Is climate change hiding the decline of maple syrup?
Image:
By Matt Kaplan
The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil releases carbon dioxide that alters the balance of carbon isotopes naturally found in the environment--an effect that is now being found in food, reveals a US study.
Modern methods for tracking the origins of processed foods use isotopes--atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. Of the most common naturally occurring isotopes of carbon--carbon-12, with six neutrons, and carbon-13, with seven--the heavier carbon-13 isotope is rarer. In many plants, 108 out of 10,000 carbon atoms are carbon-13. However, in plants such as sugar cane and maize (corn), which use a different type of photosynthesis, 110 out of 10,000 atoms are carbon-13.
Tracking these ratios is a key part of how food regulatory bodies determine if low-cost sweeteners, such as corn syrup, have been added to foods. Because sweeteners from sugar cane and maize have a higher proportion of carbon-13, the carbon isotope ratio of the final product will be skewed.
As part of an undergraduate project intended to show how isotope analysis works, geochemist William Peck at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, got his students to analyse maple syrup from different parts of the northeastern United States. "Our intent was really just to see if isotope values varied by geography or if anyone was putting in sweeteners," says Peck.
All of the isotope values that the class collected were much the same, but when the group compared their values to isotope values of maple syrup in papers from the late 1970s and early 1980s, they noted that there were significant differences. Their analysis revealed that the relative amount of carbon-13 in maple syrup seemed to have gone down since the 1970s. This got Peck wondering if it was possible that baseline isotope ratios might be shifting because of environmental changes.
Sticky problem
To work this out, Peck and his student co-author, Stephanie Tubman, obtained maple syrup samples from producers in the states of New York and Vermont, covering the period 1970-2006. Some of these samples were not in a good condition: "When we opened one old can of syrup, it smelled like freshly mown grass. It was disgusting. My student had to scrape inch-thick layers of mold off the top for analysis to work out if the mold might change the isotope ratio of the syrup," recalls Peck. Fortunately, it did not.
The researchers analyzed 246 samples from this 36-year time period. They report in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry that maple syrup isotope ratios have shifted over the years. Samples of 1970s syrup had 108.7 carbon-13 isotopes per 10,000 carbon atoms, whereas the 2006 average was 108.5 carbon-13 isotopes per 10,000 carbon atoms. So syrup carbon-13 values are approaching the average 108 value that maple trees and most plants should have, explains Peck.
The reason, he suggests, is that carbon released from the burning of oil or coal, which has very little carbon-13 compared to that found naturally in the atmosphere, is shifting environmental carbon isotope ratios accordingly. Atmospheric data show that isotope ratio changes correlate directly with the changes in the maple syrup isotopes over the course of the 36 years studied, Peck says.
"We've known that atmospheric carbon isotope values were changing, but nobody was applying this to food science," says geochemist John Valley at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Clearly, food-monitoring studies need to start taking atmospheric isotope data into account."
Sweet cheat
The findings raise the possibility that producers of foods that are monitored for carbon isotope ratios might be able to add cheap sweeteners without being caught. Yet Peck doubts this is the case. "The producers that could cheat have not had the necessary information do so effectively," he says.
And the findings apply to more than just food. Isotope analysis of human tissue is being considered in some countries to help determine where immigrants have come from. "I think this maple syrup study demonstrates the danger of tissue testing. If we are making serious decisions about peoples' lives with isotope analysis, we must remember that there are numerous effects that determine the final values," says Valley.
As for whether isotope ratios change the taste of maple syrup, for the moment, that remains a mystery. "We had a pancake party in class at the end to celebrate the findings," says Peck. "Nobody was brave enough to try syrups from the 1970s."
See what we're tweeting about
26 Comments
Add CommentTo MarineCorpsVet:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe term 'Global Warming' was not actually mentioned in the article. The conclusion that global warming is to blame is your own conclusion, in which case you are the one who is, as you put it, "...stupid enough or misled enough or crooked enough to still be beating a dead horse".
Whether or not the writers or researchers are pathetic or not, and regardless of their level of intelligence, the numbers don't lie. so the conclusions that can be drawn are equally true. A scam is defined as a 'fraudulent operation to obtain money'. If you believe that this publication, the writer, or the researchers that participated are attempting to obtain money through a fraudulent scheme at your loss, then put your money where your mouth is. Get a lawyer and take them to court.
