How sustainable is our sustainability?

Sustainability can be defined as the ability to meet present needs without disturbing Nature’s equilibrium by a holistic approach while not compromising the ability of the future generation to continue to meet their needs. Holistic is “Characterized by the belief that the parts of something are intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole” (Wikipedia). Mathematically and scientifically any exponential growth or consumption will not be sustainable and such growth will eventually be curtailed by forces of Nature. Unfortunately current models of sustainability do not take a holistic approach but focus only on a continuous growth or expansion to meet the demands of the growing human population thus disturbing the Nature’s equilibrium. The holistic approach is essential because our world is interconnected and any isolated growth or development in one part of the world will affect the other part of the world. Such a growth is counter-productive to human civilization as a whole. At the same time Nature’s equilibrium is critical for the survival of humanity and science should take into account this critical issue while developing solutions to problems. Otherwise such a solution will not be sustainable in the long run. Nature maintains a perfect equilibrium (dynamic equilibrium) while maintaining reversibility. Both are intricately linked. If the equilibrium is not maintained then it becomes an irreversible process and the entropy of such a system will only increase according to the second law of thermodynamics. The order will become disorder or lead to chaos. Moreover any human interference to nature’s irreversibility and equilibrium by human beings will require energy. Any energy generation process within the system will not be holistic and therefore will not be sustainable. For example, reverse osmosis (RO) is a major industrial process currently used to desalinate sea water/brackish water to potable water. This process is reversing the Nature’s osmotic process by applying a counter pressure over and above the osmotic pressure of the saline water using high pressure pump. This requires energy in the form of electrical energy or thermal energy in the case of distillation. When such energy is generated by burning fossil fuel then the entropy increases because combustion of fossil fuel is an irreversible process. It is clearly not sustainable. Energy is directly connected with economic growth of the world, but Governments and industries failed to adopt a holistic approach while generating energy by simply focusing only on economic growth. The fossil fuel power generation has resulted in the accumulation of GHG in the atmosphere and in the ocean changing the climate. Power generation by nuclear plant (Fukushima) has spilled radiation into the ocean and has crossed the Pacific Ocean to shores of North America. These are irreversible changes. The human and economic costs from such pollution will easily dwarf the ‘the economic growth’ of the world. It is not holistic because the emissions caused by one country affects the whole world; then it becomes the right of an individual to object to such pollution and it is the obligation of the Governments, United Nations and the industries to protect individuals from such pollution. Right now all these agencies are helplessly watching the deteriorating situation because they do not have the solution or means to reverse the situation whether it is an advanced country or a poor country; we always measure growth only by income and not by the quality of air we breathe in or water we drink or the environment we live in. The demand for energy and water are constantly increasing all over the world; and we are trying to meet these demands by expanding existing power plants or by setting up new plants. When we generate power using fossil fuel the heat energy is converted into electrical energy and the products of combustion are let out into the atmosphere in the form of CO2 and Oxides of Nitrogen. It is an irreversible process and we cannot recover back the fossil fuel already burnt. Similarly the electricity generated once used to do some useful work such as lighting or running a motor etc cannot be recovered back. The process of electricity generation as well as usage of electricity is irreversible. Similarly when it rains the water percolates into the ground dissolving all the minerals, sometimes excessively in some places making it unsuitable to drink or irrigate. This process can be reversed but it again requires energy. Both the above processes are irreversible and thermodynamically they will increase the entropy of the system. Any energy generation process will have cost implications and therefore irreversibility and entropy are directly linked with economics. Fortunately renewable energy sources offer hope to humanity. Even though the entropy is increased due to its irreversible nature there is no depletion of energy (sun shines everyday). Only Nature can come to human rescue to our sustainability. Science and powerful economies cannot guarantee sustainability irrespective of the size of the budget. There is a myth that billions of dollars can reverse the irreversibility with no consequences. It raises question on the very basis of science because science depends on “observation and reproduciability” as we know. The biggest question is: “Who is the Observer and what is observed”? When sages of the East such as Ramana Maharishi raises this question, the Science has clearly no answer and the world is blindly and inevitably following the West to the point of no return. .

