The
Geographer Summer 2013
The newsletter of the
Life, The Universe, and Everything Carbon: sources, sinks & cycles “We’ll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves.” Philip Pullman
Royal Scottish Geographical Society
In This Edition... •W orking with SAGES to Increase Impact •E xpert Views: Carbon Soil, Seas & Solid Rock •E xpert Views: Origins & Innovations of Carbon •O pinions: National Parks & Geoparks •E xpert Views: Dating, Pricing & Reducing Carbon •R eader Offer: Facts are Sacred
plus other news, comments, books... RSGS: helping to make the connections between people, places & the planet
The
Geographer
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R
eaders will know of my pride at what we have achieved with the Fair Maid’s House and the fact that it continues to grow in popularity. I recall that when it opened, our Chief Executive was at pains to explain to me that if the visitors found it to be an enjoyable experience then they would be more likely to want to support the Society and they would tell their friends about their experiences. And it meant something of a learning curve for our volunteer guides, myself included. But we are now in our third year and have clearly learned because we are now seeing increasing visitor numbers. The schools who have visited have all been enthusiastic and, by working with Joyce (our Education Officer) to plan their trip, teachers have really been able to make the most of their visits. It has been reassuring, too, to see the level of support shown by some of our local groups, most recently with visits from Dumfries and Aberdeen, who were delighted that we were able to put maps appropriate to their home area on display, something we try to do for all pre-notified visiting groups. Fraser Shand, our Communications Officer, put the Fair Maid’s House on Trip Advisor and you can imagine my delight when we were rated the top tourist attraction in Perth. And it is to the credit of our volunteers that the friendly and welcoming atmosphere is commented on so positively. And on Thursday one week, when I was in Perth for a meeting then an afternoon as a guide, I was reminded again just how important the volunteers are to the success of the Society because it had not been possible to open the previous day because no volunteers had been available. Life is a bit like that but, to finish on a positive note, the U3A group in Perth are to invite their members to consider becoming volunteer guides in the Fair Maid’s House, not least because they have been researching its history and are delighted that the building has been brought back to life. Enjoy your summer, please continue to help promote the Society and its work in any way you can, and if you have not yet visited the Fair Maid’s House it would be my pleasure to welcome you there.
Exchanging knowledge maximising impact The Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES) is one of the most diverse academic research collaborations in Scotland. Established in 2006, it encompasses nine universities (Aberdeen, Abertay, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Highlands and Islands, St Andrews, Stirling, and West of Scotland) and the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC). By combining expertise from across Scotland, SAGES is both advancing the science of environmental change and ensuring effective societal responses to the challenges presented by this change. And by pooling resources, SAGES has achieved particular success in training graduates, and encouraging interdisciplinary, inter-institutional collaboration. Whereas previous generations of academics often viewed collaboration with suspicion, the new generation knows no other way. SAGES’s mission includes exchanging state-ofthe-art science with policy makers and commerce, and working directly with all sorts of groups, including local government, agencies such as SNH and SEPA, and business. To this end, this edition of The Geographer has been written with SAGES, to highlight one of its four key The areas of current research – the carbon cycle.
Geographer Summer 2013
The newsletter of the
Life, The Universe, and Everything Carbon: sources, sinks & cycles
Royal Scottish Geographical Society
In This Edition...
• Working with SAGES to Increase Impact • Expert Views: Carbon Soil, Seas & Solid Rock
The RSGS has a significant role to play in helping communicate current research science to a wider public, as well as in reinforcing the relevance of geography to society. In addition to the articles in this magazine, some SAGES speakers will appear in this winter’s Inspiring People talks programme. By working with academics and research groups in this way, the RSGS is helping to maximise the impact of their research. “We’ll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves.” Philip Pullman
• Expert Views: Origins & Innovations of Carbon • Opinions: National Parks & Geoparks
• Expert Views: Dating, Pricing & Reducing Carbon • Reader Offer: Facts are Sacred
plus other news, comments, books...
RSGS: helping to make the connections between people, places & the planet
Barrie Brown Chairman RSGS, Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU tel: 01738 455050 email: enquiries@rsgs.org www.rsgs.org Charity registered in Scotland no SC015599 The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the RSGS. Cover image: Professor Iain Stewart experiences the carbon cycle. © David Rowe, Eden Project Masthead image: Illustration of the ‘atomic chicken wire’ structure of graphene. © Jannik Meyer
Professor Trevor Hoey, SAGES Director, University of Glasgow Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive
RSGS: helping to make the connections between people, places & the planet
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NEWS People • Places • Planet Honours for Iains The Society’s President, Professor Iain Stewart, was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, for services to geology and science communication. Professor Stewart is Professor of Geosciences Communication at Plymouth University, and is well known as a writer and broadcaster, fronting popular science documentaries for the BBC, most recently revealing defining moments that have fundamentally shaped each of our continents’ characters, and investigating fracking, the new and controversial energy rush for the natural gas found deep underground. He said, “This award was a surprise to say the least, and I am very honoured to have been awarded the MBE. I spend a lot of my time talking about the planet to anyone who will listen, especially pupils studying geography or geology in schools. The message is always about how amazing the Earth is, but also how the biggest challenges we face relate to understanding how it works and what we’re doing to it.” Also in the honours list was Iain Rankin, who has been awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to the community in Fraserburgh. Iain has been an RSGS member since 1956, and he currently chairs our Aberdeen local group. He has many interests, and volunteers for many organisations from the Scouts to the RNLI to the RSGS. His richly-deserved award reflects his unstinting contribution to the community around Fraserburgh.
RSGS Features on BBC Early in June, the RSGS featured on BBC Two Scotland’s Newsnight Scotland, and BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland. Reporter Andrew Anderson visited the Fair Maid’s House to speak with representatives of the Society in the Explorers’ Room and the Cuthbert Room. A number of volunteers were interviewed about their favourite items from the collection, and several appeared on the programmes, enthusiastically recounting some of the RSGS’s vast repository of stories. Also on BBC Radio Scotland, photographer Bryan Alexander was interviewed for The Culture Studio with Janice Forsyth, about his work and the Whisper of the Stars exhibition.
Antarctic Architecture Exhibition Ice Lab: New Architecture and 26thJuly - 2ndOctober Science in Antarctica is a new international touring exhibition, with a supporting programme of events, illustrating how innovative contemporary architecture is enabling scientists to live and work in one of the most extreme environments on our planet. The exhibition opens at Architecture and Design Scotland, The Lighthouse, Glasgow, from 26th July to 2nd October 2013.
The Gift of Time Mike Robinson
In 2008, as the financial crisis began to bite, the RSGS was obliged to find a new home, knowing that it would inevitably cost more to do so, and at a period when our finances and membership levels were Dr Paulsen FRSGS (left), explorer, struggling. At this point we could have businessm an and philanthropist, receives his Honorary Fellowship cut back our other costs, but with from RSGS Board Member Alister dwindling resources our future as a Hendrie. professional charity would have been in jeopardy. Instead, we took the bold approach of establishing ourselves in Perth, putting in place the basic building blocks of office, staff and systems, and beginning to rejuvenate, refresh and expand everything we did. We have worked hard since 2008 to create a modern vision for the RSGS, to maximise the quality of our work, to build our credibility as an educational charity, to develop an effective work programme, to increase our profile and to inspire new audiences, and thereby to start to turn around our fortunes. We began to articulate our vision in the ‘Discovering the RSGS’ booklet, and were encouraged by the enthusiastic response we received. It is that vision which so impressed the businessman and polar explorer Dr Frederik Paulsen, that he agreed to do something very important for the RSGS. He agreed to buy us time. He agreed to put a generous short-term donation into the Society, because he recognised that for us to be really successful and to become financially sustainable we needed time. Time to build our credibility. Time to build our public profile. And ultimately time to grow our income and find new funding streams. Without Dr Paulsen’s help, we would already have had to cut back. But now we have a great opportunity to build a thriving 21st century charity which can sustain itself long into the future. To achieve this, we need to increase our income by an extra £25-£30,000 over each of the next four years. And to achieve that, I am asking for your help. I need your help to lift the profile of the Society, to promote and publicise our work, to give talks and write articles about the RSGS, and to recruit more members. I need your help to increase the level of donations and legacies, and the number of sponsors and partners for the talks. We have already achieved a great deal, but this next stage is critical. The RSGS has a wonderful heritage and a clear modern vision; it has an important job to do and a desire to reach out further still. Dr Paulsen’s investment in the Society has helped us to get to this stage, but we must now use the weeks and months ahead to increase our profile and our regular income. Everyone can play a role. I hope that you – our members, volunteers, local groups, and other supporters – will get in touch if you feel you can help.
Mike
NEWS People • Places • Planet Cichlid WLTM Any Female…
None Out of Two
In May, aquarists at London Zoo launched an urgent worldwide appeal to find a female mate for the last remaining males of a critically-endangered fish species, the Mangarahara cichlid. The fish is believed to be extinct in the wild, due to dams drying up its habitat in the Mangarahara River in Madagascar.
Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive
Brian Zimmerman, curator of the Zoo’s aquarium, said, “The Mangarahara cichlid is shockingly and devastatingly facing extinction; its wild habitat no longer exists and as far as we can tell, only three males remain of this entire species. It might be too late for their wild counterparts, but if we can find a female, it’s not too late for the species. Here at London Zoo we have two healthy males, as well as the facilities and expertise to make a real difference.”
One of the more unusual voluntary roles I have undertaken in recent years was when the then Environment Minister, Stewart Stevenson MSP, asked me to chair the short-life working group on annual targets for the Scottish Climate Change Act, after the Scottish Parliament rejected the Government’s initial proposals. It led to a frantic summer of brokering, researching and probing the UKCCC, and ultimately adjudicating over the largely political wrangle that ensued, until sufficient agreement was finally reached and a revised set of targets was passed by Holyrood. Having put in such a personal effort around the setting of these carbon reduction targets, it was especially disconcerting to find that the first year’s target was missed. And it is even more disappointing to see the second slip gently by. There are reasons, of course, there always are, but the earlier targets should have been the easier ones to hit, and if we are going to keep telling the world we have world-leading legislation, we are going to have to start to comply with it. Meanwhile, the atmospheric concentration of global CO2 has quietly snuck past 400ppm, the highest level in more than three million years. As if to underline this, at the launch of Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map, International Energy Agency Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said, “the path we are currently on is more likely to result in a temperature increase of between 3.6°C and 5.3°C, but much more can be done to tackle energy-sector emissions without jeopardising economic growth.”
Wild Land News The Scottish Wild Land Group has produced a special issue of its newsletter, focusing on wind energy developments in Scotland, with articles from a number of experts and academics. See www. swlg.org.uk/wind-farms.html for more information and access to an online version.
Back to life, back to reality… University of Alberta researchers, exploring an area high in the Canadian Arctic, were surprised to find plant life emerging from a retreating glacier.
