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Background: Almost 70% of women residing in urban areas and 48% of women in rural areas use sanitary napkins in India. According to menstrual health alliance India (MHAI), single sanitary pad will take about 500-800 years to decompose as the plastic used in manufacturing is nonbiodegradable and causes severe noxious effects contributing to global warming through the production of planet warming fuels which eventually have severe impact on environment sustainability. Hence, the study was undertaken to contribute the evidence for the "Clean and Green India". Aim: To know the perception and practice of disposal of sanitary napkins among young college-going females in India. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted throughout the country employing a self-administered questionnaire using a survey link sent through social media. Data collected were analyzed and interpreted using SPSS version 20.0. Result: The study population comprised 484 young college girls with a mean age of 20.92 ± 1.86 years and 96.9% of them are using sanitary napkins as menstrual absorbent aids. The most common method employed for the disposal of sanitary napkins was dumping them in the bin (87.4%). About 63.2% of them had no knowledge about sanitary napkin-burning machines. Around 92% think that improper disposal of sanitary napkins can cause health problems. Conclusion: The findings from the study revealed that a significant number of women were practicing noneco-friendly disposal methods and menstrual hygiene aids which are a bane to the ecosystem. Study warrants the education and training of females to achieve a green and clean sustainable India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globe's primary issue is global warming, water temperatures have accompanied it as the sea surface temperature, and it is the primary attribute to balance the energy on the earth's surface. Sea surface temperature prediction is vital to climate forecast. Downwelling currents carry some of this heat to the ocean's bottom layers, which are also heating, covering far behind the increase in sea surface temperature. In deep learning models, the correct loss function will try to reduce the error and converge fast. The proposed improved loss function correctly estimates how close the predictions made by the long short-term memory match the observed values in the training data. This research considers location-specific sea surface temperature predictions using the improved loss function in the long short-term memory neural network at six different locations around India for daily, weekly, and monthly time horizons. Most existing research concentrated on periodic forecasts, but this paper focused on daily, weekly, and monthly predictions. The improved loss function—long short-term memory, achieved 98.7% accuracy, and this improved loss function overcomes the limitations of the existing techniques and reduces the processing time to ~ 0.35 s. In this research, the sea surface temperature prediction using the improved loss function in the long short-term memory neural network gives better results than the standard prediction models and other existing techniques by considering the long-time dependencies and obtaining features from the spatial data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial revolution and fast deforestation in 20th century pushes the earth to face climate change. Climate change became one of the most important global environmental challenges of the 21st century. Besides other weather abnormalities it is potential threat to world food security as agriculture production is directly dependent on various weather parameters. Even a small alteration in climate, adversely affects agriculture by decreasing the production. Global temperatures have already increased by 0.70°C over the past century and prediction of more rise of temperature is there. Possible changes in temperature, precipitation and CO2 concentration are expected to significantly impact crop growth. India could experience a 40% decline in agricultural productivity by the 2080s. Various food grain crops are going to affect badly under the temperature rise situation. It has been projected that under the scenario of a 2.50°C to 4.90°C temperature rise, rice yields will drop by 32% to 40% and wheat yields by 41% to 52%. This paper summarized study related to climate change projections and its impact on production of various crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) is being widely used by governments across the world as a policy tool to mitigate the catastrophic effects of global warming and climate change. However, the demand for EVs has been slow in many large automotive markets, including India. To increase the uptake of EVs in India, the central government has introduced a new consumer incentive program and a special tax rate for EVs. In this paper, we estimate the cost-effectiveness of these EV promotion programs in achieving CO2 emission reduction for each State in India. We use emission data of the chosen vehicle and CO2 emission intensity data of each State's power grid for computation. The results are then compared to other benchmark investments in climate change mitigation. The findings indicate that subsidizing EVs may not be the most cost-efficient method to achieve CO2 reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming is the average temperature of the earth's surface which has increased over the past century by about 0.6 °C. This rising temperature may vary precipitation patterns, more frequent droughts, rise in sea level and intense storms and can be termed as climate change. To understand uneven precipitation pattern for monsoon dominated region like India, there is a need to study cloud processes at high resolution with the help of cloud microphysical properties. Ocean is the major