Environment – Page 149 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

IBM Smarter Cities Technology Helps NYC Envision Solar Energy Leadership through CUNY Ventures

By Guest PostJune 7, 2012Environment, Technologycraig hayman, cuny ventures, data system, department of energy, doe, global leader, ibm, intelligent operations center, ioc, ioc software, key indicators, matthew goldstein, new york city, nyc, nyc solar map, procemx, roadmapping, rooftop solar challenge, smart ny, smarter cities, solar, solar america, solar capacity, solar energy market, solar market analytics, solar panel installation, solar power potential, tracking ny, urban

Innovative Model Aims to Export Solar Market Analysis Tools to the World

New York – 07 Jun 2012: IBM is helping New York City (NYC) become a global leader in urban solar energy market analysis and sustainability through an innovative agreement with CUNY Ventures, a City University of New York (CUNY) Economic Development Corporation entity.

The goal of this effort is to nourish solar adoption by developing the capability to analyze and understand key solar market indicators that can make solar system development more cost competitive. Using IBM’s Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) for Smarter Cities as the backbone, this analytics-based approach will help New York City monitor and analyze solar production and capacity through a virtual control room that will provide a dashboard view of key indicators.

The collaboration is part of ‘Solar Market Analytics, Roadmapping, and Tracking NY’ (SMART NY), a groundbreaking project supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) ‘Rooftop Solar Challenge’, part of the DOE SunShot Initiative which is striving to make solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade. (more…)

A ‘B-12 Shot’ for Marine Algae?

By Guest PostJune 7, 2012Environmentalgal culture, cobalamin, cobalamin acquisition protein, marine algae, marine algae growth, marine food web

Scientists find key protein for algae growth in the ocean

Scientists have revealed a key cog in the biochemical machinery that allows marine algae at the base of the oceanic food chain to thrive. They have discovered a previously unknown protein in algae that grabs an essential but scarce nutrient out of seawater, vitamin B₁₂. (more…)

Why Environmental Water Pollution is a Health Hazard

By Guest PostJune 6, 2012Environmenthealth hazard, water pollution, water quality

Water is a natural element that provides life to all living things, from plants to animals and especially human beings. Thus, it is vital that water be consistently available for consumption. It does much more than quench your thirst. It is necessary to regulate body functions, and therefore keep you alive. (more…)

Berkeley Lab Study Assesses Residential Cooking Exhaust Hoods’ Ability to Vent Pollutants

By Guest PostJune 4, 2012Environmentair pollutants, airflow, berkeley lab, brett singer, capturing pollutants, carbon monoxide, cook stoves, cooking exhaust hoods, energy star, fine particulates, formaldehyde, gas burners, home ventilating institute, nitrogen oxides, pollutant capture efficiency, pollutants, soot, sound level, vent pollutants, woody delp

Cooking exhaust hoods designed for home kitchens vary widely in their ability to capture and vent away the air pollutants generated by the gas burners on cook stoves, according to a study by two Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists. Of seven representative devices they tested, the capture efficiency varied from less than 15 percent to more than 98 percent.

The study, by Woody Delp and Brett Singer of Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division, measured their pollutant capture efficiency, sound level generated by their fans, and airflow. Cooking exhaust hoods vent such pollutants as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde, and fine particulates such as soot generated during cooking. (more…)

Landslides Linked to Plate Tectonics Create the Steepest Mountain Terrain

By Guest PostJune 3, 2012Environmentlandslide erosion, large landslides, mountain slopes, plate tectonics, steeper slopes, stress of gravity

Some of the steepest mountain slopes in the world got that way because of the interplay between terrain uplift associated with plate tectonics and powerful streams cutting into hillsides, leading to erosion in the form of large landslides, new research shows. (more…)

Discovery of Historical Photos Sheds Light on Greenland Ice Loss

By Guest PostJune 3, 2012Environmentglacial retreat, greenland coastline, greenland glaciers, greenland ice loss, historical photos, melting rates

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A chance discovery of 80-year-old photo plates in a Danish basement is providing new insight into how Greenland glaciers are melting today. (more…)

Climate Change Led to Collapse of Ancient Indus Civilization, Study Finds

By Guest PostJune 2, 2012Environment, Sciencearabian sea, archaeological evidence, catastrophic floods, climate change, coring, dorian fuller, drilling, eastern afghanistan, egypt, ganges, geological evidence, geologist, geoscience, ghaggar hakra, goldilocks civilization, harappan civilization, harappan settlements, harappan times, himalaya, hindu mythology, indo gangetic plain, indus, james p m syvitski, liviu giosan, mesopotamia, northwest india, Pakistan, peter d clift, remains, river floods, romania, sarasvati, sediments, srtm, stefan constantinescu, topography, university college london, whoi

A new study combining the latest archaeological evidence with state-of-the-art geoscience technologies provides evidence that climate change was a key ingredient in the collapse of the great Indus or Harappan Civilization almost 4000 years ago. The study also resolves a long-standing debate over the source and fate of the Sarasvati, the sacred river of Hindu mythology.

Once extending more than 1 million square kilometers across the plains of the Indus River from the Arabian Sea to the Ganges, over what is now Pakistan, northwest India and eastern Afghanistan, the Indus civilization was the largest—but least known—of the first great urban cultures that also included Egypt and Mesopotamia. Like their contemporaries, the Harappans, named for one of their largest cities, lived next to rivers owing their livelihoods to the fertility of annually watered lands. (more…)

Unmanned NASA Storm Sentinels set for Hurricane Study

By Guest PostJune 1, 2012Environment, Scienceairborne mission, alan buis, alberto, atlantic hurricane season, atlantic ocean basin, beryl, end of school, global hawk aircraft, glopac, grip, hamsr, hs3, hurricane study, NASA, near normal hurricane, rob gutro, saharan air layer, scott braun, severe storm sentinels, start of summer, storm sentinels, tony landis, tropical cyclone, tropical storm, tropical storms, unmanned, unmanned aircraft

Ah, June. It marks the end of school, the start of summer…and the official start of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, which got off to an early start in May with the formation of Tropical Storms Alberto and Beryl. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasters are calling for a near-normal hurricane season this year. But whether the season turns out to be wild or wimpy, understanding what makes these ferocious storms form and rapidly intensify is a continuing area of scientific research, and is the focus of the NASA-led Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) airborne mission that kicks off this summer.

Beginning in late August through early October and continuing for the next several years during the Atlantic hurricane season, NASA will dispatch two unmanned aircraft equipped with specialized instruments high above tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean basin. These “severe storm sentinels” will investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will join several other NASA centers and numerous federal and university partners in the HS3 mission. (more…)

Category Archives: Environment