Melting From The Bottom Up A new study has found that basal melt (the melting of ice shelves from underneath) accounted for c55% of all Antarctic ice shelf mass loss from 2003 to 2008, an amount much higher than previously thought. Determining how ice shelves melt will help scientists improve projections of how the Antarctic ice sheet, which holds c60% of the planet’s fresh water, will respond to a warming ocean and contribute to sea level rise and ocean circulation. “The traditional view on Antarctic mass loss is it is almost entirely controlled by iceberg calving,” said Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and the University of California, Irvine. “Our study shows melting from below by the ocean waters is larger, and this should change our perspective on the evolution of the ice sheet in a warming climate.” The ice front of Venable Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, in October 2008 – an example of a small ice shelf that is a large meltwater producer. © NASA/ JPL-Caltech/UC Irvine
Glaciers in the region have been receding at rates that have sharply accelerated since 2004, at about 3m to 4m per year, exposing land covered since the ‘Little Ice Age’, a widespread climatic cooling roughly from 1550 to 1850. Bryophytes can survive being completely desiccated in long Arctic winters, returning to growth in warmer times, but the researchers were surprised by an emergence of bryophytes that had been buried under ice for so long. “When we looked at them in detail and brought them to the lab, I could see some of the stems actually had new growth of green lateral branches,” said Dr Catherine La Farge. The retreating ice at Sverdrup Pass is uncovering an array of life, including cyanobacteria and green terrestrial algae; many of the species spotted are entirely new to science. “It’s a whole world of what’s coming out from underneath the glaciers that really needs to be studied,” said Dr La Farge.
Crofting Course A new crofting course aims to give 14 to 17 year olds a practical foundation in crofting skills, with opportunities to work hands-on at a croft and to learn some of the business skills required. Developed by the National Trust for Scotland, with local crofters and schools in Plockton and on Benbecula, the two-year course will lead to a Level 5 National Certificate in Crofting.
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NEWS People • Places • Planet Testing the water
RSGS Grants 2013 The RSGS’s Scientific Committee has awarded nine grants in 2013. A research grant was awarded to Dr Dave McGarvie for his project Ice-volcano interactions at Quetrupillan, Chile.
The Society has a wealth of items in its collection, which inspired Callum Strong, an avid kayaker whose passion has taken him across the world in search of challenging white waters, to visit the RSGS headquarters to help in planning his next trip.
Travel grants were awarded to Susan Mains (Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Dundee) to attend and present a paper at the Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers; and to Marlies Kustatscher (PhD student, University of Edinburgh) to attend and present a paper at the Fourth International and Interdisciplinary Conference in Emotional Geographies.
“I visited the RSGS archives with an interest in finding maps of Northern Pakistan for an exploratory whitewater kayaking expedition, the British Universities Kayak Expedition 2013. Accurate topographic maps are of great use in planning which rivers will be possible and have quality whitewater, important as we hope to complete a number of first descents on such rivers in the Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountain ranges. The archive team at the RSGS were incredibly welcoming and helpful, buoyed by their obviously great enthusiasm for their work.”
Expedition Grants were awarded to University of Glasgow Iceland Expedition; Glasgow and Suez Canal University Marine Expedition; University of Glasgow Peru Expedition; University of Glasgow Tobago Expedition; Fortrose Academy East Greenland Expedition; and the Expedition Leader of Oxford University Geological Mapping Expedition to Igaliku, Greenland.
Two kayakers face the rapids.
Stunning Wildlife Exhibition
Fife Food Map The Fife Diet has launched an interactive Fife Food Map (www.fifediet.co.uk/about-us/source-locally), showing where Fife residents can source their food locally, from community gardens to veg box schemes, and from farmers’ markets to B&Bs. But they need help to fill in the gaps. So if you know of a great outlet (however big or small) that stocks their minimum required five items of locally sourced food, please let them know by emailing meg@fifediet.co.uk.
Fieldfare. © Fergus Gill
As part of our work with the Forestry Commission to celebrate the Year of Natural Scotland, the RSGS is delighted to host a new exhibition of images by Lorne and Fergus Gill, a father and son who are both multi-award-winning wildlife photographers from Perthshire. Lorne has been a professional environmental photographer for over 20 years, latterly with Scottish Natural Heritage. Inspired by his father, Fergus’s interest developed into a passion when he won the 11-14 year category in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition with a photograph of the aurora borealis.
23rdJuly - 24thAugust
Researchers at Australia’s Charles Darwin University (CDU) measuring ‘blue carbon’, the carbon sequestered in coastal and marine environments, have found mangroves to be among the most carbon-rich vegetation forms, storing on average c3,750 tonnes of CO2 per hectare when in pristine condition. Darwin’s Top End harbour contains more than 19,000ha of mangrove forest, holding carbon worth $460m on the carbon market. Australian Marine Conservation Society spokeswoman Daisy Barham said, “Mangroves store much more carbon than we previously realised,” adding that the plants played a key role in the marine ecosystem.
St Kilda. © Lorne Gill
The exhibition will on display at the Fair Maid’s House in Perth from 23rd July to 24th August. See www. scottishnaturephotography.com for more information.
CDU research student Le Bai explained that half of the carbon locked up for more than 10,000 years could be released into the atmosphere within just eight years of a mangrove forest being cleared. The scientists hope the data they’re gathering could help protect South East Asian coastal environments in years to come, and help in developing estimates of the positive impact on greenhouse gas emissions of mangrove forest rehabilitation.
carbon cycle
Darwin’s mangroves
NEWS People • Places • Planet Cycling Tourism Boost
Meanwhile the national transport agency Transport Scotland has published a new Cycling Action Plan for Scotland 2013, updating the original 2010 plan.
To celebrate London Underground’s 150th anniversary this year, LEGO has recreated five Tube Maps made entirely of LEGO bricks, to be displayed in major London Underground stations throughout the summer. The five LEGO maps show how the network 2020 map. © LEGO Group has evolved over the years, and include a 2020 map to show planned new stations and rail links. Each map, made up of over 1,000 LEGO bricks and measuring 140cm x 100cm, took Duncan Titmarsh, the UK’s only Certified LEGO Professional, four days to build.
Digital Drive Thank you to all those members and supporters who have generously contributed nearly £8,500 so far to our Digital Drive appeal. We have started to make plans for redesigning the RSGS website and building our presence on social media. This will help us to promote geographical issues and the work of the RSGS to many more people than we can reach through traditional media, so that we can encourage support for the RSGS well into the future. It is not too late to support this project, and every donation will make a difference, so please consider helping us if you can. © Timothy Allen Human Planet BBC 2010
The RSGS Digital Drive
“Communication is now so advanced, people at home can virtually live and breathe the adventure.” David Hempleman-Adams
RSGS Appeal Envelope 23.indd 1
18/03/2013 16:14
Marine Biological Station Saved The University Marine Biological Station Millport on Cumbrae, which has been under threat of closure since its funding from the University of London was withdrawn last year, is to be saved through transfer of ownership to the Field Studies Council (FSC). FSC Chief Executive Rob Lucas said, “This is an exciting opportunity for the FSC. Our vision for Millport field centre is for it to become a flagship for field studies in Scotland, building on its reputation for high quality field research and university teaching.”
The Life and Legacy of John Rae An international conference to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Dr John Rae will take place in Stromness, Orkney, on 28th-30th September. The conference will explore Rae’s life and legacy under three themes: Arctic Exploration, Museum Collections and Archive Sources, and The Hudson’s Bay Company and Orcadians in the ‘Nor’ Wast’. In the history of Arctic exploration, Rae is known both for his discovery of the eventual fate of the Franklin expedition, 28th - 30thSeptember and for his own personal success as an Arctic explorer who understood and made use of indigenous Arctic technology. Dr Andrew Cook will represent the RSGS at the conference, speaking about The Goodsir Papers and the Developing Search for Franklin. The Goodsir papers, part of the RSGS collection, are a collection of letters and maps which give an insight into Arctic exploration and travel at the time. See www.johnrae200.co.uk for more information.
Artificial Photosynthesis University of East Anglia scientists, together with colleagues from the Universities of Leeds and Cambridge, are working to develop a more efficient method of renewable energy production, by artificially replicating photosynthesis to produce hydrogen – a zero-emission fuel which can power vehicles or be transformed into electricity. Lead researcher Professor Julea Butt, said, “Many renewable energy supplies, such as sunlight, wind and the waves, remain largely untapped resources. This is mainly due to the challenges that exist in converting these energy forms into fuels from which energy can be released on demand. We have been inspired by natural plant processes. During plant photosynthesis, fuels are made naturally from the energy in sunlight. Light absorption by the green chlorophyll pigments generates an energised electron that is directed, along chains of metal centres, to catalysts that make sugars. We will build a system for artificial photosynthesis by placing tiny solar-panels on microbes. These will harness sunlight and drive the production of hydrogen, from which the technologies to release energy on demand are well-advanced.”
carbon cycle
Campaign group Transform Scotland, in partnership with Sustrans Scotland, has published a report into the economic benefit to Scotland derived from cycle tourism. The study estimates that the current income from cycle tourism in Scotland is between £117.2m and £239m per year, with “massive scope” for growth. The Value of Cycle Tourism sets out recommendations for unlocking the economic potential of leisure cycling, including promoting leisure cycling to a wider range of groups, and supporting marketing of routes particularly in rural areas of Scotland.
Tube of LEGO
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NEWS People • Places • Planet Antarctic Marine Protection Area?
Be Inspired!
A special meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, being held in July, could result in the creation of the largest area of protected ocean on the planet, which would limit fishing and tourist activities in at least 1.6 million square kilometres of ocean around the Antarctic. The Ross Sea and coastal areas of East Antarctica are home to more than a dozen species of whale, more than a third of the world’s emperor penguin population, and a species of squid that can grow to 14m long.
The Inspiring People talks programme for 2013-14 is shaping up to be one of the most exciting seasons yet. Topics covered will include Earth science, digital mapping, exploration, cartography, climate change, ice climbing, railways, peatlands and many more.
The Co-operative Revolution to Visit Perth 6th- 26th August
An outdoor photographic exhibition celebrating cooperation and co-operatives will be on display in Perth from 6th August until 26th August.
The United Nations recognised the powerful, global contribution made by co-operatives to economic and social development by designating 2012 as The UN International Year of Co-operatives. To celebrate this, The Co-operative Group commissioned The Cooperative Revolution, a series of powerful photographs showing the history, scale and scope of co-operation, which began in Rochdale in 1844 when 28 men formed the first successful co-operative society. Featuring 24 stunning large-scale images, the exhibition will be on show outside Perth Concert Hall, just a stone’s throw from the Fair Maid’s House.
Perth’s oldest house is now its newest wedding venue. The Fair Maid’s House has been granted a venue licence by Perth & Kinross Council, and played host to its first-ever wedding in April. We were delighted to welcome Stuart and Kirsty and their children for an intimate ceremony in the Explorers’ Room. The house received its name and reputation from Sir Walter Scott’s novel, which tells of the dramatic romance between Catherine Glover, the ‘Fair Maid of Perth’ and Henry Gow, an armourer amidst the Battle of the North Inch. Now, with a number of distinct rooms perfect for a small wedding party, it could be the ideal setting for any couple who love travel, exploration and the planet.
Coalfield restoration shortfall Following the financial collapse of Scottish Coal and Aardvark (TMC), liquidators from KPMG estimated total restoration costs for the companies’ East Ayrshire sites being “in the region of £48m to £90m”, and noted that the potential value of restoration bonds (effectively insurance policies for cleaning up the mines) was less than £28m. There is concern that East Ayrshire Council, and other local authorities in coalfield areas, will now face significant and unexpected restoration costs.
Andy Torbert
Travel writer and map lover Mike Parker will return to speak, as will fellow travel writer Noo Saro-Wiwa to share her experiences in Nigeria. Fascinating academics including Mike Parker cartography historian Jerry Brotton, geologist Stuart Monro, and geographer Charles Withers will also be speaking in this season, due to run from 16th September. Entry to all these talks is free to RSGS members, so please make sure your membership is up-to-date and please encourage a friend to join you in joining us!