The science and politics of carbon and climate change

President Obama seized his ‘moment of truth’ when he announced his decision to cut carbon emission by 30% by 2030 in USA. His decision may not be popular in USA and in many parts of the world but it is the right decision. He was able to address to some extent ‘ the ínconvenient truth’ that has been nagging him during his second term in office. He introduced his decision through EPA (Environmental protection authority) effectively bypassing congress. In fact the whole purpose of creating EPA was to address the environmental issues but it failed in many ways and rest of the world followed such failures time and again. This has resulted in an accumulated carbon both in the atmosphere and in the sea in an unprecedented scale causing disease and environmental degradation world-wide. Air pollution is costing the world's most advanced economies plus India and China $3.5 trillion per year in lives lost and ill health, with a significant amount of the burden stemming from vehicle tailpipes, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the 34 OECD member states, the monetary impact of death and illness due to outdoor air pollution was $1.7 trillion in 2010. Research suggests that motorized on-road transport accounts for about 50 percent of that cost. In China, the total cost of outdoor air pollution was an estimated $1.4 trillion in 2010. In India, the OECD calculated the toll at $500 billion. The costs were calculated based on survey data of how much people are willing to pay in order to avoid premature death due to ailments caused by air pollution. The methodology assigns a cost to the risks of emissions that decision makers can use in weighing public policy decisions. In addition to the health cost the environmental degradation due to carbon pollution includes global warming resulting in mass extinction of species, causing mega bush fires that are wiping out forests including rain forests, creating new bugs that are resistant to antibiotics, increasing sea level that erodes coastal cities and submerge remote islands in pacific displacing millions of people as refugees, acidifies oceans with massive extinction of species including fish stock. Such degradation is nothing but suicidal. When a food or drug is introduced in the market it is subject to scrutiny by FDA (Food and drugs authority), but when it comes to environmental clearance to set up a coal-fired power plant or to set up a seawater desalination plant it is relatively easier to get such clearance from EPA. When power plants emitted gaseous emissions initially EPA was able to limit the emissions of oxides of nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorous, soot and particulate matter , other organics including mercury and arsenics except carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide has been accepted as part of the air we breathe in; otherwise no power plant could have been approved because bulk of the emissions are only carbon dioxide. Had EPA acted timely in sixties or even in seventies to curb CO2 emissions an alternative energy would have emerged by this time. Industries and economics were high in the political agenda and the environment was overlooked. Many drugs were introduced during this period to cure diseases that were actually caused by environmental pollution such as carbon dioxide. Both power industries and drug industries grew side by side without realizing the fact that environment is degraded slowly which causes chronic diseases. Australia is the largest consumers of power in terms of per capita consumption in the world and yet the new Government in Australia is pushing a bill in the parliament to repel Carbon tax introduced by previous Government. They are also planning to raise revenue up to $ 26 billion for medical research over a period of time. On one hand politicians want to freely allow unabated carbon emissions into the atmosphere and on the other hand they want to introduce new drugs that can cure diseases actually caused by such pollutions. It is an anomalous situation created by politics of climate change. Unfortunately carbon pollution has turned into an energy related issue and attracted political attention world-wide. The high cost of cleaning carbon pollution has turned many politicians into skeptics of science on carbon pollution and climate change. “More than 170 nations have agreed on the need to limit fossil fuel emissions to avoid dangerous human-made climate change, as formalized in the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change .However, the stark reality is that global emissions have accelerated (Fig. 1) and new efforts