Starting in New Zealand's remote Chatham Islands, thousands of cities, towns, and landmarks around the world will start to go dark for Earth Hour on Saturday evening.
Up to a billion people worldwide are expected to participate in this global voluntary blackout by switching off their lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time.
The movement, sponsored by the conservation nonprofit WWF, is designed as a symbolic gesture in support of action against global warming.
Earth Changes
© Nicholas Makris
A vast shoal of fish – creating one of the largest massings of animals on the planet – can be seen forming and then dissipating in these time lapse images taken by Oceanic Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing.
A vast shoal of fish – creating one of the largest massings of animals on the planet – can be seen forming and then dissipating in these time lapse images taken by Oceanic Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing.
Such observations could help conserve dwindling fish stocks, says Nicholas Makris, an oceanographer at MIT, who led the study.
"If we see what's in the ocean we'll be more mindful of conserving it," he says.
The technology - called ocean acoustic waveguide remote sensing (OAWRS) - has also helped researchers confirm theoretical predictions as to why and how so many animals get together and act as one.
"I don't know anything that's close to this scale," says Iain Couzin, a biologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, who was not involved in the study.
© AP Photo/Al Grillo
A moose calf leaves foot prints in ash from Mount Redoubt Volcano as it walks along a trail Tuesday, March 24, 2009, in Trapper Creek, Alaska.
A moose calf leaves foot prints in ash from Mount Redoubt Volcano as it walks along a trail Tuesday, March 24, 2009, in Trapper Creek, Alaska.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory said the first eruption about 8:30 a.m. shot an ash cloud about 30,000 feet in the air, and the second eruption about an hour later sent ash 65,000 feet high - the highest cloud since the eruptions began. The larger eruption caused a mud flow into the Drift River near the base of the volcano.
Before Thursday's eruptions the volcano had been relatively quiet for more than a day.
Magee - Severe weather across the South unleashed tornadoes in rural Mississippi, including one that shattered dozens of homes, flattened a church and injured at least 17 people, authorities said Thursday.
There were no immediate reports of fatalities, Magee Mayor Jimmy Clyde said. The most seriously injured were hospitalized, but most others had minor injuries.
The twister was reported around 1:30 a.m., and swept through Mississippi's pine-covered hill country as severe thunderstorms rumbled across several Southeast states. Power blackouts affected tens of thousands of Louisiana residents, and authorities reported damage to some Alabama homes. Georgia residents also braced for potentially heavy rains.
There were no immediate reports of fatalities, Magee Mayor Jimmy Clyde said. The most seriously injured were hospitalized, but most others had minor injuries.
The twister was reported around 1:30 a.m., and swept through Mississippi's pine-covered hill country as severe thunderstorms rumbled across several Southeast states. Power blackouts affected tens of thousands of Louisiana residents, and authorities reported damage to some Alabama homes. Georgia residents also braced for potentially heavy rains.
For more than half a century the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Princeton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country's most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming "out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned," as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him. Chat rooms, Web threads, editors' letter boxes and Dyson's own e-mail queue resonate with a thermal current of invective in which Dyson has discovered himself variously described as "a pompous twit," "a blowhard," "a cesspool of misinformation," "an old coot riding into the sunset" and, perhaps inevitably, "a mad scientist." Dyson had proposed that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow. Then he added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, they could be soothed by the mass cultivation of specially bred "carbon-eating trees," whereupon the University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner looked through the thick grove of honorary degrees Dyson has been awarded - there are 21 from universities like Georgetown, Princeton and Oxford - and suggested that "perhaps trees can also be designed so that they can give directions to lost hikers." Dyson's son, George, a technology historian, says his father's views have cooled friendships, while many others have concluded that time has cost Dyson something else. There is the suspicion that, at age 85, a great scientist of the 20th century is no longer just far out, he is far gone - out of his beautiful mind.
This Letter reports reliable satellite data in the period of 1980 - 2007 covering two full 11-yr cosmic ray (CR) cycles, clearly showing the correlation between CRs and ozone depletion, especially the polar ozone loss (hole) over Antarctica. The results provide strong evidence of the physical mechanism that the CRdriven electron-induced reaction of halogenated molecules plays the dominant role in causing the ozone hole. Moreover, this mechanism predicts one of the severest ozone losses in 2008-2009 (ended up among the largest) and probably another large hole around 2019-2020.