Carbon in China China, responsible for about a quarter of the world’s CO2 emissions, has launched the first of seven regional emissions trading schemes, its first attempt to cut emissions using market mechanisms. Industrial and construction companies will be given quotas for how much CO2 they can emit; those that pollute more than their quota will have to buy credits from those that pollute less. The local pilot schemes should cover 864 million tonnes of CO2 (c7% of China’s total emissions) by 2015, leading to a national carbon market that is scheduled to launch in 2016. There will be some challenges in implementation; for instance, verifying emission levels will be difficult in such a large country, China’s energy market is not independent of government, and it is still unclear how companies will be punished for fraudulent claims or emissions excesses. Emissions trading is just one of the energy and pollution policies being considered for the next few years. For instance, Beijing is looking at a wider carbon tax to restrict pollution by sectors outwith the emissions trading scheme, is investing heavily in renewable energy, and has pledged to reduce the production and use of hydrofluorocarbons.
carbon cycle
Fair Maid of Honour
We’ll be welcoming back adventurers and explorers, including extreme athlete Tim Emmett, diver and TV presenter Andy Torbet, and explorer and RSGS Vice-President David Hempleman-Adams. To celebrate the David Livingstone Bicentenary we will have talks from historian David McClay, journalist Julie Davidson, and explorer John Blashford-Snell.
David Hempleman-Adams
Expert Views: Carbon Cycle
The Origin of Carbon Dr Matthew Pitkin, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow
made by fusing two helium nuclei (two protons and two neutrons) to give a beryllium nucleus, and then sticking on another helium nucleus to give carbon. However, Alpher and Gamow found that because the beryllium nucleus only has a lifetime of approximately 10-16 seconds, there wasn’t enough time during the hot and dense early stages of the universe for it to fuse with another helium nucleus and produce carbon. They were therefore left with a universe containing only the three lightest elements, which was contrary to all observational evidence!
Crab Nebula © NASA
“…it was in fact the problem of making carbon that was the stumbling block.” Further Reading
Kragh H (2010), When is a prediction anthropic? Fred Hoyle and the 7.65 MeV carbon resonance (philsciarchive.pitt. edu/5332)
Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe (after hydrogen, helium and oxygen) and is the sixth lightest element. To understand its origins and relative abundance, we first have to go back to the origin of the universe itself. By the mid-20th century, Edwin Hubble’s observations of an expanding universe suggested that it had started out from an extremely dense and hot initial state: a ‘cosmic fireball’ produced by the Big Bang. However, a question for the Big Bang model was how it produced the known elements in their currently observed abundances (called Big Bang nucleosynthesis). In 1948, a PhD student called Ralph Alpher, working with the renowned physicist George Gamow, published a paper called The Origin of Chemical Elements claiming to solve this problem. But the title slightly overstated the outcome of their work. It was ground-breaking and
correctly predicted that in this ‘cosmic fireball’ the three lightest elements (hydrogen, helium and lithium) would be made in the abundances that are observed today. However, their work couldn’t produce any heavier elements, and it was in fact the problem of making carbon that was the stumbling block. The basic process of forming elements is that you take nucleons (protons and neutrons) and fuse them together to create heavier atomic nuclei. You can then fuse further nucleons, or atomic nuclei, together to produce heavier and heavier elements. This is complicated by several facts: the rates that fusion reactions take place can differ enormously for different nuclei; the rates depend very strongly on temperature and density; and, certain nuclei are unstable to radioactive decay and are very short-lived. To create carbon you require six protons and six neutrons, so it can be
This problem with Big Bang nucleosynthesis was jumped upon by opponents of the Big Bang as a failure of the model. One such person was Sir Fred Hoyle, a forthright theoretical astrophysicist at Cambridge, who, along with others, put forward Steady State models of the universe (that is, an infinite universe with no beginning). However, his models still required that there was some way that elements could be produced, so the problem of creating carbon from lighter nuclei still needed to be solved. In the calculations for trying to fuse three helium nuclei (called the triple alpha process, since helium nuclei are also known as alpha particles), he still found that only insignificant amounts of normal carbon could be produced during the short life of beryllium, but the production rate would dramatically increase if carbon nuclei were created in an ‘excited’ state, that is, a nucleus with additional potential energy in it. There was no theoretical reason why such an ‘excited’ state should exist (in fact it is still unknown why this state exists!), but Hoyle argued that because we exist and we require carbon for our existence, then if this is the only
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Professor Trevor Hoey, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow
way significant amounts of carbon can be produced then this state must be possible. His calculations gave him a precise number for the amount of energy in this state, but he had to convince someone to run an experiment to see if it was true. While visiting the California Institute of Technology in 1953, he persuaded the nuclear experimental groups led by Willy Fowler and Ward Whaling to look for this excited state, and soon after it was confirmed that it did indeed exist. This didn’t mean that Big Bang nucleosynthesis could now produce carbon and the heavier elements, as the process was still far too slow given the expansion of the universe, but there were other environments where it could take place – the cores of massive stars. Hoyle and Fowler, along with the married couple of Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, were able to show how all the elements from beryllium up to iron were synthesised in the cores of stars (called stellar nucleosynthesis). In these massive stellar cores there is a high enough temperature and density of helium nuclei so that even though the beryllium produced from fusing two helium nuclei is extremely short-lived, there is enough of it that some will fuse with other helium nuclei to form the excited state of carbon. Since carbon was required as the starting point for production of all the heavier elements, this allows the large variety we see today. The deaths of these massive stars in supernova explosions have since seeded the universe with the huge quantities of carbon we see today. The evidence now shows that the lightest elements were indeed produced during the Big Bang, and the universe has had enough time to produce all other elements (including carbon) in their observed abundances, via processing in stars.
The global carbon cycle involves transfers of carbon in different forms between four main reservoirs: the oceans, the atmosphere, land (soils and vegetation), and geological reservoirs (fossil fuels and carbonate rocks). These transfers occur over a vast range of timescales, from seconds (in the case of animal respiration and plant photosynthesis) through to millions of years (in the case of diagenesis of fossil carbon into fossil fuel reservoirs). The timescales involved are critical, and key to interpreting simple diagrammatic representations of the cycle. This is exactly the same issue that arises when interpreting other familiar systematic representations of processes, such as the hydrological cycle, in which water locked into ice sheets for millions of years plays a very different role from that evaporated and re-precipitated in warm tropical oceans over timescales of a few days. Recent newspaper headlines reported that atmospheric CO2 levels had reached a new high of 400 parts per million, equivalent to 847 PgC (petagrams of carbon) in the atmosphere (where 1 Pg = 109 tonnes). Whilst this figure is important for climate, it pales into insignificance when compared to Earth’s stored carbon. The ocean contains about 38,000 PgC, vegetation contains a further 500-600 PgC, with litter and soils adding 1,8002,500 PgC. Finally, fossil fuels contain somewhere in the range 5,000-10,000 PgC (a wide range that reflects ongoing exploration of fossil fuel reserves globally).
These large numbers reveal the scale of the various stores of carbon, but most of this carbon remains in these reservoirs. It is the relatively minor transfers between the reservoirs that are most significant for global climate and ocean pH. Carbon is exchanged with the atmosphere through various means: respiration, photosynthesis and decomposition of vegetation and soils; fossil fuel use; and gas exchange with water bodies (mainly the surface ocean but lakes and rivers are also significant). These exchanges are spatially and temporally diverse and can be difficult to estimate. However, recent data suggests that the global forest represents a sink of c2.4 PgC per year. Similarly, the global ocean is estimated to take up about 2 PgC per year, with this figure increasing by 10-20% over the past two decades. Taken together, these figures imply that the atmosphere takes up about half of global CO2 emissions, with the remainder taken up by oceanic and terrestrial sinks. These global figures rely on detailed regional data and do not consider the residence time of the carbon in the reservoirs prior to its release. All of the solutions proposed to deal with climate change, from ‘do nothing’ through behavioural change to geo-engineering, rely on quantification of the carbon cycle and the fundamental science that underpins these measurements.
Levels of petagrams of carbon by reservoir.
“It is the relatively minor transfers between the reservoirs that are most significant for global climate and ocean pH.”
Expert View: Carbon Cycle
Carbon Trading on the Rocks Professor Iain Stewart, University of Plymouth
The thing about living in an “It is airtight chamber for 48 hours is perhaps not that it really makes you contemplate surprising the carbon cycle. you’re on therefore that When the sharp end some of those of it, sealed in a transparent box as reluctant I was with half the removed, to place the oxygen every breath is blame on our a liability. Each one concentrated more CO in my industrial artificial atmosphere. The more I was, the quicker the level emissions of active rose. Left unchecked, the amount carbon look of CO would climb ever higher, eventually reaching levels at which to volcanoes human life would no longer be supported. as an But crammed in with me in this alternative sealed chamber at Cornwall’s Eden Project was something that ‘smoking would counteract this lethal effect. Plants. Two hundred and seventy gun’.” 2
2
Iain Stewart will be one of the speakers in the RSGS’s 2013-14 Inspiring People programme of illustrated public talks.
White Island, New Zealand
four of them, specially selected for their high photosynthetic yield and bathed in light. Drawing CO2 from the air, 10,967 leaves expelled oxygen as an unwanted by-product. Unwanted, of course, except by me. The carbon cycle that I experienced living in my box was ridiculously simple – a stripped-down swap between atmosphere and life. In the real world, carbon is traded between a myriad of sources and sinks, and distributed via all sorts of convoluted connections. An indication of just how surprising some of these pathways can be came in the early 1990s when the ‘Biosphere 2’ experiment began. The eight volunteer residents of a sealed chamber encountered
a problem. The oxygen levels gradually dropped to worryingly low levels. It turned out CO2 was being absorbed by the structural concrete to form calcium carbonate. The project was abandoned. The lesson was a salutary one for the wannabe terraformers. Rocks turn out to be important modulators of the planet’s carbon budget. The chemical weathering of rocks rich in silicate minerals is hugely significant in drawing CO2 out of the air and binding it in temporary residues. Those weathered materials are washed out and transported in solution through rivers and lakes, eventually ending up in the sea. And it is in our seas that most of the carbon gets locked away. There, millions of tiny marine creatures like plankton and coral use dissolved carbon to build their carbonate shells. When the organisms die, they sink to the seafloor as a lime-rich mud that, over time, is compacted into rock. Limestone. In the vast accumulations of limey sea bed, much of Earth’s atmospheric carbon will ultimately reside. Trouble is, if it simply stayed there, locked in for eternity, then Earth’s atmosphere would eventually become carbon free. But instead, over tens to hundreds of millions of years, limestone is recycled as part of a vast planetary recycling machine – plate tectonics, the slow, inexorable motion of the Earth’s rigid outer surface. Ancient sea floors sink into the planet’s hot interior, releasing water and gases that rise with molten rock to erupt from volcanoes as magma, delivering the gases back to the atmosphere. The insulating effect of methane and CO2 spewed from
volcanoes created a greenhouse blanket which sustained our fledgling planet. The emergence and spread of an ever more complex biosphere ensured that, orchestrated by rock weathering, life gradually out-competed volcanism. Life’s tightening draw on the planet’s airspace has seen CO2 levels fall from thousands of parts per million in the geological past to only a few hundred in human times. With the dwindling greenhouse, the Earth has cooled to such an extent that ice ages now routinely come and go. So, the carbon cycle is our global thermostat, and the balancing act between volcanism and life is what regulates it. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that some of those reluctant to place the blame on our industrial emissions of carbon look to volcanoes as an alternative ‘smoking gun’. One prominent geological skeptic, Ian Plimer, put it like this: “Over the past 250 million years, humans have added just one part of CO2 in 10,000 to the atmosphere. One volcanic cough can do this in a day.” But how much CO2 do volcanoes actually emit? It’s a tricky question to answer, given that volcanic chains fume away beneath the sea and most of those on land aren’t monitored in detail. What’s more, diffuse degassing of carbon-rich ground waters also occurs along many of the world’s seismic fault lines. The planet seems to be leaking CO2 all over the place. Given the complexities, it’s not surprising that the volcanic contribution to the global carbon cycle is hard to gauge. Arguably the best guess is that the 500 or so historically active sub-aerial volcanoes would exhale around 250 million tons of CO2 per year; assume another 50 million tons from diffuse degassing from other crustal sources and you get a whopping 300 million tons of this greenhouse gas injected annually into the atmosphere. That’s a lot of coughing. Or is it? In fact, that’s just 1% of what we know humans emit each year. It’s a staggering reminder that we humans are more effective than volcanoes at changing the atmosphere in the box we are living in.
