Use as food

 Mesquite beans are usually harvested after they turn hard and golden. Both the pods and the seeds (which are very tough) are ground into meal. The native people sprinkled the ground meal with a little water to form small, round cakes. Later, slices of dried cake were fried like mush, used to thicken stews, or eaten raw. The meal is also used as flour to make flat bread. Mesquite meal is gluten free.

The pods of mesquite beans are very sweet and the sweetness comes from fructose which doesn’t require insulin to be metabolized. The seeds contain about 35% protein, much more than soybeans. Mesquite pods contain about 25% fiber. Some research suggests that mesquite meal, with a low glycemic index of 25, helps regulate blood sugar.

Mesquite flour is used to make a refreshing drink. If allowed to ferment, a mixture of water and mesquite flour produces a fizzy alcoholic drink.

Mesquite flowers are collected and boiled to make tea. The flowers are also roasted and pressed into balls as another food source.

The pharmacy

The black tar or sap of mesquite trees can be boiled and diluted with water to make eye wash and an antiseptic for open wounds. It was also used on sore lips, chapped skin, as a sunburn lotion, and as a treatment for venereal disease.

A liquid made from boiling the inner bark of the tree was used as a laxative and as an emetic.

Tea made from mesquite leaves was used for headaches and stomach trouble. This tea also was used to cure conjunctivitis and to heal painful gums.

Other uses

The Pima Indians used the black tar as a hair dye. This involved boiling the tar and applying the mixture to the hair, covering the hair with mud over night, then thoroughly washing the next morning. Resin from the tree was used as glue to mend pottery, or when boiled and diluted, as paint for pottery. The inner bark of the tree was used for basketry.

General information

There are several species of mesquite trees. Within the desert southwest, the Velvet mesquite (Prosopis velutina), the Honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa), and the Screwbean mesquite (Prosopis pubescens) are most common. These deciduous plants form shrubs and trees up to 30 feet tall. The branches contain spines. Most of the roots of mesquite trees are within the upper three feet of soil where most of the oxygen and water are. However, mesquite roots can go very deep. The deepest live root, found in a copper mine, extended 160 feet below the surface.

If you collect fallen bean pods, you may notice small holes in the pods. These holes are made by bruchid beetles, which infested the fallen bean as larvae, when it was green and tender. The holes were made by the mature beetle getting out of the bean. Don’t worry, the beetles just add more protein. Another insect found commonly with mesquite trees is the Giant Mesquite Bug.

For a description of the common mesquite species see here.

For more natural history and photos, see here.

For recipes using mesquite, see here.

The rock squirrel (Spermophilus variegatus) is the largest of the three, up to 1.5 pounds. It resembles eastern tree squirrels. This squirrel is grey with reddish to brownish tinge, usually on its back. It has a large bushy tail. Rock squirrels are found in many habitats, except for the driest part of the desert. They are true omnivores, feeding on seeds, mesquite beans, insects, eggs, birds, carrion, as well as cactus fruit.

I have seen them kill and eat snakes. Upon encountering a snake, a rock squirrel will stamp its feet and wave its tail from side to side while facing the snake. It also tries to flick sand or dirt in the snake’s face with its front paws. This behavior is called mobbing. Researchers in California note that rock squirrels can distinguish between venomous and non-venomous snakes, and change their mobbing behavior accordingly. Yes, they will attack rattlesnakes. Apparently, adult rock squirrels can at least partially neutralize rattlesnake venom. Rattlesnakes have heat-sensing organs which can detect a difference in temperature as little as 0.01 F at one foot. There is some research that suggests that rock squirrels take advantage of this. The squirrel can pump extra blood into its tail to make the tail warmer than its body, thereby fooling the snake into striking at the tail rather than the body.

Rock squirrels dig burrows and may be colonial or solitary. They can be very territorial. They mate in early spring and produce a liter in March. Sometimes a second litter appears in August or September. The rock squirrel may become dormant, holed up in its burrow during cold times, but it is not known to hibernate.