Otherwise, please keep your commentary within a somewhat scientific bent. Thank You.
To Scientific American:
Thanks for the article. I believe the comment from MarineCorpsVet should be removed for its support of divination through manipulation of tea leaves, of which there is no tangible scientific evidence of reproducible results.
To SkipCallahan:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, not to put too fine a point on it, "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" have been almost interchangeable in commercial media for the last few years of the "carbon" argument, as you know. And I agree with you that numbers don't lie...just certain folks that theoretically derive the "data" do, as has previously been embarassingly proven. I have always enjoyed SA magazine during the last 40 years or so, and I still do. As an engineer, I am sometimes troubled by the conclusions reached in these "climate" articles based on rather small data sets that probably do not represent the entire picture of what is really happening. It does seem like the magazine is determined to sway its readers into buying the climate change argument from many different angles and obtuse subjects. I'd just like to see a few more objective articles that don't have global warming or climate change as the predetermined conclusion. And I do agree everyone is welcome to their own opinion about this as well as welcome to post those opinions freely.
This is "the Onion", right?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought the article was very informative and I would like to see this experiment performed on humans so we can see how all the coal, oil, and natural gas carbon is affecting human tissue and liquids.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as MarineCorpsVet goes, he must've forgot his basic high school science..."every action has an equal reaction".
Slowly changing isotope ratios of carbon C12, C13 and C14 as a result of fossil fuel use is hardly a new idea regardless of your views on AGW. This is a well documented phenomenon that has been known for over 50 years. It is a process that, among other things, needs to be considered when establishing accurate ages of objects using radiocarbon dating. Look up the term "Suess effect" in your favourite web search engine of choice if you feel any doubt about this. The article does point out, however, a novel issue related to this that may not have been previously considered. A very interesting piece of work in my opinion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSlowly changing isotope ratios of carbon C12, C13 and C14 as a result of fossil fuel use is hardly a new idea regardless of your views on AGW. This is a well documented phenomenon that has been known for over 50 years. It is a process that, among other things, needs to be considered when establishing accurate ages of objects using radiocarbon dating. Look up the term "Suess effect" in your favourite web search engine of choice if you feel any doubt about this. The article does point out, however, a novel issue related to this that may not have been previously considered. A very interesting piece of work in my opinion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow.. I still find it funny how there is a Climate Change "DEBATE"! I live in Canada, and we are very concerned with, aware of, of few of us doubt the reality of climate change. The climate is changing, deserts world wide are growing, and CO2 levels in the atmosphere are increasing. These are empirical facts. The question is are humans the cause.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reason many people (even scientists) say no to this is because they are afraid to take responsibility. Like the person who accidentally runs over a toddler. In order to avoid feeling like a horrible person it is natural for the driver to put blame on the kid "he came out of no where!" , the roads "it was slippery! City should've put salt on the roads", or the weather "it was dark and snowing I couldn't see!" This is a natural phenomenon many psychologists are familiar with.
The reality is, however, that ice core results show a dramatic increase in CO2 since industrialization. Isotope ratios are changing. The weather is shifting. The ice caps are melting at the fastest rate in history. These are empirical realities that can be twisted to a persons agenda, but they are happening regardless of agenda or cause.
Speaking of agenda, it should be noted: when listening to someone who is preaching climate change, or no climate change, ask yourself "what does this person have to gain if I agree with them?". Oil companies (and, lets face it, that means every world government) benefit from the no climate change argument, so they will promote this ideology. Does Dr. Peck benefit if you agree with climate change? No. He benefits if his papers are well written and can be considered relevant (is there a change to note, is the science accurate, does this have policy implications). This will get him published. Published means notoriety which translates into job opportunities and grant money. So he does not win if you agree or disagree with climate change. SciAm wins if there is controversy (controversy = readers = profits).
So, the only thing scientists have to gain by people agreeing with climate change is that people agree with their conclusions. Big woop. On the other hand if people agree with their conclusions it means we might make changes in the way we do things in order to prevent a climatic problem later on down the road.
