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Global Warming Solutions

Posted by MAHANEESH | Posted in | Posted on 5:08 AM

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What Can We Do?





The evidence that humans are causing global warming is strong,
but the question of what to do about it remains controversial.
Economics, sociology, and politics are all important factors
in planning for the future.

Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs) today, the Earth would still warm by another degree Fahrenheit or so. But what we do from today forward makes a big difference. Depending on our choices, scientists predict that the Earth could eventually warm by as little as 2.5 degrees or as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

A commonly cited goal is to stabilize GHG concentrations around 450-550 parts per million (ppm), or about twice pre-industrial levels. This is the point at which many believe the most damaging impacts of climate change can be avoided. Current concentrations are about 380 ppm, which means there isn't much time to lose. According to the IPCC, we'd have to reduce GHG emissions by 50% to 80% of what they're on track to be in the next century to reach this level.

Is this possible?

Many people and governments are already working hard to cut greenhouse gases, and everyone can help.

Researchers Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow at Princeton University have suggested one approach that they call "stabilization wedges." This means reducing GHG emissions from a variety of sources with technologies available in the next few decades, rather than relying on an enormous change in a single area. They suggest 7 wedges that could each reduce emissions, and all of them together could hold emissions at approximately current levels for the next 50 years, putting us on a potential path to stabilize around 500 ppm.

There are many possible wedges, including improvements to energy efficiency and vehicle fuel economy (so less energy has to be produced), and increases in wind and solar power, hydrogen produced from renewable sources, biofuels (produced from crops), natural gas, and nuclear power. There is also the potential to capture the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuels and store it underground—a process called "carbon sequestration."

In addition to reducing the gases we emit to the atmosphere, we can also increase the amount of gases we take out of the atmosphere. Plants and trees absorb CO2 as they grow, "sequestering" carbon naturally. Increasing forestlands and making changes to the way we farm could increase the amount of carbon we're storing.

Some of these technologies have drawbacks, and different communities will make different decisions about how to power their lives, but the good news is that there are a variety of options to put us on a path toward a stable climate.

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Spacewalking Astronauts Start to Install New Lab

Posted by MAHANEESH | Posted in | Posted on 5:01 AM

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The shuttle Atlantis, seen here from the International Space Station as the vessels pass over Central America traveling at 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 kilometers per hour).

This still image was taken from NASA video.

Image courtesy NASA







Two spacewalking astronauts floated out of a hatch on the international space station on Monday to help install a new European lab, while a crewmate who was supposed to participate in the outing helped from inside.
Spacewalkers Rex Walheim and Stanley Love ventured outside as the space station passed over Asia.

"Welcome to spacewalking, buddy," Walheim said as Love made his way through the hatch for his first spacewalk.

"It's awesome," Love replied.

At Last

German astronaut Hans Schlegel was supposed to be Walheim's spacewalking partner, but he was pulled from the job Saturday because of an undisclosed illness.

Schlegel looked and sounded well Sunday and was expected to take part in the second spacewalk of the mission on Wednesday. On Monday, however, he was helping choreograph the outing from inside the station.

The main task for Walheim and Love will be attaching a handle to the Columbus lab so that robotic arm operator Leland Melvin can grab hold of the module and delicately lift it from the cargo bay of the shuttle Atlantis, which brought the device to the space station after launching last week from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Melvin will then install Columbus on the right side of the Harmony module, which the shuttle Discovery's astronauts delivered in December.

The ten-ton Columbus laboratory is Europe's main contribution to the space station.

The original plan called for the module to be launched in 1992 to mark the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' voyage to the New World.

Since then, the two-billion-U.S.-dollar lab has endured space station redesigns and slowdowns, as well as a number of shuttle postponements and two shuttle accidents.

"A Big Day" "It's getting more exciting here for us every day," a European flight controller said Monday. "... We're looking forward to a successful Columbus installation today."

"This will be a big day for us," replied French Air Force Gen. Léopold Eyharts, who arrived at the station aboard Atlantis to spend a month setting up and activating the new lab.

With their flight now 12 days long because of the spacewalk delay, Atlantis's astronauts conducted another survey of a thermal blanket that has a torn corner—the stitching came apart at the seams, and the corner pulled up.

Engineers were analyzing the problem to determine whether the blanket would stand up to the intense heat of re-entry at flight's end, or whether spacewalk repairs might be needed. The blanket is located on the right orbital maneuvering system pod back near the shuttle's tail.

NASA is vigilant when it comes to the shuttle's thermal shielding, ever since Columbia was destroyed in 2003 following a foam strike to its wing during launch.

John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team, said the thermal covering on the wings, nose and belly of Atlantis have no areas of concern and have been cleared for re-entry in just over a week.

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King Penguins Declining Due to Global Warming

Posted by MAHANEESH | Posted in | Posted on 4:54 AM

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King penguins near the Antarctic may be on a perilous path to extinction as a result of global warming, new research suggests. Populations of the large birds on Possession Island in the Indian Ocean's Crozet Archipelago are declining as sea temperatures warm and the birds are forced to travel longer distances to find food.

Researchers tagged a king penguin colony and monitored it over nine years while also measuring sea-surface temperatures.

"We wanted to see what effect climate change was having on the breeding and survival of the penguins," said lead study author Yvon Le Maho, research director at the National Center for Scientific Research in Strasbourg, France.

The study appears today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Tough Being On Top

Because king penguins are at the top of the food chain, they are particularly vulnerable to environmental changes.

Even a small shift in the numbers of fish and squid that the penguins eat could have large impacts on their population.

In recent years, many of the prey species have died or migrated as the ocean warms and the algae that those animals eat are impacted.

Warming temperatures also force fish to swim into cool waters farther away from the island, causing penguins to travel greater distances to hunt. The longer time away from home reduces chick feedings, the researchers found.

So during years when seas become warmer, penguins do not breed as successfully, Le Maho and colleagues found.

At the edge of the sea ice, where penguin adults forage during winter, just a 0.47 degree Fahrenheit (0.26 degree Celsius) increase resulted in a 9 percent decrease in the population two years later.

Le Maho said this temperature sensitivity is likely to cause problems for penguin populations,as climatologists predict a 0.72 degree Fahrenheit (0.4 degree Celsius) increase in oceans off Antarctica over the next 20 years.

Similar Troubles

William Fraser, an ecologist at the Polar Oceans Research Group in Sheridan, Montana, was not involved with the study.

"Here's another species, [such as] the polar bear in the Arctic and the Adélie penguin in the Antarctic, that we would have thought to be undisturbed," he said.

"Because these animals live so far removed from people, it often passes us by that they too are vulnerable to human impacts like climate change."

Ron Swaisgood, a conservation biologist at the San Diego Zoological Society, also compared the king penguins' struggles to that of polar bears.

"Polar bears traverse the ice in search of seals, [and] the sea ice is disappearing," he said. "Loss of sea ice means that polar bears will not have access to their primary prey.

"That penguins are in this situation too points to the global degree of the problem."

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