Jan 4
A deeper look at Climate Change
In my previous article, I took a look at the global Climate change problem, in this and following articles I will strip out some of the points and expand.
My opening introduction was more of a wake-up call, pulling together so many of the players, and problems I saw and still see as major problems in the understanding of what Climate change really is and why it's not going to be an easy ride.
The evidence is there, Wildfires, high temperatures, high volume rain falls, large areas of the Arctic and the Arctic permafrost and Arctic Ice almost none existent, and glaciers almost gone, the planet is warming, and Global Warming is here, can we do anything about it, before the so-called Tipping Point comes into effect and the knock-on where events caused by the primary cause takes over if they have not already done so. To be able to understand the complex relationship of all the causes, and there is no longer one, there are many, a comprehensive & relatively high understanding of the problem and related contributors is not just desirable, but essential.
It’s hard not to accept that CO2 or Carbon Dioxide is the leading driver of Climate Change, and as I stated, there is a lot of work is being done to reduce carbon from the atmosphere. But whilst Carbon content is seen as the main problem in Climate change, it is important to understand there is not one, or even several factors, but many, with a variety of influence and differing values and effects, some of which have created a cascading knock-on effect or Climate Feedback Loop, where one problematic area creates another problem, cascading back through several levels, where solving the original cause may not cure the knock-on effect.
Take water Vapour as a classic example. The initial warming of the planet, based upon the rise in Carbon Dioxide, has resulted in the atmosphere being able to absorb more water vapour, and as we know water vapour has much the same effect on global warming as Carbon Dioxide, with one exception, CO2 will remain in the atmosphere for some time, NASA claims anything from 300 to 1000 years, but water vapour will stay in the atmosphere, and drop out when it gets too cold for the atmosphere to hold it, think of breathing warm moist air on a cold window, the effect is much the same, what was once light showers, now become heavy rainstorms. If the path of the warm air travels over large water volumes like the oceans, which are also warming, the cycle is set, countries who have tried hard to reduce CO2 are hit with huge rainstorms with devastating consequences.
Rivers that have been trapped and confined into fixed positions can only just manage to deal with historic rainfalls, add Climate Change and the rivers have no hope, fed by increasing hard landscapes, and greater rainfall, with no room to expand, the consequences are there to see. Think of Germany, and the village of Erftstadt, with a near-stationary low-pressure weather system causing sustained local downpours to the west in France, the Netherlands and Belgium as well as northern Germany. It shows how important it is not just for Planners, Architects and Technologists, to understand the weather, but local river management to track and understand the new rules Climate change is imposing, not just on singular regions but continents.
Later in the main article, I introduced the concept of Adaptive Architecture, which I will devote a specific article to the concept, but for now, I just want to emphasise the need to understand that Architecture is not a singular building, it's almost global. You might say it is the butterfly effect of a fixed building, its presence and the surrounding landscape will not only create but have to deal with the effect of buildings and their landscaping, 1000’s of miles away.
Designers so often look at the location and orientation of a design, as part of the Design and access statement, now a requirement for UK planning applications, (I am not sure if this is the case elsewhere in the world), looking at sun path analysis. Should not the SUD’s or Sustainable Urban Drainage as just one example, be expanded from the limited statement so often used to a full look at the consequences of the building, the local environment and the wider effects on local watercourses and rivers?
When the design is close to or can affect neighbouring countries, the concept of Cross border migration of weather should also be added to the Design and Access Statement. But this will involve political will and recent history shows, what happens downstream is of no concern to large powerful countries.
