GeoGarage blog

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

US (NOAA) layer update in the GeoGarage platform

16 nautical raster charts updated

Satellites are key to monitoring ocean carbon

(a) An environmental monitoring satellite is launched into a polar orbit.

(b) Research vessels, buoys, and transport ships all routinely collect measurements for monitoring ocean atmosphere–ocean gas exchange, but some oceans are not well sampled and much of the data collection is voluntary.

(c) A coral reef viewed from space; these sensitive ecosystems can be negatively impacted by episodic ocean acidification events caused by upwelling (Feely et al. 2008).

(d) Calcifying organisms that use carbonate to build their shells, including commercially important lobsters, can be negatively affected by ocean acidification (McLean et al. 2018).

From Exeter University

Satellites now play a key role in monitoring carbon levels in the oceans, but we are only just beginning to understand their full potential.

Our ability to predict future climate relies upon being able to monitor where our carbon emissions go.
So we need to know how much stays in the atmosphere, or becomes stored in the oceans or on land.
The oceans in particular have helped to slow climate change as they absorb and then store the carbon for thousands of years.

The IPCC Special Report on the Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, published last month, identified this critical role that the ocean play in regulating our climate along with the need to increase our monitoring and understanding of ocean health.

But the vast nature of the oceans, covering over 70% of the Earth’s surface, illustrates why satellites are an important component of any monitoring.

The new study, led by the University of Exeter, says that increased exploitation of existing satellites will enable us to fill “critical knowledge gaps” for monitoring our climate.

The work reports that satellites originally launched to study the wind, also have the capability to observe how rain, wind, waves, foam and temperature all combine to control the movement of heat and carbon dioxide between the ocean and the atmosphere.

Conceptual and simplified view of interactions, exchange, and circulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) within the ocean, identifying where satellite‐based Earth observation is likely to play a leading role in expanding understanding and capability:

(1) atmospheric measurements at the ocean surface;

(2) quantifying gas, momentum, and heat atmosphere–ocean exchange processes;

(3) capturing near‐surface gradients in the water;

and (4) measuring internal circulation and surface transport.

Additionally, satellites launched to monitor gas emissions over the land are also able to measure carbon dioxide emissions as they disperse over the ocean.

Future satellite missions offer even greater potential for new knowledge, including the ability to study the internal circulation of the oceans.
New constellations of commercial satellites, designed to monitor the weather and life on land, are also capable of helping to monitor ocean health.

“Monitoring carbon uptake by the oceans is now critical to understand our climate and for ensuring the future health of the animals that live there,” said lead author Dr Jamie Shutler, of the Centre for Geography and Environmental Scienceon Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

Examples of Earth observation data for quantifying surface ocean carbon

Examples of Earth observation data for quantifying total CO2 transport

“By monitoring the oceans we can gather the necessary information to help protect ecosystems at risk and motivate societal shifts towards cutting carbon emissions.”

The research team included multiple European research institutes and universities, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the European Space Agency.

The researchers call for a “robust network” that can routinely observe the oceans.
This network would need to combine data from many different satellites with information from automated instruments on ships, autonomous vehicles and floats that can routinely measure surface water carbon dioxide.

And recent computing advancements, such as Google Earth Engine, which provides free access and computing for scientific analysis of satellite datasets, could also be used.

The study suggests that an international charter that makes satellite data freely available during major disasters should be expanded to include the “long-term man-made climate disaster”, enabling commercial satellite operators to easily contribute.

The paper, published this week in Frontiers in Ecology and Environment, is entitled: “Satellites will address critical science priorities for quantifying ocean carbon.”

Links :

The Verge : Satellites track real-time damage of ocean blob menacing ...
Phys : Successful ocean-monitoring satellite mission ends
Popular Mechanics : Requiem for a Climate Change Satellite, Decommissioned ...
Xinhua : China launches new Earth observation satellite

Monday, November 4, 2019

Have you heard the good news about Sea Level Rise?

The last house on Holland Island in October 2009.

It fell into Chesapeake Bay in October 2010

source : Wipkipedia

From Forbes by Erik Kobayashi-Solomon

I have some good news and bad news about sea level rise.
First for the bad news – two pieces, one from each coast.

From the East Coast, the bad news came in the form of an excellent New York Times feature story, As Sea Levels Rise, So Do Ghost Forests.
The Ghost Forests in the title are not Halloween-related but refer to trees in low-lying coastal areas that are dying off due to incursions of seawater from rising seas.
Communities in these areas are struggling as much as the trees, since human roots are as susceptible to damage from rising seas as are the arboreal variety.

From the West Coast – the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, to be exact – comes a bad news report entitled Strategies to Address Climate Change in Low- and Moderate-income Communities (see also the NY Times coverage of this report).
This report echoes the warnings your correspondent offered last year after Hurricane Michael devastated the panhandle of Florida, Climate Change Will Eat Your Bond Portfolio.
Namely, that the financial system as a whole is at risk due to the projected convexity in the severity of climate-related infrastructure damage.

While these stories both came out this month, the effects of sea level rise on coastal communities is not a seasonal story, nor is it a recent one either.

The city of New Orleans was, in your correspondent's opinion, fundamentally and permanently changed by the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

source : Wikipedia

Almost five years to the day before the Times Ghost Forest story ran, the Union of Concerned Scientists published a detailed report entitled Encroaching Tides that details the scientific community’s best estimates for coastal inundation on the East and the Gulf Coasts over the next three decades.

Tidal Flooding and Sea Level Rise: The Growing Impacts of Global Warming
As sea level rises higher over the next 15 to 30 years, tidal flooding is expected to occur more often, cause more disruption, and even render some areas unusable — all within the time frame of a typical home mortgage.

