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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:21
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Study Links Pollution to Famine
Jul 22, 1:34 AM (ET)
By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA
(AP)A new study says pollution from industrial nations was one of the possible causes of a devastating African famine that left 1.2 million people dead.
The starvation brought on by the 1970-85 drought stretched from Senegal to Ethiopia until rains finally returned. It produced images that haunted people across the world: skeletal mothers staring vacantly, children with bloated bellies lying in the sand, and vultures lurking nearby.
A group of scientists in Australia and Canada say the drought may have been triggered by tiny particles of sulfur dioxide from factories and power plants thousands of miles away in North America, Europe and Asia.
Researchers said the short-lived pollution particles, known as aerosols, didn't have to travel to Africa to harm the environment there. The particles were able to alter the physics of cloud formation miles away and reduce rainfall in Africa by as much as 50 percent, say the researchers, who used a computer to simulate the atmospheric conditions.
The process, known as teleconnection, continues in the atmosphere today. Some scientists suspect it might help explain the drought gripping parts of the United States, although that question has not been specifically examined.
And while pollution may affect the behavior of rain clouds, scientists stopped short of solely blaming industry's effluent for the famine and starvation that wracked the region of Africa called the Sahel.
"It's more subtle than that," said atmospheric scientist Leon Rotstayn, lead author of the study on the subject.
"The Sahelian drought may be due to a combination of natural variability and atmospheric aerosols," said Rotstayn, of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, a government research agency in Australia. The CSIRO study will be published in the August Journal of Climate.
Over the years, the disastrous lack of rainfall over the Sahel has been blamed on everything from overgrazing to El Nino. Many scientists still argue those are chief culprits.
One interesting clue: In the 1990s, rain returned to the Sahel. During the same period, emissions laws in the industrialized West reduced aerosol pollution. A coincidence? Scientists don't think so.
"Cleaner air in the future will mean greater rainfall in the region," Rotstayn said.
Some researchers say the CSIRO study is intriguing, but that the computer simulation is too simple to solve the mystery by itself.
"It is quite a plausible argument," said atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan of Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.
Last year, Ramanathan co-authored a global pollution study examining an industrial haze that covered nearly 4 million square miles and upset the water cycle over the Asian subcontinent.
He said similar processes appeared to be at work over the Sahel, but the CSIRO model must be sharpened to prove it.
Until then, "I would be cautious about overextending these conclusions," Ramanathan said.
Other scientists were even more guarded. Teleconnection is a reasonable, but complicated, explanation, they said.
"Rotstayn focuses on an indirect effect of aerosols that is really hard to quantify," said Philip Rasch, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
Some scientists complained that the global rainfall pattern simulated by the computer model does not match up with actual rainfall observed at weather stations around the world during the drought. This lack of a neat correlation makes the study's Sahel conclusions "highly speculative," they said.
For example, the real weather observations and those generated by the computer model correspond for the Sahel, Senegal and parts of Brazil, said Yogesh Sud, senior research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
"But in India and Australia, there is absolutely no match" between recorded rainfall and the simulated conditions, Sud said.
Nations share the same atmosphere and, increasingly, the same pollution.
Pollution is known to alter temperature and precipitation patterns near its source. Recent studies suggest that one country's pollution can become a problem for other countries, too.
Over the desolate North African Sahel, the influence of global pollution is less direct. Normally, this harsh land receives patchy summer rainfall. Soil studies show that milder droughts came in the 1680s, the 1750s, the mid-1800s and the early 20th century.
Rotstayn believes industrial smokestacks are the smoking guns for the more recent, more intense drought.
The sulfur dioxide pollution particles, which can remain in the air 5 to 20 days, probably drifted over the North Atlantic where they created more condensation nuclei for cloud formation, the scientists theorize.
The additional nuclei remained suspended in clouds rather than growing into fewer, larger droplets and falling as rain.
In addition, these clouds were brighter than normal, in part because of the added nuclei, and they reflected more of the Sun's energy into space.
