Massive Lightning Near Space Shuttle Endeavour

The space shuttle Endeavour is seen on launch pad 39a as a storm passes by prior to the rollback of the Rotating Service Structure (RSS), Thursday, April 28, 2011, at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and the STS-134 crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre. Launch is targeted for Friday, April 29 at 3:47 p.m. EDT. Photo credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

via Space Shuttle Endeavour (201104280022HQ) | Flickr - Photo Sharing!.

The Mystery of an Ancient Global Warming Recovery

The Earth may be able to recover from rising carbon dioxide emissions faster than previously thought, according to evidence from a prehistoric event analyzed by a Purdue University-led team.

When faced with high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and rising temperatures 56 million years ago, the Earth increased its ability to pull carbon from the air. This led to a recovery that was quicker than anticipated by many models of the carbon cycle - though still on the order of tens of thousands of years, said Gabriel Bowen, the associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences who led the study.

"We found that more than half of the added carbon dioxide was pulled from the atmosphere within 30,000 to 40,000 years, which is one-third of the time span previously thought," said Bowen, who also is a member of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center. "We still don't know exactly where this carbon went, but the evidence suggests it was a much more dynamic response than traditional models represent."

... Plants prefer carbon-12 during photosynthesis, and when they accelerate their uptake of carbon dioxide it shifts the carbon isotope ratio in the atmosphere. This shift is then reflected in the carbon isotopes present in rock minerals formed by reactions involving atmospheric carbon dioxide, Bowen said.

"The rate of the carbon isotope change in rock minerals tells us how rapidly the carbon dioxide was pulled from the atmosphere," he said. "We can see the fluxes of carbon dioxide in to and out of the atmosphere. At the beginning of the event we see a shift indicating that a lot of organic-derived carbon dioxide had been added to the atmosphere, and at the end of the event we see a shift indicating that a lot of carbon dioxide was taken up as organic carbon and thus removed from the atmosphere."

A paper detailing the team's National Science Foundation-funded work was published in Nature Geoscience.

via The Mystery of an Ancient Global Warming Recovery.

YouTube - How the 2011 Japan tsunami happened

YouTube - How the 2011 Japan tsunami happened.

Tornado closes Lambert-St Louis airport

The US airport of Lambert-St Louis has been closed indefinitely after a tornado ripped through its main terminal.

The storm tore off a large section of the terminal's roof, shattering windows and sending debris flying.

Several people were being treated for minor injuries.

The storm, one of a series to pass through central and eastern Missouri, also flattened homes in the area, felled trees and tore down power lines.

Lambert-St Louis airport said all flights were cancelled pending full safety assessments, and a clean-up was under way.

"We have all hands on deck here," said Mayor Francis Slay, speaking at the airport.

'Grown men crying'

St Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch, who was at the airport as the storm approached, said people watching the tornado suddenly had to scramble for safety.

"About the time we came into the building, the doors blew off," he said.

"Literally 10 seconds later, it was over. It's amazing to me more people weren't hurt."

Dianna Merrill, who was waiting for a flight to New York, said she had been looking out of the window hoping her delayed flight would arrive.

"Glass was blowing everywhere. The ceiling was falling... the wind was blowing debris all over the place," she said.

"It was like being in a horror movie. Grown men were crying. It was horrible."

via BBC News - Tornado closes Lambert-St Louis airport.

Ozone hole has dried Australia, scientists find

The Antarctic ozone hole is about one-third to blame for Australia's recent series of droughts, scientists say.

Writing in the journal Science, they conclude that the hole has shifted wind and rainfall patterns right across the Southern Hemisphere, even the tropics.

Their climate models suggest the effect has been notably strong over Australia.

Many parts of the country have seen drought in recent years, with cities forced to invest in technologies such as desalination, and farms closing.

The scientists behind the new study - led from Columbia University in New York - added the ozone hole into standard climate models to investigate how it might have affected winds and rains.

"The ozone hole results in a southward shift of the high-latitude circulation - and the whole tropical circulation shifts southwards too," explained Columbia's Sarah Kang.

