SCIENTIFIC ENVIRONMENTAL

Flying robots could help in disaster rescue

2011-03-08T17:19:00.000-08:00

Ten of these flying robots could set up a 1.5 kilometre communication line between rescuers

Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne

Swarms of flying robots inspired by insect behaviour could be used to establish emergency rescue networks following natural disasters, say Swiss researchers who plan to start testing their system from April.

In the aftermath of earthquakes and other disasters, when communications infrastructure is damaged or overloaded, the first thing rescue teams do is set up temporary radio or mobile communication networks to coordinate the search for survivors.

link

http://technoscientific.blogspot.com/2011/03/flying-robots-could-help-in-disaster.html

Modified plant clears up deadly water toxin

2010-04-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

Plants may be a useful tool in clearing water of harmful toxins produced by blue-green algae, new research indicates.

Some blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) — which grow in warm, nutrient-rich waters — produce toxins that can severely damage the liver or nervous system. The effects of the toxins range from a mild illness to rapid death. They can remain in water supplies after the algae have been killed.

A team at St George's Medical School, part of the UK-based University of London, has modified tobacco plants to secrete antibodies from the roots that then bind to microcystin-LR — the most common cyanobacteria toxin in water — rendering it harmless.

"A toxin that is bound to antibodies should be easier to remove from the environment and also is likely to be less harmful," said Pascal Drake, a biotechnology researcher at St George's Centre for Infection. The antibodies could also be used in simple and cheap tests to see if toxins are present in water supplies, he said.

Tobacco plants, grown hydroponically in the lab, were chosen for the first phase of this research, reported last month (March) in The FASEB Journal,because "they are easy to work with and genetically engineer", said Drake. The next step will be to try and modify aquatic plants, which will be more suitable for large-scale treatment of water. Drake anticipated that this "wouldn't be too problematic".

The research is still at an early stage, but it may ultimately lead to an affordable method of keeping water free of toxins. The scientists are also looking to modify plants that can extract toxins from water and store them in their leaves, so that removing the plants also removes the toxins.

In developing countries, the emphasis on disinfecting water so that it is free of pathogens — for example the bacterium that causes cholera — means that the removal of cyanobacteria toxins has often been overlooked, Tom Hall, a consultant at the UK-based Water Research Centre, told SciDev.Net.

He said that although this research is very interesting "at present activated carbon offers a relatively easy way of treating water supplies in developing countries". Drinking water can be filtered through carbon as part of the water treatment process, and small filters can be plumbed into water supplies for villages.

One litre of activated carbon can treat about 50,000 litres of water, said Hall. But it is not possible to remove toxins by simply adding activated carbon to lakes or reservoirs.

Link to abstract in The FASEB Journal

Justine Davies

SciDev

World will heat more sharply from 2010, warn scientists

2010-01-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

Another steep temperature rise is on the horizon, following the warmest decade since records began, scientists have warned.
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The UK-based Met Office Hadley Centre released its latest report on global warming trends at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last week (11 December).
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At least half of all post-2009 years could be hotter than 1998 — the warmest year to date — said Vicky Pope, head of the centre's climate change advice division. The year 2009 is expected to be the fifth warmest in the last 160 years.
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The Earth has warmed by about 0.15 degrees Celsius every ten years since the mid-1970s and all years from 2001 have been in the top 11 warmest on record, the figures show.
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This is despite a relative slowdown in the rate of global warming this decade because of natural variations in ocean currents and the sun's activity — a phenomenon now likely to end, resulting in the sharp climb in temperatures from 2010 onwards, according to the Hadley Centre.
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A consortium of UK climate research institutes, led by the centre, is analysing the impacts of global warming with and without mitigation measures.
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The report reiterates a prediction made in September that if emissions continue to rise under a "business as usual" scenario, temperatures could rise beyond two degrees Celsius more than pre-industrial levels between 2035 and 2055, reaching four degrees Celsius higher as early as 2060.
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This would have major implications such as reduced yields for all major cereal crops, as well as forest fires, drought, glacier melting and flood risks, said Pope.
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There is at least a 50 per cent chance of restricting global warming to two degrees Celsius or less during this century, by peaking emissions in 2016 and then reducing them by five per cent per year by 2100, the figures show.
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And reducing emissions early could save at least 60 per cent of land that would otherwise have become unsuitable for crop growth by 2080 — as well as reducing the number of people affected by water shortages and those at risk of flood from rising sea levels.
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T. V. Padma
scidev.net

