Ecology of the Easth Sytem

Writing the Project Description of your Term Project Proposal 1.018/7.30, Fall 2009 Details and Requirements Due Date : Your Project Description overview is Due in Lecture #7 and is worth 10% of your Term Paper grade. Process for Handing in: As each section will be evaluated by the technical staff (Profs and TAs) and the CI staff, we will need multiple copies of each submission. • Submit two hard copies of each assignment AND • Submit a copy to in both Word and PDF. Format: • We’ve asked you to double-spaced your term project assignments; however, you can use single space for the Project Description (as in the sample below) in Arial 11 pt, with 1” margins. • Please number your pages and make sure that your name is on the assignment. • Include in-text citations and a Reference List (bibliography) in APA style. If you are unsure of APA formatting, there are plenty of internet resources . Goals and Requirements: (see Term Project handout for complete description) The purpose of the Project Description is for you to demonstrate that you’ve started your literature searches on the geoengineering topic you’ve selected and that you’ve started thinking about ways to test the unintended consequences of this geoengineering idea. To do so, you should provide a coherent overview of the sections you will include in your proposal (see Term Project Handout for section details). You should demonstrate knowledge of how the geoengineering topic you’ve selected is meant to work, what some of the potential problems with its implementation might be, and how you might go about measuring or testing those problems. You are not bound by your specific design here, but the overview gives you an opportunity to put forth ideas and get feedback on them. • Your Description should be written in complete and connected sentences, it should not be a list of bullets (see sample Project Description, part II of this handout). • Your Project Description should be about 750 words (not including the accompanying Reference list) and must include at least five references that are cited within. The references must come from peer-reviewed journals and you should explain the relevance of the articles for your proposal. MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu 1.018J / 7.30J Ecology I: The Earth Fall 200 9 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms .

MIT1 | 018 | Ecology of the Easth Sytem | study guides | Writing the Project Descriptio

Introduction to Global Warming, Geoengineering, and the Use of Biochar Burial as a Carbon Sequestration Strategy Global Warming “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as it is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and increase in mean sea level.” The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) issued this dire warning in their 2007 Summary for Policymakers document (IPCC, 2007, p. 4). The interconnected link between these three factors is especially potent: for the last thirty years, the snow cover has been decreasing, while the global sea level increased for nearly 70 years, corresponding with a steady rise in global temperature since 1910 (Figure 1). A correlation between reduction of glacial length and an increase in temperature is demonstrated in 169 glaciers around the world, regardless of elevation and continent (Oerlemans, 2005). Utilizing TOPEX-Poseidon satellite technology to monitor sea level increases from 1993 through 2003, scientists measured the sea-level increase at 3.1 mm per year, which increased 50% or more over measurements in the previous decades, which averaged around 1 to 2 mm per year (Cazenave and Nerem, 2004). Breaking down the temperature rise further, anthropogenic gases (greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide) are shown to be the real long-term culprits of the rise in global temperature, over natural forces such as volcanic aerosols and solar radiation (Figure 2). 4 Figure 1. Observed changes from 1961 to 1990 in (a) global mean temperature, (b) global average sea level, and (c) Northern Hemisphere snow cover. In (a) and (b), we see an increase in global mean temperature and global average sea level, with a corresponding decrease in (c) snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere (IPCC, 2007, p. 17). 5 1850 1900 1950 2000 Global mean tempertaure Global average sea level Northern hemisphere snow cover 40 36 32 14.5 14.0 13.5 Temperature ( o C) Difference from 1961-1990 (mm) (million km 2 ) (million km 2 ) 0.5 0.0 -0.5 50 0 -50 -100 -150 4 0 -4 Year Image by MIT OpenCourseWare. Figure 2. This graph breaks down the contributions of (a) El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), (b) Volcanic Aerosols, (c) Solar Irradiance, and (d) Anthropogenic Forcing [including greenhouse gases (GHCs), tropospheric aerosols, and land surface and snow albedo components] to monthly mean global temperatures from 1900 to 2000. The right- hand vertical axis shows the actual measurements for each category, while the left-hand axis shows the fluctuations from expected standards (0.0). The gray lines indicate long- term trends from 1900 to 2000, which demonstrates that ENSO and Volcanic Aerosols do not contribute significantly to monthly mean global temperatures, while solar irradiance plays a minor role and anthropogenic forcing plays a major role (Lean and Rind, 2008). This type of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is unprecedented, as demonstrated by ice core sampling from Lake Vostok in Antarctica (Figure 3). When the amplitude of carbon dioxide concentration change is plotted against the time period of 6