and primary source of cloud whereas local water bodies and re-evaporated water over land could be secondary source. Paper focuses over ocean (Arabian Sea) as well as over land (central India) to know the effect of global warming on cloud microphysical properties such as cloud effective radius and cloud liquid water content. Warming signal in terms of rise in sea surface temperature (0.1 °C/decade) as well as rise in surface air temperature (0.05 °C/decade) are observed over Arabian Sea and central India respectively. Satellite data show an increasing (0.5 µm/decade) trend in cloud effective radius over Arabian Sea, whereas it decreases (− 0.1 µm/decade) over central India. Increasing trend in temperature and cloud properties is may be due to warming signal. Aerosol concentration over ocean and land further helped to understand cloud processes with cloud microphysical properties. Paper will focus on the effect of warming signal in cloud properties over Arabian Sea and central India. This type of high resolution study may help to understand cloud processes which in turn may help to understand precipitation patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming is a biggest issue around the world. In this research paper, the temporal and spatial trend analysis of seasonal and annual rainfall on Bhogavo River watersheds in Sabarmati lower basin of Gujarat state of India has been analysed using the data of 11 rain gauge stations installed in Bhogavo watershed. Linear regression, Mann–Kendall Test, Sen's slope test and innovative trend analysis methods are used to carry out monthly and annual rainfall trend analysis. In addition to the rainfall analysis, a number of rainy days change in magnitude as a percentage of mean rainfall have also been analysed using linear regression and Sen's slope method, respectively. The IDW method is used to develop a spatial distribution of annual and seasonal rainfall trend over the study area. From the results, it is concluded that annual rainfall shown increasing (positive) trend at nine stations out of 11 stations. The highest value of change in magnitude of trend as a percentage of mean monthly rainfall has been obtained in the month of July, attributing increasing trend at Sayla station and lowest value magnitude of trend as a percentage of mean rainfall in the monthly rainfall has been obtained in the month of August, attributing decreasing trend at Bavla station. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Majority of the power generation in India is carried out by conventional energy sources, coal and fossil fuels being the primary ones, which contribute heavily to greenhouse gas emission and global warming. The Indian power sector is witnessing a revolution as excitement grips the nation about harnessing electricity from various renewable energy sources. Electricity generation from renewable sources is increasingly recognized to play an important role for the achievement of a variety of primary and secondary energy policy goals, such as improved diversity and security of energy supply, reduction of local pollutant and global greenhouse gas emissions, regional and rural development, and exploitation of opportunities for fostering social cohesion, value addition and employment generation at the local and regional level. This focuses the solution of the energy crisis on judicious utilization of abundant the renewable energy resources, such as biomass, solar, wind, geothermal and ocean tidal energy. This paper reviews the renewable energy scenario of India as well as extrapolates the future developments keeping in view the consumption, production and supply of power. Research, development, production and demonstration have been carried out enthusiastically in India to find a feasible solution to the perennial problem of power shortage for the past three decades. India has obtained application of a variety of renewable energy technologies for use in different sectors too. There are ample opportunities with favorable geology and geography with huge customer base and widening gap between demand and supply. Technological advancement, suitable regulatory policies, tax rebates, efficiency improvement in consequence to R&D efforts are the few pathways to energy and environment conservation and it will ensure that these large, clean resource bases are exploited as quickly and cost effectively as possible. This paper gives an overview of the potential renewable energy resources in Indian context while evaluating the present status, the energy demand of the country and forecast consumption and production, with the objective to evaluate and assess whether India can sustain its growth and its society with renewable resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impacts of global warming and local scale urbanization on precipitation are evident from observations; hence both must be considered in future projections of urban precipitation. Dynamic regional models at a fine spatial resolution can capture the signature of urbanization on precipitation, however simulations for multiple decades are computationally expensive. In contrast, statistical regional models are computationally inexpensive but incapable of assessing the impacts of urbanization due to the stationary relationship between predictors and predictand. This paper aims to develop a unique modelling framework with a demonstration for Mumbai, India, where future urbanization is projected using a Markov Chain Cellular Automata approach, long term projections with climate change impacts are performed using statistical downscaling and urban impacts are simulated with a dynamic regional model for limited number of years covering different precipitation characteristics. The evaluation of the statistical downscaling methodology over historical time period reveals large underestimation of the extreme rainfall, which is improved