temperature reconstruction in ice cores

(picture from Danish Center for Ice and Climate)

So, how do scientists figure out the temperature of the past by looking at those ice cores? The not so simple (but really interesting!) answer:

the oxygen (O) in these cores has both 18O and 16O isotopes present. 18O is heavier than 16O (because it has two more neutrons, but all other properties are the same). By looking at the amount of each of these isotopes two scientists can determine temperature. Graphs usually will show δ18O, which means the amount of the heavier of the two isotopes. Low δ18O is associated with low temperatures, because...
So, this is generally what happens during an ice age. There are both 18O and 16O isotopes in the ocean. More 16O evaporates out, since it is lighter in weight. So more 16O ends up in the atmosphere, and more 16O, less 18O precipitates down as snow onto the ice sheet. That means that the ice ends up containing more 16O than 18O total since there is no melt off from the ice to the ocean during an ice age, the isotopes are locked into the ice. During a warm period, there is melt off to the ocean, so the ratio is more balanced. So, when we now look at ice cores, if there is relatively not much 18O locked in the ice, we know that the earth was at a colder temperature. Yay science!

Paleoclimatology in the news!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/32634348#34050658

The reporters make it sound a little cheesy, but it is still so exciting! Ice cores give a carbon record of the atmosphere (by looking at the tiny air bubbles in the ice and measuring carbon dioxide). The best records are from cores taken from Greenland (camp century, and currently GRIP and GISP) and Antarctica (Vostok and currently EPICA). They can measure up to about 800,000 years ago (ice cores from Antarctica can measure this far back).

More gender geography

Poor Women Bear Climate Burden - BBC News

This is what worries me about climate change. The earth will be fine. It has been through periods much warmer and much cooler than today. It's the species on earth (like humans...and polar bears, etc.) that I worry about. Humans in places like the US will generally be fine. But what about people who live in places that will be underwater once temperatures increase? And what about communities in places like Mongolia that will enter a period of permanent drought?

Regarding drought - in many of the areas expected to be affected by drought due to climate change, it is the women who are responsible for the family/community water supply. This isn't true universally (ex: in Mongolia it is ultimately the responsibility of the men, but also of the women, who fetch the water from what can be miles away) - Hawkins. Due to lack of research regarding these specific communities, water policies are often based on a world-wide standard ...when really it is impossible to apply these effectively to each and every country, let alone community.

Anyway, how is it possible to do anything about this? Can the United Nations Population Fund really go around the world and educate people in rural, nomadic, and isolated communities about how to live and get water so that they can survive? I don't know, but hey this is why geography is so important eh?

Desperate climate times call for oddball measures -- latimes.com

Desperate climate times call for oddball measures -- latimes.com

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The idea of geoengineering seems very exciting, and possible in theory, but I highly doubt that these ideas would include any actual solution. I haven't researched any of these concepts, but every time that we have manipulated the environment in the past (e.g. introducing foreign plant/animal species, leading to these becoming 'invasive' species that kill off all of the local plants/animals) it hasn't gone out quite the way we planned. I can just see us launching a million mirrors into our atmosphere, and I'm picturing tiny chards of glass raining back down on us... Maybe that's a bit extreme, but I still don't like the idea. Even if bioengineering solves the problem of excess carbon dioxide, it has the potential to create a whole slew of new environmental problems. I do like the idea of artificial trees, though I doubt that people would get over the notion that they're 'ugly' (I think they're a lot more beautiful than highways). Small scale geoengineering like this seems more feasible to me since if they don't work, at least they wont change our entire environment.

gendered commercials

the other day someone posed a question in class about whether or not feminist geography exists. Oh it does. I guess that I didn't used to think about these things much, but now that I do I think that spaces are very gendered. It was mentioned in a book I was reading for class, and I've been thinking about it since. One thing that has frustrated me in relation to this is that domestic settings are usually deemed female. This becomes obvious if you just watch TV commercials. All of the household appliance, air freshener, laundry commercials have women in them. For example, all Air wick commercials feature different animated animal women taking care of a million kids, and being excited about their house smelling nice because of a smelly plug in. Their husbands are no where to be found. I looked up all of these online, and found them for Germany, Korea, the US, France, India and with frogs, hamsters, squirrels, owls, octopi, bunnies, skunks, etc. ALL of them featured female animals.. Well, except for the skunk commercial which had a male skunk talking about how his wife got the air freshener. Really? There's also a commercial for Centrum for men that just came out showing objects that have been created 'just for men' including an easy chair, a grille and a power drill. Really? I thought that we were beyond this at least somewhat. Do commercials reflect societal norms? I think that they kind of do. And they are holding us back from integrating gendered space! Kind of a stretch.. and maybe this is outside of the realm of gendered geography but I wanted to rant about it a bit.

the Sierras!

