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Sea levels rose as much as 2 feet this summer along the US East Coast

September 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 12 (ANI): Reports indicate that sea levels rose as much as 2 feet (60 centimeters) higher than predicted this summer along the US East Coast, surprising scientists who forecast such periodic fluctuations.

According to National Geographic News, though the immediate cause of the unexpected rise has now been solved, the underlying reason remains a mystery.

Usually, predicting seasonal tides and sea levels is a pretty cut-and-dried process, governed by the known movements and gravitational influences of astronomical bodies like the moon, according to Rich Edwing, deputy director for the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

But, NOAA’s phones began ringing this summer when East Coast residents reported higher than predicted water levels, much like those associated with short-term weather events like tropical storms.

These high seas persisted for weeks, throughout June and July.

The startling rise caused only minor coastal flooding, but puzzled scientists.

Now, a new report has identified the two major factors behind the high sea levels-a weakened Gulf Stream and steady winds from the northeastern Atlantic.

The Gulf Stream is a northward-flowing superhighway of ocean water off the US East Coast.

Running at full steam, the powerful current pulls water into its “orbit” and away from the East Coast.

But this summer, for reasons unknown, “the Gulf Stream slowed down,” Edwing said, sending water toward the coasts-and sea levels shooting upward.

Adding to the sustained surge, autumn winds from the northeastern Atlantic arrived a few months early, pushing even more water coastward.

The higher waters caused inconveniences for some anglers and boaters and rearranged a bit of shoreline.

“A couple of sand beaches we’d normally fish from were eaten up. And the volume of water was higher than it normally would be,” said Paulie Apostolides, owner of Paulie’s Tackle in Montauk on New York State’s Long Island.

Even before the new report, released by NOAA on September 2, Apostolides said that many local fishers had already attributed the sea level rise to the “ferocious” winds from the northeast. (ANI)

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US Navy ship sunk in World War II battle located

September 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 11 (ANI): A research mission has located and identified the final resting place of the YP-389, a US Navy patrol boat sunk approximately 20 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, by a German submarine during World War II.

Six sailors died in the attack on June 19, 1942. There were 18 survivors.

The wreck is located in about 300 feet of water in a region off North Carolina known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” home to US and British naval vessels, merchant ships, and German U-boats sunk during the Battle of the Atlantic.

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and its expedition partners mapped and shot video of the wreck using high-resolution camera equipment, multibeam sonar and an advanced remotely operated vehicle deployed from the NOAA ship Nancy Foster.

Researchers were able to locate and positively identify the YP-389 by reexamining data from the Duke Marine Laboratory expedition that discovered the USS Monitor in 1973.

Today, the relatively intact remains of the YP-389 rest upright on the ship’s keel.

The wreck site is home to a variety of marine life. Much of the outer-hull plating has fallen away, leaving only the intact frames exposed.

“She rests now like a literal skeleton, a reminder of a time long ago when the nation was at war,” said Joseph Hoyt, Monitor National Marine Sanctuary archaeologist and principal investigator for the project.

Built originally as a fishing trawler, the YP-389 was converted into a coastal patrol craft and pressed into service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The ship was equipped with one 3-inch deck gun to protect the ship from enemy aircraft and surfaced submarines and two .30-caliber machine guns.

However, on the day of the attack by the German submarine U-701, the ship’s deck gun was inoperative, and the YP-389 could return fire only with its machine guns.

Weeks after the attack on the YP-389, the U-701 was sunk by Army aircraft in the same vicinity as the YP-389.

According to Rear Admiral Jay A. DeLoach, USN (Ret), director, Naval History and Heritage Command, “The US Navy considers the YP-389 discovery a grave site and, by law, it is to be left undisturbed.” (ANI)

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Killer whales have to raise their voices to be heard over ship noise

September 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 11 (ANI): A new research has determined that killer whales have to raise their voices to be heard over ship noise, and the effort may be wearing the whales out as they try to find food amid dwindling numbers of salmon.

According to a report in National Geographic News, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) carried out the research.

The research indicates that the killer whales of Puget Sound, a complex of inland marine waterways in the northwestern part of Washington, US, make more calls and clicks while foraging than while traveling, suggesting that such mealtime conservations are key to coordinating hunts.