Predicting the Weather

2009-07-19T02:34:00.000-07:00

A United Launch Alliance Delta IV with the NASA/NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-O launched on June 27, 2009, from Space Launch Complex-37, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. GOES-O will provide more accurate prediction and tracking of severe storms and other weather phenomena, resulting in earlier and more precise warnings to the public.
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Image Credit: Carleton Bailie, The Boeing Company

G8 CLIMATE SCORECARDS 2009

2009-07-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

Climate performance of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Russia, United Kingdom and United States of America
Backg round information for China, Brazil, India, Mexico and
South Africa

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The G8 Climate Scorecards were commissioned jointly by Alianz, a leading
global financial service provider, and WWF, a leading global environmental NGO.
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CONTACT:
WWF:
Thomas Duveau, Officer Climate and Finance, WWF Germany
Reinhardtstrasse 14, D-10117 Berlin, Germany
E-Mail: duveau@wwf.de, Phone: +49-30-30 87 42 36
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Allianz:
Nicolai Tewes, Corporate Affairs, Allianz SE
Koeniginstrasse 28, D-80802 Munich, Germany
E-Mail: nicolai.tewes@allianz.com, Phone: +49-89-38 00-45 11
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AUTHORS
Ecofys, Germany:
Dr. Niklas Höhne, n.hoehne@ecofys.com
Katja Eisbrenner k.eisbrenner@ecofys.com
Markus Hagemann, m.hagemann@ecofys.com
Sara Moltmann, s.moltmann@ecofys.com
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LAY OUT
Meike Naumann Visuelle Kommunikation
www.meikenaumann.de ,
mn@meikenaumann.de
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Please visit also the online flash application at:
http://www.knowledge.allianz.com/scorecards_2009
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complete inform click link

http://assets.wwf.es/downloads/g8_scorecards_informe_en_ingles.pdf

Scientists put carbon ceiling at a trillion tonnes

2009-05-09T04:21:00.000-07:00

Hot coals: If you burn a tonne of carbon today, you can't burn it tomorrow
Flickr/Adam Pilarski
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Scientists hope a new approach to assessing carbon build-up in the atmosphere will simplify issues for policymakers and economists.
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Two papers published in Nature today (29 April) show that the timings of carbon emissions are not relevant to the debate — it is the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted over hundreds of years that is the key issue.
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Rather than basing negotiations on short-term goals such as emission rates by a given year, the researchers say the atmosphere can be regarded as a tank of finite size which we must not overfill if we want to avoid a dangerous temperature rise.
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Climate policy has traditionally concentrated on cutting emission rates by a given year, such as 2020 or 2050, without placing these goals within the overall context of needing to limit cumulative emissions.
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Both papers analyse how the world can keep the rise in average surface temperatures down to no more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
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This figure is widely regarded as the threshold beyond which the risk of dangerous climate change rapidly increases. Policymakers around the world have adopted this limit as a goal.
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The first study, led by Myles Allen from the University of Oxford, UK, found that releasing a total of one trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere between 1750 and 2500 would cause a "most likely" peak warming of two degrees Celsius.
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Emissions to 2008 have already released half of this.
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Allen said in a press briefing this week (27 April):
"It took 250 years to burn the first half trillion tonnes and, on current predictions, we'll burn the next half trillion in less than 40 years."
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The second study, led by Malte Meinshausen at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research, Germany, used a computer model to demonstrate that to avoid exceeding two degrees Celsius by 2100, cumulative carbon emissions must not exceed 0.9 trillion tonnes.
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"We have already emitted a third of a trillion in just the past nine years," Meinshausen says.
David Frame, a co-author of the Allen paper and researcher at the University of Oxford, said that these findings make the problem "simpler" than it's often portrayed.
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"[The findings] treat these emissions ... as an exhaustible resource.
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For economists, this way of looking at the problem will be a huge simplification," Frame said.
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"Basically, if you burn a tonne of carbon today, then you can't burn it tomorrow … you've got a finite stock.
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It's like a tank that's emptying far too fast for comfort.
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If country A burns it, country B can't.
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It forces everyone to consider the problem as a whole."
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In a separate essay, Stephen Schneider of the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University in the United States, discusses what a world with 1,000 parts per million of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere might look like.
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Link to full Allen et all paper in Nature
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Link to full Meinshausen et al paper in Nature
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Link to essay in Nature
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Naomi Antony
SciDev