The round-tailed ground squirrel (Spermophilus tereticaudus) resembles a miniature prairie dog, and like them, is a very social animal that lives in small colonies. It is usually grey to beige with a long, black-tipped tail. Adults weigh 6- to 7 ounces. They inhabit valleys and alluvial fans. The round-tails are primarily herbivores, feeding on grass seed, cactus, and other nearby vegetation such as spring flowers, but they will eat carrion. They may sleep for a few weeks in summer until the monsoon arrives. The round-tailed ground squirrel hibernates in the winter. The round-tails are champion small miners. They may have an extensive tunnel network with multiple entrances. They too breed in early spring with pups born in March or April. The pups usually emerge with their mother by May.

The Harris’ antelope ground squirrel (Ammospermophilus harrisii) resembles a chipmunk, but it has a white stripe on its side that chipmunks lack (but chipmunks have white stripes on their faces). Also, chipmunks live at higher elevation, not on the desert floor. This squirrel seems to prefer rocky areas. The Harris’ antelope squirrel usually feeds on cactus fruit, seeds, and mesquite beans, but it will take insects and mice. They will climb a barrel cactus to get the fruit in spite of the spines. The Harris’ antelope squirrel is active all year. During hot days, it uses its busy tail to provide some shade. They did burrows about three feet deep where conditions allow.

All three squirrels have sharp, strong claws used for digging. All three are diurnal, that is, they are most active during the daytime. They all have cheek pouches to store food as they gather it. These squirrels have a variety of vocalizations, some quite loud. You might mistake the sound for a bird call.

Well, not exactly. The title of the study referred to is “Late-twentieth-century warming in Lake Tanganyika unprecedented since AD 500,” published in Nature Geoscience (16 May 2010). Even that more modest claim doesn’t tell the whole story.

First some background. Lake Tanganyika occurs within the East African Rift, which is a divergent tectonic plate boundary that is gradually separating East African countries from the main continent. The rift contains both active and dormant volcanoes. The lake is 418 miles long and 45 miles wide. Its average depth is 1,870 feet with a maximum depth of 4,820 feet. Portions of the lake are claimed by Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and Zambia. Fishing the lake provides a major food source for people in the surrounding lands. There is concern that lake warming will disrupt the fish supply.

The abstract of the paper concludes, “Our records indicate that changes in the temperature of Lake Tanganyika in the past few decades exceed previous natural variability. We conclude that these unprecedented temperatures and a corresponding decrease in productivity can be attributed to anthropogenic global warming, with potentially important implications for the Lake Tanganyika fishery.”

The questions I had upon reading this were: 1) Are the temperatures really unprecedented? 2) Do they exceed natural variability? 3) What is the evidence that the warming was caused by anthropogenic global warming? 4) Could there be some other cause of fish decline?

The researchers studied lake sediment cores going back 60,000 years and by using proxies deduced a temperature record for the lake surface temperature. In the current study, the researchers said that during the last 1,500 years, temperature varied between 22.5º C and 25.7º C, and that in the last 50 years the temperature rose by 1.6º C.

However, in 2008, these same researchers published a paper in Science (Vol. 322. no. 5899, pp. 252 – 255) which said the lake surface temperature fluctuated between 27° and 29°C over the last 60,000 years according to their interpretation of lake sediment cores.

I emailed a co-author of the paper, a UofA professor, asking for an explanation of this apparent discrepancy. He replied by referring me to the website of the lead author at Brown University. There, she explained that there was a problem in calibration of the temperature proxies. She presents a graph showing the records after recalibration. It is reproduced below. It should be noted that there are two separate core sample locations. The more recent core was taken closer to shore than the older, longer record. The more recent record initially shows cooler temperatures where the two records overlap. The researchers attribute this discrepancy to upwelling cold water from deeper in the lake. So which record is closer to the real surface temperature?

According to the lead author’s own data as shown on the graph, it is obvious that the current temperatures are not unprecedented, nor do they exceed natural variability. The title of their paper is technically correct only if one accepts cherry-picking start dates.

That leaves the question about the cause of the warming. The UofA scientist replied to my email, “our record only demonstrates a lake surface temperature history, not the cause of that history.” The allegation of an anthropogenic cause, a major conclusion of the paper, was made without any supporting evidence, just speculation.

I am wondering why the paper abstract contains the conclusions it does. Is it time for some scary scenarios to promote more study and more funding?

