McMurdo Sound from the Air

Posted on March 23, 2012 by lathamsa

This is the final post in our 5-part guest blog series by Ambassador Huebner about his exciting trip to Antarctica! Check out the first, second, third and fourth posts. The blog below was originally posted here.

My visits to the explorers’ huts, the Adélie penguin rookery, and certain other wildlife sites were part of an exhilarating day of barnstorming the shores and ice of McMurdo Sound by helicopter. I have already written about the various stops. Missing from my prior narratives, though, is a sense of the terrain we traversed between landings.

With our pilot Barry, just before starting our adventure du jour.

I wish that I could adequately convey to you a sense of the vast scale and stark beauty of the mountains, sea, and ice that passed beneath, above, and around us as we flew. Words, however, are wholly inadequate. Even photos disappoint.

Mountains and glaciers along the Antarctica mainland, across McMurdo Sound from Ross Island.

None of the hundreds of pictures I took comes even close to capturing the breathtaking enormity, thundering silence, kinetic emptiness, and 360° grandeur of the landscape. Nonetheless, I’d like to share a few of my favorite aerial scenes from that very special day.

A glacier tongue extending far into the Sound. At its tip, the ice rises more than 150 feet (46 m) above the water.

Icebergs in the sea ice in a cove south of Cape Evans.

An ice breaker and NSF research vessels at work in the sea ice.

Approaching the research vessels.

Overflying the ships.

The environs of Cape Evans, site of the Terra Nova Hut.

Approaching the iceberg off Cape Evans.

Ice near the edge of the Antarctica mainland.

Interesting ice formations.

Another large iceberg.

This channel through the sea ice, cleared by the ice breaker, leads from the Ross Sea to McMurdo Station, nestled at the base of Observation Hill, at left. As we flew home toward the Station we saw many dozens of whales and numerous Emperor penguins along the edge of the channel.

Together with the images in my prior posts, I hope that these photos give you some small sense of the glory of the Antarctic landscape.

Although this item is not likely to appear on my blog until I am already back in New Zealand, I’m still here on the Ice as I write this paragraph. I’m going to sign off now, take a long midnight hike up Observation Hill, and then turn to the sad task of packing my bags for tomorrow’s flight out.

An Abundance of Antarctic Animal Life

Posted on March 22, 2012 by lathamsa

Here is another exciting installment of Ambassador Huebner’s blog about his recent trip to Antarctica! Check out the first, second, and third posts. The blog below was originally posted here.

Among the differences that I’ve noticed during my second trip to Antarctica is the abundance of animal life in and around McMurdo Sound this late in the austral summer. Over the course of the week I’ve seen many hundreds of Adélie and emperor penguins, dozens of Weddell and leopard seals, Antarctic skuas, and a surprisingly large number of whales including minkes, orcas, and fins.

I am tempted to talk at length about biodiversity in Antarctica, a topic that fascinates me. Instead, though, I think I’ll just share a few pictures of what I actually saw in the McMurdo environs. Unfortunately, I’m not a quick-draw professional with my camera, and most of the animals I encountered had no patience for posing. So I mRissed the most fleeting and dramatic encounters, and the photos I did get are definitely not National Geographic quality. Sorry.

I stumbled across this Weddell seal napping along the shore of Cape Evans.

He roused himself to examine Mike and me for a moment.

And then he went back to his nap.

On a helicopter tour around the edge of the ice we saw dozens of whales below us, including these extra large ones. I couldn’t see clearly enough to identify them, but our guide said they were sperm whales.

We saw orcas and minkes in openings in the ice around McMurdo Station and Scott Base. I actually saw a couple of orcas breach at close range. Here is one of a pair of minkes that I watched for an hour one day.

I could never quite get a clear picture of his head when he surfaced.

I concluded that he was a minke because of the shape of his dorsal fin.

Outside of the rookeries I saw groups of Adélie penguins here and there along the sea edge as I hiked.

This curious fellow approached me near the Terra Nova Hut at Cape Evans.

Skuas eat penguin eggs and chicks. We saw several skuas dive-bombing the Adélie rookery at Cape Royds.

Leopard seals also prey on penguins. The big guy at the center of this photo didn’t look like a leopard seal to me, but he steadily moved toward the Adélies, and they kept skurrying away from him.

Of course, there were Emperor penguins in abundance.