Some things to think about:
1. Oil is too valuable to waste as fuel.
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ
Allister, the problem with the video you link to in your point #2 is that the author assumes "we" can do something to stop global warming. There should be a third column: the Global Warming Hypothesis is true, but humans cannot do anything to stop it at this point. In this case, the correct action to take would be to develop drought resistant plants, cheap energy to provide air conditioned micro-climates, etc. There is no down-side at all to this set of actions, since the technology could be used regardless of the direction of global climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAllister, the problem with the video you link to in your point #2 is that the author assumes "we" can do something to stop global warming. There should be a third column: the Global Warming Hypothesis is true, but humans cannot do anything to stop it at this point. In this case, the correct action to take would be to develop drought resistant plants, cheap energy to provide air conditioned micro-climates, etc. There is no down-side at all to this set of actions, since the technology could be used regardless of the direction of global climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishere is my favorite game to play. there are 5 sources for the warming of the earth, the sun, jupiter, the moon, the earths core and man. the sun is in an extreme cooling phase, and as a result so is the moon as a reflector, jupiter is relatively even and the earth's core is stable. so unless you believe that there is an alien out past jupiter shooting the earth with his secret ray gun...that leaves man..hmmm as holmes said once you deduct everything you know. what is left must be true
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisalta, "we" cannot "stop" global warming, but we can stop contributing to, or increasing the effects of, global warming. The downside risk of your proposal is that it means we accept the path that we can - and should - alter, although I agree that the technology would be useful in conjunction with efforts to reduce industrial contribution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am an AGW denier of the first order, but I do also support the "it doesn't matter" line of thought because China is having its coldest winter ever and pragmatic Chinese will not handicap themselves economically over a Western superstition that doesn't even seem to be connected to reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNor will India, which is going IPCC the boot. Bangladesh can wail all its wants to that it should compensated because the sea level is rising but emotionalism is not hard science. At the start of the anthropogenic global warming bandwagon it was easy to get away with all kinds of claims, but in the coming decades if you are going to rush to court to claim that sea level has risen even a centimeter, you had better be able to prove it.
Lastly, why should I care if a producer makes their maple syrup a little sweeter by adding "cheaper" cane sugar? My tongue doesn't taste isotopes and neither does yours.
i am sorry mike which of the heat sources are causing the earth to warm? and if it isn't warming what happened to the artic pack ice?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy father, a chemical engineer, tapped maple trees as a hobby in Massachusetts. He stopped tapping in 1985 because the trees seemed to be on the decline in health. He speculated that it might be acid rain. We are now on using the very last bottle he made, which was canned in 1985. Only one of the 15 bottles of syrup was "bad" from a broken seal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy Dad, a chemical engineer, tapped maple trees in his neighborhood in eastern Massachusetts. We are now using his very last bottle of maple syrup, one of 15 1/2 gallon bottles I inherited. It was canned in 1985. Only one of the bottles was found to be bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry about the twice comment--had trouble posting. BTW, I read over some of the other comments and find most of them quite off topic. Some people are not intelligent enough to notice that it is about carbon isotopes and maple syrup. It is only incidentally related to climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is too bad that some people spend much of their time destroying other people's conversations online. Not too long ago, that was considered very rude. These "spoilers" don't seem to have much interest in what is really being said, either.
altamira55 wrote: "the author assumes "we" can do something to stop global warming". There is absolutely no reason we can not reverse the global warming. The technologies exist, we simply lack the will to implement most of them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMike Cook wrote: "Chinese will not handicap themselves economically over a Western superstition"
Actually China is quite concerned with global warming and the rapid desertification they are experiencing. Thus far China has done more to combat global warming than the U.S has.
When it comes to combating global warming is the U.S. and Canada standing in everyone's way.
Who cares if they sweeten my syrup. Who cares if they do whatever they want to any of my foods. If you haven't priced maple syrup lately, it is around $18 per quart. Replace 1% with HFCS and you just made a lot more profit. There is no one who should tolerate eating less than what they paid for. Let me know how much they can replace before making it "a little sweeter" becomes selling me a product that really isn't what I bought? BTW, some people are allergic to cane sugar. If they want to do it they need to label it and charge appropriately. Or maybe we could slap a BMW logo on a Chevy Malibu and be good with that also. All about integrity and how you deal with people. If that wasn't an issue, this wouldn't be either (not much in this thread either).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNatedog,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"There is absolutely no reason we can not reverse the global warming."
