الحازم2006
16/11/2008, 09:30 AM
جريدة الرياض اليومية
الأحد18 ذي القعدة 1429هـ - 16 نوفمبر 2008م - العدد 14755
سحابة "براون" تتحرك من آسيا إلى الجزيرة العربية مهددةالمحاصيل
حذرت الأمم المتحدة من سحابة سميكة بنية اللون تتكون من موادكيميائية ملوثة يتجاوز سمكها ثلاثة كيلومترات تمتد من الخليج العربي إلى شرقي آسياوتهدد الإمدادات الغذائية والصحة في العالم، وأكد المصدر أنها تستطيع التحرك بينالقارات خلال أربعة أيام وان تصل إلى الشرق الأوسط.
وقال تقرير برنامج الأمم المتحدة للبيئة الذي صدر الخميس الماضي "ونشر على موقعالهيئة على الانترنت" ان مركز السحابة التي يطلق عليها "براون" هو كوريا الجنوبية،والقادرة على الانتقال والانتشار فوق بحر اليابان، وأوضحت المصادر أن حجم السحابةيبلغ ثلاثة كيلومترات وأنها تستطيع الوصول إلى منطقة الشرق الأوسط خلال أيام، وحذرالتقرير من أن هذه السحابة أحدث خطر على البيئة العالمية لما تحتويه من ملوثاتكيميائية عالية السمية، مثل السخام البني وغيره من الملوثات المعلقة فوق آسيا وتلقيبظلال قاتمة على المدن، مما يسفر عن تضرر الآلاف وتدمير المحاصيل. وأشار التقريرإلى أن المدن الكبرى في آسيا شهدت سحبا سوداء، منها بكين وشنغهاي وبانكوك ومومبايونيودلهي، كما شهدتها أيضا العاصمة المصرية القاهرة حيث يعتم الجو وينخفض الضوء إلى 25% في بعض الأماكن. وقال وكيل الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة والمدير التنفيذيلبرنامج الأمم المتحدة للبيئة أكيم شتاينر تخيل للحظة سحابة بسمك ثلاثة كيلومتراتمن السخام والجسيمات السامة، وهي مزيج من المواد الكيميائية التي تمتد من آسيا إلىشبه الجزيرة العربية.
وأشار العلماء إلى ان السحابة الهائلة يمكن أن تتحرك عبر القارات في غضون ثلاثةإلى أربعة أيام، محذرين أنها ليست مجرد قضية إقليمية ولكنها عالمية. وقال "فيرباهندران راماثان" من معهد سكريبس لعلم المحيطات في جامعة كاليفورنيا في ساندييغو إن الرسالة الرئيسية هي أن هناك مشكلة عالمية، وليست من النوع الذي يتم توجيهأصابع الاتهام فيه إلى جيراننا أو لشخص آخر لأن الأمر يهم الجميع.
رابط الخبر : http://www.alriyadh.com/2008/11/16/article388300.html (http://www.alriyadh.com/2008/11/16/article388300.html)
هذا الخبر من موقع جريدة الرياض اليوميةwww.alriyadh.com (http://www.alriyadh.com/)
جميع الحقوق محفوظة لمؤسسة اليمامة الصحفية 2008تصميم وتطوير وتنفيذ إدارةالخدمات الإلكترونية
UN: Clouds of pollution threaten glaciers, health
By TINI TRAN and JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writers Tini Tran And John Heilprin, Associated Press WritersThu Nov 13, 6:25 pm ET
BEIJING – A dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies not only over vast areas of Asia, but also in the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, changing weather patterns around the world and threatening health and food supplies, the U.N. reported Thursday.
The huge smog-like plumes, caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and firewood, are known as "atmospheric brown clouds."
When mixed with emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for warming the earth's atmosphere like a greenhouse, they are the newest threat to the global environment, according to a report commissioned by the U.N. Environment Program.
"All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to look at emissions across the planet," said Achim Steiner, head of Kenya-based UNEP, which funded the report with backing from Italy, Sweden and the United States.
Brown clouds are caused by an unhealthy mix of particles, ozone and other chemicals that come from cars, coal-fired power plants, burning fields and wood-burning stoves. First identified by the report's lead researcher in 1990, the clouds were depicted Thursday as being more widespread and causing more environmental damage than previously known.
Perhaps most widely recognized as the haze this past summer over Beijing's Olympics, the clouds have been found to be more than a mile thick around glaciers in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush mountain ranges. They hide the sun and absorb radiation, leading to new worries not only about global climate change but also about extreme weather conditions.
"All these have led to negative effects on water resources and crop yields," the report says.