OK, now for a few informational notes. Recent studies indicate that there are more the 1,200 animal species in Antarctica. They range from microscopic mites to huge blue whales, which are believed to be the largest animals ever to have lived on Earth. Most of the species are marine. There are very few purely terrestrial species on the continent. A flightless midge measuring 1/4 inch (6.35 mm) long is the largest of those terrestrial animals.

There is great marine biodiversity, relying in large part on phytoplankton. The phytoplankton are consumed by krill, tiny shrimp-like crustaceans which form the base of the food chain for squid, fish, seabirds, seals, and whales. I saw huge masses of krill when I descended into an observation pipe through the ice during my last visit.

At this point in the season the sea ice around McMurdo is too thin to support the observation pipe. It will be reinstalled once the ice thickens over the winter.

The bottom line is that the Ross Sea is a unique and largely intact marine ecosystem with a robust food web and abundant predators. It is a glory to behold, and it has fascinated and awed humans since the arrival of the first explorers.

It is also, though, a very fragile ecosystem facing serious long-term challenges such as anthropogenic climate change and encroachment of invasive species, as well as more immediate threats such as the introduction and expansion of commercial harvesting of fish.

However bothersome or inconvenient self-restraint may be at times, we cannot in good conscience avert our eyes from these challenges. Only man can protect the Ross Sea from man.

More Penguins!

Posted on March 21, 2012 by lathamsa

Here is another exciting installment of Ambassador Huebner’s blog about his recent trip to Antarctica! Check out the first and second posts. The blog below was originally posted here.

I received a large volume of feedback from my readers about my series of Antarctica posts in 2010. A majority of the comments boiled down to the simple suggestion, “more penguins please.” Since I’m a responsive sort, here goes:

Adélies feed mainly on krill, small fish, and squid, which involves entering the sea. One of the behaviors that struck the early explorers (and me as well) is how Adélies check for pedators, such as leopard seals, in the water.

A group assembles (above), then pushes someone over the edge. They wait (below) to see if anything bad happens to the guy in the water. If carnage does not ensue, then they all jump in and hunt for their food.

I also love watching how penguins belly-slide down slopes …

… shoot past like missiles …

… and occasionally look around to see what they’re missing.

Of course, collisions sometimes occur when folks take their eyes off the road.

Quite a few Adélies came by to check us out during the 90 minutes we were half buried in snow at Cape Royds. The two folks below slid past, stopped, had an animated conversation, and then walked back to give me a good close look before continuing on their way.

The Adélie below was the most adventurous. He came all the way over, circled, chattered, and stayed until we turned to leave.

When not studying the penguins, I spent long stretches simply staring across the Sound at the glaciers of the Antarctica mainland or back at the slopes of Mt Erebus behind me. I took dozens of pictures of the views, but they all profoundly disappoint. The vast, intense, 360° beauty of Antarctica is impossible to capture in a small, frozen image.

As much as I would have liked to stay longer in the glorious environment of Cape Royds, we needed to move on to our second stop of the day. In my next three posts, I’ll talk about the early explorers’ huts that we visited, the other wildlife that we saw along the way, and the beauty and diversity of the ice formations around the McMurdo Sound.

To the South Pole and Back

Posted on March 20, 2012 by lathamsa

This is another wonderful post about Ambassador Huebner’s recent trip to Antarctica. To see his first post, click here. To see the original post of the Ambassador’s blog below, click here.

As I wrote in a previous post, my first trip to the South Pole 14 months ago was an extraordinary adventure. I have been eagerly looking forward to returning, and I wasn’t disappointed. Although conditions were quite different, the second trip was just as awe-inspiring as the first. And, just like last time, I am struggling to find words to describe the experience.

We flew over Beardmore Glacier, which Robert Falcon Scott ascended 100 years ago en route to the Pole. Beardmore is the largest glacier in the world.

Surrealistic. Blindingly white on a clear day. Sometimes with no horizon line, as though you are standing inside a cloud or vast monotone sphere. Covered in ice, but extraordinarily dry. So crushingly silent on windless days that you can actually hear your heart beat. So thunderingly loud on windy days that you can’t hear yourself shout.

Harsh and unforgiving. Annual average temperature of -58°F (-50°C). All-time record high temperature of only 9.9°F (−12.3°C). Fierce winds that pile up more than a foot (0.3 meters) of snow and ice per year. Snow and ice that never melt. No plants. No animals. Literally in the middle of nowhere.

