CSNOx: 3-in-1 emission abatement system

Low-cost system reduces harmful greenhouse gas emissions from ships, power plants and other sites, with no secondary pollutants or emissions

Singapore-based research and technology company, Ecospec Global Technology, has introduced a low-cost system capable of dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from ships, power plants, refineries, and other fossil fuel-burning sites.

The system, called CSNOx, is the first of its kind in the world capable of significantly reducing carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxide (NOx), all in a single system and by a single process. The CSNOx technology not only effectively removes emissions that contribute to climate change but does so without producing secondary pollutants or generating further CO2 emissions. Its compact size and low cost strengthen even further its potential for widespread implementation and positive impact on the environment on a global scale.

Chemicals that eased one environmental problem may worsen another

Chemicals that helped solve a global environmental crisis in the 1990s — the hole in Earth's protective ozone layer — may be making another problem — acid rain — worse, scientists are reporting. Their study on the chemicals that replaced the ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) once used in aerosol spray cans, air conditioners, refrigerators, and other products, appears in ACS' Journal of Physical Chemistry A, a weekly publication.

NASA's greenhouse gas project: Measuring carbon dioxide

Researchers studying climate now have a new tool at their disposal: daily global measurements of carbon dioxide and water vapour in a key part of Earth's atmosphere. The data are courtesy of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft and confirm the mainstream scientific view that large changes in the climate are likely over the next century.

Moustafa Chahine, the instrument's science team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, unveiled the new measurements at a briefing on recent breakthroughs in greenhouse gas, weather and climate research from AIRS at this week's American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Don't blame cows for climate change

Frank Mitloehner, air quality specialist with Animal Science at UC Davis, measures the gases produced by livestock.Photo:UC Davis Despite oft-repeated claims by sources ranging from the United Nations to music star Paul McCartney, it is simply not true that consuming less meat and dairy products will help stop climate change, says a University of California authority on farming and greenhouse gases.

UC Davis Associate Professor and Air Quality Specialist Frank Mitloehner says that McCartney and the chair of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ignored science last week when they launched a European campaign called "Less Meat = Less Heat."

Greenhouse gas carbon dioxide ramps up aspen growth

Photo:Stan Shebs/WikmediaThe rising level of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be fuelling more than climate change. It could also be making some trees grow like crazy.

That is the finding of a new study of natural stands of quaking aspen, one of North America's most important and widespread deciduous trees. The study, by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota at Morris (UMM) and published today (Dec. 4) in the journal Global Change Biology, shows that elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide during the past 50 years have boosted aspen growth rates by an astonishing 50 per cent.

CO2 levels rising in troposphere over rural areas

Troposphere.Photo:Nick Juhasz/WikimediaSpanish researchers have measured CO₂ levels for the past three years in the troposphere (lower atmosphere) over a sparsely inhabited rural area near Valladolid. The results, which are the first of their kind in the Iberian Peninsula, show that the levels rose "significantly" between 2002 and 2005.

Over recent years, physicists and meteorologists have been trying to find out about carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels, and how these have evolved in the troposphere over various urban and rural areas around the planet. Now a scientific team from the University of Valladolid (UVA) has published the first – and to date the only – measurements for the Iberian Peninsula.

Intensive land-management leaves Europe without carbon sinks

Image: CarboEurope TeamA new calculation of Europe's greenhouse gas balance shows that emissions of methane and nitrous oxide tip the balance and eliminate Europe's terrestrial sink of greenhouse-gases

Of all global carbon dioxide emissions, less than half accumulate in the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming. The remainder is hidden away in oceans and terrestrial ecosystems such as forests, grasslands and peat-lands. Stimulating this "free service" of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems is considered one of the main, immediately available ways of reducing climate change.

Main greenhouse gases reach highest level ever since pre-industrial time

Levels of most greenhouse gases continue to increase. In 2008, global concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, which are the main long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, have reached the highest levels recorded since pre-industrial times.