This whole study purports to be about lake surface temperatures, but it contains very few such measurements from the lake surface. From my reading, the researchers deduce surface temperatures from only two core sample locations. As the NOAA satellite graphic below shows, on any given day, at any given time, the variation in lake surface temperature can be as much as 4º C in different parts of the lake, and that equals or exceeds the entire range of temperatures found in the studies. It would seem, therefore, that any temperature record derived from sediment cores could vary greatly depending on location. Since this study had just two sample locations, it makes one wonder if it gives a true representation of actual conditions.

And about the fish. The current paper says that warming is causing a decline in fish abundance. Yet an earlier study, of which the UofA scientist was a co-author, says the fish decline is caused by land disturbance. “Watershed deforestation, road building, and other anthropogenic activities result in sediment inundation of lacustrine habitats.” “Our faunal analyses suggest that all three taxonomic groups are negatively affected by sediment inundation but may have varying response thresholds to disturbance.” (Citation: Conservation Biology, vol. 13, no. 5, Oct. 1999).

Their claim that 5 million new jobs will be created in the energy sector over the next ten years is just not credible. Consider that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the entire electrical generation industry, from mining, manufacturing equipment, power generation, and transmission, currently employs just under one million people. Where is Obama going to put 5 million more people? Will he have platoons of people peddling bicycles hooked to small generators? And in the State of the Union speech, he pushed for job-killing climate legislation in spite of recent events showing that the data have been fudged. During the speech, Obama was laughed at after referring to the “overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.” First the audience laughed, then Pelosi and Biden, and finally Obama himself smirked at the insanity of his remark. Maybe his speech writers should read the news.

So called “green” energy is more expensive than fossil-fuel generated electricity, so energy costs would necessarily increase. Our economy is very sensitive to energy costs, so rising costs would more likely result in job losses rather than more employment.

According to a Cato Institute study (Policy Analysis 280), wind generation costs are 6-7¢ per KWh vs. 3¢ for natural gas, 2.2¢ for coal, and 1.7¢ for nuclear. Solar power costs 38¢ to 53¢ per KWh. The Cato report also said that the materials required for thermal-solar projects were 1,000 times greater than for a similarly sized fossil-fuel facility, and therefore would create substantial incremental energy consumption and industrial pollution. A major environmental cost of photovoltaic solar energy is toxic chemical pollution (arsenic, gallium, and cadmium) and energy consumption associated with the large-scale manufacture of photovoltaic panels. The installation phase has distinct environmental consequences, given the large land masses required for solar farms–some 5 to 10 acres per MW of installed capacity.”

 The Administration touts “fast-tracking” solar development in the west, but has limited permits to 670,000 acres of more than 30 million suitable acres available.

Wind-generated electricity, especially, is intermittent and unreliable, so that it requires conventional backup generating capacity. Energy companies will have a hard time monitoring and switching between generation sources to meet demand and prevent blackouts or brownouts.

The Interior Department policy does not help wind-power. The Cape Wind Project in Nantucket was to be the first off-shore venture, but Interior will allow the area to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, thus precluding development.

During the State of the Union speech, Obama gave lip service to off-shore petroleum exploration. During the Bush administration, Congress lifted a moratorium on off-shore exploration, but Obama’s Interior Department has imposed a de facto moratorium while they “study” a leasing program. In 2009, the administration leased less land for energy development than that of any other year on record, according to the American Energy Alliance. And government revenues from leasing in 2009 were just one-tenth that in 2008. Meanwhile China is buying up all the leases it can get, some close to American shores.

The Interior Department has withdrawn most of the offered leases for natural gas in Utah, delayed oil shale research and demonstration projects in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado, and blocked uranium mining in Arizona. Obama proposed development of nuclear energy. But, last year, in a sop to Senator Harry Reid, the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository was closed, so nuclear waste will continue to be stored in barrels near the generating plants rather than safely underground.

Biofuels such as ethanol require heavy government subsidies. According to the Journal of Environmental Monitoring, ethanol subsidies amount to the equivalent of $1.95 per gallon on top of the gasoline retail price. At present, no automobile manufacturer will extend an engine or parts warranty for vehicles that use more than 10 percent of ethanol content in fuel, except for vehicles specifically designed to run on E- 85 fuel. This means that the majority of cars on the road today in the United States are not under warranty for anything other than gasoline containing 10 percent ethanol or less. Currently, ethanol displaces about 2% of gasoline and saves relatively little in petroleum imports. Ethanol is not as energy efficient as gasoline. A 2006 study by Consumer Reports found that an E-85 vehicle delivered 27% less mileage than a similar gasoline-powered vehicle. A study from Stanford University found that ethanol-powered E-85 vehicles significantly increased ozone, a prime ingredient of smog.

