Physics in a New Era An Overview (2001) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
7. The Environment
7. The Environment
Pages 116-121
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 116... ...
The oceanatmosphere system, environmental monitoring and improvement, and energy production and the environment are three areas where an understanding of the basic physics has played a central role and where it is crucial for further progress. THE OCEAN-ATMOSPHERE SYSTEM In the years ahead, a continuing improvement in our understanding of the remarkable concentration of energy involved in severe weather patterns 1 1 6
|
From page 117... ...
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND IMPROVEMENT An ever-larger fraction of the environmental challenges facing humankind consists of problems requiring better management of human activity to reduce its deleterious impact on natural systems. Problems of this kind arise with increasing frequency because of the larger and more prosperous human population.
|
From page 118... ...
Global warming is partly a consequence of altering the carbon cycle on the planet by the burning of fossil fuels. The increase of carbon dioxide appears to foster the growth of other greenhouse gases by alteration of the global hydrological cycle.
|
From page 119... ...
There is a concern that increasing greenhouse gases could initiate such a change. Measured concentrations of oxygen isotopes in Greenland ice cores show that large changes were common near the end of the last ice age.
|
From page 120... ...
An important class of strategies involves separating the carbon content from the energy content of fossil fuels by chemically processing the fossil fuels into carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The carbon dioxide would be treated as a waste product requiring sequestration from the atmosphere; for example, it might be piped to deep underground saline aquifers.
|
From page 121... ...
Physics plays a broad role, contributing clirect~y to energy production and environmental projects and indirectly through basic research, providing technological spin-offs from research programs, and helping to educate a technically literate population capable of responding to environmental issues. Basic research in atmospheric and oceanic physics provides the founclation.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.