Daniel Salzler No. 1119
EnviroInsight.org Seven Items October 15, 2021
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1. Auditor General Report on ADEQ Water Quality Protection. On September 28, the Arizona 1. Auditor General Released A Report Detailing The Findings Of A Recent Audit Of The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). According to the report, ADEQ has not developed all of the aquifer water quality standards required by state statute, conducted ambient groundwater monitoring, monitored agricultural pesticides in groundwater and surrounding soil, or reduced impaired surface waters in the state. In some cases, Auditor General Lindsey Perry said, ADEQ has been out of compliance for years. For example, auditors found that ADEQ has not developed or updated water quality standards for eight contaminants, including arsenic and uranium.
According to the report, ADEQ has been out of compliance between 7 and 29 years in developing standards for these contaminants. In a recent article covering the report, ADEQ Director Misael Cabrera did not dispute the findings of the report. “We actually agree that those are items that should be addressed,” but the issue is funding, he said. In one case, the report found that ADEQ stopped conducting ambient groundwater monitoring because the employee who was doing it retired. According to Director Cabrera, like every agency, ADEQ has needs that exceed the resources available, and “the simple answer is, we prioritized other known problems,” such as drinking-water standards and Superfund sites. In their response to the report, ADEQ accepted all of the report’s findings and plans to implement its recommendations.
2. Unprecedented Rise Of Heat And Rainfall Extremes In Observational Data Date:October 7, 2021 Source:Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
A 90-fold increase in the frequency of monthly heat extremes in the past ten years compared to 1951-1980 has been found by scientists in observation data. Their analysis reveals that so-called 3-sigma heat events, which deviate strongly from what is normal in a given region, now on average affect about 9 percent of all land area at any time. Record daily rainfall events also increased in a non-linear way — on average, 1 in 4 rainfall records in the last decade can be attributed to climate change. Already today, extreme events linked to human-caused climate change are at unprecedented levels, the scientists say, and they must be expected to increase further.
“For extreme extremes, what we call 4-sigma-events that have been virtually absent before, we even see a roughly 1000-fold increase compared to the reference period. They affected about 3 percent of global land area in 2011-20 in any month,” says lead-author Alexander Robinson from Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany. “This confirms previous findings, yet with ever-increasing numbers. We are seeing extremes now which are virtually impossible without the influence of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.” The term ‘sigma’ refers to what scientists call a standard deviation.
For example, 2020 brought prolonged heat waves to both Siberia and Australia, contributing to the emergence of devastating wildfires in both regions. Both events led to the declaration of a ocal state of emergency. Temperatures at life-threatening levels have hit parts of the US and Canada in 2021, reaching almost 50°C. Globally, the record-breaking heat extremes increased most in tropical regions, since these normally have a low variability of monthly temperatures. As temperatures continue to rise, however, record-breaking heat will also become much more common in mid- and high-latitude regions.
1 in 4 rainfall records is attributable to climate change
Daily rainfall records have also increased. Compared to what would have to be
expected in a climate without global warming, the number of wet records increased by about 30 percent. This implies that 1 in 4 records is attributable to human-caused climate change. The physics background to this is the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, which states that air can hold 7 percent more moisture per degree Celsius of warming.
Importantly, already-dry regions such as western North America and South Africa northern
Europe have seen a strong increase. Generally, increasing rainfall extremes do not help to alleviate drought problems.
Small temperature increase, disproportionally big consequences
Comparing the new data with the already quite extreme previous decade of 2000-2010, the data show that the land area affected by heat extremes of the 3-sigma category roughly doubled. Those deviations which are so strong they have previously been essentially absent, the 4-sigma events, newly emerged in the observations. Rainfall records have increased a further 5 percentage points in the last decade. The seemingly small amount of warming in the past ten years, just 0.25°C, has thus pushed up climate extremes substantially.
“These data show that extremes are now far outside the historical experience. Extreme heat and extreme rainfall are increasing disproportionally,” says co-author Stefan Rahmstorf, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “Our analysis confirms once again that for the impacts of global heating on us humans, every tenth of a degree matters.” Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211009093149.ht
3. Hydrogel Tablet Can Purify A Liter Of River Water In An Hour
October 5, 2021 University of Texas at Austin
Scientists and engineers have created a hydrogel tablet that can rapidly purify contaminated water. One tablet can disinfect a liter of river water and make it suitable for drinking in an hour or less.
