Friday, December 18, 2009

climate change






climate change

climates

क्योटो PROTOCOL

The Kyoto Protocol’s flexible mechanisms:

By using the flexible mechanisms, companies and countries can choose to reduce CO2 emissions where it is most cost-effective, for example in a developing country.

The flexible mechanisms are among the most central points in the Kyoto Protocol and the object of extensive discussion, but at COP7 in Marrakesh in 2001 agreement was reached on their ultimate form. The mechanisms are called flexible, as they are intended to supplement the countries’ or companies’ own reductions in CO2. The issue of where in the world the reductions take place is irrelevant for the climate, and the flexible mechanisms allow this fact to be exploited. By using the mechanisms, companies and countries can choose to reduce CO2 emissions where it is most cost-effective, for example in a developing country. This also involves the transfer of technology, financing and skills to developing countries.

The Kyoto Protocol operates with three flexible mechanisms:

International Emissions Trading: The 37 countries that in the Kyoto Protocol have set targets for the quantity of greenhouse gases they are allowed to emit are able to trade these emissions permits among themselves. If a country has a surplus of these “CO2 quotas” because it has switched to a cleaner form of economy, it can sell them to one of the other countries.

Clean Development Mechanisms and Joint Implementation: Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) are mechanisms whose purpose is to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in concrete projects and concurrently to promote climate initiatives and sustainable development in developing countries. The projects generate CO2 credits that correspond to the reduction in greenhouse gases achieved by the project. The country that is hosting the JI or CDM project can sell the credits it obtains to companies or industrialised countries, which can use the credits to supplement domestic or internal initiatives.

One credit corresponds to one ton of CO2 emissions. CDM credits are reductions from concrete projects in countries with no reduction obligations in the Kyoto Protocol. These projects are carried out in developing countries. JI credits are reductions from concrete projects in countries that have undertaken a reduction obligation for greenhouse gases in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol. These projects are carried out primarily in Eastern Europe and Russia.

Up until the summer of 2008 just over 1,100 CDM projects had been approved. In total they represent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of about 220 million tons of CO2 equivalents a year. The UNFCCC’s secretariat expects CDM projects covering a total of 2.7 billion tons of CO2 equivalents to be launched in the period from 2008 to 2012. There has been less activity involving JI, and 22 projects had been approved up to October 2008.

COP15

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The goal of IPCC is to use scientific literature to evaluate the extent and understanding of climate changes, as well as the potential to adapt to or counteract climate changes.

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was established in 1988 by the special UN organizations for environment (UNEP) and meteorology (WMO) following the Brundtland Report ”Our Common Future”.

The goal of IPCC is to use scientific literature to evaluate the extent and understanding of climate changes and their effects, as well as the potential to adapt to or counteract anticipated climate changes.

It is a key point that the work in the United Nations Climate Change Panel follows normal procedures for scientific publications, in particular the principle of peer review. The scientific authors of the IPCC reports are all selected for reasons of their scientific expertise.

The authors’ task is to collate and evaluate the knowledge that is available in international scientific, technical and socio-economic literature using traditional scientific methods and working principles. Then, the reports are sent to specialists for review, and in a second round to government representatives from the member countries of the organizations.

Thus there are over 1200 independent scientific authors and 2500 reviewers who have taken part in the preparation of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007.

IPCC's secretariat is based in Geneva and is organized into three working groups and one Task Force.

The first working group evaluates literature in natural science about climate and climate change. The second is concerned with the consequences of climate change, and the potential for adapting to them, while the third working group evaluates the potential for reducing the planet’s emissions of greenhouse gases, and thus limiting the climate changes. Finally, the Task Force is responsible for the National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Program.

IPCC has published four Assessment Reports (in 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007). Each Assessment Report consists of contributions from the three working groups and a Synthesis Report.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

MULCHING

Mulches are used for various agricultural and gardening purposes, they are applied to the soil surface. Properly used, they benefit plant growth and minimize garden labor. The main functions of mulches are the conservation of soil moisture and the moderation of soil temperature. They moderate internal soil temperatures by retaining heat from the day and radiating it to the soil at night during spring and fall; in the winter mulches moderate soil warming during the day, limiting the stress plants undergo during soil freezing and thawing cycles. They also are used to prevent frost heaving of unestablished plants in winter. During summer, they keep soil cool by blocking direct sunlight exposure of the soil surface. Mulches are used to block evaporation of water from the soil, slowing down soil drying. They also help control the growth of weeds, blocking sunlight and/or smothering weed seedlings under layers of material. Mulch also reflects sunlight back from the ground to the leaves of plants, they also provide a clean and dry surface for ground-lying fruits. They prevent soil erosion from heavy rains, prevent surface run-off of water, and prevent the direct impact of hard rains on the soil surface. Some mulches improve soil texture, adding humus. Organic mulches may add nutrients to the soil as they breakdown. Biodegradable mulches, as they decay, are incorporated into the soil where they provide air spaces and surfaces for fungi and root growth.[1]