This weekend I was lucky enough to make a trip down to the Sierra Nevada mountains, to collect some data for Glen. Three of his other grad students (Abbie, Christine, and Steph aka Dr. Pau) took me (The newbie aka Hollywog) up to experience field work at 10,000ft elevation! After stocking up on trail mix, chlorophyll supplements (they help oxygenate the blood), and warm clothing we all drove up together. We collected data loggers (looking at temperature variance in the air, at lake bottom, and lake surface) that had been planted there in the spring at 3 different lakes, and took lake sediment samples of each lake with a Mini-Glew. Glen has been collecting this data for about 20 years in order to obtain information on the short term effects of climate change in lakes at high altitudes.

Hiking - Mono Lake in the distance

Holding part of the Mini Glew! This is what we used out on the lakes to sample lake sediment. Notice lake sediment aka brown sludge on hands.
Parker Lake...my favorite. So beautiful.

Hike to Parker Lake. We were at the Ansel Adams National Forest...named after the artist of course.
Barrett Lake.
Heart Lake and Abbie pumping up the boat (aka MJ Thriller named in previous years)
the hike back from Parker Lake... beautiful.


Quaking Aspens, or Populus tremuloides. These were everywhere on this hike through Ansel Adams National Forest. They are called 'quaking aspens' because when the wind blows through them they seem to quake in the way the leaves move. Hopefully you can see that here. They also make a very unique/beautiful rustling noise. Aspens are also interesting because one individual aspen organism is actually an entire stand of trees. They reproduce by root sprouts, so that each tree in one stand is a clone of one another. Their unique root system is completely interconnected. Because of this, it is difficult or impossible to tell how old an aspen is; since the original tree that began the stand may have died off long ago. Maybe these are some of the oldest trees on earth??? <Here is an aspen stand that may actually be the oldest (and heaviest) organism on earth.>

Anyway, the hiking was amazing, the air was clear (also maybe a bit thin), and hopefully the data will be useful! This trip has certainly reinforced my love for field work, and for science and nature in general. I would highly recommend visiting the Mammoth lakes region in the Sierras if you ever have the chance. Did I mention that we also drove by the San Andreas fault, waterfalls formed by volcanic and glacial activity, an airplane graveyard (creepy), and the remains of a Japanese concentration camp (disturbing and creepy)? Who says that California doesn't have history!?

The lovely Caitlin has sent me a link in response to LA city planning history! Here is is for your enjoyment:
Back to the Future

More pictures

Dad and Emma and me at El Cholo (dad-o is holding the camera). - Also, doesn't it look like I have a bob?






OMELETTE at Santa Monica farmers market







Santa Monica Sunday farmers market - live music!










...more of the market

Lemon tree! The green ones are just unripened lemons, but they do look like limes...sorry for the confusion in my previous post.

Some LA pics

The Santa Monica beach (see the water way in the distance?)



The inside of my building! Palm Court.



















The outside of the geography building - Bunche Hall.







Hanna and I surrounding some delicious Ethiopian food in Little Ethiopia.







Dad and I in front of Royce Hall (a lot of concerts are held here - Bela Fleck 10/22! and commencement will be held)

Jacaranda

I live in Jacaranda Court, but have been unsure as to how to pronounce it ever since I've been here. Apparently, it's [jak-uh-ran-duh] with a nasaly a in the ran. A jacaranda is a pretty, flowering bush/tree usually found in very hot places; India, South America, Central America, Australia, Southern California!, etc. In Cali they bloom twice a year. Both pictures compliments of wikipedia.

testate amoebae 101

Picture 1: Peat!
Picture 2: Sphagnum moss, a common habitat for testate amoebae

So, today I was doing some leisurely reading, and I thought it was pretty enlightening and that others might just enjoy some enlightenment as well. On to today's main topic: peatlands and testate amoebae analysis! Bear with me.

