Washington - Feb 25, 2004
The permafrost in the bogs of subarctic Sweden is undergoing dramatic changes.
The part of the soil that thaws in the summer, the so-called active layer, has
become thicker since 1970, and the permafrost has disappeared altogether in some
locations.
This has lead to significant changes in vegetation and to a subsequent increase
in emission of the greenhouse gas methane. Methane is 25 times more potent than
carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Behind these new findings is an international research team led by the
GeoBiosphere Science Centre at Lund University in Sweden. The results were
published 20 February in Geophysical Research Letters. The researchers say their
results are unique, as there are very few places in the circumpolar North where
comparison of observations over a period of decades is possible.

The Abisko region in subarctic Sweden, which they studied, has long-term records
of climate, permafrost and other environmental variables, they say. The Abisko
area is recognized by UNESCO as part of the international network of Man and the
Biosphere Reserves.

In the present study, airborne infrared images were used to compare the
distribution of vegetation in 1970 with that of 2000. Dramatic changes were
observed, and the scientists relate them to the climate warming and decreasing
extent of permafrost that was observed over the same period.

The exchanges of carbon dioxide and methane between land and atmosphere has been
studied for a long time in Abisko. Carbon dioxide can either be released from
the bogs, or mires, to the atmosphere or absorbed from the atmosphere into the
mires. But these mires predominantly release methane into the atmosphere, the
researchers say.

Methane is released from the breakdown of plant material under wet soil
conditions. The disappearance of permafrost and subsequent wetter soil
conditions have lead to the observed increases in methane emissions.

"At a particular mire, Stordalen, we have been able to estimate an increase in
methane emissions of at least 20 percent, but maybe as much as 60 percent, from
1970 to 2000," says the lead researcher, Torben R. Christensen of Lund
University's GeoBiosphere Science Centre.

Despite methane being an important greenhouse gas, it is often forgotten in
discussions of the greenhouse effect, the scientists say. Methane is released
from rice agriculture and meat production, but the largest single source of
methane is the natural wetlands.

If what is seen in subarctic Sweden is representative of the circumpolar North,
this could mean an acceleration in the rate of predicted climate warming, they
say.

The annual mean temperature in Abisko is -0.7 degrees Celsius [30 degrees
Fahrenheit], but during recent years it has often been above zero Celsius [32
degrees Fahrenheit].

"One might imagine the cold subarctic ecosystems as very static, but in areas
where the mean annual temperature is around zero [Celsius; 32 degrees
Fahrenheit], the ecosystems may be extremely sensitive. The ecosystems are
dynamic and their response to climate change is very rapid. This we have seen
clearly here in Abisko," says Christensen.

Title: "Thawing sub-arctic permafrost: Effects on vegetation and methane
emissions" Authors: Torben R. Christensen, Torbjoern Johansson, H. Jonas
Aakerman, and Mihail Mastepanov, Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems
Analysis, GeoBiosphere Science Centre, Lund University, Sweden Nils Malmer,
Department of Ecology, Plant Ecology and Systematics, Lund University, Sweden
Thomas Friborg, Institute of Geography, Copenhagen University, Denmark Patrick
Crill, Complex Systems Research Center, University of New Hampshire, USA Bo H.
Svensson, Department of Water and Environmental Studies, Linkoeping University,
Sweden Citation: Christensen, T. R., T. Johansson, H. J. Aakerman, M.
Mastepanov, N. Malmer, T. Friborg, P. Crill, and B. H. Svensson (2004), Thawing
sub-arctic permafrost: Effects on vegetation and methane emissions,
Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L04501, doi:10.1029/2003GL018680.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/greenhouse-04d.html




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Arlington - Feb 27, 2004
Against incredible odds, researchers working in separate sites, thousands of
miles apart in Antarctica have found what they believe are the fossilized
remains of two species of dinosaurs previously unknown to science.
One of the two finds, which were made less than a week apart, is an early
carnivore that would have lived many millions of years after the other, a
plant-eating beast, roamed the Earth. One was found at the sea bottom, the other
on a mountaintop.

Journey To The Bottom Of The Sea
Working on James Ross Island off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, veteran
dinosaur hunters Judd Case, James Martin and their research team believe they
have found the fossilized bones of an entirely new species of carnivorous
dinosaur related to the enormous meat-eating tyrannosaurs and the equally
voracious, but smaller and swifter, velociraptors that terrified movie-goers in
the film "Jurassic Park."

Features of the animal's bones and teeth led the researchers to surmise the
animal may represent a population of carnivores that survived in the Antarctic
long after they had been succeeded by other predators elsewhere on the globe.

"One of the surprising things is that animals with these more primitive
characteristics generally haven't survived as long elsewhere as they have in
Antarctica," said Case, dean of science and a professor of biology at Saint
Mary's College of California who discovered the bones. "But, for whatever
reason, they were still hanging out on the Antarctic continent."

Case said the shape of the teeth and features of the feet are characteristic of
a group of dinosaurs known as theropods, which includes the tyrannosaurs, as
well as all other meat-eating dinosaurs. The theropods, or "beast- footed"
dinosaurs, make up a large and diverse group of now- extinct animals with the
common characteristic of walking on two legs like birds. Recent research has
shown that birds are direct descendents of theropods.

The remains include fragments of an upper jaw with teeth, isolated individual
teeth and most of the bones from the animal's lower legs and feet. The creature
likely inhabited the area millions of years ago when the climate and terrain
were similar to conditions in today's Pacific Northwest and radically different
than they are today.

Martin, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the South Dakota School of Mines &
Technology, said the size and shape of the ends of the lower-leg and foot bones
indicate that in life the animal was a running dinosaur roughly 1.8 to 2.4
meters (6 to 8 feet) tall.

The excavations were supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the
independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education
across all fields of science and engineering. NSF manages the U.S. Antarctic
Program, which coordinates almost all U.S. research on the southernmost
continent and in the surrounding oceans.

The field party included representatives of Argentina's Museo de La Plata, Minot
State University, the University of Oklahoma, the South Dakota Geological Survey
and graduate students from University of California, Riverside and the South
Dakota School of Mines & Technology.

According to Case, luck played a major role in the find.

First, relatively few dinosaur fossils from the end of the Cretaceous Period,
which lasted from 144 million to 65 million years ago, (the second half of the
so-called "Age of Dinosaurs"), have been found in Antarctica.

Second, the specimen was an exceedingly rare find and one of only six dinosaur
fossils that have been discovered in the James Ross region of the Antarctic
Peninsula, the landmass that juts north from the southernmost continent towards
South America.

Also, to have been preserved at all, the animal likely floated from the shore
out to sea after it died roughly 70 million years ago and settled to the bottom
of what was then a very shallow area of the Weddell Sea.

The team concentrated its investigations on the Naze, a northerly projecting
peninsula, where exposed materials represent a period at the end of the Mesozoic
Era, a span of time between 248 million to 65 million years ago that includes
the Cretaceous Period. At that time, the area was covered by the waters of the
continental shelf, roughly 100 to 200 meters (300 to 650 feet) deep.

If confirmed as Case and Martin expect, the new species is only the second
Antarctic theropod from the late Cretaceous Period.

Journey To The Top Of A Mountain
At the same time, thousands of miles away, a research team led by William Hammer
of Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., was working in the Antarctic interior
on a mountaintop roughly 3,900 meters (13,000 feet) high and near the Beardmore
Glacier.

They found embedded in solid rock what they believe to be the pelvis of a
primitive sauropod, a four-legged, plant-eating dinosaur similar to better-known
creatures such as brachiosaurus and diplodocus. Now known as Mt. Kirkpatrick,
the area was once a soft riverbed before millions of years of tectonic activity
elevated it skyward

Also a veteran dino hunter known for his discovery of Cryolophosaurus ellioti in
1991, Hammer had returned to the site of that find to continue his work, which
had been halted in part because the Cryolophosaurus excavation had dug far into
a cliff face, creating a potentially dangerous overhang. Specialized workers
were flown into the research camp at Beardmore Glacier to remove the overhang
and make it safer to continue the excavations.

As Hammer and his team waited, Peter Braddock, a mountain safety guide on
Hammer's team, scoured the area, informally looking for fossils.

"I jokingly said to him, 'Keep your eyes down, look for weird things in the
rock'," Hammer said. "He had marked four or five things he thought were odd,
including some fossilized roots. But I realized that one of these things was
bone: part of a huge pelvis and illium and much, much bigger than the
corresponding bones in Cryolophosaurus."

Based on field analysis of the bones, Hammer and his fellow researchers believe
the pelvis-roughly one meter (three feet) across-is from a primitive sauropod
that represents one of the earliest forms of the emerging dinosaur lineage that
eventually produced animals more than 30 meters (100 feet) long.

Basing his estimates on the bones excavated at the site, Hammer suggests the
new, and as-yet-unnamed creature was between 1.8 and 2.1 meters (six and seven
feet) tall and up to nine meters (30 feet) long.

Hammer said that the rocks in which the find was made helped to establish that
the creature lived roughly 200 million years ago, millions of years before the
creature Case and Martin discovered on the Antarctic Peninsula. Hammer said
several lines of evidence point to the conclusion that his and the discovery by
Case and Martin represent two new species yielded up by the rocks of the "Harsh
Continent."

"This site is so far removed geographically from any site near its age, it's
clearly a new dinosaur to Antarctica," Hammer said. "We have so few dinosaur
specimens from the whole continent, compared to any other place, that almost
anything we find down there is new to science," Hammer said.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/antarctic-04b.html



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26 February 2004
Bottom water warming in the North Pacific Ocean
Observations of changes in the properties of ocean waters have been restricted
to surface or intermediate-depth waters, because the detection of change in
bottom water is extremely difficult owing to the small magnitude of the expected
signals. Nevertheless, temporal changes in the properties of such deep waters
across an ocean basin are of particular interest, as they can be used to
constrain the transport of water at the bottom of the ocean and to detect
changes in the global thermohaline circulation. Here we present a comparison of
a trans-Pacific survey completed in 1985 (refs 4, 5) and its repetition in 1999
(ref. 6). We find that the deepest waters of the North Pacific Ocean have warmed
significantly across the entire width of the ocean basin. Our observations imply
that changes in water properties are now detectable in water masses that have
long been insulated from heat exchange with the atmosphere.
MASAO FUKASAWA1, HOWARD FREELAND2, RON PERKIN2, TOMOWO WATANABE3
Nature 427, 825 - 827 (26 February 2004); doi:10.1038/nature02337

George



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Sarah T. Gille, Science 2002 February 15; 295: 1275-1277
Autonomous Lagrangian Circulation Explorer floats recorded temperatures in
depths between 700 and 1100 meters in the Southern Ocean throughout the 1990s.
These temperature records are systematically warmer than earlier hydrographic
temperature measurements from the region, suggesting that mid-depth Southern
Ocean temperatures have risen 0.17°C between the 1950s and the 1980s. This
warming is faster than that of the global ocean and is concentrated within the
Antarctic Circumpolar
Current, where temperature rates of change are comparable to Southern Ocean
atmospheric temperature increases.

