ETHON: Current Issue

Current Issue Key Topics

Envirothon 2024-2025

Climate change is primarily caused by the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which leads to the warming of the Earth.Greenhouse Effect-The sun's energy reaches the Earth, and some of it is reflected back into space. However, greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor) trap some of this heat, warming the planet. This is a natural process, but human activities have increased these gases, making the planet warmer than it should be.Burning Fossil Fuels- When we burn coal, oil, and natural gas for energy (cars, factories, and powerplants), it releases large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. This is one of the biggest contributers to climate change.Deforestation- Trees absorb CO2, so when forests are cut down for agriculture or urban development, more CO2 remains in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.Industrial Activities- Factories and industrial processes emit various gases, like methane and nitrous oxide, which also trap heat in the atmosphere.Agriculture- Certain farming practics, such as raisinf livestock (which produces methane) and using fertalizers (which releases nitrous oxide), add up to the buildup of greenhouse gases.Together, these activities enhance the greenhouse effect, more extreme weather, and change in ecosystems.

1. Describe the causes of climate change, including the greenhouse effect.

Key Topic 1: CLIMATE CHANGE PROJECTIONS

Enviromental Impacts- GLOBAL- Rising Temperatures: Temperatures are increasing, causing heatwaves and shifting weather patterns. This leads to more frequent and intense droughts, floods, and storms.- Melting Ice and Rising Sea Levels: Ice caps and glaciers are melting, contributing to rising sea levels, which can lead to coastal flooding and erosion, threatening low-lying areas. - Wildlife and Ecosystems: Climate change disrupts ecosystems by altering habitats, forcing species to migrate or adapt, and causing biodiversity loss. Some species may even go extinct.

2. Explain the impacts of climate change on the enviroment, as well as social and eonomic impacts both locally and globally.

Enviromental Impacts- LOCAL- Sea-Level Rise: Virginia, especially areas like Norfolk and Hampton Roads, face signifigant risk from sea-level ride due to its extensive coastline. This leads to more frequent flooding, storm surges, and loss of coastal habitats.- Extreme Weather: More intense storms, heavy rainfall, and hurricanes affect Virginia. This increases the risk of property damage and can strain local infrastructure.- Agriculture and Forests: Changes in temperatre and precipitation patterns in Virginia impact crops, particularly in its farming regions. Forest health may decline due to changing pests and diseases, making trees more vulverable to wildfires.

Global Impacts- SOCIAL- Health Risks: Rising temperatures increase the prevalence of heat related diseases like malaria and dengue. Food shortages caused by climate change can also cause malnutrition.- Displacement and Migration: Sea-level rise and extreme weather events force people to migrate, creating cimate refugees. This displacement leads to overcrowding in cities, social tensions, and pressure on resources- Inequality: Poorer communities, particularly in developing nations, are hit hardest by climate change. They have fewer resources to adapt, making them more vulnerable to its effects.

Local Impacts- SOCIAL- Health: Increasing heat and poor air quality can affect vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and those with respritory issues. Changes in disease patterns, such as the spread of tick-borne illnesses, are also a concern.- Displacement: Rising sea levels and recurrent flooding in coastal Virginia may displace communities, forcing relocations and straining housing and resources in safer areas.- Cultural Heritage: Many historical sites in Virginia are at risk due to rising seas and erosion. This threatens the states cultural and historical identity.

Global Impact- ECONOMIC- Agriculture: Climate change disrupts global food production, affecting yeilds and prices. This leads to food shortages, price hikes, and economic instability, especially in countries reliant on agriculture.- Infrastructure Damage: Extreme weather events damage infrastructure, costing billions in repairs and economic loss. This slows economic growth and diverts resources from development projects.- Insurance Costs: The rising frequency of natural disasters increases insurance premiums and costs, particularly in coastal areas prone to flooding and hurricanes.

Local Impacts- ECONOMIC- Tourism: Climate change threatens Virginia's tourism industry, particularly in coastal areas like Virginia Beach due to rising sea levels and storm damage. Additionally, historic sites and natural parks may be affected by extreme weather and erosion.- Agriculture: The state's agricultural economy could be disrupted due to changing growing seasons, more frequent droughts, and shifts in crop viability. This impacts farm income and food production.- Infrastructure and Property Loss: Virginia's coastal regions face increased economic burdens from property damage and necessary adaptations, such as building seawalls or elevating infrastructure to combat flooding.

