Government plans Rs 65,000-crore project to reduce greenhouse gases from agriculture.

The goal of the project, with a run period 2018-2025, is to “sequestrate” 49.9 million tonnes of carbon gasses through improved agro-ecosystems.

India is set to roll out its most integrated programme yet to cut greenhouse gases from agriculture. The project is primarily aimed at protecting the country’s five biggest vulnerable ecological landscapes, according to two officials familiar with the matter.

The programme will cover Madhya Pradesh’s Chambal region, Dampa in Mizoram, Odisha’s Similipal, Jaisalmer and Barmer in Rajasthan besides a national wildlife corridor through Uttarakhand, the officials said.

The programme, involving the agriculture and environment ministries, is part of a global initiative of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a partnership 183 countries, including India.

Each of these critical biodiversity zones – home to over a third of India’s 300 million tribals, precious wildlife, and forests – face a specific threat from unsustainable agriculture, including large-scale land degradation.

Climate change and agriculture have a two-way relationship. Farming contributes to and is adversely impacted by climate change, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The goal of the project, with a run period 2018-2025, is to “sequestrate” 49.9 million tonnes of carbon gasses through improved agro-ecosystems. Carbon sequestration refers to the process of offsetting harmful emissions through mitigation.

Agriculture activities are widely known to emit three kinds of harmful gases: carbon dioxide from soil cultivation, methane from livestock and nitrous oxide from fertilizers. Greenhouse emissions are a significant driver of climate change by trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and causing global warming.

In the Chambal region, an area covering 97,982 hectares, the main threats include expanding ravines, sparse vegetation, and pollution from chemical-runoffs from agriculture, an official document states. Mitigation proposals include organic cultivation and sustainable grazing of cattle.

In Mizoram, the project will span the Dampa Tiger Reserve and the Thorangtlang Wildlife Sanctuary, covering 145,670 hectares in the Lunglei and Mamit regions. Jhum cultivation has been a major threat to land degradation in the state. In Odisha, the project will be spread over 556,900 hectares, including the UNESCO recognized Simlipal Biosphere Reserve.

Jaisalmer and Barmer in Rajasthan have been picked to create an ecologically sustainable “Desert National Park”, spanning 316,200 hectares.

In Uttarakhand, the Corbett Tiger Reserve and the Rajaji Tiger Reserve will be covered, spanning 324,696 hectares in Nainital, Pauri Garhwal, Almora, Dehradun, and Haridwar districts.

The overall cost of implementing the project is US$ 902 million (₹65,000 crore approximately), with a GEF grant of US$ 33.5 million. The remaining US$ 868 million will be available through the co-financing route. The GEF, of which India is a leading member nation, works for solutions to the world’s most “challenging environmental issues related to biodiversity, climate change, land degradation, chemicals, and international waters”. The government has decided to increase India’s share of funding to the GEF by 25%, an official said.

 

Global warming threatens Lakshadweep’s coral reefs.

An 18-year-long study has found that the island’s corals are in dramatic decline.

For most of us, thinking about Lakshadweep islands conjures images of pristine beaches, clear blue seas and fascinating coral reefs that are home to a diversity of plant and animal life. This might not be far from reality but recent research questions how long will these serene islands remain the same.

A nearly two-decade-long study by the Oceans and Coasts Program of the Nature Conservation Foundation’s (NCF) has found that the absolute coral cover in these islands has reduced from 51.6% in 1998 to 11% in 2017, a staggering 40% decline.

They have found that the alarming rate of coral mortality and their shifting species compositions, combined with their slow rate of recovery, could severely limit their ability to resist future disturbances due to climate change.

The enormous drop in coral cover is a result of repeated and increasingly severe climate change-related disturbance. By monitoring the same reefs since 1998 through a series of El Niño disturbance events, the researchers have found that the way a single reef responds to and recovers from a stressor can change drastically through time.

The Lakshadweep islands are an archipelago of 36 atolls - ring-shaped reef, island, or a chain of islands formed of coral - in the eastern Indian Ocean, off the south-west coast of India.

They found that El Niño events, sudden increases in ocean temperatures that kill large tracts of coral, are occurring more regularly than ever before. Three mass bleaching’s of corals have been witnessed in the islands in the last 20 years, in 1998, 2010 and 2016 respectively.

The good news is that with every subsequent El Niño event, less coral is dying—the reefs are becoming more resistant. The bad news is that their ability to recover from each event has declined dramatically. The even worse news is that the frequency of these disturbance events is increasing all the time—killing the reef before it is able to limp back to health again.