To reach the Pole we flew through the vast Transantarctic Mts, which run 2,100 miles (3,500 km) across the continent and are 120-130 miles (200-300 km) wide.

Romantic. An ultimate quest. Symbolic beyond its tangible reality. Like the Moon, Mt Everest, and the North Pole. Drawing adventurers, explorers, and dreamers like a magnet. Testing human ingenuity, endurance, and spirit. A true end point.

Pristine. As clean and pure as one finds on Earth. Unspoiled precisely because of its inhospitality. Unchanging in many respects because it never thaws. Where the ice contains a record of our atmosphere’s history and evolution and helps us study the origins of the universe itself. A canary in the bird cage to many, giving us a hint of things to come.

At times during the flight it felt as though I could reach out and touch the slopes.

On a planet populated and explored by humans for many millenia, the South Pole long remained beyond reach. It was only 100 years ago that expeditions succeeded in reaching the spot. The centennials of those expeditions were commemorated this past December and January.

It was on December 14, 1911 that a team led by Roald Amundsen first reached the Pole. A team led by Robert Falcon Scott arrived 33 days later, on January 17, 1912. The United States’ permanent scientific operation at the Pole is officially named the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in their honor.

Roald Amundsen at the South Pole, December 14, 1911.

I already knew quite a bit about the two explorers from my association with the Antarctic Heritage Trust, but I did supplemental research last month on their preparations and paths to the Pole. Amundsen’s various accounts and Scott’s diary make for powerful, poignant, uplifting reading.

They also convey strong, ironic personalities. My favorite quote from Amundsen is, “Never has a man achieved a goal so diametrically opposed to his wishes … [H]ere I was at the South Pole. Could anything be more crazy?” Scott wrote in his diary, “Great God! This is an awful place.”

Scott pushed toward the Pole from Cape Evans, near McMurdo Station. Amundsen started from the Bay of Whales, on the other side of the Ross Ice Shelf. The Pole is more than 850 nautical miles (1,370 km) from McMurdo. The red dots show the locations of the three permanent American research stations.

Jumping forward to the present, my second visit to the Pole was very much like my first. Mike and I toured the extraordinary Station facilities, discussed current projects with scientists and staff, had lunch in the cafeteria (it was taco day, with real jalapeños), and left the Station in a Cat to visit the telescopes and several field project sites.

On our way back we stopped at the ceremonial orb and arc of flags where the recent centennials of the Amundsen and Scott expeditions were celebrated. We then walked the remaining distance to the current geographic Pole. (Because of the movement of the ice on the plateau, the precise location continually shifts.) Although a short walk, it was an exhilarating experience to approach the Pole on foot through the driving wind and whipping snow.

Mike and I at the ceremonial orb with the Station behind us, during a brief break in the weather.

Many of the major scientific projects are long-term efforts and thus the same as I saw in 2010. In fact, in certain disciplines, readings from the South Pole are among the longest continuous observational data sets available, including decades of measurements of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases in the air. I am told that such records are of general, rather than simply Pole-specific, significance because the air at the Pole is the best available representation of global average gas content.

On a purely social note, I was pleasantly surprised to see several familiar faces in the hallways and the cafeteria. It’s great to see so many scientists, managers, and support staff returning year after year. I could reminisce for another few paragraphs, but rather than tax your patience I’ll just refer you back to my November 30, 2010 account for the images, experiences, and information that have largely remained unchanged.

I was squired into the field in the same Cat as last time.

So, what was different? The weather was the big change. My prior trip was at the beginning of the season, at the start of the austral summer. Now, winter is fast approaching. Clouds and blowing snow obscured our view of the Station until just before the Herc’s skis hit the snow runway. When I stepped out of the plane, the wind was fiercer and the temperature much colder than I recalled. While Mike and I were out in the field, wind chill drove the temperature down to -76°F (-60°C).

Also, the Station’s population was much smaller than last time. The summer contingent of approximately 250 people is now well along the process of drawing down to the 51 intrepid souls who will remain when the Station is cut off from the rest of the planet for the long, harsh winter. By Wednesday of next week the Station will complete its seasonal transition and be battened down for the dark days ahead.

With one of the Ice Cube sensors displayed in the Station.

With respect to the science, a few of my favorite projects cleared major milestones while I was away, and I enjoyed seeing and hearing about the progress.

For example, the extensive Ice Cube square-kilometer array, the world’s largest neutrino detector, is now completed.