“(The killer whales’) call exchange is incredibly important, and vessel noises have the potential to mask these calls,” said research leader Marla Holt of Seattle’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, which is run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Holt and colleagues’ previous research had shown that some killer whales make louder calls to be heard over vessel rumblings-just as people raise their voices to talk over the din of a cocktail party.

Now, the researchers think the cacophony could be causing the region’s killer whales to use up more energy during hunts, even as their preferred prey, chinook salmon, are on the decline.

In Puget Sound, a small group of killer whales known as the Southern Residents has been found to be particularly well-suited to eating salmon-even down to the whales’ tooth size.

These animals don’t eat seals or other mammals, as do the transient killer whales that migrate through the sound.

In the mid- to late 1990s, the Southern Resident population mysteriously shrank by nearly 20 percent, from 97 to 88 animals. Today, there are 85 individuals.

In 2005, the federal government listed the population as endangered under the US Endangered Species Act.

No one knows for sure, but the cause was likely a combination of fewer salmon, exposure to toxic contaminants, and vessel noise, according to Lynne Barre of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service Northwest Regional Office.

Holt’s work adds to existing data that have already prompted NOAA to propose a new killer whale protection law that would make all boats keep at least 600 feet (200 yards) away from the animals around Washington State.

The existing law allows boats to approach as close as 300 feet (100 yards), and some research has shown this influences the whales’ behavior.

“A lot of people would argue, Why focus on these vessel regulations?” Holt said. “But it’s one thing we can do immediately,” he added. (ANI)

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Human impacts and environmental factors changing northwest Atlantic ecosystem

September 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 2 (ANI): A new report by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has determined that human impacts and environmental factors are changing the northwest Atlantic ecosystem.

According to the report, fish in US waters from Cape Hatteras to the Canadian border have moved away from their traditional, long-time habitats over the past four decades because of fundamental changes in the regional ecosystem.

The 2009 Ecosystem Status Report also points out the need to manage the waters off the northeastern coast of the United States as a whole rather than as a series of separate and unrelated components.

Known as the Northeast US Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (NES LME), the ecosystem spans approximately 100,000 square miles and supports some of the highest revenue-generating fisheries in the nation.

During the past 40 years, the ecosystem has experienced extensive fishing by domestic and foreign fleets, changes in ocean water temperatures due to climate change, and pressures from increasing human populations along the coast.

According to Michael Fogarty, who heads the Ecosystem Assessment Program at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) of NOAA’s Fisheries Service in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, his team’s report highlights the need to understand natural and human-related changes in this region and to develop effective management and mitigation strategies.

“There are many pressures on the ecosystem including fishing, pollution, habitat loss from coastal development, and impacts on marine life from shipping and other uses of the ocean,” Fogarty said.

“In addition, changing climate conditions are warming ocean waters, changing ocean chemistry and circulation patterns, and altering atmospheric systems. These changes have, in turn, been linked to changes in the distribution and abundance of fish species in the region and their major sources of food,” he added.

The report is the first in a planned series of ecosystem status reports by Fogarty and his colleagues in the NEFSC’s Ecosystem Assessment Program to document changes in the NES LME, one of 64 regions in the world’s ocean designated as a large marine ecosystem.

Fogarty said that sustained long-term monitoring by many agencies and institutions in the Northeast region has enabled scientists and others to trace changes in the ecosystem.

“In the future, we need to continue to monitor the oceanographic, ecological, and human indicators analyzed in this report to detect any additional changes in the system. These indicators also provide important inputs to models that can be used to help guide management decisions and to forecast future changes,” he said. (ANI)

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Scientists discover new connections that may help predict Indian monsoon’s intensity

August 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 28 (ANI): In a new research, scientists have determined that subtle connections between the 11-year-solar cycle, the stratosphere and the tropical Pacific Ocean work in sync to generate periodic weather patterns that affect much of the globe, an understanding which would help in predicting the intensity of the Indian monsoon.

“It’s been long known that weather patterns are well-correlated to very small variations in total solar energy reaching our planet during 11-year solar cycles,” said Jay Fein, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Division of Atmospheric Sciences, which funded the research.

