Researchers find out a different perspective of Global Warming

Researchers find out a different perspective of Global Warming

Most of us tend to think of global warming in terms of the greenhouse effect produced by CO2 emissions. While it may be partly true that CO2 emissions interfere with the radiation of the heat from sunlight back into space and thus warm up the atmosphere, the main culprit could be the amount of energy we produce and use; and the heat energy that is let out into the atmosphere in this process. Anyone familiar with thermal power plants would know that the efficiencies (ratio of electrical energy output to fuel energy input) are on average around 35%, with the cooling water taking away the bulk of the heat when steam is condensed into water. Even the useful energy that is produced is ultimately lost in space in the form of heat produced in various processes in which this energy is used.

Researchers Bo Nordell and Bruno Gervet of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Lulea University of Technology in Sweden have calculated the total energy emissions from the start of the industrial revolution in the 1880s to the modern day. They have worked out that using the increase in average global air temperature as a measure of global warming is an inadequate measure of climate change. They suggest that scientists must also take into account the total energy of the ground, ice masses and the seas if they are to model climate change accurately.

The researchers have calculated that the heat energy accumulated in the atmosphere corresponds to a mere 6.6% of global warming, while the remaining heat is stored in the ground (31.5%), melting ice (33.4%) and in sea water (28.5%). They point out that net heat emissions between the industrial revolution circa 1880 and the modern era at 2000 correspond to almost three quarters of the accumulated heat, i.e., global warming, during that period.

The researchers also point out a flaw in the nuclear energy argument. Although nuclear power does not produce carbon dioxide emissions in the same way as burning fossil fuels, it does produce heat emissions equivalent to three times the energy of the electricity it generates (using the thermal cycle of steam turbine) and so contributes to global warming significantly.

Their calculations suggest that most measures to combat global warming, such as reducing our reliance on burning fossil fuels and switching to renewables like wind power and solar energy, will ultimately help in preventing catastrophic climate change in the long term. But the same calculations also show that trapping carbon dioxide, so-called carbon dioxide sequestration, and storing it deep underground or on the sea floor will have very little effect on global warming.

Source: International Journal of Global Warming-July 2009 Issue

Action To Save Our Climate

Action To Save Our Climate

Action to save our climate is happening right now in Italy: As you read this our activists are scaling chimneys, chaining themselves to conveyor belts and blocking coal shipments at multiple locations in Italy.

They will be occupying coal-fired power stations during the G8 Summit beginning in Italy today and demanding that world leaders gathering for the summit make serious commitments to reducing world greenhouse gas emissions.

You can take action with them. You can demand that world leaders take personal responsibility for averting catastrophic climate change. You turn the Earth.

Follow our activists here: www.greenpeace.org/g8action

Thanks for your support.

Mr. Arunava Das
Greenpeace International
http://www.greenpeace.org/climate

Climate Project Presenter and Connector ACF 591
&
Senior Secondary Biology Teacher, Royal Government of Bhutan

# + 91 033 2683 1456 (Kolkata, India, Residence)
+ 91 9748804959 (Kolkata, India, Residence)

Solar Powered Plane

Fig: The HB-SIA


Based in Switzerland, a team of over 50 specialists from six countries is working on the Solar Impulse project: a solar-powered airplane capable of taking off autonomously and maintaining itself in flight for several days, entirely propelled by the energy stored in the photovoltaic panels contained in its wings.

The HB-SIA prototype is currently under construction and the round-the-world flight is programmed to happen in 2012, on a flight over land near the equator. Five stops are planned during the route, in order to change pilots and present the adventure to the public and authorities. Each flight leg will last from 3 to 4 days (considered the maximum endurance for a single pilot).



This is certainly a technology many of us have been waiting for, and which seems a natural step in the aviation industry.

Extraordinary Animal Stories

George the 140-Year-Old Lobster

Extraordinary Animal Stories

© Sara McGrath

Jan 10, 2009

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals championed for George the 140-year-old lobster's freedom, and won! He was released back into the ocean off the coast of Maine.

A tank in the City Crab and Seafood restaurant in New York had been home to George, a 140-year-old, twenty-pound lobster, for about two weeks.

City Crab and Seafood purchased George the Giant Lobster for $100 after he was caught off Newfoundland, Canada. He was adopted as the restaurant mascot as a tourist attraction and was made available for photos with patrons. It was a restaurant patron who notified PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) of the lobster's confinement.

PETA estimated George's age based on his weight, calculated by multiplying every pound he weighed by seven. If the estimate is correct, the lobster would have been born around 1869, the same year as Mahatma Gandhi.

In PETA's press release regarding their petition for George's release, they made note of a similar incident involving Bubba, a 100-year-old lobster who was caught off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts in 2005. Bubba died after only one week in captivity in an aquarium in Pittsburgh. Bubba had been destined for a tank in a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum.

The City Crab and Seafood restaurant initially denied PETA's request to release George, the elderly crustacean, back into the Atlantic Ocean. However, the restaurant had a change of heart and agreed to release the lobster in an area off the coast of Maine where lobster trapping is banned. George was released in a rocky cove in Kennebunkport near the summer home of former President George H.W. Bush.

All states in the US impose a minimum legal size for keeping lobsters, but the state of Maine also imposes a maximum legal size of five inches carapace length. The carapace is the main body section of the lobster excluding the tail.

