Scientists study Earth’s climate not just from observation but also from a theoretical perspective. Modern-day climate models successfully reproduce the key features of Earth’s climate, including the variations in wind patterns around the globe, the major ocean current systems such as the Gulf Stream, and the seasonal changes in temperature and rainfall associated with Earth’s annual revolution around the sun. The models also reproduce some of the more complex natural oscillations of the climate system. Just as the atmosphere displays random day-to-day variability that we term “weather,” the climate system produces its own random variations, on timescales of years. (more…)
Earth’s climate is a complex system of interacting natural components. These components include the atmosphere, the ocean, and the ...
Still hotly debated by some, human-induced global warming is now accepted in the scientific community. Earth’s average yearly tempe ...
Options for dealing with the threats of climate change include both adaptation to inevitable changes and mitigation, or lessening, ...
Although some scientists and critics still dispute that human caused greenhouse gases are causing climate change, the majority of s ...
Since preindustrial times, ambient concentrations of the greenhouse gases have exhibited substantial increases, inter alia CO2 ...
air pollution problems created by coal combustion. Meanwhile, coal-fired power plants and industrial boilers spewed out tons of gaseous and particulate pollutants into the atmo- sphere. During combustion, the small amounts of sulfur and nitrogen in coal combine with oxygen to form sulfur dioxide (SO2), sulfur trioxide (SO3), and the oxides of nitrogen (NOx). (more…)
Coal is still used to a small extent for home heating and cooking. In the homes of more affluent nations, coal is used for recreati ...
A combination of legislation and technology has helped clean up many of the world’s coal-burning plants. Both developed and develop ...
Almost all fossil fuels use is by burning them to create energy. Burning process then produces waste products due to impurities in ...
Coal use today is no longer evocative of dirty power plants with polluting black smoke billowing from their smokestacks. Many o ...
Smoke from biomass and coal combustion contains a large number of pollutants with known health hazards, including particulate matte ...
The increased use of fossil energy since the industrial revolution, and especially since 1950, has been the major cause of increased emissions of air pollutants and, correspondingly, many environmental problems. Emissions due to the use of energy are major sources of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, and soot and constitute a large contribution of methane, non-methane volatile organic compounds, and heavy metals. (more…)
Almost all fossil fuels use is by burning them to create energy. Burning process then produces waste products due to impurities in ...
Acid deposition and the associated particulate nitrates and sulfates are implicated in the deterioration of certain sensitive e ...
Since the early 1960s, climate change and air quality have become major and often controversial issues in many countries and am ...
Smoke from biomass and coal combustion contains a large number of pollutants with known health hazards, including particulate matte ...
The flux of carbon among terrestrial, aquatic, and atmospheric pools is at least partially controlled by photosynthetic processes. The relative carbon pool sizes have major effects on global climate system. The CO2 flux among land, sea, and atmosphere has, since the industrial revolution, been disturbed by a rapid injection of (more…)
The global cycling of carbon involves both biological and physical processes. Only the biological components are discussed here. Pl ...
The global carbon cycle involves both biological and physical processes. Only the biological components are discussed here. Pla ...
It is of interest to examine potential sources of greenhouse gases sources or atmospheric CO2 by analysis of the global distrib ...
Climate change caused by the enhanced greenhouse effect is one of the most significant global environmental issues. Increased emiss ...
Since preindustrial times, ambient concentrations of the greenhouse gases have exhibited substantial increases, inter alia CO2 ...