“What’s been an equally long mystery, however, is how they are physically connected. This remarkable study is beginning to unravel that mystery,” he added.

An international team of authors led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, used more than a century of weather observations and three powerful computer models to tackle one of the more difficult questions in meteorology: if the total energy that reaches Earth from the Sun varies by only 0.1 percent across the approximately 11-year solar cycle, how can it drive major changes in weather patterns on Earth?

The answer, according to the study, has to do with the Sun’s impact on two seemingly unrelated regions.

Chemicals in the stratosphere and sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean respond during solar maximum in a way that amplifies the Sun’s influence on some aspects of air movement.

This can intensify winds and rainfall, change sea surface temperatures and cloud cover over certain tropical and subtropical regions, and ultimately influence global weather.

“The Sun, the stratosphere, and the oceans are connected in ways that can influence events such as winter rainfall in North America,” said NCAR scientist Gerald Meehl, the lead author of the paper.

“Understanding the role of the solar cycle can provide added insight as scientists work over the next decade or two toward predicting regional weather patterns,” he added.

The Indian monsoon, Pacific precipitation and sea surface temperatures, and other regional climate patterns are largely driven by rising and sinking air in Earth’s tropics and subtropics.

The new study could help scientists use solar-cycle predictions to estimate how that circulation, and the regional climate patterns related to it, might vary over the next decade or two. (ANI)

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Global 3D map indicates presence of water in certain areas of Earth’s mantle

August 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 20 (ANI): Scientists from Oregon State University in the US have created the first global three-dimensional map of electrical conductivity in the Earth’s mantle, which suggests that that enhanced conductivity in certain areas of the mantle may signal the presence of water.

According to scientists, those areas of high conductivity coincide with subduction zones – where tectonic plates are being subducted beneath the Earth’s crust.

Subducting plates are comparatively colder than surrounding mantle materials and thus should be less conductive.

The answer, the researchers suggest, may be that conductivity in those areas is enhanced by water drawn downward during the subduction process.

“Many earth scientists have thought that tectonic plates are not likely to carry much if any water deep into the Earth’s mantle when they are being subducted,” said Adam Schultz, a professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State.

“Most evidence suggests that subducting rocks initially hold water within their minerals, but that water is released as the rocks heat up,” he added.

“There may be other explanations, but the model clearly shows a close association between subduction zones and high conductivity and the simplest explanation is water,” he explained.

The scientists conducted their study using electromagnetic induction sounding of the Earth’s mantle.

This electromagnetic imaging method is very sensitive to interconnecting pockets of fluid that may be found within rocks and minerals that enhance conductivity.

Using magnetic observations from more than 100 observatories dating back to the 1980s, they were able to create a global three-dimensional map of mantle conductivity.

The study is important because it provides new insights into the fundamental ways in which the planet works.

The implications are myriad.

Water interacts with minerals differently at different depths, and small amounts of water can change the physical properties of rocks, alter the viscosity of materials in the mantle, assist in the formation of rising plumes of melted rock and ultimately affect what comes out on the surface.

“In fact, we don’t really know how much water there is on Earth,” said Gary Egbert, also a professor of oceanography at OSU and co-author on the study.

“There is some evidence that there is many times more water below the ocean floor than there is in all the oceans of the world combined. Our results may shed some light on this question,” he added. (ANI)

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Plants saved planet Earth from freezing over during last ice age

July 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 2 (ANI): In a new research, scientists have suggested that plants may have played a crucial role in putting a limit on the last ice age.

When glaciers advanced over much of the Earth’s surface during the last ice age, the planet did not freeze over entirely.

This has been a puzzle to climate scientists because leading models have indicated that over the past 24 million years geological conditions should have caused carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to plummet, possibly leading to runaway “icehouse” conditions.

Now, scientists report on the missing piece of the puzzle – plants.

“Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been remarkably stable over the last 20 or 25 million years despite other changes in the environment,” said research co-author Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology.

“We can look to land plants as the primary buffering agent that’s held CO2 in such a narrow range during this time,” he added.

