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2013年3月26日火曜日

気になった一文集(English ver. No. 11)


Global temperature, therefore, has risen from near the coldest to the warmest levels of the Holocene within the past century, reversing the long-term cooling trend that began ~5000 yr B.P.
従って、全球温度は完新世における最も寒い状態から最も暖かい状態へと過去1世紀の間に増加してきたのであり、5,000年前から始まる長期的な寒冷化の傾向に逆行している。

A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years
Marcott et al., 2013, Science (vol. 339, pp. 1201)
完新世の温度復元と現在の地球温暖化の特異性

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It found that not only does the uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere into the ocean increase seawater CO2 levels and reduce pH in the ocean, it also causes a reduction in the ability of the ocean to buffer natural changes.
大気からCO2が海に取り込まれることで海水中のCO2濃度が増しpHが低下するだけでなく、海が自然の変化を緩衝する能力も低下させることが分かった。

It is important to consider that the current rate of increase in ocean acidity is 100 times faster than the rate of change in the last million years of earth’s history.
現在の海の酸性化の速度は地球の歴史の過去100万年間の変化速度の100倍早く起きていることを考慮することは重要である。

If we allow CO2 emissions to increase unabated it will likely take thousands of years for chemical changes in the ocean to return to conditions like those today.
もし我々がCO2の排出を衰えさせずに増加させれば、海の化学変化が現在のような状態に戻るまでには数千年もの時間がかかる。

If you go to the Great Barrier Reef today you won’t see any visible warning sign of ocean acidification. By the time changes can be clearly seen on the reef, it will likely be too late to reverse them.
いまグレートバリアリーフに行っても目に見えて海洋酸性化の影響は見られないだろう。サンゴ礁でその変化が明らかになる頃には、それらを打ち消すにはもう手遅れとなっている。

Jumps in ocean acidity put coral in more peril」Emily Shaw, The Conversation, 5 March 2013.
海洋酸性化とサンゴへの影響

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As the Western Australian ocean heatwave showed us two years ago when it devastated fish stocks, it can be the extreme end of the spectrum that can cause the most damage, and these damages may be irreversible over our lifetimes in the case of ocean acidification.
2年前に西オーストラリアの海水温の異常昇温が魚の資源量を破壊したように、海洋酸性化は最も大きなダメージをもたらす現象の中でも極端なものとなる可能性があり、我々の生涯の中で元通りにはならないだろう。

Global warming could corrode shallow reefs sooner」EPOCAブログ(1 Mar 2013)
地球温暖化・海洋酸性化とサンゴ礁の減退

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We particularly cannot afford that view when our planet is being propelled by human action into another climate regime with incalculable social and environmental costs. The only way to figure out what is happening to our planet is to measure it, and this means tracking changes decade after decade and poring over the records.

But in the case of a program aimed at long-term change, "research" and "operations" cannot be separated cleanly. Finding and correcting for the inevitable systematic biases is a job for scientists who understand the measurement technology, are passionate about data integrity, and are motivated to unravel how the Earth system operates.

Science podcast (28 Mar 2008)」Ralph Keeling
マウナロアにおける大気中CO2濃度連続観測50周年記念インタビュー

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Smallholders often purchase stocks on credit that is repaid at the end of the season, so the loss of a crop or livestock in one bad year can put the farmer into debt for many years, condemning generations to poverty.

To lessen the impacts of adverse weather, networks must be established between the forecasters of global weather and climate in the developed world, and research, governmental and non-governmental organizations in the less-developed world. 

Paradoxically, as forecasts become better and their resolution grows, it becomes more difficult for developing countries to access them. 

Faced with possible climate change, societies that learn to cope with and mitigate hazards now will be most adept at dealing with more frequent and intense hazards in the future. 

Improve weather forecasts for the developing world」Nature 493, 17–19 (03 January 2013)
発展途上国に先進国の気象予測サービスを提供することで、経済的・人的被害をもっと減らせる。バングラディシュ・ミャンマーの洪水の例を紹介。

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The implication is simple: Even if consumption is held constant, ecological impact can increase—not only for energy but also for other resources.

By law, land cleared for an oil well must be reclaimed after abandonment, but the ecological value of reclaimed sites is not equivalent to their pre-development condition.

A recent study found that emission levels in oil-sands mines are 23 times that of conventional production. Because less than 20% of the deposit can be accessed from the surface, production will  soon be dominated by  in situ drilling, substantially increasing cumulative land disruption: Three times as much land is disturbed to produce the natural gas required for oil-sand drilling as is consumed by the wells themselves.

Declining conventional fossil fuel reserves have motivated much more investment in nonconventional fossil fuel enterprises than in renewable alternatives, representing a global trend toward increased ecological impact per unit of fuel produced. Coal production, which is growing at a faster rate than any other fossil fuel, is increasingly dominated by surface (including mountain-top) mining, which allows more efficient extraction of lower-density deposits but is also more ecologically disruptive than underground mining.

Even if consumption leveled off, increases in ecological impact could result as global reserves become depleted. The question is not when resources will run out, but how much ecological impact we can tolerate. 

Not all about consumption」Science (15 Mar 2013)
資源が枯渇すればするほど、採掘にかかるエネルギー・資源が増し、結果的に多くの生態系が破壊される

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We must prepare young people to address this issue: The problem of preserving a habitable planet will engage present and future generations. Scientists must improve communication if research is to inform the public and policy makers better.

Development and application of earth system models」Ronald G. Prinn, PNAS (26 February 2013; Vol. 110, No. Supplement 1)
地球システムモデルは現在の気候を理解するだけでなく、将来の気候変動予測にも力を発揮する。

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More than 80% of the biomass used for energy comes from forests, in the form of logs, wood chips, wood pellets, sawdust, bark and other by-products. Just one-third of the world’s 4 billion hectares of forest is used for wood production or other commercial purposes. And those that are managed have room to grow more feedstock than they currently do.

...better use of low-yielding grasslands, sparse woodlands and degraded land could deliver more biofuels without encroaching on food production.

Planting 170 million hectares of this with energy crops could deliver 15 exa-joules, and still leave space for feeding rising populations, urban development and biodiversity protection, and new forests.

In the Northern Hemisphere, fossil fuels still dominate the heat market, even though biomass is half the price of oil.
北半球では、バイオマスの値段は石油の半分でしかないのにも関わらず、未だに化石燃料が熱市場を支配している。

For electricity production, biofuels supply around 2% of the world’s needs

The top priority should be heating: improving efficiency in developing countries and using biomass and district heating, rather than fossil fuels and electricity, in developed countries. 
最も優先度が高いのは熱である。途上国における熱効率を上げ、バイオマスを使い、先進国のような化石燃料や電力の使用ではなく熱を使わせる。

Without targeted, long-term government policies, bioenergy will develop too slowly to help in the mitigation of climate change. 
目標にされる長期的な政府の政策がなければ、バイオエネルギーは遅く発展しすぎて気候変動緩和には役に立たないであろう。
Build a biomass energy market」Nature (7 Feb 2013, vol. 494, 29-31)
バイオ燃料を先進国の電力生産というよりもむしろ途上国の熱生産(料理の火、暖房、浴室など)に用いることで、化石燃料や木材などの使用を軽減させる必要がある。

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The controversy over these technologies in general has translated into a controversy over the regulation of research that has the effect right now that a lot of research that’s really needed isn’t going ahead.
こうした技術を巡る議論は、一般的に、現在効果を発揮する研究の規制を巡る議論に読み替えられてきた。そのため、多くの本当に必要な研究が前進しなかった。

...we argue that there needs to be consultations and discussions between governments and scientists to help develop the outlines of near-term research programs that would be low in risk, high in scientific value, and socially and publicly and politically acceptable.

…we propose a couple of specific initiatives to help map out the outlines of that governance system.

Because if future climate change turns out really badly, we may find ourselves in a situation in a few decades where it’s really essential to begin deploying climate engineering technologies to slow or stop or reverse bad changes that are underway.
もし将来の気候変化が本当に悪いものだと判明したときに、私たちは自分達が気候工学技術を用いて起こりつつある悪い方向への変化を遅くする、止める、或いは打ち消す手段を開始することが本当に必要な状況に立たされていることを数十年内に実感するかもしれないからである。

…we think it’s crucial that they start talking to each other early on while the stakes are low so that if we do come to such a frightening climate future, there will be cooperative decision-making channels established, and it won’t be a cascade of provocative actions taken by one great power or another, because the risks of that would be terrible.
…もし我々が将来恐ろしい気候に直面しなければならないのであれば、危険性が低いうちに政策決定者と科学者はお互いに会話を始める必要があり、そうすることで政策決定の協力的な流れが構築され、一つか或いはいくつかの大きな力による物議をかもすような行動の連鎖がなくなる、と私たちは考える。そのリスクは恐ろしいものになり得るからである。

Science Podcast (15 Mar 2013)
地球工学(geoengineering)の予備実験の可否を巡る議論について。気候変動緩和に寄与すると思われる低リスクな地球工学は実験をしておかなければ、いざ実行に移したい時に判断ができない。

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It is, simply put, the largest chemistry experiment ever attempted. It is happening now, and it has real impacts on people and local economies today
単純に言うと、それ(海洋酸性化)はこれまでに試みられた中で最大の化学実験である。それは現在進行中であり、今日人や地域経済に真の影響を及ぼしている。

The ocean in a high carbon dioxide world」EPOCA海洋酸性化ブログ

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Ecosystems that will most likely be affected include coral reefs, open ocean environments, high-latitude oceans, and deep-sea regions. Susceptible species provide human communities with many goods and services, so human communities may feel the effects of ocean acidification in several ways.
もっとも影響を被りそうな生態系はサンゴ礁、外洋、高緯度の海、深海などを含む。影響を被りやすい生物種は人間に多くの商品やサービスをもたらしているため、多くの方法で海洋酸性化の影響を感じることができるだろう。

Ocean acidification」EPOCA海洋酸性化ブログ(Cooley & Doney, 2013, Encyclopedia of Environmetrics)

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