Hidden valleys and mountain ranges discovered under Antarctica ice.

Although there are extensive satellite data that help image the surface of the Earth and its deep interior, there was a gap around the South Pole area.

Researchers have discovered mountain ranges and three huge, deep subglacial valleys hidden beneath the Antarctica ice.

The findings, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, are the first to emerge from extensive ice-penetrating radar data collected in Antarctica as part of the European Space Agency Polar GAP project.

Although there are extensive satellite data that help image the surface of the Earth and its deep interior, there was a gap around the South Pole area, which is not covered by satellites due to the inclination of their orbits.

The Polar GAP project was therefore designed to fill in the gap in the satellite data coverage of the South Pole and in particular acquire the missing gravity data.

Airborne radar data were also collected to enable mapping of the bedrock topography hidden beneath the ice sheet. The data reveals the topography which controls how quickly ice flows between the East and West Antarctic ice sheets.

The team, led by researchers from North Umbria University in the UK, has mapped for the first time three vast, subglacial valleys in West Antarctica. These valleys could be important in the future as they help to channel the flow of ice from the center of the continent towards the coast.

If climate change causes the ice sheet to thin, these troughs could increase the speed at which ice flows from the center of Antarctica to the sea, raising global sea levels. The largest valley, known as the Foundation Trough, is more than 350 kilometers long and 35 kilometers wide. Its length is equivalent to the distance from London to Manchester, while its width amounts to more than one and a half times the length of New York’s Manhattan Island.

The two other troughs are equally vast. The Patuxent Trough is more than 300 kilometers long and over 15 kilometers wide, while the Offset Rift Basin is 150 kilometers long and 30 kilometers wide.

Antarctica's temperature to rise by 3 degrees by end of century

An expert said the rise in temperature could be the tipping point as far as the fight against global warming is concerned.

The temperature in Antarctica may increase as much as three degrees by the end of the century, according to an expert. This could be the tipping point as far as the fight against global warming is concerned, he added.

The Britain-based SCAR is responsible for initiating, developing and coordinating high quality international scientific research in the Antarctic region (including the Southern Ocean), and on the role of the Antarctic region in the Earth system.

Nearly, 400 scientists from 40 countries are participating in the Goa symposium that has a focus on the Antarctic region with a special thrust on sub-ice rocks in relation to global sea-level rise.

The atmosphere over Antarctica, as well as the ocean surrounding the southern continent, has strong influences on global weather patterns and ocean currents which directly affect mankind across the globe.

Carbon dioxide levels at highest, mandatory respiratory masks for all only 20 years away

Carbon dioxide levels in the air have reached the highest point. If the trend continues, everyone may have to wear respiratory masks to breathe in just 20 years from now.

 Carbon dioxide, the gas that we exhale to remove toxicity from our body and the one responsible for greenhouse effect the most, is at all-time high quantity in the air. At least two organizations observing global climatic patterns and variations have reported the highest amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the month of May.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 411.25 parts per million. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography measured carbon dioxide at 411.35. This is the highest monthly level ever recorded by scientists.

The scientists studying the greenhouse gases are of the view that this could also be the highest concentration of carbon dioxide in human history.

Carbon dioxide level in the air has been increasing for over three centuries. But in recent decades, the rate of increase in carbon dioxide has been alarming. Besides rapid population growth and cutting of trees, burning of the huge amount of fossil fuels is the prime reason for the very high rate of increase in carbon dioxide in the air. The scientists have found that on an average, the rate of rising in carbon dioxide levels was about 1.6 ppm per year during the 1980s and 1.5 ppm per year in the next decade. But, it accelerated with the turn of the century.

The rate of increase in carbon dioxide levels in the air between 2016 and 2017 was recorded at 2.3 ppm. This was the sixth consecutive year-to-year increase in carbon dioxide level at above 2 ppm rate.

The problem with carbon dioxide is that each molecule of carbon dioxide may take, scientists say, hundreds or even thousands of years to finally dissipate. The carbon dioxide molecules are, in fact, self-powered tiny heat convectors that may keep warming the air and the seas for generations to come.

To understand the real issue with the latest rising trend in greenhouse gas, it is imperative to underscore that the CO2 levels were stable at 280 ppm prior to the industrial revolution.

The climatologists say that if the current rate of rising in carbon dioxide levels continue, it would reach at 450 ppm in just 20 years from now. The company’s manufacturing air-filters and protective gas masks would be the sole beneficiaries.