Of particular interest was the southward migration of the Southern Hemisphere jet stream.

These high-altitude winds are key to determining weather patterns, in both hemispheres. Much of the cold weather felt in the UK over the last couple of winters, for example, was caused by blocking of the Northern Hemisphere stream.

The Columbia team found that overall, the ozone hole has resulted in rainfall moving south along with the winds.

But there are regional differences, particularly concerning Australia.

"In terms of the average for that zone, [the ozone hole drives] about a 10% change - but for Australia, it's about 35%," Dr Kang told BBC News.

Their modelling indicated that global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions was also a factor...

via BBC News - Ozone hole has dried Australia, scientists find.

Underwater Microphone Captures Honshu, Japan Earthquake

YouTube - Underwater Microphone Captures Honshu, Japan Earthquake.

Humans may owe life to pumice

Pumice, the rock used remove dry skin from feet, could have been responsible for the birth of life on Earth, scientists have claimed.

It is commonly known for its ability to remove dry skin from feet, but pumice stone may have had a far more important role in our lives than we realise.

Scientists claim the rock, which is produced as volcanic gases bubble through lava as it solidifies, may have been responsible for the birth of life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago.

In a surprising new theory for how life evolved our planet, palaeobiologists believe the tiny pores in the volcanic rock provided the perfect environment for the first living cells to develop.

They say they have found evidence that the essential cocktail of chemicals that make up all organisms on Earth can accumulated inside the pumice pores while other chemicals commonly found there could have kick started biological reactions in the presence of ultraviolet light.

Pumice is also well known for its ability to float and massive rafts of the rock have washed up on shorelines around the world decades after major volcanic eruptions.

via Humans may owe more than smooth feet to pumice, claim scientists - Telegraph.

Cesium-137 forecast shows high altitude radiation cloud concentrate over western US on April 12

YouTube - Cesium-137 forecast shows high altitude radiation cloud concentrate over western US on April 12.

The orientation of the globe is strange. The US is on the upper left and it is almost upside down. See it now?

Ancient stone markers warned of tsunamis in Japan

Modern sea walls failed to protect coastal towns from Japan's destructive tsunami last month. But in the hamlet of Aneyoshi, a single centuries-old tablet saved the day.

"High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants," the stone slab reads. "Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point."

It was advice the dozen or so households of Aneyoshi heeded, and their homes emerged unscathed from a disaster that flattened low-lying communities elsewhere and killed thousands along Japan's northeastern shore.

Hundreds of such markers dot the coastline, some more than 600 years old. Collectively they form a crude warning system for Japan, whose long coasts along major fault lines have made it a repeated target of earthquakes and tsunamis over the centuries.

The markers don't all indicate where it's safe to build. Some simply stand — or stood, washed away by the tsunami — as daily reminders of the risk. "If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis," reads one. In the bustle of modern life, many forgot.

More than 12,000 have been confirmed dead and officials fear the death toll could rise to 25,000 from the March 11 disaster. More than 100,000 are still sheltering in schools and other buildings, almost a month later. A few lucky individuals may move into the first completed units of temporary housing this weekend. ...

via Ancient stone markers warned of tsunamis - CBS News.

Gardening: What to plant in April (Northern California)

I'm getting into gardening. Growing some of your own food is great. Today, April 10th, 2011, is a nice day and I've got my beds weeded and ready for planting, but what to plant? Here are a few guides:

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

September: Plant marjoram, oregano, peppermint, rosemary, thyme. (Herbs can actually be planted all year in most climates.)

... April ... Plant:• Basil seedlings (Plant in batches every two weeks through August)

• Chiles (seedlings; through May)

• Corn (seed―plant in batches every two weeks through August)

• Cucumbers (seedlings)

• Edamame (seeds; plant in batches every two weeks through May)

• Hops (through May)

• Lemongrass, Melons (seeds; seedlings in May),

• Squash (seeds; seedlings in May)

• Tomatoes (seedlings; through May)

• Zucchini (seeds)

via Our planting calendar - Sunset.com.

