Geoengineering Earth's Climate

This has been a crazy winter. One day it's in the 50s (Fahrenheit) and the next it's 16. Or 4 degrees which, with windchills, starts feeling like minus 20! In short, this is perfect weather for hunkering down with hot coffee and a book about climate change.

Geoengineering Climate Change
by Jennifer Swanson
96 pages; ages 8-12
Twenty-First Century Books, 2017

Floods! Tornadoes! Super-hurricanes! Blizzards! Wildfires! Mudslides! These weather events and catastrophes have been increasing in the past couple decades and are related to climate change caused by a warming earth. Most scientists agree that human activity - primarily burning fossil fuels - is responsible. And of we don't take action to prevent further warming, we'll see even more drastic changes.

What can we do? The most obvious solution would be to stop burning fossil fuels. But some engineers propose we tackle the problem with ... engineering. The propose constructing large-scale technologies to counteract climate change. Installations that would physically remove carbon from the air, or sequester carbon somehow. Some engineers propose crating artificial clouds to shade the earth, or send mirrors into space to reflect sunlight. Or shooting salt into clouds to make it rain.

Sounds farfetched, right? But scientists and agencies are already studying whether cloud-seeding is an effective way of manipulating where and when rain or snow falls. The problem: seeding clouds in one place can result in rain miles away, where it's not needed. Still, China used cloud-seeding to maintain clear skies for the 2008 Olympics, Swanson writes.

As for carbon sequestration - why not simply plant more trees, and protect forests from clear-cutting? The amount of trees cut every year in tropical rainforests would, if left in place, absorb up to 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide. Left in place they also protect against erosion and provide habitat. There are other, less technical "engineered" solutions, too. Painting roads and rooftops white would reflect the sun's rays. Planting more trees along roadways would shade and offer flood mitigation.

Swanson notes there are some sustainable things we can do right now to help mitigate climate change. In addition to planting trees we can insulate our homes and schools so they require less energy to heat and cool. We can conserve the energy we use by driving less, sharing rides, walking, and riding bikes. We can promote local renewable energy projects. And a big one: use less plastic. That's because the production of plastic uses fossil fuels.

Back matter includes a great list of books for further reading and websites where you can learn more about projects around the world.

Today we're joining the STEM Friday roundup - Review copy from the publisher

Eye of the Storm

In the United States, 10 million people live in hurricane danger zones. Given the storms of the past few weeks, I figured now would be the perfect time to introduce Amy Cherrix's book - released this spring.

Eye of the Storm: NASA, drones, and the race to crack the hurricane code (Scientists in the Field Series)
by Amy Sherrix
80 pages; ages 10-14
HMH, 2017

Cherrix is no stranger to hurricanes, having survived the devastation of four major storms. So her first chapter, a story of a family caught by Hurricane Sandy (October, 2012) tingles with true life fight for survival.

Sandy, you may recall, was a "frankenstorm" - a combined hurricane-snowstorm. Thought it was classified as a category 1 hurricane (Irma was category 5, Harvey a category 4) it was much larger. Sandy measured 1100 miles across and affected 24 states, from Maine to Florida and as far west as Michigan and Wisconsin. While the coast suffered from rain and storm surge, inland areas were buried in three feet of snow.

The thing is, meteorologists can, using weather satellites and early warning systems, see hurricanes taking shape days - sometimes weeks - before they make landfall. Cherrix introduces us to the researchers behind the science and tools that meteorologists depend on. But first, she gives us a physics lesson in hurricane formation.

Did you know that Atlantic hurricanes are "born" in the driest place on earth? They come from the Sahara Desert, and some of that desert dust may affect the intensity of the hurricane. Cyclonic storms are forming all around the earth all times of the year. We may not be able to stop them from forming, says Cherrix, but we can certainly learn more about how they grow and change. And while she points out that we can't control the force (or intensity) of these storms, there are some who say that our contributions to climate change has done just that. "A warming planet means wetter storms, higher storm surges and more intense hurricanes, according to NASA's Earth Observatory," explains a recent article in the Houston Chronicle. 

Eye of the Storm reads like a science adventure. We meet the scientists who follow the data that their probes send back. Some of those are dropsondes, probes that fall through the storm and measure pressure, temperature, humidity, wind speed, and gps locations. They also send out thousands of rapid light pulses each second that scatter off particles in the storm and are bounced back to an instrument that reads the data. There are drone pilots on the ground and an in-air pilot to keep an eye in the sky.

At the end, Cherrix has an emergency preparedness checklist: an evacuation kit to put together before the storm, how to prepare for pet evacuations, and what to do after the storm. There's also a great list of apps for smart phones and tablets, and more.

Today we're joining the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. Review copy from the publisher.

Storm Tracking

This week we got our first snow. It started off as rain, then rain mixed with snow. When the temperature dropped it turned to real snow and by the next morning the world looked different. 

Because of the ice that accompanied the storm, and the tricky driving conditions early in the morning, the storm made our local news. Nearly every TV station has a “storm tracker” weather segment where they follow snow and ice, hurricanes, blizzards and other weather events.

But you don’t have to be a weatherman to follow storms. You can keep track of the storms right where you live. All you need is your journal, a pencil, and a bunch of curiosity.

In addition to noting the date and kind of storm, here’s some other things you might want to keep track of:

• What kind of precipitation is falling out of the sky? Does it change over time? How can you tell?
• How does the temperature change over the storm event?
• What kind of clouds came before the storm and after?
• If there is precipitation, how much? And how can you measure it?
• If it’s snow or ice, what does it look like? Feel like?
• What does the storm sound like?
• What did you notice about birds or other wildlife that hang around your yard?