Defining the Challenge Differently

Sometimes a challenge is overcome simply when the problem is defined differently - usually from a different perspective. Ongoing Climate Change research may guide us to efficiently extracting moisture from the air we breathe.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Source - scinewsblog.blogspot.com

The Common Perspective on Climate Change - Cut Carbon Dioxide Emissions
To counter climate change, our overwhelming focus in every industry is on reducing addition of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 
This reduction is achieved by "scrubbing" emissions to capture the carbon dioxide they contain.
Typically, the "scrubber" chemically removes carbon dioxide in the emission. When the scrubber eventually  'wears out, it is replaced with a new scrubber. The 'used up' scrubber is disposed or cleaned up and reused.
The extracted carbon dioxide can be stored or the carbon can be processed to create artificial fuels that supplement fossil fuels.
What if we supplemented our focus on only emission reduction with extraction of carbon dioxide that we have added into air?
An Uncommon Perspective - Pull Carbon Dioxide OUT from Air 

Photosynthesis
Source - en.wikipedia.org

Source - guardian.co.uk

This perspective acknowledges that we have put carbon dioxide into the air and defines the climate change challenge as one of taking carbon dioxide out of air.
Photosynthesis is nature's technique for extracting carbon dioxide from the air - a technique that is impractical for use by people because of the lead time required to seed, nurture and grow the number of plants required to c lean-up today's air.
So we are left with developing artificial techniques for pulling carbon dioxide out of the air. Furthermore, these extraction techniques have a value all their own, even when we reduce the additions: We need them to extract the carbon dioxide that we have already added into the air. 
Three private companies seeking to develop a technically and economically viable process to take carbon dioxide out from air are Climeworks, Kilimanjaro Energy and Carbon Engineering.
Composition of Air
The air (in the troposphere) is composed of the following:

Nitrogen (N2)	78%
Oxygen (O2)	20%
Noble gasses	1%
Carbon dioxide (CO2)	0.03%
Water vapor (H2O)	0.97%

Source - http://www.lenntech.com
There is much much more water than carbon dioxide in the air!
Defining freshwater as a supply issue or a demand issue
So, how can we define the challenge of freshwater scarcity differently? One way is to see the glass half empty and reducing. Another way is to see the glass as half full and filling.
Extracting moisture from the air is an example of the latter approach. This approach has a lot in common with extracting nitrogen from the air to make artificial manure (fertilizer) responsible for feeding much of the world today. It also has a lot in common with extracting carbon dioxide from the air to curb climate change and its impacts.

WORLD WATER DAY March 22, 2012

The GOOD news

Source - guardian.co.uk

"Drinking Water Access" MDG
The Millennium Development Goal: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking-water
Goal has been met ahead of schedule
By this measure:
(a) 89%  of the global population (6.1 billion people) had access to clean drinking water by 2010,
(b) 92% of the global population will have access to safe drinking water by 2015, and 
(c) Between 1990 and 2010, more than 2 billion people gained access to clean drinking water


The NOT-so-Good facts
1. An estimated 1.1 billion people still lack access to clean drinking water
2. 2.6 billion people don't have adequate sanitation
3. 1.8 billion people die every year from diseases associated with dirty water


A Global Crisis Looms

Source - 

1. The MDG goal assessment (above) becomes clearer when the details are closely reviewed.
- Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania (the orange colored areas) are NOT on track to meet Global drinking water access goals.
- Data at the country level also hides many extended periods of drought in many countries including those in the developed world (e.g. in Southwest USA and in Eastern Australia)
2. More than 40% of the world's population will live in areas experiencing high stress by 2050 (Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
3. An additional US$30 billion is needed to provide access to everyone
4. Considering only population growth, rainfall amounts per person have dropped precipitously e.g. rainfall in Pakistan provided 5,000 cubic meters of freshwater for each person in 1947. Rainfall provides less than 1,000 cubic meters for each person today.

A few other facts
1. Food production is the single consumer of freshwater supplies today - over 80% of available freshwater supplies in Asia are used for growing food.
2. China, India and the US use roughly one-third of the roughly 4,000 cubic kilometers of freshwater extracted globally each year - India uses approx 13%, China uses approx 12% while the US uses approx 9%. (source: Fourth World Water Development Report by UNESCO)
3. Food demand is expected to rise by 70% by 2050


The way forward

Technological Innovation or .....?

Squirreling May Be Ideal Fix For Freshwater Scarcity

Freshwater scarcity exists when supplies and demand don't match. Freshwater is not unique in this regard - frequent shortages exist in everything at one time or another. Hoarding for days when supplies are scare is a well known tactic.
Squirrels and Food

Source - collectiblechildrensbook.com

We are all familiar with the tales of squirrels collecting acorns, apples, nuts and other food and storing them to last all winter when no food is easily to be found. The words 'squirreling a little something' imply that something is being saved for another day or time when it will not be as readily available
Many other animals follow this practice - Dogs hide bones to be eaten when no bones are available.




Local Freshwater Storage

Source - wilsonnc.org

Humans also have a long history of storing supplies to last a full season or during times of scarcity.
The commonly visible water tank collected water for small communities and served as a reservoir for members of the community to draw water from when needed.

