Environment

Finger Rafting No, it's not a new sport.  It's one of many ways in which ice consolidates. In order to more fully understand what is happening to the Arctic climate we need to understand how sea ice is formed and consolidated, and how it is dispersed and melted. There are very many ways in which two or more units of ice or freezing water can combine.  Five come readily to mind: hail, snow, frost, freshwater ice, sea ice.  Let's focus on ice formation in water. A general principle of ice consolidation and fragmentation is that when any two ice masses collide or are pressed…

Besides petroleum products below the earth , 97 percent of water is saline on the surface of the earth and major portion of water is obtained from water reserves below the ground. Excessive use of water results in lowering of water table and rocks below the earth surface which were submerged in water layers get exposed and release different heavy metals. Like arsenic is released in wells of Kolkatta region and elswhere as per some reports. Fluoride levels are rising in Rajasthan and many wells have water which is not drinkable. Deep boring facility has resulted in wells as deep as 300 to 1500…

NASA Goes To The Arctic NASA is sending a team of scientists to study the Arctic at close quarters.  I guess it's pretty hard to sample phytoplankton with a satellite. NASA Icebreaker Voyage To Probe Climate Change Impact On Arctic WASHINGTON -- NASA's first dedicated oceanographic field campaign goes to sea June 15 to take an up-close look at how changing conditions in the Arctic are affecting the ocean's chemistry and ecosystems that play a critical role in global climate change. The "Impacts of Climate on Ecosystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment" mission, or…

The polar regions are far, far away for most people. Do not count me in among 'most people' though. As a Norwegian I practically live in the Arctic. There are only 8 nations that are (partly) situated in the Arctic: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and USA Several countries claim rights in Antarctica, which is regulated by the Antarctic Treaty . Sometimes we talk about a third pole, namely The Himalayas. Common for all three regions are remoteness and inaccessibility. Courtesy of Nordpil. Map of the Arctic. Polar exploration is deeply founded in the Norwegian identity…

Some weeks ago I posted a blog Falodi ( Jodhpur Rajasthan India ) and Jaisalmer and Jodhpur recorded 49.9 degree or almost this temperature and yesterday there was news that floods have come there and army has to be called to evacuate people.It is not water scarcity but its poor management which is responsible for the loss of water from the surface and ground level. Here in Germany people have water storage tanks and store rain water and also harvest used water and use it for toilets and garden. Why cant we follow this practice in India also and save every drop of water.  You…

Arctic Ice June 2010 - Update This is an update to my article Arctic Ice June 2010, part of my ongoing series of articles about the Arctic. The NSIDC ice extent graph shows a fairly constant and greater then average rate of ice loss over the last four weeks.Arctic Sea Ice Entent June 07 2010 - NSIDC http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/. In an article published May 06 2010 I wrote: I have no doubt that by the end of this month, May 2010, there will be much less sea ice than there was in May 2007.Arctic Ice May 2010 The National Snow and Ice Data Center - NSIDC - has just published its Arctic…

Terraforming is the concept of engineering planets to make them habitable for terrestrial life. This idea was born out of fiction. Olaf Stapledon, in his 1930 novel Last and First Men, first described a project undertaken to make Venus suitable for humans which began by placing photosynthetic plants on the surface to release oxygen. In 1942, Jack Williamson coined the term “terraforming” in his short story "Collision Orbit."  In 1961, Carl Sagan wrote the first academic paper on terraforming and published it in Science, moving the terraforming to the realm of serious scientific pursuit.…

Environmental catastrophe. Environmental opportunity. What a shame. No, a crime. It's the biggest oil spill in history. (No, wait, the biggest ever was actually spilled on purpose.) Whatever you call it, the BP oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico is still there, and I will almost certainly finish my PhD before it's stopped. Now that's a sobering thought. When even gaming comics take notice, you know it's big. If you only watch one video about the oil spill, I'd recommend Rachel Maddock's historical perspective. "What they've gotten technologically advanced at is drilling deeper. Congratulations…

Iceberg Alley And Global Warming In 1912 there were 1,019 icebergs reported in the North Atlantic shipping lane throughout the iceberg season.  Many of those icebergs were reported in April 1912. This year, as of June 06 2010, no icebergs have been reported in that same shipping lane. Is this evidence of global warming? It is so intuitive to assume that, if  Arctic ice retreat is due to global warming, then a lack of Atlantic icebergs must also be due to global warming. It doesn't work that way: there is only an indirect link between sea ice loss and iceberg melt mechanisms. R.M.S.…

Increasing levels of Carbon d ioxide may promote photosynthesis some time somewhere and have adverse effects in times to come, however population explosion is happening now and here. See the water tables going down, forests vanishing, billions of people living  in abject poverty, sleeping hungary overexploiting water resources causing salinization, soil erosion, and reduced agricultural production are all population based problems .It is unequal growth of world populations which may pose threat to world peace. Populations are not growing in some countries and some countries are…