Temperature record of past 1000 years

• The tremperature record of past 1000 years describes the reconstruction of temperature for last 1000 years on the Northern Hemisphere.
• Studying past climate is interest for Scientists in order to understand current climate variability and providing a basis for future climate projection.
• If nature and magnitude of natural climate variability can be established,scientist will be in better position to identify human generated cliamte variability.
• Although temperature reconstructions from proxy data help us understand charecter of natural climate variability,attribution of recent climate change relies on broad range of methodology in addition to proxy reconstruction.
• By far the best observedperiod is from 1850 to the present day.
• Direct thermometer readings has approximately global coverage.
• It shows a general warming in global temperature.

- The Hindu 9th August 2018

India leadership in solar energy

 India and France had together announced the International Solar Alliance parallel to the Paris climate change summit in 2015.
 Its goal is to make big investments in solar energy in developing countries so that they can both fight rapid climate change and meet a rising energy demand.
 ISA plans to mobilize a trillion dollars to help create at least 1,000 GW of solar power capacity by 2030.
India’s target it to raise a solar power capacity of 100 GW by 2022, which requires quadrupling existing capacity in four years. But there are some very real policy challenges.
 For example, import duties on solar cells, that are intended to encourage domestic manufacturing, come with the side effect of slower capacity addition.

source:Times of India

The Paris Accord-new changes

World leaders gather to breathe new life into Paris accord 

During the Accords French President Emmanuel Macron, aims to accelerate the implementation of the 2015 Paris accord majorly through increasing the fund for climate action

Despite several announcements and summits the climate war has rarely made any progress.

President Donald Trump has announced an pull-out in 2017 and have also slashed a number of regulations set by President Obama

The next UN negotiating summit COP24 will take place in December in Poland to be attended by about 30 Presidents, Prime Ministers and Ministers.

Bachendri Pal to lead month-long rafting expedition to clean Ganga

A 40-member team, including 20 women, will undertake a month -long rafting expedition "Mission Gange" ,October 3 
The team would be led by Pal, the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest. The objective is to clean the river Ganga and spread awareness on waste management, covering a distance of 1500 km downstream. This was inspired by our Prime Minister Modi jis 'Namami Gange' campaign.The expedition was being supported by the Government of India and Tata Steel .

TN Pollution Control Boards refusal to renew consent for operating Sterlite copper plant.

Published in : FIRSTPOST
Dated : Sep 25, 2018

Vedanta being the parent company of sterlite told a panel which was constituted by the National Green Tribunal and headed by the Former Chief Justice of Meghalaya Highcourt that the TN pollution control board refused to renew the consent for operating its sterlite copper plant in Tuticorin. According to sources they said that it was operating against the law such as producing beyond the prescribed capacity, using second hand equipments, leakage of waste resources into the waterbodies and streams, emmission of harmful waste toxins causing lot of pollution. The plant didn't follow any ethics as they didn't gave any serious concern for their employees working there, no safety were there and due to that some fellow employees were killed by an accident which occured inside the plant. There were a lot of protests which demanded the closure of the plant. A public relation official of sterlite said that there were around 45,000 petitions in favour of re-opening the sterlite plant which was raised and submitted by villagers, contractors, workmen and vendors.He also said that such petitions were authenticated with supporting documents like Aadhar card.Moreover, MDMK chief Vaiko, one of the respondents in the NGT said the panel that "Sterlite is an environmental disaster". 

For further reference go through the link :

https://www.firstpost.com/india/tn-pollution-control-boards-refusal-to-renew-consent-for-operating-sterlite-copper-plant-bad-in-law-vedanta-tells-ngt-panel-5254471.html

Running on fuel cell technology

The launch of hytrogen powered train service in germany
mark a break through in the commercial use of fuel cell technology.
it is the cleanest of technology since the waste product is plane water.
also fuel in a fuel cell is inexhaustible and highly efficient.
the coradia ilint trains have a range of abut 1000 km on a single hytrofen tank.

The dam crisis

the govt decision to allocate an additional 34.66 billion to strengthen dams is a good step to protecting against any future hazard or dam failure.

the dam safety issue merits urgent attention because over 75% of the countries dams are over 25 years old with the majority of them exceeding their lifespan of 50:60 years.

the mullperiyar dam located in Kerala but owned by Tamilnadu is typical case in this point

Methane's effects on sunlight vary by region

Scientists investigating how human-induced increases in atmospheric methane also increase the amount of solar energy absorbed by that gas in our climate system have discovered that this absorption is 10 times stronger over desert regions such as the Sahara Desert and Arabian Peninsula than elsewhere on Earth, and nearly three times more powerful in the presence of clouds.

A research team from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) came to this conclusion after evaluating observations of Jupiter and Titan (a moon of Saturn), where methane concentrations are more than a thousand times those on Earth, to quantify methane's shortwave radiative effects here on Earth.These findings were published online today in the journal Science Advances in an article entitled "Large Regional Shortwave Forcing by Anthropogenic Methane Informed by Jovian Observations." The paper indicates large regional variability in the ways methane acts as a solar absorber, finding that methane absorption, or "radiative forcing," is largely dependent on bright surface features and clouds.

Scientists show polar 'polynya' supported marine life during last Ice Age

There was a small ice-free 'polynya' between the frozen continents and the open ocean where microscopic marine life prevailed, which would have provided otherwise unavailable food for fish and mammals.The study was led by Geological Survey of Norway (NGU), the Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate at The Arctic University of Norway, and the Centre for Chemical Sciences at the University of Plymouth.

The researchers believe their findings are of international importance since they show the vulnerability of marine ecosystems in the northern oceans to periods of rapid climate change, but also their adaptability to various extreme climate states.

Big increase in economic costs if cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are delayed

Stronger efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions should be undertaken to avoid global warming of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius -- without relying on potentially more expensive or risky technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth's surface.

Researchers from UEA, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Imperial College London assessed almost 200 published academic papers on climate change, including recent studies about the economics of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC.

They noted that economics analyses produce inconclusive results about the value of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC.

The paper states: "Due to large uncertainties about the economic costs and, in particular, the benefits, there can be no clear answer to the question of whether the 1.5ºC target passes a cost-benefit test."