Tweeting carbon levels ups awareness of climate change
A novel method of sharing South African carbon data with a global audience through the use of social media has been put in place in November 2011 by the CSIR's Internet of Things engineering group. Through automated tweets, @CapePointCarbon is providing easy access to carbon levels sourced from Cape Point Global Atmospheric Watch station.
Tweeting carbon levels ups awareness of climate change
A novel method of sharing South African carbon data with a global audience through the use of social media has been put in place in November 2011 by the CSIR's Internet of Things engineering group. Through automated tweets, @CapePointCarbon is providing easy access to carbon levels sourced from Cape Point Global Atmospheric Watch station.
Tweeting carbon levels ups awareness of climate change
A novel method of sharing South African carbon data with a global audience through the use of social media has been put in place in November 2011 by the CSIR's Internet of Things engineering group. Through automated tweets, @CapePointCarbon is providing easy access to carbon levels sourced from Cape Point Global Atmospheric Watch station.
The station monitors carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas concentrations, which on northerly winds include the contribution for Cape Town; and on southerly winds the Southern Ocean contribution.
The Cape Point carbon tweets (up to 20 per day) support the activities of the Integrated Carbon Observatory Network (SA-ICON) to integrate and synthesise carbon data and knowledge from institutions across the country. An iPad/iPhone App POP17, inspired by this data, is being developed as part of the Climate Smart Cape Town awareness campaign.
Since it went live, @CapePointCarbon has attracted some 205 followers and has one listing. @CapePointCarbon tweets are also posted on the wall of the Facebook page, Cape Point Carbon: Community.
Each tweet contains numerical data, specifically carbon monoxide parts per million (PPB) and (CO2) parts per million (PPM). A link on each tweet allows interested parties to access graphs and historical data from 1993.
A visual representation of carbon levels will be added to each tweet to enrich the user experience and encourage an appropriate, growing understanding of the extent of carbon emissions at Cape Point.
"Our challenge when sourcing data has been to work on aspects relating to protocol compatibility and resource adaptors," says Dr Louis Coetzee, research group leader of the CSIR's Internet of Things engineering group."By using Beachcomber, our research platform, it has been possible to integrate data from the Picarro carbon flux sensor at Cape Point."
Beachcomber is a platform designed to allow easy bearer agnostic (independent of operating systems) communication between 'things' and humans. Beachcomber enables `things' to communicate via a number of protocols (such as radio frequency identification (RFID), HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), QR (quick response) code) and enables humans to communicate via a number of other protocols (such as email, XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), Twitter, etc.). Beachcomber links 'things' with their human owners in a bearer agnostic manner.
Currently, members of the multi-institutional SA-ICON include the CSIR, South African Weather Services, the Department of Environmental Affairs, the South African National Biodiversity Institute and the City of Cape Town. This partnership will grow as the scope of its activities and products broadens.
The Internet of Things research activities underpin the role and aims of SA ICON. Cape Town intends to become a competitive 21st century city and key to this plan is a low carbon economy. To attain this, a mitigation framework has been produced to reduce the city's carbon footprint.
Long-term data from the Cape Point Global Atmospheric Watch station will be combined with observations from greenhouse gas monitoring systems to be erected at Hangklip and Robben Island by CSIR in January 2012. Carbon fluxes can then be measured, telling researchers how much the city's carbon emissions are increasing and decreasing seasonally and in the long term. This can potentially verify if the city's mitigation plans are working, and be linked to the Rand value per ton of CO2.
By using Beachcomober to integrate data and post them to social media mechanisms, information can be made available to the public instantly and continuously, along with tips on what citizens, business and industry can do to reduce carbon emissions. The aim is to effect behavioural change.
Beachcomber will also be considered for the future to support the historic, first-time sourcing and dissemination of data from the ocean, atmosphere and land.
ENDS