While the Obama administration is all starry-eyed over “green” energy, it is unlikely that solar, wind, and biofuels taken together would ever account for more that 2- to 3% of total energy use. For the next few decades, at least, fossils fuels with continue to provide about 85% of energy.

What the government should do is remove restrictions to exploration and development of our domestic resources. For instance, in 2007, the Department of the Interior inventoried 99 million acres of federal land which it estimated to contain 21 billion barrels of oil and 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. DOI found that due to restrictive regulations “just 3 percent of onshore Federal oil and 13 percent of onshore Federal gas are accessible under standard lease terms.”

The Department of Energy estimates that the Green River formation in NW Colorado, SE Utah, and SW Wyoming contains 1.8 trillion barrels of oil in shale that could be economically produced. That is more than three times the total reserves of all Mid-East oil fields.

Off-shore resources are also restricted. The Minerals Management Service (of DOI) estimated that there are about 86 billion barrels of undiscovered, recoverable oil and about 420 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, recoverable natural gas in the Federal Outer Continental Shelf of the United States, but 85% of this resource is off limits due to federal and state restrictions.

The U.S. has vast coal supplies which could be turned into gasoline, diesel, and other fuels. Coal reserves in Illinois alone, for instance, have the energy equivalent of all the oil in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. The process was invented by the Germans in 1920 and perfected more recently by Sasol in South Africa. According to Business Week, Sasol “churns out 160,000 barrels of gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel a day, enough to cover 28% of South Africa’s needs, without using a single drop of crude oil, imported or otherwise.” Cost is equivalent to about $30- to $35 per barrel of oil. This source alone could end our dependence on Mid-East oil.

Investors Business Daily (IBD) points out that China is attempting to lock up oil reserves throughout the world, including “in America’s backyard, Argentina, Venezuela, and Canada, and in a country America presumably dominates, Iraq.” At the same time, American oil companies are being discouraged by government, from exploring and exploiting domestic reserves. IBD opines that “What the world is witnessing is the largest peaceful transfer of power in history. Energy means power, and while the U.S. is consumed by environmental ideologies and climate rhetoric, it is committing economic hara-kiri in the process. China, riding on energy acquisitions with little competition, will propel itself into the economic stratosphere.” Obama’s stated goal of reducing our dependence on foreign oil seems to be based on a green fantasy, blinded by ideology.

1. Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and unidirectionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.

2. All terrestrial surface-temperature databases exhibit very serious problems that render them useless for determining accurate long-term temperature trends.

3. All of the problems have skewed the data so as greatly to overstate observed warming both regionally and globally.

4. Global terrestrial temperature data are gravely compromised because more than three-quarters of the 6,000 stations that once existed are no longer reporting.

5. There has been a severe bias towards removing higher-altitude, higher-latitude, and rural stations, leading to a further serious overstatement of warming.

6. Contamination by urbanization, changes in land use, improper siting, and inadequately-calibrated instrument upgrades further overstates warming.

7. Numerous peer-reviewed papers in recent years have shown the overstatement of observed longer term warming is 30-50% from heat-island contamination alone.

8. Cherry-picking of observing sites combined with interpolation to vacant data grids may make heat-island bias greater than 50% of 20th-century warming.

9. In the oceans, data are missing and uncertainties are substantial. Comprehensive coverage has only been available since 2003, and shows no warming.

10. Satellite temperature monitoring has provided an alternative to terrestrial stations in compiling the global lower-troposphere temperature record. Their findings are increasingly diverging from the station-based constructions in a manner consistent with evidence of a warm bias in the surface temperature record.

11. NOAA and NASA, along with CRU, were the driving forces behind the systematic hyping of 20th-century “global warming”.

12. Changes have been made to alter the historical record to mask cyclical changes that could be readily explained by natural factors like multidecadal ocean and solar changes.

13. Global terrestrial data bases are seriously flawed and can no longer be trusted to assess climate trends or VALIDATE model forecasts.