The research team, led by Mark Pagani of Yale University, found that the critical role of plants in the chemical breakdown and weathering of rocks and soil gave them a strong influence on carbon dioxide levels.

It was a link that earlier studies had missed.

The rise of the Andes, Himalayas, Tibetan Plateau, and mountain ranges in western North America over the past 25 million years would have been expected to have cause faster weathering and erosion, and therefore a faster burial of carbon drawn from the atmosphere.

But the stability of carbon dioxide levels indicate that this didn’t happen.

This is where the plants come in.

“The rates of weathering reactions are largely controlled by plants. Their roots secrete acids that dissolve minerals, they hold soils, and they increase the amount of carbon dissolved in groundwater,” said Caldeira.

“But when levels of carbon dioxide get too low, the plants basically suffocate and the weathering slows down. That means less sediment is eroded from the uplands and less carbon can be buried. It’s a negative feedback on the system that has kept carbon dioxide levels from dropping too low,” he added.

Extremely low carbon dioxide levels would have reduced the atmosphere’s ability to retain heat, putting the planet into a deep freeze.

“So you could say that by limiting the drawdown of CO2 by chemical weathering and sedimentation, plants saved the planet from freezing over,” said Caldeira. (ANI)

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Virtual model of sunspots may unlock Sun’s mysteries

June 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 19 (ANI): Scientists have created the first-ever comprehensive computer model of sunspots, a breakthrough that will help scientists unlock mysteries of the sun and its impacts on Earth.

Sunspots are associated with massive ejections of charged plasma that can cause geomagnetic storms and disrupt communications and navigational systems.

They are also linked to variations in solar output that can affect weather on Earth and exert a subtle influence on climate patterns.

“Understanding complexities in the solar magnetic field is key to ‘space weather’ forecasting,” said Richard Behnke of NSF’s (National Science Foundation’s) Division of Atmospheric Sciences.

“If we can model sunspots, we may be able to predict them and be better prepared for the potential serious consequences here on Earth of these violent storms on the sun,” he added.

Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., collaborated with colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, building on a computer code that had been created at the University of Chicago.

“If you want to understand all the drivers of Earth’s atmospheric system, you have to understand how sunspots emerge and evolve. Our simulations will advance research into the inner workings of the sun as well as connections between solar output and Earth’s atmosphere,” said lead paper author Matthias Rempel.

Sunspots accompany intense magnetic activity that is associated with solar flares and massive ejections of plasma that can buffet Earth’s atmosphere.

The resulting damage to power grids, satellites and other sensitive technological systems takes an economic toll on a rising number of industries.

The new computer models capture pairs of sunspots with opposite polarity.

In striking detail, they reveal the dark central region, or umbra, with brighter umbral dots, as well as webs of elongated narrow filaments with flows of mass streaming away from the spots in the outer penumbral regions.

They also capture the convective flow and movement of energy that underlie the sunspots, and which are not directly detectable by instruments.

The models suggest that the magnetic fields within sunspots need to be inclined in certain directions in order to create such complex structures.

The researchers conclude that there is a unified physical explanation for the structure of sunspots in umbra and penumbra that’s the consequence of convection in a magnetic field with varying properties.

The simulations can help scientists decipher the mysterious, subsurface forces in the sun that cause sunspots.

Such work may lead to an improved understanding of variations in solar output and their impacts on Earth. (ANI)

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Sun’s new solar cycle will be weakest since 1928

May 11, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 11 (ANI): A panel of international experts has predicted that the Sun’s new solar cycle, which is thought to have begun in December 2008, will be the weakest since 1928.

Solar activity waxes and wanes every 11 years.

Cycles can vary widely in intensity, and there is no foolproof way to predict how the sun will behave in any given cycle.

In 2007, an international panel of 12 experts split evenly over whether the coming cycle of activity, dubbed Cycle 24, would be stronger or weaker than average.

The group did agree the sun would probably hit the lowest point in its activity in March 2008 before ramping up to a new cycle that would reach its maximum in late 2011 or mid-2012.

But, the sun did not bear out those predictions.

Instead, it entered an unexpectedly long lull in activity with few new sunspots. It is thought to have reached its minimum in December 2008, and now seems to be slowly waking up.

