♡ Carbon and Water Case Studies Flashcards
♡ What is adaptation and mitigation?
♡ Adaptation is to live with the consequences of climate change and use technology to cope with the impacts
♡ Mitigation is to re-balance the carbon cycle by changing our way of life through technology or behaviour
♡ What are some measures of mitigating changes to the Carbon Cycle?
♡ Afforestation: Planting more trees to help combat those lost to industry and agriculture, estimated that between 2000 and 2050 afforestation will have removed 166,000 tonnes of carbon from atmosphere
♡ Renewable Energy: Removes a country’s reliance on just fossil fuels as a source of energy, offers a carbon-neutral solution (Wind, Solar, Hydroelectric, Biofuels)
♡ Carbon Taxation: Government taxes can encourage people and businesses to reduce carbon emissions by using less fuel or electricity.
♡ Energy Efficiency: Technological improvements mean that vehicles engines are more efficient. For example, between 1970 and 2008 the fuel efficiency of the average passenger car in the USA improved by 57%.
♡ Carbon Capture and Storage: Large producers of Cos could be forced to capture the gas before it is emitted into the atmosphere, compressing and storing it underground in disused oil and gas fields. This is then injected it underground into porous and permeable rock layers.
♡ 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and Kyoto Protocol
♡ What are some measures of adapting to changes to the Carbon Cycle?
♡ Land-Use Planning: Areas of increased risk can be zoned through urban planning so that people and valuable property are not within them.
♡ Resilient Agriculture Systems: In northern China, crops are being designed to withstand higher temperatures. Ex. Maize yields could increase by 15.2%
♡ Water Conservation and Management: The Lower Mekong River basin which includes parts of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam is housed to 60 million people who are dependent on the river. In China water-saving irrigation has been introduced in areas of huge demand to adapt to water scarcity, saved up to 11% of its previous water consumption.
♡ What is OPEC?
♡ A 12 member party organisations that owns 2/3 of the world’s oil, controls oil and gas prices by holding back reserves
♡ Aims to stabilise oil prices, protect member country’s interests and ensure efficient economic and regular supplies of oil
♡ Has around 78% of all oil reserves, produces 45% of crude oil and 15% natural gases
♡ What is Gazprom?
♡ Russian oil company
♡ Supplies 25% of EU’s natural gas and 80% passes through Ukraine which led to a dispute in 2005 over claims that Ukraine was hoarding the gas
♡ What is Ocean Acidification?
♡ Reduction in the pH of the ocean over long periods of time due to the intake of CO2
♡ 2014 IPCC reported that the oceans have absorbed 30% of anthropogenic CO2
♡ How have humans impacted CO2 levels?
♡ Urbanisation
♡ Industry
♡ Agriculture
♡ How has the Arctic and Yukon been affected?
♡ Snowmelt has been melting earlier each year, causing inflows into the Yukon river to increase by 39%
♡ Causes changes in the Thermohaline Circulation, decreasing transport of CO2
♡ Melting of permafrost which when melts releases methane and CO2
Stated by IPCC in 2014:
♡ Between 1977 and 2007, 19 polar Arctic rivers had a 9.8% discharge increase
♡ Arctic Ocean could be ice-free by 2037
♡ What is the Kuznet’s Curve?
♡ Suggests that as a country develops, damage to the environment will at first increase, as resources are exploited and technologies cause pollution and degradation.
♡ Over time, as technology becomes more efficient, fewer resources are used, new resources are created and pollution levels fall.
♡ What is happening to Coral Reefs?
♡ Ocean acidification, stronger storms and warmer seas are harming Coral environments
♡ Bleaching to become severe for half of all Coral reefs by 2050
♡ Will be less effective at protecting coasts
♡ Coral reef degradation will effect Fiji, causes losses of $14 million a year by 2050 due to reduced tourism and fisheries
♡ What are some differences in UK and Norway’s energy mixes?
UK:
♡ Dependent on coal since 1970s
♡ Increasing use of North Sea oil and Gas
♡ Clean coal technology exists but does not have political and public support
Norway:
♡ Huge renewable gas potential in the form of Hydroelectric power, supplies 98% of its renewable electricity energy
♡ Intends to be Carbon-neutral by 2050
♡ Though, CO2 has increased from 11.6 tonnes in 1986 to 11.74% tonnes in 2015
♡ What are some positives and negatives of Canada’s use of Tar Sands?
Benefits:
♡ Secure source of energy
♡ Provides a localised economic benefit such as jobs with huge wages
♡ Land preservation and repair efforts can occur simutaneously with tar sands operations
Costs:
♡ 3x GHG of conventional oil productions
♡ Linked to respiratory sickness, asthma and cancer
♡ Dump 4 tonnes of soil for every 1 barrel of oil
♡ What is happening in the Amazon?
Amazon’s River Regime:
♡ 6,308km long
♡ Drains a basin of nearly 6,000,000km
♡ Peak discharge April-May
♡ Humid tropical climates
Drought in the Amazon:
♡ Deforestation and global warming
♡ Evaporates 20 billion tons of water vapour
♡ Forest evaporates 8 to 10 times more than the ocean
♡ How do ecosystems respond to drought?
♡ Forest ecosystems: Living trees take an average of 2-4 years to recover and resume natural growth rates after a period of drought, 2000-2003 a combination of severe drought led to a significant die-off of Pinon pines, in some areas more than 90% died
♡ Wetland ecosystems: Progressive habitat loss, causing soil erosion, organic soils may oxidise and release CO2 into the atmosphere, population numbers of aquatic birds will decrease
♡ What are some human factors on the drainage basin?
♡ Ground water abstraction: In China groundwater irrigates 40% of farmland and
provides 70% of drinking water in the north-west and
north. Groundwater dropped by a metre per year
between 1974-2000.
♡ Dam Construction: Ex. Lake Nasser behind the Aswan Dam in Egypt is estimated to
have evaporation losses of 10-16 billion cubic metres every
year. This represents a loss of 20-30% of the Egyptian water
volume from the River Nile.
♡ Urbanisation: Ex. UK, urbanisation has increased flooding in Maidenhead, Manchester and York