14. An inclusive external assessment is essential of the surface temperature record of CRU, GISS and NCDC “chaired and paneled by mutually agreed to climate scientists who do not have a vested interest in the outcome of the evaluations.”

15. Reliance on the global data by both the UNIPCC and the US GCRP/CCSP also requires a full investigation and audit.

A PDF file of this 111-page report is available here:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf

Water is vital to life, so there is concern about the current drought in the Western U.S. and its impact on our water supply. In Arizona, our supply from the Lower Colorado River system stands at just 56% capacity as of Jan. 19, 2010, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. The Salt River system, supplying Phoenix, stands at 79% capacity, and the Verde River system is at 34%.

Some claim that the current drought is the result of human-induced global warming; others blame the ozone hole. However, droughts are naturally occurring and cyclic.

According to NOAA, “Droughts occur throughout North America, and in any given year, at least one region is experiencing drought conditions.” “Droughts similar to the 1950s, in terms of duration and spatial extent, occurred once or twice a century for the past three centuries (for example, during the 1860s, 1820s, 1730s). However, there has not been another drought as extensive and prolonged as the 1930s drought in the past 300 years. Longer records show strong evidence for a drought that appears to have been more severe in some areas of central North America than anything we have experienced in the 20th century, including the 1930s drought.”

In the Pacific northwest, Knapp et al, found that widespread and extreme droughts were concentrated in the 16^th and early 17^th centuries when the planet was considerably colder than the 20^th century.

In a separate study of mean water-year flow on the Columbia River, Gedalof et al. found that “persistent low flows during the 1840s were probably the most severe of the past 250 years,” and that “the drought of the 1930s is probably the second most severe.” They say also that ” recent droughts were not exceptional in the context of the last 250 years and were of shorter duration than many past events.”

In Montana and Idaho, Gray et al. (2004) found that “both single-year and decadal-scale dry events were more severe before 1900,” and that “dry spells in the late thirteenth and sixteenth centuries surpass both the magnitude and duration of any droughts in the Bighorn Basin after 1900.”

Researchers working in the Pyramid Lake area of Nevada found that for the past 2,740 years “intervals between droughts ranged from 80 to 230 years; while drought durations ranged from 20 to 100 years.” Another study in the same area found that the longest of these droughts occurred between 2,500 and 2,000 years ago and between 1,500 and 1,250, 800 and 725, and 600 and 450 years ago, with none recorded in more recent warmer times.

In the Rocky Mountains, Gray et al. (2003) found a pattern of droughts that they say “may ensue from coupling of the cold phase Pacific Decadal Oscillation with the warm phase Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.”

Research on the Upper Colorado River Basin shows “a near-centennial return period of extreme drought events in this region.” The major drought of 2000-2004 was not as severe as 1844-1848, and was similar to droughts in the early 1500s and early 1600s. They conclude, “these analyses demonstrate that severe, sustained droughts are a defining feature of Upper Colorado River hydroclimate.” And the results show that more severe droughts are associated with colder cycles.

Work in Arizona and New Mexico shows that “sustained dry periods comparable to the 1950s drought occurred in “the late 1000s, the mid 1100s, 1570-97, 1664-70, the 1740s, the 1770s, and the late 1800s.”

Drought cycles are most closely correlated with various solar cycles of 1,533 years (the Bond cycle), 444 years, 170 years, 146 years, and 88 years (the Gleissberg cycle). Asmerom,et al. report that periods of increased solar radiation correlate with periods of decreased rainfall in the southwestern United States (via changes in the North American monsoon). These solar cycles control the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the El Nino system which control weather and climate in the southwest. We are just entering solar cycle 24 and it seems very sluggish. That could mean that we will be spared from an intensifying drought.

For specifics on Tucson’s water supply see:

http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2009/06/21/water-supply-and-demand-in-tucson/

For a primer on drought see:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_home.html

To understand the proxies used in paleoclimate research see:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/primer_proxy.html

References:

Papers reviewed by http://www.co2science.org/subject/d/summaries/droughtusawest.php

Asmerom, Y., Polyak, V., Burns, S. and Rassmussen, J. 2007. Solar forcing of Holocene climate: New insights from a speleothem record, southwestern United States. Geology 35: 1-4.