Representitive Concentration Pathways (RCP's) are climate modeling scenarios that describe different greenhouse gas concentration trajectories and their potential impact on global temperature and climate systems. The RCP's are used to predict how different levels of emmisions will affect future climate conditions. Each RCP represents a different "pathway" depending on how much greenhouse gas emmissons increase or decrease over time. for Canada, like other countries, the implications of RCP's are signifigant. Depending on which RCP scenario is followed- wheather the world takes strong action to reduce emmissions (RCP 2.6, aims for lower emmissions) or continues with high emmissions (RCP 8.5)- Canada could face different levels of warming, sea-level rise, and extreme weather patterns. In summary, the RCP models help predict the range of possible future climates based on global and national actions (or inactions) toward reducing emmissions, and they highlight the need fir adaptation and mitigation stratagies to address the likley impacts on Canada's enviroment and economy.

3. Explain the concept of Canada's Representative Concentration Pathway models and what they imply for the future climates.

4. Regional Climate Models (RCM's): These are essentially GCM's downscaled to focus on specific regions rather that the entire globe. RCM's provide more detailed projections of climate impacts in localized areas, which is useful for understanding impacts on smaller scales, such as in specific countries or regions.

1. Simple Climate Models (SCM's): These models are highly simplified and typically focus on large-scale variables like global average temperature. They are useful for studying the broad impacts of greenhouse emmissions on global temperature.2. Earth System Models (ESM's): ESM's are more complex and simulate not just the interactions between the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and biosphere (including vegetation and carbon cycle feedbacks.) These models can project changes in ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles, such as carbon and nitrogen cycles over time.3. General Circulation Models (GCM's): These models simulate the physical processes of the Earths atmosphere and ocean. GCM's divide the Earth into a 3D grid and model the circulation of air, water, and energy across the globe. They are used for long-term climate projections, such as global warming scenarios.

4. Differentiate types of climate models and the various compnents that enable models to project future conditions.

Components that enable climate models to project future conditions include:- Atmosphere Physics: Simulating processes such a cloud transformtion, precipitation, and energy transfer in the atmosphere.- Ocean Circulation: Modeling ocean currents and heat storage, which play a signifigant role in climate regulation.- Land Surface Processes: Including vegetation growth, soil moisture, and snow/ice cover, which affect energy absorbtion and reflectivity.- Greenhouse Gas Emmissions: Modeling the concentration and effect of CO2, methane, and other gases on the Earth's radiative balance.- Solar Radiation: Accounting for the amount of energy recieved from the sun, which influences global temperature patterns.These components work together in climate models ro simulate complex interactions and project how the Earth's climate might change under different scenarios.

Globalization has signifigantly contributed to the spread of invasive insect species, which have had detrimental effects on the world's forests. Heres how it happens-- Increased Trade and Transportation: Global trade and the rapid movement of goods have facilitated the unintentional transport of invasive insect species across continents. Insects are often carried in wood products, shipping containers, crates, and even in the soil attatched to plants and agricultural products. Ports and shipping hubs are particularly vulnerable points for the introduction of these species. Insect eggs or larvae can cling to clothing, luggage, or vehicles, which accelerates their spread. For examle, the emerald ash borer, native to Asia, was likley intoduced to North America through wood packaging materials and has since devesatted the ash tree populations in the US and Canada.- Lack of Natural Predators: When invasive insects are introduced to new enviroments, they often face few natural predators or diseases that would normally keep their population in check. This allows them to reproduce quickly and spread without the biological control present in their native habitats.- Changing Climates: Global warming, driven y industrilization and globalization, is making many parts of the world more suitable for invasive species. MIlder winters and extended growing seasons allow insects like bark beetles to expand their ranges and increase in popultion.

5. Explain how globalization has enabled the spread of invasive insect species and impacted the world's forests.

Key Topic 2- Forest Health In A Changing Climate

- Forest Vulnerability: Forests in many regions are already stressed due to deforestation, pollution, and climate shifts, making them more susceptible to insect infestations.- Destruction of Tree Species: Invasive insects can cause large-scale mortality of tree species, altering forest composisiton and structure. For instance, the hemlock woolly adelgid, introduced from Asia, has led to the decline of hemlock trees in Eastern North America, impacting species that depend on them.- Disruption of Ecosystems: Trees affected by invasive species play crucial roles in their ecosystems. When tree populations decline, it impacts the animal, plants, and fungi that rely on those trees, potentially leading to broader ecosytem collapse.- Economic Costs: Beyond ecological damage, invasive insects also have signifigant economic consequences. They often require costly management stratagies, and industries like logging and tourism suffer when forests are decimated.In summary, globalization enables the rapid spread of invasive insect species, which then exploit vulnerabilities in ecosystems, especially in forests already under stress. The result is often severe ecological and economic damage, requiring global cooperation to manage and mitigate these impacts.

