(IN): Scientists study climate change in Arctic

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Link: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070025086

 

Scientists study climate change in Arctic

 

Press Trust of India

Wednesday, September 5, 2007 (New Delhi)

Indian scientists undertook their maiden expedition to the Arctic region to

study climate change, glaciology and marine biology, government told the

Rajya Sabha.

 

''A team of five scientists has gone to the international research facility

at Ny Alesund at Spitsbergen Island in Svalbard archipelago of Norway,''

Minister for Earth Sciences Kapil Sibal told the Rajya Sabha in a written

reply.

 

He said the scientists had initiated research in the fields of atmospheric

sciences, microbiology, geology and glaciology.

 

''The major areas of research in the Arctic pertain to climate change and

paleoclimate; glaciology and geology; marine biology and microbiology,''

Sibal said.

 

The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has indigenously designed,

developed and demonstrated a desalination technology for conversion of

seawater into potable water based on Low Temperature Thermal Desalination

(LTTD), Sibal said in reply to another query.

 

A 10-lakh litre per day capacity plant was commissioned on a barge in April

this year, about 40 km off Chennai, which was successfully run for over a

period of several weeks, he said.

 

The LTTD is a process under which the warm surface seawater is flash

evaporated at low pressure and the vapour is condensed with cold deep-sea

water, he said.

 

The LTTD is quite different from the widely patented reverse osmosis and has

several advantages over it, he said.

 

''The LTTD technology does not require any chemical pre and post treatment

of seawater. It is pollution free and hence suitable for island

territories,'' Sibal said.

 

 

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