are underway to massively expand fossil fuel extraction by drilling to increasing ocean depths and into the Arctic, squeezing oil from tar sands and tar shale, hydro-fracking to expand extraction of natural gas, developing exploitation of methane hydrates, and mining of coal via mountaintop removal and mechanized long wall mining. The growth rate of fossil fuel emissions increased from 1.5%/year during 1980–2000 to 3%/year in 2000–2012, mainly because of increased coal use.” (Ref : 1) The coal usage continues to grow especially in Asia due to expanding population and industrial growth and demand for low cost energy. USA is expected to achieve energy independence by 2015 which means more fossil fuels are in the pipeline. India and China are planning more coal fired power plants in the coming decade. Australia is planning for massive expansion of coal and LNG and Coal seam methane gas for exports. Fracturing and hydrocracking of shale deposits are adding to the fuel. Countries are more concerned with economic growth than the consequences of climate change. Despite recent warning from NASA that the depleting arctic glaciers have reached a ‘point of no return’ and the predicted sea level rise up to 10 feet is irreversible, there is a little reaction from countries across the globe. There is a clear evidence that shows GHG emission will continue to increase in the future in spite of growing renewable energy projects because renewable solar panels, wind turbines and batteries will require additional power from fossil fuels. It is critically important to reduce carbon emission with great urgency by substituting fossil energy with renewable energy. For example, concentrated solar power (CSP) can be used instead of large scale PV solar to reduce carbon footprint. Solar energy is the origin of all other energy sources on the planet earth and solar energy will be the solution for a clean energy of the future. But how fast solar energy can be deployed commercially in a short span of time is a big issue. The increasing growth of fossil fuel production dwarfs the growth of renewable energy exposing the planet to catastrophic climate change. The GHG emission can be contained only by an aggressive reduction of CO2 emission into the atmosphere as well as by drastic reduction of fossil fuel production. This is possible only by using renewable Hydrogen. The cost of renewable hydrogen is high but this is the price one has to pay to clean up the carbon pollution before the climate is changed irreversibly. The obvious method to reduce carbon emissions is to tax carbon in such a way that it will no longer be economically viable to emit carbon to generate power or to transport. Paying carbon tax will be cheaper than paying for diseases and environmental degradation and natural disasters. Clean environment is the key for the survival of our planet and life on earth and one cannot put a price on such a life. Ref 1: Citation: Hansen J, Kharecha P, Sato M, Masson-Delmotte V, Ackerman F,et al (2013) Assessing ‘‘Dangerous Climate Change’’: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature. PLoS ONE 8(12): e81648. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081648

“Petrol from seawater “, a Carbon neutral fuel to mitigate climate change !

Recent news from USA has got the attention of many people around the world. “Scientists with the United States Navy say they have successfully developed a way to convert seawater into jet fuel, calling it a potentially revolutionary advancement. Researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) developed technology to extract carbon dioxide from seawater while simultaneously producing hydrogen, and then converted the gasses into hydrocarbon liquid fuel. The system could potentially shave hours off the at-sea refueling process and eliminate time spent away from missions.” They estimate the cost of the jet fuel will be anywhere between $3 and $6 per gallon. It may not be able to compete with traditional petroleum sources due to high energy requirement. However, the main attraction of this process is to extract Carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean to avoid acidification and to mitigate climate change while making petrol as a Carbon neutral fuel. Ocean has become a rich source of Carbon (Carbon sink) absorbing excess atmospheric Carbon dioxide caused by human beings. Generating Carbon neutral fuel such as SNG (synthetic natural gas), diesel and petrol from air and sea water will be the fastest way to reduce Carbon from the atmosphere. Probably Governments, business and industries will embarrass this concept much quicker than any other mitigating methods simply