MIT1 | 018 | Ecology of the Easth Sytem | lecture notes | Introduction to Global Warming

MIT1_018JF09_study_2.pdf-You are a limnologist studying several

Name: ____________________ Page 5 e) Coyotes are becoming a nuisance for homeowners concerned about their cats. As a result, the homeowners start poisoning coyotes, leading to a significant decline in the coyote population. Make a prediction about what will happen to the population of each species, or state if you cannot predict. Explain your reasoning in one sentence. Seeds: cannot predict. More mice but fewer rats. Without information about relatively how much both of these consumers eat, it is not possible to know the effect on seeds. Rats: decrease. Their main predator has increased. Mice: increase. The decrease in rats means less direct competition by chasing and less competition for seeds. Raccoons: increase. Their main predator has been reduced. 4. (30 points) Over IAP, Jonathan and Skylar decide to go on a sea monster diving tour of the Caribbean. To their delight, they’ve come across a pygmy Kraken population. Skylar decides they should use a mark and recapture method to determine the population size. They catch, mark, and release 100 pygmy Krakens. Several weeks later, they catch 100 pygmy Krakens again. 10 of them are marked. a) Using the data gathered from this method, approximately how many pygmy Krakens are in the population? 100/N = 10/100 N = 100*(100/10) = 1000 Krakens b) What are some potential problems with the accuracy of the mark and recapture method? Biased sampling, removal of marks and emigration, immigration, births, deaths between sampling. c) Jonathan and Skylar obtain data to construct a life table. Fill in the columns necessary to complete the problems below. x n x b x l x L x T x e x l x b x x l x b x 0 500 0 1 300 355 0.71 0 0 1 100 2.5 0.2 52.5 55 0.55 0.5 0.5 2 5 3 0.01 2.5 2.5 0.5 0.03 0.06 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 x = age or interval n x = number of individuals surviving to age x b x = per capita births during age interval x to x+1 l x = proportion of individuals surviving to age x L x = average number of individuals alive during the age interval x to x+1 T x = total years to be lived by individuals of age x e x = mean expectation of life for individuals of age x Name: ____________________ Page 6 d) Jonathan thinks that the life expectancy of a newborn Kraken is 3 years because all of the individuals in the cohort are dead after 3 years. Is he right? Why or why not? Life expectancy can be thought of more as a probability distribution; while some pygmy Krakens may live 3 years, most don’t. The life expectancy for a newborn pygmy Kraken is 0.71 years. e) Skylar wants to know what the survivorship curve would look like for this species. Please draw the survivorship curve and identify its type. Explain what this means about the species. A Type II curve indicates that the rate of survivorship is fairly constant at all ages. The graph below depicts the growth of a Kraken population. f) Mark the location of the carrying capacity on the “Population” axis (rough estimate). Briefly explain why the population growth curve is shaped like this. The population grew larger than its carrying capacity (K), which is set by environmental limitations (food, predation, nutrients, habitat space, etc.). The population more or less “crashed” and then eventually stabilized (oscillated) to equilibrium over the course of ~20 years. r = 0.7; K = 10,000; Lag = 1 year K

MIT1 | 018 | Ecology of the Easth Sytem | exam | Name: __ Pag

MIT1_018JF09_exam_1.pdf-Name: ____________________ Page 1 1.018/7.30J Ecology

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