Category Environtal Studies

What is El Nino climate pattern?

This affects ocean temperatures, speed and strength of ocean currents, the health of coastal fisheries, and also the local weather in several countries

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has predicted a high probability of El Nino developing later this year. This will fuel higher global temperatures. Let us know more about this phenomenon.

El Nino

El Nino, Spanish word for ‘little boy’, is a natural climate pattern associated with the warming of the central Pacific Ocean waters near South America. It is the warm phase of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a recurring phenomenon involving changes in the Pacific Ocean temperature.

El Nino affects the ocean temperatures, speed and strength of ocean currents, the health of coastal fisheries, and also the local weather in several countries. For instance, El Nino can cause rain in South America while threatening drought in Indonesia and Australia.

It occurs irregularly at two- to seven-year intervals and episodes usually last nine to 12 months. An El Nino year creates a mini global-warming crisis because the warm water spreading across the tropical Pacific releases a large amount of heat into the atmosphere. It results in hot and dry weather in Southeast Asia.

El Nino events are indicated when the temperature of the sea surface increases by more than 0.5° C for at least five successive overlapping three-month seasons.

El Nino events of 1982-83 and 1997-98 were the most adverse of the 20th Century. During 1982-1983, the sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific were 7.8-12.8° C above normal. These strong temperature increases caused harsh drought in Australia, typhoons in Tahiti, and record rainfall and flood in central Chile.

The 1997-1998 El Nino event was the first time that was scientifically monitored from beginning to end. It caused drought conditions in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Peru faced very heavy rains and severe flooding. While California faced winter rainfall, the Midwest received record-breaking warm temperatures. Strong El Nino events can cause weaker monsoons in India and Southeast Asia and increased rainfall during the rainy season in sub-Saharan Africa.

ENSO and La Nina

ENSO involves changes in the temperature of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. This affects the rainfall distribution in the tropics and weather across the world. El Nino and La Nina are the extreme phases of the ENSO cycle. Besides, there is another phase neither El Nino or La Nina. It is known as the ENSO-neutral.

La Nina, Spanish word for ‘little girl’, is the cool phase of ENSO. During La Nina events, trade winds (blowing east to west just north and south of the Equator) are stronger than usual and push more warm water toward Asia. Meanwhile, near the west coast of the Americas, upwelling increases, bringing cold and nutrient-rich water to the surface. During such a year, the winter temperatures are warmer than normal in the South and cooler than normal in the North. La Nina ended this year after a three-year run and the tropical Pacific is at present in an ENSO-neutral state.

Prediction

The WMO has predicted a 60% chance for a transition from ENSO-neutral to El Nino during May-July 2023, an increase to about 70% in June-August and 80% in July-September.

This April, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted that an El Nino will likely develop during this southwest monsoon. However, the IMD has stated that India will likely receive a normal amount of monsoon rain this year despite the probability of the weather phenomenon.

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What are solar trees and solar canopies?

Solar trees and solar canopies are all about the idea of taking solar energy to another level. Solar energy is a renewable source of energy. It is cheaper, perennial, and environmentally friendly.

Tapping into solar energy is a revolutionary way to drive renewable energy production and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels which release harmful greenhouse gases and thereby lowers our carbon footprint.

And to promote the use of solar energy, sustainable, aesthetic-looking solar structures such as solar trees and solar canopies have come up. Here we harness the energy of the sun to generate electricity.

Ever seen the Supertrees in Singapore? Remember those colossal structures that look like trees right out of a science fiction novel. Those are solar trees.

A collection of 18 artificial Supertrees ranging in height upto 50 metres, were set up in Singapore at “Gardens by the Bay” (a botanical project). These solar trees also serve as vertical gardens with ferns and vines climbing up the steel framework.

So what are solar trees? A solar tree is a structure resembling a tree and generating solar energy using photovoltaic (PV) panels.

How does a solar tree work?

 In a solar tree, the photovoltaic “leaves” will capture the sunlight and convert it into electricity. This is then conducted down through the framework that resembles the trunk of a tree to an internal battery.

Some designs of solar trees feature rotating panels and these can move throughout the day and absorb more amounts of sunlight.

These are futuristic “trees” and can be set up even in rural communities or other off-grid locations. They can be used to supplement other methods of harnessing sunlight.

Why solar trees?