Wildfires signifigantly impact the hydrology, wildlife, and soils of forest communities, often causing both immediate and long-term effects.- Hydrology: Wildfires alter the water cycle by reducing vegetation cover, which normally helps to slow water runoff and promote infiltration into the soil. After a fire, the soil becomes more prone to erosion and can develop a water-repellent layer (hydrophobic soil) due to the intense heat, which further reduces water absorption. This can lead to increased surface runoff, flash flooding, and sediment transport into rivers and streams. In areas without vegetation, reduced evapotranspiration also impacts local water availability.- Wildlife: The effect of eildfires on wildlife are complex and vary by species. Fire can directly cause death or injury to animals, particularly those unable to escape or tske refuge. However, it also creates new habitats, particularly for species that thrive in open, distrurbed enviroments, like certain birds and insects, may benefit from the the increased availability of dead trees for nesting or hunting grounds. Yet, the destruction of habitats and food sources can lead to population declines in more sensitive species. In the longer term, forest regeneration post-fire often supports different composition of species.- Soils: The immediate impact of wildfires on soil is the loss of organic matter, which plays a crucial role in nutrient cycling. This can decrease soil fertility. Intense heat from the fire can also alter the physical structure of soils, destroying beneficial microes and fungi. The removal of vegetation and leaf litter increases the vulnerability of soils to erosion, leading to the loss of topsoil and furthur degredation. Additionally, in some cases, nutrients like nitrogen are volatillized, reducing the overall nutrient content in the soil. On the other hnd, ash from burned vegetation can temporarily increase soil pH and release nutrients, fostering some initial rgrowth.Together, these changes can signifigantly influence the recovery and future composition of the forest community, sometimes shifting ecosystems toward different states depending on the fire intensity and frequency.

6. Describe how wildfires impact the hydrology, wildlife, and soils of forest communities.

Drought in forest ecosystems involves prolonged periods of low precipititation and increased temperatures, reducing soil moisture and limiting water availability for trees and understory vegetation. Drought can lead to water stress in trees, affecting their physiological processes such as photosynthesis, nutrient uptake, and growth. Without adequete moisture, trees close their stomata to conserve water, reducing carbon dioxide intake and limiting their ability to produce energy. Extended drought periods can result in tree mortality, particularly among species that are less drought-tolerant. As drought severity and frequency increase, the impact on global forests intensifies. Prolonged droughts weaken trees, making them more susceptible to pests and diseases and raising the likelihood of large-scale dieoffs. Dead and weakened trees become fuel for wildfires, increasing fire intensity and spread, which further degrades forests and reduces biodiversity. Forests that do regenerate may shift in specie composition, as drought-tolerant species outcompete those that are less resilient, altering ecosystem functions and biodiversity.The decline of forests due to drought impacts global climate regulation. Forests play a key role in sequestering carbon, and as they shrink or degrade, less carbon is stored, leading to higher atospheric CO2 levels and accelerating climate change. Addittionally, large-scale tree mortality can transform forests from carbon sinks to carbon sources, releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere. Consequently, increasing droughts threaten not only the health of the forest ecosystem but also global climate stability.

7. Describe the conditions of drought as it relates to forest ecosystems, and identify how increasing drought severity and frequency impacts global forests.

Forest onsect pests can cause signifigant damage to forest ecosystems by feeding on trees, disrupting their growth, and making them more vulnerable to other stresses. Heres a breakdown of the biology and impacts of some common forest pests--Mountain Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus Ponderosae): The mountain pine beetle is a bark beetle that infests primarily lodgepole, ponderosa, and whitebark pines. The adult beetles burrow into tree bark, where they lay eggs. The larvae feed on the tree's phloem, cutting off nutrient and water flow. Infested trees typically die within one or two years. Outbreaks can kill millions of trees, leading to large-scale forest die-offs, which increase wildfire risk and reduce biodiversity.-Spruce Beetle (Dendroctonus Rufipennis): Spruce beetles attack mature spruce trees, particularly Engelmann and white spruce. Adults tunnel into tree bark to lay eggs, and the larvae feed on the inner bark, disrupting the tree's ability to transport water and nutrients. Large infestations can kill entire stands of spruce trees, leading to shifts in forest structure, increased fire hazards, and habitat loss for species that rely on spruce forests.- Spruce Budworm (Choristoneura Fumiferana): The spruce budworm is a moth whose larvae feed on the needles and buds of spruce and fir trees. The caterpillars emerge in the spring and consume new growth, severley defoilating trees. Repeated defoilation weakens trees, making them more susceptible to disease and other pests, and can lead to widespread tree mortality in affected areas, disrupting forest regeneration.

8. Explain the biology and impacts of typical forest insect pests such as Mountain pine beetle, Spruce beetle, Spruce budworm, Forest tent caterpillar, Emerald ash borer, and Asian longhorn beetle.