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Industrial building in Markthal, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Year: 2018
Photographer: Victor G. (edited by Frameworks)
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Surface albedo has a significant impact on global climate (Zhang et al. 2022). Plants play an important role in this. Matthews et al. (2003), for example, estimate that the spread of agriculture has led to a global cooling of around 0.17°C, as agricultural crops tend to have a higher albedo than wild vegetation (Monteith and Unsworth 1990).
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The forests on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are witnessing some of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world. Over the last decade, dozens of pulp and paper companies have established themselves on the island chopping down trees and setting up palm oil plantations on the cleared land. These changes have far-reaching environmental as well as socio-economic impacts on the island communities that are so dependent on the natural resources and ecosystem services provided by the rainforests.
Year: 2014
Photographer: Peter Prokosch
Black Carbon (BC), also known as soot, is produced through the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomaterials. Apart from its negative health impacts, BC also has significant climate effects because it generally has a lower albedo than its surroundings, which increases the amount of radiation absorbed both when BC is present in the atmosphere and when it is deposited on land (Stjern et al. 2017). Due to the large albedo differences, the effects of BC are especially significant in areas that are normally covered in snow or ice (Hadley and Kirchstetter 2012; Sand et al. 2016; Kang et al. 2020).
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Nutrients which seep out of whale bones fertilize plants, leading to an accumulation of organic matter in the soil.
Year: 2016
Photographer: Peter Prokosch
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Norilsk is located between the West Siberian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau at the foot of the 1,700-meter high Putoran Mountains, on some of the largest nickel deposits on Earth. Consequently, mining and smelting ore are the major industries.
Photographer: GRID-Arendal
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Ice wedges grow as the ice-rich frozen ground contracts during the winter and forms open cracks below the surface.
Year: 2015
Photographer: Peter Prokosch
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Abu Dhabi Blue Carbon Demonstration Project
Year: 2014
Photographer: Rob Barnes under licence from AGEDI
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Sustainable forest management involves the maintenance and enhancement of forest environments, ensuring longevity of forest ecosystems while allowing the best possible environmental, economic, social and cultural opportunities now and into the future. In Canada, the world’s largest exporter of forest products, harvest rates and strict jurisdictions are set to ensure long term ecosystem sustainability, protecting soil and water resources and 55% of all energy used by the forestry sector is renewable bio-energy.
Year: 2014
Photographer: Lawrence Hislop
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Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas and its reduction is given ever greater priority in international emission reduction policies (see for example https://www.globalmethanepledge.org/). There are many different materials that have been suggested and explored to capture methane (Alonso et al. 2017).
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The Taymyr Autonomous Area occupies 800,000 sq km, an area the size of England, France and the Netherlands combined.
Year: 2015
Photographer: Peter Prokosch
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More than any other animal, the polar bear, Ursus maritimus, is recognized as the symbol of the Arctic.
Year: 2011
Photographer: Peter Prokosch
Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas and its reduction is given ever greater priority in international emission reduction policies. Given the increasing, and potentially catastrophic rate of methane release from the thawing Arctic and Northern permafrost, these regions are crucial in this endeavor. Apart from the methane release from microbial activity in thawing permafrost on land, methane also escapes in the form of hydrates which have been formed under sediments beneath the sea.
Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas and its reduction is given ever greater priority in international emission reduction policies (see, for example, https://www.globalmethanepledge.org/). There are several suggested ways to remove atmospheric methane (see Nisbet Jones et al. 2021; and Ming et al. 2022; see in this report also iron salt aerosols and zeolites). One of the main issues with methane removal is that atmospheric methane concentrations are very low. This means that very large volumes of air, and related energy demands, are required, making the use of ventilators like those used for DACCS (see direct air capture) more complicated (Nisbet-Jones et al. 2021).