To begin, peat is formed when organic productivity is occurring more than decay. So, this organic matter (such as moss, leaves, etc.) is thus stored since it is not decomposing fast enough. This can build up over time storing many layers of peat - and the deeper the peat layer is the older that peat is! Peat tends to be present only in certain geographical locations such as northerly latitudes because once temperature increases, decomposition also increases. And since decomposition releases methane, this adds to global climate change...thus making temperatures warm ever further and peatlands disappear more and on the cycle goes. This is what really gets me excited about climate change issues, these positive feedback cycles. Everything fits together into this crazy situation and every little detail becomes important. And these peatlands that store vast amounts of carbon are also an amazing wealth of knowledge! Onto that...

Peatlands do not experience water runoff such as farmlands or city streets. So the only thing that affects the water table in peat is precipitation and evapotranspiration. This makes them amazing indicators for climate change! Becaaause there are these little types of protozoans called testate amoebae. Each type of testate amoebae lives in a particular type of wet zone, so a certain type being present in a certain layer of peat indicates the climate for that given time. Cool eh?! So you can tell the amount of water that was present at that time, pH, nutrients, and possibly other factors such as anthropological disturbance! According to this guy Warner (cited at end) "Testate amoebae can be 'early warning' indicators of environmental change." BAM!

I am stoked to start some research

Warner, B. G., T. Asada, and N. P. Quinn. 2007. Seasonal influences on the ecology of testate amoebae (Protozoa) in a small Sphagnum peatland in Southern Ontario, Canada. Microbial Ecology 54:91–100. CrossRef, PubMed
...I'll post some of the other articles later.

future research endeavors

Today I had my first meeting with my advisor, Dr. Glen Macdonald For those of you on the East coast, he will be speaking at Clark University on Thursday, October 8th at 7 as the Atwood speaker. We discussed the research that I will be working on for the next 2-7 years. Basically, I will be exploring the relationship between climate change, water table level, and Carbon storage in arctic peatlands. I'm looking forward to continuing work similar to the research I did last year <www.thepolarisproject.org> (sorry for all of the links).

My MA paper will look at peat samples that are currently in storage at UCLA from Western Siberia. In summer of 2010, another PhD student here, James Holmquist and I will be able to do some field work in the Canadian arctic! If all goes as planned, we will be at the Northern Studies Center in Churchill, Manitoba (see map). There are a lot of exciting aspects of this Churchill place. For example, it lies on the border of arctic tundra and sparse boreal forest, which could lead to some very interesting studies! It is also called the "Polar Bear Capital of the World," ...and you can see the Aurora Borealis there ...and Europeans and natives have used this area as a fur trading post/shipping harbor ever since the whites first arrived in the 1600s, ...AND the station itself used to be used by the Canadian government as a rocket launching experimentation area. Pretty cool eh? (no pun intended I do use the word eh)

Anyway, we will be looking at carbon storage along a northern transect (and perhaps another transect further south). This will be the foundation of a doctorate paper...by the future Dr. Willis? Speaking of which, here's another fun link.

That's it for today.
-Kate

First impressions

I'm almost through my first week as a resident in the big (ridiculously big) city of Los Angeles. One thing that I can't wrap my mind around is how this city is designed. The tallest apartment buildings I've seen are about 5 stories high, but the majority seem to only have one or two floors. Why would a major city be designed this way? It makes it inevitable that people will have to travel ridiculous distances to get anywhere at all. Anyway, I am hoping to become more knowledgeable about this in the coming months of discovering LA by traveling by bus and bike, and maybe by doing some research on LA city planning as well.

Today I made my first visit to the Santa Monica Sunday farmer's market. It was awesome. I ate roasted corn and bought some dilly beans. There are many vendors at the market, most of which offer organic options (there was even a meat stand wooo!). I look forward to taking advantage of the year round California growing season.

In other big news, yesterday afternoon was cloudy! Apparently a rare sight.

Overall, I am excited to learn more about LA! Also - the stereotype that people are more laid back and friendlier here appears to hold true! (Must be the lack of clouds and hail and slush and such). Until later - Kate