It’s true that water vapor is the largest contributor to the Earth’s greenhouse effect. On average, it accounts for about 60% of the global warming effect! However, the truth is, water vapor does not control the Earth’s temperature, but is instead controlled by the temperature. Let’s look at this in more detail. The greenhouse effect that has maintained the Earth’s […]
It’s all nice to talk about many interesting solutions to reduce CO2 emissions, but it is an entirely different story when it comes to walking the talk. Because implementing any of these solutions depend on two aspects: Technical and Economic Feasibility. Interestingly, the technical feasibility of a wide range of solutions needed to abate greenhouse gas emissions is fairly well established. The economic […]
Will climate change and global warming increase or decrease rainfall? An interesting question, but there’s no straight answer. A warmer world intuitively seems to suggest reduced rainfall, but as we will see in this post, it is not necessarily so, and it could be quite the opposite! So far, any impact that climate change may have had generally on regional rainfall cannot […]
Air pollution occurs when the air contains gases, dust, smoke from fires, or fumes in harmful amounts. They are also released from natural processes such as volcanic eruption. Tiny atmospheric particles, called aerosols, are a subset of air pollution that are suspended in our atmosphere. Light, white aerosols reflect solar radiation, making the air and Earth surface below them a […]
The extent of CO2 in the atmosphere is measured in terms of PPM, which stands for Parts Per Million. In 2023, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is estimated to be around 420 PPM. That is, for every millions parts (by volume) of the atmosphere, 420 parts are those of CO2. (In terms of total amount of CO2 in the […]
If the whole world is slogging it out to reduce carbon emissions, it will be nice to have a metric by which such emissions can be measured, wouldn’t it? Enter Carbon Footprint. A carbon footprint is a measure of amount of greenhouse gases produced directly and indirectly by human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons or Kg of carbon dioxide (CO2). In […]
Global warming and climate change could in fact bring back an old stating back into circulation: “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink” Fresh water is crucial to human society – not just for drinking, but also for farming, washing and many other activities. It is expected to become increasingly scarce in the future, and this could at least […]
Interestingly, volcanoes can have both a cooling and warming effect on the planet’s climate. When volcanoes erupt, they emit a mixture of gases and particles into the air. Some of these, such as ash and sulphur dioxide, have a cooling effect, because they (or the substances they result in) reflect sunlight away from the earth. Others, such as CO2, cause […]
The world emits about 35 Giga-tons (billion tons) of CO2 every year owing to human activities. But CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas. There are half a dozen other greenhouse gases we should be worried about as well. So, how much does the world emit of the other greenhouse gases? Apart from CO2, the other prominent greenhouse gases and […]
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is an incentive policy framework designed to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. CDM is one of the flexible mechanisms defined in the Kyoto Protocol (IPCC, 2007). The CDM allows emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2. These CERs can be traded […]
