10 Things to Know About Season 11 Episode 5

InfinityStream.TV

10 Things to Know About Season 11 Episode 5  # #RealityInsightHub   🎞 Please subscribe to our official channel to watch the full movie for free, as soon as possible. ❤️Reality Insight Hub❤️ 👉 Official Channel:  />👉 THANK YOU ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Transcript

00:00Why are we so resistant to change and what can we do to challenge the status quo?

00:06And how do invasive species threaten nature and their way of life?

00:10We'll be looking into all this and more on 10 Things to Know About.

00:22This week we're looking at carbon, the vital element that connects all life on Earth,

00:27our geological past and our climate.

00:43We all have an idea of what carbon is. It's in diamonds and in pencils, in coal and in fizzy drinks.

00:50And life as we know it would not exist without carbon.

00:53Carbon can exist as a solid, liquid or gas and it's an important part of DNA,

00:59the molecule that stores the genetic instructions for human life.

01:02So how does this element that is so central to our existence pose such a threat to our planet?

01:11I'm at the Otherworldly Landscape of the Byron to meet Michelle McKeown to discuss how carbon

01:17builds the very fabric of our world.

01:19Michelle, why is carbon so important to life?

01:24Carbon is an element and it's fundamental to all life on Earth.

01:29So me and you, Fergus, we're made up of carbon, so our plants and animals.

01:34And it also comes in an inorganic form as well, which you can find in soils, in rocks,

01:39in water and in our atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane.

01:44For millions of years, nature has kept a delicate balance, removing just the right amount of carbon

01:50dioxide from the air through a process known as the carbon cycle.

01:53The trees will take carbon dioxide in from the atmosphere and store it in the biomass of that tree.

01:59Also in oceans, we have dissolved bicarbonate. So that carbon then is being used up by marine

02:06organisms to form kind of their shells.

02:08And we're here in this stunning vista of the Byron, but what role does carbon play

02:15in the formation of the Byron?

02:17So this is actually an amazing carbon store that we're sitting on.

02:21So this is calcium carbonate, so it's inorganic carbon.

02:24And 340 million years ago, we would have actually been in a tropical ocean.

02:29Wow.

02:30Wow.

02:30Yes.

02:31Not today. It's pretty cold today.

02:32Not today. No, no.

02:34It was a long time ago.

02:35And there would have been coral and marine organisms sucking some of that carbon out of the ocean

02:41and actually storing it in the shells.

02:44And then when these organisms died, their shells would have sank to the bottom of the ocean and

02:49formed this kind of calcium carbonate mud.

02:52So under millions of years and through lots of different pressure, it would have created limestone.

02:58Now what we're sitting on here today, these limestone pavements, they have unique kind of

03:02landforms of different shapes to them. So we have turlocks, we have cave systems here,

03:08we have our limestone pavement.

03:13Through rainwater and through groundwater, what's actually happening is there's a weak carbonic acid

03:18in that water and it's slowly dissolving some of that ancient kind of carbon that we're sitting

03:24on in these rocks and actually brings it back out to the Atlantic Ocean.

03:28So it can then be used by other organisms to form their shells.

03:31And it's a nice example of this carbon cycle.

03:45Since the Earth's formation 4.5 billion years ago, carbon dioxide or CO2 levels have varied wildly,

03:52shaping our planet's climate and life itself. Early volcanoes filled the air with CO2 until the first

03:59plants formed, absorbing CO2 and cooling the planet. Over the last 800,000 years, CO2 fluctuated with ice

04:08ages, rising and falling due to changes in the Earth's orbit. However, the industrial revolution has

04:14increased CO2 levels and changed our climate at the fastest rate ever recorded in human history.

04:21This is where humans have really played a role in accelerating climate change,

04:26because what we've been doing is taking these old stores of carbon, like our coal, our gas,

04:32our oil, and burning them and emitting that carbon back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

04:37Now, the greenhouse effect's important. We need it for life on Earth. The problem is that we,

04:42as humans, have accelerated the carbon cycle.

04:45We all know that we need to reduce the amount of fossil fuels that we use, but is that enough?

04:50But we also need to have a look at our landscape and how we're using it as well. Only 11% of our

04:55land cover is actually trees. Also, peatlands as well. Actually raising the water table would allow

05:00less of that carbon to be released back to the atmosphere.