As much as a third of the world’s population does not have access to clean drinking water, according to some estimates, and half of the population could live in water-stressed areas by 2025. Finding a solution to this problem could save and improve lives for millions of people, and it is a high priority among scientists and engineers around the globe.
Scientists and engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have created a hydrogel tablet that can rapidly purify contaminated water. One tablet can disinfect a liter of river water and make it suitable for drinking in an hour or less.
“Our multifunctional hydrogel can make a big difference in mitigating global water scarcity because it is easy to use, highly efficient and potentially scalable up to mass
Today, the primary way to purify water is to boil or pasteurize it. But that takes energy, plus a lot of time and work. That isn’t practical for people in parts of the world without the resources for these processes.
The special hydrogels generate hydrogen peroxide to neutralize bacteria at an efficiency rate of more than 99.999%. The hydrogen peroxide works with activated carbon particles to attack essential cell components of bacteria and disrupt their metabolism.
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The process requires zero energy input and doesn’t create harmful byproducts. The hydrogels can easily be removed, and they don’t leave any residue.
In addition to purifying water on their own, the hydrogels could also improve a process that has been around for thousands of years — solar distillation, the use of sunlight to separate water from harmful contaminants via vaporization.
Solar distillation systems often run into issues of biofouling, the accumulation of microorganisms on equipment that causes it to malfunction. The bacteria-killing hydrogels can prevent this from happening.
The team is working to improve the hydrogels by increasing the different types of pathogens and viruses in water that they can neutralize. And the team is also in the process of commercializing several prototypes.
Scaling up the hydrogels would be straightforward, the researchers say. Materials for making them are inexpensive, and the synthesis processes are simple and remain that way at large scales. And they can easily control the shape and size of the hydrogels, making them flexible for different types of uses.
Source: Materials provided by University of Texas at Austin.
4. Celebrating Columbus Day, Really? Perhaps A Rethink Is Due. Why we celebrate Columbus Day is mystifying to say the least. It has been known for many, many years that Leif Eriksson arrived in present-day Newfoundland around 1000 A.D., about five centuries before Columbus “Discovered“ America.
The Nina and Pinta and Santa Maria were not the actual names of two of Columbus’s three ships. The actual names were the “prostitute” (Pinta), “Juan Nino” (actual owner of the boat Nina) and “La Gallega” ( Santa Maria) named after the province of Galicia in which it was built. The La Gallega was shipwrecked Christmas Eve of 1492 by a cabin boy on the northern coast of Hispanolia at Cap Haitien, Haiti.
In 1500, Columbus was returned to Spain in chains. Columbus’s governance of Hispaniola could be brutal and tyrannical. Native islandenough gold could have their hands cut off. And rebel Spanish colonists were executed at the gallows. Colonists complained to the monarchy about mismanagement, and a royal commissioner dispatched to Hispaniola arrested Columbus in August 1500 and brought him back to Spain in chains. According to the Taylor and Francis Group, new analysis of ancient writings suggests that sailors from the Italian hometown of Christopher Columbus knew of America 150 years before its renowned ‘discovery’. Transcribing and detailing a, circa, 1345 document by a Milanese friar, Galvaneus Flamma, a Medieval Latin literature expert has made an ‘astonishing’ discovery of an ‘exceptional’ passage referring to an area we know today as North America.
5. Dr. Karletta Chief to Lead New Indigenous Resilience Center. “The current moment is one of unparalleled resilience perils that have had major adverse impacts for Native and Indigenous communities,” said Toni Massaro, the executive director of the UArizona Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice, in a statement on the newly created Indigenous Resilience Center (IRC). On September 13, UArizona President Robert C. Robbins announced the creation of the IRC, which will be led by Dr. Karletta Chief, university distinguished outreach professor of environmental science and Cooperative Extension associate specialist. The IRC will be a partnership between Native Nations, the UArizona Institutes for Resilience, the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice, and several academic programs and faculty members working to support the resilience of Indigenous communities.
