planted city

Seen around town: A cluster of crocuses along the sidewalk this morning. Spring is on its way.

Seen around town: a bird’s eye view of the Stanley Park seawall this past weekend. The seawall is grade separated with lanes for folks on bikes and foot.

Seen around town:

The clouds may be grey and the rain heavy, but the trees and plants here in Vancouver are putting on a light show right now. Call me a fan of decaying chlorophyll.

Earlier in the summer we hiked the Ripple Rock Trail near Campbell River on Vancouver Island. It’s a short, 3-hour hike that ends on a rocky bluff overlooking Seymour Narrows. In 1958, it was the site of the largest non-nuclear human generated explosion of all time. It’s a beautiful place to eat a sandwich, feel the breeze, and watch birds of prey flying overhead. We were lucky enough to see a pod of transient orcas swimming up the Narrows while we were there.

Around town: Six shots from the weekend

I’m a little scratched up, but no worse for wear. Picked 3 buckets full of these suckers along an old railway corridor this afternoon. It’s blackberry season… time to make some jam!

Grow your own: A few shots from the garden

Going Places: Some in and out of focus shots along the Taylor River on Vancouver Island (A.K.A. views from Friday night’s camping spot)

Some morning light in a great little park on the other side of the Laurel Street overpass here in Vancouver.

From Science Daily:

Earth’s oceans, forests and other ecosystems continue to soak up about half the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by human activities, even as those emissions have increased, according to a study by University of Colorado and NOAA scientists published August 1 in the journal Nature.

…

Carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere mainly by fossil fuel combustion but also by forest fires and some natural processes. The gas can also be pulled out of the atmosphere into the tissues of growing plants or absorbed by the waters of Earth’s oceans. A series of recent studies suggested that natural sinks of carbon dioxide might no longer be keeping up with the increasing rate of emissions. If that were to happen, it would cause a faster-than-expected rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide and projected climate change impacts.

Ballantyne, Tans and their colleagues saw no faster-than-expected rise, however. Their estimate showed that overall, oceans and natural ecosystems continue to pull about half of people’s carbon dioxide emissions out of the atmosphere. Since emissions of CO₂ have increased substantially since 1960, Ballantyne said, “Earth is taking up twice as much CO₂ today as it was 50 years ago.”

The rest continues to accumulate in the atmosphere, where it is likely to accelerate global warming.

This new global analysis makes it clear that scientists do not yet understand well enough the processes by which ecosystems of the world are removing CO₂ from the atmosphere, or the relative importance of possible sinks: regrowing forests on different continents, for example, or changing absorption of carbon dioxide by various ocean regions.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Related: 

• ‘Study Shows Planet Keeping Pace With CO2 Emissions’ (Climate Central)
• ‘Infographic: The Carbon Bathtub’ (National Geographic)

(Carbon cycle graphic: NOAA)