According to a report in New Scientist, one such sign is two new active regions captured this week by the ultraviolet camera on one of NASA’s twin STEREO probes.

“There’s a lot of indicators that Cycle 24 is ready to burst out,” said panel chair Doug Biesecker of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

The panel now expects the sun’s activity will peak about a year late, in May 2013, when it will boast an average of 90 sunspots per day.

That is below average for solar cycles, making the coming peak the weakest since 1928, when an average of 78 sunspots was seen daily.

Sunspots are Earth-sized blotches that coincide with knotty magnetic fields. They are a common measure of solar activity.

The higher the number of sunspots, the higher the probability of a major storm that could wreak havoc on Earth.

A lower number of sunspots could mean space weather will be relatively mild in the coming years. (ANI)

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New NASA model to improve forecasting of deadly cyclones

April 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 14 (ANI): NASA has used satellite data and a new modeling approach that could improve weather forecasting and save more lives when future cyclones develop.

About 15 percent of the world’s tropical cyclones occur in the northern Indian Ocean, but because of high population densities along low-lying coastlines, the storms have caused nearly 80 percent of cyclone-related deaths around the world.

Incomplete atmospheric data for the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea make it difficult for regional forecasters to provide enough warning for mass evacuations.

In the wake of last year’s Cyclone Nargis, which was one of the most catastrophic cyclones on record, a team of NASA researchers re-examined the storm as a test case for a new data integration and mathematical modeling approach.

They compiled satellite data from the days leading up to the May 2 landfall of the storm and successfully “hindcasted” Nargis’ path and landfall in Burma.

“Hindcasting” means that the modelers plotted the precise course of the storm.

In addition, the retrospective results showed how forecasters might now be able to produce multi-day advance warnings in the Indian Ocean and improve advance forecasts in other parts of the world.

“There is no event in nature that causes a greater loss of life than Northern Indian Ocean cyclones, so we have a strong motivation to improve advance warnings,” said the study’s lead author, Oreste Reale, an atmospheric modeler with the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center.

In their modeling experiment, Reale’s team detected and tracked Nargis’ path by employing novel 3-dimensional satellite imagery and atmospheric profiles from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite to see into the heart of the storm.

AIRS has become increasingly important to weather forecasting because of its ability to show changes in atmospheric temperature and moisture at varying altitudes.

Lau, chief of Goddard’s Laboratory for Atmospheres, believes that regional forecasting agencies monitoring the region can readily access AIRS’ data daily and optimize forecasts for cyclones in the Indian Ocean.

According to Lau, the same technique can be useful to forecasts of hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the western Pacific, particularly when the storm is formed over open oceans out of flight range of hurricane-hunting airplanes.

“With this approach, we can now better define cyclones at the early stages and track them in the models to know what populations may be most at risk,” explained Reale. “And every 12 hours we gain in these forecasts means a gain in our chances to reduce loss of life,” he added. (ANI)

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ROUNDUP: US seeks restrictions on tourism to Arctic-Antarctic region

April 7, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington – The United States will push for more restrictions on tourism to the North and South Poles to protect the regions’ natural environment and avoid the worst effects of global warming, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.

Opening a nearly two-week summit bringing together the two diplomatic bodies that govern the Arctic and Antarctic, Clinton warned that protecting the region was crucial to stabilizing the global climate.

“The changes under way in the Arctic will have long-term impacts on our economic future, our energy future and indeed again the future of our planet, so it is crucial that we work together,” Clinton said at an opening ceremony at the State Department in Washington.

The gathering, which brings together scientists and government officials from 47 countries, marks the first US-hosted summit on the environment since President Barack Obama took office in January, and comes as world governments are hoping to reach a new deal by December to curb the pollutants that cause global warming.

This week’s summit, which moves to Baltimore, Maryland, after Monday’s opening ceremony, will review the latest science, the impact of tourism and protecting the environment and species in the polar region.

“Strengthening environmental regulation is especially important as tourism to Antarctica increases,” Clinton said, proposing limits on larger ships and increasing safety and environmental regulations.

