Earth Changes
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| ©AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach
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| A tree lies on top of downed power lines in Brunswick, Maine, Thursday, April 5, 2007. ...
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CONCORD, N.H. - Utility crews worked to restore power Friday to tens of thousands of northern New Englanders after a spring snowfall dumped more than a foot of snow around the region.
Carol Goldberg
PEERmedia Fri, 06 Apr 2007 05:51 UTC
Federal climate, weather and marine scientists will be subject to new restrictions as to what they can say to the media or in public, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Under rules posted last week, these federal scientists must obtain agency pre-approval to speak or write, whether on or off-duty, concerning any scientific topic deemed "of official interest."
Comment: Already any press releases put out by climate scientists have to go through "screening" before being published. All media contact has to be reported to political appointees located at each federal facility. This new directive takes this "review" process to new extremes, though it appears to be limited to Commerce Department scientists (NOAA and NMFS) for the time being.
The western US may be heading towards a return to the dustbowl landscape that devastated the prairies of the 1930s, climatologists warn.
A strong earthquake shook Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores archipelago early today, according to the US Geological Survey's Earthquake Information Center.
Rare, mother-of-pearl coloured clouds caused by extreme weather conditions above Antarctica are a possible indication of global warming, Australian scientists have announced.
Known as nacreous clouds, the spectacular formations showing delicate wisps of colours were photographed in the sky over an Australian meteorological base at Mawson Station on July 25.
GLOBAL warming could be heating Mars four times faster than Earth due to a mutually reinforcing interplay of wind-swept dust and changes in reflected heat from the Sun, according a study.
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| Lava flowing from Piton de la Fournaise on Reunion
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Raging lava has spewed out of one of the world's most active volcanos on the French island of La Reunion.
The red hot lava cut roads in half, damaged homes and created huge clouds of steam as it flowed into the Indian Ocean.
The Arctic in 2005 saw little renewal of the thick, perennial sea ice that normally melts and is replenished every year, a NASA study has found.
Renewing the layer is crucial to maintaining the summer ice cover's stability, and the new findings suggest it may continue to decrease by as much as 10 per cent a year, researchers at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.
The third earthquake in the past three days has shaken the Solomon Islands, struck by two quakes and a resulting tsunami Monday, Australian radio reported Wednesday.
Two earthquakes measuring between 7.6 and 9 on the Richter scale caused a tsunami some 10 meters (30 feet) high that completely flooded the towns of Gizo and Noro. The official death toll has already reached 32, and scores of villagers are reported missing.
Arnold Moveni, the head of the local emergency relief committee, said rescuers have conducted flights over the hardest-hit areas, and that the death toll is likely to keep rising as reports come in from other affected areas.
A group of scientists is fighting a rearguard action to challenge mainstream evidence that humans are to blame for climate change.
They point to natural shifts in the sun's heat, a cooling of the planet in the mid-20th century and an apparent slowdown of temperature rises in the past decade.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in February that it was "very likely" - more than 90 per cent - that human activities, namely fossil fuel burning, explained most of an "unequivocal" warming in the past 50 years.
The panel said temperatures will likely rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 Celsius this century.
The IPCC, made up of about 2,500 scientists, is endorsed by governments.
Comment: Already any press releases put out by climate scientists have to go through "screening" before being published. All media contact has to be reported to political appointees located at each federal facility. This new directive takes this "review" process to new extremes, though it appears to be limited to Commerce Department scientists (NOAA and NMFS) for the time being.