Health problems associated with particulate pollution, such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, are linked to nearly 350,000 premature deaths in China and India every year, said Henning Rohde, a University of Stockholm scientist who worked on the study.
Soot levels in the air were reported to have risen alarmingly in 13 megacities: Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran.
Brown clouds were also cited as dimming the light by as much as 25 percent in some places including Karachi, New Delhi, Shanghai and Beijing.
The phenomenon complicates the climate change scenario, because the brown clouds also help cool the earth's surface and mask the impact of global warming by an average of 40 percent, according to the report.
Though it has been studied closely in Asia, the latest findings, conducted by an international collaboration of scientists, reveal that the brown cloud phenomenon is not unique to Asia, with pollution hotspots seen in North America, Europe, South Africa and South America.
More specifically, researchers found, brown clouds are forming over eastern China; northeastern Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar; Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam; sub-Saharan Africa southward into Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe; and the Amazon Basin in South America.
The enormous cloud masses can move across continents within three to four days. Although they also form over the eastern U.S. and Europe, winter snow and rain tend to lessen the impact in those areas.
An international response is needed to deal with "the twin threats of greenhouse gases and brown clouds and the unsustainable development that underpins both," said the lead researcher, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate and ocean sciences at the University of California in San Diego.
One of the most serious problems, Ramanathan said, is retreat of the glaciers in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush and in Tibet. The glaciers feed most Asian rivers and "have serious implications for the water and food security of Asia," he said.
Monsoon rains over India and southeast Asia decreased between 5 and 7 percent overall since the 1950s, the report says, naming brown clouds and global warming as a possible cause. Likewise, they may have contributed to the melting of China's glaciers, which have shrunk 5 percent since the 1950s. The volume of China's nearly 47,000 glaciers has fallen by 3,000 square kilometers (1,158.31 square miles) in the past 25 years, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Soot winds up on the surface of the glaciers that feed the Ganges, Indus, Yangtze and Yellow rivers, which makes the glaciers absorb more sunlight and melt more quickly and also pollutes the rivers, the researchers say.
But the U.N., which began studying the problem six years ago, still finds "significant uncertainty" in understanding how brown clouds affect conditions regionally, Ramanathan cautioned.
___
Associated Press Writer John Heilprin contributed to this report from the United Nations.
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
نرجو التأكد من الخبر اخواني
وعسى الله ان يلطف بنا
الأحد18 ذي القعدة 1429هـ - 16 نوفمبر 2008م - العدد 14755
سحابة "براون" تتحرك من آسيا إلى الجزيرة العربية مهددةالمحاصيل
حذرت الأمم المتحدة من سحابة سميكة بنية اللون تتكون من موادكيميائية ملوثة يتجاوز سمكها ثلاثة كيلومترات تمتد من الخليج العربي إلى شرقي آسياوتهدد الإمدادات الغذائية والصحة في العالم، وأكد المصدر أنها تستطيع التحرك بينالقارات خلال أربعة أيام وان تصل إلى الشرق الأوسط.
وقال تقرير برنامج الأمم المتحدة للبيئة الذي صدر الخميس الماضي "ونشر على موقعالهيئة على الانترنت" ان مركز السحابة التي يطلق عليها "براون" هو كوريا الجنوبية،والقادرة على الانتقال والانتشار فوق بحر اليابان، وأوضحت المصادر أن حجم السحابةيبلغ ثلاثة كيلومترات وأنها تستطيع الوصول إلى منطقة الشرق الأوسط خلال أيام، وحذرالتقرير من أن هذه السحابة أحدث خطر على البيئة العالمية لما تحتويه من ملوثاتكيميائية عالية السمية، مثل السخام البني وغيره من الملوثات المعلقة فوق آسيا وتلقيبظلال قاتمة على المدن، مما يسفر عن تضرر الآلاف وتدمير المحاصيل. وأشار التقريرإلى أن المدن الكبرى في آسيا شهدت سحبا سوداء، منها بكين وشنغهاي وبانكوك ومومبايونيودلهي، كما شهدتها أيضا العاصمة المصرية القاهرة حيث يعتم الجو وينخفض الضوء إلى 25% في بعض الأماكن. وقال وكيل الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة والمدير التنفيذيلبرنامج الأمم المتحدة للبيئة أكيم شتاينر تخيل للحظة سحابة بسمك ثلاثة كيلومتراتمن السخام والجسيمات السامة، وهي مزيج من المواد الكيميائية التي تمتد من آسيا إلىشبه الجزيرة العربية.