effectively by applying another regression model, for extreme days. The limited runs of dynamic downscaling models with different stages of urbanization for Mumbai, India, reveal spatially non uniform changes in precipitation, occurring primarily at the higher quantiles. The statistical and dynamical outputs are further integrated using quantile transformation for precipitation projection in Mumbai during 2050s. The projections show dominant impacts of urbanization compared to those from large scale changing patterns. The uniqueness of this computationally efficient framework lies in an integration of global and local factors for precipitation projections through a conjugal statistical–dynamical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to WHO (World Health Organization) data, people spend at least 80% of their lives indoors, with the percentage rising to 95% for older people with mobility impairments. Creating a thermally comfortable indoor environment is essential for improving users' productivity and well-being, particularly for those who spend maximum time indoors, such as elderly people. India's ageing population is increasing significantly; however, there is lack of studies in the field of thermal comfort for the elderly. The main aim of this paper is to determine the thermal comfort range of elderly people in residences of warm and humid climates during summers in India and to find out the adaptive actions opted by the elderly population to achieve thermal comfort. 740 responses were collected from elderly people through questionnaire surveys along with simultaneous field measurements during the summer. The linear regression analysis found the occupant's comfort temperature of 30 °C and the comfort range was found to be 28.5 °C- 31.5 °C, which was narrower than the younger people's thermal comfort studies at residences. The neutral temperature was higher for the male elderlies than the female elderlies, which was highly correlated with their clothing adjustments. The probit analysis revealed that 90% of the elderly felt comfortable when the operative temperature varied between 26.9 °C and 30.9 °C. Clothing adjustments and taking cold showers are the most preferred behavioural actions by the elderlies in summer, whereas changing the cooking time and tying up hair are the most preferred behavioural adaptations to overcome thermal discomfort for female elderlies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concern on the effect of global warming due to greenhouse gases has been increasing. Carbon dioxide is the most powerful greenhouse gas and more than 40% of its emission is from fossil fuelled power plants. So the efficient use of fossil fuel with carbon dioxide capture is the best method for achieving the energy demands with less pollutant emissions. But the conventional capture technologies are more energy intensive and cause a drop in net power production. This energy penalty can be overcome by using Chemical looping combustion technique. In this technique, combustion occurs in two reactors – Air reactor and Fuel reactor. The former is fluidised by air and the later by fuel. Metal oxides called oxygen carriers loop in between two reactors carrying oxygen and heat required for combustion to the fuel reactor. So there is no direct contact between air and fuel and results in pure combustion products- carbon dioxide and water. Therefore a separate air separation or gas separation unit is not required which are energy eating units in conventional capture methods. This work presents steady state simulations of three systems: Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plant (i) without carbon dioxide capture, (ii) with pre-combustion capture and (iii) integrated with chemical looping combustion. All the simulations are carried out using Aspen plus simulation package. High ash Indian coal is used as the fuel. The performance of each case is compared in terms of overall energy efficiency and carbon dioxide capture rate. The efficiencies of the system without capture, with looping combustion and with pre-combustion capture are found to be 42.69%, 40.2% and 35.8% respectively. The respective capture efficiencies of looping combustion and pre-combustion capture are 99.97% and 94%. It can be seen that the reduction in the overall efficiency is marginal in the case of chemical looping combustion. This shows the superiority of chemical looping combustion technique over the pre-combustion capture technique in terms of higher capture efficiency and overall plant thermal efficiency. An exergy analysis is also carried out to identify the units having higher exergy destruction rates. Parametric studies are carried out on these units to observe their effect on the overall plant performance. Thus, a process for an energy efficient and environment friendly utilization of high ash Indian coal is presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since coal will be widely used in the next decades, mainly in the developing countries such as China and India, carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies will have a key role in the containment of global warming. This paper presents a techno-economic comparison between the most promising power generation technologies for a CO 2 -free power generation in a short-term future. In particular, three different power generation technologies have been considered in their conventional (without CCS) and CO 2 -free configurations: (a) ultra supercritical (USC) pulverized coal combustion, (b) oxy-coal combustion (OCC) and (c) integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC). Process simulation, based on Aspen Plus and Gate Cycle commercial tools, allows to calculate plant performance, including the energy penalty due to the CCS system (10.9% points for USC and 8.7% points for IGCC). In parallel, a detailed economic assessment shows that, among the