George


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Carbon Found To Be Older Than The Solar Systems

illustration only
St. Louis - Feb 27, 2004
For the first time, researchers have identified organic material in
interplanetary dust particles (IDPs), gathered from the Earth's stratosphere,
that was made before the birth of our Solar System.
The material was identified on the basis of its carbon isotopic composition,
which is different from the carbon found on Earth and in other parts of the
Solar System. Isotopes are variations of elements that differ from each other in
the number of neutrons they have, making them similar chemically but different
physically.

Christine Floss, Ph.D., senior research scientist in Earth and Planetary
Sciences and Physics at Washington University in St. Louis, said that the
organic material in the IDP she and her colleagues analyzed probably was formed
in molecular clouds in the interstellar medium before the formation of the Solar
System. The isotopic anomalies are produced by chemical fractionation at the
very low temperatures found in these molecular clouds.

"Our findings are proof that there is presolar organic material coming into the
Solar System yet today," Floss said. "This material has been preserved for more
than 4.5 billion years, which is the age of the Solar System. It's amazing that
it has survived for so long."

The finding helps in understanding the Solar System's formation and the origin
of organic matter on Earth. The work was published in the Feb. 27, 2004 issue of
Science, and was supported by NASA grants.

Over the past 20 years, researchers have found isotopic anomalies in nitrogen
and hydrogen from IDPs but never before in carbon. Floss said one of the reasons
for this was the limitations of earlier instruments. She and her colleagues used
a new type of ion microprobe called the NanoSIMS, which enables researchers to
analyze particles at much greater spatial resolution and higher sensitivity than
before.

Until recently, ion probes could only measure the average properties of an IDP.
In 2000, with help from NASA and the National Science Foundation, the University
bought the first commercially available NanoSIMS.

Made by Cameca in Paris, the NanoSIMS can resolve particles as small as 100
nanometers in diameter. A hundred thousand such particles side-by-side would
make a centimeter. Typical sub-grains in IDPs range from 100 nanometers to 500
nanometers.

"The question has always been: Why don't we see any unusual carbon isotopic
compositions?" Floss said.

"The thinking was if the nitrogen and hydrogen isotopic anomalies are formed in
the same regions of space, it was logical to expect unusual carbon isotopic
compositions as well. One school of thought was that there were different
fractionation processes with carbon in opposite directions, that cancelled out
any anomalies produced.

"Another possibility was that the nitrogen and hydrogen might have been produced
in phases that weren't originally organic – that the organic material itself was
formed in the solar system and basically inherited the hydrogen and nitrogen
isotopic compositions from some precursor material. But our isotopic analysis
shows that the organic material was formed before the Solar System existed and
was later incorporated into the IDP."

Floss and Frank Stadermann, Ph.D., Washington University senior research
scientist in Physics, worked with colleagues at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in drawing their conclusions.

"A lot of IDPs come from comets," Floss said. "It makes sense that organic
material would be preserved in a very cold environment, such as where comets
form at the edge of the Solar System. For something to stay this pristine and
primitive, one can assume that it came from that kind of environment."

Floss said it's estimated that, over a million years, about a centimeter of
carbonaceous material comes in the form of such cosmic dust and a significant
amount of that material may be presolar in origin.

Floss said that her work builds on the pioneering work of the late Robert
Walker, Ph.D., professor of Physics at Washington University. Walker was
instrumental in the acquisition of the NanoSIMS and in the 1980s made landmark
studies verifying the extraterrestrial origin of such stratospheric dust
particles.




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> From: David Sunfellow <nhne@n...>
> Date: Sat Feb 28, 2004  10:45 pm
> Subject: The Sun IS NOT Causing
> the Current Round of Global Warming
>
> NHNE News List
> News List Archive on CD: 10 copies sold:
> Order yours today:
> http://www.nhne.com/cdnewslist/cd_newslist_001.html
> -----------

EDITOR'S COMMENT:
The following excerpt comes from an informative letter that Jim Torson wrote to
someone who believed that the sun was the cause of Earth's current rising
temperatures. It summarizes what Jim recently learned from Dr. Caspar Ammann of
the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Thanks to Jim for allowing me to
share this information with all of you.
--- David Sunfellow

RE:
From Jim Torson
February 28, 2004

...Yesterday afternoon I attended a colloquium at Lowell Observatory on the
subject of solar variation and climate change. (A copy of the colloquium
announcement is included below.) The speaker was Dr. Caspar Ammann from the
National Center for Atmospheric Research. I was able to chat with Dr. Ammann
both before and after the colloquium to ask some questions. The following is a
summary of a few important things he had to say.

At the beginning of the talk, Dr. Ammann mentioned the recent statements of
James Schlesinger (former Secretary of Energy) on climate change and described
why his statements are misleading and wrong. E.g., his statement that during the
Middle Ages the Earth's temperatures were 1 to 2 degrees warmer than they are
today is totally incorrect.

One criticism that has been made of the computer models (GCMs - Global
Circulation Models) is that they do not correctly model what we know to have
happened in the past. However, this is no longer a valid criticism. (They have
been running GCMs on the supercomputers at NCAR. Recently, they have been using
the Earth Simulator computer in Japan because it is faster than the computers
currently available at NCAR.) They have modeled the climate from 850 AD to the
present. An important input to the model is the historical record of volcanic
eruptions. Another important input is the solar variation, obtained from the
amounts of Beryllium-10 in polar ice cores. Their model is quite good at
describing the historical climate record, including the "Little Ice Age" and the
"Medieval Warmperiod."

An important conclusion is that solar variation is an important factor in
climate variation, which of course is no big surprise. However, the solar
variations involved in the climate variations during the period they studied was
quite small -- about one tenth (0.1) of one percent.

The bottom line of all this is that solar variation cannot possibly be the cause
of the current warming. There is debate about whether or not the instrumental
records show any clear evidence of recent solar variation. However, those who
think there is evidence for variation say that it is about 0.1 percent. The
recent warming is clearly much greater than the temperature variation over the
past 1000 to 2000 years. If the recent warming were caused by solar variation,
it would have to be much more than this 0.1 percent, and nobody is claiming
there is any evidence for this larger variation. The only way to explain the
current warming is to include the effects of the anthropogenic (human-caused)
greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide.

There has been discussion of the possibility of rapid climate change
resulting from the slowing or stopping of the thermohaline circulation in the
oceans, which would result in dramatic cooling is some areas such as England and
western Europe (while the average temperature of the entire planet continues to
rise). Interestingly, Ammann said he thought that was a possibility, but he
thought that greenhouse warming might overwhelm this effect so that these areas
have constant or rising temperatures. He said a more likely scenario would be
that the warming could cause the release of large quantities of frozen methane
from the ocean floor. (There is evidence that this happened millions of years
ago.) Methane is a greenhouse gas, so this would accelerate the human-caused
warming that is now in progress.

Another thing that Ammann said was that the planet is not currently in
radiative equilibrium. Thus, unfortunately, even if we stopped all emissions of
greenhouse gasses, the planet would continue to warm for some time to come.

A final thing that Ammann said was that thirty years ago the general
thinking was that we might be headed for a cooling trend. This was based on
examination of the natural climate change that had occurred in the past, e.g,
from examining ice cores. However, in the past thirty years, there has been
continuing new evidence that we are now in a warming trend and that human
activity is an important cause of this.

Ammann is a co-author on the following paper:
Mann, Michael E., Caspar Ammann, Ray Bradley, Keith Briffa, Philip Jones, Tim
Osborn, Tom Crowley, Malcolm Hughes, Michael Oppenheimer, Jonathan Overpeck,
Scott Rutherford, Kevin Trenberth, and Tom Wigley, 2003. On Past Temperatures
and Anomalous Late-20th Century Warmth, Eos, Vol. 84, No. 27.

This is available on-line as a PDF file at:
http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~step/people/FORUM.pdf

This contains a diagram that clearly shows that the recent warming is above what
naturally occurred over the past 1000-2000 years. (In a response to Mark, you
said that between 800 and 1300 AD the temperature was 4 to 5 degrees warmer than
it is today. While this might be correct for some areas, Fig. 1 in this article
shows that it is totally incorrect for the northern hemisphere average.)

Diagrams showing the comparison of the latest computer models with actual past
climate are contained in the Powerpoint presentaion:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/CSENT/Arizona_Grads.ppt
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6829

Forward...
Mon Mar 1, 2004  8:03 am
Subject:  Re: [Solar Threat] more debate....
...

Pat N.
Hydrologist
npat1@...





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Eruptions dwarfed by man-made energy output.

1 March 2004
MARK PEPLOW

Volcanoes throw out only a tiny fraction of energy compared with that produced
by mankind, say scientists who have used satellite measurements to do a survey
of the Earth's heat output.

In 2001, the amount of heat energy produced by volcanoes was 1000 times less
than the energy consumed by the United States, the researchers report in the
current issue of Geology1. They assume that most of the man-made energy, which
is used for everything from residential lighting and heating to manufacture and
transport, will end up in the form of heat.

Robert Wright and Luke Flynn from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu used the
NASA satellite MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) to measure
the heat emitted by the world's 45 most active volcanoes, which are responsible
for the majority of the Earth's volcanic heat.

Over 2001 and 2002, these volcanoes kicked out about 5 x 1016 joules per year -
enough to power New York city for a few months.

The data bring us closer to a global survey of volcanic heat output. While the
numbers are small in terms of the Earth's overall heat generation, they
contribute to our understanding of the planet's heat flow. That in turn helps
researchers work out the details of how the Earth's innards circulate, pushing
and pulling the continents around the globe.

Better than ballpark

In the past, scientists used land-based temperature readings taken from the
surface of volcanoes to work out how much heat was given off. "It gave you some
pretty ballpark figures," says Bill McGuire from the Benfield Hazard Research
Centre at University College London.

Satellites are more accurate, and are potentially useful for volcanic
forecasting too, says McGuire. Wright and Flynn think that a 20-year inventory
of heat flow should be enough to spot patterns in volcanic activity that could
help predict eruptions. "Satellite monitoring is becoming vital to vulcanology,"
says McGuire.

The scientists also found that single eruptions of one or two volcanoes can make
up a large part of the year's heat budget. Nyamuragira in the Democratic
Republic of Congo and Mount Etna in Italy contributed about 40% of the volcanic
energy total for 2001.

When Mount St Helens erupted in 18 May 1980, it released more than 1018 joules
of heat at once - about 20 times the total heat flow from all the volcanoes
studied in 2001.


References
Wright, R. & Flynn, L. P. Geology, 32, 189 - 192, doi:10.1130/G20239.1 (2004).