After years of work and many challenges, dozens of strings with hundreds of beachball-size bundles of light-detection instruments are now buried in bore holes as deep as 8,000 feet (2,450 meters) beneath the clear ice, recording.

With that prep and deployment work now done, the scientists are able to study the paths of neutrinos that reach the array from the North Pole. The mass of the planet screens out the other particle noise, revealing the elusive neutrinos.

Among other notable signs of progress, one of the large telescopes, inoperable when I last visited, was back in service and pointed up (or down, depending on your point of view) again. It was successfully repaired last year by jacking the entire structure several meters up so that ball bearings at its base could be replaced. That was no mean feat, given weather conditions and limited resources at the Pole.

There were a couple of more distant sites that I had hoped to see, including the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s Atmospheric Research Observatory. Unfortunately, the weather continued to worsen, and it began to appear as though we could be stranded for additional days.

Some distance from the Station, this solitary polar outhouse stood ready on the barren landscape in case nature called. The camera picked up a horizon line. At the time, all I could see was a black box floating in a gray-white cloud.

I would have relished the extra time and experiencing a polar white-out. I know, though, that the presence of an Ambassador or other official distorts the environment and creates extra work and anxiety for folks with more important tasks to perform, particularly at season’s end. So Mike and I accelerated our schedule and caught an earlier flight back to McMurdo.

Although visibility was poor at the Pole, the clouds cleared near the edge of the plateau, revealing more stunning views of the terrain that Amundsen and Scott traversed a hundred years ago.

View of Antarctica once clouds cleared.

A different view of the terrain.

I spent the flight very much as I did the last time. Exhilarated. Ebullient. Thinking about past explorers who trekked to the Pole through the harshest of weather, surviving for many weeks on only what they could carry across the ice. And thinking about present-day explorers who airlift supercomputers and build neutrino detectors, seeking clues to the origins of the universe in that same ice.

Soaring Back to the Ice

Posted on March 19, 2012 by lathamsa

This week we have a special series of guest blogs by the U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, David Huebner. Recently he took an incredibly trip to Antarctica and wrote all about it, and each day we will post another exciting entry! You can see the original post here.

The past five hours have been a slice of heaven. I’ve been sitting in the cockpit of the C-17 Globemaster soaring from Christchurch to McMurdo Station through largely cloudless skies. There simply are not superlatives sufficient to describe what has been passing beneath us. Rather than babble, I thought I’d just share a few of the sights I captured with my camera en route.

I knew we were close to the continent when I began to see swirls of huge ice blocks in the ocean several thousand feet beneath us.

Swirls of ice blocks in the ocean (Courtesy Photo).

We first crossed over land near Cape Adare, where Norwegian explorers Henrik Bull and Carsten Borchgrevink made the first documented landing on Antarctica, in January 1895.

Cape Adare, Antarctica (Courtesy Photo)

We passed over several mountain ranges, with glaciers working their way downward among the peaks.

Mountain ranges seen from above (Courtesy Photo).

Where the glaciers meet the sea, ice shelves project out over the water. Large blocks of ice eventually break off and float slowly away from the shore.

Where the glaciers meet the ice (Courtesy Photo)

Below is a closer look at a few of the ice blocks hiving off a glacier halfway between Cape Adare and Ross Island. Our pilot estimated that these blocks were approximately 300 feet (91 meters) high.

Ice blocks detaching from a glacier (Courtesy Photo)

The ice sheets covering many of the bays and inlets we flew over had fractured or receded as usual during the austral summer, creating gloriously complex seascapes. Winter will roar back to the continent in March.

Ice sheets (Courtesy Photo)

Although not as dramatic as some of the other sights, the ice fissures that seemed in places to extend to the inland horizon, as well as the geometic shapes formed as ice sheets cracked, created special beauty.

Ice fissures (Courtesy Photo)

Unlike jagged Northern Hemisphere icebergs (formed by the fracturing of steep mountain glaciers), Southern Hemisphere icebergs are flat on top because they form from ice shelves which project out over the water laterally before they fracture.

Southern hemisphere icebergs are flat on top (Courtesy Photo).

Below is my favorite of the hundreds of bergs that I saw during the flight.

Ambassador Hueber's favorite iceberg that he saw (Courtesy Photo)

As Australian writer-entertainer Andrew Denton once said, “If Antarctica were music it would be Mozart. Art, and it would be Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it.”