The
Geographer
Expert View: Carbon Economics
8-9
Summer 2013
Why we need carbon pricing Dr Alex Bowen, Principal Research Fellow, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.” These words of Adam Smith explain why economists advocate pricing greenhouse gas emissions – carbon pricing – to fight human-induced climate change. By making the polluter pay, carbon pricing can align private interests with the goal of limiting global temperature increases. Carbon prices can act as a pervasive encouragement for businesses to adjust their investment, their mix of inputs and their research efforts away from greenhouse gas intensive technologies, and for consumers to adjust their spending patterns away from high-carbon products. Pricing is no substitute for the ingenuity required to develop low-carbon innovations, but it does provide strong incentives for people to direct their imaginations towards promoting the collective good. Changes in relative prices do change behaviour, especially in the longer term and when the changes are not expected to reverse. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has argued, “The economic cost of a given reduction in total carbon emissions would be far lower if the reductions occurred wherever they were cheapest. This would happen almost automatically if policy simply taxed all carbon equally, regardless of where it came from or how it was used.” The damages brought about by greenhouse gas emissions do not depend on where the emissions take place around the world, so a uniform global carbon price, delivered for example either by carbon taxes or carbon trading, would be an ideal tool to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions sharply in a cost-effective way. That is also likely to promote political acceptability. It is difficult to be sure what the precise level of the carbon price should be and how exactly to introduce it country by country, but the broad direction necessary for policy is clear. The UK’s Committee on Climate Change projects that a price of £30 per tonne of carbon-dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) in 2020, rising to around £70 in 2030, would be consistent with
achieving UK government targets for emissions reductions, and HM Treasury’s new carbon floor price means that power generation companies are charged around £16 per tonne of CO2 this year.
sectors is very uneven. In the UK, for example, emissions from burning gas for domestic heating are taxed at a much lower implicit rate than emissions from burning gas to generate electricity.
How big an impact do prices like these have on the prices people pay for goods and services? In a hypothetical situation where the price is increased across the economy from zero to £30 per tonne, there would be an increase in the price of petrol of about seven pence per litre (and eight pence per litre for diesel), or less if demand for fuel fell away as a result, which is likely.
The distributional consequences of carbon pricing also have to be considered. If compensatory measures are not taken, it could hit poorer families proportionally harder than rich ones. However, the revenue from charges on carbon or from emission quota auctions could be used to offset the impact of carbon pricing on the disadvantaged to some extent. Indexing welfare benefits to more appropriate price indices would also help.
Given the current uncertainties about the scale, impacts, economics and ethics of climate change, policy-makers will have to be ready to engineer changes in the expected price trajectory over time as evidence is collected about the costs of emissions reductions, the risks of climate change, and the pace of low-carbon innovation. Hence any carbon tax or trading scheme should be revised over time as policy-makers learn from experience. Several countries and regions price carbon or are soon to do so, from California and Quebec to Korea. Unfortunately, the carbon price delivered by the world’s biggest scheme, the EU Emissions Trading System, is currently less than €4 per tonne CO2e, and pricing across
“Several countries and regions price carbon or are soon to do so, from California and Quebec to Korea.”
The consequences for competitiveness have to be assessed too, but they seem unlikely to be substantial for the vast majority of firms. However, the possibility of switching to levying a carbon price on the carbon ‘embedded’ in all domestically consumed goods and services, whether produced at home or abroad – for example, by means of border tax adjustments – is worth considering. Other policies are also needed, particularly to promote innovation and infrastructure investment, but cannot be relied upon by themselves to bring about the necessary reductions in emissions. In either case, carbon pricing is going to prove crucial.
Scottish net greenhouse gas emissions and 2050 target. Source: Scottish Government Climate Change Delivery Plan
Opinions: National Parks & Geoparks
Unfinished Business - National Parks in Scotland John Mayhew, Project Manager, Scottish National Parks Strategy Project
The RSGS has been involved in pushing for national parks in Scotland since 1927, and our members helped establish both the National Trust for Scotland and later the Scottish Campaign for National Parks (SCNP). It wasn’t until 2002-03 that two national parks were finally established, but the SCNP and the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland feel that this is only the beginning.
“...although the world has over 3,500 National Parks... Scotland has only two.”
farming and fishing interests, and at www.ruralscotland.btck.co.uk/ Scotland’s landscapes rank generate new commercial and Projects/ScottishNationalParks or amongst the best in the world in marketing opportunities. National ask me to send you a copy. their richness, quality and diversity. Parks supplement and add value to We have wild mountains, pristine ‘National Park’ is the leading existing designations rather than rivers and lochs, ancient forests, internationally-recognised duplicate or replace them. National and stunning coastline and islands, designation for places of the Park designation is permanent: all rich in wildlife and history. Our highest national importance other arrangements may come and landscapes enhance our quality for natural or cultural heritage, go, but National Parks are rarely of life and our well-being; they abolished. give us inspiration, refreshment and Given this enjoyment. They wide range of provide great benefits, the two opportunities for existing National outdoor recreation, Parks represent including walking, remarkable value cycling, canoeing and for money at a mountaineering. They combined cost of are one of the main about £14m per Rothiemurchus Forest, Gleann Einich, Cairngorm National Park. © Craig Aitchison reasons why people annum. Several visit Scotland, so they of our proposed National Parks including landscape, wildlife support important economic would cost even less than this, as and recreation. It is the highest benefits through tourism, our they would cover smaller areas accolade which can be given to a largest industry. and would require less complex place within its national context. So with landscapes of such quality you might expect Scotland to have several National Parks – the principal tool used across the world to safeguard and manage fine landscapes. However, although the world has over 3,500 National Parks, including 60 in Canada, 29 in Norway, and 14 in New Zealand, Scotland has only two.
Many are truly wild; others, as in Scotland, are wholly or partly livedin, working landscapes. The sort of world-renowned places designated as National Parks include Jotunheimen in Norway, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, Cradle Mountain in Tasmania, the Karakoram in Pakistan, and Yosemite in the USA.
The Scottish Campaign for National Parks (SCNP) and the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland (APRS) have been campaigning for National Parks in Scotland for over 60 years. Both bodies feel that more of Scotland’s landscapes deserve designation as National Parks. We think that the Scottish Government should have a strategy to implement its 2011 manifesto commitment to “work with communities to explore the creation of new National Parks”.
We believe that National Parks bring many environmental, social and economic benefits: they provide a clear focus on a particular place, mechanisms to stimulate and co-ordinate positive conservation management, and additional resources to reflect its importance to the nation. They benefit from an agreed plan designed to safeguard the area’s special qualities for future generations whilst managing competing pressures such as tourism, transport, energy, agriculture, forestry and fishing in integrated and positive ways.
Our joint report, Unfinished Business, launched in April 2013, summarises the benefits which National Parks bring, and recommends improvements to the operation of the two existing and any future National Parks. It sets out criteria against which any future National Park should be assessed, and proposes seven further areas which we consider meet these criteria and therefore merit National Park status, including at least one coastal and marine National Park. We are now campaigning for the Scottish Government to implement our proposals. You can read our report
The Scottish Government provides national funding to sustain communities in and around National Parks, encouraging jobs which support and look after these special places and their ways of life. National Parks bring visitors to remote areas, benefit tourism,
management structures and fewer staff. Please contact me on scnp-aprs@ btconnect.com or 0131 225 7012 for a copy of Unfinished Business, or support our efforts by joining SCNP or APRS. This map shows the existing two National Parks in Scotland (red), and those proposed in the report Unfinished Business (yellow). For interest, it also shows those areas proposed by the RSGS as national parks back in 1944 (blue), and the current UNESCO Geoparks (pink).
The
Geographer
10-11
Summer 2013
Explore Geopark Shetland… Robina Barton, Shetland Amenity Trust
Geopark Shetland, managed by Shetland Amenity Trust (www. shetlandamenity.org), has been a member of the Global Geoparks Network for four years. It is one of seven Global Geoparks in the UK that are supported by UNESCO. The others are Northwest Highlands Geopark in Scotland, FforestFawr Geopark and Geo-Môn in Wales, North Pennines AONB and English Riviera Geopark in England, and Marble Arch Caves Geopark, which crosses the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Geopark Shetland incorporates all of Shetland’s more than one hundred islands. It boasts a three billion year Earth heritage with rocks from every major geological period from the Precambrian to the Carboniferous, and it has been on an incredible geological journey from close to the South Pole, across the Equator, to its current position at the crossroads of the North Atlantic. The climate and landscape have changed dramatically many times, and echoes of these past environments are literally set in stone. Who would have thought that this tiny windswept archipelago in the North Sea has played host to tropical seas, volcanoes, deserts, ice ages and ancient rivers? In the North Mainland you can see the best exposure of the Great Glen Fault – one of Europe’s major tectonic features. The island of Unst, home to the Shetland Ophiolite complex, is, according to Dr Hazel Prichard of Cardiff University, an “open-air museum of oceanic rocks”. At St Ninian’s Isle, you can stroll across the largest and perhaps most beautiful active sand tombolo in the UK, while the Eshaness volcano has been described by the late W Mykura of the University of Edinburgh as “the best section through the flank of a volcano in the British Isles”. Here too you can experience the awesome beauty of one of the highest energy coastlines in the world – blasted by the full force of the North Atlantic.