This cooled the surface of the North Atlantic, which reduced the normal evaporation rate from the ocean and further hampered the moisture cycle.
South of the Sahel, the sea surface remained warm and evaporation increased so more rain fell to the south, Rotstayn said.
---
On the Net:
Leon Rotstayn: http://www.dar.csiro.au/profile/rotstayn.html
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Faeelin
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Tau Ceti
Oct 2001
time: 05:21
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Question: So why did the drought end?
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Dan Severn
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Wellborn, Texas The Warrior Dennis Miller
May 2001
time: 23:21
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Aerosols may have had some effect on the weather.
More important factorrs in the hunger may be constant war, organized crime, startling population growth, outdated farming techniques, and rampant disease...
nahh...
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Lord Merciless
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Modern medecine caused a population in boom in Sahel Zone that the land can't support.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:21
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quote:
African Famine MAY Be Caused By 1st World Pollution |
That sounds like a load of ****.
But even if it is true, quite frankly I'm not giving up my quality of life.
It has far more to do with the corrupt, ignorant African governments than with the West, though.
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C0ckney
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Big Up The Macedonian Massive
Apr 2000
time: 05:21
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quote:
Originally posted by David Floyd
It has far more to do with the corrupt, ignorant African governments than with the West, though. |
Agree 100%. Africa needs to stop blaming the West for everything and get its own house in order.
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:21
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quote:
Originally posted by DinoDoc
quote:
The only "claim" was that the African famine MAY be caused by pollution. |
It also MAY be caused by fluffy puppy dogs. Both statements have the same validity given the current lack of hard evidence supporting each statement. |
First of all, I'd like to point out that I stressed may because it's only a hypothesis supported by computer modeling.
Second, there is a infinately larger likelyhood that the famine was caused by pollution that fluffy puppy dogs, if only because the probablity and possibility of the latter is zero.
David Floyd, if it were true, you wouldn't have to give up anything because production of the suspect compunds has already been scaled down, hence the drop in African famines.
However, I find your statement hypocritical given your libertarian philosophy. You have no right to force your pollution on someone else. You are responsible for what that pollution does, and if you don't wish to change your lifestyle to get rid of that pollution, then you must pay compensation to the victims of your pollution.
Fez, it's clear that you either did not read the article or you did not understand it. Leaking fuel oil tanks would not produce the pollution that is under question in this article, i.e., sulfur-oxygen compounds which reduce sunlight leading to lowered evaporation of sea water leading to less rain clouds in the Sahel.
As for famine, I have long pointed out that famine is largely caused by political and economic, rather the meteorlogical problems. Famine is a problem not of production but of distribution. There is enough food to feed all the starving of the world, they simply lack the resources to obtain it. However, a drought can create a famine for people who were previously able to produce their own food.
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Giancarlo
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Los Angeles
Apr 2000
time: 02:21
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quote:
Fez, it's clear that you either did not read the article or you did not understand it. Leaking fuel oil tanks would not produce the pollution that is under question in this article, i.e., sulfur-oxygen compounds which reduce sunlight leading to lowered evaporation of sea water leading to less rain clouds in the Sahel. |
If they leak CFCs yes they have all to do with this. So maybe you should read my posts.
quote:
As for famine, I have long pointed out that famine is largely caused by political and economic, rather the meteorlogical problems. Famine is a problem not of production but of distribution. There is enough food to feed all the starving of the world, they simply lack the resources to obtain it. However, a drought can create a famine for people who were previously able to produce their own food. |
Argentina could feed the world or a large portion of it, if more attention is paid to its agricultural production. Finally they are exporting more and more... but I am talking a bit off topic here....
These countries simply cannot create enough food. They have to import the food from countries that can make food but they cannot pay for that therefore the population could starve. It is all a problem of production with some distribution irregularities. For example, Somalia, Militia Men Aideed did confisicate much of the food received for his personal army and you are right on that matter but it is mostly a production problem.
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22-07-2002 19:15
Basic chemistry, kid. Sulfur Dioxide in not a ChloroFlouroCarbon.
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