficult to model.

There is now ample evidence that an inadequate representation of clouds and moist convection, or more generally the coupling between atmospheric water and circulation, is the main limitation in current representations of the climate system.

Rather than reducing biases stemming from an inadequate representation of basic processes, additional complexity has multiplied the ways in which these biases introduce uncertainties in climate simulations.

This diversity of responses arises because, at low latitudes, the coupling between water and circulation is disproportionately dependent on the representation of unresolved processes, such as moist convection and cloud formation. The mid-latitudes show more robust responses because much of the energy transport is carried by baroclinic eddies; these, too, are fundamentally coupled to water, but they are much better described and resolved by modern GCMs

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Is the world going to run out of water?

Is the world going to run out of water?

Good read, but only focused on the consumption side. The viewpoint missing for me is that we totally mismanage the water infiltration potential.

In many places the answer is yes – if we continue as we have done. The rest of the world could learn a lot from Denmark, one of the few countries to have reduced its water consumption.

Danish water consumption today is approximately 40 percent lower than it was in 1980 (see graph 3), and it is still decreasing. Denmark managed to reduce the curve through a combination of greatly increased water prices (including green taxes), water saving campaigns, more water efficient technology in households and industry, and a reduction of water loss from the mains supply.

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5 most epic earth healing projects

5 most epic earth healing projects

Great compilation of fascinating large scale earth healing projects:

Arvari river restoration, Rhajastan, NW-India, Rajenda Singh, Tarun Bharat Sangh, 375 johads, river flows perennial again after 9 years of work after being dry for the whole year for 60 years, their initial work covered 500 km2 and 70 villages; they formed a river parliament to take control of the new water resources, in following years creation of >9000 water harvesting structures, four more dry rivers have become perennial,

Chikukwa project, Zimbabwe, dehydrated landscape, use of permaculture, water harvesting structures, trees above springs, terraces, swales, fencing, water collection,
80% of households are now food self-reliant, project grew to 188 villages, 40.000 people,

Gravis Jodhpur, Rhajastan, NW-India, Tar-Desert, wells empty in the dry season, small scale water harvesting structures, ponds, rock walls, harvesting monsoon rains in the short period when they fall, groundwater refilled for irrigation, 1500 villages, 1.3 Million people,

Paani foundation, Maharastra, W-India, water cup competition, contest between villages which village can install the most water harvesting structures over a 45 days period, thousands of villages have competed since 2016, 500 billion litres of water storage capacity, water tables replenished after one single season (!), irrigation agriculture now possible with at least two harvests (instead of only one rain dependant)

Plus Loess Plateau, which is very well known.

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Rain comes up from the ground

Rain comes up from the ground

Great quote from Masanobu Fukuoka:

It was in an American desert that I suddenly realized that rain does not fall from the heavens – it comes up from the ground. Desert formation is not due to the absence of rain, but the rain ceases to fall because the vegetation has disappeared.

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Temperature comparison: field, road, vegetation

Temperature comparison: field, road, vegetation

Once again on the road to measure temperature differences. Very exciting. Here two comparisons – at each 20°C difference between “without vegetation/open ground” and “with vegetation/trees”. Very impressive. What effects do surface temperatures of 60°C have, directly on the ground, the plants, the air layers, the weather?

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How land management affects the soil and the sky

How land management affects the soil and the sky

Interesting article on experiences on the ground (and in the sky), when changing from open to covered soils:

New evidence and research regarding the impact of soil microbes on the creation of precipitation can be accurately characterized as a game changer in our understanding of what it takes to produce rain across the globe. The immediate question is: What can we do to create favorable situations for this ice-nucleation cycle to occur? The answer resides in managing more acres regeneratively. The evidence presented from Chihuahuan ranchers is both strong and compelling. What they are observing and documenting, is not happenstance or mere correlation. It has occurred far too often and too consistently for that to be the case.

It’s increasingly clear that when it comes to rainmaking (and rain retention) we reap what we sow—in the soil and in the sky.

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Is the world going to run out of water?

Is the world going to run out of water?

Good read, water stress increasing worldwide, but only focused on the consumption side. The viewpoint missing for me is that we totally mismanage the water infiltration potential.

