Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication
Climate science and its relevance
Recently we saw the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 5th report on climate change ( http://www.ipcc.ch/ ). While some agree with it - most scientists do (1) - others - like the industry lobby- completely rubbishes it like this one:
http://www.naturalnews.com/042304_UN_climate_change_report_selectiv...
Some scientists - supported by the industrial lobby too don't agree with it. They say: The UN-promoted theory about the missing warming being hidden somewhere in the ocean is really an admission that its climate models do not accurately simulate natural internal variability in the system.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/16643-top-scien... ( this report is definitely written by the Industry lobby and the Republican lobby).
It is known that 'dark money' supports climate change denial effort. A Drexel University study finds that a large slice of donations to organizations that deny global warming are funneled through third-party pass-through organizations that conceal the original funder.
( http://drexel.edu/~/media/Files/now/pdfs/Institutionalizing%20Delay...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dark-money-funds-c... )
An interesting blog by a science communicator says scientists have been framed and global warming hasn't been slowed down like the skeptics and deniers say! Read it here: http://talkingscience.weebly.com/1/post/2013/12/you-have-been-frame...!
The author of this blog made some very good points.
And this blog on SA
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-risks-as-conclusi...
says:
Climate Risks as Conclusive as Link between Smoking and Lung Cancer
Climate Deniers Intimidate Journal into Retracting Paper that Finds They Believe Conspiracy Theories
The paper was sound but a libel threat apparently exerted pressure on management at Frontiers in Psychology, suggesting a blow to academic freedomHowever, this topic really is all confusing to a layman with so much of contradictory news making the rounds.
Well, who should we believe when so many reports and articles flooding the media with contradictory arguments?
The studies are still going on and nobody knows for sure the real causes for the climate change at the global level. But still local changes can effect you!
I will try to help you in coming to your own conclusion
Okay, imagine these two situations:
(1)You are on a holiday and go to a forest. You feel happy and relieved for getting out of the smoke you are inhaling in your city. You can breathe easily now, feel relaxed and more energetic. Your young son and old mother get relief from their asthmatic conditions. You can see the pollution markers - lichens- growing everywhere. You don't see them in your city! You see several unknown birds singing and chirping in a forest. The water tastes so different and sweet. This is a fact. I myself faced this situation and most of you must have been too. Now want to know the reason why? Because you get clean and fresh natural air in this place. You get pure water in the forest. The Nature is untouched by human beings here. Well, almost!
(2) Now you return back from your holiday tour. You are in your home city. You definitely feel the heat difference, the air quality, and the resultant mood difference. You don't see several birds here. You will notice the smog, the thick black water flowing down the road after a spell of rain different as compared to the brown or transparent water you saw in the forest or a water fall you loved there. You feel breathless and you again start hearing the wheezing sound while your mother tries to breathe. Your water tastes rancid! Why? Because we are interfering with Nature and polluting it in the city! You can smell some chemicals in the air while rain starts coming down slowly? Acid rain? Exactly!
So?! Do you think I am lying when I say climate science is relevant or scientists are lying when they say climate change is happening?
Climate change is not only happening at the global level, but also at the local level, effecting each and every living being on this planet.
It is happening alright and the proof is before you! Forget about the IPCC report or what others say contradicting it. Feel the difference for yourself and come to your conclusions. And then help save the planet.
"Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
- Cree proverb
What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions, if in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true? - Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland ( On climate science predictions) - just because the models are not very accurate?--
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on
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The evidence that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere has been produced by humans burning fossil fuels. Here's the physics and chemistry connecting that to global warming.
First (physics), the earth receives energy from the sun, primarily in the form of visible and ultraviolet (UV) light. The earth emits infrared (IR) light and not much visible or UV. Both facts are directly measurable, for example by using optical filters to isolate separate wavelengths and photodetectors to measure the energy carried by the different wavelengths. And there's a well established theory in physics ("black body radiation") that agrees with the measurements, explains them, and is supported by broader theories in thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.
Second (physics), CO2 is mostly transparent to visible and UV light but absorbs and re-emits infrared radiation. This is directly measurable, for example by putting some gas in a quartz optical cell and measuring the absorption and reflection of light of different wavelengths. It's also supported by quantum mechanical calculations of CO2 properties. What this means is that (1) CO2 doesn't reduce warming of the earth by visible and UV light from the sun. And (2) CO2 does reduce cooling of the earth by radiation of IR out into space. The net effect is warming that increases as atmospheric CO2 increases.
Third (chemistry), burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, gasoline, and even natural gas) consumes oxygen and produces CO2. This also is measurable. For example a mass spectrograph can can measure the composition of air going into a combustion chamber and the composition of air coming out of a combustion chamber. Or you could try breathing the air coming out -not recommended!
You combine these three well established facts and you see that burning fossil fuels is putting something into the air that, if it's not removed, will cause warming of the earth. Now you can go on to measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere, and to measurements of land, water, and air temperatures, and to correlations between them, and to computer models that include other effects (yes, there are other effects) and predict the results of possible future changes.