It is thanks to Professor Derek Flinn of Liverpool University, who sadly passed away in 2012, that Shetland’s geological story has been written at all, but it is by no means finished, and the islands offer wonderful opportunities for further academic research. Meanwhile, the Geopark is working to bring the story to the widest possible audience, with displays at Shetland Museum and Archives, Unst Heritage Centre and the Old Haa in Yell; ‘geowalls’ at Mavis Grind, Haroldswick and Funzie; displays and panels at Braewick and Stennes; and self-guide trail packs exploring the Shetland Ophiolite and Shetland’s volcano. The Geopark supports lifelong learning through primary school workshops, fieldtrips for older pupils, and night classes as part of the local authority adult learning programme. It was commended in the most recent HMI report on Anderson High School in Lerwick, and has helped a number of pupils throughout the isles to gain John Muir Awards. Geopark Shetland is an active member of the Scottish Geodiversity Forum (scottishgeodiversityforum.org) and maintains strong links with the geological community throughout Scotland. In March, Geopark staff helped deliver the Scotland Rocks conference for Geology Higher pupils hosted by RSGS at the Fair Maid’s House in Perth. Closer to home it takes a lead in organising the Shetland Nature Festival (www. shetlandnaturefestival.co.uk) that runs annually in collaboration with European Geoparks Week, and it has developed an endorsement scheme for tourism businesses that currently supports Shetland Geotours and Seabirds-and-Seals. New developments this year include the Geopark Shetland app for Android and iPhone. The app introduces users to Geopark Shetland through Google Maps populated with information about geological sites of interest. GPS triggering alerts users to key locations – a useful aid for people who want to explore Shetland’s fascinating geology for themselves and discover how it underpins the unique natural and cultural heritage of the islands. Sites can be searched by geological theme and the app also includes three walking trails.
Other new developments for this summer include Geopark welcome signs at Shetland’s entry points (Sumburgh Airport and NorthLink Ferry Terminal), a ‘Geoparks corner’ in the Shetland Museum and Archives where people can find out more about other members of the Global Geoparks Network, and area-based information sheets to help all those working in Shetland’s tourist industry to inform visitors about what is on their doorstep. For more information about Geopark Shetland or other UK Geoparks please contact info@ shetlandamenity.org. Shetland’s Geopark is thriving, but Scotland’s geoparks in general are struggling for profile and recognition. Lochaber could not sustain the conditions to maintain recognition as a Global Geopark supported by UNESCO, and ceased to be a member of the Network in 2011. Meanwhile, work is ongoing to secure the long-term sustainability of Shetland and Northwest Highlands Geoparks, although their future is still not guaranteed. The RSGS hopes this can be achieved and that Lochaber may regain membership of the Network in the future too. After all, here in the most geodiverse country in the world, we can surely sustain our geoparks?
The Old Red Sandstone of Shetland’s Devonian period has been carved by the sea to create this stunning landmark at the Giant’s Leg, Bressay. © Jonathan Wills
“Geopark Shetland incorporates all of Shetland’s more than one hundred islands.”
Edmondston’s Chickweed is the best known of the 23 species unique to Shetland. Serpentine outcrops on the island of Unst are the only place in the world it can be found. © Wendy Dickson
Expert Views: Carbon Sinks and Sources
Revealing soil’s inner secrets Professor Wilfred Otten, Professor Philippe Baveye and Dr Ruth Falconer, The SIMBIOS Centre, University of Abertay Dundee
“…we know more about the movement of planets than about the soil under our feet…”
Survival of mankind depends on our ability to sustainably manage our soils. Nevertheless, the view of Leonardo da Vinci 500 years ago that we know more about the movement of planets than about the soil under our feet remains largely true. For a geoscientist, soil may simply be the top layer covering the Earth, formed from the weathering and erosion of underlying rock materials. That thin layer, however, regulates our climate through carbon sequestration, supports growth of crops to meet our everincreasing demands for food supply, and controls our supply of drinking water. So do we know enough about soils to ensure that they continue to deliver critical services, and to manage them to meet our increasing demands? Will soil-carbon sequestration offer a solution to climate change? The evidence of rapid decline in soil health and an increase of soil erosion worldwide may alarmingly suggest not. The terrestrial carbon stock is a phenomenal source of carbon that can have a major regulating role in our climate, both at present and in the future. If we can increase the carbon storage in soil, we may delay the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. If, on the other hand, increased temperatures result in release of CO2, we may further accelerate climate change. Considerable uncertainty persists over the practical conditions under which carbon sequestration in soils is feasible. It has been claimed that carbon sequestration presents a win-win situation to offset anthropic CO2 production. However, this outcome is extremely sensitive to the type of organic matter added to the soil, and many studies dispute these claims. One issue is the priming effect, whereby addition of organic matter to soils stimulates the degradation of old organic matter (around 2,500 years old) previously considered to be stable. Reduced tillage operations have been put forward as a way
to increase carbon storage in soils, but further examination of results reveals that the main effect may be a redistribution of carbon in soil rather than an overall increase. Nevertheless, with composting and recycling, additions of biochar, and stimulation of carbon storage at deeper layers in the soil through cropping, there may be opportunities to increase carbon storage and at least delay acceleration of global warming. The way forward to address these uncertainties is to stop treating soil as a black box and assuming its resilience to changing climatic conditions. Soil is teeming with life and is a fully functioning ecosystem subject to decline in the same way as other ecosystems. A small handful of soil can contain millions of bacteria and kilometres of fungal hyphae. This is possible as soil is highly porous and able to offer a supporting base for attachment, adequate food, water and oxygen, and shelter from predators. No other environment possesses a complexity similar to that found in soil, with phenomenal heterogeneity in physical, chemical and biological structure at spatial scales ranging from nanometre to kilometre and beyond. So how do we make sense of this overwhelming complexity of soils? In the last few years exciting new technologies have emerged, enabling a shift in the way we study soils, offering research opportunities we could only dream of a few years ago. The use of X-ray CT (Computed Tomography) is now readily available. Combined with progress in data analysis, these technologies now allow us to look inside soil at microscopic scales, revealing the intricate and complicated network of pores within which micro-organisms reside, and how they interact with each other, allowing us to quantify for the first time how this living space is affected by soil management. Simultaneous development of explicit process
modelling at these scales begins to reveal how these factors work in tandem to regulate larger-scale processes. In time, this interdisciplinary approach to soil science will stimulate a new way of thinking about soils and their complexity, and will offer alternative ways to measure soils that account for their heterogeneous nature that underpins all processes. These challenging tasks to bridge the scales between micro-organisms and ecosystem services can only be addressed if the brightest scientists from a range of disciplines work together, but if successful, novel insights will be obtained that may remove much of the uncertainty that we currently have about the future of our soils.
Soil’s inner space revealed: with X-ray CT, the internal pore structure can now be visualized to develop novel approaches to study soils.
Novel approaches to understand terrestrial carbon sequestration based on modelling fungal-carbon interactions in pore space.
The
Geographer
12-13
Summer 2013
A New Era for Peatlands Clifton Bain, Director, IUCN UK Peatland Programme
industry to treat brown water. On The Flow Country in Caithness agricultural land and sporting and Sutherland, where peatlands estates, eroding peatlands pose a blanket the landscape, is one of direct threat to lambs and young the natural wonders of the world. grouse which can become trapped Rich carpets of colourful mosses in deep gullies. The price for interspersed with lochans extend restoring the peatlands is small as far as the eye can see, and by comparison to these negative the calls of dunlin, golden plover costs, but the problem is that the and black-throated diver resonate costs to society from damaged across the vast expanse. This is peatlands are not fully reflected in a breath-taking scene and all the the support and incentives given more marvellous for the fact that to land managers. The days of this ancient site stores over 400 incentivising million tonnes of people for carbon in the peat damaging which is locked peatlands in in by the wet, the UK have moss-rich habitat. fortunately Peatlands extend gone, but we over almost a third cannot simply of Scotland and leave them hold an incredible damaged and 1.6 billion tonnes Peatlands are an important visitor attraction. © Norman Russell deteriorating. of carbon. The The future of our peatlands huge significance for our climate is depends on finding ways to reward that this stored carbon is released good peatland management which when peatlands are damaged. secures them in a wet, functioning A loss of only 5% of Scotland’s state. peat store equates to around ten years of Scotland’s greenhouse In a welcome move, the UK’s four gas emissions. This is an alarming country Environment Ministers statistic considering that the have signed a joint statement of majority of our peatlands are in intent to conserve peatlands and a degraded state, having been set out an outline plan of action damaged by past drainage for to help restore them. This gives forestry and agriculture along with a clear policy signal, and now frequent burning and high livestock the key challenge is securing the grazing levels. resources and people’s support The good news is that there are well-proven and successful restoration methods for rewetting peatlands, which help prevent carbon loss and restart the process of carbon sequestration as the habitat recovers. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) UK Peatland Programme, based in Scotland, is a partnership aimed at helping conserve and recover over a million hectares of peatland by 2020. Through its Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands, the programme has helped bring together scientists, land managers, policy makers and businesses in an effort to ensure that the true values of peatlands are understood. The results of the Inquiry highlighted that damaged peatlands impose huge costs to society in terms of biodiversity loss and the carbon emissions that add to global warming, alongside mounting costs to the water
for this action. Peatlands are not widely appreciated, and considerable effort is needed to overcome the perception of these as worthless wasteland. Several partnerships now exist where people can learn first hand about the values of peatlands, including land managers’ seminars, education visits, art events and volunteer activity helping restore local peatlands. Funding of over £1.7 million has been made available by the Scottish Government to help pay for peatland restoration, in addition to the other public funds through agri-environment payments for example. The Scottish Government has recognised that peatlands, as well as being important for biodiversity, can make a contribution to Scottish climate change targets. International climate accounting methods now recognise that rewetting a damaged
peatland helps shut off the loss of carbon to the atmosphere, providing an emission saving. It has been estimated that delivering 600,000ha of Scotland’s peatlands into good condition could provide an average emissions saving equivalent to around 2.7Mt CO2 per year. Peatland restoration is therefore a significant and important additional tool in the urgent task of reducing Scotland’s emissions. With increasing evidence of the benefits that peatlands provide, comes the exciting new opportunity of commercial sponsorship for restoring and maintaining peatlands. Market research suggests some companies are interested in helping fund this work in recognition of the carbon and biodiversity benefits. Work is underway in developing a Peatland Code to help quantify these benefits and ensure that the projects are effectively managed to a high standard, with the potential for companies to report on the carbon and biodiversity outcomes. A pilot phase of the Peatland Code is being facilitated by the IUCN UK Peatland Programme with support from Scotland’s 2020 Climate Group to help bring together interested land managers and businesses. It is no exaggeration to say that we face the start of a new era for peatlands, where we recognise their importance as natural capital and maintain them in a healthy condition rather than ignore them or seek to exploit them for short-term gain.
Common sundew. © Lorne Gill
“The days of incentivising people for damaging peatlands in the UK have fortunately gone, but we cannot simply leave them damaged and deteriorating.” Clifton Bain will be one of the speakers in the RSGS’s 2013-14 Inspiring People programme of illustrated public talks.
Expert Views: Carbon Cycle
C, Sea and CO2
Professor Jason Hall-Spencer, School of Marine Science and Engineering, University of Plymouth
“This study of underwater volcanoes to investigate the impacts of ocean acidification is a new approach that is being adopted worldwide.”
Further Reading
Rodolfo-Metalpa R, Houlbrèque F, Tambutté E, Boisson F, Baggini C, Patti FP, Jeffree R, Fine M, Foggo A, Gattuso J-P, Hall-Spencer JM (2011), Coral and mollusc resistance to ocean acidification adversely affected by warming (Nature Climate Change, 1)
The global oceans currently absorb over 25 million tons of CO2 every day. This has caused surface waters to become 30% more acidic since widespread burning of fossil fuels began, although they will never become acid (below pH7) as there is not enough carbon on Earth for us to burn to do that. As well as lowering pH, increased CO2 levels are altering surface water chemistry, causing a decline in carbonate ions and an increase in bicarbonate ions, and lowering calcium carbonate saturation states.
are at ambient temperature and lack the poisonous sulphur compounds which typify most volcanic vents. Impacts on marine life are obvious – shells and corals dissolve and there are 30% reductions in biodiversity in areas where average pH has dropped by 0.4 units compared with areas at normal seawater pH (8.2). The worrying thing is that the same effects of CO2 on biodiversity loss are seen at each of the volcanic vent systems studied so far.
