Climate change measuring

This review mostly summarizes the scientific information available in developed countries, where the prevalence of diseases associated with water use is kept under very acceptable levels. However, there are reasons to think that the situation might worsen as a consequence of the effects of the climatic change, the increase of population in certain areas and the deterioration of sanitation infrastructures. It may be necessary to take new measures to maintain the present situation. Better knowledge of the water-borne pathogens, where they originate, how they persist or replicate in the environment, how they survive water treatments, and how they are transported in water and soil, will allow us to take the necessary measures to prevent the effects of water scarcity as well as the effects of extreme climatic events foreseen for the future by the experts in climatic change [13]. 

Mass spectrometers can measure the masses of isotopes and molecules with high accuracy. Scientists use this capability to solve a variety of problems. Mass spectrometers are essential instruments in labora-tories that study topics as varied as drug identification and climatic change. 

There are a number of light stable isotope measurements that provide very important data in the study of paleoclimates to better understand and interpret anthropogenic contributions to present-day climate change (Fritz and Fontes 1980). These measurements involve the determination of carbon and oxygen isotopes in fresh-... 

Climate change is happening. If current climate change is natural, then all we can do is try to adapt. If human activity is causing or contributing to climate change, then mitigation measures can make a difference. 

Every engineering discipline has specific climate change issues, preventive measures and adjustments to impacts. Some of these are summarized in... 

The effects of climate change on plants and animals are difficult to measure, but potentially dramatic. 

The inventory results should be presented in clear form, how much and what substances from the environment enter the system and how much get out. These results serve for subsequent life cycle impact assessment [48], The aim of the life cycle impact assessment is to measurably compare the environmental impacts of product systems and to compare their severity with new quantifiable variables identified as impact category. The impact categories are areas of specific environmental problems such as global warming, climate changes, acidification, eutrophication, ecotoxicity and others. Already in the phase of definition of the LCA study scope, it is necessary to describe what impact category will be applied and which of their environmental mechanisms will serve as a basis for impact assessment [46],... 

Climate change will impact on water quality and quantity and hydromorphology and may thus remobilise historic pollutants from river bottom sediments and/or floodplain soils. However, the extent of this impact is still largely unclear and there is also a lack of feasible measures to mitigate the (potential) impacts. 

The atmospheric 14C/C ratio during the last 50,000 y was sufficiently constant to make radiocarbon a remarkably reliable dating tool. Evidence for fluctuations of the 14C/C ratio could be found by high precision measurements on samples of known age. These fluctuations can be attributed to variations of processes in the solar system (solar activity) and on earth (fluctuations of C02 distribution among the atmospheric, oceanic, and biospheric reservoirs). Both fluctuations of solar activity and of the atmospheric C02 content may have contributed to past climatic changes. 

Our experience to-date suggests that current measurement and analysis techniques allow the reliable detection of variations in the atmospheric C02 content of 30 percent or more. Our first measurements have been made on samples covering the last 30,000 years, a period of major climatic change which might possibly have led to a change in the atmospheric C02 content. Ice cores... 

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