Science Express Climate Action Special (SECAS II)
14-Feb-2017: Ninth Phase of Science Express to Criss-Cross India till September this Year
Science Express Climate Action Special (SECAS II) will be flagged off on February 17 at 11 a.m from Safdarjung Railway station in Delhi. After the flag-off, the SECAS will be open for public viewing at Delhi Cantonment Railway Station on February 18 and February 19. Following the public viewing, the train will embark upon its journey across the country.
The SECAS II will run from February 17 to September 8 2017, culminating its journey at Gandhinagar. During its journey, the Science Express will cover over 19, 000 km, and will be exhibited at 68 stations across 20 states of the country. During this seven month journey, SECAS will roll into Tripura for the first time.
Science Express, redesigned as SECAS, intends to contribute towards increasing understanding of the science of climate change, the observed and anticipated impacts, and different possible responses. It is an innovative mobile science exhibition mounted on a 16 coach AC train, which has been custom-built for Department of Science & Technology (DST) by Indian Railways. This unique mobile exhibition was first launched in October 2007 by DST. Since then it has travelled across India eight times, traveling about 1, 42, 000 km and exhibiting at 455 locations. More than 1.50 crore people visited the exhibition over 1, 602 exhibition days. Science Express has become the largest, the longest running and the most visited mobile science exhibition. It has six entries in the Limca Book of Records.
The exhibition will convey a message about Climate Change and will also be a good opportunity to generate a dialogue and discussion. The state-of-the-art exhibition on board the SECAS aims to create awareness among various sections of society, as to how climate change can be combated through mitigation and adaptation. Exhibitions in 8 out of the 16 coaches of SECAS have been developed by MoEFCC. Exhibits and activities by DST and DBT have been put up in the remaining 8 coaches.
Some of the broad themes of the coaches include – Underlying reasons for climate change, with a key message that the present change in the climate is due to human activities; impact of climate change and ways to reduce it; adaptation strategies and adaptation measures being taken by India; mitigation and various programmes implemented; international negotiations for climate change and focus on concept of lifestyle choices on what one can do to “Increase the Handprint and decrease your Footprint”.
The exhibition is exclusively devoted to information, case studies and material related to various aspects of climate change, the underlying science, impact, adaptation activities, mitigation solutions and policy approaches in a manner that is easy to understand and interesting, not just for school students, but also for the masses.
The SECAS II is a unique collaborative initiative of Department of Science & Technology (DST), Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Railways and Vikram A Sarabhai Community Science Centre (VASCSC). MoEFCC has asked Wildlife Institute of India (WII) to extend support in the endeavour.
Science Express Phase I to IV showcased cutting-edge research in Science and Technology being carried out worldwide. Phase V to VII was based on the theme of biodiversity. As ‘Science Express Biodiversity Special (SEBS)’, it showcased the rich biodiversity of India and its conservation measures. Phase VIII as ‘Science Express Climate Action Special (SECAS)’ highlighted the global challenge of climate change.
The previous three phases of Science Express were rolled out as a joint initiative of DST and MoEFCC as ‘Biodiversity Special’ and showcased the myriad biodiversity of India. Thus, it was rational to shift the focus to the theme of climate change, as it will affect the biodiversity of not just India, but the entire globe as well.
Background:
Climate Change is an important environmental issue, with many short-term and long-term impacts. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impact of climate change are not just global in scope and unprecedented in scale, but they also severely affect more, the poor and marginalized people. However, there is very little understanding about climate change and its impact.
The Paris Agreement entered into force on November 4, 2016. The central aim of the Paris Agreement is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change and to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. The first session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 1) took place in Marrakech in November 2016. The Conference successfully demonstrated to the world that the implementation of the Paris Agreement is underway and the constructive spirit of multilateral cooperation on climate change continues.
Zealandia
18-Feb-2017: Scientists claim discovery of a submerged continent "Zealandia" in Pacific Ocean.
A continent two-thirds the size of Australia has been found beneath the south-west Pacific Ocean, scientists reported in the journal of the Geological Society of America.
Known as Zealandia, the land mass of 4.5 million square kilometres (1.74 million square miles) is 94 per cent under water and only its highest points — New Zealand and New Caledonia — poke above the surface.
Since about the 1920s, from time to time in geology papers, people used the word ‘continental’ to describe various parts of New Zealand and the Catham Islands and New Caledonia. The difference now is that we feel we’ve gathered enough information to change ‘continental’ to the noun, ‘continent'.
Geologists early in the previous century had found granite from sub-Antarctic islands near New Zealand and metamorphic rocks on New Caledonia that were indicative of continental geology. If the recent discovery is accepted by the scientific community, cartographers will probably have to add an eighth continent to future maps and atlases.
Zealandia is believed to have broken away from Australia about 80 million years ago and sank beneath the sea as part of the breakup of the super-continent known as Gondwanaland.
IRNSS-1A
30-Jan-2017: Standby navigation satellite for NavIC
India will launch one of its back up navigation satellites this year as a replacement to IRNSS-1A satellite, whose three atomic clocks have failed.
The atomic clocks have failed in only one satellite. All other six satellites are operational and are providing the navigation data. The atomic clocks were imported and ISRO would take up the issue with the foreign supplier. Each satellite has three clocks and a total of 27 clocks for the navigation satellite system were supplied by the same vendor. The clocks are important to provide precise data.
The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) is similar to the GPS (Global Positioning System) of the US, Glonass of Russia and Galileo of Europe as well as China's BeiDou.
While GPS and Glonass are fully functional global systems, the Chinese and the Japanese systems offer regional coverage and Europe's Galileo is yet to be operational.
Applications of IRNSS are: terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation, vehicle tracking and fleet management, terrestrial navigation for hikers and travellers, disaster management, integration with mobile phones, mapping and geodetic data capture and visual and voice navigation for drivers. Apart from the civilian applications, the IRNSS will be used for defence purposes as well.
The Indian satellite navigation system NavIC consists of seven satellites in orbit and two as substitutes. Starting in July 2013, the Indian space agency has launched all the seven navigation satellites. The last one was launched on April 28, 2016. Each satellite has a life span of 10 years.
NavIC satellites were performing well till the three clocks in IRNSS-1A(the first satellite) failed. Navigation satellites of other countries too have faced atomic clock problems.