None of this is politics.
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Explained: What is the Synthesis Report?
It is the fourth and final installment of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is described as the most comprehensive assessment of climate change ever made. The other three reports came out over 14 months starting Sept 2013. It seeks to goad governments and policymakers to act urgently on climate change. IPCC’s Assessment Reports have produced increasingly strong evidence that human influences are altering natural variations in the climate system, which can have catastrophic effects on Earth and all life systems. -
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/explained-act-o...----
Green groups have been unhelpfully “alarmist” in making the case for tackling global warming - but the world now needs to take urgent and radical action if it wants to prevent dangerous climate change, leading UN scientists have said.
Some claims that non-governmental organisations have made about climate change “have undoubtedly been exaggerated”, Professor Myles Allen, one of the lead authors of a major new report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said.
“NGOs have at times been alarmist over climate change… but the IPCC has been very clear and measured throughout. I think alarmism on any issue is unhelpful.”
He suggested the alarmism had resulted in the general public getting the wrong impression about what climate change entailed.
“People think climate change is just all about melting icecaps and the Arctic, the reality is climate change is about the weather changing in many parts of the world including where many people live,” he said.
Prof Allen was speaking after the IPCC unveiled a major report warning that time is running out to pr....
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Air pollution halves India's potential grain yields
Air pollution seems to have a direct, negative impact on grain production in India, a study warned on Monday, with recent increases in smog decreasing projected yields by half.Analysing 30 years of data, scientists developed a statistical model suggesting that air pollution caused wheat yields in densely populated states to be 50% lower than what they could have been in 2010.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/pollution/Air-p... -
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How human existence doesn't have to cost the Earth
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429941.000-how-human-existe... -
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A six year study examining the nutritional content of crops exposed to atmospheric CO2 levels projected by mid-century found worrisome drops in zinc and iron in wheat grains as well as reduced protein levels in wheat as well as rice grains -- a particularly troubling find considering that millions around the world who depend on wheat and rice for most of their iron and zinc already might not be getting enough.
-Harvard School of Public Health; BigThink. -
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The world’s average air temperature has warmed 0.8°C since the late 1880s, but the warming has slowed precipitously in the last 15 years. Scientists have identified a number of factors—among them a temporary downturn in solar activity and more sun-blocking aerosol pollution—that at least partially explain why air temperatures have barely risen since the turn of the millennium. But recent research suggests that Earth is still taking in more energy from the sun than it’s letting out, to the tune of almost a 60-watt light bulb’s worth for every 100 square meters. This excess energy has to go somewhere. A potential answer? The tropical Pacific Ocean. Changing trade winds here may have helped lower sea surface temperatures by altering ocean circulation patterns and making it so heat that otherwise would be warming the air is now trapped deep underwater.
http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2014/11/where-global-warming-s-m... -
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A call for local science to tackle air pollution
http://www.scidev.net/global/pollution/multimedia/local-science-tac...
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Climate change is not just about science – it’s about the future we want to create
Climate change is not just about science – it’s about the future we want to create
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/22/-sp-climate-change-s... -
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Neither rain nor snow nor heat sways views on climate science
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-politics-bias-c... -
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Education makes people less vulnerable to natural disasters such as floods, landslides and storms that are expected to intensify with climate change, says a new study.
Investing in empowerment through universal education should be key in climate change adaptation efforts, contended the study by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis ( IIASA).
The study is based upon natural disaster data for 167 countries over the past four decades as well as a number of studies carried out in individual countries and regions."Our research shows that education is more important than GDP ( gross domestic product) in reducing mortality from natural disasters. We also demonstrated that under rapid development and educational expansion across the globe, disaster fatalities will be reduced substantially," added Raya Muttarak from Vienna Institute of Demography.
Climate models project that extreme weather events such as hurricanes are likely to increase with climate change.
The objective of the study was to explore the links between fatality rates in natural disasters and education levels.
"Education directly improves knowledge, the ability to understand and process information, and risk perception. It also indirectly enhances socio-economic status and social capital," Muttarak said.
The study appeared in the journal Science. -
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Science won't win over the climate change sceptics - we need stories
You don’t have to be a climate policy expert to be inspired by stories. People respond better to climate change solutions than a bitter argument about its causes
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/behavioural-insight...
The ‘solutions not science’ mantra is likely to be a much more effective method of overcoming scepticism overall, rather than slogging it out in the scientific arena. A new paper by scholars Troy Campbell and Aaron Kay confirmed what several previous studies have hinted at: Republican aversion to the conclusions of climate science diminishes when presented with responses that fit more closely with their values (policies that don’t challenge the logic of the free market, for example).
This insight is also reflected in 10:10’s #ItsHappening campaign, which promotes creative ways of tackling climate change from across the globe on social media. The logic of the campaign is simple: show people that solutions are not only possible but already proliferating, and a powerful sense of momentum will grow.
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