Global warming responses

Transportation is also the emissions leader. About 75 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and 45 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions come from the transportation sector. If rising levels of CO, are found to be responsible for global warming, and measures are put in place to severely curtail CO, emissions, the measures will have the greatest impact on the transportation sector. 

Power plant emissions result from the comhustion of fossil fuels such as coal, gas, and oil. These emissions include sulfur dioxide (SO,), nitrogen oxides (NO.,), particulate matter, and hazardous air pollutants, all of which are subject to environmental regulations. Another emission is carbon dioxide (CO,), suspected of being responsible for global warming. 

Natural gas will continue to be substituted for oil and coal as primary energy source in order to reduce emissions of noxious combustion products particulates (soot), unburned hydrocarbons, dioxins, sulfur and nitrogen oxides (sources of acid rain and snow), and toxic carbon monoxide, as well as carbon dioxide, which is believed to be the chief greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. Policy implemented to curtail carbon emissions based on the perceived threat could dramatically accelerate the switch to natural gas. 

Tidal energy is a renewable source of electricity that does not result m the emission of gases responsible for global warming or acid rain, which are asso-... 

Five components of the hydrosphere play major roles in climate feedbacks - atmospheric moisture, clouds, snow and ice, land surface, and oceans. Changes to the hydrologic cycle, among other things, as a result of altered climate conditions are then referred to as responses. Interactions with climate can best be explored by examirung potential response to a climate perturbation, in this case, predicted global warming. 

Nordell, B., 2005a. Response on comments given by J. Gumbel and H. Rodhe on my paper Thermal pollution causes global warming , Global Planet. Change, 47, 77-78. 

The combination of C02 injection and methane production over specific PT regimes allows the heat effects of C02 hydrate formation and methane hydrate decomposition to nullify each other resulting in a sustainable delivery process which both reduces C02 emissions to combat global warming and recovers methane to supplement the declining reserves of conventional natural gas (Fig. 4). This gas hydrate phase-behaviour in response to the dissociation and formation processes clearly demonstrates the potential of C02 enhanced CH4 recovery from the Mallik gas hydrate deposit. 

ABSTRACT The locations, magnitudes, variations and mechanisms responsible for the atmospheric C02 sink are uncertain and under debate. Previous studies concentrated mainly on oceans, and soil and terrestrial vegetation as sinks. Here, we show that there is an important C02 sink in carbonate dissolution, the global water cycle and photosynthetic uptake of DIC by aquatic ecosystems. The sink constitutes up to 0.82 Pg C/a 0.24 Pg C/a is delivered to oceans via rivers and 0.22 Pg C/a by meteoric precipitation, 0.12 Pg C/a is returned to the atmosphere, and 0.23 Pg C/a is stored in the continental aquatic ecosystem. The net sink could be as much as 0.70 Pg C/a, may increase with intensification of the global water cycle, increase in C02 and carbonate dust in atmosphere, reforestation/afforestation, and with fertilization of aquatic ecosystems. Under the projection of global warming for the year 2100, it is estimated that this C02 sink may increase by 22%, or about 0.18 Pg c/a. 

Thus we see that environmental modeling involves solving transient mass-balance equations with appropriate flow patterns and kinetics to predict the concentrations of various species versus time for specific emission patterns. The reaction chemistry and flow patterns of these systems are sufficiently complex that we must use approximate methods and use several models to try to bound the possible range of observed responses. For example, the chemical reactions consist of many homogeneous and catalytic reactions, photoassisted reactions, and adsorption and desorption on surfaces of hquids and sohds. Is global warming real [Minnesotans hope so.] How much of smog and ozone depletion are manmade [There is considerable debate on this issue.]... 

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