Scientists have warned that global warming is already having a significant impact on the world’s polar regions. Melting Arctic ice could cause a dangerous rise in global sea levels, flooding some coastlines and accelerating the impact of climate change around the world.

A study by US space agency NASA released on the sidelines of the polar summit found that Arctic ice was melting, and thinning, at a faster rate than expected. About 70 per cent of the Arctic’s sea ice now melts over the summer months, up from 40-50 per cent in the 1990s. Only 10 per cent of the ice survives two years or more.

A separate study last week by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Washington warned that Arctic summers could be completely devoid of ice in 30 years time. Earlier studies forecast that the Arctic ice would vanish only at the turn of the next century.

The polar conference comes on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty. Agreed to by 12 governments, the treaty designated the poles a peaceful “natural reserve” that could not be used by any governments for military purposes.

Clinton said that past agreements on protecting the poles served as a “living example” of governments’ ability to cooperate on environmental issues, and urged similar cooperation in the lead-up to a crucial Copenhagen summit on climate change at the end of the year.

“As the world prepares for climate talks in Copenhagen this December, meetings like this are more important than ever,” Clinton said.

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New tool differentiates between man-made and natural nitrogen-oxide pollution

March 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 26 (ANI): Scientists have used a new tool to differentiate between man-made and natural nitrogen oxide emissions.

Nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere, which are produced by lightning, biomass burning, and soil outgassing, are converted into atmospheric nitrate through oxidation reactions.

Nitrogen oxide, itself a pollutant, controls the production of ozone, which in turn is a greenhouse gas and a pollutant at ground levels.

Atmospheric nitrate contributes to the load of atmospheric particulate matter and, along with sulfate, to acid rain.

Despite efforts to regulate and monitor emissions, nitrogen oxide and atmospheric nitrate burdens in the atmosphere are increasing in many regions.

To learn more, S. Morin and his team from Institut National des Sciences de l’Univers, CNRS, Grenoble, France, studied the stable isotopic composition of nitrate within aerosol samples.

These samples were collected along a shipborne transect, in the lower atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean from 65 degrees South to 79 degrees North.

The researchers found that in nonpolar regions, nitrate derived from anthropogenically emitted nitrogen oxide had isotopic properties distinct from locations influenced by natural nitrogen oxide sources.

Further, air masses exposed to snow-covered areas have low nitrogen isotopic ratios, showing that snowpack emissions of nitrogen oxide from upwind regions can have a significant effect on the local surface budget of reactive nitrogen. (ANI)

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Atmospheric ‘sunshade’ could reduce solar power generation

March 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 12 (ANI): A new study has suggested that the concept of delaying global warming by adding particles into the upper atmosphere to cool the climate could unintentionally reduce peak electricity generated by large solar power plants by as much as one-fifth.

The study was conducted by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“Injecting particles into the stratosphere could have unintended consequences for one alternative energy source expected to play a role in the transition away from fossil fuels,” said Daniel Murphy, a scientist at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

The Earth is heating up as fossil-fuel burning produces carbon dioxide, the primary heat-trapping gas responsible for man-made climate change.

To counteract the effect, some geoengineering proposals are designed to slow global warming by shading the Earth from sunlight.

Among the ideas being explored is injecting small particles into the upper atmosphere to produce a climate cooling similar to that of large volcanic eruptions, such as Mt. Pinatubo’s in 1991.

Airborne sulfur hovering in the stratosphere cooled the Earth for about two years following that eruption.

Murphy found that particles in the stratosphere reduce the amount and change the nature of the sunlight that strikes the Earth.

Though a fraction of the incoming sunlight bounces back to space (the cooling effect), a much larger amount becomes diffuse, or scattered, light.

On average, for every watt of sunlight the particles reflect away from the Earth, another three watts of direct sunlight are converted to diffuse sunlight.

Large power-generating solar plants that concentrate sunlight for maximum efficiency depend solely on direct sunlight and cannot use diffuse light.

Murphy verified his calculations using long-term NOAA observations of direct and diffuse sunlight before and after the 1991 eruption.

After the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, peak power output of Solar Electric Generating Stations in California, the largest collective of solar power plants in the world, fell by up to 20 percent, even though the stratospheric particles from the eruption reduced total sunlight that year by less than 3 percent.

