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How To Keep Warm In The Face Of The Cold Weather

December 13, 2009 By

how to keep warm in the face of_With Puducherry experiencing cold days and nights in the last few days, adequate precautionary measures against health problems, especially viral fever and respiratory infections, are the need of the hour, according to doctors.

The coastal town recorded a maximum temperature of 29.0 degree Celsius and minimum temperature of 23.1 degree Celsius on Saturday. Several persons have started to find refuge in woollen clothing, including sweaters and head covers.

According to doctors, it is important for people to avoid exposure to the cold weather. “Exposure to the cold weather can cause upper respiratory tract infections. In the present condition, it is better for people to stay indoors most of the time.

If they are going out, it is essential to cover the face, especially the ears,” T.K. Dutta, Professor and Head, Department of Medicine, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research said.

Even more important was to keep children warm and remain indoors, especially during early morning and at night, he advised.

Those who already suffer from asthma, especially children, should take extra care, insisted R. Rajarathinam, Assistant Professor of Medicine. “If exposed to this inclement weather, such persons could develop wheezing. A lot of people have respiratory infections now caused by virus. This will get aggravated if exposed to the cold weather,” he explained, adding that protection against mosquito bites was important.

Medical Superintendent of Indira Gandhi Government General Hospital and Post Graduate Institute V. Govindaraj said stagnation of water near houses should be avoided as it would turn into mosquito-breeding sites.

“Avoid visiting crowded places and, if affected by influenza or cold, it is better to be isolated to prevent the spread of virus. Wash hands and face with warm water after coming from outside. For cold, steam inhalation will give relief,” he said.

However, there were cases of chikungunya-like viral fever with symptoms of joint pain and vomiting this season, doctors mentioned.

With regard to A(H1N1) influenza, Dr. Dutta said it was found that the incidence of the flu had increased in north India with falling temperature levels.

“There is no need for fear in south India, as the temperature levels will not fall to a great extent here as happens in north India,” he said. The Hindu

Filed Under: Home & Family Tagged With: ,

Gangotri Glacier Receded 1.5km In 30 Years, ISRO Images Reveal

December 5, 2009 By

gangotri glacier_The Indian Space Research Organization has come up with an alarming figure – India’s most sacred Gangotri glacier has receded by 1.5 kilometre in the past 30 years, says a report in Times of India.

The glacier has been receding in recent years, no doubt, but nobody had an idea it had receded so much. In the last decade, it has receded by 15-20 metres (although the pace has slowed down in recent years),  but ISRO’s  latest figure dramatically brings out the extent of glacial melt, caused possibly by global warming.

Director of Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad, Dr R R Navalgund told  Times of India that satellite imagery documents a 1.5-km retreat of the Gangotri glacier in the past 30 years.

The satellite imagery has also captured that Alpine vegetation has now started growing at a higher altitude than it used to a few decades ago.

While the retreat of glaciers was a very controversial issue recently, after environment minister Jairam Ramesh released his discussion paper on glaciers that also alleged that glaciers were not melting because of climate change. Navalgund echoed the sentiments of Ministry of Environmnts and Forests on the issue.

“We have looked at snowy glaciers, some of them in the past 20 years, specially the ones at lower latitudes and altitudes, have retreated. It is difficult to say whether it is due to global climate change. It could be a part of the inter-glacial period and other related phenomena,” he said.

The documentation of coral reefs have also shown bleaching across the coastline. United Nations Environment Programme had also recently declared that coral reefs, which support the majority of marine life, will be the first casualty of climate change. Isro data reiterates that the reefs around the Indian sub-continent are facing maximum impact – not so much in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, but in other parts.

Navalgund said there was no quantitative analysis yet on the impact on agriculture. “Agricultural simulations are too less to make any quantitative analysis,” he said.

Asked about the upcoming Copenhagen negotiations, Navalgund said he has given all the data that Isro has gathered from its satellite images to the environment minister a month ago. “To understand the impact of climate change for India, baseline data is very important. India did not have a scientific, accurate database of baseline data. Now we need to put those down so that later, we have a valid document to fall back on,” he said.

Very soon, other countries can also access data on carbon sink from Isro. The Oceansat, that continuously monitors the ocean colour, helps in analyzing productivity in the oceans. This is useful in measuring the carbon sink in the oceans. Many countries have given their letter of intent to use this satellite. The Times Of India

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: ,

G8 Must Lead On Emissions Reduction

July 17, 2009 By

emissions reduction_John Houghton – World leaders have a unique opportunity this year to lay the essential foundations of a solution to the global climate crisis. At the G8 summit in Italy next week, and at numerous other meetings this year, culminating in the UN Copenhagen climate talks in December, they will be responsible for deciding the future direction of the entire planet and its inhabitants. It is indeed a weighty and urgent responsibility given that so many lives depend upon the outcomes.