commercial-ready technologies, USC could be the most convenient solution for power generation without CCS (presenting a levelized cost of electricity – LCOE – of 38.6 €/MW h, significantly lower than 43.7 €/MW h of IGCC), whereas IGCC becomes competitive for CO 2 -free systems (with a LCOE of 59.6 €/MW h, to be compared with 63.4 €/MW h of USC). Moreover, oxy-coal combustion, which is currently not mature enough for commercial-scale applications, promises to become strongly competitive for CCS applications due to its relatively low levelized cost of electricity (62.8 €/MW h). This kind of analysis typically presents strong uncertainties, due to the variability of several key parameters (e.g. fuel and CCS prices, determined by the fluctuation of the international markets, or an improvement of the technologies). Therefore, a sensitivity analysis has been done to determine the effects of these potential fluctuation or the improvement on the economic performance of the plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban induced industrialization, energy consumption, carbon emission and rising percapita automobile consumption have impelled society to brace for the heat wave like conditions. Over last 50 years (1956-2005), average annual temperature worldwide has been increased by 0.13 C degrees. Post 2005 period has even faced some unprecedented heat wave conditions across the globe starting from Europe in 2003, Greece in 2006, North America, 2006, India in 2010, 2013 and 2015, Australia in 2012. In this context, this paper empirically examines the importance of such unsystematic urbanization with respect to annual temperature change in case of so-called BRICS economies. For this we have collected data ranging from 1980 to 2012 for five economies namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Data w.r.t annual temperature, urbanization, energy consumption, carbon emission and foreign direct investment are mainly collected from World Bank, EIA and UNCTAD databases. In our empirical setup, we have employed Bayer-Hanck cointegration and different structural break tests. Our long run cointegration result shows that both pollution and annual temperature changes are well cointegrated and robust enough to capture the trend of global warming and environmental changes in an economy. Further, the evidence of structural break tests in forms of Zivot-Andrews Unit Root test and Gregory-Hansen cointegration tests are applied to ensure the breakpoint. It captures the condition of relative unsustainability from the year, when urbanization has exerted significant effect upon the environmental indicators and annual temperature variation. Furthermore, we apply chow forecast test to examine the significance of structural breaks in an economy during the period. The result shows that there exists no breakpoint in all these economies except Brazil during 1990-2012 period. The main policy implication emerging out of this study is that there must be the element of sustainability in industrialization and urbanization processes of the developing economies. The developing economies primarily must adopt the short term goal in attaining sustainability in a coordinated manner and switch over to the long term goal later. All our empirical investigations have confirmed that if such unbalanced growth is not controlled, then the effect of global warming on BRICS is quite imminent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has good reasons to be concerned about climate change as it could adversely affect the achievement of vital national development goals related to socio-economic development, human welfare, health, energy availability and use, and infrastructure. The paper attempts to develop a framework for integrated impact assessment and adaptation responses, using a recently built railroad coastal infrastructure asset in India as an example. The framework links climate change variables — temperature, rainfall, sea level rise, extreme events, and other secondary variables — and sustainable development variables — technology, institutions, economic, and other policies. The study indicates that sustainable development variables generally reduce the adverse impacts on the system due to climate change alone, except when they are inadequately applied. The paper concludes that development is a vital variable for integrated impact assessment. Well crafted developmental policies could result in a less-GHG intensive future, enhanced adaptive capacities of communities and systems, and lower impacts due to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standing and competitiveness of a country is largely determined by how the development and growth of its cities are managed. This paper examines the existing environmental situation in Indian cities with the objective of focusing on the emerging urban environmental crisis, which is receiving far less attention than issues such as global warming or the scarcity of water resources. Other important issue often overlooked while discussing the degradation of city environments are the roles of urban governance and city management. This paper is an attempt to critically analyze the role of urban governance in improving the city environment. It is argued that the present environmental crisis can be averted by a serious effort to redefine the roles of various institutions which govern the city and organizations that provide urban services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The increasing global warming is most likely to affect the magnitude and pattern of wind at a regional level and such an effect may or not follow the trend predicted at the global scale. Regional level exercises are therefore necessary while making decisions related to engineering infrastructure. In this paper an attempt is made to know the extent of change in design as well as operational wind conditions at two offshore