“The sensitivity of concentrating solar systems to stratospheric particles may seem surprising,” said Murphy. “But because these systems use only direct sunlight, increasing stratospheric particles has a disproportionately large effect on them,” he added. (ANI)

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Antarctic abyss also affected by global warming

March 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, March 12 (ANI): A new research has shown that even the deepest, darkest reaches of the Antarctic abyss have been affected by global warming.

The research, conducted by Gregory Johnson, of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, and a team of international colleagues, suggests the changes could be responsible for up to 20 percent of the observed global sea-level rise.

As part of the CLIVAR (Climate Variability and Predictability) project, Johnson and his team have been spending weeks at a time at sea, tracing straight lines across all of the world’s oceans.

As they make these traverses, they measure the temperatures of the water from the very bottom right up to the surface.

The team takes its measurements along the same routes as expeditions carried out in the 1990s, which provides a picture of how things have changed in roughly one decade.

The researchers are particularly interested in the masses of cold water that sink down to the abyss along the shores of Antarctica before moving north along the ocean floor into the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.

These three flows of Antarctic abyssal water overwhelmingly influence the deep waters of the world, says Johnson.

Water sinks off the coast of Greenland too, but the Antarctic abyssal water volume is twice that of the north Atlantic.

Early results from CLIVAR show that abyssal water is warmer now than it was in the 1990s.

The water that travels from Antarctica into the south-eastern Indian basin is roughly 0.1 degree Celsisus warmer. The deep ocean current travelling from Antarctica into the Pacific is 0.03 degree C warmer.

In the northern hemisphere, the deep abyssal Atlantic water, which sits between the ocean floor and the layer of deep water that sinks off the coast of Greenland and travels south, is 0.04 degree C warmer.

The researchers have also looked at the salinity of the deep Antarctic waters, which is important because it affects water buoyancy.

They found that here, too, there is change: in both the southeast Indian Ocean and in the Pacific, the water is less salty today than it was in the 1990s.

“Most likely, this is a direct result of dilution from the melting Antarctic ice,” said Johnson.

According to Johnson, the warming and consequent expansion of the deep water flows may be responsible for between 10 percent and 20 percent of the global sea-level rise seen during that time. (ANI)

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Termite killer looms as potent greenhouse gas

March 11, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 11 (ANI): A new study has indicated that fumigant pumped into tented houses to kill pests remains in atmosphere six to 10 times longer than previously thought, thus becoming a potent greenhouse gas.

The study was conducted by a research team led by Jens Muhle, an atmospheric chemist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC (University of California) San Diego.

The team discovered that Sulfuryl fluoride (SO2F2), a gas commonly used to rid buildings of termites and other pests, is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere about 36 years, six to 10 times longer than previously thought.

The team found that the concentration of the gas rose at a rate of 4 to 6 percent per year between 1978 and 2007, to a global atmospheric abundance by the end of 2007 of about 1.5 parts per trillion.

Its actual emissions into the atmosphere over this period were about one third less than estimated from industrial production data.

“It’s extremely important to have independent verification of emissions,” said Muhle. “You can’t have regulation without verification, and you can’t have verification without measurements,” he added.

Muhle said that he started detecting an unknown compound in air samples taken in early 2004 at the Scripps pier with a newly developed measurement instrument.

He identified the compound as SO2F2 and concluded that the large fluctuations seen at the pier were likely related to the fumigation of local buildings.

The team expanded the analysis to air samples routinely collected around the world at stations of the NASA-funded Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE) network and to old air samples archived in metal cylinders.

With the help of atmospheric computer models, the Scripps team and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) determined that the most important removal process of sulfuryl fluoride is dissolution into the ocean, where it is decomposed by chemical reactions.

NOAA researchers working with the Scripps team calculated that one kilogram of SO2F2 emitted into the atmosphere has a global warming potential approximately 4,800 times greater than one kilogram of carbon dioxide.

“Such fumigants are very important for controlling pests in the agricultural and building sectors,” said Ron Prinn, director of MIT’s Center for Global Change Science. “But with methyl bromide being phased out, industry had to find alternatives, so sulfuryl fluoride has evolved to fill the role,” he added.