While mulching may improve the growth of various plants by directly manipulating the plant's abiotic environment, mulch can also improve growth as an effective means of pest control. Various forms of mulch, deter herbivorous insects and increase the numbers of beneficial insects .

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barotropic atmosphere

In meteorology, a barotropic atmosphere is one in which the pressure depends only on the density and vice versa, so that isobaric surfaces (constant pressure surfaces) are also isopycnic surfaces (constant density surfaces). The isobaric surfaces will also be isothermal surfaces, hence (from the thermal wind equation) the geostrophic wind is independent of height. Hence the motions of a rotating barotropic fluid are strongly constrained.

A barotropic flow is a generalization of the barotropic atmosphere described above: It is a flow in which the pressure is a function of the density only and vice versa. In other words, it is a flow in which isobaric surfaces are isopycnic surfaces and vice versa. One may have a barotropic flow with a non-barotropic fluid, but a barotropic fluid must always follow a barotropic flow. Examples include barotropic layers of the oceans, an isothermal ideal gas or an isentropic ideal gas.

Barotropic fluids are also important idealized fluids in astrophysics, such as in the study of stellar interiors or of the interstellar medium. One common class of barotropic model used in astrophysics is a polytropic fluid. Typically, the barotropic assumption is not very realistic.

Contrast baroclinic. In particular, for a barotropic fluid or a barotropic flow (such as a barotropic atmosphere), the baroclinic vector is always zero.

what is cat?

Clear air turbulence weather, sometimes colloquially referred to as "air pockets", is the erratic movement of air masses in the absence of any visual cues, such as clouds. Clear-air turbulence is caused when bodies of air moving at widely different speeds meet; at high altitudes (7,000-12,000 metres/23,000-39,000 feet) this is frequently encountered around jet streams or sometimes near mountain ranges. Clear-air turbulence is impossible to detect either with the naked eye or with conventional radar, meaning that it is difficult to avoid. However, it can be remotely detected with instruments that can measure turbulence with optical techniques, such as scintillometers or Doppler LIDARs.

This kind of turbulence creates a hazard for air navigation. Because aircraft move so quickly, they experience sudden unexpected accelerations or 'bumps' as they rapidly cross invisible bodies of air which are moving vertically at many different speeds. Cabin crew and passengers on airliners have been injured (and in a small number of cases, killed, as in the case of a United Airlines Flight 826 on December 28, 1997) when tossed around inside an aircraft cabin during extreme turbulence. BOAC Flight 911 broke-up in flight in 1966 after experiencing severe lee wave turbulence just downwind of Mount Fuji, Japan.
TURBULENCE

Turbulence causes the formation of eddies of many different length scales. Most of the kinetic energy of the turbulent motion is contained in the large scale structures. The energy "cascades" from these large scale structures to smaller scale structures by an inertial and essentially inviscid mechanism. This process continues, creating smaller and smaller structures which produces a hierarchy of eddies. Eventually this process creates structures that are small enough that molecular diffusion becomes important and viscous dissipation of energy finally takes place.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

thermo hydro graph


A thermohydrograph is a scientific instrument that silmultaneously records both temperature and relative humidity in graph form for a preset period of time. These instruments are usually portable and are often used in rooms in art galleries and museums so that the conservators can ensure that the air conditioning is operating correctly [because the preservation of the exhibits is aided by automatically adjusting the air conditioning to maintain close control of temperature and relative humidity and it is necessary to know whether those conditions are being maintained]. These instruments are mechanical with clockwork drives to rotate a drum to which the graph paper is attached. They are relatively delicate and require regular calibration to ensure accuracy.

wind vane


A weather vane, also called a wind vane, is a movable device attached to an elevated object such as a roof for showing the direction of the wind. Very often these are in the shape of cockerels and are called weather cocks. Arrows are also popular, but a multitude of designs have been used.