HARBER| Warming Planet, Cool Ideas

Project Details

The Challenge | Warming Planet, Cool Ideas

Your challenge is to examine existing space and Earth projects and systems and adapt them into specific technologies that help stabilize or improve the Earth’s weather, and/or eliminate processes that cause global warming. Your solution could be a technology, a movement, an idea – let your imagination have no bounds!

H.A.R.B.E.R.

Airborne Bacteria may be responsible for Methane-destroying Hydroxyl production

H.A.R.B.E.R.

Hydroxyl And Regional Bacteria Ecosystem Research

PARAGRAPH:

A suggested NASA/NOAA Experiment to seek proof that Bacteria living in airborne colonies are crucial to stopping Global Warming because they play a massive-but-indirect-part in Hydroxyl production through Hydrogen Peroxide secretion, but are currently being destroyed in their natural habitat due to lack of information about their documentable contribution to sustaining life on Earth.*

*Based on Publicly Accessible and Cited Research Gathered and Interpreted

by

Catherine Mary Darensbourg


PROBLEM: EXCESS ATMOSPHERIC METHANE (CH4) — A GREENHOUSE GAS

  1. 1.Methane (CH4) is considered at least 30 times worse than Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
  2. 2.Methane traps 86 times as much heat.
  3. 3.Methane is responsible for about 1/4 of total atmospheric warming to date.
  4. 4.Methane can last 9.6 years in the atmosphere before being broken down.
  5. 5.Methane is broken down by Hydroxyl (HO) into Water vapor (H2O) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2).
  6. 6.Unfortunately, airborne Hydroxyl (HO) — a radical in the troposphere — is becoming increasingly rare according to a NOAA report, though a more recent NASA study disagrees.
  7. 7.Hydroxyl (HO) is created when Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) undergoes homolysis (breakdown from a neutral molecule into 2 free radicals that are equal in makeup) when exposed to Ultraviolet Light from the Sun.
  8. 8.The Ultraviolet sunlight must be of a specific intensity for maximum homlysis.
  9. 9.With Ultraviolet Light, homolysis happens, and two Hydroxyl (HO) radicals are formed from Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2)

THEORY: A VECTOR THAT BREAKS DOWN METHANE IS BEING DESTROYED

  1. 1.Many Bacteria excrete Hydrogen Peroxide(H2O2) as part of their digestion process.
  2. 2.Unfortunately, some of these are Bacteria such as Streptococcus, which also can make humans extremely sick.
  3. 3.Humans actively seek ways to destroy Streptococcus variants — and other pathogens or pathobionts like them — particularly when the Bacteria are considered overgrown.
  4. 4.Also, due to air pollution, Airborne Bacterial Colonies may be facing massive die-offs and not just increasing in danger to humans.
  5. 5.Due to increased heat from Global Warming, the Airborne Bacteria may no longer thrive in the zones needed for their Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) secretions to be safely transformed into two Hydroxyl (HO) radicals.

PROPOSED EXPERIMENT: USE AN APP COMBINING NASA SATELLITES WITH NOAA WEATHER BALLOONS

  1. 1.Sample different levels of atmosphere for Airborne Bacterial Colonies containing Hydrogen Peroxide producers — taking a census of pathogenic vs. non-pathogenic.
  2. 2.Sample the gas mixtures of the areas they may live in to see if either Hydrogen Peroxide or Hydroxyl is present in greater quantities.
  3. 3.Check the temperature and atmospheric levels where the greatest concentration of Bacteria are found to live vs. where they are expected to see if there is migration.
  4. 4.Check the temperature and atmospheric levels where the greatest concentrations of Methane, Hydrogen Peroxide, Hydroxyl, Carbon Dioxide, and Water exist.
  5. 5.Check the edges of the Ozone Layer Holes at the Polar Caps for absence or presence of Airborne Bacterial Colonies.

PROBLEM:

1. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/1403...

2. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad...

3. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2019/09/19/controlling-methane-fast-and-critical-way-slow-global-warming-say-princeton-experts

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane

5. https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads...

6. https://www.wired.com/story/atmospheric-methane-levels-are-going-up-and-no-one-knows-why/ (vs.) https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2829/greenhouse-gas-detergent-recycles-itself-in-atmosphere-nasa-study/

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxyl_radical

8. www.h2o2.com

9. Yurii V Gelentii of Emory University citing “Applications of Hydrogen Peroxide and Derivatives” by CW Jones. Royal Society of Chemistry: Cambridge, UK. 1999. 264 pp

THEORY:

  1. https://jfoodprotection.org/doi/pdf/10.4315/0362-028X-59.11.1233
  2. https://jb.asm.org/content/185/23/6815
  3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/781200
  4. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/316187.p...
  5. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/fsis-con...

PROPOSED EXPERIMENT:

1.

2.

3.

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_detector

5. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/0802...