There is interest in studying the effects of galactic cosmic rays (CRs) on Earth's climate and environment, particularly on global cloud cover in low atmosphere (3 km) [1 - 5] and ozone depletion in the stratosphere [6 - 16]. The former has led to a different scenario for global warming, while the latter has provided an unrecognized mechanism for the formation of the O3 hole. The discovery of the CR-cloud correlation by Svensmark and Friis-Christensen has motivated the experiments to investigate the physical mechanism for the correlation. In contrast, the CR-driven electron reaction mechanism for
O3 depletion was first unexpectedly revealed from laboratory measurements by Lu and Madey. Then the evidence of the correlation between CRs, chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) dissociation, and O3 loss was found from satellite data by Lu and Sanche: the O3 hole is exactly located in the polar stratosphere and at the altitude of 18 km where the CR ionization shows a maximum.
There is interest in studying the effects of galactic cosmic rays (CRs) on Earth's climate and environment, particularly on global cloud cover in low atmosphere (3 km) [1 - 5] and ozone depletion in the stratosphere [6 - 16]. The former has led to a different scenario for global warming, while the latter has provided an unrecognized mechanism for the formation of the O3 hole. The discovery of the CR-cloud correlation by Svensmark and Friis-Christensen has motivated the experiments to investigate the physical mechanism for the correlation. In contrast, the CR-driven electron reaction mechanism for
O3 depletion was first unexpectedly revealed from laboratory measurements by Lu and Madey. Then the evidence of the correlation between CRs, chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) dissociation, and O3 loss was found from satellite data by Lu and Sanche: the O3 hole is exactly located in the polar stratosphere and at the altitude of 18 km where the CR ionization shows a maximum.
Abstract: Pub ID: UNE2069052At first glance, a research piece predicting significantly colder weather seems rather bold. In reality, we're very confident about this report. That's because we are not so much predicting colder weather, but are instead observing it. More important, we're attempting to coax our readers to view recent weather data and trends with a neutral perspective - unbiased by the constant barrage of misinformation about global warming. We assure you, based on the accuracy of climatologists' long-term (and short-term!) forecasts, you would not even hire them!
For example, in 1923 a Chicago Tribune headline proclaimed: "Scientist says arctic ice will wipe out Canada." By 1952, the New York Times declared "Melting glaciers are the trump card of global warming." In 1974, Time Magazine ran a feature article predicting "Another Ice Age," echoed in a Newsweek article the following year. Clearly, the recent history of climate prediction inspires little confidence - despite its shrillness. Why, then, accept the global warming thesis at face value? Merely because it is so pervasive?
North Dakota has been declared a federal disaster area by US President Barack Obama because of record spring flooding across the mid-Western state.
Floodwaters from the Red River, which is expected to peak later this week, have closed roads and bridges. (Video)
National guardsmen and volunteers are reinforcing flood defences.
The rising waters are also affecting the neighbouring state of Minnesota which, like North Dakota, borders the Red River on its route towards Canada.
Floodwaters from the Red River, which is expected to peak later this week, have closed roads and bridges. (Video)
National guardsmen and volunteers are reinforcing flood defences.
© BBC
Areas affected by flooding
Areas affected by flooding
© Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press
The Red River carries snow and ice as it rises and floods home on March 25
The Red River carries snow and ice as it rises and floods home on March 25
Bismarck - Demolition crews blasted chunks of ice near a huge ice jam in the Missouri River on Wednesday in a bid to open a channel, like pulling out a giant plug to drain a flood threatening the city. "We are cautiously optimistic," Bismarck Mayor John Warford said after explosives detonated on about 500 feet of ice just south of the jam. He said officials would have a better assessment Wednesday night but that water appeared to be moving.
Water backing up behind the dam of car-size ice blocks already had forced the evacuation of about 1,700 people from low-lying areas in North Dakota's capital.
Meanwhile, on the eastern side of the state, volunteers continued stacking sandbags to protect Fargo amid new concern over the rising Red River. After days of predicting a crest ranging from 39 to 41 feet, the National Weather Service settled on the higher number.
A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Papua New Guinea on Wednesday morning, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties on the ground.
The quake hit at 9:28 am (2328 GMT Tuesday) with an epicentre 117 kilometres (73 miles) south-southwest of Rabaul, which sits at the northern tip of the island of New Britain, at a depth of 47 kilometres, the USGS said.
Residents of Rabaul felt the tremor but there were no reports of damage, according to PNG's earthquake authority.
The quake hit at 9:28 am (2328 GMT Tuesday) with an epicentre 117 kilometres (73 miles) south-southwest of Rabaul, which sits at the northern tip of the island of New Britain, at a depth of 47 kilometres, the USGS said.
Residents of Rabaul felt the tremor but there were no reports of damage, according to PNG's earthquake authority.
Comment: What is interesting about this report is that it comes from big business. If you want to pay $1295.00 you can download a copy and read it. I guess big business is telling James Hansen and the rest of the Gore-Landers that they are a bunch of liars. Rather than jumping on the Global Warming is going to get us gravy train, these guys are going directly against that money making scheme.
Here is what the source company says about itself: