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Here you can ask questions related to emissions of CO₂ and climate change. This column is answered by Dr. Hans Olav Hygen, Senior Scientist at the Norwegian Meteorological institute, and Max Hansson, Researcher at Centre for Climate and Safety, University of Karlstad, Sweden.

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As you state plants and animals have been able to adopt to previous changes, and much of nature will adopt to current ongoing changes.

One major tool for adaptation in nature is migration. This tool has two requirements: Time and space. The species need time to relocate to new areas, and they need the space to establish in new locations. Some species live in close connection to other species at their location, thus the whole ecosystem might need to relocate. This might not be possible due to topographic features or human intervention. This might be a frog living near mountain tops, and an new (and warmer) climate hav no mountains with favourable temperatures. Or there is a farmland preventing a certain grass to migrate to new areas.

The other factor was time. The ongoing climate change is fast. If we see a 3 degree temperature increase in this century are there many species that don't have the time for adaptation to a new climate. Previous climate changes has used more time, the fast ones have led to mass extinction, the most famous one is the fall of the dinosours..

Hans Olav Hygen (03.08.2009 14:39)

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1 ton is 1000 kg

Hans Olav Hygen (03.08.2009 14:25)

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The costs of solar energy has so far been to high. New technology is making solar energy more cost-efficient, and a number of projects all over the world now use solar energy.

Hans Olav Hygen (08.05.2009 13:50)

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It is difficult to make a device that reduces the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The most effective solution in the long run is to decrease the emissions of CO2. If we cut the emissions of CO2 enough, natural processess will reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. To achive this a reduction of 1-2 tonn CO2 per person is needed.

Hans Olav Hygen (08.05.2009 13:48)

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Dear Wan Amiera Aisha Wan Azizi,

Some main objectives of this programme are:

- to raise awareness and confer knowledge of the problem of CO2 emissions from transport to young people

- to instill in young people that they can do something about the problem of CO2 from transport

- to provide young people (the decision makers of tomorrow) with democratic skills and to encourage them to use active citizenry with confidence to influence managment practice in their local community

- to collect and present data on transport practices from schools all over the world to get a measurement of CO2 emissions associated with this, which in turn can be presented to decision makers and which, hopefully, may work as a basis for designing new and better policies and thus instigate required systemic changes

- to provide young people with a baseline concept of levels of CO2 emissions, which then may be used to grasp/evaluate/compare how much CO2 is emitted in other contexts

- to generate and share suggestions and climate ideas on what may be done to improve conditions locally

- to serve as a practical supplement to the education for sustainable development that is going on in schools around the world

Best regards,

Gaute Groenstoel (CO2nnect development team) (05.05.2009 14:20)

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Dear Savita Sharma,

The CO2-emission estimates calculated by the website are based on vehicle-specific CO2 multipliers (kg CO2 per passenger per km) that represent mean emission values over a larger sample of vehicles which are weighed against mean passenger occupancy for the different vehicles. Read more about this here:

http://co2nnect.org/help_sheets/?op_id=602&opt_id=98

Best regards,

Gaute Groenstoel (CO2nnect development team) (05.05.2009 13:31)

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Use of windmills is one way to generate energy in a fashion that has less detrimental environmental effects than burning of fossile fuel. To cover the world-wide need of energy it is necessary to employ all sources of renewable energy like solar power, wave-pover, and tidal power.

Hans Olav Hygen (14.04.2009 11:05)

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No single event can be connected to the increase of CO2, but there has been a clear change to a more severe climate (more floods, higher temperature, etc.). This increase in probability of severe weather events is part of how we detect climate change.

Hans Olav Hygen (14.04.2009 11:02)

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The location of the CO2 source is important for the effect of CO2 on global warming. To decrease the man-made part of climate change a world-wide decrease in CO2 production is needed. This means that hot and cold countries have to change the use (and waste) of energy, change from petrol driven cars into e.g. electric cars, and increase public transportation to reduce the need for private cars.

Hans Olav Hygen (14.04.2009 10:58)

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As you state a certain level of CO2 is important for us and nature. The dangerous part is that we have significantly increased the level of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The result of this increase is that the climate changes. This change manifests as increased temperature, melting ice (glaciers, sea ice ...). There is also a higher probability of heatwaves, floods, droughts, and storms.

Hans Olav Hygen (14.04.2009 10:54)

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Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a natural gas which goes into the natural life cycles of plants and annimals.

CO2 is also a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gasses let the energy from the sun (sunlight) pass down to earth, while energy from the earth (infra red radiation) is absorbed. This captures more energy in the earth atmosphere system, resulting in higher temperature. The effect of this increased temperature may be more frequent and intense drought, storms, floods, etc.

Hans Olav Hygen (14.04.2009 10:50)

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Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a natural gas which goes into the natural life cycles of plants and annimals.

CO2 is also a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gasses let the energy from the sun (sunlight) pass through down to earth, while energy from the earth (infra red radiation) is absorbed. This captures more energy in the earth atmosphere system, resulting in higher temperature. The effect of this increased temperature may be more frequent and intense droughts, storms, floods, etc.

Hans Olav Hygen (14.04.2009 10:50)

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You are right that CO2 is part of the natural cycle with flowers, trees, etc. The historic levels (alst 600 000 years) of CO2 in the atmosphere are about 180 ppm (Parts per million) to about 280 ppm. Since the industrialisation the level has increased to 380 ppm. The reason for this is that we humans extract fossile CO2 from the ground through the use of coal, oil and gas, and release this to the atmosphere. This process comes as an extra source of CO2, and other greenhousegases on top of the natural CO2 sources.

Hans Olav Hygen (14.04.2009 10:45)

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This you do here:

http://co2nnect.org/signup/

If you are a new user, you select 'New user' and then you select your country. If your school is not already listed as a participant, you click the button 'My school is not listed below'. You complete the form to register your school and to request user access for your school, you then set the coordinates for your school, before you signing up your classes.

When you have signed up classes, you find the pupils code in the class table under 'Enter data sheet' (click the key icon to activate the pupils login code).

If your school is already on the list of signed up participants, you click your school name in the list in order to request user access from registered teacher collegues at your school, who then grant you access to post results for your school.

Good luck!
Best regards,

Gaute Groenstoel (CO2nnect development team) (08.04.2009 09:22)

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