Today I planted 3 kinds of tomato, chilies, and pepper seedlings plus seeds for watermelon, corn, edamame, zucchini, pumpkin, and sunflowers. Total cost (including the new shovel, $55.)

85 year old man crosses Atlantic on raft to raise water awareness

A grandfather from London and his three-man crew have successfully crossed the Atlantic on a raft made of pipes after 66 days at sea.

Anthony Smith, 85, wanted to complete the 2,800-mile (4,596km) voyage to highlight the fact a billion people worldwide live without clean water.

The former BBC Tomorrow's World presenter hopes to have raised £50,000 for the charity WaterAid.

They set sail from the Canary Islands and reached the Caribbean on Wednesday.

Mr Smith recruited the team of "mature and intrepid gentlemen" - aged between 56 and 61 - by placing an advert in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

It read: "Fancy rafting across the Atlantic? Famous traveller requires 3 crew.

"Must be OAP. Serious adventurers only."

The 85-year-old was a science correspondent and presenter on the BBC programme, which was axed in 2003 after 40 years.

Speaking ahead of the trip Mr Smith said: "Water strikes at the very heart of need.

"To voyage almost 3,000 miles upon the salty kind will make us intensely aware of places in the world that are without adequate supplies."

Their vessel, named the An-Tiki, was constructed out of 12m (39ft) lengths of pipe.

It was powered by a 400-square-foot sail and steered using twin rudders and oars, travelling at an average speed of four knots. ...

via BBC News - Presenter, 85, crosses Atlantic on raft for WaterAid.

Some People's Climate Beliefs Shift With Weather

Social scientists are struggling with a perplexing earth-science question: as the power of evidence showing manmade global warming is rising, why do opinion polls suggest public belief in the findings is wavering? Part of the answer may be that some people are too easily swayed by the easiest, most irrational piece of evidence at hand: their own estimation of the day’s temperature.

In three separate studies, researchers affiliated with Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) surveyed about 1,200 people in the United States and Australia, and found that those who thought the current day was warmer than usual were more likely to believe in and feel concern about global warming than those who thought the day was unusually cold. A new paper describing the studies appears in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science.

“Global warming is so complex, it appears some people are ready to be persuaded by whether their own day is warmer or cooler than usual, rather than think about whether the entire world is becoming warmer or cooler,” said lead author Ye Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the Columbia Business School’s Center for Decision Sciences, which is aligned with CRED. “It is striking that society has spent so much money, time and effort educating people about this issue, yet people are still so easily influenced.” The study says that “these results join a growing body of work show that irrelevant environmental information, such as the current weather, can affect judgments. … By way of analogy, when asked about the state of the national economy, someone might look at the amount of money in his or her wallet, a factor with only trivial relevance.”...

via Some People's Climate Beliefs Shift With Weather - The Earth Institute, Columbia University.

Glaciers melting 100 times faster than thought

A new study has found that the world’s glaciers are melting up to 100 times faster than any time in the past 350 years.

The findings, based on the study of Patagonia, South America, have worrying implications for millions of people who rely on the slow moving bodies of ice for fresh water, a newspaper reported.

The amount of ice lost from the 270 Patagonian glaciers is equivalent to filling Windermere in the Lake District more than 1,700 times.

The researchers, led by Prof Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University, analysed the rocky debris left by glaciers on the sides of mountains to work out how big they once were and how much ice has vanished.

Since the Little Ice Age ended in Patagonia in the middle of the 17th century, the 270 glaciers that now cover an area of at least 0.4 square miles have lost 145 cubic miles of ice.

Over the same period temperatures have gone up by around 1.4 C in the region, said the scientists.

“The glaciers have lost a lot less ice up until 30 years ago than had been thought,” said Glasser.

“The real killer is that in the last 30 years the rate of loss has gone up 100 times above the long term average. It’s scary,” he said.

The professor, who carried out the study alongside researchers from the University of Exeter and Stockholm University, said the South American glaciers were at a similar latitude in the southern hemisphere as the Alps are in the northern hemisphere.