Another glimpse of Antarctica (Courtesy Photo)

Whether it’s art, music, literature, nature’s reminder that it really does know best, or all of the above passing beneath us, I don’t want this intoxicating flight to end. I see Mount Erebus ahead, though, with steam drifting up from its volcanic crater.

That means we’re close to McMurdo Station and only a few minutes from starting our descent to the Ice. It’s time to don my ECW gear and wrestle with those big white boots. I’ll check back in once we’re on the ground and out of the cold.

Sea Turtle Conservation

Posted on March 9, 2012 by lathamsa

Today’s blog post about working with sea turtles in Costa Rica is by Brian Drozd, a program officer at the U.S. Department of State. He has over 6 years of experience working for the United States Environmental Protection Agency, where he worked on grants and communications in the Climate Change Division. His Master’s degree in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development enabled him to focus on sustainable tourism and conservation.

Sea turtle in Tortuguero, Costa Rica (Courtesy Photo)

In the summer of 2009 I spent 10 weeks working with sea turtles on the rugged coast of Tortuguero, Costa Rica. Working as a research assistant for the Sea Turtle Conservancy, I spent my time walking up and down a 5 mile stretch of beach in the middle of the night looking for green sea turtles to measure, tag, and count the number of eggs they laid. I did this only for meals and a roof over my head. Why would someone do this? Sea turtles have swum in the world’s oceans for 100 million years, and they are in danger of extinction. Threats from poaching, commercial fishing, and climate change, among others, are threatening these animals all over the world. Many people say healthy sea turtles mean healthy oceans.

Sea turtle tracks to and from the ocean. (Courtesy Photo)

There are many different species of sea turtles, but I primarily worked with green sea turtles. Some facts about these amazing animals:

They only lay eggs every 3-4 years, and generally come back to nest on the same beach where they were born throughout their life. One turtle we found had nested on the same beach in 1982!
They only lay their eggs at night, after digging a hole that can be up to 5 feet deep.
They only come on land to lay their eggs.
There are only an estimated 88,000 nesting green turtle females in the world.

Finding a baby leatherback turtle early one morning. (Courtesy Photo)

The goal of my time in Tortuguero was to help the Sea Turtle Conservancy collect data to monitor the health and numbers of the sea turtle population. We also worked closely with the local people to educate them about sea turtles and help them conduct their eco-tourism business with the turtles in a safe manner.

One of the most amazing experiences as a research assistant was when we put a satellite transmitter onto a green turtle. Using a transmitter to monitor turtles we are able to learn about their feeding patterns, how long they stay under water, and much more. It is just this kind of valuable information that is helping scientists learn how to better help protect these animals.

Green sea turtle returning to ocean with satellite tracker. She probably weighs 300 pounds! (Courtesy Photo)

Sea Turtles nest all over the world. Large nesting populations are found in many countries in Latin America and Africa, as well as in India, Indonesia, and China. All sea turtles are in need of protection, monitoring, and research in order to make sure they survive for future generations. There are many actions you can take to help sea turtles near your home and around the world. Some of them are: reducing pollution, not eating sea turtle meat or eggs, and protecting coastlines by slowing development and reducing light on nesting beaches. View more tips here and research just a few of the many organizations working to save turtles around the world. I had an incredible time working with sea turtles, and I’m sure you would too!

Interested in learning more? Check out one of these great sites!

Guest Blog: Rebecca Anderson

Posted on January 18, 2012 by lathamsa

Map showing high levels of dissolved methane in surface water (Courtesy of The Independent online)

Rebecca Anderson is the Team Scientist for the Alliance for Climate Education. Check out her biography and other blog post for us here.

Watch out cows: the Siberian Shelf makes a lot of methane too!

Over the last couple weeks, the climate blogosphere has been lighting up over a recent report that enormous plumes of methane are bubbling to the surface off the coast of eastern Siberia in Russia. (Original article in the Independent online.)

So, what does this mean? It is a lot of methane, to be sure. The discovery was first made in 2010 and estimated at over 7 million tons (roughly equivalent to the methane emissions from the rest of the whole ocean). Now scientists report even more methane coming up, in plumes over a kilometer wide, although they are not estimating exactly how much more yet.

One of the researchers described the plumes in the Independent as “continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures.” I am imagining a loose strand of gas bubbles rising up through the ocean to the surface, more like scuba diving CO2 emissions than Old Faithful. The authors use the term “ebullition” to describe the process – a new word for me and an instant favorite.