One of the main perks of setting up solar trees is that they help save land as they are vertical. Due to their towering height, they can also receive more sunlight than solar panels mounted on a lower ground.

If you were to take a look at the Supertrees in Singapore, you can see that the steel framework is covered by climbers and floral species, increasing the aesthetic value. Thus it also adds to the biodiversity of the urban locale. Moreover, these trees require less maintenance compared to other means of solar energy production. They also help cool the heat islands by reducing the thermal energy that gets reflected off surfaces. These structures can thus help offset the effect of climate change.

Solar canopy

Now what are solar canopies? A solar canopy is a structure that is designed to cover an outdoor area. They are rooftops that are used to harness solar energy using photovoltaic panels.

They also provide shelter in expansive areas. One can even say that the future of parking lies in solar canopies. They are slowly becoming popular in public places and businesses. These green roofs are mostly used as transportation infrastructure (bus shelters, or parking lots) or in recreational areas.

Solar canopies help in decentralised energy production and have an edge over huge grid-based power systems as these can help avoid grid failures and power outages. Despite their advantages the solar canopies are not that common. This is expected to change over time.

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How soil came to be?

Soil is almost everywhere around us that we don’t give it much thought. But it is so crucial that life as we know it will cease to exist without soil. Here’s a peek into how soil came to be.

Though Earth is over 4.5 billion years old, the soil it holds is less than 500 million years old. Before soil came about, the continents of our planet were “dusty, barren and rocky landscapes similar to the surface of Mars”. All that dramatically changed with the birth of soil. It was earlier believed that rivers weathering bare rock resulted in soil, but more recent research suggests that land plants are largely responsible for the formation of soil.

Freshwater algae gradually evolved to become land plants, which quickly gained complex forms. So quickly that 385 million years ago, there were forests the world over. These forests “sucked carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere at a rapid rate”. This resulted in global temperatures falling and causing widespread glaciations. These “helped to grind down Earth’s rocks”. But there was also something else at play – roots.

There’s evidence that early plant roots were not the way they look today. There were just thin stems covered in tiny hairs, which helped “anchor plants to the planet’s rocky surface and absorb water and nutrients”. The new hairy stems intertwined with decaying older stems to result in a thin-layered peaty soil enough to offer a foothold for more plants to grow. In about 20 million years, plant roots evolved and “drilled down over a metre in depth”, transforming soils and letting plants gain access to deep reserves of water and nutrients. “This below-ground revolution provided an entirely new ecosystem for life to diversify into.” From fungi and mites to roundworms and early arachnids, the soil was just bursting with life. Meanwhile, the penetration of roots into the ground also helped broad sheets of water on land to flow deeper to become what we now call rivers. It is said plant roots may have evolved further since then, impacting soil.

Given how important soil is for water, nutrients, and absorbing carbon, it is worrying that globally our soil is in peril due to several factors, including erosion. And this is a reminder that we must protect it.

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What is meaning of term ‘Environmental justice’?

Environmental justice is an effort that aims to understand how several human actions (or inaction) impacting the environment also disproportionately affect marginalised and economically disadvantaged people across the world. For instance, least developed countries may contribute the least to pollution and yet people in those regions could be more affected by pollution than developed countries. Such countries may often even find themselves dealing with floods, drought the lack of access to clean water, healthy food, medical care, or means to be compensated during crises. So, in simple terms, environmental justice can be defined as the idea that everyone deserves to live healthy on a clean Earth.

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Can India experience heat waves beyond human survival?

India could experience heat waves beyond human survival limit, says World Bank report. And this impact would be felt in several ways. A look at the report in five brief points

1. HOTTEST ON RECORD: The World Bank report titled “Climate Investment Opportunities in India’s Cooling Sector” said that the country is experiencing higher temperatures that arrive earlier and stay far longer. “In April 2022, India was plunged into the grip of a punishing early spring heat wave that brought the country to a standstill, with temperatures in the capital. New Delhi, topping 46 degrees Celsius. The month of March, which witnessed extraordinary spikes in temperatures, was the hottest ever recorded,” said the report.

2. INTENSE HEAT WAVES: Predicting that heat waves situation in India could break the human survivability limit, the study noted that the recent heat wave supports what many climate scientists have long cautioned about with reference to rising temperatures across South Asia. It added that in August 2021, the Sixth Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the Indian subcontinent would suffer more frequent and intense heat waves over the coming decade. The G20 Climate Risk Atlas also warned in 2021 that heat waves across India were likely to last 25 times longer by 2036-65 if carbon emissions remain high, as in the IPCC’s worst-case emission scenario.