“Unfortunately, it turns out that sulfuryl fluoride is a greenhouse gas with a longer lifetime than previously assumed,” said Muhle. “This has to be taken into account before large amounts are emitted into the atmosphere,” he added. (ANI)

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Seven new species of bamboo coral discovered in Hawaii’s deep waters

March 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 8 (ANI): Scientists have identified seven new species of bamboo coral in the deep waters of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, in Hawaii, US, among which six may represent an entirely new genera.

A genus is a major category in the classification of organisms, ranking above a species and below a family. Scientists expect to identify more new species as analysis of samples continues.

“These discoveries are important, because deep-sea corals support diverse seafloor ecosystems and also because these corals may be among the first marine organisms to be affected by ocean acidification,” said Richard Spinrad, NOAA’s assistant administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.

“Deep-sea bamboo corals also produce growth rings much as trees do, and can provide a much-needed view of how deep ocean conditions change through time,” he added.

Ocean acidification is a change in ocean chemistry due to excess carbon dioxide.

Researchers have seen adverse changes in marine life with calcium-carbonate shells, such as corals, because of acidified ocean water.

According to Rob Dunbar, a Stanford University scientist,”We found live, 4,000-year-old corals in the Monument – meaning 4,000 years worth of information about what has been going on in the deep ocean interior.”

“Studying these corals can help us understand how they survive for such long periods of time, as well as how they may respond to climate change in the future,” he said.

Among the other findings were a five-foot tall yellow bamboo coral tree that had never been described before, new beds of living deepwater coral and sponges, and a giant sponge scientists dubbed the “cauldron sponge,” approximately three feet tall and three feet across.

Analysis is not yet complete on the cauldron sponge, but scientists expect it will turn out to be a new species.

Scientists collected two other sponges which have not yet been analyzed, but may represent new species or genera as well.

This orange bamboo coral is another new species and new genus found in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. It is between four and five feet tall, and was found 5,745 feet below the surface. (ANI)

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Lunar cycle can turn hurricanes into ‘monsters’

March 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 6 (ANI): A new study has determined that hurricanes strengthen more often under a new lunar cycle than at any other time.

The moon’s strange influence on Earth and its denizens is legendary. From fertility to suicide, most phenomena attributed to the Moon are almost exclusively superstition.

But, according to a report in Discovery News, Peter Yaukey of the University of New Orleans has found what he thinks is real evidence that the phases of moon drive hurricane behavior.

Storms that occurred in the Atlantic Ocean between 1950 and 2007 were more likely to form right after the new moon.

They also intensified 49 percent more often after a new moon than at any other time in the 29.5-day lunar cycle.

Over the last century, a smattering of scientific research has hinted that the moon may influence rain patterns, thunderstorms and other meteorological events, Yaukey said.

Explanations for why this is are many, but nothing conclusive has been shown.

“I had a lot of skepticism attributed to the moon, and I still do in a sense. It’s not enough to have a pattern in the data. You need to have a mechanism to explain it,” said Yaukey.

There are a range of possibilities.

Just as the moon pulls on Earth’s oceans and creates the tides, it also tugs on the air above it. Lunar atmospheric tides are thought to be weak, but could create favorable conditions for storms to strengthen.

The moon’s gravity may also pull cosmic dust into Earth’s atmosphere in a cyclical fashion, perhaps seeding cloud formation and precipitation.

The most promising explanation is internal tides encouraged by the lunar cycle.

The currents beneath the ocean surface could circulate warm water up underneath a storm, supplying it with the energy it needs to intensify.

But before scientists seek explanations for the connection they must make sure it’s real, according to Gabriel Vecchi of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in Princeton, New Jersey.

“There’s an easy way to do an independent test for this. Go back and look back at Atlantic hurricane data from 1878-1950 to see if there’s still this pattern,” he said.

Only 13 percent of the world’s hurricanes occur in the Atlantic Ocean. So, if the moon is really influencing hurricanes, the signal should show up in Pacific and Indian Ocean storms, too. (ANI)

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