Left unsaid in all this buzz, but nevertheless implied is the worry that human-caused global warming triggered the methane release. Buried deep under the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean is a reservoir of carbon called methane hydrates, methane gas trapped in a cage of ice. Some scientists estimate they hold more carbon than all remaining fossil fuel reserves combined.

IF these things melted and released all their methane, it would be catastrophic for climate change. Methane is more than 20 times as powerful as CO2 and a major contributor to climate change, typically from emissions from livestock and landfills. Could that be what these scientists discovered? Answer: No. Under closer examination, it turns out that although recent climate change has indeed warmed up the Arctic Ocean and a thin layer of the seafloor beneath it, it has not gotten anywhere close to where the methane hydrates lie buried 200 meters below the seafloor. Before human warming began, buried permafrost (permanently frozen mud) started about 25 meters below the seafloor. Now, rising sea temperatures have increased that depth to 26 meters below the seafloor. (A meter’s not a lot, but it’s incredible to me that our CO2 emissions have done anything at all below the floor of the Arctic Ocean—more evidence that the effects of climate change are real and in progress.)

But let’s dig a little deeper (pun intended). Where did these methane hydrates come from in the first place? Are they the source of the methane or not? And if we are not melting them, where are the methane plumes coming from?

I blogged on the mysterious methane hydrate back in April, but they are cool enough (last pun, promise) to warrant a second look. They are sensitive entities that can only exist under cold, high-pressure conditions, such as at or below the seafloor. Because they have got methane in them, you can burn them, which is why their nickname is “fire ice.” The methane inside comes from ancient marine plankton that got buried over time in the mud and decomposed, eventually ending up at just the right temperature and pressure conditions to get trapped within a cage of ice.

Usually, methane hydrates exist 300-500 meters below the seafloor, but in the Arctic, where it is colder, they can exist at shallower depths, around 200 meters. This is what makes them more susceptible to warming. But the same researchers who discovered the plumes of methane calculate that even if humans keep on cranking up the Earth’s thermostat for another 1000 years, we’ll still only defrost the top 75 meters of seafloor, so they seem pretty safe for the time being.

But these methane hydrates are not the only bits of methane buried beneath the ocean. The rest of the permafrost has methane trapped in it, too, even if it is not in the cool form of fire ice. And it appears to be this methane that is the source of the current ebullition.

Prior to 8000 years ago, this part of Siberia was actually land. But as sea level rose after the last ice age, the ocean flooded this part of the coast, putting the land under water, where it has been ever since. The researchers believe that the methane leaking out today is left over from the permafrost adjusting to being submerged by the ocean 8000 years ago.

If this is the case, it brings up some new questions as well: We know where the methane is NOT coming from, but are not any closer to knowing exactly where it is coming from. What depth? (Somewhere below 26 m but above 200 m, I am guessing.) How much is down there? Has the methane always been bubbling up in this part of the Arctic and are scientists just now discovering it? (It is a remote spot for sure and may have eluded detection as a result.) Or is this a new phenomenon and if so, what has changed?

And lastly, what does this mean for climate change? 7 million tons is about 2.5% of global methane emissions, making it a small, but meaningful factor to add to the mix of gases currently warming the planet. Not one that we have much control over, though. For now, it is another reminder that while we know climate change is poised to change human life forever, many of the details keep getting more complicated—and more dire.

What water issues do you care about most?

Posted on September 9, 2011 by lathamsa

Contoured terraces for rice farming in Bali (CORBIS)

When it comes to water, what is most important to you? For some people, it’s the drought they are facing that has destroyed their crops and livestock, and will continue to have negative impacts on the ecosystem for years to come. For others, it’s how that same drought can become so serious it causes a famine epidemic such as the one experienced in the Horn of Africa this year. For many, it’s the opposite of drought: devastating floods that can wash out whole cities in a single afternoon. Is it the role that water and climate change play in food security that is concerning you? Or ocean acidification and its affects not only on aquatic life around the world, but entire ecosystems that depend on a specific pH balance being disrupted by climate change?

Whether you’re experiencing extreme weather events or want to know simple steps you can take to conserve water in your home, let us know the issues that you are most interested in concerning water’s relationship with climate change. We’ll choose from your topics as we post throughout September!

(Don’t forget to check back on Monday to see who next week’s guest blogger will be!)

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