| Index | Recent Threads | Unanswered Threads | Who's Active | Guidelines | Search |
 |
World Community Grid Forums
Category: Community
Forum: Chat Room
Thread: World Environment News , Ecology websites etc |
| No member browsing this thread |
|
Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 369
|
|
| Author |
|
|
Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
If this happens, much more goes:
----------------------------------------The krilling fields: study fears catastrophe in Antarctic food chain THE first evidence suggests that a predicted rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide will wreak havoc on krill, the tiny crustacean at the heart of the Antarctic food web. Although public sympathy for the crustacean is undetectable, polar life such as penguins, seals and whales would wither without it. Captive-bred krill at the Australian Antarctic Division developed deformities and lost energy when they were exposed to the greenhouse gas at levels predicted globally for the year 2100. The damage meant that the krill were unlikely ever to breed, a University of Tasmania investigator, Lilli Hale, said yesterday. Polar life, from tiny seabirds through penguins and seals to whales, depend for food on Antarctic krill, Euphasia superba. A loss of krill suggested there would be a catastrophic impact on these other species, Ms Hale said. The level of atmospheric carbon dioxide now stands at 384 parts per million (up 100 ppm since 1832), according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. At a worst case it could reach around 900 ppm in 2100, IPCC models show. Carbon dioxide is absorbed by the sea most easily in the colder Southern Ocean, which becomes more acidic, interfering with the formation of calcium carbonate. Organisms, including krill, rely on calcium for the formation of their shells. In Ms Hale's study, the division's world-first krill breeding research facility near Hobart was used to hatch 200 larvae in jars with an artificial atmospheric carbon dioxide level increased to the worst-case 2100 level. "Their anatomy wasn't quite right," Ms Hale said. "They were a bit deformed, and they were listless. It's unlikely they would have survived through to adulthood." When carbon dioxide levels were raised even further, fertilised eggs did not hatch at all. The Antarctic Division's program leader, Steve Nicol, said ocean acidification from rising carbon dioxide was real, and there was an urgent need to find out what effect it was going to have on sea life. "At the microbial level some species might have time to evolve," Dr Nicol said. "But longer-lived animals like krill won't have time to adapt to higher levels of carbon dioxide. "The next step is for us to conduct longer studies at lower carbon dioxide levels to see what krill can cope with." emphasis by me
WCG
Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Until 10/31, this rainforest preservation website has a generous donation match from SeaWorld and Busch Gardens (for every $1, it's matched $2: only $6/acre). The rainforests are one of our few hopes for surviving global warming.
http://www.rainforest2reef.org/ https://secure.my-websites.org/supporter/donationforms.do?n=gXfs (click Tropical Tree-athalon) |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
There are lots of books out there that illustrate the irrevocable damage that we are doing to the rainforests - but this is one with a twist.
are not photographs, but paintings by Harry Holcroft , who has travelled the world's rainforests for the past four years The images in Rainforest: Light and Spirit See them here Image 1 of 15 The Danum Valley, Borneo, one of the only remaining areas of true primary rainforest.  |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The Breathing Earth simulation
Welcome to Breathing Earth. This real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates. Please remember that this real time simulation is just that: a simulation. Although the co2 emission, birth rate and death rate data used in Breathing Earth comes from reputable sources, data that measures things on such a massive scale can never be 100% accurate. Please note however that the co2 emission levels shown here are much more likely to be too low than they are to be too high. |
||
|
|
Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Thought this article over on the BBC website is food for thought... we here are still washing with powder and getting allot more laundry done for allot less weight transported.
----------------------------------------The ripple effect of cutting water continued: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7785479.stm"For far too long, businesses like ours have been effectively shipping water around the globe," says Gavin Neath, a spokesperson for Unilever. He leans across a table in the firm's London office, as if confiding something secretive. Like other multinational firms, Unilever is assessing its environmental impact, including how it uses water. In doing so the firm is reassessing the way it does business, but this also creates a number of benefits. The firm singles out two detergents - Small and Mighty, and Surf Excel - as examples of this shift. Small and Mighty, for example, requires half as much water per bottle and half as much packaging. We've had shopping bags of some incredible sturdy material that have been in use since 20 years or longer to get the groceries home. No paper or plastic bags or plastic bottles used to hold the detergents.