In a KOLD News 13 interview, Dr. Chief said that being part of this new initiative has been a dream of hers since she “started this academic journey coming from the Navajo Nation … Growing up on the reservation with no electricity, no running water, and living in a community impacted by coal mining.” UArizona Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation Elizabeth “Betsy” Cantwell commented on Dr. Chief’s leadership saying, “I am particularly grateful we had the opportunity to place at the helm Dr. Chief, whose entire career both as a researcher (Ph.D. Hydrology and Water Resources,University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States, Soil air permeability and saturated
hydraulic conductivity: Development of a soil corer air permeameter, post-fire soil physical changes, and 3D air flow model in anisotropic soils) and an educator has centered traditional ecological knowledge solidly within an academic framework.” The IRC will harness UArizona’s expertise in water resources, climate change, drought, resilience, and outreach to conduct community-driven and place-based Tribal research and engagement. IRC faculty will also develop courses that connect traditional STEM education with Indigenous knowledge, Tribal consultation and research ethics, natural resource management, and more.
Image: Courtesy of Karletta Chief
6. Fall Tree Colors. A Sciencentific Explanation Behind The Brilliant Yellows, Reds And Oranges Of Fall That Dot The Landscape. Whether you travel to the Flagstaff area, hike Aravaipa Canyon’s 12 miles of trails and wet crossings, travel Mount Lemon in Tucson, Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains or the Nature Conservancy’s Ramsey Canyon, near Sierra Vista, the colors are inspiring.
Three main factors work to change leaves’ color: the amount of sunlight the tree receives, the weather, and the pigments in the leaves themselves. The most important factor is the decrease in daylight and increase in darkness that occurs in September and October in the Northern Hemisphere. The longer nights and cooler temperatures jump-start the chemical processes that take place in the leaves, resulting in their change from green to red, yellow, purple, orange, or tawny brown.
Weather conditions are also in play. The most vibrant colors emerge after an early fall marked by cold and sunny weather.
Unusual rain or heat, conversely, may impede the timing and intensity of fall hues.
Summer droughts can shift the timing of the color change earlier or later, too. A bad drought can make trees change earlier than usual and turn brown rather than red or yellow. But at the same time a milder drought caused leaves to turn about a week later than normal.
Scientists are still learning about why the lack of rain can affect colors in different ways, and climate change promises more uncertainty in the timing and brightness of fall foliage.
Throughout spring and summer, a tree’s leaves undergo photosynthesis. Chlorophyll, the green pigment in their cells, absorbs sunlight and uses that energy to break down carbon dioxide and water. That process creates glucose, which feeds the tree, and oxygen, which the tree expels through its leaves.
As days get shorter, photosynthesis slows down, and the tree redirects its energy away from the leaves. Special cells begin to form a barrier, called the abscission layer, that blocks off each leaf from the rest of the tree. This layer protects the nub of the branch where the leaf will eventually fall off, but it also prevents the renewal of chlorophyll in the leaves. As a result, the green pigment fades away, and other pigments in the leaves come to the fore.
In addition to green chlorophyll, the leaves of deciduous trees can contain two other types of pigments: carotenoids and anthocyanins. Carotenoids emerge as the chlorophyll fades and appear as gold, orange, or tan hues (it’s the same stuff in carrots, corn, and bananas). Some trees also produce anthocyanins during the color-turning process. These compounds are antioxidants that produce red, blue, and purple tones in leaves as well as blueberries and grapes. The formation and ratio of pigments in a tree’s leaves depend on the season’s temperature, amount of drought or rain, and available sunlight, so each fall brings a slightly different look.
As a leaf ages, the carotenoids and anthocyanins break down. Brown-toned tannins — a chemical in cell membranes — then become visible.
Obviously, evergreens such as pine, fir, and spruce trees remain green throughout the year, but each species of deciduous tree has its own basic colors. Trees that turn dazzling shades of red include tupelo, dogwood, sweetgum, sumac, some oak, red maple, and sugar maple. In the yellow and gold category are hickories, aspens, tulip trees, and black maples. Beech and some other oaks don’t have much pigment and turn varying shades of tan and brown. Source: https://www.triviagenius.com/the-science-behind-fall-foliage/X3TJG6i1qgAG4y9g?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1367054940.
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