Window shades that respond to weather? One of the latest solutions to our climate troubles

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AccuWeather Forecasting Senior Director Dan DePodwin and AccuWeather Climate Expert Brett Anderson discuss the top headlines related to climate change in the April 4 edition of Climate In The News.

Transcript

00:00Today, we're covering a couple of different possible solutions to help mitigate climate

00:05change and reducing emissions.

00:07Brett, our first story from the Associated Press that discusses ocean dumping and actually

00:12putting chemicals and other materials into the ocean to try to remove carbon from the

00:16atmosphere.

00:17Yeah.

00:18It doesn't sound very good.

00:19Throwing chemicals into the ocean sounds like a bad idea right off the bat, but actually

00:23there's a lot of research in trying to figure out ways to improve the ocean's ability to

00:30absorb carbon dioxide.

00:32The oceans typically absorb about 30% of the atmosphere carbon dioxide, but as the oceans

00:38are warming and we're pumping more and more CO2 in the atmosphere, the ocean is becoming

00:43bloated kind of like a full stomach and they can't absorb any more of the CO2, so we need

00:48to find solutions.

00:49So one of the techniques that's mentioned here is the use of magnesium oxide, that chemical

00:53that allows the ocean to sort of act as somewhat like a vacuum and absorb more of the carbon dioxide.

01:00Yeah, what happens is the magnesium oxide converts the CO2 gas in the ocean to a more

01:09stable molecule, therefore it's not going back out into the atmosphere and remaining

01:13stable for thousands of years, which is a good thing, and so this allows the oceans

01:18to absorb even more of the atmospheric CO2 that we have.

01:21So what other things are companies looking to put into the ocean and sort of what are

01:25the risks associated with this technique?

01:27Well, you're polluting the oceans in one aspect, and there's a lot of unknowns.

01:31How is this going to affect marine ecosystems?

01:34Now for the magnesium oxide, the study says there should not be any negative effects on

01:39that, but we've also seen research done with limestone, seaweed, and algae, so again, many

01:46studies going on.

01:47Certainly an area of further research and needing to scale this to be broader to be

01:50able to have an impact on the global climate.

01:52Our second story from physics today that focuses on window shades and some new designs, some

01:58prototypes of window shades that can change based on the humidity, the moisture in the

02:03air, and the temperature.

02:04Yeah, the air-conditioned buildings, obviously the humidity remains much lower than the outside,

02:09but many buildings across the world are not air-conditioned, so the humidity in the building

02:14is the same as it is outside, and so we need to come up with solutions to cool the buildings

02:19or in the wintertime, warm the buildings, so what they've come up with here is a renewable

02:24cellulose that actually reacts to the humidity levels, and what happens is the shades swell

02:31and turn into a preferred position without the use of humans or electricity.

02:35Kind of interesting.

02:36Sort of like a pine cone is how it's described, I think, right?

02:39Yes, actually, kind of like a pine cone.

02:41And so this lowers the energy requirements for buildings, so there's a lot more studies

02:46and research involved with this, but it's a unique idea.

02:50Yeah, interesting.

02:51Getting ideas from nature, pine cone swelling based on moisture in the air, and buildings

02:56are an important area of focus because they account for about 27% of global CO2 emissions.

03:01Well, thank you, Brett, for that insight, for those stories and others about climate,

03:05you can find that at AccuWeather.com slash climate.

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