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SMC Bulletin - Polar ice sheets under 1.5C
Polar ice sheets under 1.5C
Under the Paris Agreement, nations agreed to limit global warming to less than 2C above pre-industrial levels, but even that might not be enough to stop the collapse of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
Even if we restrict warming to the targets set by the Paris Agreement, both ice sheets may have tipping points at or slightly above the 1.5-2C threshold, according to a review of our current understanding of ice sheet processes by an international team of scientists, including New Zealand author Dr Nick Golledge from Victoria University of Wellington.
Professor Christina Hulbe from the University of Otago told The AM Show the work had "one clear message: we are very close to triggering irreversible change in Earth's polar ice sheets".
Once crossed, these tipping points could lead to irreversible loss of ice from the sheets and may commit us to greater rates of sea level rise than we are currently experiencing for hundreds of years to come. Dr Huw Horgan from Victoria's Antarctic Research Centre told the SMC: "This study really emphasises the vulnerability of these ice sheets to warming, and clearly show how their fate is linked to choices we make about emissions."
Climate scientist
Professor James Renwick told Stuff: "we might be
locking in about 5m of sea level rise even if we limit
global warming to 2C." He emphasised that those tipping
points get closer every day that people emit greenhouse
gases.
The SMC gathered expert reaction on the study.
Quoted:
"Science is not always
straightforward, especially when researching new
issues.
"But it’s essential that scientists are allowed
to speak freely on what their research shows."
Dr Amanda Black, a Principal Research
Officer with the Bio-Protection Research Centre upon
receiving the Emerging Leader Award in the New Zealand
Biosecurity Awards.
Blue light messes with
sleep
Too much blue light at night could give you trouble
sleeping and alter your internal body clock, according to a
new report from the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
The report explains that our eyes use blue light to adjust our body clocks to the right timezone.
"With electronic devices like our phones and iPads and computer screens, we are exposing ourselves to more and more blue light which... delays our clocks to a later time zone and it effectively gives us jet lag," Assoc Prof Guy Warman from the University of Auckland told Newstalk ZB.
Warman, who was part of the expert advisory group for the report, says the sleep disruption caused by this interference can weaken our immunity and increases the risk of obesity, depression, and potentially some types of cancer.
The report advises the public to expose ourselves to blue light in the morning to help us wake up, but to limit blue light at night by reducing screen brightness, using night-time apps that lower blue light output or turning devices off.
We're not the only ones affected blue light, as insects and plants are also sensitive to blue light, with insects showing signs of disrupted feeding behaviours, pollination efforts, and reproduction.
"Even small solar-powered LEDs, the kind people have in their gardens, can alter insect behaviour," forest protection scientist Lindsay Bulman from Scion told Stuff.
"If we want to minimise the effect of nighttime lighting on the environment we need to think about how, when and where we use lighting at home and in public spaces, and look at using lights that do not have a significant blue wavelength component."
The
light pollution from white LED streetlights (which have a
large blue light component) can also stop us from seeing the
stars, leading astronomists to lobby for outdoor lighting
only to be used when needed and to make sure these lights
only point downwards.
The SMC gathered expert reaction on the report.
Upcoming SAVVY Express
We're bringing our
15-minute media training Science Media SAVVY Express
programme to two conferences before the end of the year.
Participants in SAVVY Express receive individual
coaching to help them speak on camera about their research
in an engaging way, and receive a polished 90-second
video edited from their best takes during the
session as an added bonus.
We work hard to create a
supportive, confidence-building environment for
participants, and find the conference setting provides an
ideal opportunity for busy researchers to try their hand at
new skills.
SAVVY Express is also great for experienced
researchers seeking a quick refresher of prior media
training.
We'll be at the following conferences before the
end of the year. If you'll be attending, sign up for a
session and encourage your fellow conference-goers to do so
too.
28 Nov
Dunedin Microbes & Molecules
Conference
13 Dec Wellington 2018 One Health Aotearoa Symposium
More information on SAVVY Express and the sign-up forms can be found here.
Contact us if you're organising a conference in 2019 and would like to discuss potentially holding a SAVVY Express session.
Policy news & developments
Singapore agreement: Kiwi visitors to Singapore now have extended visa-free entry and companies with offices in Singapore can now send employees there for longer.
Pike River re-entry: The mission will go ahead via the safest option - entry through the existing access tunnel, with initial work breaching the seal expected by around February.
Rural health school quashed: Plans for a rural school of medicine have been scrapped, with Health Minister David Clark announcing alternative measures to ease workforce pressure.
New High Commissioner: Former health minister Dame Annette King has been made the High Commissioner to Australia.
EQC inquiry: Former governor-general and high court Judge Dame Silvia Cartwright will lead the public inquiry into the Earthquake Commission, which aims to learn from the Canterbury quakes.
Biosecurity champions: Scion picked up the Biological Heritage Challenge Award, and Dr Amanda Black was honoured as an emerging leader at the 2018 Biosecurity Awards.
New takahē eggs: The first eggs of the new wild population of tahakē in Kahurangi National Park have been found.