Mount St. Helens released more than 1018 J during its 1980 eruption.


http://www.nature.com/nsu/040301/040301-1.html



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2004-03-01 Source: National Science Foundation
Arlington, Va. -- Scientists using cores drilled from the New Jersey coastal
plain have found that ice sheets likely caused massive sea level change during
the Late Cretaceous Period -an interval previously thought to be ice-free. The
scientists, who will publish their results in the March-April issue of the
Geological Society of America (GSA) Bulletin, assert that either ice sheets grew
and decayed in that greenhouse world or our understanding of sea level
mechanisms is fundamentally flawed.

Led by Kenneth Miller of Rutgers University, the scientists examined cores from
Ocean Drilling Program Leg 174AX, an onshore extension of an offshore
expedition. They found indications that sea level changes were large (more than
25 meters) and rapid (occurring on scales ranging from thousands to less than a
million years) during the Late Cretaceous greenhouse world (99-65 million years
ago).

"The onshore-offshore drilling forms a important, coordinated link to
study the history of sedimentation along this area of the U.S. continental
margin," said Leonard Johnson, director of the National Science Foundation
(NSF)'s continental dynamics program, which co-funded the research with NSF's
ocean drilling program.

Analyses indicate minimal tectonic effects on the New Jersey Coastal Plain at
this time, the scientists say. The other explanation for such large, rapid
changes is the waxing and waning of large continental ice sheets, they maintain.
What is perplexing, however, is that such large and rapid sea-level changes
occurred during an interval thought to be ice free.

"Our studies of cores in New Jersey provide one of the best- dated
estimates of how fast and how much sea level changed during the greenhouse world
of the Late Cretaceous," said Miller. "The Earth was certainly much warmer at
that time, probably due to high carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. At the
same time, our estimates require that ice sheets grew and decayed on Antarctica
during this period of peak warmth, which has been a previously heretical view."

The scientists propose that the ice sheets were restricted in area to
Antarctica and were ephemeral. The ice sheets would not have reached the
Antarctic coast, explaining the relative warmth in Antarctica, but still
could significantly alter global sea level.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/02/040229231619.htm
------------

No time to comment.
Pat N.


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Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment: Vol. 2(2):73-80 -- 2004
Deborah A Clark
ABSTRACT
The world's tropical forests take up and emit large amounts of carbon (C)
through photosynthesis and respiration. Their response to global changes
in the atmosphere and climate could therefore act as a feedback. Only
recently has research been focused on the possibility that tropical
forests may not be in C balance. There is currently a vigorous debate
about whether these ecosystems might be accelerating or slowing down the
rate of atmospheric CO2 accumulation, and thus global warming. The
evidence is thin in either direction, and in some cases highly uncertain.
Some findings raise the possibility that higher temperatures could make
tropical forests increasing C sources to the atmosphere – a
positive feedback effect. To project where our climate is headed, it is
critical to resolve two questions: how tropical forests are reacting to
changing climate, atmosphere, and land use, and how they will continue to
respond over the coming decades.

STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
The Dinosaur Fractals Project
2333 Portola Drive # 4
Santa Cruz, California 95062-4250 USA
stephanpickering@...
website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paleo_bio_dinosaur_ontology
theropod research summarized: <www.dinodata.net> see under PICKERING at
their Reference Base




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The Bush administration, as part of its broader effort to accelerate oil
and gas development on the Rocky Mountain front, is moving ahead with
plans to lease large tracts of environmentally sensitive land in Utah and
southwestern Wyoming.  This has prompted protests from varied quarters,
including a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed by 100
members of Congress.  Enviro groups noted that many of the tracts being
leased were eligible for federal wilderness status, and that the land,
projected to be worth about $80 an acre in annual revenue, was leased for
$20 per acre per year, a rather generous
bargain for oil and gas companies, many of which were large Bush
contributors.  One such contributor, Stephen Gose of Montana-based
Retamco Operating Inc., dismissed criticism, saying that the Clinton
administration -- which had tried to protect the land -- was
"beholden to the extreme conservationists."
  Los Angeles Times, Elizabeth Shogren, 29 Feb 2004
<http://www.gristmagazine.com/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=2084>
The Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin, 01 Mar 2004
<http://www.gristmagazine.com/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=2085>



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Date:1999-10-08
An immense expanse of Antarctic ice that has been receding steadily for
10,000 years poses the most immediate threat of a large sea level rise
because of its potential instability, a new study indicates.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet - about 360,000 square miles, or roughly the size
of Texas and Colorado combined - rests on the Antarctic land mass below sea
level, which makes it particularly susceptible to rising sea level. Its complete
collapse would raise global sea level 15 to 20 feet,enough to flood many
low-lying coastal regions.
The new study shows that the ice sheet's complete disintegration in the
next 7,000 years could be inevitable, said Howard Conway, a University of
Washington research associate professor of geophysics, who is the lead author
for a paper describing the research in the Oct. 8 issue of
Science.

While human-caused climate change could hasten the ice sheet's demise, it might
be that there is nothing humans can do to slow or reverse the
trend, Conway said. "Collapse appears to be part of an ongoing natural cycle,
probably caused by rising sea level initiated by the melting of the Northern
Hemisphere ice sheets at the end of the last ice age," he said. "But the process
could easily speed up if we continue to contribute to warming the atmosphere and
oceans."
UW geophysics professor Edwin Waddington; Anthony Gades, a UW geophysics
research associate; University of Maine geological sciences professor
George Denton; and Brenda Hall, a UM post-doctoral researcher in
geological sciences, also took part in the study.
Using evidence gathered from raised beaches and radar imaging of
subsurface ice structures to reconstruct historic changes, the scientists found
the ice sheet has both thinned and decreased in area since the last glacial
maximum 20,000 years ago.
Ice covering the region once was as much as a half-mile thick in places.
Land previously weighed down by the dense ice has elevated since being
freed from its burden. The timing of deglaciation was determined by
carbon-14 dating of samples found on raised beaches that are now up to 90 feet
above present sea level.
Other evidence comes from Roosevelt Island, an ice island in the Ross
Sea. Floating ice now surrounds it, but reconstructions suggest that ice
in the area of Roosevelt Island was about 1,600 feet thicker and was
grounded during the last ice age.
The researchers found that the grounding line (the boundary between
floating ice and grounded ice) has receded about 800 miles since the ice
age and has withdrawn an average of about 400 feet per year for the last
7,600 years. That average is similar to the current rate, and there is no
indication the retreat is slowing, Conway said. If the grounding line
continues to withdraw at that rate, complete disintegration of the ice
sheet will take about 7,000 years.
Other scientists have found evidence suggesting the West Antarctic Ice
Sheet might have disintegrated in the past. Fragments of tiny algae
called diatoms have been recovered from cores drilled through the ice and into
the land beneath. It is believed diatoms require open water to build their
colonies, which suggests the region once was free of ice, perhaps as recently as
130,000 years ago between the last two ice ages, Conway said.
This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University Of
Washington.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/10/991008080042.htm


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Date: 1998-10-02
Antarctic Ice Core Hints Abrupt Warming Some 12,500 Years Ago May Have Been
Global
An analysis of an ancient Antarctic ice core indicates an abrupt climate warming
occurred there about 12,500 years ago, an event previously thought to have
primarily influenced climate in the Northern Hemisphere.
James White, a paleo-climatologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder,
said changes in stable isotope ratios -- an indicator of past temperatures in
the Taylor Dome ice core from Antarctica -- are almost identical to changes seen
in cores from Greenland's GISP 2 core from the same period.

"The ice cores from opposite ends of the earth can be accurately cross-dated
using the large, rapid climate changes in the methane concentrations from the
atmosphere that accompanied the warming," White said.

The evidence from the greenhouse gas bubbles indicates temperatures from the end
of the Younger Dryas Period to the beginning of the Holocene some 12,500 years
ago rose about 20 degrees Fahrenheit in a 50-year period in Antarctica, much of
it in several major leaps lasting less than a decade.

"We used to think this climate change signal from the Younger Dryas to the
Holocene was a big event in the Arctic, but not much more than a blip on the
screen in the Antarctic," said White, also a CU associate professor of geology
and former interim director of the National Ice Core Laboratory in Lakewood,
Colo. "But these findings throw a monkey wrench into paleo-climate research and
rearrange our thinking about climate change at that time."

A paper principally authored by research associate Eric Steig and co-authored by
White and Scott Lehman, all of CU's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, was
published in the Oct. 2 issue of Science. The paper also included co-authors
from Washington State University, the University of Rhode Island, Princeton
University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Washington and
the U. S. Geological Survey.

Deep-sea sediment cores from temperate regions, combined with arctic ice core
evidence, confirm the climate warmed rapidly at the end of the Younger Dryas in
the Northern Hemisphere, said White. But the amount of methane -- a greenhouse
gas primarily produced in tropical regions -- that was found recently in the
Taylor Dome Antarctic ice core argues for a more global climate-warming episode
12,500 years ago.

"What the Taylor Dome ice core seems to be telling us is there was a
synchronization of warming at the end of the Younger Dryas at both poles," said
White. "This strengthens the argument that the warming phenomenon was global
since the cores from both poles seem to be dancing to the same tune at the same
time."

Other Antarctic ice cores from the same time period like the Byrd and Vostok
cores drilled in Antarctica's interior contain climate records that do not
correlate well with the Taylor Dome ice core, which was drilled on the southern
edge of the continent near the Ross Sea, said White.

"There is no Rosetta stone ice core," said White. "It is becoming clear that ice
cores in different parts of the major ice sheets record the different climates
in those areas. The Taylor Dome ice core may correlate more with Greenland ice
cores in part because it was taken near the Ross Sea, an area of active
ocean-atmosphere heat exchange today."

Chemical changes seen in ice cores are helping scientists understand how humans
are "presently re-arranging Earth's energy budget and the global carbon cycle by
increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," he said. The research team used
both changes in atmospheric methane and the differing isotopic ratios of
molecular hydrogen found in ice cores at both poles to reach their conclusions.

This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University Of Colorado
At Boulder.



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Date:  2001-02-15
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/02/010215074925.htm

Pollen Record From Chilean Lakes Indicates Global "Togetherness" During Last Ice
Age

Northern and Southern Hemisphere climate changes occurred at nearly the same
time during the Earth's last ice ages, according to data reported in the Feb. 15
issue of the journal Nature.
The research team included:
Patricio I. Moreno of the Universidad de Chile Geologist Thomas Lowell of the
University of Cincinnati George L. Jacobson Jr. and George H. Denton of the
University of Maine

The group cored three lakes in southern Chile in hopes of resolving a
long-standing question: Were the Northern and Southern Hemisphere glaciations
and associated climate changes in sync with each other, or did the climate
change in a see-saw pattern with northern ice sheets driving climate change
later in the south? More recently, a third pattern was suggested, indicating
that climate changed first in the Southern Hemisphere.