US Federal Climate Change Science Program Should Realign Research

2009-03-03T23:36:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program should broaden its focus beyond understanding and detecting climate change to include research that would support how regions and communities could cope with the impacts of climate change, says a new report from the National Research Council.

News Release

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Report in Brief

Full Report

Snowbird

2009-03-01T21:09:00.000-08:00

Soaring like a bird above the Sierra Nevada snowscape, a NASA ER-2 high-altitude Earth science aircraft banks during flight.
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NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center operates two of these aircraft on a wide variety of environmental science, atmospheric sampling and satellite data verification missions.
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Image Credit: NASA/Carla Thomas
Nasa News

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Monitoring carbon storage 'more effective than closing power plants'

2008-12-05T15:47:00.000-08:00

Using existing technologies to monitor carbon storage in developing country landscapes could save more carbon than closing 1400 coal-burning power plants, according to new research by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF).

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The study will be presented in Poznan, Poland, at the Conference of the Parties (COP 14), an international gathering of experts working to ensure the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) effectively and fairly discourages activities that boost harmful emissions.

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One of the key constraints preventing small farmers from taking advantage of emerging carbon markets has been the lack of knowledge about how to measure carbon stocks, especially in the soil. ´

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To tackle this, ICRAF scientists have used readily available data from satellites, along with 'ground-truthing' (the verification on the ground of what is seen from the satellite), to characterise changes in land use across tropical forest margins and build up a picture of carbon sequestration.

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This picture relates directly to carbon stock assessments, says Brent Swallow, Global Coordinator for the Alternatives to Slash and Burn Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins.
Swallow says that the work of ICRAF scientists in western Kenya shows that a high proportion of soil carbon is contained in relatively stable micro-aggregates, a promising sign for the longevity of carbon stored in soil.

It also revealed which farming methods are best for carbon sequestration.

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In recent years, Swallow told SciDev.Net, diverse research groups have produced significant improvements in earth observation technologies, modelling and other location-based technologies.

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But so far, applications of these systems have not been very useful to developing countries — for example, because standards have not been consistent.

These shortcomings have limited the contributions that the technological advances have been able to offer in providing guidance to project developers and managers seeking to maximise carbon benefits.

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This new research can serve as a model of how to measure soil carbon accurately, say the team.

According to the study, the market for carbon credits — in which polluters in industrialised countries offset their emissions by paying others to reduce their emissions — was valued at US$64 billion in 2007 by the energy firm New Carbon Finance.

This figure is expected to shoot up in 2008.

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The credits system is now largely rewarding countries such as China and India for carbon saved in industrial operations.

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But policymakers are struggling to agree on a plan to accept carbon saved in tropical forests and agricultural landscapes into the trading system.

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To reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly and effectively as possible, people living in and around the world's tropical forests should be encouraged to adopt carbon-saving approaches to development, said Dennis Garrity, director general of ICRAF, in a press release.

Ochieng' Ogodo

Nirobi

SciDev.Net