Aral Sea- What Was and What Is

Since the beginning of the existence, the human being has been developing. It has never stopped, and it never will. During the last couple of centuries it has been developing very aggressively, and it has reached tremendous achievements in all fields. Unfortunately mankind has achieved tremendous success in polluting its environment also. Nowadays, nature is missing many of its inhabitants:-those who are supposed to be under the extinction. Finally, the humanity started paying more attention to what surrounds it. It started thinking about the future its future generations, and the inheritance to these generations. People have started asking themselves more often questions like, “What will we have left to other children after us?” Currently, humanity has plenty of global environmental problems that it has to take care of now. Tomorrow will be too late. Some of this global warming, deforestation, freshwater contamination, destruction of ozone layer of the earth, pollution of space orbit of the earth by parts of used equipment. Desiccation of the Aral Sea is one of the items on the list.

The Aral Sea, which is also considered to be a lake or Inland Sea in Central Asia, is located in southwestern Kazakhstan and northwestern Uzbekistan, near the Caspian Sea. The Aral has no outlet. The Aral Sea is still listed as the fourth largest lake in the world. But it has been shrinking for decades, and the statistics might change. In time the Aral Sea may not the fourth largest lake in the world anymore.

Nowadays, two major problems have risen before the governments of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan; the desiccation and as a result of this threat of the complete disappearance of the sea, and the danger of the broad extension of anthrax bacteria that was stored by the Soviet Army Vozrozdenia Island.

In comparison with the size of the sea in the 1960”s, the Sea has declined in size by seventy-six percent. The initial reason for the Aral’s decline is the fact that Soviet planners diverted water from Aral’s two big feeding rivers (Amu Darya and Syr Darya) into cotton fields in the territory of Uzbekistan. Because of this irrigation, the sea is now seventy miles away from its former bank (in some places even more). Ninety percent of the Syr Darya's water is diverted into canals and reservoirs. Millions of people in Central Asia rely on the rivers for a livelihood. Uzbekistan, for instance, generates twenty-eight percent of its hard currency from cotton irrigated with river water (The Aral Sea,http:visearth.ucsd.edu/VisE_Int/aralsea/).

Planning the irrigation system, the Soviet planners were only after high rates of cotton harvests. Unwise use of water has led to the current state of the Aral Sea. The salt content of the Sea's water increased by about threefold, adversely affecting plant and animal life and causing the fishing industry to decline.

The disappearance of the sea as a part of the ecosystem is just one problem that is followed by hundreds of subsequent problems. One of them has already risen: the drying of the sea has left behind three million hectares of desiccated seabed, covered with accumulated salts which the wind carries away and deposits over thousands of square kilometers of arable land turning the land into dead ones. One can see white ridges amid the soil in the field. Salty dust from the dried out land blows in squalls through the area, causing discomfort and respiratory problems.

Wind brings more than a hundred tons of salty dust per square mile on the region every year. As a result of this, trees do not bear fruit any more.

The Aral Sea's desiccation has an influence on everything that is around it.

The climate in region has changed significantly; the winters are even colder, summers are even hotter.

The Sea was not only the water supply for population, but it was the source of the income. A large part of the population was involved in fishing and resort industries. Now, that the Sea is far away, these businesses are no longer available, and that leads to deterioration of the financial situation of the people in the area.

“In city of Muynak, the three hundred-vessel fleet once employed a thousand fishermen. It is now a collection of rusting hulls half-buried amid the dunes on the edge of town. Yet the sixty-year-old canning factory still clatters, all steam and stench, although its seven hundred workers handle fish brought by lorry from the lakes around Tashkent, one thousand miles away”(Reeves, The Sea Sickness).

The sea has turned from a rich fishing ground to a prairie of poison dust. Desiccation has a great deal of influence on the population's health; the change in environment has significantly increased rates of birth defects, infant mortality, cancers, malnutrition, respiratory diseases, and the anemia suffered by almost all women of child-bearing age. Another side effect imposed on the population is a dramatically increased rate of tuberculosis in the area.

One of the causes of health deteriorations is that over decades the water could not or barely could make it to the Aral Sea. The Aral’s water contains a lot of pesticides. The pesticides sank to the bottom of the lake. As the lake dried up, this layer of pesticide became exposed to the wind, which blows it away on the other lands.

The partial solution for the problem is to build a dam to keep water from flowing into the larger, southern portion. Plants call for the structure’s base to be 150 yards wide. If is found for the construction, the water level of the northern sea will rise to the same level it was in 1960’s. As a result of the construction, salination of the sea will decrease. This fact might contribute to restoration of fishing and resort industries.

For the population of this region, the dam is a rare ray of hope. If the dam holds on the small sea, a microclimate will be restored there. The health of people will improve and it will be good for the economy.

Calculations by the Kazak Academy of Science in Almaty, the country’s main commercial city, suggest the entire sea might disappear by 2010 without the dam. Currently the northern Sea is one-sixth as large as the southern portion. If the surface area is reduced, less water will evaporate. The full damage caused cannot be repaired, but it can be stopped from going any further.

The second threat to the Aral Sea and its inhabitants is anthrax bacteria stored 1988 by the Soviet Army. The Army was trying to get rid of its germ weapons and stored the bacteria on one of the Aral’s islands. Soldiers dug large pits and poured a mixture of anthrax bacteria and bleach. The bleach was supposed to kill the bacteria, but it did not. Even with the passage of time, the bacteria stay alive.