3. IMPACT ON ECONOMY: The report warned that rising heat across India can jeopardise economic productivity. “Up to 75 per cent of India’s workforce, or 380 million people, depend on heat-exposed labor, at times working in potentially life-threatening temperatures….By 2030, India may account for 34 million of the projected 80 million global job losses from heat stress associated productivity decline,” the report stated.

4. HEAT AND COLD CHAINS: Transporting food and pharmaceutical goods across India requires a system of cold chain refrigeration that works every step of the way. “A single temperature lapse in the journey can break the cold chain, spoiling fresh produce and weakening the potency of vaccines. With only 4 per cent of fresh produce in India covered by cold chain facilities, annual estimated food losses total USD 13 billion,” it said. It also observed that the third largest producer of pharmaceuticals in the world, pre-COVID-19, India lost approximately 20 per cent of temperature-sensitive medical products and 25 per cent of vaccines due to broken cold chains, leading to losses of USD 313 million a year.

5. THE POOR ARE VULNERABLE: According to analysis presented in the India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP), only eight per cent of Indian households own air-conditioning units. “Indoor and electric fans can help to maintain thermal comfort, but these too are expensive to buy and inefficient. As a result, many poor and marginalised communities across India are more vulnerable to extreme heat, living in inadequately ventilated, hot and crowded homes without proper access to cooling,” the report warned.

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Cities can be wildlife havens too

Scientists say that even in urban environments, when we create the right conditions, things get better environmentally, and native species come back. Detroit’s sprawling metro area illustrates how such human actions can boost rewilding. In five points, let’s look at how urban rewilding happens and what its benefits are

WHAT IS REWILDING?

Rewilding generally means reviving natural systems in degraded locations -sometimes with a helping hand. That might mean removing dams, building tunnels to reconnect migration pathways severed by roads, or reintroducing predators such as wolves to help balance ecosystems. But after initial assists, there’s little human involvement. The idea might seem best suited to remote areas where nature is freer to heal without interference. But rewilding also happens in some of the world’s biggest urban centres, as people find mutually beneficial ways to coexist with nature.

DETROIT IS AN EXAMPLE

Hundreds of thousands of houses and other structures in Detroit, the U.S., were abandoned as the struggling city’s population fell more than 60% in the 1950s. Many were razed, leaving vacant tracts that plants and animals have occupied. Non-profit groups planted trees, community gardens, and pollinator-friendly shrubs. With this, urban rewilding in Detroit has been more organic than strategic.

THE BENEFITS

Conservation projects reintroduced ospreys and peregrine falcons. Bald eagles found their way back as bans on DDT and other pesticides helped expand their range nationwide. Anti-pollution laws and government-funded clean-ups made nearby rivers more hospitable to sturgeon, whitefish, beavers, and native plants such as wild celery. The Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge, just a half-hour drive from downtown, consists of 30 parcels totalling 6,200 acres, including islands, wetlands, and former industrial sites. It’s home to 300 bird species and a busy stopover for ducks, raptors, and others during migration.

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR LEARNING

The project in Detroit connects wildlife with local residents, some intrigued by coyotes and raccoons in the neighbourhood, others fearful of diseases or harm to pets. But people can also learn about proper trash disposal, resisting the temptation to feed wild animals, and the value of healthy, diverse ecosystems. It is also a chance to prepare communities and environments and societies to anticipate the presence of more and more wildlife in urban areas as we’re changing their habitats. Studies also show that time in natural spaces improves people’s physical and mental health.

 OTHER EXAMPLES

The German cities of Hannover, Frankfurt, and Dessau-Rosslau designated vacant lots, parks, lawns, and urban waterways where nature could take its course. As native wildflowers have sprung up, they’ve attracted birds, butterflies, bees, and even hedgehogs. In a 2.7-km stretch of the Kallang River has been converted from a concrete-lined channel into a twisting waterway lined with plants, rocks, and other natural materials and flanked by green parkland. In the U.S., Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium and the non-profit Urban Rivers are installing “floating wetlands” on part of the Chicago River to provide fish breeding areas, bird and pollinator habitat, and root systems that cleanse polluted water.

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