To help answer those questions, the group obtained pollen records tracking
changes in vegetation from 13,000 years to 10,000 years ago. Lake after lake,
the results produced the same pattern. The southern mid-latitudes were warming
and cooling at the same time as the North Atlantic.

"All records show the same timing, character, and direction of climate change in
the mid-latitudes during the end of the last glacial cycle," said Lowell.

"These events [in Chile] were nearly synchronous with important paleoclimate
changes recorded in the North Atlantic region," wrote Moreno, "supporting the
idea that interhemispheric linkage through the atmosphere was the primary
control on climate during the last deglaciation.

The new data is part of an exhaustive data set with over 500 radiocarbon dates
from geological and biological samples taken from the Lake District of Chile. In
the present study, Moreno tracked the expansion and contraction of forests of
the cold-resistant tree types Nothofagus and Podocarpus nubigena.

The researchers chose the Lake District of southern Chile for their studies,
because its geography and geology make it highly unlikely that the region could
be directly influenced by the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets and changes in
North Atlantic ocean currents. "So, if we find similar climate patterns in this
region, that indicates the cause must be something global or atmospheric in
nature. The North Atlantic ice sheets and iceberg 'armadas' could not be the
driving force," explained Lowell.

The same pattern was seen in climatic warming. Previous research by the same
team showed an abrupt withdrawal of Andean piedmont glacier lobes 14,600 years
ago at the same time northern ice sheets were retreating.


"Our results suggest that mid-latitude climate in the Southern Hemisphere
changed in unison with the North Atlantic region. We are continuing to verify
that pattern with an ongoing study in New Zealand," said Lowell.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, NOAA, the National
Geographic Society, the Geological Society of America, and a Fondecyt grant in
Chile.

Lowell is in New Zealand this month continuing his field work.

Editor's Note: The original news release can be found here.




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Date: 1997-07-04
Researchers Find Direct Evidence That Humans Cause Global Warming
(Boston, Mass.) -- Scientists have found the strongest evidence to date that
human activity--burning fossil fuel and cutting down forests--causes global
warming. Robert K. Kaufmann, associate professor of geography at Boston
University, and David I. Stern, research fellow at Australian National
University, uncovered the evidence using statistical analysis. Their full
report, "Evidence for Human Influence on Climate from Hemisphere Temperature
Relations," will appear in Nature on July 3.

While most climatologists agree that the earth's average surface temperature has
increased by about 0.6 degrees Celsius over the past century, they have been
uncertain about the cause--natural forces or human activity. Kaufmann and Stern
examined the northern and southern hemispheres' historical temperature record
from 1865 to 1994. Using a statistical technique known as the Granger causality
test, they found that there was a "causal order" from the southern hemisphere to
the northern hemisphere.

"What causal order means is that past values for temperature in the southern
hemisphere help us predict temperature in the northern hemisphere better than
just looking at past values for temperature in the northern hemisphere," says
Kaufmann.

Temperature in the northern hemisphere, he adds, where most human activity takes
place, is in a statistical--but not physical--sense, dependent on temperature in
the southern hemisphere. The reverse is not true. Kaufmann and Stern then tried
to account for the causal order with variables that represent natural forces and
variables that represent the effects of human activity. Their results showed
that changes in solar and volcanic activity alone could not account for the
pattern of temperature change. The best explanation for this causal order
pattern, says Kaufmann, was human activity--burning coal, oil and natural gas;
cutting down forests; and emitting chloro-flouro carbons (gases used in air
conditioners and refrigerators).

"The south-north causal order is generated by human activities that increase the
warming effect of greenhouse gases globally, but also increase the cooling
effects of sulfate aerosols mainly in the northern hemisphere," says Kaufmann.
Sulfate aerosols, formed from particles when coal and oil is burned, reflect
sunlight and produce a cooling effect on the earth's temperature. "Southern
hemisphere temperature, therefore, reflects the increase in greenhouse gases,"
says Kaufmann.

In the northern hemisphere, this "greenhouse signal" is partly obscured by the
sulfate aerosols in the lower atmosphere. The differential effect of the
greenhouse gases and sulfates on temperature in the northern and southern
hemispheres has increased over time.

"Eventually, the differential effects became strong enough to generate the
causal order," says Kaufmann. "Only since the early 1970s has the greenhouse
signal that we uncovered in our study emerged from the background noise of
natural climate fluctuations."

To further validate their hypothesis, Kaufmann and Stern analyzed temperature
data generated by a global climate model run on a supercomputer. They attempted
to find the same south-to-north causality in simulations carried out by
researchers at Britain's Hadley Centre, a UK Meteorological Office division.

"These researchers could not have foreseen our approach and could not have built
into their model the kind of relationship we looked for," says Kaufmann. "And
yet, the same results showed up in the simulation data."

The same south-to-north order appears when the model is run with an atmosphere
that replicates the pattern of greenhouse gases and sulfates generated by human
activity, says Kaufmann. When they ran the model excluding gases emitted by
human activity--or with atmospheres that simulate future rates of human
activity--the order was absent or ran in the opposite direction.

"The fact that the pattern of causal order changes with the concentration of
greenhouse gases and sulfates in the atmosphere implies that the order of
temperature change in the northern and southern hemisphere can be used as a
fingerprint to identify the effects of human activity on global temperature."

For more information on Kaufmann and Stern's report, call Boston University's
Office of Public Relations at (617) 353-3666.

This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Boston University.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/07/970704073049.htm



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Source:   American Geophysical Union
Date: 2002-01-23

Scientists Describe Century Of Human Impact On Global Surface Temperature
WASHINGTON - Human activity has affected Earth's surface temperature during the
last 130 years, according to a study published this month by the Journal of
Geophysical Research. Dr. Robert K. Kaufmann of Boston University's Center for
Energy and Environmental Studies and Dr. David I. Stern of the Australian
National University's Centre for Resource and Environmental Study analyzed
historical data for greenhouse gas concentrations, human sulfur emissions, and
variations in solar activity between 1865 and 1990. The greenhouse gases studied
included carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chloroflurocarbons 11 and
12.

  What's Related
Researchers Find Direct Evidence That Humans Cause Global Warming

Solar Contribution To 'Global Warming' Predicted To Decrease

Price For Decreased Acid Rain May Be Increased Global Warming

> more related stories

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related sections: Earth & Climate
Trends & Issues


Using the statistical technique of cointegration, the scientists compared these
factors over time with global surface temperature in both the northern and
southern hemispheres. Cointegration techniques are not confused by variables
that tend to increase or decrease over time or contain some poorly measured
observations. As such this is the first study to make a statistically meaningful
link between human activity and temperature, independent of climate models,
Kaufmann notes.

They found that eliminating any one variable - greenhouse gases, human sulfur
emissions, or solar activity - made the errors larger; that is, all of those
factors taken together are needed to explain changes in Earth's surface
temperature.

They found also that the impact of human activity has been different in the two
hemispheres. In the north, the warming effect of greenhouse gases was almost
exactly offset by the cooling effect of sulfur emissions, making the temperature
effects difficult to observe. In the southern hemisphere, where human sulfur
emissions are lower, the effects are easier to see, they write.

Kaufmann says, "the countervailing effects of greenhouse gases and sulfur
emissions undercut comments by climate change skeptics, who argue that the rapid
increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases between the end of
World War II and the early 1970s had little effect on temperature." During this
period, he says, "the warming effect of greenhouse gases was hidden by a
simultaneous increase in sulfur emissions. But, since then, sulfur emissions
have slowed, due to laws aimed at reducing acid rain, and this has allowed the
warming effects of greenhouse gases to become more apparent."

Analysis of the data indicates that doubling the atmospheric concentration of
carbon dioxide from its preindustrial level will increase will increase northern
hemispheric temperature by 2.3 to 3.5 degrees Celsius [4.1 to 6.3 degrees
Fahrenheit]. In the southern hemisphere, the increase will be between 1.7 and
2.2 degrees Celsius [3.1 and 4 degrees Fahrenheit], the scientists say, noting
that this doubling is expected to be achieved over the next century.

Kaufmann observes that while to some, these projected changes may seem small,
during the last ice age, more than 15,000 years ago, Earth's global temperature
was only 3 to 5 degrees Celsius [5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit] cooler than it is
now.

This story has been adapted from a news release issued by American Geophysical
Union.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020123080321.htm





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CORVALLIS, Ore. – A massive and unusually abrupt rise in sea level about 14,200
years ago was caused by the partial collapse of ice sheets in Antarctica, a new
study has shown, in research that solves a mystery scientists have been heatedly
debating for more than a decade.

In less than 500 years at the end of the last Ice Age, this event caused the
Earth's sea level to rise about 70 feet. That's about four times faster than sea
levels were rising most of the time during this period, and at least 20 times
faster than the sea level is currently rising.

The findings were reported today in the journal Science by researchers from
Oregon State University, the University of Toronto and the University of Durham
in the United Kingdom.

The cause of this event, called the "global meltwater pulse 1A" since it was
first identified in 1989, has until now been unknown. This study not only
pinpoints the source of the meltwater pulse, but it also makes clear that
significant climatic events can occur very rapidly and unpredictably.

This type of melting event thousands of years ago is different from the more
recent events in Antarctica, researchers say, such as the breakup of a large
percentage of the Larsen ice shelf earlier this month. But the dramatic melting
illustrates the pressing need for a better understanding of Antarctica's huge
ice sheets and their stability.

"We can't say at this point whether the recent breakup of part of an ice shelf
in Antarctica has any relevance to this type of huge meltwater event that
originated from Antarctica thousands of years ago," said Peter Clark, a
professor of geosciences at OSU and one of the world's leading experts on
glaciers. "We don't know yet how important these ice shelves are to stabilizing
the larger ice sheets of the continent."

What is very clear, however, is the importance of Antarctica's huge ice sheets
remaining stable. The West Antarctic ice sheet is thought to be potentially
unstable, and if it collapsed sea levels around the world would rise almost 20
feet. The melting of the larger and more stable East Antarctic ice sheet would
raise Earth's sea levels another 200 feet.

And during this comparatively short period thousands of years ago, it is now
known that these two huge ice sheets were anything but stable. One or the other,
or some combination of the two, melted at a surprisingly rapid rate and caused a
70-foot surge in sea levels in just a few hundred years.

"This event happened near the end of the last Ice Age, a period of de-glaciation
that lasted from about 21,000 years ago to 12,000 years ago," Clark said. "The
average sea level rise during that period was about eight millimeters per year.
But during this meltwater pulse there was an extremely rapid disintegration of
an ice sheet and sea levels rose much faster than average."

The amount of sea level rise that occurred during a single year of that period,
Clark said, is more than the total sea level rise that has occurred in the past
100 years.