because it is a revenue generating proposition with a potential to earn carbon credit. Carbon-neutral fuel is a synthetic fuel (including methane, gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel or ammonia) that is produced using carbon dioxide recycled from power plant flue exhaust gas or derived from carbonic acid in seawater and renewable Hydrogen. Such fuels are potentially carbon-neutral because they do not result in a net increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases. It is a Carbon capture and recycling (CCR) process. “To the extent that carbon-neutral fuels displace fossil fuels, or if they are produced from waste carbon or seawater carbonic acid, and their combustion is subject to carbon capture at the flue or exhaust pipe, they result in negative carbon dioxide emission and net carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere, and thus constitute a form of greenhouse gas remediation. Such power to gas carbon-neutral and carbon-negative fuels can be produced by the electrolysis of water to make hydrogen used in the Sabatier reaction to produce methane which may then be stored to be burned later in power plants as synthetic natural gas, transported by pipeline, truck, or tanker ship, or be used in gas to liquids processes such as the Fischer–Tropsch (FT) process to make traditional fuels for transportation or heating. Carbon-neutral fuels are used in Germany and Iceland for distributed storage of renewable energy, minimizing problems of wind and solar intermittency, and enabling transmission of wind, water, and solar power through existing natural gas pipelines. Such renewable fuels could alleviate the costs and dependency issues of imported fossil fuels without requiring either electrification of the vehicle fleet or conversion to hydrogen or other fuels, enabling continued compatible and affordable vehicles. A 250 kilowatt synthetic methane plant has been built in Germany and it is being scaled up to 10 megawatts.” (Wikipedia). We have been writing about renewable hydrogen (RH) for the past couple of years and often use the phrase, “Water and energy are two sides of the same coin” because we can mitigate climate change using renewable hydrogen (RH) even while the fossil fuel economy can carry on as usual. By generating Carbon neutral fuels using excess Carbon from air and sea and hydrogen from water (even seawater) using renewable energy sources, the problem of global warming and climate change can be solved because we will not be adding any further Carbon into the atmosphere than what it is today! Instead of generating solar and wind power and storing them in batteries it will be prudent to generate Carbon neutral fuel from CO2 already available in the system and use them as usual. Meanwhile Hydrogen based power generation and transportation can be developed as a long term solution. Fossil- fuel fired power plants produce CO2 (Carbon dioxide) which could be captured and converted to CO (Carbon monoxide) for production of synthetic fuels. CO2 can be converted to CO by the Reverse Water Gas Shift Reaction, CO2 + H2--> CO + H2O. CO could then be used in the F-T reaction with additional hydrogen from water-splitting to produce synthetic fuel such as diesel and petrol as carbon neutral fuels. Synthetic fuel by CO2 Capture + H2 from Water-splitting: Reverse Water Gas Shift CO2 + H2 ----> CO + H2O F-T reaction CO + 2H2 ----> CH2 + H2O Water-splitting 3H2O + Energy --> 3H2 + 3/2O2 Net reaction CO2 + H2O + Energy ---> CH2 + 3/2O2 In this case, no coal is needed at all, and CO2 is consumed rather than produced. The excess O2 (oxygen) would be used in the fossil power plant that provides the CO2, simplifying CO2 capture. There is currently considerable effort underway on developing CO2 capture systems for new and extant power plants. The increasing concern with Global Climate Change suggests that there is a reasonable likelihood of such plants operating in the timeframe associated with synthetic fuel from carbon dioxide. Such a synergistic system has the potential to significantly reduce our current emissions of CO2 since the carbon in the coal is used once for power production and then again for liquid hydrocarbon fuel synthesis. Synthetic fuel plant with capacities as low as 1000 barrels/day are commercially feasible using specially designed micro-reactors as shown in the attached photograph.(Ref:velocys system). Utilizing carbon dioxide from sea and air is the smartest way to mitigate climate change while maintaining fossil fuel based power plants and automobiles without any change or modifications. The same technique can also be applied for biomass gasification plants.