Air pollution may be linked to heightened dementia risk

Air pollution may be linked to a heightened risk of developing dementia, find a London based observational study. The associations found couldn't  be explained by factors known to influence the risks of developing the condition , say the researchers. 

ncrease in plastics waste reaching remote South Atlantic islands

The amount of plastic washing up onto the shores of remote South Atlantic island is 10 times greater than it was a decade ago, according to new research. Scientists investigating plastics in seas surrounding the remote British Overseas Territories discovered they are invading these unique biologically rich regions. This include areas that are established or proposed marine protested areas.

Climate change, rising sea levels a threat to farmers in Bangladesh

Rising sea level driven by climate change make for salty soil, and that is likely to force about 200000 coastal farmers in Bangladesh inland as glaciers melt into the worlds ocean according to estimates from a new study.

Pros and Cons of Hydropower

This news talks about the positive and negative sides of using hydro power as the means of energy.

Hydro power can generate electricity without emitting greenhouse gases but can cause environmental and social harms, such as damaged wildlife habitat, impaired water quality, impeded fish migration, reduced sediment transport, and diminished cultural and recreation benefits of rivers.

Sources say that, reducing hydro power generation in order to restore natural river conditions is often considered too costly by hydro power operators, but those costs might be lessened by taking advantage of complex electricity markets and providing grid-regulating ancillary services, especially in regions with high penetrations of renewable energy like wind and solar.

Barriers and opportunities in renewable biofuels production

Researchers have identified two main challenges for renewable bio-fuel production from cheap sources. First, lowering the cost of developing microbial cell factories, and second, establishing more efficient methods for hydrolysis of biomass to sugars for fermentation. 

Sources say that, it is technically possible to produce biofuels from renewable resources by using microbes such as yeast and bacteria as tiny cell factories. However, in order to compete with fossil-derived fuels, the process has to become much more efficient. But improving the efficiency of the microbial cell factories is an expensive and time-consuming process, so speeding-up the cell factory development is therefore one of the main barriers.

Climate change, rising sea levels a threat to farmers in Bangladesh.

A study made by Ohio State University finds that, Salty soil drives changes in agriculture and migration.

According to the source it says like, rising sea levels are driven by climate change and this make changes in the salty soil, and that is likely to force about 200,000 coastal farmers in Bangladesh inland as glaciers melt into the world's oceans.

This article says that, frequent flooding with salt water is already pushing farmers in Bangladesh to shift from growing rice to raising shrimp and other seafood, but not all coastal residents will be able to stay put and maintain their agricultural livelihoods.

Investigating glaciers in depth.

Sources say that, global sea levels are rising constantly and one factor that is mainly contributing to this rise is the melting of the glaciers. Although the surface area of the glaciers has been well mapped, there is often no information regarding their thickness, making it impossible to calculate their volume. As a result, the effects on sea levels cannot be accurately calculated. 

Researchers have developed an approach which can be used to draw up regional ice thickness maps for glaciers.These ice thickness maps gives new insights into the dynamic ice loss of glaciers. When new snow falls, its weight compresses previous layers of snow and a new mass of ice is gradually formed. 

With the help of this ice thickness map, now we can accurately estimate the dynamic ice loss.

Scientists capture images of antibodies working together against malaria

This news talks about how the scientists are investigating with regards to the human immune system that can defend against malaria. They have uncovered a rare phenomenon of antibodies that works together to bind to a vulnerable spot on the parasite. 

According to a research, it says that antibodies working together can result in a protein on the parasite's cell surface locking it into a spiral conformation, like a wide corkscrew, blocking the parasite from starting its life cycle in the human host and, hence, protecting against infection.

Earth’s inner core is solid, 'J waves' suggest

• A new study could help us understand how our planet was formed. Scientists report that their research shows that Earth's inner core is solid a finding made possible by a new method for detecting shear waves, or 'J waves' in the inner core.
• the inner core shares some similar elastic properties with gold and platinum. The inner core is like a time capsule.
• The understanding of the Earth's inner core has direct consequences for the generation and maintenance of the geomagnetic field, and without that geomagnetic field there would be no life on the Earth's surface.