Natural CO2 vents are providing insights into Jellyfish. © Jason Hall-Spencer which species are It is the rate at tolerant of long-term high CO2 which we are burning fossil levels, and are being used to test fuels that is the problem, as it predictions based on modelling is causing levels of calcite and and laboratory work, such as what aragonite to fall in the surface of levels of CO2 exposure restrict our oceans worldwide. This is a the ability of mussels and oysters major concern since calcite and to build shells. Jellyfish, stinging aragonite are the building blocks anemones and lush stands of of shells for a range of marine seagrasses thrive at increased CO2 organisms, from tiny planktonic levels, but calcified groups such coccolithophores (that make up as corals, sea urchins and bivalves the White Cliffs of Dover) to the are removed from the coastal corals responsible for the Great ecosystems, and algae such as Barrier Reef. Research into the Sargassum sp and Caulerpa spp marine environmental effects of take over. In brief, this research increased oceanic CO2 levels is has shown: mainly being carried out using experiments whereby pH or CO2 • major ecological tipping points levels are manipulated in aquaria along a gradient of increasing and enclosures, but it is difficult CO2 levels; to scale up from these short-term • most corals can’t tolerate the small experiments to predict CO2 levels predicted for 2100; what will happen to life within our • acidification dissolved the shells coastal waters. of calcified species such as To tackle this problem, corals, sea urchins and snails, researchers are beginning to use which were absent in areas with underwater volcanic vents as a pH less than 7.4; natural laboratories to document • high CO2 favoured the production ecosystem-wide responses to longof seagrass and removed its term changes in ocean pH. Around calcareous epiphytes; volcanoes in Japan, Papua New • the amount of calcified algae, Guinea and Italy, carbon dioxide which bind coral reefs together bubbles up from the seabed like in the tropics, fell from more a jacuzzi. Gas analyses show than 60% cover outside the vent that these vents release millions areas to zero within these areas; of litres of CO2 per day, causing long-term gradients of seawater • invasive alien species, which acidification. These sites have cause damage to ecosystems been targeted for research into worldwide, can thrive at high CO2 ocean acidification since they levels;
•o cean warming (the other consequence of CO2 emissions) exacerbates the adverse effects of ocean acidification. This study of underwater volcanoes to investigate the impacts of ocean acidification is a new approach that is being adopted worldwide. It demonstrates, for the first time, what happens to marine ecosystems when key groups of species are killed due to rising CO2 levels. We are now undergoing the fastest rate of ocean acidification the Earth has seen for at least the past 20 million years, so this work adds urgency to the international policy drive to reduce CO2 emissions.
Limpet shells: under normal conditions, covered in life (above); barren and corroded by CO2 (below). © Jason Hall-Spencer
Very little can survive high levels of CO2 in seawater. © Jason Hall-Spencer
The
Geographer
14-15
Summer 2013
Ocean acidification and mussels Dr Susan Fitzer, Dr Vernon Phoenix, Professor Maggie Cusack and Dr Nick Kamenos, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow Recent Scottish Government figures place an annual value of over £90M on the shellfish industry, including about £5M from aquaculture. Shellfish include crustaceans and molluscs, included among which are mussels. The total sale value of shellfish forms a significant part of the primary sector of the Scottish economy. The potential for ocean acidification to damage this industry is an important reason for further research into the causes and consequences of this environmental change. As mankind puts more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, more of this CO2 dissolves in our oceans causing the water to become more acidic (less alkali). Indeed, we know that increased atmospheric CO2 has caused a decline in pH of 0.1 Blue mussel shell. units since the Industrial Revolution. The predicted increase in atmospheric CO2 from 380 parts per million (ppm) to 1,000 ppm by 2100 is further predicted to lead to a decline in ocean pH by 0.4 units by the same time. Any change in pH has a significant effect on marine organisms through affecting biomineralisation, the process by which organisms produce exoskeletons such as shells and corals. The marine environment contains an abundance of diverse biomineralising organisms. Recent projections indicate that the degree of anticipated ocean acidification could catastrophically limit the ability of many of these organisms to biomineralise. Without these biominerals, organism function would be critically inhibited – for example, shells that do not develop fully will make organisms vulnerable to predation. The effect of pH is partly through carbonate biominerals dissolving
through time due to exposure to low pH (acidic) water, but the low pH may also lead to the minerals being grown at a reduced rate initially. However, biominerals are not exclusively made of minerals but also contain proteins. Consequently, to unravel how ocean acidification will affect biominerals, we must examine its impact on the expression of biomineralising proteins and the complex biomineral structures that they produce. This is a new and exciting area of research which involves new understanding of how proteins control biomineralisation. Recent research has suggested that proteins exert significant control over both the chemistry and the physical structure of the biominerals, although these controls are complex and much more remains to be discovered. Long-term ocean acidification will impact on the protein and mineral components of many species. We are studying the common blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, to develop understanding of these impacts. This work involves growing the mussels in controlled laboratory conditions in which sea-water temperature and pH can be varied independently, as well as together. The experiments are necessarily quite short-term and so focus on the biochemical processes involved. In the long term, the effects of inheritance and natural selection through the generations are intriguing and await further analysis. Initial short-term laboratory data have revealed changes in protein expression and reduced shell growth. Longer-term experiments are needed to provide further evidence of how this will affect mussels as they move through their life cycle and reproduce.
This work is designed to help our understanding of likely future impacts of ocean acidification on the health of the common blue edible mussel, and will address the important question of whether these mussels could potentially adapt to such changes in ocean chemistry. Ocean acidification is an unseen element of climate change, but one that could have very significant consequences. It results from part of the global carbon cycle that may be easy to ignore, highlighting the need to consider all of the exchanges of carbon that occur worldwide on a daily basis if we are to fully appreciate the impacts of ongoing CO2 rise.
“Ocean acidification is an unseen element of climate change, but one that could have very significant consequences.”
Diver studying ocean acidification at CO2 vents. © G Caramana
Expert View: Carbon Dating
Forensic Applications of Radiocarbon (14C) Gordon T Cook and Elaine Dunbar, Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC)
Radiocarbon (14C) dating is perhaps best known for its applications in archaeology, although it is also used extensively in the environmental sciences for such diverse applications as studies of the terrestrial carbon cycle and deep ocean circulation, and to identify sources of organic, atmospheric particulates. As a dating technique, the fundamental principles are that radiocarbon is produced at a constant rate in the upper atmosphere and is rapidly incorporated into the food chain. Consequently, all living organisms throughout time have had the same activity of radiocarbon per gram of carbon. On death, an organism ceases to take up radiocarbon and only the radioactive decay process then operates. Radiocarbon decays at a known rate and therefore, since we also know what the activity was during life and we can measure the activity at some point after death, we can calculate the time that has elapsed since death.
“This technique has been shown to be accurate to within one or two years.�
Atmospheric activity in the Northern Hemisphere, 1950-2010.
The Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre undertakes a wide range of radiocarbon measurements. It also hosts a UK national radiocarbon dating facility funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
Unfortunately, human activities have upset the natural radiocarbon balance. The onset of the Industrial Revolution resulted in massive burning of fossil fuels which brought about the release of stable carbon but no radiocarbon since, as a result of the great age of these fuels, the radiocarbon had all decayed away. Then, in the 1950s and early 1960s, atmospheric nuclear weapons testing caused an almost doubling of the Northern Hemisphere’s atmospheric radiocarbon activity. In 1963 there was a partial test ban treaty, and since then the radiocarbon activity in the atmosphere has declined as the excess has entered the biota and
the oceans. The graph, based on radiocarbon measurements made on annual tree rings, illustrates the atmospheric activity in the Northern Hemisphere between 1950 and 2010, where 1 x A0 is the natural radiocarbon level (free of anthropogenic influences). While both of these anthropogenic influences have had a detrimental effect on radiocarbon dating in its traditional sense, the latter effect (the so-called bomb effect) has enabled other radiocarbon applications to be developed.
Normally, the analysis of a single tooth will result in ambiguity, since the radiocarbon activity can reflect a year when the activity was rising to the peak in 1963, or that same activity can reflect a post1963 year when the activity was declining. This can be resolved by measuring the activity in teeth that form at different times after birth. For instance, if the activity in the central incisor (crown formation is complete by four or five years after birth) is lower than that of the second molar (crown formation is complete by seven or eight years after birth), the year of birth is pre-1963, on the up-slope of the bomb peak. If the activity of the central incisor is higher than that of the second molar, the year of birth is post-1963. Work carried out by SUERC has further demonstrated that a single tooth can be used to unambiguously define the age. This has been established by measuring the radiocarbon in the crown enamel, and the collagen-like component derived from the dentine and cementum in the root. Since the root forms after the crown, a pre-1963 birth date should be indicated by the root having the higher activity, and for a post-1963 birth date the root activity should be lower than that of the crown. This technique has been shown to be accurate to within one or two years, and offers a significant advance over radiocarbon analysis of bone collagen which has a slow turnover rate. In such cases, the only information that can typically be gained from radiocarbon measurements is whether or not the person lived during the nuclear era.
One new radiocarbon technique lies within the forensic sciences, where the determination of age at death in human skeletal remains is a particularly important component of the preliminary profile that is developed by forensic anthropologists. An accurate evaluation of age at death will serve to eliminate possible missing persons from any police inquiry, or serve to highlight those that might require additional investigation. When teeth are present, there is the potential to provide quite a precise estimate of the year of birth for people who were born during the nuclear era or directly prior to this time (up to almost 60 years of age). The reason lies in the fact that tooth enamel contains a small carbonate component (approximately 0.4%) that is not exchangeable. Therefore, the radiocarbon activity of the carbonate component of the tooth enamel is a reflection of the radiocarbon activity in the atmosphere during the time of enamel formation, and of course we know relatively precisely when the various teeth form in the body. Taking these points together with the fact that the activity in the atmosphere has been changing relatively rapidly over the past 55 years or so, this provides the ability to assign the measured radiocarbon activity to a specific year (or A human tooth used for radiocarbon measurements, years). sized against a one pence piece.
