planetwater

Northwest Passage

The territory around the North Pole has been on an international spotlight especially since Russia recently dove in a submarine to the sea-floor and planted their flag down there. Of course, the lure of a shipping route through the North has always been kindling. Global Warming might lead to an ice-free passage in the summer — this is what has actually happened this summer. The BBC has somebody on a Canadian Coast Guard ship traveling the Northwest Passage, and produced really interesting videos and a diary.

One expression that a researcher in the BBC footage uses is “tipping point”, a word that probably came into style since Malcolm Gladwell, son of a University of Waterloo math prof, published a great book with “tipping point” as its title. Within the current context, “tipping point” means the

oft-debated point when the loss of ice and the increase in warmth will result in a permanently changed polar region that defies the ebb and flow of freezing and unfreezing that characterizes the region. (quoted from Arctic moving towards tipping point).

Drinking Water

Franz Alt, some german guy I’ve never heard about before was recently interviewed on his thoughts on global drinking water shortages. He’s not an engineer, but I thought the interview is interesting. While we are in the “general interest” section, here is how water works.

Notes

A team of the University of Darmstadt won the “solar decathlon”. I’m not sure who should live in that house, and in what region of the world, but I think it looks interesting. Finally, Georgia might or might not have water problems.

Nobel Prices

Germany is in a hype because two german researchers won this year’s Nobel Prices in Physics and Chemistry: Peter Grünberg from the Forschungszentrum Jülich together with Albert Fert (France) for their work on magnet resistance, and Gerhard Ertl (Fritz Haber Institute Berlin) for his research on processes on solid surfaces, respectively. In previous years, the lack of german researchers winning a Nobel Price was taken as the main argument to claim that german research sucks. The two guys winning two of this year’s prices are taken as clear evidence, that german research is not so bad after all. Only the universities are a little bit behind because both Nobel Price winners currently are employed at federal research centers. Nobody tells us when or where they did the actual work that made them win the prices now.

Climate Engineering

There are people out there who are certain that the climate is changing, and they are trying to do something against that. One idea is to dump a whole bunch of iron into the oceans which then reduces global greenhouse-gas pollution. Patrick surely knows more about that. Wired calls the act of thinking and planning such activities global climate engineering. Interesting point:

Calls for regulation might sound wimpy in the face of climate-change risks. There’s broad scientific agreement on the dangers of a warming planet: drought, famine, social and economic unrest — catastrophes that could be just decades away. Or, if we hit so-called tipping points, such as unexpectedly fast-melting polar-ice caps, or a thawing Siberian permafrost, they might be a few years away.

Other news

• National Geographic lists the ten most polluted places
• Water forms bridges

Glaciers provide an excellent example for how climate change and water supply are intricately linked. Regions, such as large parts of India, that rely on glaciers for their drinking water and for irrigation are facing a tough challenge.

Studying Indian glaciers offers a snapshot of the consequences of global warming for India and raises vital questions about how the country will respond to them. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) predicted that as these glaciers melt, they would increase the likelihood of flooding over the next three decades and then, as they recede, dry up the rivers that they feed. “In the course of the century,” it warned darkly, “water supply stored in glaciers and snow cover are projected to decline, reducing water availability in regions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges, where more than one-sixth of the world population currently lives.”

read more | digg story

This article by Nigel Cox summarizes everything that is wrong with bottled water. On the one hand it turns into a branded status symbol – what kind of a society accepts it to FedEx a case of a certain brand of bottled water across a continent? On the other hand more and more people lack access to drinking water.

And in Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than a million bottles a day of the hippest bottled water on the U.S. market today, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have safe, reliable drinking water. Which means it is easier for the typical American in Beverly Hills or Baltimore to get a drink of safe, pure, refreshing Fiji water than it is for most people in Fiji.

At the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills, where the rooms start at $500 a night and the guest next door might well be an Oscar winner, the minibar in all 196 rooms contains six bottles of Fiji Water. Before Fiji Water displaced Evian, Diet Coke was the number-one-selling minibar item. Now, says Christian Boyens, the Peninsula’s elegant director of food and beverage, “the 1 liter of Fiji Water is number one. Diet Coke is number two. And the 500-milliliter bottle of Fiji is number three.”

Some people still discuss if global warming is happening. Other people reckognize that something in fact is happening (this sometimes results in headlines as “2007 seen as second warmest year as climate shifts“) and maybe discuss how to minimize detrimental effects. Some look at the soil and how it is farmed, and come to at least interesting conclusions. Still other people think how this could be advantageous. It could be quite advantageous for professionals trained in water!

And still other people blame the gay.

On the topic of climate change, the protocol from the recent G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, is an interesting read, especially paragraphs 40 to 61.

London will be where Porto is now

This interesting and well designed map shows some cities but not at their current geographic location, but at a geographic location that currently has the climate that this city will have in 70 years.

Drinking Water too Expensive in Germany

The German magazine Der Spiegel has reported on may-23 how prices of publicly supplied drinking water vary in Germany. Today the same magazine interviews the economic minister of the province of Hessia on that topic today, and he announces dramatic price cuts.

