Earth Changes
After two weeks of flying head-on into hurricane-force winds that whipped recently around the southern tip of Greenland, a group of scientists has a better idea of just how these winds relate to broader weather patterns, global ocean circulation and climate.
Weather experts have only really known about these so-called tip jets for less than a decade, and most of what they knew was from satellite data. The team of scientists, as part of the International Polar Year effort, recently sought to go airborne for a close-up look at the roaring winds.
Not this time, Gore says. What's different is that climate change is being driven by human activity -- to wit, increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Which means, he says, that we have to sharply reduce those emissions. But what the scientists tell us is that some proportion of climate change is caused by human activity and some proportion by natural causes -- and that they can only estimate what those proportions are. The estimates they have produced have varied sharply. The climate change models that have been developed don't account for events of the recent past, much less predict with precision events in the future.
The right-wing president, a free-market champion, wrote to the U.S. Congress that adopting tough environmental policies to fight climate change would have destructive impact on national economies.
"Communism has been replaced by the threat of an ambitious environmentalism," Klaus wrote in response to questions from the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The U.S. House Subcommittee for Energy and Air Quality was due to hold a hearing on climate on Wednesday with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, who sees global warming as a key challenge, and Danish sceptic Bjorn Lomborg, who says governments should focus on fight disease and hunger instead.
The 10-minute long storm damaged no less than a thousand houses leaving hundreds of people homeless. Many trees in the local reserved forest were uprooted and a heavy hail shower following the storm completely destroyed the crops on the fields.
The volcano became more active Saturday, the Jakarta Post reported. Tons of ash and lava spewed from its cone into the sea.
The purple milkweed butterfly, which winters in the south of the island, passes over some 600m of motorway to reach its breeding ground in the north.
Many of the 11,500 butterflies that attempt the journey each hour do not reach safety, experts say.
Protective nets and ultra-violet lights will also be used to aid the insects.