05:04And the ocean is one of the biggest sinks of carbon dioxide, is that right?

05:08Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, so being able to understand kind of this role that the ocean plays

05:13in that carbon cycle is incredibly essential.

05:29To explore how rising CO2 levels impact our oceans and shape Earth's climate,

05:34scientists are pushing the limits of marine exploration.

05:38The ocean is one of two research vessels run by the Marine Institute in Galway,

05:44and like the great man she's named after, is dedicated to taking to the high seas to discover

05:49more about our planet. She plays a major role in helping us to improve our understanding

05:55about the ocean current system of the Atlantic.

05:58I'm here to meet Audrey Morley, whose research is helping to tell the story of our oceans.

06:02I'm a paleoceanographer, so I study the ocean and the ocean climate in the past.

06:10And I'm particularly interested in the AMOC, which stands for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning

06:15Circulation. The AMOC is a system of currents. It transports warm waters from the tropics to the

06:24high latitudes at the surface, and then cold water at the bottom of the oceans, out of the Arctic,

06:30into the southern latitudes. So you think of it as a conveyor belt. It is bringing heat to the

06:36high northern latitudes and cold waters back south into the south of the Atlantic. The heat

06:41that is transported to northern latitudes is why our weather and climate here on Ireland is so mild

06:47and wet. Because not only do we get heat, but we also get a lot of moisture with it.

06:52And why are our scientists so interested in AMOC at the moment? There have been signs that AMOC might be

06:58decreasing, and that could have really important consequences for our weather and climate here.

07:04Because even a small decrease in the amount of heat and moisture that we're getting

07:09to Ireland would change our climate significantly. Our winters would get colder, we would have more

07:15extreme climates. Seasonality might change as well. We would have more extreme storms, most likely.

07:21And then our infrastructure, economy and agriculture needs to cope with all of these changes, which is

07:27not a small thing. And some of those things are already kind of baked in in terms of climate change.

07:31But actually, if AMOC was to be put on top of that, then who knows? Well, who knows? You're going to find out.

07:36That's one of the goals, yes, to find out what the impacts are so that we can prepare for them.

07:43Scientists have been monitoring the AMOC since the early 2000s, but the ocean circulation responds

07:48on much longer timescales. Aboard research vessels like the Tom Crean and Celtic Explorer, Audrey and her

07:54colleagues collect water samples and marine cores to investigate what was happening in our oceans and

07:59atmosphere thousands of years ago. Her last expedition was in 2023.

08:05To get the climate archive, we deploy two different types of equipments. One that's called a multi-core and

08:14it takes small cores of the very surface of the ocean floor. And then we deploy a gravity core that will

08:20take up to six meters of sediments from the chosen site. Back at her lab in the University of Galway, Audrey shows

08:29me one of the cores she collected from the seabed where deep Atlantic currents flow.

08:33On their path, they carry sediments with them. When the currents are very strong and the AMOC is strong,

08:40then the grain size that the currents are carrying is larger. But when they're weaker,

08:46the sediment size will decrease as well. So if I take samples from this core and go back in time or

08:53down the core, I can measure changes in grain size and therefore infer changes in AMOC strengths.

08:59Okay, very good. And can you tell how far back in time you're going according to the depth of the

09:05sediment? That is actually the first step. We need to know how old this core is. So in order to do

09:10that, I have to take samples at certain intervals throughout the core to radio carbon-dade fossil

09:16material that is preserved in the mud. And these fossils that you're looking at, what creatures are they

09:21from the past? So we use foraminifera, or forams for short. And they are tiny plankton. And during

09:30their lifetime, they build a shell. And that shell is preserved in these cores. Sediment samples from

09:39the sea floor can reveal how deep ocean currents respond to climate change. This sample will be

09:45gently shaken for two days and then sieved to separate the clay, silt and plankton from the tiny

09:50microfossils that have an ancient story to tell us. Wow. So they're microfossils from a couple of

09:57thousand years ago? Yes. They look like tiny little popcorn. Really? Oh yeah, they totally do. In order

10:06to take the forams out of the tray, because they are different species, we have these little slides

10:12where we put them in. And I use a little bit of clean water to wet. So I gently approach it, pick it up,

10:21and then place it in here. But you're just looking for the popcorn shaped ones? In the popcorn shaped ones,

10:27there are over 20 different species. So you have to identify them correctly. Oh wow. And how many are you

10:33looking for? Maybe 500 would be enough? Sometimes. So you have to pick 500 out of this? Yes. Good luck.