For some time, researchers had speculated that the cause might have been the
partial melting of a major ice sheet in North America. But the OSU and other
university scientists were able to develop a method that "fingerprinted" each of
the possible melting scenarios from known ice sheets in the world at that time,
and found that a source from Antarctica most closely matched data about sea
level rise available from fossil shoreline deposits.

Using this approach, it became clear that the melting of the North American ice
sheet could not have been the sole source for the meltwater pulse, and some
combination of ice sheet melting in Antarctica was the more likely culprit for
the sudden spurt in sea level rise.

This period thousands of years ago, Clark said, was also a time of increasing
temperature, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide that is conceptually
similar to the present day.

Prior to the partial collapse of the Antarctic ice sheets 14,200 years ago,
carbon dioxide levels had risen about 50 parts-per-million in the atmosphere. In
the past 150 years, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, carbon
dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere have risen 85 parts-per-million.

But in comparing these two eras there were differences in Earth's overall
temperature, atmosphere and location of ice sheets, so it's not possible to use
the events that happened then as any certain predictor of what might happen to
Earth today, Clark said. What is clear is that large ice sheets of the past were
vulnerable to global warming.

This meltwater event thousands of years ago not only caused the sea level to
rise, the researchers said in their report, but also may have affected the
atmosphere, ocean circulation and global climate.
This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Oregon State
University.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020329072043.htm


________________________________________________________________
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This topic is far too important to ignore.

Humans must reduce fossil fuel emissions

Studies point to fossil fuel emissions as cause
for rapid global warming from 1970s to current:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/intro/shindell_03/
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/crowley.html
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/GOIN/NASA/JLean.htm


Graph of atmospheric CO2:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paleontology_and_Climate/
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/faq.html


Graph of global temperatures:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/


Snowmelt runoff happening early in the season in North America:
www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1210landfreeze.html
www.mnforsustain.org/climate_snowmelt_dewpoints_minnesota_neuman.htm
www.kluweronline.com/issn/0165-0009/contents
www.usgs.gov/public/press/public_affairs/press_releases/pr1819m.html


Rural temperatures increasing at NOAA climate stations:
www.mnforsustain.org/mn_dewpoints_neuman_p_special_report.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateConcern/message/6175


Increasing annual and winter average humidity (dewpoints)
www.mnforsustain.org/climate_snowmelt_dewpoints_minnesota_neuman.htm
www.mnforsustain.org/mn_dewpoints_neuman_p_special_report.htm


Glaciers and ice sheets
http://nsidc.org/glaciers/questions/climate.html
http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2003/2003120816303.
html


Arctic and Antarctic thawing
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20031219_speed_up.html
http://www.arcus.org/SEARCH/OSM/main_downloads.html


Dramatic changes in levels of the atmosphere
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/02/040203234243.htm
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2003/2003010311038.
html


Species extinctions with rapid climate change
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3375447.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,988380,00.html


Financial incentives needed to energy use:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/229


More articles and links on climate change at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/

Pat N.





________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!

Studies point to fossil fuel emissions as
main cause for rapid global warming...


Graph of atmospheric CO2:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paleontology_and_Climate/
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/faq.html


Graph of global temperatures:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2003/ann/global.html#Gtemp


Studies point to fossil fuel emissions as main
cause for rapid global warming, 1970s to current:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/intro/shindell_03/
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/crowley.html
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/GOIN/NASA/JLean.htm


Snowmelt runoff happening early in the season in North America:
www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1210landfreeze.html
www.mnforsustain.org/climate_snowmelt_dewpoints_minnesota_neuman.htm
www.kluweronline.com/issn/0165-0009/contents
www.usgs.gov/public/press/public_affairs/press_releases/pr1819m.html


Rural temperatures increasing at NOAA climate stations:
www.mnforsustain.org/mn_dewpoints_neuman_p_special_report.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateConcern/message/6175


Increasing annual and winter average humidity (dewpoints)
www.mnforsustain.org/climate_snowmelt_dewpoints_minnesota_neuman.htm
www.mnforsustain.org/mn_dewpoints_neuman_p_special_report.htm


Glaciers and ice sheets
http://nsidc.org/glaciers/questions/climate.html
http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2003/2003120816303.
html


Arctic and Antarctic thawing
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20031219_speed_up.html
http://www.arcus.org/SEARCH/OSM/main_downloads.html


Dramatic changes in levels of the atmosphere
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/02/040203234243.htm
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2003/2003010311038.
html


Species extinctions with rapid climate change
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3375447.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,988380,00.html


Financial incentives needed to reduce use of energy:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/229


More articles and links on climate change at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/

This topic is far too important to ignore.

Pat N.
Hydrologist




________________________________________________________________
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Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: NHNE <nhne@...>
To: *News List <nhnenews@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 00:59:07 -0700
Subject: [nhnenews] Asteroid Dino Killer Theory Questioned

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-----------

ASTEROID THEORY OF DINOSAUR EXTINCTION QUESTIONED
Reuters
Tuesday, March 2, 2004

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE320040302025513&Page=3&Titl
e=F
eatures+%2D+Health+%26+Science&Topic=166&

WASHINGTON - Scientists probing a vast crater off Mexico's Yucatan
peninsula
questioned a popular theory about dinosaurs, saying the collision that
formed the crater happened too far back in time to have caused their
extinction by itself.

Much evidence points to the idea that an asteroid or comet gouged the
earth
around 65 million years ago, triggering volcanic and climate changes that
eventually wiped out the dinosaurs.

When the huge, mostly underwater crater was found off Yucatan, it seemed
the
perfect candidate.

''Since the early 1990s the Chicxulub crater on Yucatan, Mexico, has been
hailed as the smoking gun that proves the hypothesis that an asteroid
killed
the dinosaurs and caused the mass extinction of many other organisms at
the
Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary 65 million years ago,'' the
researchers
write in this week's issue of the proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.

But they said a core drilled out of the middle of the crater suggests it
dates back more than 300,000 years before the K-T boundary and ''thus did
not cause the end-cretaceous mass extinction as commonly believed.''

The researchers, led by Gerta Keller of Princeton University and
including
experts from Germany, Switzerland and Mexico, studied a sample that
extends
5,000 feet below the current surface, in the middle of the more than
125-mile 200-km-wide crater.

Other samples have included tiny pieces of glass-like rock that could
have
been melted during an asteroid impact, and which seem to date to the
65-million-year point, give or take a few hundred thousand years.

But their core sample showed fossils that suggest the crater was blasted
out
300,000 years before the K-T boundary. Magnetic evidence also suggests it
is
older than previously believed.

This finding would support an alternative theory that the dinosaurs and
other forms of life were wiped out in a series of disasters that changed
the
earth's climate, Keller's team said.

They noted there are other craters dating to around this time. None is
big
enough to have caused world-altering changes by itself.

But the meteors or asteroids hit at the same time of a busy period of
volcanic activity known as Deccan volcanism, as well as when
greenhouse-type
atmospheric warming and major extinctions occurred.

''The Chicxulub impact occurred at a time of massive volcanism which led
to
greenhouse warming,'' Keller said in an interview conducted by E-mail.

The name Deccan comes from an area of what is now India where a massive
amount of molten material surged up from near the Earth's core 65 million
years ago.

It would have brought vast amounts of carbon gases to Earth's surface,
causing a warming effect that would have wiped out many species of plants
and animals.

''This finding suggests that the K-T boundary impact (and volcanism) may
have been the straw that broke the camel's back, rather than the
catastrophic kill of a healthy thriving community,'' the researchers
concluded.

Now they need to find the actual crater left by whatever made this final
blow. Perhaps one known as the Shiva crater in India, dating to around
the
same period, is the one, they suggested.

''There is evidence for a third impact, which occurred about 150,000
years
after the K-T mass extinction,'' Keller said.

This impact may have made it harder for plants and animals to recover
from
the worldwide effects of the blasts from space and from within the
planet.

------------

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Public Release: 2-Mar-2004
Geophysical Research Letters
Climate change could release old carbon locked in Arctic soils, researchers say
Scientists have been able to determine the approximate age of dissolved organic
carbon in the Arctic for the first time. Most of the carbon that reaches the
ocean is relatively young at present, but this could change. Warming of the
Arctic could affect northern peats, collectively one of the largest reservoirs
of organic carbon on Earth. As the carbon-rich soils warm, the carbon is more
susceptible to being transported to the ocean by rivers small and large.
National Science Foundation, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
Contact: Harvey Leifert
hleifert@...
202-777-7507
American Geophysical Union

Public Release: 26-Feb-2004 Science
Documenting a paradox: Smoke decreases rainfall but ultimately increases its
intensity
Air pollution and smoke suppress rainfall, but cause the remaining rain amounts
to fall in greater intensities, with lightning and hail, says a researcher at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
European Union
Contact: Jerry Barach
jerryb@...
972-258-82904
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Public Release: 25-Feb-2004 Science
Astonishing discovery over the Amazonian rain forest
An international research team has discovered huge amounts of unexpected organic
aerosols over the South-American tropical rain forests.
Contact: Prof. Meinrat O. Andreae
andreae@...
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Public Release: 25-Feb-2004
Ecology Letters
Faster carbon turnover in basal food-chain levels in aquatic than terrestrial
ecosystems
Improved knowledge of how carbon moves through food chains of aquatic and
terrestrial ecosystems is required to understand capacity of ecosystems to
sequester excess atmospheric CO2, improving climate change scenario predictions.
In Ecology Letters, March, Cebrian shows aquatic ecosystems transfer carbon
through food chain basal levels ten times faster than terrestrial ecosystems.
Basal trophic stored carbon is released back to the atmosphere or transferred to
higher trophic levels quicker in aquatic than terrestrial ecosystems.
Contact: Kate Stinchcombe
kate.stinchcombe@...
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Public Release: 24-Feb-2004
Geophysical Research Letters
Thawing subarctic permafrost increases greenhouse gas emissions
The permafrost in the bogs of subarctic Sweden is undergoing dramatic changes.
The part of the soil that thaws in the summer, the so-called active layer, has
become thicker since 1970, and the permafrost has disappeared altogether in some
locations. This has lead to significant changes in the vegetation and to a
subsequent increase in emission of the greenhouse gas methane. Methane is 25
times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
European Commission, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, others
Contact: Harvey Leifert
hleifert@...
202-777-7507
American Geophysical Union

Public Release: 24-Feb-2004
Journal of American Chemical Society
Atmospheric water clusters provide evidence of global warming
Researchers at Hamilton College have identified several methods for successfully
determining the structures and thermodynamic values for the formation of
atmospheric water clusters, which scientists have speculated may accelerate
global warming. The Hamilton team's findings were published in the March 3 issue
of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
American Chemical Society/Petroleum Research Fund, Merck/AAAS, Camille and Henry
Dreyfus Foundation, National Science Foundation
Contact: Sharon Rippey
srippey@...
315-859-4691
Hamilton College