Benson, L., Kashgarian, M., Rye, R., Lund, S., Paillet, F., Smoot, J., Kester, C., Mensing, S., Meko, D. and Lindstrom, S. 2002. Holocene multidecadal and multicentennial droughts affecting Northern California and Nevada. Quaternary Science Reviews 21: 659-682.

Gedalof, Z., Peterson, D.L. and Mantua, N.J. 2004. Columbia River flow and drought since 1750. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 40: 1579-1592.

Gray, S.T., Betancourt, J.L., Fastie, C.L. and Jackson, S.T. 2003. Patterns and sources of multidecadal oscillations in drought-sensitive tree-ring records from the central and southern Rocky Mountains. Geophysical Research Letters 30: 10.1029/2002GL016154.

Gray, S.T., Fastie, C.L., Jackson, S.T. and Betancourt, J.L. 2004. Tree-ring-based reconstruction of precipitation in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, since 1260 A.D. Journal of Climate 17: 3855-3865.

Hidalgo, H.G., Piechota, T.C. and Dracup, J.A. 2000. Alternative principal components regression procedures for dendrohydrologic reconstructions. Water Resources Research 36: 3241-3249.

Knapp, P.A., Grissino-Mayer, H.D. and Soule, P.T. 2002. Climatic regionalization and the spatio-temporal occurrence of extreme single-year drought events (1500-1998) in the interior Pacific Northwest, USA. Quaternary Research 58: 226-233.

Mensing, S.A., Benson, L.V., Kashgarian, M. and Lund, S. 2004. A Holocene pollen record of persistent droughts from Pyramid Lake, Nevada, USA. Quaternary Research 62: 29-38.

Ni, F., Cavazos, T., Hughes, M.K., Comrie, A.C. and Funkhouser, G. 2002. Cool-season precipitation in the southwestern USA since AD 1000: Comparison of linear and nonlinear techniques for reconstruction. International Journal of Climatology 22: 1645-1662.

Woodhouse, C.A., Gray, S.T. and Meko, D.M. 2006. Updated streamflow reconstructions for the Upper Colorado River Basin. Water Resources Research 42: 10.1029/2005WR004455.

In the introductory material the report says:

The entire industry of “climate science” was created out of virtually nothing, by means of a massive influx of funding that was almost universally one-sided in its requirement that its recipients find evidence for man-made climate change—not investigate whether or how much mankind had caused climate change.

Many “climate scientists” built their entire careers on this funding; and so it is not surprising that they became so completely reliant on this conditional lifeline, that they became single-mindedly focused on achieving the ends for which they were commissioned—and viciously attacking any intruders who may threaten that lifeline.

The PDF file may be download from either of these links:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/climategate_analysis.pdf

or http://tinyurl.com/yl8o3t8

Several stories revealed that Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has conflicts of interest because of his involvement with companies that benefit from the contention that carbon dioxide emissions pose a danger. From the U.K. Telegraph: “Although Dr. Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as ‘the world’s top climate scientist’), as a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics, he has no qualifications in climate science at all. What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr. Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.”

See story: http://tinyurl.com/ydpouot

EUReferendum, a British blog, tells a tale of alleged money laundering by Pachauri:

see: http://tinyurl.com/yeertqn

India Today also has a story on Pachauri’s conflicts of interest:

see: http://tinyurl.com/yll3vr6

More data manipulation revealed:

John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, said in a blog on KUSI TV, San Diego, “It has been revealed that a ‘sleight of hand’ was used in the computer program that rated 2005 as ‘The Warmest Year on Record.’ Skeptical climate researchers have discovered extensive manipulation of the data within the U.S. Government’s two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina, and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. These centers are being accused of creating a strong bias toward warmer temperatures through a system that dramatically trimmed the number and cherry-picked the locations of weather observation stations they use to produce the data set on which temperature record reports are based. The two investigators say the system has been distorted in other ways as well. They have documented their findings in great detail in a scientific report that has been posted online. These findings are presented as a part of my television special report “Global Warming: The Other Side” telecast Thursday night, January 14th at 9 PM here on KUSI TV.” See full blog article here: http://tinyurl.com/yhbjwd5

See the TV show here: http://tinyurl.com/y8vldjp

See the report referred to here: http://tinyurl.com/yj53lq3

We are seeing, more and more, that Congress’s proposed Cap & Trade legislation and the EPA’s proposal to regulate carbon dioxide are based on faulty data. Both campaigns should cease while the situation is being investigated.

