Says Prof. Yoav Yair, head of the School of Sustainability at the Interdisciplinary Center, in an interview with the Hidan website. According to him, Israel should wean itself from oil and gas and switch to renewable energies, in order to help stop the deterioration * Agrees with the assessment that the crisis in Syria is due to climate change
"The dust storm occurring in recent days in Israel and its surroundings is indeed unusual, although it should be expected that with the increase in climate change in the future such storms will not be rare." This is what Prof. Yoav Yair, head of the School of Sustainability at the Open University and a long-time researcher of the Earth's atmosphere, says in an interview with the scientist website - when he was one of the leaders of the MADEX experiment carried out by the late Ilan Ramon on the Columbia shuttle. He is being interviewed from Copenhagen where he is accompanying a Danish astronaut who is conducting a similar experiment to search for "elves" and other electrical phenomena that come out of lightning storms towards the upper atmosphere. See a separate news about this below.
The subject of dust storms is at the heart of Prof. Yair's research: "I study the electrical effects of dust storms. There is a scientific mystery related to dust storms - we see that during dust storms the electric field near the surface is 70 times stronger than its strength on normal days. I researched the dust storm we experienced about six months ago on February 11-10, 2015. That storm came from Sinai and caused two days of yellow skies, but that February storm, the results of which I have already analyzed with my students, pales in comparison to the current storm. The amounts of dust are large and rare concentration levels were recorded."
It is impossible to define the current event as a storm, because the dust rose up from the deserts of eastern Syria and northern Iraq and remained stable above us because the winds are weak easterly winds and a storm is defined according to the speed of the winds: "These areas have experienced several droughts in recent years, so it is no wonder that the upper layer of the soil is dry and blown away easily into the atmosphere".
The connection between global warming and the crisis in Syria and Iraq
"Climate change is pushing geopolitical changes. All the riots in Syria started because of the increase in the price of bread in Deraa. The connection to warming is clear - when the climate dries out, there is not enough water to grow wheat. All these things are the result of regional climate change. For those who look at the maps, the crises and civil wars in Syria and Iraq did not come as a surprise. About two weeks ago I attended a joint Israeli-Italian conference at the Israeli Pavilion at the Expo in Milan (dealing with the issues of water, food and energy) about what is expected of us in the next twenty years. It will be drier, it will rain less, there will be more heat waves and we will probably also experience more dust storms."
What needs to be done is to stop thinking that our salvation will come from gas. Our salvation is in renewable energy - in Israel it is mostly solar energy. We need to wean ourselves off the dependence on fossil fuels that we have been addicted to for over a century. The year 2015 is a key year in this regard because of the COP 21 agreement that is going to be signed in Paris in December. This agreement is going to replace the Kyoto Treaty and the failed Copenhagen Accords, the world is going to change because for the first time in history both the Americans and the Chinese are ready to commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and completely changing the energy economy. It's going to happen. The country where I am now (Denmark) has determined that by the year 2020 its entire energy economy will be based on renewable energies - sun, wind and water. They don't want to depend on anyone for a drop of oil. That's where the world is going. We can expect weather events like the dust storm, not to happen once in 75 years as I read on one of the sites today but much more often.
In conclusion, Prof. Yair said that this year will be a particularly crazy year: "We are in an unusual year climatically because of the new El Nino, expect surprises."
More of the topic in Hayadan:
4 תגובות
The crisis in Syria stems from the fact that for decades the wonderful regime there has used the little oil they have for everything possible except improving the infrastructure of the residents. In the meantime, the population grew on few resources and one economic crisis tipped the whole scale. What started with individual demonstrations developed into a complete rebellion.
Weather was a negligible factor in this equation.
And regarding the haze...someone should explain to the scholars here, where did all the sand originally come to Israel, because the source of all the fine sand, the one we know from the dunes that still remain here, is all because of the Sahara.
What we had this time that was unusual was a combination of haze with extremely unusual weather conditions and humidity. This is not the first time we have had such sandstorms here, and it will not be the last. They almost always come with dryness.
There is no connection between this sandstorm and haze like the Chinese have, for example, which is purely a product of pollution.
Another thing about sandstorms, as an example of the great plains in the United States, is a product of excessive desertification that does not exactly exist in this area.
The upcoming Paris conference is going to be significant, as written, and we call on the president of the country to participate in it and present good goals for Israel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and expand renewable energy.
http://www.green.org.il/nasiyarok
Global warming
causes them to change (seasonally) in the direction and strength of the winds,
Changes that allowed dust from northern Syria to reach our environment,
The dust was created due to local conditions in northern/eastern Syria:
In recent years, there has been a severe drought that has damaged the crops in the fields,
Also, fields are drying up due to lack of water in the Euphrates River
Lack caused by the dam(s) built in Turkey,
The drought and the lack of water caused the mass abandonment of agricultural fields
Abandonment accelerated by the wars,
the dry plains that were abandoned by tanks and vehicles
They pick up the dust carried by the winds
and covers us.
In addition to global warming that causes changes in wind directions and strength,
There are at least two significant factors for the cloud of dust that settled on us,
1 - The fact that in northeastern Syria there has been a severe drought for years no.
2 - the huge reduction in the flow of the Euphrates River - because of the Turkish dam,
Drought and lack of water from the Euphrates caused fields to be abandoned
and extensive drying up of agricultural areas,
The dry plains are "ploughed" by tanks and vehicles
that raise clouds of sand and dust that "embrace" us...