The
Geographer
Opinion: Carbon Structure
16-17
Summer 2013
Graphene: Carbon, one atom at a time Fraser Shand, Communications Officer, RSGS
Graphene is a completely new material, a material of opposites with some surprising properties. Not only is it the thinnest (only one atom thick!) but it is also the strongest material ever. Almost completely transparent, yet so dense that even the smallest gas, helium, cannot pass through. First isolated in 2004, the material has massive potential to be used in a variety of applications, from consumer electronics to the lightweight satellites of the future. In simple terms, graphene is an atom-thick sheet of graphite, the material most commonly found as the lead in pencils. On the nanoscale it looks like a sheet of chicken wire. The bonds between these carbon atoms, which are linked in hexagonal shapes, each atom bonded to three others, is extremely strong (200 times stronger than steel), giving the material high tensile strength (it is flexible and can be stretched). The material is also very light; a metresquare sheet would weigh just 0.77 milligrams. Graphene is one of the several forms of carbon known as ‘allotropes’, structurally different forms of the same element, with atoms bonded together in different ways. The best-known forms of carbon are diamond, graphite and fullerines. Whilst in diamonds, atoms are arranged in pyramid shapes, graphite is arranged in sheets of hexagonal lattice, and fullerines are these same hexagonal lattices arranged into shapes including balls (the Buckminsterfullerine, or buckyball) and cylinders (carbon nanotubes). In these different forms, carbon takes on new properties: diamond electrically insulating and hard, graphite conductive and soft. If you’re a keen cyclist, golfer, or player of any game that involves a racket or club, the chances are that you will have picked up a carbon-enforced frame or racket. Manufacturers currently tend towards using carbon fibres or carbon nanotubes as a way of increasing strength and reducing the weight of the frames, but
research has found that using graphene could match this strength with a tenth of the weight. Composite materials, combining graphene with plastics and metals, can be lightweight and super-strong. Plastics could be turned into electrical conductors that are both heat-resistant and mechanically robust. Aircraft, spacecraft and cars could become lighter and stronger as a result. A sheet of graphene that was wide enough is strong enough, despite being only one atom thick, to lift a full-grown elephant! Graphene could become the wonder material of the future, and has many potential uses. • Transistors. Graphene’s electron mobility is faster than in any known material. Its density is a million times greater than copper, and its intrinsic mobility is a hundred times greater than that of silicon, which it may replace in microchips. Electrons can move through graphene with virtually no resistance.
their work in 2010. The physicists, both from Russia, were looking into graphite’s potential as a conductor when they made their discovery. Amazingly, isolation of graphene was performed using common everyday sticky tape. However, not everyone could make their own sheets of graphene with their HB pencil; they also needed an acetone bath, silicon, an optical microscope, and a lot of patience!
“In simple terms, graphene is an atomthick sheet of graphite...”
It was believed at the time that there was no way that such a thin crystalline material could be stable. The Nobel Prize committee described Geim and Novoselov’s work: “playfulness is one of their hallmarks, one always learns something in the process and, who knows, you may even hit the jackpot. Like now when they, with graphene, write themselves into the annals of science”.
• Biodevices for disease detection and the analysis of DNA structure. • Batteries that charge faster. Some researchers predict that high-quality graphene could be used as a super-capacitor. You may no longer have to wait for hours for your mobile phone to charge, graphene batteries could charge in seconds, and an electric car could charge in minutes, making this green technology far more practical and usable. Not only that, these batteries might have as much as ten times more retention capacity than current batteries. • Solar cells, replacing silicon in solar panels. Graphene is able to absorb a very large spectrum of light colours. • Sensors, to detect gasses and explosives; water filters; and oil spill clean-up material. In 2004, researchers at the University of Manchester successfully produced sheets of graphene for their research. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for
However, despite the Nobel recognition and the great excitement surrounding graphene, its uses remain largely theoretical. There are two big barriers to graphene: production, and cost. So far it is difficult to produce more than a few tiny flakes, useless for electronic applications. Research efforts are being put into developing more effective production techniques. It will be a while before we see the benefits of graphene in affordable items. The best quality graphene currently costs £1,000/mm2, but poorer quality graphene, which can be used in composite materials, is available at £10/cm2. There is little chance that we are going to see the benefits of graphene until these production and cost issues have been solved, but some suggest the material could develop into a $600bn dollar industry.
Illustration of the ‘atomic chicken wire’ structure of graphene. © Jannik Meyer
Education
Science in Schools As a result of the highly successful Scotland Rocks conference we hosted in March, local MSP Liz Smith invited Perth High School pupils to deliver a lunchtime presentation to MSPs in Holyrood, highlighting how they had benefited during their year of studying Higher Geology. Armed with data from the University of St Andrews, which showed a great deal of support particularly from Geography teachers, the students’ enthusiastic presentation provoked a fascinating discussion amongst the cross-party audience about the value of Geology
(and Earth Sciences) in the Scottish curriculum. It further raised concerns amongst MSPs about the Scottish Qualification Authority’s decision to remove the qualification from 2015. It is hoped that this lobbying will result in the SQA retaining Higher Geology, or launching a revised qualification in Earth Science. Alongside this, there is an obvious need for teachers to be supported and trained (something that hasn’t happened in any coherent way since 1985!), possibly using a combination of distance learning, summer school and mentoring. Craig Davidson, one of the Perth High School pupils, told RSGS, “It was very beneficial to be able to interact with MSPs and to share our experiences of studying
geology. I hope our presentation made as much impact on them today as studying geology has made on me this year.” The next step is a meeting with the minister responsible for science in schools, Dr Alasdair Allan MSP, Minister for Learning, Science & Scotland’s Languages. RSGS Chief Executive Mike Robinson is optimistic: “The logic is surely irresistible. The government want to see more science in our schools, yet are removing large elements of physical geography from the Higher and removing geology altogether. If we want a more scientifically literate populus, we need more geology and geography, not less.”
Stories in the Land The RSGS is keen to help children to make connections with their surroundings, reinforcing their sense of place. This empathy for local geography is endorsed in the guidelines for the Curriculum for Excellence, which states that “all children and young people are entitled to experience [an education that] should include an understanding of the world and Scotland’s place in it, and an understanding of the environment”. But how can this be done in practice? The RSGS has become a repository of many of the most outstanding stories of the past 150 years. Our Education Officer, Dr Joyce Gilbert, has drawn on this tradition to work with schools in Badenoch and Lochaber, exploring their local drove roads and their associated stories. These droving routes were the main thoroughfares for travel and for moving cattle to market, and although less trodden today, they still connect communities and connect the members of those communities to their landscapes in a very visceral and understandable way. In Badenoch, accompanied by a pony and traveller’s cart, Joyce and a group of professional storytellers and tradition-bearers have been exploring sections of the drove roads with local schools and communities. Children and adults have very much enjoyed the opportunity to develop their knowledge, and to familiarise themselves with their local landscapes and culture through shared stories. The project has really brought to life the history and geography of droving. Stories in the Land reinforces the value of outdoor and intergenerational learning, whilst at the same time placing emphasis on the importance of an oral tradition which is linked to journeys. Bob Powell, High Life Highland’s Principal Museums Officer, commented, “Through the Stories in the Land project there is a great opportunity to encourage people, especially young people, to develop their awareness of their culture and heritage and hopefully ensure a continuity of knowledge and interest for generations to come.” Stories in the Land is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Ernest Cook Trust.
The
Geographer Extra-terrestrial carbon SAGES scientist Dr Andy McLeod co-authored a paper in 2012 about the likely source of methane (CH4) in the atmosphere of Mars, suggesting for the first time that a non-biological source of the methane is possible, with implications for interpreting evidence for life on Mars. “Methane doesn’t persist in the atmosphere, which means there must be some sort of process that continuously produces it,” explained Dr McLeod. See Keppler et al (2012), Ultravioletradiation-induced methane emissions from meteorites and the Martian atmosphere (Nature, 486). Measuring CO2 uptake by forests PhD student Toshie Mizunuma, supervised by SAGES scientists, recently reported a cost-effective method for estimating carbon dioxide uptake by forests, by using colour analysis of images of tree leaves captured by digital camera. See Mizunuma et al (2012), The relationship between carbon dioxide uptake and canopy colour from two camera systems in a deciduous forest in southern England (Functional Ecology, 27). Pictures taken from the top of the flux tower in Alice Holt on 5 March 2010 and 5 July 2010; in July, Lammas growth is seen on the oak trees.
University of Glasgow “The Answer, My Friend, Is Blowing in the Wind…” Professor Susan Waldron (www. carbonlandscapes.org) The UK government is offering greater power to local communities to comment on proposed wind farm developments. But there is a need for informed planning consent through scientific understanding of such developments. The key questions are: if there is an impact, how long is it prevalent, and how does the landscape respond to hosting such infrastructure? SAGES researchers are well-placed to generate this understanding, given the many wind farms in Scotland. Further, many sites chosen for onshore wind farms are also our carbon-rich peatlands offering an important ecosystem service of
carbon sequestration. So construction is only favourable if the CO2 expended is offset by the fossil fuel carbon later saved.
University of St Andrews
A wide range of research projects are being undertaken:
Yit Arn Teh
•B en Smith (Glasgow) is constructing budgets of carbon, nutrients and fluvial sediment export for the Gordonbush Wind Farm, Brora, to assess if there are enhanced losses as a result of construction, as part of SSE’s habitat management plan. •A ntony Phin (Edinburgh) is working in the heart of the Phase 2 and 3 extensions of Whitelee, Europe’s largest wind farm, southwest of Glasgow, to understand and model the source of any higher concentrations of carbon and nutrients in the drainage systems, and how these may be attenuated within the drainage network. •D r Melanie Van Nieukirk (Stirling) has finished a PhD on carbon in drainage waters of the Arecleoch Wind Farm in South Ayrshire. She found that the complexity of landscapes, due to past land use, can leave a legacy strong enough that the impact of new development is difficult to identify easily – important when many wind farms require forest felling for development. •P rof Susan Waldron (Glasgow) has been leading a team assessing how peatland responds to hosting a wind farm. There is evidence that the mixing of air masses and turbulence from blade rotation can cause differences in temperature within wind farms, and the biogeochemical processes within peatland that control carbon cycling are temperature sensitive. •M icroclimates has been measuring CO2 and CH4 efflux from four sites within Blacklaw Wind Farm in Lanarkshire. The gas efflux data will be considered in conjunction with detailed meteorological variables (led by the University of Leeds), to assess if the wind farm exerts the primary control on peatland functioning as characterised by gas efflux or whether other independent variables, such as plant functional type, are more important.
Installation of field monitoring equipment by the Microclimates team.
Balancing the budget Tropical soils are the largest natural emitters of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O), and play an active role in the global atmospheric methane (CH4) budget: tropical wetland soils are the single largest natural emitters of atmospheric CH4; non-wetland ecosystems can act as both atmospheric CH4 sources and sinks, contingent on hydrology, topography and land-use. There are large uncertainties in regional and global atmospheric budgets of CH4 and N2O, with recent models indicating that the terrestrial tropics are releasing much more CH4 and N2O than predicted by some emissions inventories. Researchers from the Universities of St Andrews (Teh & Diem), Edinburgh (Jones & Meir), and Aberdeen (Richards, Smith & Baggs) hypothesized that these discrepancies most likely arose from a failure to fully account for all possible known sources. Tropical studies have largely focused on the lowland Amazon, with much less attention paid to potentially critical habitats such as tropical uplands or perennially flooded wetlands in Latin America. So the team is investigating soil CH4, N2O and CO2 dynamics on the eastern slope of the Peruvian Andes, from 200 to 3,500 metres above sea level, quantifying soil trace gas fluxes, meteorological conditions, soil temperature, soil moisture, water table depth, soil oxygen availability, soil carbon, total and available soil nitrogen, and inorganic phosphorus. So far we have found that these seasonal Andean ecosystems act as both sources and sinks of atmospheric CH4 and N2O. Methane fluxes vary strongly with elevation: higher elevation ecosystems act as strong atmospheric sources; lower elevation ecosystems fluctuate from source to sink depending on rainfall and topography. This study indicates that tropical uplands may act as net atmospheric sources of CH4, or far weaker sinks than previously thought. Past ‘bottom-up’ extrapolations of terrestrial N2O emissions have also predicted far weaker atmospheric fluxes than observed here, suggesting that upland tropical ecosystems may make a far more important contribution to atmospheric budgets than previously anticipated.
