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If you choose to follow any links to the complete text of articles listed below, you will be leaving the Strategian Web site. If you wish to return to this page from the Web page you are sent to, please use the Back option of your browser. S. K. Satheesh and V. Ramanathan Large Differences in Tropical Aerosol Forcing at the Top of the Atmosphere and Earth's Surface. (... using measurements from satellites and from five radiometers at the surface of the Earth, the authors attempted to measure the effect on heating produced by the sun of human-produced aerosols in the atmosphere. Measurements were taken simultaneously at the surface of the Earth and at the top of the atmosphere over the tropical northern Indian Ocean. During recent winters, the air over the northern Indian Ocean has contained human-produced aerosols [or gases composed of very tiny particles of liquids or solids] of sulphate, nitrate, organics, soot and fly ash from the south Asian continent. The authors discovered that the mean clear-sky solar radiative heating for the winters of 1998 and 1999 decreased at the ocean surface by an amount three times greater than the decrease experienced at the top of the atmosphere. This considerable difference--due largely to solar absorption by soot--and the large magnitude of the observed effect at the Earth's surface imply that tropical aerosols might slow down the hydrological cycle [or water cycle--the cycle through which water evaporates from the oceans or other bodies of water into the atmosphere, then comes down on the land as rain or other forms of precipitaion, and then eventually flows back into the ocean or larger body of water]. Slowing down the water cycle has implications for the amounts and timing of needed precipitation experienced on land. The effect of human-produced aerosols in the atmosphere--especially over the tropics--is one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate predictions [climate change, global warming]--from the text of the abstract) Nature Volume 405, Number 6782 (May 4, 2000): 60-63. R. J. Spiegel, D. L. Greenberg, E. C. Kern, and D. E. House Emissions Reduction Data for Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Power Systems. (... a study sponsored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] and 21 electric power companies in the United States. This study represented the first nationwide program to install distributed rooftop PV [photovoltaic--solar energy] systems and systematically monitor them [for 1-year periods] in order to investigate the potential of using renewable energy sources to provide electric power directly to buildings, reducing their net demand from electric utilities and thereby avoiding or offsetting emissions from these power plants. Potential offsets of power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide [SO2], nitrogen oxides [NOx], and carbon dioxide [CO2] were studied. 29 rooftop PV systems were installed and monitored on residential and commercial buildings located in cities across the United States between 1993 and 1997. Despite correctable technical problems which resulted in some significant PV system outages during the study periods, the use of solar energy did result in significant offsets of the CO2, NOx, and SO2 that would otherwise have been produced by the electric power plants when supplying energy to these buildings. The authors state that the potential environmental benefits [of PV systems] are large. If PV systems are installed where possible on the rooftops of the US inventory of residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, they could produce conservatively around 20% of the nation's electricity--from the text of the abstract and the article) Solar Energy Volume 68, Number 5 (2000): 475-485. How to find the above journals, magazines, and other publications? See Step 3: Locate of the Information Strategy for details. Questions about any or all of the above? Please let me know. |
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