Iconic CO2 Time Series at Risk

COMMENTARY Common but differentiated IBI Prize Essay LETTERS I BOOKS I POLICY FORUM I EDUCATION FORUM I PERSPECTIVES LETTERS edited by Jennifer Sills Iconic CO 2 Time Series at Risk THE STEADY RISE IN ATMOSPHERIC LONG- lived greenhouse gas concentrations is the main driver of contemporary climate change. The Mauna Loa CO 2 time series (1, 2), started by C. D. Keeling in 1958 and maintained today by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) of NOAA, is iconic evidence of the effect of human- caused fossil fuel and land-use change emis- sions on the atmospheric increase of CO 2 . The continuity of such records depends criti- cally on having stable funding, which is chal- lenging to maintain in the context of 3- to 4-year research grant funding cycles (3), and LEAH R. GERBER Faculty of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA. E-mail: leah.gerber@asu.edu References 1. Associated Press, The New York Times, 6 July 2012, p. A7 (www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/ world/europe/south-korea-whaling-plan-criticized.html). 2. S. Herman, Voice of America, 24 July 2012 (www.voanews.com/content/south-korea-still- considering-resumption-of-whaling/1444081.html). 3. L. R. Gerber, L. Morissette, K. Kaschner, D. Pauly, Science 323, 880 (2009). 4. R. Black, BBC News, 5 July 2012 (www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18719512). is currently threatened by the fi nancial crisis. The ESRL Global Monitoring Division maintains a network of about 100 surface and aircraft sites worldwide at which whole air samples are collected approximately every week for analysis of CO 2 , CH 4 , CO, halocar- bons, and many other chemical species (4). This is complemented by high-frequency measurements at the Mauna Loa, Barrow, American Samoa, and South Pole obser- vatories, and about 10 North American tall towers. The success of the NOAA program has inspired similar efforts in Europe (5), China (6), India (7), and Brazil (8), with the United Nations World Meteorological Orga- nization providing guidance and precision requirements through the Global Atmosphere Watch program (9), but no funding. 31 AUGUST 2012 Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on August 17, 2015 AT THE RECENT INTERNATIONAL WHALING COMMISSION’S ANNUAL meeting in Panama, South Korean offi cials announced their plan to initiate a “scientifi c whaling” program (1). This announcement came as a surprise given the general sentiment that the global demand for whale meat is declining. After weeks of international outcry, on 17 July, South Korea reversed their decision to hunt whales for research, but the issue is not dead (2). South Korea claimed that the goal of the scientifi c whaling pro- gram is to study the types and amounts of fi sh whales eat, given confl ict with fi sher- ies. Yet, it is well established in the scien- tifi c literature that there are many ways to study whale diet without killing them (3). Decades of fruitless negotiation between pro- and anti-whaling nations suggests a broken system, wrought with loopholes that allow unsustainable whal- ing to continue. Within this broken system, there is no incentive to reduce whaling, as the recent announcement by South Korea shows. Whaling groups are unwilling to compromise by allowing a sustainable harvest of whales, so unsustainable (scientifi c) whaling continues. To ensure a future of both whales and whalers, we must har- ness the passion and value that people place on living whales, with- out telling people what to do or force one set of values on others. We need novel, out-of-the-box approaches to effective management and conservation of whales. We must compromise to ensure reduc- tions in whales being killed, better oversight of countries that har- vest them, and limited whaling that does not threaten the persis- tence of whales. For those who believe that whaling is unethical, I challenge you to put forward alternative ideas to a global moratorium that fosters the “loophole” of scientifi c whaling. With new plans to develop scientifi c whaling programs (4), the current global moratorium is clearly bro- ken. Scientists, conservation advocates, resource managers, and the public must work together to develop new approaches to ensure the persistence of whales in our oceans. The data collected by NOAA and its worldwide partners have been used not only to demonstrate the unassailable rise of atmo- spheric greenhouse gas concentrations, but also to infer the magnitudes, locations, and times of surface-atmosphere exchange of those gases based on small concentration gradients between sites (10). Important fi nd- ings from analysis of these records include the detection of a signifi cant terrestrial car- bon sink at northern mid-latitudes (11) and subsequent research aimed at identifying the mechanisms by which that sink must operate. Long-term, high-quality, atmospheric mea- surements are crucial for quantifying trends in greenhouse gas fl uxes and attributing them to fossil fuel emissions, changes in land-use and management, or the response of natural VOL 337 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS CREDIT: LEAH GERBER/ ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY The Scientifi c Whaling Loophole