WCG
Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Feb 12, 2009 7:07:41 PM] |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Scientists map CO2 emissions with Google Earth
----------------------------------------WASHINGTON - A team of U.S. scientists led by Purdue University unveiled an interactive Google Earth map on Thursday showing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels across the United States.; The high-resolution map; available at http://www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/GEarth/ shows carbon dioxide emissions in metric tons in residential and commercial areas by state; county or per capita.; Called "Vulcan" after the Roman god of fire; the project; which took three years to complete; quantifies carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline.; It breaks down emissions by the sectors responsible including aircraft; commercial; electricity production; industrial; residential and transport.; "This will bring emissions information into everyone's living room as a recognizable; accessible online experience; " said Kevin Gurney; the project leader and an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue.; "We hope to eventually turn it into an interactive space where the public will feed information into the system to create an even finer picture of emissions down to the street and individual building level; " he added.; The United States accounts for some 25 per cent of global emissions of carbon dioxide; which scientists have identified as the most important human-produced gas contributing to global climate change.; Simon Ilyushchenko; an engineer at Internet search giant Google who worked on the project; said "integrating the data with Google Earth was a way to advance public understanding of fossil fuel energy usage.; "Dynamic maps of the data; broken down by the different sources of emissions; easily show where people burn more gasoline from driving or where they use more fuel for heating and cooling homes and businesses; " he said.; Vulcan integrates carbon dioxide emissions data from the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Department of Energy. The current data is from 2002; but the scientists said they plan to incorporate more recent data.; Besides Purdue; the project also involved researchers from Colorado State University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.; It was funded by NASA; the US Department of Energy; the Purdue Showalter Trust and Indianapolis-based Knauf Insulation. Kevin Gurney, who leads the project, said Vulcan helps demystify the connection between fossil fuel use and climate change. "This will bring emissions information into everyone's living room as a recognizable, accessible online experience," said Gurney, who is an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences. "What was once the realm of scientists will now be provided directly to the public. We hope to eventually turn it into an interactive space where the public will feed information into the system to create an even finer picture of emissions down to the street and individual building level." The three-year project involved researchers from Purdue University, Colorado State University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The project was funded by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy with additional support from the Purdue Showalter Trust and Indianapolis-based Knauf Insulation. U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., who is involved in energy policy and recently launched the Lugar Energy Initiative, said: "I congratulate Purdue for this important initiative. As we proceed with the climate change debate in the United States and with international negotiations, it's imperative that we have the best science to monitor emissions and to make it accessible to the public." Simon Ilyushchenko, an engineer at Google, volunteered his time to create the Vulcan layer. Google engineers are allowed to donate 20 percent of their time, or one day of their workweek, to a cause or project of their choice. As he sought information about climate change, Ilyushchenko said it was difficult to find detailed data at the level of an individual's impact and how different locations compare to one another. He became interested in the Vulcan project after it was first released as a tool for the scientific community in April 2007. "Vulcan had great information, but was not easy for a non-scientist to analyze and understand," Ilyushchenko said. "Integrating the data with Google Earth was a way to advance public understanding of fossil fuel energy usage. Dynamic maps of the data, broken down by the different sources of emissions, easily show where people burn more gasoline from driving or where they use more fuel for heating and cooling homes and businesses." Carbon dioxide is the most important human-produced gas contributing to global climate change, Gurney said. The United States accounts for about 25 percent of the global emissions. The Vulcan layer on Google Earth shows carbon dioxide emissions in metric tons at the state level, county level and per capita. It also breaks down emissions by the different sectors responsible for the emissions, including aircraft, commercial, electricity production, industrial, residential and transport. Peter Griffith, director of NASA's Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Office and coordinator of the North American Carbon Program, has followed the progress of the Vulcan project. "One of the goals of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program is to assist with scientifically based formulation of policy and decision making," he said. "By allowing non-specialists to see changes in carbon dioxide emissions in time and across broad areas, we're helping them to understand critical information for climate change policy decisions." Vulcan project data will complement NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a satellite set to launch later this month that will precisely quantify levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Vulcan integrates data including imagery of the Earth's surface captured by the NASA-built Landsat 5 satellite, carbon dioxide emissions data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy, and population data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The current emissions are based on information from 2002, but the Vulcan system will soon expand to more recent years. Gurney's team would like to fill in information from 1985 to the present and then update the data every six months, he said. "This is the first step," Gurney said. "We'll keep adding more information to enrich it. We hope to eventually get feedback from the public about energy use and activity that allows us to include even more detailed information. This would create a network of businesses and individuals that would become part of the Vulcan system and part of the scientific effort." Scott Miller, director of sustainability and product affairs at Knauf Insulation, said the Vulcan project helps individuals understand why emissions are higher in some areas than others through examination of the different sectors and how long commutes, older housing and industrial areas come into play. "Vulcan allows consumers to understand their potential impact on climate change and how seemingly small changes could impact the emissions in their area," he said. "For example, buildings represent about 40 percent of our nation's greenhouse gas inventory, and changes such as improved insulation can contribute to a reduction in that inventory." Gurney said the Google Earth content will continually grow as the detail of the data-gathering effort improves. Next the team plans to gather even finer detail with the goal of being able to have emissions data at the street level. The team also plans to expand Vulcan to other countries, beginning with Canada and Mexico. In addition to the national-level effort, the Purdue team is currently performing a pilot study on the city of Indianapolis, named Hestia after the Greek goddess of the hearth fire, in which carbon dioxide emissions are estimated down to the individual building level. Supported by Knauf Insulation and Purdue's Showalter Trust, Hestia project results are expected to be released by late this year. - - - - CONTACTS: Elizabeth Gardner, Purdue University, 765-494-2081 , ekgardner@purdue.edu Stephen Cole, NASA, 202-358-0918 , Stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov Sources: Kevin Gurney, 765-427-8680 , kgurney@purdue.edu Simon Ilyshchenko, simonf@google.com Scott Miller, scott.miller@us.knaufinsulation.com Sen. Lugar's office, Mark_Helmke@lugar.senate.gov Peter Griffith, peter.c.griffith@nasa.gov NOTE TO EDITORS: Broadcast-quality and high-definition animations of the Vulcan maps are available, as are jpeg images of carbon dioxide emissions for the continental United States. Kevin Gurney is currently attending the North American Carbon Program All Investigators Meeting in San Diego, but is available for interviews by calling 765-427-8680 . For Spanish-language media outlets, Daniel Mendoza is available to speak about Vulcan by calling 765-430-7367 . Vulcan maps and simulations of the atmospheric fate of fossil fuel CO2 also can be viewed on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAUf1bRIFxM . A recent talk by Gurney at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe0SHVZGE98 . A blog by Simon Ilyushchenko is available at http://google-latlong.blogspot.com . Related Web sites: Vulcan data on Google Earth: http://www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/GEarth/ Flyover of the Vulcan layer on Google Earth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAUf1bRIFxM Kevin Gurney: http://www.purdue.edu/eas/people/faculty/gurney.html Vulcan: http://www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/ Google Tech Talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe0SHVZGE98 IMAGES: Story and photo can be found at: http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2009a/090219GurneyVulcan.html . A publication-quality image is available at http://news.uns.purdue.edu/images/+2009/gurney-orangeco.jpg . IMAGE CAPTION 1: This image from the Vulcan layer of Google Earth shows the breakdown of carbon dioxide emissions for Orange County, Calif. The Vulcan layer, created by a team led by Purdue scientists, quantifies carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and breaks down the source of emissions by the sectors responsible including aircraft, commercial areas, electricity production, industrial areas, on-road and non-road transportation, and residential areas. The main contributor of emissions for Orange County is on-road travel that includes cars, trucks and buses. IMAGE CAPTION 2: This map of the continental United States, pulled from the Vulcan layer of Google Earth, shows carbon emission levels in metric tons for each county. Red circles containing the letter 'P' indicate the location of power plants, and pie charts break down the sources of emissions by sector including aircraft, commercial areas, electricity production, industrial areas, on-road and non-road transportation, and residential areas. A team led by Kevin Gurney, an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue, created the Vulcan layer. Also in the image is a list of carbon emissions by sector for Harris County, Texas. The industrial sector is the greatest contributor of emissions for this county. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Feb 22, 2009 12:01:46 PM] |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
LOHAFEX: An Indo-German open ocean experiment...ial of the Southern Ocean