One of the surprising takeaways of the study is that the UCS estimates that by 2045, Washington D.C.
will experience 380 flooding events per year due to a combination of sea level rise and land subsidence (caused by mid-continental bounce-back after the last Ice Age).
My only hope is that the message about the necessity of an immediate response to climate change will make it to Capital Hill before the daily inundation does.

The bad news is clear – climate change, whose effects are now quite mild, will cause major economic and societal problems within your and your correspondent’s lifetimes.
Oceans have absorbed enough heat that these climate change effects are – in my opinion and in the opinions of people whose opinions count for something – inevitableat this point.

What could possibly be the good news about inevitable sea level rise?

Thanks to the amazing adaptability of the human species and its economic expression in the form of capitalism, intelligent investors stand the chance to maintain and increase their wealth by investing in strategies to adapt to the perfectly foreseeable tragedies ahead of us.

One organization at the forefront of the push to adapt, and which is adding real value to society is the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit research and technology group using state-of-the-art computer modeling techniques to calculate and inform home buyers of the financial risks of purchasing real estate that is increasingly prone to climate change-related inundation.

The First Street Foundation's Heat Map showing projected property losses on the East and Gulf Coasts.

source : First Street Foundation

I mentioned First Street in a March article entitled That Sinking Feeling: Real Estate In An Age Of Climate Change and since then had a great talk with the foundation’s founder and CEO, Matthew Eby, as well.

As I mentioned in “That Sinking Feeling…”, First Street has already quantified the impact of increased tidal flooding on coastal home values along the East and Gulf coasts, calculating about 16 billion dollars in lost appreciation from Maine to Mississippi between 2005 and 2017 (the heat map above comes from that report).

source : deltares.nl

Now, according to Eby, the Foundation, with a team of world-renowned flood modelers, researchers, and data scientists is modeling past, present and future flood risk for homes across the country.
They're calculating not only the risk from sea level rise, but from pluvial (rain), fluvial (river), and storm surge flooding as well.
As a denizen of the Midwest, I know that “pluvial” and “fluvial” flooding are terms with which we will all soon be very familiar.

First Street is working to provide its house-by-house flood model to people free of charge, through its online visualization tool Flood IQ.

Eby’s group also plan to share the data with academic researchers for secondary analysis, allowing academics to quantify the national economic impacts of flooding.
The Foundation plans to offset the cost of its nonprofit work by selling its flood data to for-profit businesses, businesses who wish to do internal analysis or distribute the information through consumer facing platforms, like real estate websites.

First Street provides house-by-house flooding risk data via the FloodIQ.com website.

Another innovative company about which I learned about recently is called Kradle Structural Lifting Systems.
Kradle’s globe-trotting CEO, George Leslie, is a former Canadian money manager who is helping Kradle’s founders to build a business around patented equipment designed to lift and level homes and other structures.

Before Kradle, the technology to lift structures – hydraulic lifts and wood blocks – was quite literally vintage 18th Century.
Local contractors do lift and level houses inch-by-laborious-inch using this centuries-old technology, but these contractors’ services are specialized and expensive.

Kradle has four different product lines that bring the task of house raising and leveling into the 21st Century.
Kradle’s ATLAS product line is a mobile system that can be set up around the perimeter of a building and used to lift it – providing a temporary, elevated foundation for the structure.

Kradle's ATLAS system at work.

Note how much clearance space there is to construct the new elevated foundation under the elevated house.

source : Kradle Structural Lift Systems

Kradle’s ATLAS system can be setup by as few as two workers and can lift houses to a clear height of an amazing 20 feet with the supports placed 75 feet apart.
The extra clearance allows for workers to easily operate construction equipment underneath the house, so whatever repairs need to be done can be done quickly and easily.
The system has proven itself effective in hundreds of lifts already.

Leslie’s plan is to lease the equipment to construction contractors in different geographical locations – pioneering what I’ll call a “Lifting-as-a-Service” business model.
They just signed a New Zealand-based operating partner and are in negotiations with several groups in Connecticut, Florida, and Texas.

Kradle's TITAN is permanently installed in the foundation of a building.

Leslie says TITAN can be installed on an existing house, a new property or even a mobile type of manufactured building

source : Kradle Structural Lift Systems

While ATLAS is moved from job site to job site, the company’s TITAN product is left permanently in place at the foundation of a structure.
TITAN allows for on-demand elevation of the entire structure up to about 10 feet in the event of flooding.
In other words, rather than having an in-home elevator, TITAN clients – the first of whom is having the system installed in British Columbia, Canada – will have a whole-home elevator.

Another Kradle product, PLANUM, is also permanently installed equipment that allows for automatic leveling of foundations in areas where subsidence is a problem.
I wish I would have known about this product a few years ago, when my mother had to have jacks installed to level out my childhood home in Houston, Texas.

In addition to these products, Kradle also provides specialized lifting services for clients with very particular needs.
For instance, it received a commission to elevate a climate research center in Greenland operated by the US Government and submitted a proposal to elevate a 500-year old European stone cathedral in danger of being inundated with rising sea levels.

One of Kradle's Special Projects -- an Arctic Elevation Platform for researchers in Greenland.

source : Kradle Structural Lift Systems

Leslie tells me that Kradle’s order book is filling up quickly, and that the firm will likely be raising capital next year to meet working capital needs as it expands.
I told him to keep my number handy when he needs a capital injection.
This is a great business that already is seeing a surge of demand globally.
Who wants to fund the 20,000th iPhone app when you can be a part of this kind of business?

Eby and Leslie know, as I do, that the only way to build and maintain intergenerational wealth in this century will be by investing in a new paradigm.
Intelligent investors take note.

Links :