Stop to whaling urged: NZ has
called on Japan to stop its Southern Ocean whaling
programme, saying it flies in the face of scientific advice.
This week on the NZ
Conversation. Taxonomy, the science of naming things, is
under threat How to restore trust in governments and
institutions
Why early diagnosis of autism should lead to
early intervention
Hannah Waddington, Jessica Tupou,
and Larah van der Meer, Victoria University of Wellington
Nic Rawlence, University of Otago
Grant Duncan, Massey
University
See more NZ-authored Conversation articles.
What we've been
reading
With an abundance of news stories to
possibly read, watch and listen to, it can be hard to find
the gems. Here we highlight some of the stories that caught
our attention this
week.
Algorithms are everywhere but the public
sector seems scared to use them
If the
Government dared, it could do so much more with what it
knows about you, Stuff national correspondent Katie Kenny
writes for her latest installment in her Data For Sale
project.
Draining the swamp kauri swamp
A long-awaited Supreme Court judgment says
rough sawn slabs of indigenous timber and lightly carved
logs are not “finished” items and their export is
illegal, Farah Hancock writes for Newsroom. This week, she
also tackled the issue of wilding pines.
How it is decided who is
Wikipedia-worthy
Stay-at-home mum and
trained lawyer Siobhan Leachman is one of about 160
volunteer Kiwis who decide who deserves a page on the online
encyclopaedia. Stuff's Nikki Macdonald looks at how who we
choose to memorialise in print holds a mirror to what we
value as a society.
How podcasts became a seductive—and
sometimes slippery—mode of storytelling
In our frenetic age, audio narratives offer
a rare opportunity for slow immersion. But this intimacy can
become manipulative writes Rebecca Mead for The New
Yorker.
Non-binary finery: The Kiwis whose gender
doesn't fit in a 'neat little box'
A new
type of identity is emerging from the shadows, and demanding
respect. They are non-binary people, whose gender identity
exists beyond simply male and female. Felix Desmarais
reports for Stuff.
An international rip-off or an innocent
abroad
Tim Murphy reports on a case before
the High Court which must decide if Chinese-born, Opotiki
kiwifruit grower Haoyu Gao conspired to sell one of our
super varieties of the fruit off to China - and thus deny
Zespri and New Zealand untold millions in export
sales.
The death of Radio
Live
Fourteen years after launching “the
new voice of talk radio”, MediaWorks will silence Radio
Live and jobs look set to go as a classic hits station takes
over. RNZ's Mediawatch looks at why and what might replace
it.
New from Sciblogs - NZ's science blog network
Some of the highlights from this week's Sciblogs posts:
Two years on from the Kaikōura
quake
This week marked the second anniversary
of the magnitude 7.8 Kaikōura earthquake that ruptured a
world record 25 faults in the upper South Island. GNS
Science reflects on the
event.
News
When
Eric Crampton tried to petition the Government to maintain
the status quo for fireworks laws, he discovered that you
can only petition Parliament to change a law, not to leave a
law as it is.
The Dismal Science
Just how accurate is the standard
unconscious bias test? Michael Corballis looks at the
classic psychology test and how it has spread into the
public arena.
Mind Matters
Cell phones give you cancer. Yeah,
right.
A lesson from the headlines: Marcus
Wilson gets his third-year science communication students to
compare mainstream media coverage of a recent paper about
mobile phones and cancer in rats to what scientists say.
Physics Stop
Upcoming
events
Please see the SMC Events Calendar for more events and
details.
• Plant-based Protein: Napier, 20
November. Dr Marian McKenzie from Plant & Food Research will
talk about what the future holds for plant-based protein
foods.
• Zealandia: Christchurch, 20 & 27 November. Professor Simon Pollard will talk about the explosive forces that shaped Zealandia and how it came to be filled with such a fascinating variety of plants and animals.
• Bullying GPs: Wellington, 21 November. Samantha Murton and Emma Wicks will present the results of their study on bullying in the general practice workforce.
• HIT Lab Open Day: 21 November, Christchurch. Canterbury's HIT Lab is open to the public 2-7pm. There will be demonstrations of their work in virtual reality, augmented reality, and applied gaming.
• Radical Vulnerability: Wellington, 21 November. Prof Nagar from the University of Minnesota talk about her work with three communities — the Sangtin movement of small farmers and manual labourers in rural North India, the Parakh theatre group in Mumbai, and her students.
• Restoring local rivers: Motueka, 22 November. Trevor James, Tasman District Council’s Senior Research Scientist, will share updated information about the health of the rivers and streams in the Tasman area.
• Science advice: Wellington, 23 November. Sir Peter Gluckman will speak about science advice, public policy and the post-truth dynamic.
Science Media Centre NZ
Our aim is to promote accurate, evidence-based reporting on science and technology by helping the media work more closely with the scientific community.
The Science Media Centre is New Zealand's only trusted, independent source of information for the media on all issues related to science. Thousands of news stories providing context from and quoting New Zealand researchers have been published as a direct result of our work.
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