60 Days Plan: UPSC IAS Prelims 2019- Geography and Current Affairs (Day 27)

Salinity is the term used to define the total content of dissolved salts in seawater.
It is calculated as the amount of salt (in gm) dissolved in 1,000 gm (1 kg) of seawater. Salinity determines compressibility, thermal expansion, and temperature, and density, absorption of insolation, evaporation and humidity. It also influences the composition and movement of the sea: water and the distribution of fish and other marine resources.

In the land locked Red Sea, it is as high as 41. In hot and dry regions, where evaporation is high, the salinity sometimes reaches to 70. Comparatively Low salinity regions in the estuaries and the Arctic, the salinity fluctuates from 0 – 35.

The sun is the principal source of energy of energy in oceans. The ocean is also heated by the inner heat of the ocean itself (earth’s interior is hot.

At the sea surface, the crust is only about 5 to 30 km thick). But this heat is negligible compared to that received from sun.

Photic zone is only about few hundred meters. It depends on lot of factors like turbidity, presence of algae etc. There are no enough primary producers below few hundred meters till the ocean bottom.

At the sea bottom, there are bacteria that make use of heat supplied by earth’s interior to prepare food. So, they are the primary producers. Other organisms feed on these primary producers and subsequent secondary producers. So, the heat from earth supports wide ranging deep water marine organisms. But the productivity is too low compared to ocean surface.

The diurnal range of ocean temperatures is too small and oceans take more time to heat or cool. The process of heating and cooling of the oceanic water is slower than land due to vertical and horizontal mixing and high specific heat of water. (More time required to heat up a Kg of water compared to heating the same unit of a solid at same temperatures and with equal energy supply).

Boiling point of the sea water is increased in the case of higher salinity and hence evaporation is decreased with increased boiling point and vice versa.

[Salinity increased = Boiling point increased = Evaporation decreased].

Waters of high salinity are denser than water of lower salinity. Therefore water of low salinity flows on the surface of water of high salinity and vice versa.

Example: The less saline water of Atlantic(open) flows in the surface into the Mediterranean(which is partially closed), and this is compensated for by and outflow of denser bottom water from the Mediterranean(as it’s partially closed).

Generally oceanic deposit can be classified as muds, clays and oozes. Oozes include pelagic (not terrigenous) deposits as they are derived from ocean.

The muds include terrigenous (not pelagic) deposit as they are derived from land and are mainly deposited on the continental shelves. The clays occur mainly as red clays in the deeper part of the ocean basins and are particularly abundant in pacific (not Atlantic) Ocean .

Snow that falls along the coast melts often immediately. The warm North Atlantic Current of the Gulf Stream (not the mountain) keeps nearly all the seaports ice-free, even in the northern regions. During winter, Norway’s inland regions are colder than the coast because mountains block the warm west winds from the sea. But it doesn’t keep seaports ice free. It just keep the coast comparatively warmer than inland.

The latitudinally extensive seas (Mediterranean sea) have warmer surface water than longitudinally extensive sea(gulf of California).

Prevalent winds generate horizontal and sometimes vertical ocean currents: The winds blowing from the land towards the oceans (off-shore winds-moving away from the shore) drive warm surface water away from the coast resulting in the upwelling of cold water from below (This happens near Peruvian Coast in normal years. El-Nino).

Contrary to this, the onshore winds (winds flowing from oceans into continents) pile up warm water near the coast and this raises the temperature (This happens near the Peruvian coast during El Nino event)(In normal years, North-eastern Australia and Western Indonesian islands see this kind of warm ocean waters due to Walker Cell or Walker Circulation).

The rate of decrease of temperature with depths is greater at the equator than at the poles.

The surface temperature and its downward decrease is influenced by the upwelling of bottom water (Near Peruvian coast during normal years).In cold Arctic and Antarctic regions, sinking of cold water and its movement towards lower latitudes is observed.

In equatorial regions the surface, water sometimes exhibits lower temperature and salinity due to high rainfall, whereas the layers below it have higher temperatures.The enclosed seas in both the lower and higher latitudes record higher temperatures at the bottom.

The enclosed seas of low latitudes like the Sargasso Sea, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea have high bottom temperatures due to high insolation throughout the year and lesser mixing of the warm and cold’ waters.