University News
University of Edinburgh
18-19
Summer 2013
Scottish Geographical Journal
The RSGS’s academic journal is available from Taylor & Francis on-line at www.tandf.co.uk/journals/ RSGJ or in hard copy. All RSGS members are entitled to receive the Scottish Geographical Journal for free. If you are not currently receiving the SGJ but would like to, please contact us by emailing enquiries@rsgs.org or phoning 01738 455050.
On The Map
Revealing Antarctica’s landscape British Antarctic Survey scientists and international collaborators have compiled the most detailed map yet of Antarctica’s landmass, using radio echo sounding measurements, seismic techniques, satellite readings and cartographic data. The map reveals a complex landscape of mountain ranges and plains cut by gorges and valleys. Key statistics include: • a new deepest point has been found – the bed under the Byrd Glacier in Victoria
• • •
•
Land is 2,870m below sea level, the lowest point on any of the Earth’s continental plates; the volume of Antarctic ice is 4.6% greater than previously thought; at 95m, the mean bed depth of Antarctica is 60m lower than estimated; the volume of ice grounded with a bed below sea level is 23% greater than thought, so there is a larger volume of ice susceptible to rapid melting caused by ocean currents; Antarctica’s total potential contribution
to global sea level rise is 58m, similar to previous estimates but a much more accurate measurement. Dr Hamish Pritchard, co-lead author of the study, explained, “The data we’ve put together on the height and thickness of the ice and the shape of the landscape below are fundamental to modelling the behaviour of the ice sheet in the future. This matters because in some places, ice along the edges of Antarctica is being lost rapidly to the sea, driving up sea level.”
© British Antarctic Survey
What Geography Means To Me
“I wanted the subject of my doctoral research to be a subject which I could see as important to society.”
Dr Helen Murray
Assistant Scientist, Scottish Environment Protection Agency
G
eography literally means ‘writing about the earth’, and that, in simple terms, is what I have been doing since graduating with my BSc (Hons) in Environmental Chemistry and Geography from the University of Glasgow in 2007. I always enjoyed learning about the physical features of our planet and studying how human activity affects, and is affected by, the environment, so my degree subjects felt like a natural choice. My enthusiastic geography teachers at Eastwood High School (Mr Crawford, Miss Walker and Mr Griffin), who made me understand the real-world relevance of geography, have to take much of the blame for this! When the opportunity arose to undertake a SAGES-funded PhD
investigating Europe’s largest onshore windfarm at Whitelee, I jumped at the chance. It seemed an obvious choice for me to continue my interest in examining the human impact on the environment. I did not want to carry out esoteric research (like my brother’s physics PhD on gravitational waves!). With climate change continuing and ambitious renewable targets in Scotland, I wanted the subject of my doctoral research to be a subject which I could see as important to society. The visual impact of windfarms had been much debated, but far less attention had been paid (at that time) to questions of carbon balance. My research looked at water quality, in terms of carbon and nutrients, before, during and after windfarm construction, one small aspect of the carbon balance issue. The transferable skills I had honed right through my school days and undergraduate geography training allowed me to synthesise my fieldwork, laboratory data, computer mapping and statistical analysis into cohesive findings
which I hope can be used by those carrying out Environmental Impact Assessments for windfarms in the future. After completing my doctoral research, I found employment with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in the chemistry laboratories in East Kilbride. Even though I have chosen to be an ‘environmental chemist’ rather than a ‘geographer’, geography is still intrinsic to what I do on a daily basis. Whether I am analysing a sewage sample for nutrients, a trade effluent for mercury, or a groundwater sample for pesticides, my data allows others to ‘write about the earth’, not only with the purpose of describing and understanding Scotland’s environment, but also to protect and improve the environment. Every day when dealing with the hundreds of sample bottles passing through the laboratory, I am reminded of the relationship with our surroundings and what geography means to me.
The
Geographer
Expert View: Carbon Economics
20-21
Summer 2013
Geopolymer Cement Andrew McIntosh, Research Chemist, banah UK
Last year, global cement consumption was reported at 3.39 billion tonnes, meaning that almost 500kg of cement was produced for every man, woman and child alive on the planet – a figure that is set to increase at a rate of +4.9% per annum up to 2017. While this may be good news for the cement industry, the effect this will have on our planet is less appealing, as each tonne of Portland cement produced results in an average emission of 800kg of CO2 to the atmosphere, and it is therefore responsible for around 5-8% of global manmade CO2 emissions. Attempts are being made to reduce this figure by using alternative fuels and supplementing the carbonintensive clinker component with by-products. However, research has shown that it will be difficult to reduce the embodied CO2 to a figure less than 600kg per tonne of cement, as an essential part of the process is the removal of CO2 from calcium carbonate at high temperatures to produce calcium oxide.
applications for geopolymers also vary according to the Si:Al ratio, with cements for construction being the main focus at ratios of 1-3 and fire-resistant resins for fibre composites being focused at higher ratios of 20 and above.
Portland cement is a major component of concrete and mortar. Both are essential parts of modern life and as such we cannot expect developing countries to restrict their use. Therefore, there appears to be little choice, other than to continue with this carbon-laden product and attempt to make savings in other industries. But there is a choice – geopolymer cement.
Lateritic rocks and soils rich in kaolinite, abundant throughout the globe, offer a raw material source for geopolymer cement production. By examining the mineralogy of these geological feedstocks, and calcining at moderate temperatures, geopolymers with consistent performance can be produced for use in industry. As an example, in Northern Ireland a weathered basalt, rich in kaolinite, can be found in the Interbasaltic Formation, sandwiched between two layers of the Antrim Lava Group that covers much of County Antrim. Quarrying operations working the Upper Basalt layer often uncover the soft laterite which is of little or no commercial value and could be exploited for use in geopolymer manufacture.
The term ‘geopolymer’ was coined by Professor Joseph Davidovits in 1978 to describe a range of solid materials that could be classified as mineral polymers resulting from ‘geosynthesis’. Similar to organic polymers based on hydrocarbon technology, these aluminosilicate molecules undergo polycondensation to form into polymeric structures ranging from three-dimensional networks at low Si:Al ratios, through to longer chains at higher ratios. The potential
The most common mechanism for producing a geopolymer binder is to react an alkali silicate activator solution with a powdered aluminosilicate precursor to form a paste to which can be added fillers and aggregates that will harden to form a concrete or mortar. Although there are many potential aluminosilicate precursors that may be used, two main products have emerged as the front runners – Pulverised Fuel Ash (PFA) and calcined kaolinitic clays. Although PFA (a by-product from coal-fired power stations) is readily available, care must be taken as the quality and reactivity can vary widely between batches. Often, precursors obtained from geological sources can offer a more predictable performance.
So, what are the advantages of geopolymer cements? Compared to Portland cement, geopolymers offer a reduction of up to 85% CO2, as the calcination of the
raw material takes place at lower temperatures and does not involve the release of CO2 from the feedstock. Additionally, Portland cement production requires the extraction of up to 2.05 tonnes of raw material per tonne of finished product, compared to as little as 1.06 tonnes for laterite-based geopolymer cements. In terms of physical performance, geopolymer cements can offer improved acid and sulfate resistance, improved fire resistance, and improved rates of strength development, when compared to Portland cement.
“Compared to Portland cement, geopolymers offer a reduction of up to 85% CO2 ...”
What is the future for geopolymer cements? At present there are many niche applications where geopolymer cements out-perform Portland cements and also offer a more environmentally-friendly alternative. As we look to the future, it is possible that a variety of cements will be developed for use in specific areas, reducing the reliance on Portland cement. Geopolymer cements could well play the lead role.
Raw ingredients for geopolymer cement.
Background image © Oussama Zrafi, via Wikimedia Commons © British Antarctic Survey
Book Club
A Month by the Sea Encounters in Gaza Dervla Murphy (Eland Publishing, January 2013,RRP £16.99) reported conversations she creates a vivid picture of life in this coastal fragment of self-governing Palestine. Bombed and cut-off from normal contact with the rest of the world,
The Future
Six Drivers of Global Change Al Gore (Random House, January 2013, RRP £25) Ours is a time of revolutionary change that has no precedent in history. With the same passion he brought to the challenge of climate change, and with his decades of experience on the front lines of global policy, Al Gore surveys our planet’s beclouded horizon and offers a sober, learned, and ultimately hopeful forecast, identifying the emerging forces that are reshaping our world: • ever-increasing economic globalization; • worldwide digital communications and computer revolutions; • the balance of global political, economic, and military power; • a deeply flawed economic compass leading to unsustainability; • genomic, biotechnology, neuroscience, and life sciences revolutions; • a radical disruption of the relationship between human beings and the Earth’s ecosystems.
Outdoor First Aid:
A Practical Manual Essential Knowledge for Outdoor Enthusiasts Katherine Wills (Pesda Press, June 2013, RRP £15.99) The great outdoors provides us with a playground and, for some, a place of work. Whether you are a walker, paraglider, orienteer, climber, horse rider, mountain biker, or fell runner, all outdoor activities carry inherent risks and dangers. In an urban setting we rely on ambulance crews, paramedics, doctors and nurses to provide assistance and medical care when things go wrong. This means the average person can get away with knowing surprisingly little first aid, but remain fairly safe on a day-to-day basis. However, once you are in an outdoor location away from immediate help and assistance, you need a different approach. This book is geared specifically towards first aid in the UK outdoor sports scene.
life in Gaza is beset with structural, medical and mental health problems, yet it is also bursting with political engagement and underwritten by an intense enjoyment of family life.
China various authors (Lonely Planet, May 2013, RRP £20.99) This new 13th edition of the Lonely Planet guide to China has tips for first-time visitors; recommends itineraries for varied trip lengths; includes over 100 full-colour pages and pull-out maps; covers unforgettable journeys like the Great Wall or cruising the Yangzi River; presents in-depth background information on China’s art, architecture, people, cuisine, religion and beliefs; and includes a fact-filled feature on travelling China by train. “With tumble-down chunks of the Great Wall, mist-wreathed mountains, traditional villages and fascinating ethnic borderlands, China is home to one of the world’s oldest and most remarkable civilizations,” enthused Damian Harper, one of the writers.
R eader Offer - save 30% Offer ends 31st October 2013
Facts are Sacred Simon Rogers (Faber and Faber, April 2013, RRP £20) What is the true human cost of the war in Afghanistan? What are the real effects of the austerity measure? And how did the London riots spread so quickly? Facts are Sacred, the Guardian’s award-winning datablog, publishes and analyses seemingly benign data – released under the auspices of transparency – to bring its readers astonishing revelations about the way we live now. It reveals how data has changed our world and what we can learn from it. Now, the most telling findings from the blog are brought together to give us the facts and figures behind the headlines, beautifully illustrated with extensive data visualisations. Ground-breaking and fascinating, it celebrates a resource that has pushed the boundaries of modern journalism and is a manifesto for a new way of seeing things.
Readers of The Geographer can buy Facts are Sacred for only £14.00 (RRP £20) plus £2.50 postage. To order, please phone 01206 255777 and quote both the name of the book and the promotional code ‘RSGS13’.
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Over the summer of 2011, Dervla Murphy spent a month in the Gaza Strip. She met liberals and Islamists, Hamas and Fatah supporters, rich and poor. Through