وأشار العلماء إلى ان السحابة الهائلة يمكن أن تتحرك عبر القارات في غضون ثلاثةإلى أربعة أيام، محذرين أنها ليست مجرد قضية إقليمية ولكنها عالمية. وقال "فيرباهندران راماثان" من معهد سكريبس لعلم المحيطات في جامعة كاليفورنيا في ساندييغو إن الرسالة الرئيسية هي أن هناك مشكلة عالمية، وليست من النوع الذي يتم توجيهأصابع الاتهام فيه إلى جيراننا أو لشخص آخر لأن الأمر يهم الجميع.
رابط الخبر : http://www.alriyadh.com/2008/11/16/article388300.html (http://www.alriyadh.com/2008/11/16/article388300.html)
هذا الخبر من موقع جريدة الرياض اليوميةwww.alriyadh.com (http://www.alriyadh.com/)
جميع الحقوق محفوظة لمؤسسة اليمامة الصحفية 2008تصميم وتطوير وتنفيذ إدارةالخدمات الإلكترونية
UN: Clouds of pollution threaten glaciers, health
By TINI TRAN and JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writers Tini Tran And John Heilprin, Associated Press WritersThu Nov 13, 6:25 pm ET
BEIJING – A dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies not only over vast areas of Asia, but also in the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, changing weather patterns around the world and threatening health and food supplies, the U.N. reported Thursday.
The huge smog-like plumes, caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and firewood, are known as "atmospheric brown clouds."
When mixed with emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for warming the earth's atmosphere like a greenhouse, they are the newest threat to the global environment, according to a report commissioned by the U.N. Environment Program.
"All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to look at emissions across the planet," said Achim Steiner, head of Kenya-based UNEP, which funded the report with backing from Italy, Sweden and the United States.
Brown clouds are caused by an unhealthy mix of particles, ozone and other chemicals that come from cars, coal-fired power plants, burning fields and wood-burning stoves. First identified by the report's lead researcher in 1990, the clouds were depicted Thursday as being more widespread and causing more environmental damage than previously known.
Perhaps most widely recognized as the haze this past summer over Beijing's Olympics, the clouds have been found to be more than a mile thick around glaciers in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush mountain ranges. They hide the sun and absorb radiation, leading to new worries not only about global climate change but also about extreme weather conditions.
"All these have led to negative effects on water resources and crop yields," the report says.
Health problems associated with particulate pollution, such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, are linked to nearly 350,000 premature deaths in China and India every year, said Henning Rohde, a University of Stockholm scientist who worked on the study.
Soot levels in the air were reported to have risen alarmingly in 13 megacities: Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran.
Brown clouds were also cited as dimming the light by as much as 25 percent in some places including Karachi, New Delhi, Shanghai and Beijing.
The phenomenon complicates the climate change scenario, because the brown clouds also help cool the earth's surface and mask the impact of global warming by an average of 40 percent, according to the report.
Though it has been studied closely in Asia, the latest findings, conducted by an international collaboration of scientists, reveal that the brown cloud phenomenon is not unique to Asia, with pollution hotspots seen in North America, Europe, South Africa and South America.
More specifically, researchers found, brown clouds are forming over eastern China; northeastern Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar; Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam; sub-Saharan Africa southward into Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe; and the Amazon Basin in South America.
The enormous cloud masses can move across continents within three to four days. Although they also form over the eastern U.S. and Europe, winter snow and rain tend to lessen the impact in those areas.
An international response is needed to deal with "the twin threats of greenhouse gases and brown clouds and the unsustainable development that underpins both," said the lead researcher, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate and ocean sciences at the University of California in San Diego.
One of the most serious problems, Ramanathan said, is retreat of the glaciers in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush and in Tibet. The glaciers feed most Asian rivers and "have serious implications for the water and food security of Asia," he said.
Monsoon rains over India and southeast Asia decreased between 5 and 7 percent overall since the 1950s, the report says, naming brown clouds and global warming as a possible cause. Likewise, they may have contributed to the melting of China's glaciers, which have shrunk 5 percent since the 1950s. The volume of China's nearly 47,000 glaciers has fallen by 3,000 square kilometers (1,158.31 square miles) in the past 25 years, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Soot winds up on the surface of the glaciers that feed the Ganges, Indus, Yangtze and Yellow rivers, which makes the glaciers absorb more sunlight and melt more quickly and also pollutes the rivers, the researchers say.
But the U.N., which began studying the problem six years ago, still finds "significant uncertainty" in understanding how brown clouds affect conditions regionally, Ramanathan cautioned.
___
Associated Press Writer John Heilprin contributed to this report from the United Nations.
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
نرجو التأكد من الخبر اخواني
وعسى الله ان يلطف بنا