In the case of the high latitude enclosed seas, the bottom layers of water are warmer as water of slightly higher salinity and temperature moves from outer ocean as a sub-surface current.
The presence of submarine barriers may lead to different temperature conditions on the two sides of the barrier. For example, at the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, the submarine barrier (sill) has a height of about 366 m. The subsurface water in the strait is at high temperature compared to water at same level in Indian Ocean. The temperature difference is greater than nearly 20° C.

The average temperature of surface water of the oceans is about 27°C and it gradually decreases from the equator towards the poles.

The rate of decrease of temperature with increasing latitude is generally 0.5°C per latitude.
The horizontal temperature distribution is shown by isothermal lines, i.e., lines joining places of equal temperature. Isotherms are closely spaced when the temperature difference is high and vice versa.

Corals are shallow water organisms’ not deep water.

Statement 2 is wrong because Barrier reef is the largest (in size not distribution) of the three reefs, runs for hundreds of kilometres and is several kilometres wide.

Statement 4 is wrong because barrier reef (not fringing)is the largest in size of the three reef.

All statements are self explanatory and correct.

Extra information:

An atoll may have any one of the following three forms:

• true atoll—a circular reef enclosing a lagoon with no island;
• an atoll surrounding a lagoon with an island;
• a coral island or an atoll island which is, in fact, an atoll reef, built by the process of erosion and deposition of waves with island crowns formed on them.
  Atolls are far more common in the Pacific than any other ocean.

Chilika Lake is claimed to have 20% of India’s seagrass distribution, which plays a vital role in oxygen production and absorption of carbon dioxide and acts as a purifier in aquatic ecology.

“Seagrass plays a vital role in oxygen production and absorption of carbon dioxide. It acts as a purifier in aquatic ecology. The seagrass area increases only when the water is clean. Seagrass will rejuvenate fishing ground by providing nursery habitat to important fish species.

Extra information: Proposed water aerodrome in Chilika Lake likely to face green hurdle is in news (read about that also)

Self explanatory.

Extra information:

It is located in the eastern Karakoram Range in the Himalaya Mountains. It is source of Nubra River that eventually feeds the mighty Indus. Siachen is near the Karakoram pass, forming almost a triangle with India, China and territory occupied by Pakistan touching the edges.

Fedchenko Glacier in Tajikistan, is the world’s largest non-polar glacier.

Lambert-Fisher Glacier in Antarctica is world’s largest glacier.

Oxygen starvation (not increased oxygenation) caused by an increase in zooplankton levels as a result of overfishing is the cause of coral bleaching.  Other reasons include both biotic and abiotic factors as cause for coral bleaching. They include:

• Increased or reduced water temperatures.
• Oxygen starvation caused by an increase in zooplankton levels as a result of overfishing.
• Increased solar irradiance (photosynthetically active radiation and ultraviolet band light).
• Changes in water chemistry (in particular acidification).
• Increased sedimentation (due to silt runoff).
• Bacterial infections.
• Coral eating crown of thorns starfish
• Changes in salinity.
• Cyanide fishing.
• Elevated sea levels due to global warming.
• Mineral dust from African dust storms caused by drought.

The Great Artesian Basin (Australia) is one of the largest underground water reservoirs in the world. It underlies approximately 22 per cent of Australia.

As per the Israel researchers, the sea squirt, can suck up plastic particles from the sea and can filter particles from ocean and store them in its tissue.

A rubbery sea creature with an irritating habit of clinging to ships and invading beaches could help measure plastic pollution as it can filter tiny particles from the ocean and store them in its soft tissue.

Israeli researchers have found that ascidians — round, palm-sized animals also known as sea squirts — can thrive in dirty industrial areas and pristine waters alike, allowing them to detect and analyse waste and its impact in various regions.

The monetary transmission mechanism is the process by which asset prices and general economic conditions are affected as a result of monetary policy decisions. Such decisions are intended to influence the aggregate demand, interest rates, and amounts of money and credit in order to affect overall economic performance.

The traditional monetary transmission mechanism occurs through interest rate channels, which affect interest rates, costs of borrowing, levels of physical investment, and aggregate demand. Additionally, aggregate demand can be affected through friction in the credit markets, known as the credit view. In short, the monetary transmission mechanism can be defined as the link between monetary policy and aggregate demand.