See my previous blogs on climategate:

Climategate, the plot thickens: http://tinyurl.com/yjznje8

Climate Data, Fact or Fiction: http://tinyurl.com/yzhd8w9

More Climate Skullduggery: http://tinyurl.com/ygnz9yu

Feedback from a vested interest: http://tinyurl.com/yk26cbz

Climate industry meets reality: http://tinyurl.com/ygnawb5

Climategate Update: http://tinyurl.com/ylqefrq

Climategate: http://tinyurl.com/ykajcoc

We recently were treated to videos of the eruption of an undersea volcano. (See Video ).

Similar volcanoes erupted during Precambrian time (about 1.7 billion years ago) in what is now Arizona. Some of them produced mineral deposits called volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits that contain copper, zinc, lead, silver, and gold. About a dozen such deposits occurring in northern Arizona have had some production, the largest known of which is the United Verde mine at Jerome.

In such deposits, a shallow magmatic source under the sea bed provides heat which sets up a convection cell in the surrounding rocks. Sulfur and metals derived from the volcano and from leaching of the sea floor sediments are erupted into the sea and deposited as sulfide-rich sediments. The sulfides often form a chimney called a “black smoker”.

The sulfide-rich “clouds” are taken by ocean currents and eventually settle to the sea floor, around the vent, to form layers of sulfide material containing pyrite (FeS₂), chalcopyrite (FeCuS₂), sphalerite (ZnS), and galena (PbS), together with the sulfates anhydrite (CaSO₄) and barite (BaSO₄).

An idealized model of the volcanic edifice is shown in the cartoon below:

The volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits at Jerome are zoned, with the copper-rich portion in the volcanic vent and on the ancient sea floor adjacent to the vent. Zinc and lead sulfides, with iron oxide occur as marginal banded sediments, and banded iron and silica deposits occur at the extremities.

 The photo below is copper ore from the volcanic vent at Jerome. The brassy material is chalcopyrite. The darker material is chlorite, an alteration product.

The next photo shows the banded zinc and iron mineralization. Notice that these bands are folded.

 The circular structures in the photo below are cross-sections of the black smoker chimneys formed during eruption and preserved by the erupted material.

   The deposit at Jerome is far from the idealized drawing above. In the approximately 1.7 billion years since the deposit was formed, it suffered several episodes of folding and faulting. The following cross-section by Paul Lindberg, shows the structure as currently understood. Lindberg hypothesizes that the volcanic vent was along the edge of a caldera (cauldron fracture zone). Besides the main United Verde body, shown on the left side, there are two smaller deposits which have been faulted off the main body, the Hermit orebody and the UVX orebody. The graphic below is a west to east section looking north. The town of Jerome sits just west of the fault above the Hermit orebody.

Production from the Jerome deposits totaled about 3.6 billion pounds of copper, 97 million pounds of zinc, 693,000 pounds of lead, 1.6 million ounces of gold, and 57.3 million ounces of silver. And there is much more remaining, just waiting for the right opportunity.

Reference:

Lindberg, P.A., 1989, Precambrian ore deposits of Arizona, in Geologic Evolution of Arizona, Jenney, J.P. and Reynolds, S.J. eds., Arizona Geological Society Digest 17.

Coral bleaching is caused by high sea temperatures, high solar irradiance, by anomalously low sea temperatures, and by sudden drops in temperature that accompany intense upwelling episodes, thermocline shoaling, or seasonal cold-air outbreaks.(1)

Many coral species have endured three periods of global warming, from the Pliocene optimum (4.3-3.3 million years ago) through the Eemian interglacial (125,000 years ago) and the mid-Holocene Optimum (6000-5000 years ago), when atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and sea temperatures often exceeded those of today. Data show that an increase in sea warming of less than 2°C would result in a greatly increased diversity of corals in certain high latitude locations.(1)

Some coral bleaching may be due to marine pathogens, i.e., diseases.(2) Coral polyps depend on symbionts such as zooxanthellae (algal symbionts). These symbionts vary seasonally and with environmental stress. (3) Some symbionts are highly adaptable, and some corals can change their symbionts to better suit conditions. (14)