It is time to switch over from Carbon to Hydrocarbon

When Carbon emission is high and the globe is warming due to such emissions then the simple and immediate solution to address this issue is to convert Carbon into Hydrocarbon, and the simplest Hydrocarbon is Methane (CH4).By simply introducing Hydrogen atom into Carbon atom the entire fuel property changes. For example the heating value of coal is only 5000-6500 kcal/kg at the maximum while the heating value of Methane (natural gas) increases to 9500 kcal/m3 by the above conversion. It means the same power generated by coal can be generated by using almost half the quantity of natural gas. Converting Carbon into substituted natural gas (SNG) is one way of addressing climate change in a short span of time. By switching over to SNG from coal will reduce the CO2 emission almost by 50%. Global warming due to GHG emission has become a serious environmental issue in recent times and more and more investments are made on renewable energy projects such as solar and wind etc. In spite of the major thrust on renewable energy projects the main source of power is still generated around the world using fossil fuel especially Coal due to its abundance and low cost. Moreover the investment already made on fossil fuel infrastructures are too big to be ignored and investment required to substitute coal-fired power plants by renewable energy are too large and gestation periods are too long to maintain the current electricity demand and to meet the future demands. The cost of renewable energy also is high and there is great resistance by consumers to switch over to renewable energy. Many Governments are reluctant to subsidize renewable energy due to their financial constraints. That is why countries like China which is growing at the rate of more than 8% pa are trying to decrease the ‘Carbon intensity’ rather than closing down the coal–fired power plants by setting up SNG (synthetic natural gas) plants by gasification of coal . This will reduce their Carbon emissions almost by 50% surpassing all other countries around the world in short span of time, thus meeting their emission targets agreed in “Kyoto protocol”. They can also meet the increasing electricity demand by using “syngas” generated by coal gasification plants, while reducing the Carbon pollution. They will also be able to produce Diesel and Gasoline from coal similar to the “SESOL” plant in South Africa which is already operating successfully for the past 50 years. “Leveraging Natural Gas to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions” – a summary report by Center for Energy and Climate Solutions (C2ES) have highlighted the following in their report. “Recent technological advances have unleashed a boom in U.S. natural gas production, with expanded supplies and substantially lower prices projected well into the future. Because combusting natural gas yields fewer greenhouse gas emissions than coal or petroleum, the expanded use of natural gas offers significant opportunities to help address global climate change. The substitution of gas for coal in the power sector, for example, has contributed to a recent decline in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas, however, is not carbon-free. Apart from the emissions released by its combustion, natural gas is composed primarily of methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas, and the direct release of methane during production, transmission, and distribution may offset some of the potential climate benefits of its expanded use across the economy. This report explores the opportunities and challenges in leveraging the natural gas boom to achieve further reductions in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Examining the implications of expanded use in key sectors of the economy, it recommends policies and actions needed to maximize climate benefits of natural gas use in power generation, buildings, manufacturing, and transportation. More broadly, the report draws the following conclusions: •The expanded use of natural gas—as a replacement for coal and petroleum—can help our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the near- to mid-term, even as the economy grows. In 2013, energy sector emissions are at the lowest levels since 1994, in part because of the substitution of natural gas for other fossil fuels, particularly coal. Total U.S. emissions are not expected to reach 2005 levels again until sometime after 2040. • Substitution of natural gas for other fossil fuels cannot be the sole basis for long-term U.S. efforts to address climate change because natural gas is a fossil fuel and its combustion emits greenhouse gases. To avoid dangerous climate change, greater reductions will be necessary than natural gas alone can provide. Ensuring that low-carbon investment dramatically expands must be a priority. Zero-emission sources of energy, such as wind, nuclear and solar, are critical, as are the use of carbon capture-and-storage technologies at fossil fuel plants and continued improvements in energy efficiency. • Along with substituting natural gas for other fossil fuels, direct releases of methane into the atmosphere must be minimized. It is important to better understand and more accurately measure the greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas production and use in order to achieve emissions reductions along the entire natural gas value chain.” Countries like India should emulate the Chinese model and become self-sufficient in meeting their growing energy demand without relying completely on imported Petroleum products. Import of petroleum products is the single largest foreign exchange drain for India, restricting their economic growth to less than 5%. Countries that rely completely on coal-fired power plants can set up coal hydro-gasification and gasification plants to reduce their Carbon emissions in the immediate