Holding Ponds
Source - valleywater.org

Industrial and agricultural have holding ponds that they can access in time of reduced supplies.

Source - waterhearesexpert.com

In affluent homes all over the world we have water tanks now in each house to heat and store hot water. These tanks typically hold 30 gallons but can be as large as a 100 gallons. In emergency situations, like after an earthquake, these tanks can provide necessary drinking water for a few days.

Rooftop tanks
Source - hindu.com

Developing World Solution
In the third world, where water supply is available only a few hours a day for a few days a week, people have taken local storage to a new level by storing hundreds of gallons in rooftop tanks.
These rooftop tanks have in a way turned the local water supply utility into an intermittent supplier of water.




So why isn't "local storage" one of the solutions in our quiver to counter future water shortages everywhere in the world? All that needs done is to collect the quantity of water we need, individually or on a cooperative basis, adequate for the period over which we expect not to receive water supplies in the future?

Water Resources impacted by Climate Change?

Implications of climate change on the Earth's Hydrologic Cycle are slowly coming into focus but the underlying phenomenon are still not well understood. Any assessment of climate change impact on water supplies are, thus, only our attempt to err on the 'safe' side for humanity and nature's ecosystems.


The Greenhouse Effect

Source - ucar.edu

If the greenhouse effect can be attributed to a single event, this event happened in 1988. Scientists, seeking to explain a series of unusually warm years, were able to link for the first time in 1988, the increase in atmospheric temperature to the retention of long-wave radiation (received in sunlight) in the atmosphere. Further research linked this increase in retention to an increase in greenhouse gasses that include Carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons.
(As addition of carbon dioxide fuels increase in all the greenhouse gases, we are developing ways to reduce human carbon dioxide emissions)
Predicting Climate
We all know too well how difficult it still is for us to predict tomorrow's weather. 
Our difficulty is simply due to our lack of understanding on how the vast number of processes and their feedback cycles, come together to make the weather we experience.
Climate Change
As we don't really know how to predict the impacts of climate change, we have developed the approach of trying to understand (and model) historical data on temperature rises and the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So, using the historical record as a 'given' we are measuring the increase in amount of greenhouse gases to assess what climate we should expect
Pinpointing Impacts of Climate Change
Climate change is expected to cause rapid changes in temperature, precipitation and concentrations of greenhouse gases (water and Carbon Dioxide). To predict the direction of these changes (i.e. will the result be a flood or a drought?) we make models to represent nature's complex ecosystems. The conclusions we reach are only as good (i.e. as closely representing the functioning of the ecosystem) as the models we can make.
Keeping in mind that our conclusions on the impact of climate change on water resources is only as good as the models we make, 

Rainfall is THE Concern

Source - loadstorm.com

Numerous computer model-based assessments have raised concerns of BIG changes in the amounts of rainfall.

• In high latitudes areas (in equatorial Africa and Asia, in Southeast Asia) annual rainfall is projected to dramatically increase, while in mid-latitudes and in most subtropical regions rainfall is expected to decrease. 
• A general reduction in precipitation of snow is expected to reduce the amount and duration of snow cover

Additional implications of reduced or unanticipated rainfall can also be postulated:

• If we pollute more and more water, less rainfall implies that the concentration of pollutants in our water supply will remain higher longer
• As we use an enormous volume of water to generate electricity and cool thermal power plants, any reduction in rainfall will only increase pressure on water supplies
• Current levels of irrigated food production will have inadequate amounts of irrigation water (for example, in the dry US West) leading to reduction in food supplies - some studies predict a drop in USfood production by 30% for a 3 Degree Centigrate increase in air temperature.
• And ..........

Maybe, the solution is to develop ways to extract both water vapor and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere!!

Water Defines Climate Everwhere

Water in the troposphere, the atmosphere closest to the surface, conditions the Earth. In some locations water runs the local heating system while, at the same time, it acts as the cooling system in other locations. Water has an inordinately strong effect on climate. 


What is climate?

Climate Map
Source - blueplanetbiomes.org

Climate is weather averaged over a long period of time, usually, 30 years.
In this averaging, weather is defined by many variables. The predominant variables are temperature, precipitation and wind movement.


Temperature

Air Temperature Variations
Source - griffin.uga.edu

Temperature is a measure of the 'heat' in any location.
This 'heat' is the sum of the amount of energy deposited on a place by sunlight and the amount of energy existing on Earth at that place.
Water in the atmosphere and in surface bodies acts as the controller of heat distribution around the planet.
Water in the wind moves heat from one location to another.
Ice sheets and clouds cool the Earth's surface by reflecting the heat energy back into space.
Ocean and river currents transport heat to locations far and near.


Precipitation

Source - valdosta.edu

Precipitation IS water - in every form that water exists!









Water's Venetian Blind effect

Source - b4i.ie

Water in the air (with other greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide) acts in much the same way as slats in a Venetian blind. 
The angle of each slat influences how much of the suns' heat and light enters a room. We can move the slats to form a 'closed' surface to, in effect, stop most light and heat from entering a room. We can fully 'open' the blinds to allow entry of the most amount of light and heat into a room.
In a similar way, nature manipulates the water content of air at individual locations (in conjunction with other parameters) to influence (raise and lower) in a very large way the temperature at a particular location.