Now, the Sea is drying out and this island can become a part of land. This fact carries the threat that anthrax bacteria can be exposed to atmosphere one day, and it will become a very serious to both countries.

At this time, both governments in cooperation with the United States are undertaking actions in order to prevent the extension of the bacteria.

What is ecology?

Ecology is a very popular word today. But what does it mean? Ecology is a science which studies the relationship between all forms of life on our planet and the environment. This word came from Greek “oikos” which means home. The idea of home includes our whole planet, its population, Nature, animals, birds, fish, insects and all other living beings and even the atmosphere around our planet.

Since ancient times Nature has served Man giving everything he needs: air to breathe, food to eat, water to drink, wood for building and fuel for heating his home. For thousands of years people lived in harmony with the environment and it seemed to them that the resources of nature had no end or limit. With the industrial revolution our negative influence on Nature began to increase. Large cities with thousands of steaming, polluting plants and factories can be found nowadays all over the world. The by-products of their activity pollute the air we breathe the water we drink the fields where our crops are grown. That’s why those who live in cities prefer spending their days off and their holidays far from the noise of the city, to be closer to nature. Perhaps they like to breathe fresh air or to swim in clear water because the ecology is not so poor as in the cities.

So, pollution is one of the most burning problems of nowadays. Now millions of chimneys, cars, buses, trucks all over the world exhaust fumes and harmful substances into the atmosphere. These poisoned substances pollute everything: air, land, water, birds and animals. So, it is usually hard to breathe in the large cities where there are lots plants. Everything there is covered with soot and dirt. All these affect harmfully. Every year the atmosphere is polluted by about 1000 tons of industrial dust and other harmful substances. Big cities suffer from smog. Cars with their engine have become the main source of pollution in industrial countries. Vast forests are being cut down for the need of industries in Europe and USA. The loss of the forests upsets the the oxygen balance of the new wastelands. As the result some species of animals, birds, fish and plants have disappeared and keep disappearing.

Water pollution is very serious, too. Ugly rivers of dirty water polluted with factory waste, poisoned fish are all-round us. And polluted air and poisoned water lead to the end of the civilization. So, nowadays a lot of dead lands and lifeless areas have appeared. Because our actions and dealings can turn the land to a desert.

What is the greenhouse effect, and is it affecting our climate?

The greenhouse effect is unquestionably real, and is essential for life on Earth. It is the result of heat absorption by certain gases in the atmosphere (called greenhouse gases because they trap heat) and re-radiation downward of a part of that heat. Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, followed by carbon dioxide and other trace gases. Without a natural greenhouse effect, the temperature of the Earth would be about zero degrees F (-18°C) instead of its present 57°F (14°C). However, the concern is not with the fact that we have a greenhouse effect, but it is with the question regarding whether human activities are leading to an enhancement of the greenhouse effect.

Are greenhouse gases increasing?

Human activity has been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mostly carbon dioxide from combustion of coal, oil, and gas; plus a few other trace gases). There is no scientific debate on this point. Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide (prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution) were about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv), and current levels are about 370 ppmv. According to the IPCC "business as usual" scenario of carbon dioxide increase (IS92a) in the 21st century, we would expect to see a doubling of carbon dioxide over pre-industrial levels around the year 2065.

Is the climate warming?

Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.6°C (plus or minus 0.2°C) since the late-19th century, and about one half degree F (0.2 to 0.3°C) over the past 25 years (the period with the most credible data).

The warming has not been globally uniform.

Some areas (including parts of the southeastern U.S.) have cooled. The recent warmth has been greatest over N. America and Eurasia between 40 and 70°N. Warming, assisted by the record El Niсo of 1997-1998, has continued right up to the present.

Linear trends can vary greatly depending on the period over which they are computed. Temperature trends in the lower troposphere (between about 2,500 and 18,000 ft.) from 1979 to the present, the period for which Satellite Microwave Sounding Unit data exist, are small and may be unrepresentative of longer term trends and trends closer to the surface. Furthermore, there are small unresolved differences between radiosonde and satellite observations of tropospheric temperatures, though both data sources show slight warming trends. If one calculates trends beginning with the commencement of radiosonde data in the 1950s, there is a slight greater warming in the record due to increases in the 1970s. There are statistical and physical reasons (e.g., short record lengths, the transient differential effects of volcanic activity and El Niсo, and boundary layer effects) for expecting differences between recent trends in surface and lower tropospheric temperatures, but the exact causes for the differences are still under investigation (see National Research Council report "Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change").

An enhanced greenhouse effect is expected to cause cooling in higher parts of the atmosphere because the increased "blanketing" effect in the lower atmosphere holds in more heat. Cooling of the lower stratosphere (about 30-35,000ft.) since 1979 is shown by both satellite Microwave Sounding Unit and radiosonde data, but is larger in the radiosonde data.

There has been a general, but not global, tendency toward reduced diurnal temperature range (the difference between high and low daily temperatures) over about 50% of the global land mass since the middle of the 20th century. Cloud cover has increased in many of the areas with reduced diurnal temperature range.

Relatively cool surface and tropospheric temperatures, and a relatively warmer lower stratosphere, were observed in 1992 and 1993, following the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. The warming reappeared in 1994. A dramatic global warming, at least partly associated with the record El Niсo, took place in 1998. This warming episode is reflected from the surface to the top of the troposphere.

Indirect indicators of warming such as borehole temperatures, snow cover, and glacier recession data, are in substantial agreement with the more direct indicators of recent warmth.

Arctic sea ice has decreased since 1973, when satellite measurements began but Antarctic sea ice may have increased slightly.