Public Release: 23-Feb-2004
March Geology and GSA Today media highlights
The March issue of Geology covers a wide variety of subjects and includes
several newsworthy items. Topics include: active volcanism's contribution to
Earth's total energy budget; the shaping of seafloor topography by ongoing flow
within Earth's mantle; submerged reefs around Hawaii and meltwater pulse 1A; and
plant DNA as a possible paleoenvironmental indicator. GSA Today's science
article once again addresses the controversial issue of CO2 vs. cosmic rays as a
primary driver of Phanerozoic climate.
Contact: Ann Cairns
acairns@...
303-357-1056
Geological Society of America

Public Release: 19-Feb-2004
NASA's SORCE satellite celebrates one year of operations
Having marked its first anniversary on orbit, NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate
Experiment (SORCE) satellite has hit its stride. In concert with other
satellites, SORCE's observations of the sun's brightness are helping researchers
better understand climate change, climate prediction, atmospheric ozone, the
sunburn-causing ultraviolet-B radiation and space weather.
NASA
Contact: Lynn Chandler
301-286-2806
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center--EOS Project Science Office

Public Release: 17-Feb-2004
Geophysical Research Letters
AGU Journal Highlights - 17 February 2004
In this issue: Europe's 2003 heat wave may become typical; the Amazon's role in
the Atlantic carbon sink; more precise tropical warm rain estimates can help
climate predictions; Mars's climate history; new Arctic tide model; CFCs in the
global ocean; how volcanoes cause tsunamis; and more.
Contact: Harvey Leifert
hleifert@...
202-777-7507
American Geophysical Union


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March 1, 2004

NASA’s Improved Web-Resource on the World’s Changing Climate
Students, scientists, teachers, reporters and the scientifically curious can
locate any kind of Earth science data much easier and quicker than ever before,
using NASA’s Global Change Master Directory (GCMD). The redesigned website, a
directory of Earth science data and services is being re-launched on March 1st
to provide easier access to data and services.

Internet users can access the directory at http://globalchange.nasa.gov or
http://gcmd.nasa.gov. The re-launched website is easier to navigate, with 9 tabs
running atop the home page, including: Home, Data Sets; Data Services; Portals;
Authoring; What’s New; Community; Calendar; and Links.

The GCMD, updated daily, provides Earth science data sets and services relevant
to global change research. The GCMD’s 13 data set topics, found under the “Data
Sets” tab, provide summaries of the data sets and specific information such as
data over time and location, a citation for the creator of the database, and
direct links to data and services.

Available dataset topics range from tiny airborne particles (aerosols) to the
continental-sized ozone hole to global sea surface temperatures. The GCMD topics
include: Agriculture, Atmosphere, Biosphere, Climate Indicators, Human
Dimensions, Hydrosphere, Land Surface, Oceans, Paleoclimate, Snow and Ice, Solid
Earth, Spectral/Engineering and Sun-Earth Interactions.†

Users can search over 15,000 data sets and services and link to more than over
76,000 resources within the descriptions The individual data set descriptions
were contributed by more than 1,300 data centers, government agencies,
universities, research institutions, and private researchers around the world.

For scientists and others who want to add or modify GCMD datasets, they can do
so under the “Authoring” tab by using the new “docBUILDER” web-based tools.
Under the “Data Services” tab are available services from analysis and
visualization tools to education and environmental advisories.

The “Portals” tab is the most important to specific groups of data users.†
“Perhaps the greatest contribution of the GCMD to the public has been the
ability to create customized subsets of the directory that can be displayed, in
turn, by special interest groups,” said Lola Olsen, Directory Project Manager at
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “These groups save major
development and maintenance costs by re-using the directory capabilities.Ӡ For
example, member countries of the Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management
(JCADM) contribute directory entries using the GCMD tools and may then, in turn,
host individual, customized subsets of the database through “portals” through
which they can display their own contribution.

Reporters and others interested in upcoming recent climate change conferences
can find up to 1,000 entries under the “Calendar” tab. Under the “What’s New”
tab, there are new Earth science and climate change research stories and the
latest GCMD data set descriptions.

Students and teachers will also benefit from the “Learning Center” that can be
found under the “Community” tab. Clicking on “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions”
at the bottom of the homepage, one can see answers to questions such as “Where
can I find information about the ozone hole and ozone depletion?Ӡ Finally, the
“Links” tab acts as a web-based search engine for easy access to over 2,500
Earth science web resources.

For those who use the directory often, there is also a search box icon that
permits direct access to the directory through a simple download to a user’s
website. Users can also subscribe to an email notification on postings of new
datasets for “Earth Science Topics” and “Geographic Locations” by clicking on
“Subscribe” on the left tool bar.

The directory content is shared and available as part of NASA’s contribution to
the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites’ (CEOS) International Directory
Network (IDN).† The content is also made available to the National Spatial Data
Infrastructure’s (NSDI) Federal Geographic Data Committee’s (FDGC)
Clearinghouse.

Questions can be directed to Lola Olsen, GCMD Project Manager, Code 902,
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. 20771 Phone: 301-614-5361
E-mail: olsen@...

To access the Global Change Master Directory, please visit on the Internet:
http://globalchange.nasa.gov or http://gcmd.nasa.gov

For more information, please visit on the Internet:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/ 0301gcmd.html

###
Contacts:

Rob Gutro†
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Phone: 301/285-4044





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http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/Headlines/

Stories that have recently appeared in the popular press, television, and radio.

Violent Storms Affect a Continent’s Climate as Rain Goes Up in Smoke
February 27 — Smoke drifting from burning forests in the Amazon is affecting the
climate of the entire South American continent, drying up rain, but making
storms that do develop much more violent than usual. (Reuters)

Smog Goes Camping
February 27 — Experts examine the growing air quality crisis in Rocky Mountain
National Park. (CBS News)

Glacier Marches on to Nature’s Explosive Finale
February 26 — The world’s glaciers have been forced into retreat by global
warming, but the Moreno Glacier is still on the march and has now, against all
predictions, started to prepare for a rare and spectacular explosion of ice and
water. (The Times)

Coral Family Strife
February 26 — Researchers made a major revision to the coral family tree that
may spur stepped-up efforts to conserve the unsung Atlantic corals. (Nature)

Thawing Permafrost Means More Methane
February 26 — A study finds permafrost is thawing, vegetation is becoming more
marsh-like and emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, have risen by 66
percent in the Swedish sub-arctic. (ScienceNow)

Climate Control
February 25 — Researchers from James Cook University’s School of Tropical
Environment Studies and Geography say that other planets in the solar system are
also likely in a state of change. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Scientists Say Asian Brown Cloud Threatens Gulf
February 24 — A leading environmental scientist says a body of pollution that
has been identified in the skies across Asia is now threatening to engulf the
Middle East and make the planet a drier place. (Reuters, Associated Press)

Climate: Hard Lessons from Climates Past
February 23 — Harvard researchers discuss the dire consequences of global
climate change over the next millennium. (United Press International)

Reef at Risk as Climate Changes: Report
February 23 — Australia's Great Barrier Reef will lose most of it coral cover by
2050 and, at worst, the world’s largest coral system could collapse by 2100
because of global warming. (Reuters, Associated Press)

Climate Expert Warning of Dangers to Ski Resorts
February 20 — A climate expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s
climate center says snowpack may decrease by as much as 50 percent in the Rocky
Mountains in coming decades, resulting in disastrous consequences for an already
drought-stricken area. (Aspen Daily News)

Breaking the Ice
February 20 — European researchers have found that the unpredictable nature of
how and when a slab of snow falls apart may make avalanches almost impossible to
predict. (Nature)

Seas and Climate
February 19 — A worldwide system of ocean floats is being developed to help
scientists forecast potentially devastating events like floods or droughts
months or even years in advance. (ScienCentral News)

Strong Link Found Between Climate Extremes and Malaria Epidemics in Africa
February 19 — Researchers say seasonal fluctuations in a region’s climate,
rather than consistently high annual temperatures or levels of rainfall, play an
important role in causing malaria epidemics in the African highlands. (Newswise)

Global Warming to Affect Texas Ag Output
February 19 — Researchers say expected temperature increases over the next
several decades could damage Texas’ agricultural output by as much as 25
percent. (Country World News)

Global Warming Might Hurt New Mexico Snowpack
February 18 — Research conducted at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
shows that New Mexico’s northern mountains could see a 30 percent drop in their
average winter snowpack by 2050. (KOBTV.com)

Pacific Nation’s Annual Swamping Revives Global Warming Debate
February 18 — The Pacific atoll nation of Tuvalu was inundated during high or
‘king’ tides this week, giving weight to dark predictions that it will become
the first victim of rising global sea levels. (Nature)

Climate Change Could Boost Cash Crops
February 17 — Climate change could boost yields from some of America’s most
important crops, including soybeans, according to plant biologists who have
simulated expected atmospheric conditions of 2050 in a U.S. field. (Nature)

Global Warming Hitting Northwest Hard, Researchers Warn
February 17 — Global warming will diminish the amount of water stored as snow in
the western United States by up to 70 percent in the coastal mountains over the
next 50 years, according to a new climate change model. (The Seattle Times)

New Zealand Could Cash in as Aussie Climate Change Snowballs
February 16 — New Zealand’s alpine industry is in line to benefit from an
Australian climate meltdown that threatens to cut snowfall by up to 20 percent.
(Fairfax New Zealand Limited)

Climate: Arctic Faces a Warmer Tomorrow
February 16 — Researchers say several factors, particularly changes in the
Arctic Oscillation, are responsible for the decrease in the Arctic’s ice extent
and thickness over the past several decades. (United Press International)

Europe’s Weather Could Flip Annually Between Extremes
February 16 — Europe’s weather could flip from floods to droughts every year as
climate change kicks in, according to scientists who have modeled the mechanisms
behind the continent’s most recent bouts of extreme weather. (New Scientist)

Ozone Levels Rise Increases Mortality Rates
February 16 — A rise in ozone levels, particularly during the summer, pushes up
mortality rates, according to South Korea researchers. (Medical News Today)

Aerosols Now Believed to Be as Important as Greenhouse Gases
February 14 — Researchers say aerosols, tiny atmospheric particles made up of
various elements and produced by a range of sources, have become a prominent
concern due to their ability to influence atmospheric and hydrologic phenomena.
(Newswise)

Fertilizing Oceans Could Affect Food Chain, Scientists Say
February 14 — Scientists debate whether adding iron to oceans, so they absorb
more carbon dioxide, will reduce the amount of greenhouse gases warming the
planet. (San Diego Union Tribune)

Soil Erosion as Big a Problem as Global Warming, Say Scientists
February 14 — Erosion of topsoil, already a serious problem in Australia, China,
and parts of the U.S., threatens modern civilization, researchers warn.
(Guardian Unlimited)

Cloud Forests, Water Source to Millions, Face Risk
February 13 — A warming climate threatens tropical mountain forests that strip
moisture from clouds and supply water to millions of people in Africa and Latin
America, according to a UN report. (Environmental News Network)