The Indo-German iron fertilization experiment LOHAFEX (LOHA is Hindi for iron, FEX stands for Fertilization EXperiment) will be carried out from the German research vessel “Polarstern” in the southwest Atlantic from 7th January to 17th March 2009. The interdisciplinary team of 48 scientists from India (29), Germany (10), Italy (3), Spain (2), UK (2), France and Chile (1 each) on board “Polarstern” will closely collaborate in monitoring the algal bloom expected to grow in the fertilized patch of ocean and studying its effects on the chemistry and biology for at least 45 days. The results of LOHAFEX will be of great interest to both ocean ecologists and geochemists because the minute, unicellular algae suspended in the sunlit surface layer known as phytoplankton not only provide the food sustaining all oceanic life but also play a key role in regulating concentrations of the greenhouse gas CO2 in the atmosphere. Background The Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica is rich in the nutrients nitrate, phosphate and silicon but phytoplankton growth is limited by the supply of iron which is a crucial ingredient of all organisms. Iron is highly insoluble in sea water, so, unlike the other nutrients, is quickly lost in sinking particles. Addition of trace amounts of iron to these waters, whether from natural sources (contact with land masses and via settling dust blown of the continents) or by artificial iron fertilization (from a ship releasing dissolved iron sulfate to the surface layer), results in rapid algal growth leading to development of phytoplankton blooms. Phytoplankton grow by taking up CO2 dissolved in sea water and converting the carbon into biomass (organic matter). Because the CO2 sdissolved in the ocean’s surface layer is in equilibrium with the atmosphere, blooms cause a deficit which is compensated by uptake from the atmosphere. The fate of the bloom biomass determines how long this CO2 is retained in the ocean. If the organic matter is recycled by bacteria and zooplankton - unicellular protozoa and a variety of small animals that graze on phytoplankton - within the surface layer, and the iron selectively lost, then the CO2 taken up is returned to the atmosphere within months. However, the organic particles in the form of phytoplankton cells and zooplankton faecal material that settle out of the surface layer sequester CO2 for longer time scales depending on how deep they sink. Carbon transported in particles that sink below 3,000 m is sequestered for centuries and the portion buried in the sediments for much longer. Five iron fertilization experiments in the Southern Ocean have created phytoplankton blooms but only in the previous experiment EIFEX carried out from Polarstern was it possible to actually follow the rain of particles sinking through the underlying deep water column because the experiment was carried out in the closed core of a stationary, rotating eddy. LOHAFEX will also be conducted in a pre-selected eddy but the size of the patch will be twice as large – 300 km2 fertilized with 20 tonnes of iron sulfate. EIFEX had to be terminated after 35 days while the bloom was still growing and sinking but LOHAFEX will last 10 days longer and quantify the amount sinking to depth more accurately. Another goal of LOHAFEX is to study the effects of iron fertilization on the zooplankton, in particular the shrimp-like krill, which is the main food of Antarctic penguins, seals and whales. Stocks of krill have declined by over 80% during the past decades and their response to the iron-fertilized bloom will indicate whether the decline is due to declining productivity of the region for which there is evidence. Thus, large-scale iron fertilization of the krill habitat could well help in boosting their stocks to their former high densities and facilitate long-term recovery of the decimated great whale populations More on LOHAFEX .............. |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
International Polar Foundation - Bridging the Science-Society Divide
The International Polar Foundation communicates and educates on polar science and polar research as a way to understand key environmental and climate mechanisms.... |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
About EcoSmartSearch Made By Andrew Davey
When thirteen-year-old Andrew Davey read a blog by a leading expert in green computing, explaining how changing from a white background computer screen to a black one could save energy, he decided to put the theory to the test. He is now the proud owner of an environmentally-friendly search engine called Ecosmartsearch.com -- a search engine with the motto "We are saving energy, now it's your turn". Andrew's search engine uses a black background which saves energy because the computer monitor uses 59 watts to produce the image on the screen, whereas a white or light screen uses 74 watts to display the image. This means that every time ecosmartsearch.com is used, it saves 15 watts. As it is Google-powered, the search results are exactly the same but use less energy. Information Home Ecosmartsearch is owned by Andrew Davey age 13. My search engine is powered by Google. Back in February I read a blog post by a leading expert in "green" computing called Mark Ontkush he calculated the following: "An all white web page uses about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts. I thought I would do a little math and see what could be saved by moving a high volume site to the black format. Take at look at Google, who gets about 200 million queries a day. Let's assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some desktop. Assuming that users run Google in full screen mode, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. That turns into a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year. Now take into account that about 25 percent of the are CRTs, and at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that's $75,000, a goodly amount of energy and dollars for changing a few colour codes." Mark inspired me to start ecosmartsearch.com This can be found http://ecoiron.blogspot.com/2007/01/black-google-would-save-3000-megawatts.html The point of Ecosmartsearch is not just to save energy, but to make us more aware. We also hope that by displaying ecosmartsearch when your computer comes on, you will think of other ways of saving energy. We also would really like it if you set us as your homepage as a reminder of saving energy...... |
||
|
|
|