Some coral bleaching appears to be synchronous with El Nino events which raise water temperature. (4)

Although corals may endure bleaching, they are resilient. For instance, scleractinian corals, which are the major builders of the reefs of today, first appeared during mid-Triassic time 210 million years ago, when the earth was considerably warmer. They endured the Cretaceous Period, when temperatures were as much as 10-15°C higher than now. And they survived the warm and cold cycles of Pleistocene glacial epochs. (5,6,7)

One of the reasons coral are resilient and able to withstand a wide range of temperature, salinity, and CO₂ variations is that they shuffle symbionts. (8,9,10) For instance, “as the community structure of coral reefs shift in response to global climate change and water quality impacts, opportunistic corals harboring symbionts that enable maximum rates of growth may similarly gain a competitive advantage.” (13) The corals themselves also have several mechanisms to deal with and deflect thermal stress, including dynamic photo-protective mechanisms, and the expression of heat-shock proteins.

On the issue of coral calcification, observation finds that the combination of increased CO₂ (which provides more carbonate) and the shuffling of symbionts, makes the corals able to withstand the variations of temperature, disease, and solar irradiation. (11,12)

Real world observations trump the scare stories derived from theoretical models.

While human CO₂ emissions have little effect on coral health, we are, however, significantly affecting corals in other ways through runoff and nutrient enrichment; coastal construction leading to smothering of habitat and creation of high turbidity around coasts; and over fishing. Local management of water quality would seem to be the best thing we can do to aid corals.

See a summary of studies of human impact here: http://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N41/EDIT.php

Sources:

1. Glynn, P.W. 1996. Coral reef bleaching: facts, hypotheses and implications. Global Change Biology 2: 495-509

2. Hayes, R.L. and Goreau, N.I. 1998. The significance of emerging diseases in the tropical coral reef ecosystem. Revista de Biologia Tropical 46 Supl. 5: 173-185

3. Fagoonee, I., Wilson, H.B., Hassell, M.P. and Turner, J.R. 1999. The dynamics of zooxanthellae populations: A long-term study in the field. Science 283: 843-845.

4. Stone, L., Huppert, A., Rajagopalan, B., Bhasin, H. and Loya, Y. 1999. Mass coral reef bleachng: A recent outcome of increased El Niño Activity? Ecology Letters 2: 325-330

5. Wells, J.W. 1956. Scleractinia. In: Moore, R.C., Ed. Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Volume F, Coelenterata. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS, pp. 353-367.

6. Chadwick-Furman, N.E. 1996. Reef coral diversity and global change. Global Change Biology 2: 559-568

7. Pandolfi, J.M. 1999. Response of Pleistocene coral reefs to environmental change over long temporal scales. American Zoologist 39: 113-130

8. Adjeroud, M., Augustin, D., Galzin, R. and Salvat, B. 2002. Natural disturbances and interannual variability of coral reef communities on the outer slope of Tiahura (Moorea, French Polynesia): 1991 to 1997. Marine Ecology Progress Series 237: 121-131.

9. Apprill, A.M. and Gates, R.D. 2007. Recognizing diversity in coral symbiotic dinoflagellate communities. Molecular Ecology 16: 1127-1134.

10. Baird, A.H., Cumbo, V.R., Leggat, W. and Rodriguez-Lanetty, M. 2007. Fidelity and flexibility in coral symbioses. Marine Ecology Progress Series 347: 307-309.

11. Bessat, F. and Buigues, D. 2001. Two centuries of variation in coral growth in a massive Porites colony from Moorea (French Polynesia): a response of ocean-atmosphere variability from south central Pacific. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 175: 381-392

12. Buddemeier, R.W. 1994. Symbiosis, calcification, and environmental interactions. Bulletin Institut Oceanographique, Monaco 13: 119-131

13. Cantin, N.E., van Oppen, M.J.H., Willis, B.L., Mieog, J.C. and Negri, A.P. 2009. Juvenile corals can acquire more carbon from high-performance algal symbionts. Coral Reefs 28: 405-414.

14. Fitt, W.K., et al., 2009, Response of two species of Indo-Pacific corals, Porites cylindrica and Stylophora pistillata, to short-term thermal stress: The host does matter in determining the tolerance of corals to bleaching. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 373: 102-110.