lunedì 16 marzo 2009

Controlling Earth’s temperature

As we have already seen, the greenhouse effect is determined by trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth due to its heating, by means of the clouds and greenhouse gases.
So if we covered extensive areas of the Earth, such as deserts, with material reflecting the sunlight, we would prevent to these large areas to heat and emit infrared radiation, thus changing the energy that determines the greenhouse effect.
The desert areas are such because they generally are not overhanged from clouds that intercept solar radiation arriving. In these areas the atmosphere is transparent to sunlight rays and therefore it would be transparent to sunlight reflected to space by the reflective material placed there. Obviously a small amount of infrared radiation would be retained in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, but it would be very small proportion compared with the infrared radiation emitted by deserts heated by solar radiation.
Or on the contrary, we could fill those vast desert areas of black material (strongly absorbing light). In this case the light from the sun would be absorbed in all its components and not emitted towards the atmosphere and space. Such a surface would heat a lot and, if we subtracted it this heat, for example with fluid contained in tubes, we should join the return to the pleasure, using the hot fluids for different activities. Of course, the total thermodynamic equilibrium is always restored, but at least we would have a little more time to think about what to do before that our planet become an hell. Or…
Or we could try to reduce the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I think that we could do that by adapting a mix of interventions, partner - politicians - cheap on the one hand, and physical - technological on the other. Let’s talk about the latter.
Carbon dioxide produced by human activity has been absorbed mainly from the oceans and vegetation. Then oceans and vegetation are the main "macrophages" of carbon dioxide.
In order for the oceans to continue to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide the natural conditions of temperature difference between the equatorial belt and the polar areas should be assessed as soon as possible. To do that quickly we need global interventions (see Project Atlas http://www.rlangone2.blogspot.com).
The oceans are in fact an immense thermal reserve cause they retain the heat for a time higher than the lands.
Without the ocean climate would be more rigid and the difference in temperature between the poles and equator would be higher.
The waters of the oceans moving from equator to the poles shift towards higher latitudes the heat stored at low latitudes. The movement of heat is made along the meridians and depends on the difference of solar energy that the Earth receives at the equator than at the poles, from the direction of the winds, by continents and the horizontal component of the flow of heat from Earth's rotation.
The system of their movement, similar to a conveyor belt, shuffle medium height waters of the great depth with those superficial. When the warm equatorial waters reach the poles their density increases due to the cooling that causes an increase in salinity. The water then became heavier and moves toward the bottom, triggering the mechanism of the conveyor belt whose movement has great influence on the climate.
In addition to affect the climate, oceans also have another important function: the regulation of carbon cycle. Indeed the upper layers of ocean water recycle a quantity of carbon higher than that is present in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide: part of this carbon was treated by plankton during photosynthesis and returned to its part through breathing the same bodies; the rest are filed at great depths and was used by other marine organisms to form shells or skeletons.
But now things are changing.
Some research done in one of the oceans that has been more active in absorbing carbon dioxide, the Antarctic Ocean, show that there is a radical change in its function of "recycling" of carbon dioxide. In fact due to global warming, the Antarctic Ocean is less and less able to absorb the carbon dioxide produced by humans. Research shows like this one has begun to absorb from the atmosphere ever less carbon dioxide. According to these surveys the cause can be attributed to increased local heating which led the Antarctic seas to be much more windy than in the past with the result that water, increasingly agitated, are no longer able to absorb carbon dioxide, at a rate related to the large amount of it produced by the globalized economic activities.
Corinne Le Quéré and colleagues of the University of East Anglia found that as the Antarctic Ocean will became increasingly windy, there is a greater mixing of water that brings the most cold and deep, and then more loads of carbon, to rise to the surface, releasing, in the atmosphere, part of carbon dioxide "trapped " in depth. To Restore a "normal" wind activity over the Arctic and a "normal" temperature would help to reactivate the mechanism of the belt over to reactivate the function of its waters, big squanderers of carbon dioxide (see Atlas Project http://wwwrlangone2.blogspot.com).
However, interventions more easy to be implemented in order to reduce carbon dioxide, must go in two directions. The first concerns the role of vegetation in absorbing carbon dioxide, the second is lied to its drastic reduction in emissions from human globalized activities.
Thanks to a survey of scientist of Stanford, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we know that the influence of trees on climate change occurs primarily through three mechanisms, two cooling, one heating. Temperatures drop due to absorption of carbon dioxide and transpiration (the mechanism that generates the clouds by water evaporation), and rise through the ownership of the leaves to catch the sunlight. Only the first of these mechanisms remains unchanged with the latitude, while the other two functions can also give opposite effects from one place to another of the planet. The negative effects of plants are found in a more evident way in boreal areas, but they would not appear at tropics, where the action by the luxuriant vegetation remains useful. So planting a tree in Canada or Russia is not advantageous as in Cuba.
If the ground wet of tropics allows plants to generate clouds that mitigate the heat of the sun's rays, a forest on a snowy field, however, fails to make the sky cloudy and thus balance the high absorption of light. What concerns us, however, is the role that plants have at all latitudes: absorption of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Then, in order, it would be useful a logging planned and cyclical (taking into account the preservation of biodiversity) of the existing forests. This is because old forests catch very little carbon dioxide and should be replaced with new vegetation that to grow will absorb a lot of carbon dioxide. If by the calculations that area is not sufficient we can program the increase of it through the transformation of desert areas in fertile areas, by irrigation facilities fed by thousands of desalinators.
We have seen previously that there are new equipments, that by using nanotechnology, it is possible to do this extremely cost-effective. We have also seen how it is possible, using their nature, and then across oceans and vegetation, enable the processes of absorption in excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But this would not help anything if we do not drastically reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.

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