10:49The dating and analysis of marine sediment pores can help reveal how Earth's climate and ocean

10:54circulation has varied in the past. Using these natural climate archives, scientists estimate that

11:00the AMOC is between 3 and 14 million years old. Over that time, the AMOC has experienced natural

11:06variations and understanding the complexity of this ancient system takes close collaboration.

11:12Audrey's data can help climate modelers like MetAaron's EndaOD to test and refine AMOC models.

11:21We want to discern between human forced variations versus the natural oscillations which can last decades,

11:28centuries and even millennia. If we can recreate what the paleontologists observe, then we can be

11:33confident that what we're predicting the future is reliable. AMOC responds to changes in climate,

11:40ocean temperature and salinity, which can be caused by a number of factors, such as melting fresh water

11:45from the ice sheets. Enda can simulate these changes in the models, but the computational power required

11:51to capture such a vast ocean in detail can be very expensive. Instead of doing that, we look at the key

11:58areas that really matter, that really affect AMOC. And we use a very high resolution grid for those

12:03places. We get much improved AMOC simulations, but at a much lower cost. And what are some of those key

12:08areas that you're looking at? So some of the key areas include the Gulf Stream separation off the coast

12:14of America, the sills between the Arctic and the Atlantic, that's between Greenland, Iceland and Shetland.

12:20And believe it or not, even the Mediterranean is important because of Mediterranean outflow at mid depths

12:26also affects AMOC as well. Enda is particularly interested in the Denmark Strait, where deep

12:33Arctic water flows over ridges and sills into the Atlantic. Traditional models show how the temperature

12:38changes by depth in this area, but they can miss important details. Their blocky grids average out

12:45temperatures and fail to represent the flow near the seabed. Regional models, on the other hand, are far more

12:51detailed. They follow the shape of the ocean floor more closely, adding smoother layers and capturing

12:57the flow near the seabed as it travels from the Arctic into the Atlantic.

13:05AMOC has kind of hit the news headlines a bit over the last few years about collapsing in the next 50

13:24years or 100 years. What's kind of most sober assessment of it? Some of the studies, they're

13:29actually deliberately collapsing the AMOC. They deliberately enter an unrealistic amount of fresh

13:35water just to see what would happen, because it's very important to understand if it did collapse,

13:39how would we deal with that situation? However, it's not often reported that they are quite unlikely

13:45events in the future, and that's something you need to be clear about. The more likely is a gradual

13:49slowing down of 35 to 45 percent by 2100, and that's kind of where we're concentrating in Med-Aaron.

13:55But of course, research is active, and we're always watching the latest literature.

14:00Understanding all this is kind of crucial for the future. Is there anything else we can do to kind of help?

14:06We need to reduce our carbon emissions. Each effort we make in that will make the extreme events less likely.

14:13And we really want to avoid extremes. Inevitably, there will be some adaptation needed, but the degree

14:19to which we have to adapt will depend on how much we mitigate in the first place. And the work that

14:23you are doing and your colleagues are doing is to kind of give us a better picture for the future so we

14:27can plan and adapt. Absolutely, yes.

14:57Let's step back in time, 55,000 years to be precise, to a small limestone cave in France called Grotte Mandra.

15:21In the cave, an ancestor of ours lights a fire, but little do they know that the carbon from those

15:27flames would go on to rewrite human history and leave a mark as the earliest record of Homo sapiens

15:34in Western Europe, 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. When the fire was lit,

15:42the smoke left a layer of black carbon or soot on the cave walls. Then the following season,

15:49a thin layer of calcium carbonate, called a speleothem, covered it over. This cycle was repeated

15:56again and again, giving rise to thousands of layers of telltale thickness that under a microscope can be

16:02read, just like how we use tree rings to date the age of trees. By comparing the timing of fires with

16:11fossilised teeth and tools found in the cave, a team of scientists concluded that not only did Homo sapiens

16:19and Neanderthals occupy the cave within one year of each other, but that our ancestors arrived in this

16:27part of Europe much earlier than previously known. Every action leaves a trace, and carbon provided the

16:36smoking gun of an act by a modern human hand. After all, there's no such without fire. See you next time.