future while setting up renewable energy projects as a long-term solution. Transiting Carbon economy into Hydrogen economy is a bumpy road and it will not be easy to achieve in a short span of time. The logical path for such transition will be to switch coal based power generation into gas based power generation for the following reasons. The largest Carbon emissions are from power generation and transportation. Transportation industry is already going through a transition from fossil fuel to Hydrogen. More future cars will be based either on Fuel cell or Electric and in both cases the fuel is the critical issue. Battery technology also will be an issue for Electric cars. It is more practical to generate Hydrogen from natural gas and to set up Hydrogen fuel stations than generating Hydrogen from solar powered water electrolysis. With improvement on Fuel cell technology it is more likely that PEM Fuel cell may be able to operate on Hydrogen derived from natural gas that is completely free from any Sulphur compounds. Even for Electric cars, natural gas will play an important role as a fuel for power generation and distribution in the near future as we transit from Carbon economy to full fledged Hydrogen economy. Countries like India with highest economic growth will have to be pragmatic by setting up more SNG plants with indigenous coal than depending on imported LNG. India has only two LNG terminals currently in operation but do not have gas transmission infrastructure. With increasing demand for natural gas from all over the world and lack of LNG receiving terminals, India will have to face a serious fuel and power shortage in the future. By installing more coal gasification and SNG plants with down-stream products like like Diesel and petrol, India can overcome the fuel and power shortage. In fact India set up the first coal gasification and Ammonia and Urea plant in Neyveli (Neyveli Lignite Corporation) way back in Fifties after her independence and it is time to visit the past. Renewable energy is certainly the long term solution for energy demand but we have to consider the amount of GHG emission associated with production PV solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. There is no easy fix to reduce GHG emission in short span of time but switching Carbon to hydrocarbon will certainly reduce the emissions scientists are advocating and water (steam) is the key to introduce such Hydrogen atom into the Carbon atom. That is why we always believe “Water and Energy are two sides of the same coin” and renewable Hydrogen will be the key to our future energy. President Obama's recent announcement of Carbon reduction plan by coal-fired power plants in USA is a bold step in the right direction.A more ambitious plan may be required to avoid catastrophic climate change that might cost billions of dollar in health related issues and on rebuilding damaged infrastructure. For more information on the above topic please refer to the following link: Source: Harvard University Link: Coal to Natural gas Fuel switching and Carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduction. Date: Apr 2011. Author: Jackson Salovaara.

Desalination plants contribute to climate change

There is a growing evidence that shows increasing salinity of seawater effects the “water cycle” resulting in climate change. Apart from the natural cycle, the highly saline brine discharged from man-made “desalination” plants around the world also contributes to the increasing salinity of seawater. There are only few desalination plants suppliers world-wide who build such large scale desalination plants and they use only decades old desalination technologies. They recover 35% of fresh water and discharge 65% highly concentrated, toxic effluent back into the sea. Their main focus of innovation is to reduce the energy consumption because it is an energy intensive process. Such energy comes mainly from fossil fuels. The result is unabated Carbon emission, toxic brine discharge into the ocean, warm saline water discharge into the ocean from “once through cooling towers” from co-located power and desalination plants.Currently about 5000 million cubic meters of fresh water is generated per year from seawater desalination plants around the world; this capacity is expected to increase to 9000 million cubic meter per year by 2030.The brine outfall from desalination plants will amount to a staggering 30 billion cubic meters/yr. Such a huge volume of saline water with salinity ranging 70,000 ppm up to 95,000 ppm will certainly alter the water chemistry of the ocean. Desalination plant suppliers are not interested in “innovation” that can recover fresh water without “polluting” the sea. They rather justify using “environmental impact study” which invariably concludes there is absolutely no impact on environment and any toxic discharge into the sea is “harmless”. This practice is going on for decades without any check. Dwindling fish population world–wide is a direct impact of such discharge. Financial institutions such as world bank, Asian development bank etc are willingly finance such projects without questioning such technologies and their impact on marine environment. Their focus is only “return on investment”–the only criteria that is required for funding and not the “cost and benefit analysis”. A detailed analysis will reveal “handful of rich and powerful” Governments and individuals can influence the world’s climate intentionally or unintentionally. The same “rich and powerful” can shun any innovations “that might threaten their business model” and “ nip such innovations or inventions at their bud” because they simply do not believe in Research and Development or unwilling to direct their “cash flow” into R&D because they do not want any threat for their existing technologies. There are very few financial professionals who can think “outside the box” or predict their