Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Himalayan lakes are exacerbating glacial melt

The rate glaciers are melting in the Himalaya is being significantly accelerated by lakes already formed by glacial retreat, new research led by the University of St Andrews has found.

The study, published in Nature: Scientific Reports, concluded that the glaciers which have flowed into the lakes in recent decades are retreating and thinning at a much greater rate than any other glaciers in the Himalaya.
These glaciers are responsible for as much as 30 per cent of the ice loss in different parts of the mountain range, despite comprising just 10 to 15 per cent of the total glacier population.

The behaviour of glaciers provides the clearest indication of climatic change in high mountain regions. Long-term atmospheric warming has caused the recession of glaciers across the Himalaya.

Meltwater from glaciers in this region sustains the flow of river systems on which hundreds of millions of people depend for their basic needs.

Not all the meltwater instantly drains to downstream catchments and thousands of glacial lakes have developed and continue to expand high in the Himalaya. Until this study, the influence of glacial lakes on glacier behaviour has not been thoroughly investigated in the Himalaya, despite the rapid increase in lake area and number.
Now scientists have used declassified US Hexagon spy satellite imagery, data from the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission in 2000 and data from modern satellites to examine the relationship between glaciers and glacial lakes since the 1970s.

The results show that glacier mass loss has occurred since at least the 1970s and has accelerated since the millennium. Glaciers in contact with glacial lakes, showed significantly higher mass loss and terminus retreat rates and are therefore likely to be driving the accelerating mass loss from the region.

Dr Owen King, of the School of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews, said: “Further enhanced mass loss is very likely should the increases in the total number and area of glacial lakes continue.”

Dr Tobias Bolch, also of the School of Geography and Sustainable Development, added: “Our results have important implications for future projections of ice loss from the region, as the interaction of glaciers and glacial lakes has not previously been considered in future glacier ice loss estimates.”

Saturday, September 6, 2014

How harmful is household air pollution?

The use of wood or coal fuel for cooking, heating, and lighting, is said to be putting three billion people worldwide at risk of damaged health and early death.

There are many countries in the world, most in Africa and Asia that predominantly use wood or charcoal, or coal, to cook, heat, and light their homes - approximately one third of global population.

These smoky fuels are very dirty and the result of their combustion is high levels of indoor air pollution.  It is reported that in some areas, household air pollution is so high that it actually contributes to an increase of outdoor air pollution.

Because of the excessive levels of  household air pollution an estimated 600-800 million families worldwide are at increased risk of illnesses that include respiratory tract infections, pneumonia, COPD, asthma, and lung cancer.

The UK researchers from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine concluded that household air pollution killed approximately 4 million people in 2010. The researchers also reported that there are close to 3 billion people that are currently exposed to excessive levels of household air pollution.

Many third world countries have failed in their efforts to tackle household air pollution and the public awareness of the risks of cooking with wood and coal in poorly ventilated homes remains very low.

Scientists and health personnel in countries where household air pollution is still taking heavy toll need to work with governments and international health agencies to increase awareness of this issue in order to have any chance of success.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

How to successfully clean soil polluted with organic pollutants?

Many organic pollutants, such as oil, pollute soil. Traditional option to clean soil polluted with organic pollutants is to treat soil by composting, and though this is rather successful in dealing with oil, it is far less effective when put against other organic pollutants.

The researchers have estimated that soil polluted with organic pollutants different than oil accounts for as much as 45% of excavated contaminated soil, and thus finding the effective cleaning solution for this soil is very important.

The latest study conducted by Finish scientists showed that this soil which is usually found in areas with plenty of sawing or with significant distribution of fuels, waste treatment and various kinds of industry, can be successfully cleaned with fungi.

Taking soil to a landfill is anything but a sustainable practice. In fact, a lot more sustainable solution would be to clean the polluted soil with fungi instead. However, many countries choose the landfill option because this is cheap and easy to do.

Fungi such as mycellium break down soil polluting substances very successfully. The laboratory tests showed efficiency higher than 90% in breaking down soil-polluting compounds.

As already stated above, landfills are still the No.1 option but in years to come new methods will be necessary such as this one that involves using fungi.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Air pollution has major impact on global weather

Air pollution caused by humans is not only causing health and environmental issues, it is also affecting global weather. The researchers at the Texas A&M University have recently found the clear link between the increased air pollution, and changing weather patterns, particularly on the formation of powerful storms.

In their study, researchers used pollution emission data compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and looked at two scenarios, the first one for a rate in 1850, the so called pre-Industrial era, and the second one from 2000. By comparing these two scenarios researchers discovered that air pollutants from Asia affect storms that hover over the Pacific and subsequently the weather patterns in North America as well as the rest of the world.

The ever-increasing air pollution in many of the Asian fast-growing economies has major impact on storm formation and global air circulation. It makes storms stronger and more intense, and these storms are then characterized with more precipitation in them.

The pollutants that come in the air form particles called aerosols. The level of these particles in the atmosphere affects the scattering or absorbing solar radiation, and can thus indirectly lead to alteration of cloud formations.

The researchers are convinced that the Pacific storm track is intensified because of the growing Asian air pollution. Aerosols in the air over Asia impact the global weather patterns through these powerful Pacific storms can affect weather significantly, both at regional as well as global level.

Hopefully, future studies will shed even more light on the link between air pollution and climate and weather patterns.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

New filtration membranes for cleaner industrial water

Many industries need plenty of water for different processes. The water used for these processes compounds of different metals and minerals, meaning that this is not clean water that can be used for drinking.

The scientists from all over the globe are working on potential solutions that could effectively remove various pollutants from industrial water and turn it into a clean water.

The latest interesting research on this topic comes from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, where researchers were able to develop energy-efficient methods for reuse of water in industrial processes, the ones that also allow extraction of metals and valuable minerals.

The current treatment methods of water in purification plants and industrial facilities require enormous amounts of energy. In most cases,  water recycling and seawater desalination processes use filtration membranes that consume plenty of energy. VTT scientists on the other hand developed intelligent membrane materials, that require significantly less energy, and are based on osmosis technology.

The VTT scientists also developed sensor technology that allows easy and rapid detection of pollutants. They also announced that their technology will be ready for production use within the next few years.

It also has to be said  that many researchers are already testing various biological extraction methods by which metals are recovered from mining, metal and recycling industry waste by using the combination of microbes and chemical reactions. These new methods and technologies are predicted to appear on the market within the next few years.

We all know that clean water is becoming scarcer with each new day. Cleaning industrial water is certainly something world should aspire to in order to tackle the clean water issue.