In many places the answer is yes – if we continue as we have done. The rest of the world could learn a lot from Denmark, one of the few countries to have reduced its water consumption.

Danish water consumption today is approximately 40 percent lower than it was in 1980, and it is still decreasing. Denmark managed to reduce the curve through a combination of greatly increased water prices (including green taxes), water saving campaigns, more water efficient technology in households and industry, and a reduction of water loss from the mains supply.

Posted by Stefan in Allgemein, 0 comments
Local temperature response to land cover and management change driven by non-radiative processes

Local temperature response to land cover and management change driven by non-radiative processes

Cooling forests: Here, we combine extensive records of remote sensing and in situ observation to show that non-radiative mechanisms dominate the local response in most regions for eight of nine common LCMC perturbations. We find that forest cover gains lead to an annual cooling in all regions south of the upper conterminous United States, northern Europe, and Siberia—reinforcing the attractiveness of re-/afforestation as a local mitigation and adaptation measure in these regions. Our results affirm the importance of accounting for non-radiative mechanisms when evaluating local land-based mitigation or adaptation policies.

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Humans as Agents in the Termination of the African Humid Period

Humans as Agents in the Termination of the African Humid Period

Humans responsible for the desertification of the Sahara: Where available, the evidence suggests that there is systematic homogenization of the floral composition of terminal AHP landscapes commensurate with the spread of shrubbery and reduced precipitation. Subsistence choices were predicated on ecological conditions, and early pastoral economies took root against the backdrop of a progressively drying climate. Because humans have been documented as exerting significant pressures on the NPP of prehistoric and historic landscapes elsewhere in the world, it is conceivable that they were also catalysts in accelerating the pace of devegetation in the Sahara at the end of the AHP. This, in turn, would have enhanced albedo, dust entrainment and retarded inland monsoon convection (Kutzbach et al., 1996; Braconnot et al., 1999; Foley et al., 2003; Pausata et al., 2016), pushing pastoralists into new territories to begin the cycle again. The Neolithic quest to maximize ACP may have pounded the final nails into the NPP coffin, and desertification of the Sahara was the end result of the cumulative process.

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Global Hydroclimatological Teleconnections Resulting from Tropical Deforestation

Global Hydroclimatological Teleconnections Resulting from Tropical Deforestation

Large-scale teleconnections: Here it is shown that deforestation of tropical regions significantly affects precipitation at mid- and high latitudes through hydrometeorological teleconnections. In particular, it is found that the deforestation of Amazonia and Central Africa severely reduces rainfall in the lower U.S. Midwest during the spring and summer seasons and in the upper U.S. Midwest during the winter and spring, respectively, when water is crucial for agricultural productivity in these regions. Deforestation of Southeast Asia affects China and the Balkan Peninsula most significantly. […] The combined effect of deforestation of these three tropical regions causes a significant decrease in winter precipitation in California
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Large-scale semi-arid afforestation can enhance precipitation and carbon sequestration potential

Large-scale semi-arid afforestation can enhance precipitation and carbon sequestration potential

More forests, more rain: …that implementing measured characteristics of a successful semi-arid afforestation system (2000 ha, ~300 mm mean annual precipitation) over large areas (~200 million ha) of similar precipitation levels in the Sahel and North Australia leads to the weakening and shifting of regional low-level jets, enhancing moisture penetration and precipitation (+0.8 ± 0.1 mm d−1 over the Sahel and +0.4 ± 0.1 mm d−1 over North Australia), influencing areas larger than the original afforestation. These effects are associated with increasing root depth and surface roughness and with decreasing albedo. This results in enhanced evapotranspiration, surface cooling and the modification of the latitudinal temperature gradient. It is estimated that the carbon sequestration potential of such large-scale semi-arid afforestation can be on the order of ~10% of the global carbon sink of the land biosphere and would overwhelm any biogeophysical warming effects within ~6 years.

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Aerial river management by smart cross-border reforestation

Aerial river management by smart cross-border reforestation

Recognition of aerial rivers: Given the city’s population growth scenarios, the increase of the renewable water resource by smart reforestation could cover 22–59% of the additional demand by 2030. Building on the findings, we argue for a more systematic consideration of aerial river connections between regions in reforestation and land planning for future challenges.

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