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Global warming and climate change
Butterflies aboard Atlantis to live in orbit on International Space Station
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Global warming and climate change
The countdown to the Copenhagen (Denmark) Conference has started. Lot of media hype has been created for this conference on climate change.All the participating countries will be easily dividing themselves into two warring blocks i.e. developed and developing nations. Development constraints prevent the developing countries from cutting down CO2 emissions.
Developed nations would argue that comparison should be on total daily emissions rather than per capita consumption. The cry of the environmentalists is that CO2 emissions due to burning of large quantity of fossil fuels cause entrapment of solar radiations leading to warming of atmosphere which further leads to two catastrophic results i.e. climate change and melting of ice at the poles. Melting of ice will increase the sea levels and drowning of coastal areas. The climate change will affect the rain fall cycles and yields in crops causing serious food shortages. The main causes of increased CO2 emissions are burning of coal in the thermal power plants, gas for cooking and vehicular exhausts. Generation of power from thermal power plants is a dire necessity in many counties particularly endowed with large coal mines. Generation of one MW of power requires burning of 15 tones of coal per day. The installed capacity of thermal power in India is 70000 MW. India is further in the process of installing 50000 MW thermal power plants by the years 2017. Then India will be burning 18,00,000 tones of coal daily. India also consumes 90 million standard cubic meters of gas daily. China consumes quantities of gas and coal 3.5 times more than India. The percentage of CO2 in the air is only 0.03. The presence of CO2 in the air is essential because it is the raw material for the growth of plants or the plant kingdom. CO2 reacts with water in the presence of sunlight to form the solid matter or synthesis of glucose. It will take one lakh years to increase the CO2concentration from 0.03 to 0.04%. This additional increase of CO2 by 0.01% can hardly entrap adequate solar energy to cause rise in the temperature of the atmosphere. The emission of CO2 from a thermal power plant or vehicles of a congested city like Ludhiana definitely creates a local CO2 cloud of say 10 km radius. The heat entrapped under this cloud or canopy will increase the local temperature only, but how much has never been analyzed. Nature has tremendous cleaning power to keep its balance intact. For example India now produces 225mt of food-grains annually against 150mt in 1970. There is no scientific or published data to indicate or prove conclusively the phenomena of global warming. Environmentalists (some of them sceptics) ad nausuem shout at the melting of ice in Greenland or Alaska or receding of Himalayan glaciers. Environmentalists also frighten the people that melting of snow at poles will increase the sea level and deluge the costal areas. Even if the entire ice sheet melts, the amount of ice water spread over the sea surface will hardly cause a rise in the level by one centimetre. The entire ice sheet can melt only if the temperature of the poles remains at least 10 to 15C around the air which is impossibility. Climate change is not a new phenomenon. Climate parameters (temperature, humidity, rainfall, atmospheric pressure, wind velocity) have always being deviating varyingly from the mean value and some times very wildly. Rainfall (intensity and duration) at most places varies tremendously and shows a very erratic pattern. For example northern India had a bout of severe famines continuously for 7 years (1939-46). There were no thermal power plants or large number of vehicles to cause CO2 emission in those days. There was a uniform rainfall pattern between 1947-1964. Thereafter the rainfall pattern in most parts of the India has been deceptive, erratic and
unpredictable. Climate cycle is always an evolutionary process. The vanishing forest in tropical regions of Africa and Brazil definitely impact the climate cycle but how much deviation is still unknown. The climate is state of dynamic equilibrium of air velocity and moisture caused by incidence of solar rays on the sea and the earth. Obviously the phenomenon of climate change is the result of known, unknown and unexplored factors but certainly not CO2 emissions. I doubt if somebody tears this common believe experts and politicians congregating at Copenhagen conference in December 2009. The easiest way to stop global warming is the massive use of solar energy (cooking and heating purposes) and exploitation of hydro power potential. For example river Brahmaputra alone can meet 50 per cent of the present day power demand. But strangely nobody will talk about these remedial measures in the coming Copenhagen conference.