"Actually China is quite concerned with global warming and the rapid desertification they are experiencing. Thus far China has done more to combat global warming than the U.S has."
May I presume the you can provide evidence to substantiate your claims?
If it is data about climate change you are looking for, this link takes you to a list up to Nov 2009. For those people denying that this is a problem, I suggest you look through all of the data on these pages before making any claims: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand to review the current postings on realclimate.org.
Don't expect to go through these quickly. For the volume of data, it would take you years to work through it. Until that time, try listening to the people who do make a career understanding these things.
I think some people just have cold feet at the prospect of changing how we produce power. I don't see why being proactive on changing to sustainable power production is such a frightful thing. We will have to do this, sooner, or just a little later than sooner, as oil will be peaking production soon in the face of the exponential growth of users. Why not nuclear and natural gas? Why not electric cars? What are people so afraid of?
I am more afraid of the concsequences of not changing the way we provide power.
This was just published about ocean pH decreasing (acidifying). This study shows that it is: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100204144811.htm.
If we allow CO2 production to proceed, we will have mass extinctions in the oceans. There is not enough limestone in the cliffs of Dover to neutralize acidity in world's oceans...and how would you like your jellyfish cooked, sir?
The only decline that is being hidden is by the 'climate scientists'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMass extinctions? Dr. Richard Lindzen--Professor of Meteorology at M.I.T., member, the National Research Council Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, says global warming alarmists "are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Richard Tol--Principal researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije Universiteit, and Adjunct Professor at the Center for Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, at Carnegie Mellon University, calls the most influential global warming report of all time "preposterous . . . alarmist and incompetent."
Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski--world-renowned expert on the ancient ice cores used in climate research--says the U.N. "based its global-warming hypothesis on arbitrary assumptions and these assumptions, it is now clear, are false."
Prof. Hendrik Tennekes--director of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute--states "there exists no sound theoretical framework for climate predictability studies" used for global warming forecasts.
Meterologists are NOT climate scientists. Climate is not "weather." The tools and scale are quite different. Meterology predicts the weather based on current conditions. Climate sicentists measure the fossil, ice core, and other natural records to determine long term trends. The global mean temperature has increased but over a very long time. Any variations in the past ten or tenty years does not mean that much to a climate scientist. The fossil record indicates that an acidic ocean will lead to mass extinctions. We are getting an acidic ocean, therefore, we will eventually get mass exinctions in the oceans. It is in the rocks. The rocks and ice data are interpreted, but with much more rigor than a meterologist. A meterologist doesn't have to publish in peer-reviewed journals, for example. It would be silly for them to do that---they only have the tools and methods to study the present and not the past.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe laws of physics (thermodynamics) and chemistry (specific heat, reflectivity, and spectrums of gases) are into play here. If you don't believe in these basic principles, then you can't possibly appreciate the science used to create the semi-considtors in your computer.
By the way, the "alarmist" mentality goes both ways. Apparently, you are so afraid of changing off of oil and coal that you are trying to alarm people that there is a *conspiracy* among the scientists. This idea is quite laughable, as scientists all over the world, in thousands of research groups in thousands of universities and labs, all competing for the same research money. There is not much incentive to cooperate outside your own research group.
At this point, I know that you all, as alarmists, deniers and conspriacy theorists. Scientists have given their data and analysis. It is up to YOU to read it.
I don't get it. a change from 108.7 to 108.5 per 10,000 - is that even statistically significant?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChryses wrote: "May I presume the you can provide evidence to substantiate your claims?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is the great thing about making educated statements, there actually is evidence to substantiate the claims.
Suntech of China is currently the worlds largest producer of solar cells, and China is expected to become the largest producer of wind turbines by the end of 2010. China is also set to implement Euro IV emission standards in 2010.
As for the technologies which can reverse global warming, there are simply too many to list. Many would be required to work in conjunction and the costs associated with them range from the fiscally manageable to those project which we would only undertake in our most desperate hour. These are the projects that would most certainly bankrupt nations. Space based reflective mirrors for example fall under the category of desperate technologies.
Makes you wonder what the Vikings did for maple Syrup during the MWP.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this