That brown cloud ? That's China. by rue

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

That brown cloud ? That's China.

POSTED BY: RUE
UPDATED: Thursday, November 13, 2008 14:31
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Thursday, November 13, 2008 6:15 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 6:21 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

While I am sophisticated to know what you're trying to say, I am not knowledgeable enough to apply any kind of scientific or factual interpretation to brown clouds.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 6:26 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

It's pollution.

NASA Eyes Effects of a Giant 'Brown Cloud' Worldwide12.15.04 NASA scientists recently announced that a giant, smoggy atmospheric "brown cloud" that forms over South Asia and Indian Ocean has intercontinental reach, and has effects around the world.

"The scientists found that both brown cloud pollution and natural processes could contribute to unhealthy levels of ozone in the lower atmosphere. Some ozone from the cloud rises to higher altitudes and spreads into the global atmosphere,” said Robert Chatfield, a scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. "The ozone that comes out of the 'brown cloud' is related to it, but strictly speaking, the visible brown cloud is only the aerosol component of this smoggy stew," Chatfield explained.

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 6:37 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

Am I to understand that this cloud contains ozone, and some of this ozone becomes part of the upper atmosphere and spreads around the globe?

Please understand that I have no training in environmental science, but that a few years ago I heard a lot of people lamenting the lack of ozone in the upper atmosphere.

The brown stuff sounds icky, but the ozone thing actually sounds promising to my ignorant ears.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 6:42 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Ahh ... here you go ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/world/14cloud.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slog
in

U.N. Report Sees New Pollution Threat

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — A noxious cocktail of soot, smog and toxic chemicals is blotting out the sun, fouling the lungs of millions of people and altering weather patterns in large parts of Asia, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations.

The byproduct of automobiles, slash-and-burn agriculture, wood-burning kitchen stoves and coal-fired power plants, these plumes of carbon dust rise over southern Africa, the Amazon basin and North America. But they are most pronounced in Asia, where so-called atmospheric brown clouds are dramatically reducing sunlight in many Chinese cities and leading to decreased crop yields in swaths of rural India, say a team of more than a dozen scientists who have been studying the problem since 2002.

Combined with mounting evidence that greenhouse gases are leading to a rise in global temperatures, the report’s authors called on governments both rich and poor to address the problem of carbon emissions.

“The imperative to act has never been clearer,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, in Beijing, where the report, titled “Atmospheric Brown Clouds: Regional Assessment Report With Focus on Asia,” was released.

The brownish haze, sometimes more than a mile thick and clearly visible from airplanes, stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to the Yellow Sea. During the spring, it sweeps past North and South Korea and Japan. Sometimes the cloud drifts as far east as California.

The report identified 13 cities as brown-cloud hotspots, among them Bangkok, Cairo, New Delhi, Seoul and Tehran. In some Chinese cities, the smog has reduced sunlight by as much as 20 percent since the 1970s, it said.

Rain can cleanse the skies, but some of the black grime that falls to earth ends up on the surface of the Himalayan glaciers that are the source of water for billions of people in China, India and Pakistan. As a result, the glaciers that feed into the Yangtze, Ganges, Indus and Yellow rivers are absorbing more sunlight and melting more rapidly, researchers say.

According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, these glaciers have shrunk by 5 percent since the 1950s and, at the current rate of retreat, could shrink by another 75 percent by 2050.

“We used to think of this brown cloud as a regional problem, but now we realize its impact is much greater,” said Prof. Veerabhadran Ramanathan, who led the United Nations scientific panel. “When we see the smog one day and not the next, it just means it’s blown somewhere else.”

Although their overall impact is not entirely understood, Professor Ramanathan, a professor of climate and ocean sciences at the University of California, San Diego, said the clouds might be affecting rainfall in parts of India and Southeast Asia, where monsoon rainfall has been decreasing in recent decades, and central China, where devastating floods have become more frequent.

