Oil Spills

Oil Spills are a major problem nowadays. It is marine pollutant in fact. Recently we had heard about the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico and had witnessed the photos of birds struggling for life that had socked in oils. Also President Obama and his Mexican counter part visited the Mexican coastal recently to have a first hand experience of the disaster.

Just go through this article.

Global Warming melts Hills of Sikkim

A British team that conducted an expedition to Gokhala Green lake of Sikkim (A North Indian state) had reporteda stunning news to world - The snowy hills of Northern Sikkim is found to be melting for years due to Global Warming.


The team reported that the hills like Tsemu,Thonksong and Taloong had been getting morphed forthe last 80 years.The team compared the file photoes of an expedition to Taloong hill conducted in 1930 with the present one.It is found that the hill had shortened about 70 meters down within 80 years!!!


There was a snowy layer connecting the Thonksong and Taloong.Due to Global Warming this connection has been lost.The old pictures of these hills reveal that once all of them were connected.This points to the future threat of Global Warming.Industrialisation and Tourism development activities also had added momentum to this problem.


The Science and Technology Department has been observing the phenomenon through remot sensing with the help of satellites.Sikkim Government had posted a commission to study the problem with Prof: Syed Iqbal Hasnain as its head.


Over 75 snowy hills are there in Sikkim.The melting of hills had caused to low down the water level of rivers like Teesta and Ramgith.

Tokyo Fog

It occured in the capital city of Japan on June 18 , 1970.The fog formed due to some chemical reaction in the atmosphere.The concentration of sulphur dioxide in atmosphere rised upto 0.4ppm.As an immediate effect sulphuric acid formed in atmosphere due to the oxidisation of sulphur dioxide.Over 5000 people were affected by the fog in various ways.

A view of Tokyo Fog

Los Angeles Smog

This was a tragedy took place in Los Angeles.In a pleasnt day a smog suddenly spread over Los Angeles city .The sudden result was eye itching,loss of sight etc in human beings.Many plants and trees also destroyed in the smog.

Different views of LA Smog

The smog was due to cracking of rubber which is a polymer.It was cracked by the reaction of double bonded Hydrocarbon and Nitrogen Dioxide.This resulted in the formation of peroxy acyl nitrates and ozone.These compounds were very dangerous to plants and trees.

The actual agent of smog was vehicles.The increase in vehicle density had worsed the condition.The partly consumed fuels expelled from vehicles toxicated all living beings including humans.

London Smog

This was a tragedy occured on Dec 4th 1952.A sudden change in climate occured due to an air current tn Themes river valley in London.A heavy current of moderate hot air occured over the cold air.As a result after sunset fog begane to spread over London and temperature fell down.

Poeple were unable to withstand the sudden cold climate.As a usual practice they begane to light up their heaters.The fuel of most of the heaters were coal.As a result dense black smoke begane to rise to atmosphere from thousands of houses.

On next day this smoke , sulphur dioxide , smoke from different factories and various chemical wastes begane to concentrate in atmosphere over London.This dense cover of air prevented sunlight reaching the ground.As a result temperature begane to fall below normal.People begane to shiver in freezing cold and the heaters produced insufficient heat. In blood freezing cold hundreds of poeple died and many got hospitalised.

What actually happened was , when people burned coal first carbon dioxide released.Due to insufficient air circulation carbon monoxide also formed.The sulphur in coal joined with oxygen and formed sulphur dioxide .On entering this to the respiratory system it bagane to make problems.sulphur dioxide again reacted with oxygen and formed sulphur trioxide.Sulphur trioxide combined with water to form sulphuric acid.All these chemicals spread over London City as smog.Transport became dead slow causing more pollution.It increased the suffocation to all living beings and subsequent illness , death etc.A similar smog repeated in 1962 and about 700 people lost their life.

Here is a graph showing the death rate of the victims of 1952 London Smog.