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Butterflies aboard Atlantis to live in orbit on International Space Station
“Usually kids in school have ‘cookbook’ science where you already know the outcome before you begin,” Nancy Moreno, a biologist and science educator with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told Discovery News. “This is a case where we really don’t know that much about how these organisms will survive in microgravity,” she said. “That’s a unique opportunity for students,” she added. Pictures of the butterflies will be taken every 15 minutes and relayed to project organizers on the ground, who will post the images on websites. The butterflies, which typically have a lifespan of about a month, will remain aboard the space station until the next shuttle flight in February. “NASA attempted the experiment a year ago, but none of the critters developed past larvae,” said John Uri, NASA’s deputy manager of space station payloads. “The problem was that the food they flew was from a new vender, and it turned out it was poor quality, and that’s why the butterflies didn’t develop,” Uri told Discovery News. “They’re hoping that with brand new food that’s been totally tested that this group will do OK,” he said. Two species of butterflies are aboard the shuttle: painted lady and monarchs. Scientists and students will be comparing how the space butterflies grow and develop compared to butterflies on the ground. The animals will be contained in special habitats aboard the space station. “They’re not going to be flying around or anything,” Uri said. —ANI |
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Trends
LOS
ANGELES: NASA plans next month to launch a space telescope that will scan the heavens for the infrared glow of celestial objects never seen because they are too dim, dusty or distant, scientists said on Tuesday. The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, is expected to reveal hundreds of thousands of dark asteroids lurking undetected in the solar system, and millions of elusive stars and galaxies farther out in space. In Amazon, a frustrated search for cancer cures SAO SEBASTIAO DE CUIEIRAS,
Brazil: The task of harvesting the secrets of Brazil’s vast Amazon rain forest that could help in the battle against cancer largely falls to Osmar Barbosa Ferreira and a big pair of clippers. In jungle so dense it all but blocks out the sun, the lithe 46-year-old shimmies up a thin tree helped by a harness, a strap between his feet, and the expertise gained from a lifetime laboring in the forest. NASA launches shuttle Atlantis to space station CAPE CANAVERAL,
Florida: The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis lifted off its seaside launch pad on Monday, loaded with spare parts to keep the International Space Station flying after the shuttles are retired next year. NASA’s fifth and final flight of the year began at 2:28 p.m. EST when Atlantis’ twin booster rockets ignited, sending the 24-year-old ship through partly cloudy skies to begin its 31st journey into orbit. Docking at the space station was scheduled for Wednesday. Had flu? You may have H1N1 protection WASHINGTON: People who have had repeated flu infections—or repeated flu vaccines—may have some protection against the new pandemic swine influenza, U.S. researchers said on Monday. They found evidence that the human immune system can recognize bits of the new H1N1 virus that are similar to older, distantly related H1N1 strains. Tests rule out BSE in Slovenia cow LJUBLJANA: Laboratory tests ruled out mad cow disease in a 3-year-old Slovenian cow that died in September, the Slovenian Veterinary Administration said on Tuesday. It said the tests were made in the EU’s reference laboratory in Weybridge in the United Kingdom. New solar-sail mission planned after 2005 failure LOS
ANGELES: Backers of a failed mission to launch the world’s first solar-sail spacecraft unveiled plans to try again five years later with a smaller, swifter satellite to test the limits of sunlight propulsion. The privately funded venture, organized by the Pasadena, California-based Planetary Society, is based on the premise of spaceflight powered not by rocket fuel or chemical propellants but by streams of photons—light particles—pushing against a sail in the vacuum of space. —
Reuters |
Infrared telescope to detect dim, dusty objects
Reports indicate that NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis is carrying butterflies, which will live in orbit aboard the International Space Station (ISS), as part of a science outreach project. According to a report in Discovery News, the butterflies, which are currently caterpillars, will be transferred to the station to live out their lives in orbit.