Environment
A new study published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology suggests that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter.
The volcano ejected an estimated 800 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere, leaving a crater (now the world's largest volcanic lake) that is 100 kilometers long and 35 kilometers wide. Ash from the event has been found in India, the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea.
The bright ash reflected sunlight off the landscape, and…
The capacity of oceans and terrestrial ecosystems such as forests and grasslands to store carbon emissions is considered one of the primary ways the effects of climate change can be mitigated. Unfortunately, such natural carbon sinks may not be much help to Europe thanks to the continent's intensive land management practices, according to a new published online in Nature Geoscience.
The researchers from 17 European countries compiled the first comprehensive greenhouse gas balance of Europe, and made two independent estimates: one based on what the atmosphere sees and one based on what…
The Associated Press, that bastion of scientific knowledge, shares with us a list of "pests that are benefiting or could benefit from global warming", starting with:
_Ticks that transmit Lyme disease are spreading northward into Sweden and Canada, once too cold for them._Giant Humboldt squid have reached waters as far north as British Columbia,threatening fisheries along much of the western North American coast.
Do they always use underscores as bullets? Anyway, it's nice to see my study organism make the top five, er, six. But in my opinion, when people ask about the squid range expansion--"…
1 The early colonizers :
Some of the early colonizers including small ephemerals include: Polygala erioptera DC.; Polycarpaea corymbosa (L.) Lamk. ; Gisekia phamacioides L ; Mollugo cerviana (L.) Ser. ; Side ovals Forsk. ; Corchorus tridens L. ; Triumfetta pentandra A. Rick. ; Indigofera essiliflora DC. ; I. linnaei Ali. These plant species have their value as initial colonizer and are not suitable as biomass resource because" their yield potential is very low. These early colonizers provide helpful association for any subsequent plant to come in the succession like Artemisia scoparia Waldst…
· Biofuels offer clear advantages in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, but do they perform better when we look at all the environmental impacts from a life cycle perspective? To compare the environmental impacts and externalities of biodiesel and fossil diesel, these fuels and their impacts are assessed in a detailed way, combining Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools and externality assessment tools.
· Both environmental analyses require an objective basis for comparison, the so-called functional unit, which, reflects the function of the two fuels.…
Sanganer the world famous printing industry and hand paper industry has totally polluted the water of famous town of Sanganer Jaipur Behind the colourful bedsheets , skirts , and dress material there lies heaps of coloured water which is highly poisonous to the local people. Paper industry causes immense pollution. Three of my students have been working with isolating bacteria from the roots of the plants which can provide some solutions for bioremediation of waste water with only limited success. Pollution rules are there to please someone but who is that someone No adhearance to clean up…
Its people who can fight and control the climate change and carbon and pollution levels and not the Governments as they dont create pollution Its greed of the people , greed of the heavy industries to make more and more money unmindful of excess pollution, its greed of man to move in luxury cars , its greed of man to enjoy every bit of natural resources unmindful of their children that creates pollution, environmental , social , cultural and widens the gap between have and have nots. No Government in the world can check pollution by making laws. No amount of money pumped by the rich…
Wow I'm special, huh!? Well, I know I'm not. But please let me tell you about something called "TH!NK".
TH!NK2 Climate Change is a 3 month blogging competition with a focus on UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) in December 2009. Some 90 bloggers from 43 countries, including all 27 EU Member states, India, China, Brazil and the USA, the world's biggest players in climate policy, will come together on the European Journalism Centre's thinkaboutit.eu platform, to exchange ideas and debate the issues of climate change. And I'm in it.
One of my ideas for participating was…
BIOREMEDIATION OF SALINE SOILS USING HALOPHYTES. IN SEMI-ARID REGIONS OF RAJASTHAN INDIA.
Ashwani Kumar,
Departemnt of Botany , University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. 302004.
India
Email. Msku31@yahoo.com Fax. 00 91 141 565905 Phone 00 91 141 651627.
Introduction:
Indian arid zone covers an area of about 0.3 million sq.km.
The state of Rajasthan has total land area of about 3,42,274 Km2 out of which about 96,100 km2 is arid and rest semi arid.
90 million ha of area in India is wasteland out of which 10 million ha is saline alkaline wastelands. Around 60 percent of it…
In December an important climate change meeting will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark: The United Nations Climate Change Meeting or the so-called COP15 climate meeting. It has been all over the media for quite some time already, with an intensified flow of information about both politics and climate change science as we approach the date when the meeting starts; 7th December 2009.
For scientists and readers of science there are questions of expressing and understanding the information related to climate change. If we put the quality of science aside and just assume that the results are…