Climate Change Puts Reefs in Hot Water
February 13 — Half the world’s coral reefs could be wiped out or badly damaged
by the end of the century because of climate change, according to a U.S. ocean
scientist. (Environmental Media Services)

Global Warming Debate Rages On, Focuses on Land Use
February 13 — A small, but growing number of atmospheric scientists are
investigating whether land-use changes are a major cause of global warming. (The
Christian Science Monitor)

Clouds Provide Insight in Understanding Climate
February 12 — A University of Utah researcher says the study of tropopause
cirrus clouds, found high in the atmosphere, is crucial in predicting future
climate changes. (The Daily Utah Chronicle)

Edinburgh Scientist Offers Hope on Climate Change
February 11 — A University of Edinburgh scientist says climate change may have
been slowed by an increase in the growth rate of trees in the Amazon
rainforests. (The Scotsman)

Bighorn Sheep Threatened by Climate Change, Finds New Study
February 10 — Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley have linked
population declines of California’s desert bighorn sheep with the effects of
climate change. (University of California-Berkeley)

IBM Supercomputer to Forecast Global Warming
February 10 — Scientists at the University of California-Irvine will use the IBM
supercomputer, called the Earth System Modeling Facility (ESMF) to simulate how
pressures on the planet’s climate will affect climate conditions during the next
300 years. (Enterpriseitplanet.com)

Beyond Brrr: The Elusive Science of Cold
February 10 — Meteorologists continue to debate the correct formula for
computing the wind chill index. (New York Times)

Global Warming Threatens Lobster Farms, Researcher Says
February 10 — A research scientist at Cornell College of Veterinary medicine
says lobsters in New York’s Long Island Sound are dying of suffocation as warmer
temperatures cause a build-up of calcium in their gills. (Australian
Broadcasting Corporation)

Two NASA Satellites Aid Weather Forecasters
February 9 — NASA scientists are working with NOAA and the National Weather
Service to train forecasters how to interpret data from NASA’s Terra and Aqua
satellites that provide much more clarity and detail. (Palm Beach Post)

Orbital Tracking Reveals Thinning Upper Atmosphere
February 4 — The orbits of 27 free-floating objects in Earth’s uppermost
atmosphere have not dropped as much as expected over the last 30 years as the
thermosphere has cooled and decreased in density. (New Scientist)

Ping-Pong Ball Avalanches May Help Prevent Real Disasters
February 4 — A series of experiments, some involving over half a million
ping-pong balls and a ski slope, are helping scientists understand the complex
physics underlying avalanches. (New Scientist)

Ozone-thinning Molecule Found above Arctic
February 3 — Scientists have observed for the first time a molecule high in the
atmosphere that may be a key player in ozone depletion. (UPI, Discovery.com)

Ancient Global Warming May be from Methane
February 2 — A release of methane into the atmosphere may have caused a brief
but severe episode of global warming during the dinosaur age. (BBC)

Glacier Study Helps Assess Effects of Climate Change
February 1 — Researchers in several western states are studying how climate
change and its impact on snowfall in the mountains affect wildfire and forest
growth. (The Missoulian)

Ocean Fluctuations Seen as a Key to Climate
February 1 — Researchers are using high-tech sensors on buoys off the southern
Africa coast to monitor changes in temperature that could affect climate all the
way to Europe. (The Charleston Post and Courier)

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http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/Research/

Contemporary Changes of the Hydrological Cycle over the Contiguous United
States: Trends Derived from In Situ Observations, Groisman, P.Y.; Knight, R.W.;
Karl, T.R.; Easterling, D.R.; Sun, B.; Lawrimore, J.H., Journal of
Hydrometeorology, February 2004 (Vol. 5, No. 1, 64-85)

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/Research/

A list of research articles recently published in the scientific literature.
African Easterly Waves and Their Association with Precipitation, Gu, G.; Adler,
R.F.; Huffman, G.J.; Curtis, S., Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres,
February 21, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. D4, D04101, Paper No. 10.1029/2003JD003967)

Isotopic Ractionation of Nitrous Oxide in the Stratosphere: Comparison Between
Model and Observations, Morgan, C.G.; Allen, M.; Liang, M.C.; Shia, R.L.; Blake,
G.A.; Yung, Y.L., Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, February 20, 2004
(Vol. 109, No. D4, D04305, Paper No. 10.1029/2003JD003402)

Single Particle Measurements of the Chemical Composition of Cirrus Ice Residue
during CRYSTAL-FACE, Cziczo, D.J.; Murphy, D.M.; Hudson, P.K.; Thomson, D.S.,
Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, February 18, 2004 (Vol. 109, No.
D4, D04201, Paper No. 10.1029/2003JD004032)

Synthetic Aperture Radar Observation of the Sea Surface Imprints of Upstream
Atmospheric Solitons Generated by Flow Impeded by an Island, Li, X.; Dong, C.;
Clemente-Colon, P.; Pichel, W.G.; Friedman, K.S., Journal of Geophysical
Research-Oceans, February 17, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. C2, C02016, Paper No.
10.1029/2003JC002168)

Validation of Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) [CO]
Retrievals with Aircraft in situ Profiles, Emmons, L.K.; Deeter, M.N.; Gille,
J.C.; Edwards, D.P.; AttiČ, J.-L.; Warner, J.; Ziskin, D.; Francis, G.;
Khattatov, B.; Yudin, V.; Lamarque, J.-F.; Ho, S.-P.; Mao, D.; Chen, J.S.;
Drummond, J.; Novelli, P.; Sachse, G.; Coffey, M.T.; Hannigan, J.W.; Gerbig, C.;
Kawakami, S.; Kondo, Y.; Takegawa, N.; Schlager, H.; Baehr, J.; Ziereis, H.,
Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, February 14, 2004 (Vol. 109, No.
D3, D03309, Paper No. 10.1029/2003JD004101)

Evaluation of Operational Radiances for the Measurements of Pollution in the
Troposphere (MOPITT) Instrument [CO] Thermal Band Channels, Deeter, M.N.;
Emmons, L.K.; Francis, G.L.; Edwards, D.P.; Gille, J.C.; Warner, J.X.;
Khattatov, B.; Ziskin, D.; Lamarque, J.-F.; Ho, S.-P.; Yudin, V.; Attie, J.-L.;
Packman, D.; Chen, J.; Mao, D.; Drummond, J.R.; Novelli, P.; Sachse, G., Journal
of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, February 14, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. D3,
D03308, Paper No. 10.1029/2003JD003970)

Using Satellite-derived Ice Concentration to Represent Antarctic Coastal
Polynyas in Ocean Climate Models, Stessel, A.; Markus, T., Journal of
Geophysical Research-Oceans, February 14, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. C2, C02014, Paper
No. 10.1029/2003JC001779)

Measuring Gravity Field Variability, the Geoid, Ocean Bottom Pressure
Fluctuations, and Their Dynamical Implications, Condi, F.; Wunsch, C., Journal
of Geophysical Research-Oceans, February 14, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. C2, C02013,
Paper No. 10.1029/2002JC001727)

Climatology of Katabatic Winds in the Mcmurdo Dry Valleys, Southern Victoria
Land, Antarctica, Nylen, T.H.; Fountain, A.G.; Doran, P.T., Journal of
Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, February 14, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. D3, D03114,
Paper No. 10.1029/2003JD003937)

Arctic Oscillation Response to the 1991 Pinatubo Eruption in the SKYHI General
Circulation Model with a Realistic Quasi-biennial Oscillation, Stenchikov, G.;
Hamilton, K.; Robock, A.; Ramaswamy, V.; Schwarzkopf, M.D., Journal of
Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, February 14, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. D3, D03112,
Paper No. 10.1029/2003JD003699)

Geographical Distribution and Interseasonal Variability of Tropical Deep
Convection: UARS MLS Observations and Analyses, Jiang, J.H.; Wang, B.; Goya, K.;
Hocke, K.; Eckermann, S.D.; Ma, J.; Wu, D.L.; Read, W.G., Journal of Geophysical
Research-Atmospheres, February 13, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. D3, D03111, Paper No.
10.1029/2003JD003756

Incorporating Remotely-sensed Snow Albedo into a Spatially-distributed Snowmelt
Model, Molotch, N.P.; Painter, T.H.; Bales, R.C.; Dozier, J., Geophysical
Research Letters, February 13, 2004 (Vol. 31, No. 3, L03501, Paper No.
10.1029/2003GL019063)

Observations of the Anomalous Oxygen Isotopic Composition of Carbon Dioxide in
the Lower Stratosphere and the Flux of the Anomaly to the Troposphere, Boering,
K.A.; Jackson, T.; Hoag, K.J.; Cole, A.S.; Perri, M.J.; Thiemens, M.; Atlas, E.,
Geophysical Research Letters, February 12, 2004 (Vol. 31, No. 3, L03109, Paper
No. 10.1029/2003GL018451)

Direct Radiative Effect of Aerosols as Determined from a Combination of MODIS
Retrievals and GOCART Simulations, Yu, H.; Dickinson, R.E.; Chin, M.; Kaufman,
Y.J.; Zhou, M.; Zhou, L.; Tian, Y.; Dubovik, O.; Holben, B.N., Journal of
Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, February 12, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. D3, D03206,
Paper No. 10.1029/2003JD003914)

Evaluating the Effect of Rain on SeaWinds Scatterometer Measurements, Draper,
D.W.; Long, D.G., Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, February 12, 2004
(Vol. 109, No. C12, C02005, Paper No. 10.1029/2002JC001741)

Parameterization of the Influence of Organic Surfactants on Aerosol Activation,
Abdul-Razzak, H.; Ghan, S.J., Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres,
February 11, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. D3, D03205, Paper No. 10.1029/2003JD004043)

Long-term Variations in the Occurrence and Effective Solar Transmission of
Clouds as Determined from Surface-based Total Irradiance Observations, Dutton,
E.G.; Farhadi, A.; Stone, R.S.; Long, C.N.; Nelson, D.W., Journal of Geophysical
Research-Atmospheres, February 11, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. D3, D03204, Paper No.
10.1029/2003JD003568)

A Search for Mountain Waves in MLS Stratospheric Limb Radiances from the Winter
Northern Hemisphere: Data Analysis and Global Mountain Wave Modeling, Jiang,
J.H.; Eckermann, S.D.; Wu, D.L.; Ma, J, Journal of Geophysical
Research-Atmospheres, February 11, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. D3, D03107, Paper No.
10.1029/2003JD003974)

Multiyear Analysis of Amazonian Biomass Burning Smoke Radiative Forcing of
Climate, Procopio, A.S.; Artaxo, P.; Kaufman, Y.J.; Remer, L.A.; Schafer, J.S.;
Holben, B.N., Geophysical Research Letters, February 10, 2004 (Vol. 31, No. 3,
L03108, Paper No. 10.1029/2003GL018646)

