Tuesday, February 24, 2009

NASA's global warming satellite falls to Earth

Orbiting Carbon Observatory’s launch failure traced to balky rocket shroud

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a new satellite dedicated to mapping Earth's carbon dioxide levels, crashed into the ocean near Antarctica just after launch Tuesday when a shroud designed to protect the spacecraft accidentally doomed its mission.

The glitch occurred just minutes after the $273.4 million spacecraft blasted off at 4:55 a.m. ET atop a Taurus XL rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

"Our whole team at a very personal level is disappointed in the events of this morning," John Brunschwyler, the Taurus project manager for the Dulles, Va.-based rocket manufacturer Orbital Sciences, said in a somber post-launch briefing. "It's very hard."

Read full story MSNBC

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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Tropical Forests Recover From Clear-Cutting

Feb. 18, 2009 -- Deforestation is generally considered to be bad news, especially in the tropics. But there may be some hope: In many places, trees are growing back, according to new research, and some of the new forests are nearly as diverse as the old ones were.

The work adds to a growing sense that tropical forests are more resilient than scientists previously thought and that second-growth forests are far from worthless.

Read full story Discovery News

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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Global warming changing birds' habits

Study: Many North American species spending winters farther north

WASHINGTON - When it comes to global warming, the canary in the coal mine isn't a canary at all. It's a purple finch.

As the temperature across the U.S. has gotten warmer, the purple finch has been spending its winters more than 400 miles farther north than it used to.

And it's not alone.

An Audubon Society study released Tuesday found that more than half of 305 birds species in North America, a hodgepodge that includes robins, gulls, chickadees and owls, are spending the winter about 35 miles farther north than they did 40 years ago.

Read full story MSNBC

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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Silent Quakes Build Stress Along Mega Fault Line

Feb. 2, 2009 -- A bizarre form of earthquake, which happens over the course of two to three weeks but makes barely a rumble, are lending important clues to the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific northwest, one of the most dangerous fault zones on Earth.

For the last decade, slow-slip earthquakes have been measured in fault zones all over the world, baffling scientists. Though the 'quakes' release as much energy as a normal earthquake between magnitude 6.0 and 6.5, they produce almost no shaking.

Read full story Discovery News

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Gore urges 'decisive action' on global warming

Former VP tells lawmakers the economic crisis is an 'opportunity'

WASHINGTON - Arguing that recent climate signals are cause for greater alarm, former Vice President Al Gore testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday that lawmakers must "take decisive action this year" to curb carbon emissions.

Gore urged lawmakers not to be sidetracked by the current financial crisis, adding that a bill capping greenhouse gas emissions is needed this year if the United States is to play a leading role in negotiations for a new international climate treaty.

Read full story MSNBC

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Expect 1,000-year climate impacts, experts say

Study: Stopping emissions won't prevent decreased rainfall, higher seas

WASHINGTON - Even if the world can cap carbon dioxide emissions tied to global warming, expect to see droughts and sea level rise that span centuries, not just decades, according to a new study sponsored by the U.S. government.

"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years; that's not true," lead author Susan Solomon told reporters.

Read full story MSNBC

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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Natural Disasters Doomed Early Civilization

Nature turned against one of America's early civilizations 3,600 years ago, when researchers say earthquakes and floods, followed by blowing sand, drove away residents of an area that is now in Peru.

"This maritime farming community had been successful for over 2,000 years, they had no incentive to change, and then all of a sudden, boom, they just got the props knocked out from under them," anthropologist Mike Moseley of the University of Florida said in a statement.

Moseley and colleagues were studying civilization of the Supe Valley along the Peruvian coast, which was established up to 5,800 years

Read full story Discovery News

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