Lifeboat Foundation

The proposed fiber optic cable could advance climate research and education.

The US National Science Foundation is proposing a fiber optic cable for their Antarctic research station, McMurdo. The cable which could potentially integrate with other research technology, could impact research and overall well-being of McMurdo’s visitors.

A team of researchers with the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, has found evidence that indicates that stands of trees can reduce land surface area temperatures in cities up to 12°C. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes how they analyzed satellite imagery for hundreds of cities across Europe and what they learned.

Prior research has suggested that adding green spaces to cities can help reduce high air temperatures during the warm months—cities are typically hotter than surrounding areas due to the huge expanses of asphalt and cement that absorb heat. In this new effort, the researchers looked at possible temperature impacts on land surface areas instead of air temperatures. Such temperatures are not felt as keenly as air temperatures by people in the vicinity because it is below their feet rather than surrounding them.

The work by the team involved analyzing data from satellites equipped with land surface temperature sensors. In all, the researchers poured over data from 293 cities across Europe, comparing land surface temperatures in parts of cities that were covered with trees with similar nearby urban areas that were not covered with trees. For comparison purposes, they did the same for rural settings covered in pastures and farmland.

Deepsea submersible diving could compete with space tourism.

A form of luxury tourism is hitting the deep sea thanks to a small handful of firms providing state-of-the-art private submersibles to high-paying customers.

Continue reading “Could Luxury Submarine Trips Thrive as an Alternative to Space Tourism?” »

Cost-slashing innovations are underway in the electric power sector and could give electricity the lead over fossil-based combustion fuels in the world’s energy supply by mid-century. When combined with a global carbon price, these developments can catalyze emission reductions to reach the Paris climate targets, while reducing the need for controversial negative emissions, a new study finds.

“Today, 80 percent of all energy demands for industry, mobility or heating buildings is met by burning—mostly fossil—fuels directly, and only 20 percent by electricity. Our research finds that relation can be pretty much reversed by 2050, making the easy-to-decarbonise electricity the mainstay of global energy supply,” says Gunnar Luderer, author of the new study and researcher the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “For the longest time, fossil fuels were cheap and accessible, whilst electricity was the precious and pricier source of energy. Renewable electricity generation—especially from solar photovoltaics—has become cheaper at breath-taking speed, a pace that most climate models have so far underestimated. Over the last decade alone prices for solar electricity fell by 80 percent, and further cost reductions are expected in the future. This development has the potential to fundamentally revolutionize energy systems.

Because global warming and its associated risks are here to stay.

Global warming is causing many physical risks such as droughts, wildfires, and floods. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global warming is essentially irreversible, which means these dangers will keep coming up. Luckily, some countries have started planning ahead.

The Busan Metropolitan City of the Republic of Korea, the UN-Habitat, and OCEANIX have joined forces to build the world’s first prototype sustainable floating city in order to get ahead of physical risks.

Continue reading “The UN Is Engineering a Floating City. To Withstand a Category 5 Hurricane?” »

New ways to measure the top supercomputers’ smarts in the AI field include searching for dark energy, predicting hurricanes, and finding new materials for energy storage.

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Soot is one of the world’s worst contributors to climate change. Its impact is similar to global methane emissions and is second only to carbon dioxide in its destructive potential. This is because soot particles absorb solar radiation, which heats the surrounding atmosphere, resulting in warmer global temperatures. Soot also causes several other environmental and health problems including making us more susceptible to respiratory viruses.

Soot only persists in the atmosphere for a few weeks, suggesting that if these emissions could be stopped then the air could rapidly clear. This has recently been demonstrated during recent lockdowns, with some major cities reporting clear skies after industrial emissions stopped.

But soot is also part of our future. Soot can be converted into the useful carbon black product through thermal treatment to remove any harmful components. Carbon blacks are critical ingredients in batteries, tires and paint. If these carbons are made small enough they can even be made to fluoresce and have been used for tagging biological molecules, in catalysts and even in solar cells.

As the world becoming aware of the environment’s brittleness, more diversified and complex ways have been devised to modify it as a weapon of warfare. Now a new class of weapons more disastrous than nuclear warfare is on the horizon. For altering the environment, weather and climate modification technologies, are the methods that may be used to convert climate and weather systems into weapons of war. It refers to Operation Popeye, which aimed to extend the monsoon season in Southeast Asia.

Captain Orville had cautioned that “if an enemy nation solves the problem of weather control and gets into the position of controlling large-scale weather patterns before we can, the effects might be even more devastating than nuclear conflict”. In this article, we have discussed in-depth Weather Modification Technology in Warfare, and how this method of modern warfare can be used to destroy any country economically, Tactically, Strategically, and Covertly.

Demand for residences that produce as much energy as they consume is being spurred by climate concerns, consumer appetite and more affordable solar technology.