locations along the west coast of India. The design wind speeds with return periods of 10, 50 and 100 years derived for two 30-year time slices in the past and future are compared. In two separate exercises the past and future wind at the local level is simulated by empirical downscaling as well as by interpolation of the general circulation model (GCM) output. Both sets of past and future data are fitted to the Generalized Pareto as well as Weibull distributions using the peak over threshold method to extract long term wind speeds with a specified return. It is noticed that at the given locations the operational and design wind may undergo an increase of around 11%–14% when no downscaling is adopted and 14%–17% when the GCM data are downscaled. Although these figures may suffer from a certain level of statistical uncertainty the study points out to take a relook into the safety margins kept in the design and operation of ocean structures in the light of global warming. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The story of Jatropha curcas (Jatropha) was started in 2003 when the Planning Commission of India decided 20% blending of Jatropha oil (biodiesel) in petroleum diesel by 2010 and 30% by the year 2030. After that China, Japan, Belgium, Brazil, Tanzania, Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, and East and South Africa have set their own plans to blend Jatropha oil in petroleum diesel. It is not unexpected that almost every paper about Jatropha starts its introduction with the energy, environment and economic benefits and wishful thinking of reducing global warming. Unfortunately, Jatropha could not succeed so far in energy sector as expected, for which it was the most popularized energy crop. Many of the actual investments and policy decisions on Jatropha have convincingly been made without any scientific and technological backup. It has become clear that the positive claims on Jatropha are numerous which have popularized it as a potential source in biodiesel production but many of them still remain as theoretical assumptions and have not been verified yet practically. This letter reports briefly the status of past hopes to ground reality on the basis of what a few scientific studies on Jatropha. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Global warming, depletion of fossil fuel and increasing demand for energy have led to the substantial interest in developing alternate energy sources, especially biodiesel. First generation biofuels produced from food crops and oil seeds are limited to achieve targets for biodiesel production. Second generation biofuel produced from non-food feed stock such as microalgae provides various potential advantages for biofuel production when compared with first generation biofuels. This paper investigates the possible use of microalgae for biofuel production on the selected potential sites in the country. Algal biomass and oil yield for the selected sites are predicted using the analytical method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) can affect the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) state of the following year, in addition to the well-known preconditioning by equatorial Pacific Warm Water Volume (WWV), as suggested by a study based on observations over the recent satellite era (1981-2009). The present paper explores the interdecadal robustness of this result over the 1872-2008 period. To this end, we develop a robust IOD index, which well exploits sparse historical observations in the tropical Indian Ocean, and an efficient proxy of WWV interannual variations based on the temporal integral of Pacific zonal wind stress (of a historical atmospheric reanalysis). A linear regression hindcast model based on these two indices in boreal fall explains 50 % of ENSO peak variance 14 months later, with significant contributions from both the IOD and WWV over most of the historical period and a similar skill for El Niño and La Niña events. Our results further reveal that, when combined with WWV, the IOD index provides a larger ENSO hindcast skill improvement than the Indian Ocean basin-wide mode, the Indian Monsoon or ENSO itself. Based on these results, we propose a revised scheme of Indo-Pacific interactions. In this scheme, the IOD-ENSO interactions favour a biennial timescale and interact with the slower recharge-discharge cycle intrinsic to the Pacific Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the structural aspects of climate vulnerabilities in the context of monsoon failures. The paper is based on a unique household survey, conducted in Tamil Nadu, India. The study uses a rural differentiation framework to interrogate unequal vulnerabilities to monsoon failures, based on measures such as Gini coefficients and Lorenz curves of monetary losses. Results show that negative consequences of climate change in general, and monsoon failures in particular, intensify pre-existing socio-economic disparities. When the rural differentiation theory is applied in a broader sense, the analysis shows that landed and farming households have greater exposure and losses. When we move beyond these aggregate categories, the revelation is that households with pre-existing disadvantages such as marginal landholders, subsistence farmers and agricultural workers are more vulnerable. • Global warming affects agriculture in South Asia in a major way through monsoon failures. • Vulnerability to monsoon failures can be measured by associated monetary losses. • These losses are highly unevenly distributed, pointing to significant inequality in impacts. • Landless households, marginal holders and subsistence farmers have higher losses. • Climate change intensifies existing structural disadvantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to evaluate and examine the validity of global warming at local or regional level. The phenomenon of global warming is of great importance and a very challenging one at present time. Thus, the need arises to study it at micro and meso-levels; as such a study will help in making plans to protect human and other living things from various impacts of climate change. After studying the variations in monthly temperatures in the State of Manipur of the Republic of India, and analyzing the warming trends, it has been found that the rise of mean temperature is mainly due to an increase in the minimum temperature in the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pongamia pinnata is one of the promising tree species suitable for providing oil for biodiesel production. This paper addresses the life cycle energy balance, global warming potential and acidification potential, of a small scale biodiesel system, in rural Karnataka. In addition, the system has also been expanded to generation and use of biogas from seed cake for electricity production and evaluated for its environmental impacts. The environmental impacts have been benchmarked with the life cycle impacts of fossil diesel. The results show that non-renewable energy requirement of Pongamia biodiesel system is twenty-eight times lower than that of fossil diesel. A significant increase in global warming potential (GWP) is indicated in Pongamia biodiesel system compared to fossil diesel if wood is used as fuel. GWP would be seven times less if wood is not used as fuel. Acidification and eutrophication potential of Pongamia system was found to be nil. Further, expanding the Pongamia biodiesel system to include biogas production exploits the energy available in the system. It is also observed that one hectare of Pongamia plantation is capable of completely sequestering the CO2 released during the life cycle with additional sequestration potential up to 1 t CO2 ha-1. Moreover, the above aspects were significantly superior in Pongamia system when compared to Jatropha biodiesel system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant fraction of interannual variability (IAV) of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) is known to be governed by 'internal' dynamics arising from interactions between high-frequency fluctuations and the annual cycle. While several studies indicate that monsoon intraseasonal oscillations (MISOs) are at the heart of such internal IAV of the monsoon, the exact mechanism through which MISOs influence the seasonal mean monsoon IAV has remained elusive so far. Here it is proposed that exchange of kinetic energy (KE) between the seasonal mean and MISOs provides a conceptual framework for understanding the role of intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs) in causing IAV and interdecadal variability (IDV) of the ISM. The rate of KE exchange between seasonal mean and ISOs is calculated in frequency domain for each Northern Hemispheric summer season over the ISM domain, using 44 yr of the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) data. The seasonal mean KE and the rate of KE exchange between seasonal mean and ISO shows a significant relationship at both the 850- and 200-hPa pressure levels. Since the rate of KE exchange between seasonal mean and ISO is found to be independent of known external forcing, the variability in seasonal mean KE arising from this exchange process can be considered as an internal component explaining about 20% of IAV and about 50% of IDV. Contrary to the many modeling studies attributing the weakening of tropical circulation to the stabilization of the atmosphere by global warming, this paper provides an alternative view that internal dynamics arising from scale interactions might be playing a significant role in determining the decreasing strength of the monsoon circulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The surface ozone levels in some Indian cities have increased significantly in the recent years. Ozone being toxic to the living system and an important contributor to anthropogenic global warming, enhanced surface ozone may have adverse effects on the air quality and climate. Transport of ozone from the stratosphere to the troposphere causes stratospheric ozone to decrease and tropospheric ozone to increase, which can in turn have serious consequences for life on earth. Since stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE) is an important factor influencing the ozone concentration in the troposphere, this paper investigates probably for the first time the possible contribution of STE events to the observed enhanced surface ozone levels for cities covering from north to south of India. It is concluded that apart from transport processes and in situ photochemical production, STE also influences the observed high-surface ozone levels in Indian cities to a small extent (8%-16%). STE events producing high-surface ozone levels are found to be higher at high latitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Carbon sequestration in tropical soils has potential for mitigating global warming and increasing agricultural productivity. We analyzed 26 long-term experiments (LTEs) in different agro-climatic zones (ACZs) of India to assess the potential and cost of C sequestration. Data on initial and final soil organic C (SOC) concentration in the recommended N, P and K (NPK); recommended N, P and K plus farmyard manure (NPK+FYM) and unfertilized (control) treatments were used to calculate carbon sequestration potential (CSP) i.e., capacity to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) by increasing SOC stock, under different nutrient management scenarios. In most of the LTEs wheat equivalent yields were higher in the NPK+FYM treatment than the NPK treatment. However, partial factor productivity (PFP) was more with the NPK treatment. Average SOC concentration of the control treatment was 0.54%, which increased to 0.65% in the NPK treatment and 0.82% in the NPK+FYM treatment. Compared to the control treatment the NPK+FYM treatment sequestered 0.33MgCha−1 yr−1 whereas the NPK treatment sequestered 0.16MgCha−1 yr−1. The CSP in different nutrient management scenarios ranged from 2.1 to 4.8MgCha−1 during the study period (average 16.9 yr) of the LTEs. In 17 out of 26 LTEs, the NPK+FYM treatment had higher SOC and also higher net return than that of the NPK treatment. In the remaining 9 LTEs SOC sequestration in the NPK+FYM treatment was accomplished with decreased net return suggesting that these are economically not attractive and farmers have to incur into additional cost to achieve C sequestration. The feasibility of SOC sequestration in terms of availability of FYM and other organic sources has been discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of environmental condition on the desired performance of trans-critical CO2 refrigeration system in typical Indian conditions. Environmental concerns and enactments of Montreal and Kyoto Protocol for sustainable growth enforce research for ecologically safe and natural refrigerants and cost effective designs of refrigeration systems. Carbon dioxide is one of the rediscovered sustainable options, as CFCs and HFCs are now in the list of regulated substances and are gradually to be phased out. Success of CO2 as a refrigerant demand, cost effective and widely acceptable technology operatable at various environmental conditions. In this work various issues of gas cooler design is analyzed for Trans-critical CO2 refrigeration system for major cities of India with their outside design conditions. An idealized steady state energy model is developed to predict and analyze the performance of the system for different temperature zones in major cities across India. This study leads to formulate the guidelines for design of commercial and large capacity trans-critical refrigeration systems which need to be tuned to region wise varying environment conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, traditional values as well as the timeless way of building compact residential environments is now threatened by new and foreign influences from the Occident. These influences are incompatible with the climate of the country and traditional culture of its people. [Schoenauer N. 6000 Years of Housing. W.W. Norton, New York, 2000]In the context of the worldwide concern for global warming and a need for reduced carbon emissions, increased energy efficiency, reduced waste and need for alternative sources of energy; this paper reviews passive design strategies that were used in the traditional buildings across India and assess their potential in modern design. This study offers a classification of vernacular environmental design traditions across the subcontinent based on the Koppen–Grieger climatic regions and a detailed study of thermal comfort in traditional and modern dwellings, in two of the eight regions, using environmental performance modelling. The results show that traditional passive techniques provide a high degree of comfort for a longer part of the day while potentially minimizing energy use. Some problems were identified in adopting the passive strategies to the present context. For example, there are limitations in the use of traditional building materials, such as, earth, but suitable alternatives with similar properties can be readily adapted to the same effect. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper surveys the energy problem in relation to global warming and the social criteria of India. India's failure to develop a policy on global warming is highlighted and her economic policy judged in relation to her energy options, including such notable work as jatropha development and nuclear energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper, a cross correlation between the global temperature anomalies and the SENSEX fluctuations in India for a period from 2005 to 2016 has been studied. The two time series selected for the present analysis are both inherently non-linear and a very efficient non-linear technique Multifractal detrended cross correlation analysis (MF-DXA) has been applied. The basic idea behind this analysis has originated from the fact that weather conditions affect the moods and emotional states of an individual which influence the decision taking ability of an individual. The psychologists over the years from their researches and experiences have observed that the human psychology is possibly influenced by the weather conditions. In this regard, several research works have been performed to explore the influence of the different weather variables like, temperature, cloud cover, rain, humidity, wind speed on the moods of the investors which in turn affect the rise and fall of the stock returns. With this in view, the influence of global warming in terms of the global temperature anomalies on the fluctuations of the SENSEX values of India has been examined. The observed positive values of the global temperature anomalies is a clear manifestation of the Global warming. The SENSEX or the Sensitive Index is regarded as the prime indicator of the Indian Stock Market which correctly gauges the performances of the Indian Stock Market. The result obtained shows that the value of the cross correlation coefficient is γ X = -0.46 ± 0.01, which confirms the fact that the two time series are strongly cross correlated. • Study of Cross correlation between temperature anomalies and SENSEX fluctuations. • Multifractal detrended cross correlation analysis (MF-DXA) has been applied. • The cross correlation coefficient has the value γ X = −0.46 ± 0.01. • The low negative value of between the two series γ X confirms strong cross correlation between the two series. • The spectral width ( W X = 0.46 ± 0.02) shows that the cross correlation is multifractal in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]