The findings are reported in the journal Nature Geoscience. ...

via Glaciers melting 100 times faster than thought | Discovery Online.

Richard Branson Plans Deep-ocean Submarine Dives

YouTube - Richard Branson Plans Deep-ocean Submarine Dives.

Richard Branson Plans Deep-ocean Submarine Dives

YouTube - Richard Branson Plans Deep-ocean Submarine Dives.

Resource scarcity is not a necessity

Economic theory assumes resource scarcity as an important premise, and there is a general consensus that scarce resources are best allocated by means of a market. However, a new doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, shows that there may be alternative solutions to the allocation problem.

Economic theory generally assumes that there will never be enough food, water, cars, money etc. to satisfy people's wants. This means that inequalities, conflict and poverty are inevitable parts of society. Many economists feel that scarcity is best dealt with through the presence of a market – the highest bidders gain access to a society's scarce resources.

Yet, economic sociologists do not necessarily see resource scarcity as inevitable, and neither do they always agree with the mainstream solution to the economic problem. There are indeed enough resources, they might argue, but people are for various reasons denied access. For example, there is enough food in the world, but people are still starving. Why is that?

'The market as an allocation mechanism has not been able to distribute food to everyone – every sixth person in the world does not have access to enough food,' says Adel Daoud, author of the thesis.

So, do we need the market?

'Maybe we do, given the present economic system, but we should at the same time ask ourselves whether any alternative allocation models could help us manage the world's resources better, not least considering the climate threat. A so-called economic democracy could be one such solution. In an economic democracy, citizens get to have a say about what and how much of various products and services should be produced,' says Daoud.

One of the main contributions of the thesis is to show the importance of using alternative perspectives, such as economic sociology, to deal with the notion of resource scarcity rather than simply seeing scarcity as inevitable. ...

via Resource scarcity is not a necessity.

Protein adaptation shows that life on early earth lived in a hot, acidic environment

A new study reveals that a group of ancient enzymes adapted to substantial changes in ocean temperature and acidity during the last four billion years, providing evidence that life on Early Earth evolved from a much hotter, more acidic environment to the cooler, less acidic global environment that exists today.The study found that a group of ancient enzymes known as thioredoxin were chemically stable at temperatures up to 32 degrees Celsius (58 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than their modern counterparts. The enzymes, which were several billion years old, also showed increased activity at lower pH levels -- which correspond to greater acidity.

"This study shows that a group of ubiquitous proteins operated in a hot, acidic environment during early life, which supports the view that the environment progressively cooled and became more alkaline between four billion and 500 million years ago," said Eric Gaucher, an associate professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The study, which was published April 3 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, was conducted by an international team of researchers from Georgia Tech, Columbia University and the Universidad de Granada in Spain.

Major funding for this study was provided by two grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to Georgia Tech, a grant from the National Institutes of Health to Columbia University, and a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to the Universidad de Granada.

Using a technique called ancestral sequence reconstruction, Gaucher and Georgia Tech biology graduate student Zi-Ming Zhao reconstructed seven ancient thioredoxin enzymes from the three domains of life -- archaea, bacteria and eukaryote -- that date back between one and four billion years old.

To resurrect these enzymes, which are found in nearly all known modern organisms and are essential for life in mammals, the researchers first constructed a family tree of the more than 200 thioredoxin sequences available from the three domains of life. Then they reconstructed the sequences of the ancestral thioredoxin enzymes using statistical methods based on maximum likelihood. Finally, they synthesized the genes that encoded these sequences, expressed the ancient proteins in the cells of modern Escherichia coli bacteria and then purified the proteins.

"By resurrecting proteins, we are able to gather valuable information about the adaptation of extinct forms of life to climatic, ecological and physiological alterations that cannot be uncovered through fossil record examinations," said Gaucher ...

via Protein adaptation shows that life on early earth lived in a hot, acidic environment.