Well, if somebody’s telling you so, you might get some useful support from the NewScientist. A very nice collection of all the stories, why climate change isn’t happening, why it isn’t man made, why we shouldn’t trust scientists dealing with climate change. And a very nice collection of background information, where the stories come from, what’s the scientific basis and where the myth starts.

The month of April has been exceptionally warm, and there has been exceptionally little precipitation in Germany. The danger of forest fires is extremely high, barbecue stations in the forests around Stuttgart are being closed because the danger of accidentally starting a fire are too high. Generally, vegetation is about four weeks ahead of the average time for flowering. Personally, I was sleeping outside in a sleeping bag without using a tent in early April. I had never done this before. Die Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) has two articles relating to this topic in its issue from April 26th:

• “Italien ruft Wassernotstand aus“: Farmers in the valley of the river Po in northern Italy needed to start irrigating their fields in early April, about 4 weeks earlier than normal, leading to a water level in the river meters below the average. Additionally, water levels in Italy’s northern lakes (Lago di Garda, Lago di Como) are down as well. Decreased water levels in rivers are anticipated to decrease the output of power plants and hence power shortages are expected. The author expects that a state of emergency will be issued early next week if it doesn’t rain until then.
• “Die Angst vor der grossen Duerre“: This article paints a similar picture for southern Germany as for Italy: early beginning of irrigation, decreased yield of agricultural crops,

Finally there are some new thoughts on climate change. At least new to me. The Guardian has an article by Mike Hulme, a professor in the school of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia and the founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

What matters about climate change is not whether we can predict the future with some desired level of certainty and accuracy; it is whether we have sufficient foresight, supported by wisdom, to allow our perspective about the future, and our responsibility for it, to be altered.

I’ve heard from readers that I am writing too much “serious” stuff. The concern is that this “serious” stuff might scare contributors to this blog away. I have no intention at all to scare anybody! And I think that blog entries on music, literature, movies, art in general, or any other topic within the boundaries of legality and good taste really, are interesting. This “serious” stuff, water in general and climate change in particular these days because it is such a hot topic in the general public, at least within my current surroundings, is occupying my mind and hence I am writing about it. If the majority of the readers and contributors think that this blog is not suitable for this, I will stop.

A lot of fuzz is going on these days about our climate. Is it getting warmer? What happens if it’s getting warmer? Who’s fault is it? Should we do something against it? What should we do? When should we do it?

The role of journalism is critical in this process, as it is generally for forming public opinion. My personal favorite happened in German public news this morning, when the anchor announced, plainly announced without any background, that patio heaters (I assume those gas fired ones) are bad for the climate, and they should be generally abandoned. Wow. Somehow, before the latest IPCC report from the working group I entitled “the physical science basis”, the media was generally quite critical, and sometimes even doubtful if climate change is happening at all. On the IPCC web page I still can find only the “summary for policy makers” of the working group I report. It doesn’t seem like the actual report is actually published yet. This has totally shifted to announcing that climate change is happening, and almost to scaring everybody how bad this is. Another brilliant piece of journalism has happened in the New York Times yesterday, and is very well summarized here, including the responses this NYT article has caused.

Tonight, NPR is airing a promising discussion with participants having big names in the scientific and political genre. It should be available as podcast soon.

Der Spiegel, the Globe and Mail, and pretty much every other media is full of stories on the latest UNO report on climate change these days. However, as of today only a miniscule part of the entire planned publication is available today, the summary for policy makers (SPM), a 21 page long summary of the “Working Group I”. In total there are three working groups: 1) The Physical Science Basis, 2) Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability, and 3) Mitigation of Climate Change

In this first part of the four volume long “Climate Change 2007” report describes progress in understanding of the human and natural drivers of climate change, observed climate change, climate processes and attribution, and estimates of projected future climate change. This first document pretty much says we know more since the last report, and we know with more certainty that human activity leads to a warmer atmosphere, higher sea levels, and more severe weather events. See the “Real Climate” Blog for a more in depth discussion of the SPM

Here is an argument, that I stole from Taha Ouarda relating to climate change. It illustrates the point with a nice example. The example has to do with hockey, hence I like it:

Last year, the [Montreal] Canadians got a new coach. After the new coach has been working with the team for a while, results got better, and now the team as a whole is playing better than before. Without a doubt the change of the coach lead to a different situation, that is a better hockey team. Then you might ask: Was Saku Koivu’s goal last night a direct result of that coach change?

The answer is no. Firstly, Saku Koivu is a pretty wicked hockey player, and he has always scored lots and nice goals. Secondly, it is not possible to trace one event to one change. Similarly, it is not possible to say if the current winter in Germany that is warmer than average is the direct result of high CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. But we know, that higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere lead to warmer air.

Speaking of hockey, the picture in this blog entry shows the same “hockey stick curve” as the one Al Gore used in his movie “An Inconvenient Truth“.

Well, and then there’s these guys…