In the Indian scenario, the momentary policy transmission is heavily depending upon the repo rate. The repo rate is the anchor rate in determining the interest rate in the economy (of the banking system).

Indian Basket (IB), also known as Indian Crude Basket, is weighted average of Dubai and Oman (sour) and the Brent Crude (sweet) crude oil prices. It is used as an indicator of the price of crude imports in India and Government of India watches the index when examining domestic price issues.

The Enabling Clause is the WTO legal basis for the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). Under the Generalized System of Preferences, developed countries offer non-reciprocal preferential treatment (such as zero or low duties on imports) to products originating in developing countries. Preference-giving countries unilaterally determine which countries and which products are included in their schemes.

The Enabling Clause is also the legal basis for regional arrangements among developing countries and for the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP), under which a number of developing countries exchange trade concessions among themselves.

APIX is a banking technology platform which is designed to reach two billion people all across the world who are still living without bank accounts. The technology platform has been designed by software experts based out of Hyderabad, Colombo and London.

It is a sophisticated technology developed by Boston-headquartered Virtusa, especially for smaller banks, Tier 3 and 4, to reach out to people living in the remote regions.

The technology platform is designed to assist banking institutions to reach out the people without bank accounts in 23 nations such as 10 ASEAN members as well as major markets such as India, and small nations including Fiji.

AMFTCP is an international platform for co-operation among countries to promote cleaner and more energy efficient fuels and vehicle technologies.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas joined AMFTCP as its 16th member.

The primary goal of joining AMFTCP by the Ministry of Petroleum is to facilitate the market introduction of advanced motor fuels/ alternate fuels with an aim to bring down emissions and achieve higher fuel efficiency in the transport sector.

AMF TCP works under the framework of International Energy Agency (IEA) to which India has “Association” status since 30thMarch, 2017.

Source: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=184644

Statement 1 is incorrect. It is not steady in the last five years.

Non-resident Indian (NRI) deposits jumped to $5.7 billion in the first five months of this fiscal compared to $0.5 billion in the same period last year. The rise is attributed to the sliding rupee, which makes deposits in the currency attractive for NRIs, and to higher oil prices which have prompted inflows from NRIs in the Middle-east to increase.

The UAE is the top source of inward remittances into India, with Kerala receiving the maximum funds sent from abroad, according to the RBI’s survey of inward remittances for 2016-17.

https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/nris-deposits-surge-as-rupee-slides-and-oil-prices-rise/article25394060.ece

Two-day Global Cooling Innovation Summit was inaugurated by Union Science & Technology Minister in New Delhi on 12th November 2018.

• The Summit is a first-of-its-kind solutions-focused event that will bring together leaders from around the world to explore concrete means and pathways to address the climate threat that comes from the growing demand from room air conditioners.
• The event is jointly organized by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, along with Rocky Mountain Institute, Alliance for An Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE), Conservation X Labs and CEPT University.
• The summit will also see the launching of Global Cooling Prize— Mission Innovation challenge that aims to spur development of a residential cooling solution that has at least five times (5x) less climate impact than today’s standard.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=184666

NITI Aayog has constituted the ‘Himalayan State Regional Council’ to ensure sustainable development of the Indian Himalayan region. The Council has been constituted to review and implement identified action points based on the Reports of five Working Groups, which were established along thematic areas to prepare a roadmap for action.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=184781

A team of biologists from Delhi University, University College Dublin (Ireland) and the National Museum (UK) have discovered four new species of horned frogs from the Himalayan regions of Northeast India. The team also comprised S D Biju from DU’s Department of Environmental Studies, known as the ‘Frogman of India’.

https://indianexpress.com/article/research/four-new-horned-frogs-discovered-by-delhi-university-team-5454585/

Goat plague, or peste des petits ruminants (PPR), is a highly contagious viral disease that afflicts goats and sheep in many parts of the country. The disease kills small ruminants in large numbers unless they are vaccinated.

According to the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), PPR costs farmers anywhere between $1.4-2.1 billion a year globally. Apart from India, goat plague is prevalent in many African countries, West Asia, China and Mongolia.

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/india-uk-team-develops-a-smart-vaccine-for-goat-plague/article25579680.ece