Mangroves excel at storing carbon

Tropical mangrove trees are better at storing carbon dioxide than most other forests, and cutting them down unleashes more greenhouse gas than deforestation elsewhere, say scientists.

Mangroves are so efficient at keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere that when they are destroyed, they release as much as 10 per cent of all emissions worldwide attributable to deforestation - even though mangroves account for just 0.7 per cent of the tropical forest area, says researchers.

Daniel Donato, of the US Agriculture Department's Forest Service and lead author of a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, says mangroves store two to four times the carbon that tropical rainforests do.

"Mangroves store a lot of carbon, much more so than most forests on Earth, on a per hectare basis," says Donato. "Since they store so much carbon, there's probably a lot being released from all the mangrove deforestation that's going on."

Mangroves live where many people want to live, along ocean coastlines in the tropics, and their areal extent - the amount of land they grow on - has declined by 30 per cent to 50 per cent over the last 50 years, the study found.

Coastal development, aquaculture and over-harvesting have all contributed to mangrove deforestation. Rising sea levels expected this century are also a threat, the study says.

Besides storing carbon, mangrove forests act as fisheries, keep sediment in place, produce fibre and protect inhabited areas against storms and tsunamis, the researchers say.

Coastal mangrove forests and the ecological services they provide could be gone in as little as 100 years, according to the researchers.

Part of the reason for mangroves' efficiency in keeping carbon locked away lies in their location in tidal zones, where their roots are often covered with sea water.

They need complex root systems to keep them breathing even when the tides come in, says Donato. This same complexity traps sediment that comes in from rivers and it builds up. ...

via Mangroves excel at storing carbon › News in Science (ABC Science).

Study predicts large regional changes in farmland area

The effects of climate change and population growth on agricultural land area vary from region to region, according to a new study by University of Illinois researchers.

Regions with relative high latitudes – China, Russia and the U.S. – could see a significant increase in arable land in coming years, but Africa, Europe and India and South America could lose land area.

Civil and environmental engineering professor Ximing Cai and graduate student Xiao Zhang published their findings in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

While most other studies of climate change and agriculture have focused on projected crop yields, the Illinois researchers assessed global and regional land availability. Using international land and climate datasets and remote-sensing land-use maps, they systematically studied worldwide changes in soil temperature and humidity with a resolution of one square kilometer.

"This study presents the main patterns and trends of the distribution of potential arable land and the possible impacts of climate change from a biophysical perspective," Cai said. "The possible gains and losses of arable land in various regions worldwide may generate tremendous impacts in the upcoming decades upon regional and global agricultural commodity production, demand and trade, as well as on the planning and development of agricultural and engineering infrastructures."

Cai and Zhang's model allowed them to address the many sources of uncertainty in trying to predict climate change, such as levels of greenhouse gas emissions, climate model uncertainty and ambiguity in land-use classification. They applied the model to several projected scenarios to uncover both regional and global trends in land availability.

When considering effects of climate change, residential sprawl as population grows and natural conservation, the global total of potential arable land in all scenarios decreased by the end of the 21st century, by a margin of 0.8 to 4.4 percent. However, much larger changes were predicted regionally. For example, arable land area could increase by 37 to 67 percent in Russia, while Africa could lose up to 18 percent of its farmland.

via Study predicts large regional changes in farmland area.

All the blue parts on the map will be under water. All the red parts will be on fire. Just kidding.

Lights Out: Cities go dark as world turns off power for Earth Hour

Houses and businesses across Asia turned off power on Saturday in support of the so-called "Earth Hour". In Sydney, ferries blew their horns as the lights went out on the Sydney Opera House. China's "Earth Hour" kicked off on Saturday night with the tallest building in the capital Beijing - Tower 3 of the China World Trade Centre - turning off its lights. In India, lights at the India Gate were turned off and lit balloons released as a crowd holding candles watched. In Indonesia, the lights on several landmarks, were also turned off or dimmed, and in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, young people gathered outside the city's opera house holding candles as lights went off.

YouTube - Lights Out: Cities go dark as world turns off power for Earth Hour.

My lights are out.