It is particularly the voices of the world’s poorest that must be heard at these meetings. It is they who will bear the brunt of rising temperatures and the consequent impacts of floods, droughts, rising sea levels and severe water shortages, all of which will lead by mid century to hundreds of millions of environmental refugees.

In the west, we have grown rich over the past 200 years because we have had cheap energy in the form of coal, oil and gas. Those who are poor have not benefited – 1.6bn people (a quarter of humanity) live without electricity and other basic necessities – yet they will be hardest hit. The moral imperative for us to redress past damage and avoid future damage is inescapable.

For many years I have supported the Christian development agency Tearfund in its work with the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities. Interestingly, it’s local churches who are leading the way in adapting to climate change in many parts of the world, mobilising local communities to find solutions to changing climate trends.

For instance, local church organisations in Niger are working with pastoralists to adapt their farming practices to respond to a changing climate, and in Brazil, we see Christian organisations working to enable people to adapt to the harsh realities of climate change through well-drilling, building cisterns and agro-forestry.

The church is one of the few movements that is both local and global. As an international network it has the ability to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to lobby policymakers. I believe that as well as the valuable work that it carries out in communities, the church must also call out for a global, political solution to climate change through the Copenhagen process.

So far, progress at talks aimed at negotiating a new climate treaty by December this year has been slow, lacking the urgency that is so desperately needed. The most immediate challenge faced especially by the rich nations is that of turning the current year-on-year growth of global greenhouse gas emissions to a reduction year-on-year.

It is increasingly recognised as the scientific evidence grows stronger that a limit needs to be set of no more than two degrees increase in global average temperature above its preindustrial value – a limit first proposed by the European Union Council in 1996. For there to be a good chance of achieving this limit, global emissions must peak within about the next seven years. That implies for developed countries cuts in emissions in the range 25-40% by 2020. Failure to achieve this limit will create severe disadvantage for billions of the world’s people.

There is also an absence of any serious offer from rich countries of large scale additional finance for poor countries to adapt to climate change and to help them develop in a sustainable, low carbon way. This is a lynchpin of any agreement – without it, it is difficult to see why developing countries should sign up. The G8 this summer could build trust among developing countries by giving some of the short-term finance for adaptation that is so desperately needed and long overdue, as long as this does not replace longer-term finance.

It is to be hoped that the meetings of the G8 and the Major Economies Forum can provide impetus towards a tough Copenhagen deal, with developed countries being willing to put more on the table in the way of finance and emissions reductions.

But ultimately a global deal on climate change cannot simply be brokered between the rich and powerful or it will surely fail. It must be an inclusive and visionary deal that involves all nations and puts the needs of poor people at its heart

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With:

Cloud Enlightenment

June 4, 2009 By

scientist_Scientists are suggesting 2009 may prove a bumper year for northern hemisphere noctilucent clouds – high-altitude pre-dawn and post-sunset features illuminated by the Sun from below the horizon. According to New Scientist, skywatchers last week snapped the first examples of the clouds, although NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft got the first indications back on 22 May.

Noctilucent clouds occur at around 80km up in the atmosphere. They were first spied hovering above polar regions in 1885, “suggesting they may have been caused by the eruption of Krakatoa two years before”. However, they have of late been creeping towards the equator, now appearing at latitudes as low as 40°. Why this is happening is unclear. Some suggest “it could be due to an increase in greenhouse gases… because the gases actually cause Earth’s upper atmosphere to cool, and the clouds need cold temperatures to form”.

Back in 2007, AIM principal investigator James Russell III of Hampton University suggested the increased frequency of Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs, as they’re known when viewed from space – see pic) might be due to “a connection with global changes in the lower atmosphere, and could be an early warning that our environment is being altered”. He said: “It is clear that PMCs are changing, a sign that a distant and rarified part of our atmosphere is being altered, and we do not understand how, why, or what it means.”

New Scientist, though, notes that “their abundance also seems to rise and fall with the Sun’s 11-year cycle of activity”, elaborating: “The clouds thrive when the sun is quiet and spews less ultraviolet radiation, which can destroy water needed to form the clouds and can keep temperatures too high for ice particles to form.” The Sun has in recent years been relatively quiet, prompting AIM lead scientist Scott Bailey to predict around twice as may noctilucent clouds as when the Sun hits peak activity.

But no one’s really sure what to expect. New Scientist adds that the clouds’ activity “seems to peak roughly a year after solar activity hits its minimum, which researchers believe happened in December 2008″. Bailey, though, noted that “the exact time lag between solar minimum and peak cloud activity is uncertain, and researchers aren’t entirely convinced a lag even exists”. He concluded: “There’s no explanation for it. Every model says the clouds should respond immediately to what the sun is doing.” Accordingly, those of you hoping to enjoy some noctilucent cloud action might get the best chance between mid-June and mid-August – or not, as the case may be

Filed Under: Education, Environment Tagged With: