The simple math of climate change

Global warming & climate change is a simple balance between the increase in greenhouse gas emissions and the ability of natural processes to absorb them.

Global Temperature Change = Green House Gas Emissions - ( Natural Plant Life - Agricultural Land Use )

  • As Quantity of Green House Gases increases, global temperatures rise.

  • As Natural Plant Life increases, CO2 is absorbed and global warming decreases.

  • As Agricultural Land Use increases at the expense of Natural Plant Life, less CO2 is absorbed and global temperatures increase.

Increases in CO2 in the atmosphere help promote plant life growth to quickly absorb excess CO2 and return our planet’s climate into balance. As agricultural land use expands, natural pant life areas are converted into agricultural land through the destruction of natural vegetation.

Agricultural land takes up about 37 % of earth’s surface. Since growing seasons last only a few months and crops are harvested just at the peak of their CO2 absorption capabilities, agricultural land absorbs CO2 only a small part of each year. This simple fact creates a large decrease in CO2 absorption capability compared to land with natural vegetation which absorbs CO2 year round.

While the contribution of agricultural equipment to CO2 and equivalent emissions is currently less than 10 % of the total worldwide CO2 emissions (see chart), its contribution to the reduction of natural vegetation has not been accounted for.

Since 1960, both green house emissions and reduction in natural plant life due to expansion of agricultural land are both upsetting the energy balance of our ecosystems in the direction of global warming as shown below:

Can recision agriculture solve global warming?

Precision agriculture has been around for years, though no one knew how to name it. Since the invention of the personal weather station with a tipping-bucket rain gauge by RainWise Inc., farmers have had access to somewhat accurate local meteorological data, yet not many knew how to take full advantage of it. With the advances in computing power, agricultural equipment and data processing techniques, higher precision data becomes more valuable to take full advantage of the possible increases in farming efficiency. This, in combination with the looming Internet-of-Things technological revolution, has lead to the reinvention of the personal weather station as a professional quality instrument by BARANI DESIGN Technologies. Its MeteoHelix® micro-weather stations are able to produce meteorological data of higher quality than most current climatological networks (3), in excess of World Meteorological Organization (WMO) requirements, for a fraction of the price of the most popular RainWise and Davis personal weather stations.

Since farming is highly dependent on weather, farming decision making is dependent on good meteorological data quality. New farming efficiency gains through high-quality meteorological and soil data can significantly increase crop yields. If sensor and data affordability is maintained not at the expense of data quality with the goal of reversing global warning, as with the MeteoHelix® weather stations, increases in crop yields will allow for a reduction in global agricultural land use. Reduction in global agricultural land use leading to expansion of natural vegetation areas will offset higher CO2 emissions even while our world population and emissions expand. The climate change equation will be moved closer to balance again.

Strategic partnership of BARANI DESIGN Technologies and Comptus Inc. of USA

BARANI DESIGN Technologies and Comptus Inc. of USA strategic partnership announced.

BARANI DESIGN Technologies and Comptus Inc. of USA strategic partnership announced.

BARANI DESIGN Technologies of Slovakia will create a strategic partnership with Comptus Inc. of USA, who is one of the only two producers of the most widely used anemometer for wind energy applications worldwide. The immediate benefits of this partnership will include:

In a technology sharing program, both companies will join forces to develop a low-cost wireless precision wind measurement solution to complement the MeteoHelix® IoT Pro wireless weather stations and to directly compete in the high-end and middle market segments in agricultural weather station applications. The MeteoHelix® and MeteoWind® Compact combination will become the only affordably priced weather station solution to meet the Wold Meteorological Organization (WMO) measurement standards. This meteorological sensor solution is aimed at putting precision back into precision agriculture which is currently being dominated by measurement equipment not conforming to worldwide measurement standards.

What is a vandalism-tolerant meteorological network?

MeteoHelix® agricultural weather station overlooking crop field experiments in a vandalism prone area.

MeteoHelix® agricultural weather station overlooking crop field experiments in a vandalism prone area.

Vandalism-tolerant meteorological network

  • A high-density meteorological network based on affordable WMO conforming micro weather stations is inherently vandalism-proof.

  • Larger data density allows the network to absorb a large number of end-point weather station vandalism failures while maintaining sufficient data density.

  • Redundancy of wireless data coverage based on IoT technologies affords the network even more reliability.

  • Combined with a micro weather station designed to prevent data access to thieves and with minimal resale or recyclable material value, this will de-incentivize serial vandals and thieves.

What weather station was designed from the onset for vandalism tolerant meteorological networks?

  • MeteoHelix® IoT Pro micro weather stations are designed to for vandalism tolerant meteorological applications requiring the utmost precision of measurement per World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standards.

  • Independent wind sensor apart from the temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure and sun sensors create a modular system able to conform to all use cases and needs.

Excerpt was taken from “Join the IoT Revolution” article on page 43 of the Hydromet AFRICA ExpoGuide as published by Varysian.

This article is based on the 10+ years of experience in the meteorological industry of Jan Barani, who is the designer of the only WMO conforming micro-weather station, the MeteoHelix® IoT Pro.