17:00We know we have to cut emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change,

17:04but can we do more to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere?

17:08A team of researchers here in Trinity has spent the last 10 years tackling just that problem,

17:13figuring out how to take carbon out of the air. Wolfgang Schmidt is a material scientist and

17:19synthetic chemist at the Amber Research Centre. I would say climate change is arguably the greatest

17:26societal challenge that we have. Currently, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are 420 to 430 ppm,

17:37which are the highest level in human history. So it's actually a real scientific challenge to pick

17:44out these molecules, to remove the molecules. So it's a fascinating challenge to do this.

17:49And so if you want to take carbon out of the air, where do you even begin to tackle that problem?

17:55The process is described as direct air capture. So you need a material, you need to design a material

18:02that picks up the CO2, that absorbs the CO2 from the air, and also potentially releases it on demand.

18:10Wolfgang and his team have spent years designing and testing a number of materials to draw carbon

18:16dioxide out of the air. A key development was this material that contains a special surface

18:22that binds the CO2 molecules and releases them again when heated. We decided to go with this approach

18:31because it allows us to use waste heat. What does waste heat mean? Heat that is generally associated

18:39with industrial processes and is difficult to harness. So for instance, in Ireland it would mean in 2030,

18:46I think approximately one third of the electricity used in Ireland is used in data centers. However,

18:54most of this electricity that enters the data centers translates to waste heat. Wolfgang and his colleague

19:03Sebastian show me how the air filter device works. As air is drawn in, the CO2 molecules stick to the innovative

19:10material inside. By monitoring the levels at the filter exhaust, we can see that the levels have

19:16dropped, indicating an impressive 90% of the carbon dioxide has been captured. But this isn't just a

19:23lab experiment. We're heading to Dublin airport, where the technology is being put to the test in the

19:30real world. So it's going very well. The instrument performs very reliable across all weather conditions,

19:38even today. So the humidity does not really influence the performance of the instrument.

19:44We capture approximately two to five tons of CO2 per annum. There's also some room for improvement.

19:52For instance, the insulation or the heat management in the system could be a little bit improved.

19:58This would allow us to run faster cycles and the productivity would be higher and the energy consumption

20:05would be lower. So now you see inside of the instrument. So this is actually the capture vessel

20:11where the porous material is inside. And so how much of your absorbent material is in here? So in the laboratory,

20:17we had 500 grams. And here we've got now 100 kilograms of adsorbent in there. Well, 200 times more.

20:24200 times more. Brilliant. The airport is an ideal location to test a direct air capture device.

20:31And it could offer valuable opportunities for the future. The aviation industry emits significant

20:39quantities of CO2. And the industry needs to adopt sustainable aviation solutions to meet the climate

20:46target. In particular, the aviation industry will in the future more and more use sustainable aviation fuels

20:55for which CO2 could be a feedstock. We are also not very far from greenhouses here at the Dublin airport

21:02where strawberries are grown. The test here allows us to demonstrate the technology to the to the agricultural

21:09industry, which could use CO2 to enhance growth in greenhouses to increase the yields.

21:16So there's a lot of different benefits. There are a lot of different benefits.

21:29Direct air capture isn't a silver bullet for reducing our CO2 emissions. And the technology has to run

21:35efficiently to be truly sustainable. But these portable systems could be scaled up to help us build a

21:41cleaner, lower carbon future. So Wolfgang, what's the long term goals of this project? Where do you want

21:48to see it go? We are at the moment designing a 400 tonne system. Okay. A system that captures up to 400

21:56tons of CO2 per annum. We would like to develop this technology to be used in conjunction with waste heat,

22:03with waste heat suppliers, data centers with incinerators. Excellent. From the outside, this system looks deceptively

22:11simple. But inside these boxes is cutting edge technology that represents a decade of research.

22:18And this system has such exciting potential, not only as a tool for the circular economy,

22:22but also as a way to help clean up our air and secure our planet's future.

22:26That's our 10 things to know about carbon. Next time, we explore the hidden world of bacteria,

22:43and the urgent fight against antimicrobial resistance.

23:13We'll be right back to the next day.

23:26We'll see you next time.

23:28We'll see you next time.

23:29We'll see you next time.

23:31So we'll see you next time.

23:32Bye.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended