18 Weather Monitoring Hand Held Weather Meter
For thousands of people who deal with environmental conditions in the field or workplace, having accurate and reliable weather information is a necessity. Richard Paul Russell is proud to be the UK distributor of Kestrel hand held weather meters.
Kestrel hand held meters were developed as high precision tools. Each instrument is calibrated to strict specifications providing years of reliable use. Kestrel offers a full line of hand held weather meters with the ability to measure and track many critical factors affecting the work environment, including; Wind /Air Speed, Air Flow, Wind Direction, Barometric Pressure, Altitude, Temperature, Relative Humidity, Wet Bulb Temperature, Heat Index and Wind Chill. They are fully waterproof, float and have a large, liquid-crystal backlit display.
Some Kestrel meters also offer data logging capability — a very useful function for hazardous materials spill response, construction activities, outdoor maintenance activities (painting and abrasive blasting), and any other situations where knowing the impact zones (downwind) are important. Steve Verret of the Environmental Measurements Corporation of Baton Rouge, LA, uses the data logging capabilities of the Kestrel 4500 to ensure that projects can be properly documented. These capabilities are of particular use for air exchange rate studies where a running log of weather conditions is required. “EMC’s technicians and industrial hygienists have been using Kestrel weather instruments since the summer of 2000. They have performed flawlessly and are a standard instrument in our tool bags,” says Verret. Kestrel also offers a Portable Vane Mount which allows users to set up their Kestrel 4500 on location to collect accurate wind direction data. The ability to deploy a Kestrel on-site in minutes and store data makes it an ideal solution for Industrial Hygiene professionals.
Mr. Verret also uses Kestrels to evaluate ventilation in hazardous materials remediation (e.g. asbestos abatement and mould remediation) where contractors must set up negative pressure containments using HEPA filtered fan units. “Our specifications require a minimum number of air changes per hour in the work area. By measuring the output of the fan units, we can determine if the contractor is in compliance with our specifications.”
A new feature for 2010, the 4000 range of Kestrels now come with Bluetooth® wireless capability for instant data transfer. In many current applications, the key environmental measurements
from a Kestrel instrument are input into other systems – ballistics calculators, fire behavior models, hazmat plume predictors, heat stress models, weather reports, research data sets and more. Now, both real-time and logged data can be transferred wirelessly and automatically to a laptop or PDA, making a Bluetooth Kestrel 4000 series weather meter the perfect tool for virtually any job that requires quick and truly accurate environmental data.
Reader Reply Card no 49 Climate Change Meeting to Unveil Latest Science on Reducing Emissions Rapidly
The World Preservation Foundation recently hosted a meeting in London, bringing together over 20 international climate change, environment and food experts, as well as members of parliament and civil society to consider recent studies highlighting fast-acting, cost-effective climate change mitigation strategies.
Extreme events over this past summer, particularly in Russia and Pakistan, have highlighted how vulnerable society and the food supply are at only 0.8o increases. A recent WWF report estimates global emissions may be 30 percent higher than levels needed to keep global average temperature increases to under 2o
C.
C of global average temperature C by 2020.
These events have underscored the concerns of vulnerable, developing nations, who have called for international climate change agreements to agree to limit global average temperature increases to no more than 1.5o
The conference introduced the concept of shorter-lived climate forcers. These are greenhouse gases and aerosols, namely methane, ozone and black carbon, which are much more
potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat within the atmosphere. However, they also dissipate out of the atmosphere fairly quickly, especially compared to CO2 from fossil fuels which has a very long life in the atmosphere, and is expected to be affecting the environment for thousands of years.
The latest research on methane indicates it is 100 times more potent than CO2 over 20 year time periods, and that its half life in the atmosphere is only 12 years. Although not as potent, tropospheric ozone is the third most prevalent greenhouse gas after CO2 and methane, and dissipates out of the atmosphere in about 22 days. Because it can be created with methane as a building block, reducing methane levels will result in lower ozone levels.
Black carbon, which is now believed to be responsible for nearly half of warming in the Himalayas and the Arctic, may be over 2000 times more potent than CO2, but it only lasts a few months. Black carbon has also been discovered in the most rapidly warming regions of Antarctica. Around 35 to 50 percent of black carbon in Antarctica is linked to slash and burn agriculture associated
with grazing livestock and growing soya fed to livestock in the Amazon. Although research has not yet been done estimating the relative warming effect of black carbon in Antarctica, the speed at which the region is melting and the potential implications for sea level rise and global food security suggest the importance of reducing the structural causes of the black carbon.
The conference also focused on the significant role livestock and dietary choices play in climate change and environmental destruction. World Preservation Foundation co-founder Dr. Hsien Hui Khoo states “From the very beginning, climate change has been linked to carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. Over the years as our understanding has become more sophisticated, we have realised that there are other structural causes that have an equal or greater effect. The livestock industry and dietary choices fit into that category. It has also been discovered that much of the
warming over the next 20 years will be coming from these other non-CO2 climate forcers. Because of CO2’s long life in the atmosphere, we believe our best chance is to places greater emphasis on reducing methane, ozone and black carbon, especially through dietary change.”
Because livestock account for significant amounts of these shorter–lived climate forcers, eating more plant-based meals appears to provide the least-expensive solution for grassroots action against climate change.
“We would also like to see governments supporting such a change,” Dr. Khoo states, “Society depends upon a viable farming industry, and that depends upon governments taking some actions by switching subsidies to plant-based foods and promoting plant-based eating on a national level.”
Reader Reply Card no 50
Climate Accord Loopholes Could Spell 4.2ºC Rise in Temperature and End of Coral Reefs by 2100
A global temperature increase of up to 4.2ºC and the end of coral reefs could become reality by 2100 if national targets are not revised in the Copenhagen Accord, the international pledge which was agreed at last year’s Copenhagen’s COP15 climate change conference.
A new report in IOP Publishing’s Environmental Research Letters describes how, due to lack of global action to date, only a small chance remains for keeping the global temperature increase down to 2ºC as set as a target in the Accord.ooking at individual countries’ agreed targets for emission levels, the report shows that many developed countries such as the USA and the European Union have set their aims very low, aiming at reaching emission levels just a few percent lower than 1990 levels by 2020. Only Japan and Norway are aiming to drastically reduce their emission to 25% and 30 to 40% below 1990 levels respectively.
Presenting their results in Environmental Research Letters, a group of international researchers from seven European research centres, has also found that even if nations would agree to a 50% reduction of emission levels by 2050 – a target that strong international agreements would greatly facilitate – there would still only be a less than 50% chance to keep global warming below 2ºC.
Rising global temperature levels would not be the only consequence of failing to raise the ambition level of future global emission reductions.
Increasing ocean acidification, a direct result of growing atmospheric CO2 levels, could lead to a rapid decline of coral reefs and the marine ecosystem in the 21st century.
As the researchers write, urgent action is necessary, “It is clear from this analysis that higher ambitions for 2020 are necessary to keep the options for 2ºC and 1.5ºC open without relying on potentially infeasible reduction rates after 2020.
“In addition, the absence of a mid-century emission goal – towards which Parties as a whole can work and which serve as a yardstick of whether interim reductions by 2020 and 2030 are on the right track – is a critical deficit in the overall ambition level of the Copenhagen Accord.”
Professor Dan Kammen, Editor-in-Chief Environmental Research Letters said, “The researchers provide an important lens on the ecological impacts and both social and ecological costs of inaction on climate protection.”
Reader Reply Card no 51 Reader Reply Card no 52
IET
November/December 2010
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