SN Tripathi Memorial Lectures (2011)…

'BMW Has Cars Ready That Run on Hydrogen Cells...'
Dr CM Nautiyal


Some facts

• We are already at 385 ppm of C02 up from pre- industrial 260 ppm
• More than 0.6 degree Celsius increase during the past century
• Melting of land- based Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets' melting will raise sea level by 200 feet Adverse Effects on Crops
• An increase in winter temperature by 0.5 deg C- decrease in wheat- yield by 10% in UP, Punjab, Haryana but 1 °C increase in
  mean temperature ineffective (if 2°, leads to lower yields)
• Rice yield to go down by 0.71 ton/ hectare (min. temp. 18 to 19 deg C.), 0.41 toni hectare for 22 to 23 deg C
• Rice yield to go down by 0.75 toni hectare if mean temp up by 2 deg C in high yield areas, and by .06 ton/ hectare in
  coastal areas


But Yes, There Are Errors

• Some time back NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies corrected its data that seemed to show that 3 and not 9 of the ten
  hottest years in U.S. history occurred since 1995.
• There is no basis for claiming that Himalayan glaciers will vanish in 2 or 3 decades.
• Thereafter many "global warming deniers" have used this to reject the whole idea of global warming induced climate change.
• But we ought to take steps


Relationship between Climate & Energy

• The evolution of the society and evolution of energy sources have been going quite parallel.
• The anthropogenic influence on climate has energy as an important input and hence the climate and energy are also closely
  related.
• Our interference in nature is also caused by our influence on energy- budget of the atmosphere.
• One can't think of mitigating the climate change without understanding and managing the energy scenario.

Climate change has focused the attention of the world on energy. It's not that everywhere the temperature has gone up. The right way to sum up the climate change scenario is to say that the frequency of extreme events has increased. The main reason is believed to be a radical change in the energy budget of the atmosphere. The energy-generation and industrial activities cause lot of carbon dioxide, methane and oxides of nitrogen etc. to be released into the atmosphere. The more of these obnoxious gases we spew into the atmosphere,the grimmer the climate change scenario becomes. The measurements on polar ice have clearly indicated an increase of SOO/o