He said that some studies suggest that the plumes of soot that blot out the sun have led to a 5 percent decline in the growth rate of rice harvests across Asia since the 1960s.

For those who breathe the toxic mix, the impact can be deadly. Henning Rodhe, a professor of chemical meteorology at Stockholm University, estimates that 340,000 people in China and India die each year from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases that can be traced to the emissions from coal-burning factories, diesel trucks and kitchen stoves fueled by twigs.

“The impacts on health alone is a reason to reduce these brown clouds,” he said, adding that in China, about 3.6 percent of the nation’s annual gross domestic product, or $82 billion, is lost to the health effects of pollution.

The scientists who worked on the report said the blanket of haze hovering over Asia and other parts of the world might be mitigating the worst effects of greenhouse gases by absorbing solar heat or reflecting it away from the earth. Greenhouse gases, by contrast, tend to trap the warmth of the sun and lead to a rise in ocean temperatures.

Mr. Steiner, the head of the United Nations environment program, said the findings complicated the global-warming narrative. The brown clouds mask the impact of the greenhouse gases, he said: Without the blocking effect of the smog, he said, climate change would be far worse.

“All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to take on emissions across the planet,” he said.

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 6:57 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hmm...

So what are they going to do about it?

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 6:57 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Lemme dumb it down, under the KISS principle.

"Don't crap where you live."

Get THAT salient point locked in FIRST, then go all on with the whole detailed scientific stuff, ok?

-F

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 9:00 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

China is building one coal-fired generating plant a week and has been for a few years now. Their coal is high sulfur and soft - which means it creates sulfuric acid on burning and otherwise burns 'dirty' with lots of soot given off. (Hard coal is almost pure carbon and reaches a higher temperature when it burns. So there is less 'other stuff' including sulfur to create pollution, and less soot - partially burned fuel - given off.)

If the US could develop alternative energy sources we could sell it to China and make some of our dollars back.

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 9:22 AM

RIVERLOVE

You think China really gives two sheets if they pollute their country or the whole world? From a country that practices infanticide of females, and eats dogs, I think not.

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 9:57 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

China is also desperately trying to corner large reserves of world oil.

If we could sell them a technology that would free them from having to buy oil on the spot market (the only country that does btw), and that would free them from having to mine coal and build so many plants - pollution benefits or not, they would jump at it.

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 10:03 AM

HERO

I hear that viewed up close the cloud is RED.

(Incoherant anti-pinko-Pittsburg Steelers-chicom muttering...)

H

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 12:45 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

This can't be right. We've been told over and over that the U.S. and its rapacious capitalism are solely responsible for all the pollution, greenhouse gas, ozone, and whatever else is wrong with the planet's atmosphere. It must be a disinformation campaign.

Yes...sarcasm.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 12:55 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Sarcasm ---- but oh-so-poorly done.

The US has 4.5% of the world's population --- and accounts for 23% of the world's energy consumption.

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 1:07 PM

ERIC

And ironically, those coal plants are probly powering factories that ship cheap crap to Wal Mart. Ah, the circle of life...

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 1:16 PM

WHOZIT

Brown cloud.......is this a fart joke?!

I'm going to microwave a bagel and have sex with it - Peter Griffin

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Thursday, November 13, 2008 2:31 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
The US has 4.5% of the world's population --- and accounts for 23% of the world's energy consumption.

But all energy consumption is not created equal, pollution-wise. China - and also India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico, large parts of Central/South America, and good bits of Eastern Europe - produce a lot more pollutants per watt/horsepower/kilopascal/whatever than the U.S., Canada or Western Europe.

China, India, et. al., while paying lip-service to the concept, aren't even seriously planning any effective pollution controls at this time. Even though the U.S. hasn't bought into Kyoto (Yet. Likely to change in the Obama era), we're still cutting down quite a bit.

BTW, the Chinese go through 900 Billion disposable chopsticks a year.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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