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

New material, manufacturing process use sun's heat for cheaper renewable electricity

• Scientists have developed a new material and manufacturing process that would make one way to use solar power as heat energy more efficient in generating electricity.
• Solar power accounts for less than 2 percent of U.S. electricity but could make up more than that if the cost of electricity generation and energy storage for use on cloudy days and at nighttime were cheaper.
• Solar power doesn't only generate electricity via panels in farms or on rooftops. Another option is concentrated power plants that run on heat energy.
• This would mean dramatic reductions in human-made carbon dioxide emissions from electricity production.

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

Working lands play a key role in protecting biodiversity

• Diversifying working lands  including farmland, rangeland and forests may be key to preserving biodiversity in the face of climate change, by a new review article. 
• These changes could extend the habitat of critters like bats, but also much larger creatures like bears, elk and other wildlife, outside the boundaries of protected areas, while creating more sustainable, and potentially more productive, working lands.
• We just can't keep mining our soils for their fertility and polluting our streams -- in the end, this will diminish our capacity to continue producing the food that we need.
•  Instead, we must pay attention to the species, from microbes to mammals, that supply us with critical services, like pollination, pest control and nutrient cycling.

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

Rising temperatures and human activity are increasing storm runoff and flash floods

• Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that runoff extremes have been dramatically increasing in response to climate and human-induced changes. 
• Their findings show a large increase in both precipitation and runoff extremes driven by both human activity and climate change. 
• They also found that storm runoff has a stronger response than precipitation to human-induced changes (climate change, land-use land-cover changes, etc).
•  These losses have been increasing over the past 50 years and have exceeded $30 billion per year in the past decade. 

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

Where Ganga meets the Bay of Pollution

An exponential increase in the number of pilgrims coming to the Ganga Sagar Mela, which takes place at the Sagar Island every year during Makar Sankranti, has been responsible for the worsening water pollution, prompting scientists to raise serious concerns about the likely outbreak of several diseases.

The number of pilgrims descending on the Sagar Island to take a dip at the place where the Ganga meets the Bay of Bengal, has risen from 2 lakh in 1990 to 20 lakh in 2018.

“A health survey was conducted with the local people… it found that diseases like cholera, dysentery, and skin disease were predominant in the post-Ganga Sagar Mela period,” observed a paper titled ‘Pollution and its consequences at Ganga Sagar mass bathing in India’, published recently in the journal Environment, Development and Sustainability.

The study noted a sharp deterioration in water quality parameters between the pre-mela and post-mela period. For instance, the concentration of faecal coliform bacteria, which was 22 MPN (most probable number) in 100 ml of water two weeks before the mela, was found to be 9,963 MPN two weeks after the mela.

Carrots could be key to making greener buildings

A group of researchers at Britain’s Lancaster University has been using a household food blender to mix particles from the root vegetable with concrete to see if they can produce a stronger and more environmentally sound product.

“We found out you could increase the strength of concrete by 80% by using a small amount of this new material,” said lead researcher Mohamed Saafi.

The addition of carrots prevent any cracks in the concrete, the team said. It also means less cement is required, therefore lowering the global carbon dioxide output.

Cement is responsible for 7% of total global CO2 emissions, according to International Energy Agency estimates.

“Our preliminary results show that adding about half a kilogram of carrot nanomaterial will reduce about 10 kg of cement per one cubic metre of concrete,” Mr. Saafi said. The scientists are also experimenting with sugar beet fibres.

SC shocked over ‘vanishing’ Aravalli hills

The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed shock over the disappearance of 31 hills in the Aravalli area of Rajasthan and asked the State government to stop illegal mining in the 115.34-hectare area there within 48 hours.

The top court said that even though Rajastan was earning royalty of around ₹5,000 crore from mining activities in the Aravallis, it cannot endanger the lives of lakhs of people in Delhi as the disappearance of the hills could be one of the reasons for rise in pollution level in Delhi-NCR.

A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta referred to the status report filed by the Rajasthan government and said it indicated that illegal mining activity was going on in 115.34 hectare area in Aravalli range in the State.

Indian monsoons influence Atlantic hurricanes: study

Strong monsoons in the Indian Ocean can induce easterly winds that push Atlantic Ocean hurricanes westward, increasing the likelihood they will make landfall in the Americas, according to a study.

The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that in years where summer rainstorms in India are stronger, Atlantic hurricanes move further westward towards land. In years where the rains are not as strong, hurricanes tend to curve northward earlier and fizzle out in the north Atlantic Ocean.

The newly-discovered relationship could help scientists better predict the path of oncoming hurricanes, especially in late summer months like September, when Atlantic hurricane activity peaks, according to researchers.