Global Warming Issues

The new work uses data collected by Cluster from 2001 to 2003. During this time, Cluster amassed information about beams of electrically charged oxygen atoms, known as ions, flowing outwards from the polar regions into space. Cluster also measured the strength and direction of the Earth’s magnetic field whenever the beams were present.

Hans Nilsson, Swedish Institute of Space Physics, headed a team of space scientists who analysed the data. They discovered that the oxygen ions were being accelerated by changes in the direction of the magnetic field. “It is a bit like a sling-shot effect,” says Nilsson.

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Envisat observations from mid-August depict that a new record of low sea-ice coverage could be reached in a matter of weeks. The animation above is a series of mosaics of the Arctic Ocean created from images acquired between early June and mid-August 2008 from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument aboard Envisat. The dark grey colour represents ice-free areas while blue represents areas covered with sea ice.

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The number of miles Californians drive is growing almost twice as fast as the state’s population, as housing developments sprout farther and farther from commercial centers. Not only does this urban sprawl put upward pressure on gasoline prices, it creates freeway gridlock, worsens air pollution and makes fighting global warming next to impossible. California lawmakers have tried and failed for decades to bring sprawl under control, but they may finally be on the verge of success.

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Large-scale animal feeding farms create odors plus air pollution that threatens human health. There appears to be no dispute about this from Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources, which is supposed to regulate these operations.

Yet the department won’t restrict these operations for these problems.

It claims it has no authority. As a result, several state parks and historic sites are threatened.

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The thousands of recently planted green and purple shrublike sedum lining the roof of Con Edison’s training center in Long Island City look a bit out of place in the shadow of Manhattan’s skyline.

But the tiny absorbent leaves and modest but hardy roots of the sedum — typically found in desert climates — are at the center of a growing effort to reduce greenhouse gases, rainwater runoff and electricity demand in New York.

This month, Gov. David A. Paterson approved tax abatements to developers and building owners who install green roofs, or a layer of vegetation and rock that absorbs rainwater, insulates buildings and extends the lives of roofs. Sedum, which soaks up water quickly and releases it slowly, is an ideal plant for the job.

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Sumatra’s endangered elephants and tigers should get a boost from a move by Indonesia’s government to expand one of their last havens, a national park on the island of Sumatra, the conservation group WWF said Thursday.

The area of the park, Tesso Nilo in Riau Province, is to be more than doubled to 212,500 acres. But the group warned that increased efforts would be vital to ensure that poaching and illegal logging did not continue.

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The National Snow and Ice Data Center has reported that sea ice in the Arctic now covers about 2.03 million square miles. The lowest point since satellite measurements began in 1979 was 1.65 million square miles, last September.

With about three weeks left in the Arctic summer, this year could wind up breaking that record, scientists said.

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When Tabithia Engle moved to Fort Mill this summer from Portland, Ore., she left behind soggy weather, Pacific salmon and arguably the best mass transit system in the United States.

But Engle is certain she brought at least one thing with her to South Carolina: the right to breathe clean air — free of the harmful effects of secondhand cigarette smoke.

“Let me tell you, today kind of feels like home,” Engle told about 40 listeners at a forum Tuesday night on a possible countywide ban on smoking in public places.

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These are heady times for nuclear power advocates. The industry is on an unprecedented uptick as the world tries to lessen its reliance on globe-warming fossil fuels. In the United States, applications for new reactors and extended licenses are soaring. In Florida, which has five nuclear reactors, preliminary approval has been granted for four more.

A rising chorus of support - from financial markets, Congress, legislatures and the campaign trail - has dimmed long-standing memories of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, the two most serious accidents to befall the nuclear power industry.

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To make accurate forecasts, meteorologists need data on the vertical distribution of temperature and humidity in the atmosphere. The LIDAR system developed by EPFL can collect these data continuously and automatically up to an altitude of 10km. On August 26, EPFL will officially transfer this custom-developed LIDAR to MeteoSwiss, and from this point on Swiss forecasters will have access to this source of vertical humidity data for the models they use to calculate weather predictions. The project was supported by funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation.

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