Since 1990, the overall increase in radiative forcing caused by all long-lived greenhouse gases is 26 per cent and the increase was 1.3 per cent from 2007 to 2008. These latest figures, published today in the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) 2008 Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, confirm the continued trend of rising atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases since 1750.

Scientists fly to the ends of the earth to measure greenhouse gases

HIPPO mission taking off on Saturday, Oct. 31, in Broomfield, Colo. Photo: NOAANOAA scientists took off Saturday on the second phase of a mission that, when complete, will provide a detailed view of how carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are distributed globally. Monitoring the increasing levels of greenhouse gases and black carbon aerosols in the atmosphere is crucial to understanding human-caused climate change.

"Missions such as this one are critical to understanding the impacts of greenhouse gases and particulates," said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "The data collected are also essential to help verify if policies to reduce these heat trapping pollutants are having their intended effect."

Fred Moore and Ryan Spackman, researchers from NOAA's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), took off early Saturday with five NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) instruments on a modified Gulfstream aircraft. Their roller-coaster tour of the planet will take them from pole to pole, dipping and climbing repeatedly between altitudes of 1,000 feet and 47,000 feet. ESRL and CIRES, a joint institute of the University of Colorado and NOAA, are located in Boulder, Colo.

Their flights, planned to continue through December, are part of the HIPPO Mission, a multiagency, multiyear effort to paint a three-dimensional portrait of the atmosphere. HIPPO, for HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations of Greenhouse Gases, is funded and operated jointly by the National Science Foundation, the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, and NOAA. HIAPER – the High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform – is the NSF's Gulfstream V aircraft.

Steve Wofsy of Harvard University is leading HIPPO with a team of scientists from NOAA, NCAR, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of Miami, and Princeton University.

"While we have ground-based stations that measure carbon dioxide at specific locations, HIPPO is giving us a view of how carbon dioxide is distributed globally at different altitudes and during different seasons," said Jim Elkins, Ph.D., a NOAA ESRL atmospheric physicist. The team is pleased with the success of the first phase of HIPPO flights last January, which gathered data in cross-sections of the atmosphere from pole to pole, he said.

Information gathered during these flights will be critical for both climate modellers seeking to understand Earth's future and policymakers who rely on accurate science for decision-making. This research and decades of greenhouse gas monitoring are part of NOAA's suite of climate services.

Three more sets of flights are planned over the next two years to fill in additional data during different seasons and from areas where few previous measurements have been made. HIPPO's second phase will cover the central and eastern Pacific, departing from Colorado with stops in Alaska, Hawaii, Rarotonga of the Cook Islands, New Zealand, Australia, and the Solomon Islands. A fly-over of the NOAA American Samoa observatory is also planned.

NOAA scientists have been monitoring greenhouse gases through a ground-based, global network for nearly 40 years. As these gases move up through different layers of the atmosphere, they may persist for a time or be altered or destroyed in the upper atmosphere. The HIPPO Mission flights will give scientists a clearer picture of the distribution of greenhouse gases throughout the atmosphere.

NOAA scientists designed five instruments for analysing air samples onboard HIPPO flights. They have the ability to detect and measure more than 30 major and minor greenhouse gases as well as water vapour, ozone, and soot particles.

"We are providing flight planning and weather support, measurements of all greenhouse gases and some carbon isotopes, and in-flight measurement of non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases and black carbon," Elkins said.

Eric Hintsa of CIRES and Elkins will be flying on subsequent legs of HIPPO phase II. Other scientists involved in leadership, flight planning and overall coordination on the ground are Steven Montzka, David Fahey, Ru-shan Gao, and Karen Rosenlof of NOAA, and Geoff Dutton, Molly Heller, Ben Miller, J. David Nance, Eric Ray, Joshua Schwarz, Colm Sweeney, Jack Higgs, and Sonja Wolter of CIRES.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.