financial impact due to innovative technologies of the future. Their financial decisions reflect the sentiments of the financial institutions, namely “the return on investment”. “When you read about human-induced climate change it's often about melting glaciers and sea ice, increasing frequency of heat waves and powerful storms. Occasionally you'll hear about the acidification of the oceans too. What you don't often hear about is the saltiness of the seas. But according to a new piece of research just published inGeophysical Research Letters that is changing too. The saltiness, or salinity, of the oceans is controlled by how much water is entering the oceans from rivers and rain versus how much is evaporating, known as 'The Water Cycle'. The more sunshine and heat there is, the more water can evaporate, leaving the salts behind in higher concentrations in some places. Over time, those changes spread out as water moves, changing the salinity profiles of the oceans. Oceanographers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory fingerprinted salinity changes from 1955 to 2004 from 60 degrees south latitude to 60 degrees north latitude and down to the depth of 700 meters in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. They found salinity changes that matched what they expected from such natural changes as El Niño or volcanic eruptions (the latter can lower evaporation by shading and cooling the atmosphere). Next the ocean data was compared to 11,000 years of ocean data generated by simulations from 20 of the latest global climate models. When they did that they found that the changes seen in the oceans matched those that would be expected from human forcing of the climate. When they combined temperature changes with the salinity, the human imprint is even clearer, they reported. "These results add to the evidence that human forcing of the climate is already taking place, and already changing the climate in ways that will have a profound impact on people throughout the world in coming decades," the oceanographers conclude.” (Ref: Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News) SALINITY Although everyone knows that seawater is salty, few know that even small variations in ocean surface salinity (i.e., concentration of dissolved salts) can have dramatic effects on the water cycle and ocean circulation. Throughout Earth's history, certain processes have served to make the ocean salty. The weathering of rocks delivers minerals, including salt, into the ocean. Evaporation of ocean water and formation of sea ice both increase the salinity of the ocean. However these "salinity raising" factors are continually counterbalanced by processes that decrease salinity such as the continuous input of fresh water from rivers, precipitation of rain and snow, and melting of ice. SALINITY & THE WATER CYCLE Understanding why the sea is salty begins with knowing how water cycles among the ocean's physical states: liquid, vapor, and ice. As a liquid, water dissolves rocks and sediments and reacts with emissions from volcanoes and hydrothermal vents. This creates a complex solution of mineral salts in our ocean basins. Conversely, in other states such as vapor and ice, water and salt are incompatible: water vapor and ice are essentially salt free. Since 86% of global evaporation and 78% of global precipitation occur over the ocean, ocean surface salinity is the key variable for understanding how fresh water input and output affects ocean dynamics. By tracking ocean surface salinity we can directly monitor variations in the water cycle: land runoff, sea ice freezing and melting, and evaporation and precipitation over the oceans. SALINITY, OCEAN CIRCULATION & CLIMATE Surface winds drive currents in the upper ocean. Deep below the surface, however, ocean circulation is primarily driven by changes in seawater density, which is determined by salinity and temperature. In some regions such as the North Atlantic near Greenland, cooled high-salinity surface waters can become dense enough to sink to great depths. The 'Global Conveyor Belt' visualization (below) shows a simplified model of how this type of circulation would work as an interconnected system. The ocean stores more heat in the uppermost three (3) meters than the entire atmosphere. Thus density-controlled circulation is key to transporting heat in the ocean and maintaining Earth's climate. Excess heat associated with the increase in global temperature during the last century is being absorbed and moved by the ocean. In addition, studies suggest that seawater is becoming fresher in high latitudes and tropical areas dominated by rain, while in sub-tropical high evaporation regions, waters are getting saltier. Such changes in the water cycle could significantly impact not only ocean circulation but also the climate in which we live." (Ref: NASA earth science) The four main forces that control the earth’s climate are “Sea, Sun, Moon and earth’s rotation and interference by human beings will alter the equilibrium of the system. In order to maintain its equilibrium, Nature is forced to change the climate unpredictably with devastating effects. We cannot underestimate the pollution caused by human beings because they are capable of altering the Nature’s equilibrium over a period of time no matter how “miniscule” (parts per millions or billions) the pollution may be. Any future investment on large scale infrastructures should take into account the “human induced climate change” in their model and projections, failing which “climate change” will prove them wrong and the consequences will be dire. Reference : Environmental Impacts of Seawater Desalination: Arabian Gulf Case Study Mohamed A. Dawoud1 and Mohamed M. Al Mulla 1 Water Resources Department, Environment Agency, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates 2.Ministry of Environment and Water, Dubai, United Arab Emirates