According to PETA, because a lobster has a sophisticated nervous system and high sensitivity to pain, live lobster boiling is illegal in some cities, such as Reggio, Italy. PETA also pointed out that lobsters are sensitive to water quality and easily die if too much waste is secreted in their environment. Therefore, tank life for a lobster can be precarious.

"We never intended him to be sold," said Keith Valenti, manager of City Crab and Seafood, "just draw attention to the restaurant, and he did." However, he added that it was a "no brainer" to return the giant lobster to the ocean.

"We applaud the folks at City Crab and Seafood for their compassionate decision to allow this noble old-timer to live out his days in freedom and peace," said Ingrid E. Newkirk, president of PETA.

Study Confirms Amphibians' Ability To Predict Changes In Biodiversity

Study Confirms Amphibians' Ability To Predict Changes In Biodiversity

Study Confirms Amphibians' Ability To Predict Changes In Biodiversity

Biologists have long suspected that amphibians, whose moist permeable skins make them susceptible to slight changes in the environment, might be good bellwethers for impending alterations in biodiversity during rapid climate change.

Now two University of California biologists have verified the predictive power of this sensitive group of animals in a global study of species turnover among amphibians and birds. The study appears this week in the advance online version of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Our study supports the role of amphibians as 'canaries in the coal mine'," said Lauren Buckley, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and the first author of the study. "Amphibians are likely to be the first to respond to environmental changes and their responses can forecast how other species will respond."

"Amphibians are much more tuned in to the changes in their specific environments," said Walter Jetz, an associate professor of biology at UC San Diego and the other author of the study. "They are much more sensitive to differences in environmental conditions as you move geographically from one location to another."

The two scientists used maps of the environment and amphibian and bird distributions to answer the question of how the environment - as well as the distribution of birds and amphibians - changes as one moves from one place to another around the globe.

The researchers found that if the environment changes rapidly as one travels from one location to another, the amphibian and bird communities also change rapidly. However, the species of amphibians would change more quickly than species of birds. This confirms that amphibians are particularly sensitive to changes in the environment, the researchers conclude, and that this sensitivity is particularly acute given their narrow distributions.

Whether one is traveling through a tropical or temperature region also influences how quickly the types of animals change. Given a mountain of a certain size, the researchers found, the amphibian and bird communities change more quickly if one is climbing a mountain in the tropics than in a temperate region.

"There are more species in the tropics and the species are generally more specially adapted to particular environmental conditions," said Jetz. "This suggests that tropical species may be more severely impacted by a given temperature increase as a result of climate change."

For the study, he and Buckley produced a series of global maps of environmental turnover and the associated changes in amphibian and bird communities that reveal that the identities of birds and amphibians change particularly quickly in mountainous regions such as the Andes and Himalayas.

"Understanding how environmental changes over space influence biodiversity patterns provides important background for forecasting how biodiversity will respond to environmental changes over time such as ongoing temperature increases," said Buckley.

The study was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, UC Santa Barbara and the State of California.

By Arunava Das

Feasible Emission Scenarios Identified That Could Keep CO2 Below Climate Threatening Levels

Feasible Emission Scenarios Identified That Could Keep CO₂ Below Climate Threatening Levels

(In response to news published by ANI on September 11, 2008)

NASA researchers have identified feasible emission scenarios that could enable keeping carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels below that considered dangerous for climate by scientists.

When and how global oil production will peak or will decrease has been debated, making it difficult to anticipate emissions from the burning of fuel and to precisely estimate its impact on climate.

To justify how emissions might change in the future, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York considered a wide range of fossil fuel consumption scenarios.

For a better understanding of the possible trajectory of future carbon dioxide emissions, Kharecha and Hansen devised five carbon dioxide emission scenarios that span the years 1850-2100. Each scenario reflects a different estimate for the global production peak of fossil fuels, the timing of which depends on reserve size, recoverability and technology.

The first scenario estimates carbon dioxide levels, if emissions from fossil fuels are unconstrained and follow along “business as usual” growing by two percent annually until half of each reservoir has been recovered, after which emissions begin to decline by two percent annually.

The second scenario considers a situation in which emissions from coal are reduced first by developed countries starting in 2013 and then by developing countries a decade later, leading to a global phase out by 2050 of the emissions from burning coal that reach the atmosphere.

The reduction of emissions to the atmosphere in this case can come from reducing coal consumption or from capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere.

The remaining three scenarios include the above-mentioned phase out of coal, but consider different scenarios for oil use and supply.

Next, the team proposes to use a simplified mathematical model, called the Bern Carbon Cycle model, to convert carbon dioxide emissions from each scenario into estimates of future carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.

The unconstrained “business as usual” scenario resulted in a level of atmospheric carbon dioxide that more than doubled the pre-industrial level and from about 2035 onward levels exceed the 450 ppm threshold of this study.

Even when low-end estimates of reserves were assumed, the threshold exceeded from about 2050 onwards.

The other four scenarios, however, resulted in carbon dioxide levels that peaked in various years but all fell below the prescribed cap of 450 ppm by about 2080 at the latest, with levels in two of the scenarios always staying below the threshold.

The researchers suggested that the results illustrated by each scenario have clear implications for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal, as well as “unconventional” fuels such as methane hydrates and tar sands, all of which contain much more fossil carbon than conventional oil and gas.

By Arunava Das