Vertical Structure Variability in the Equatorial Pacific before and after the
Pacific Climate Shift of the 1970s, Moon, B.-K.; Yeh, S.-W.; Dewitte, B.; Jhun,
J.-G.; Kang, I.-S.; Kirtman, B.P., Geophysical Research Letters, February 7,
2004 (Vol. 31, No. 3, L03203, Paper No. 10.1029/2003GL018829)

SABER Observations of Mesospheric Temperatures and Comparisons with Falling
Sphere Measurements Taken during the 2002 Summer Macwave Campaign, Mertens,
C.J.; Schmidlin, F.J.; Goldberg, R.A.; Remsberg, E.E.; Pesnell, W.D.; Russell,
J.M.; Mlynczak, M.G.; LŰpez-Puertas, M.; Wintersteiner, P.P.; Picard, R.H.;
Winick, J.R.; Gordley, L.L., Geophysical Research Letters, February 5, 2004
(Vol. 31, No. 3, L03105, Paper No. 10.1029/2003GL018605)

Seasonal Variation of Methane, Water Vapor, and Nitrogen Oxides near the
Tropopause: Satellite Observations and Model Simulations, Park, M.; Randel,
W.J.; Kinnison, D.E.; Garcia, R.R.; Choi, W., Journal of Geophyiscal
Research-Atmospheres, February 5, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. D3, D03302, Paper No.
10.1029/2003JD003706)

Sensitivity of TOMS Aerosol Index to Boundary Layer Height: Implications for
Detection of Mineral Aerosol Sources, Mahowald, N.M.; Dufresne, J.-L.,
Geophysical Research Letters, February 4, 2004 (Vol. 31, No. 3, L03103, Paper
No. 10.1029/2003GL018865)

First Measurements of [ClOOCl] in the Stratosphere: The Coupling of [CIOOCI] and
[CIO] in the Arctic Polar Vortex, Stimpfle, R.M.; Wilmouth, D.M.; Salawitch,
R.J.; Anderson, J.G., Journal of Geophyiscal Research-Atmospheres, February 4,
2004 (Vol. 109, No. D3, D03301, Paper No. 10.1029/2003JD003811)

Small-scale Variability and Model Error in Tropical Pacific Sea Level, Kaplan,
A.; Cane, M.A.; Chen, D.; Witter, D.L.; Cheney, R.E., Journal of Geophyiscal
Research-Oceans, February 4, 2004 (Vol. 109, No. C2, C02001, Paper No.
10.1029/2002JC001743)

Kelvin Wave Signatures in Stratospheric Trace Constituents, Mote, P.W.;
Dunkerton, T.J., Journal of Geophyiscal Research-Atmospheres, February 3, 2004
(Vol. 109, No. D3, D03101, Paper No. 10.1029/2002JD003370)

Stratiform Precipitation, Vertical Heating Profiles, and the Madden-Julian
Oscillation, Lin, J.; Mapes, B.; Zhang, M.; Newman, M., Journal of the
Atmospheric Sciences, February 2004 (Vol. 61, No. 3, 296-309)

A Method of Specifying the Gravity Wave Spectrum above Convection Based on
Latent Heating Properties and Background Wind, Beres, J.H.; Alexander, M.J.;
Holton, J.R., Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, February 2004 (Vol. 61, No.
3, 324-337)

Atmospheric Contributions to Earth Nutation: Geodetic Constraints and
Limitations of the Torque Approach, Marcus, S.L.; de Viron, O.; Dickey, J.O.,
Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, February 2004 (Vol. 61, No. 3, 352-356)

Understanding Controls on Historical River Discharge in the World’s Largest
Drainage Basins, Potter, C.; Zhang, P.; Klooster, S.; Genovese, V.; Shekhar, S.;
Kumar, V., Earth Interactions, February 2004 (Vol. 8, No. 2, 1-21)

The Exhaust Valve of the North Atlantic, de Boer, A.M.; Nof, D., Journal of
Climate, February 2004 (Vol. 17, No. 3, 417-422)

Modeled Antarctic Precipitation. Part I: Spatial and Temporal Variability,
Bromwich, D.H.; Guo, Z.; Bai, L.; Chen, Q., Journal of Climate, February 2004
(Vol. 17, No. 3, 427-447)

Causes of Long-term Drought in the U.S. Great Plains, Schubert, S.D.; Suarez,
M.J.; Pegion, P.J.; Koster, R.D.; Bacmeister, J.T., Journal of Climate, February
2004 (Vol. 17, No. 3, 485-503)

Regional Climate Change in East Asia Simulated by an Interactive
Atmosphere-Soil-Vegetation Model, Chen, M.; Pollard, D.; Barron, E.J., Journal
of Climate, February 2004 (Vol. 17, No. 3, 557-572)

Effects of the Andes on Eastern Pacific Climate: A Regional Atmospheric Model
Study, Xu, H., Wang, Y.; Xie, S.-P., Journal of Climate, February 2004 (Vol. 17,
No. 3, 589-602)

The North Pacific as a Regulator of Summertime Climate over Eurasia and North
America, Lau, K.-M.; Lee, J.-Y.; Kim, K.-M.; Kang, I.-S., Journal of Climate,
February 2004 (Vol. 17, No. 4, 819-833)

Longitudinal Variation of the Stratospheric Quasi-Biennial Oscillation,
Hamilton, K.; Hertzog, A.; Vial, F.; Stenchikov, G., Journal of the Atmospheric
Sciences, February 2004 (Vol. 61, No. 4, 383-402)

Observations of Particle Size and Phase in Tropical Cyclones: Implications for
Mesoscale Modeling of Microphysical Processes, McFarquhar, G.M.; Black, R.A.,
Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, February 2004 (Vol. 61, No. 4, 422-439)

Explicit Simulations of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, Liu, C.; Moncrieff,
M.W., Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, February 2004 (Vol. 61, No. 4,
458-473)

Large-scale Meteorology and Deep Convection during TRMM KWAJEX, Sobel, A.H.;
Yuter, S.E.; Bretherton, C.S.; Kiladis, G., Monthly Weather Review, February
2004 (Vol. 132, No. 2, 422-444)

The Teleconnection between the Western Indian and the Western Pacific Oceans,
Misra, V., Monthly Weather Review, February 2004 (Vol. 132, No. 2, 445-455)

Impact of a Digital Filter as a Weak Constraint in MM5 4DVAR: An Observing
System Simulation Experiment, Wee, T.-K.; Kuo, Y.-H., Monthly Weather Review,
February 2004 (Vol. 132, No. 2, 543-559)

Implementing the Weak Temperature Gradient Approximation with Full Vertical
Structure, Shaevitz, D.A.; Sobel, A., Monthly Weather Review, February 2004
(Vol. 132, No. 2, 662-669)

Using MODIS BRDF and Albedo Data to Evaluate Global Model Land Surface Albedo,
Wang, Z.; Zeng, W.; Barlage, M.; Dickinson, R.E.; Gao, F.; Schaaf, C.B., Journal
of Hydrometeorology, February 2004 (Vol. 5, No. 1, 3-14)

Using a Microwave Emission Model to Estimate Soil Moisture from ESTAR
Observations during SGP99, Gao, H.; Wood, E.F.; Drusch, M.; Crow, W.; Jackson,
T.J., Journal of Hydrometeorology, February 2004 (Vol. 5, No. 1, 49-63)

Contemporary Changes of the Hydrological Cycle over the Contiguous United
States: Trends Derived from In Situ Observations, Groisman, P.Y.; Knight, R.W.;
Karl, T.R.; Easterling, D.R.; Sun, B.; Lawrimore, J.H., Journal of
Hydrometeorology, February 2004 (Vol. 5, No. 1, 64-85)

The Regional Evapotranspiration of the Amazon, Werth, D.; Avissar, R., Journal
of Hydrometeorology, February 2004 (Vol. 5, No. 1, 100-109)

Estimation of Surface Turbulent Fluxes through Assimilation of Radiometric
Surface Temperature Sequences, Caparrini, F.; Castelli, F.; Entekhabi, D.;
Journal of Hydrometeorology, February 2004 (Vol. 5, No. 1, 145-159)

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" The coauthors-Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National
Climatic Data Center, and Kevin Trenberth, head of the
Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR)-conclude that industrial
emissions have been the dominant influence on climate
change for the past 50 years, overwhelming natural forces.
The most important of these emissions is carbon dioxide,
a greenhouse gas that traps solar radiation and warms the
planet."

Ref: 2003-49 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 2, 2003
“No Doubt” Human Activity Is Affecting Global Climate,
Top Scientists Conclude

BOULDER-Two of the nation’s premier atmospheric scientists,...
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2003/trenberth.html

From the Press Release, there is consensus by the premier atmospheric scientists
that "industrial emissions have been the dominant influence on climate change
for the past 50 years, overwhelming natural forces."

Are there any "premier atmospheric scientists" in this nation that disagree with
Thomas Karl and Kevin Trenberth?

... if there are any, please provide titles and names ...

Pat N.


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A Biweekly Update from Defenders of Wildlife: Working to Save Wildlife
and Wild Lands
March 3, 2004

1. Bears May Be Next Victims of Aerial Killing in Alaska

2. White House Still Calling for Trade in Endangered Species

3. Scientists Claim Bush Administration Misusing Science

4. Interior Department Changes Tune on Navy Landing Field

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------

1.  Bears May Be Next Victims of Aerial Killing in Alaska

Apparently, the current aerial gunning of wolves in Alaska is not enough
for some trophy hunters and their supporters in the state government. The
Alaska Board of Game, which previously approved the aerial killing of
wolves, leading to at least 91 wolf deaths already, is meeting to hear a
number of proposals, including some that call for aerial gunning and
bait-and-shooting of grizzly and black bears, as well as the selling of
bear parts and the killing of bear cubs that are still with their
mothers. The board may also extend aerial gunning of wolves to other
areas. Sign a petition to oppose aerial gunning.

2.  White House Still Calling for Trade in Endangered Species

Last fall, thousands of our readers urged the Bush administration to
withdraw two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposals that would allow
commercial international trade in endangered species for the first time
in thirty years. Months after it first promised to do so, the service has
finally reopened the public comment period on one of these controversial
proposals. Although the Bush administration claims it will consider
public comments already received, it also says that the public was
"confused" about the impact of the proposed rule – a cynical argument
that will allow the service to easily dismiss thousands of comments on
this important issue. Visit our action center and click on alert #282 to
send a letter to the Bush administration letting them know that you're
not "confused," and you still oppose international trade in endangered
species. The deadline for comments is March 9.

3.  Scientists Claim Bush Administration Misusing Science

Sixty renowned scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, recently
denounced the Bush administration for misusing science. According to the
scientists, the administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and
distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions
that have undermined the quality of scientific panels. The statement and
a report released detail multiple areas in which the White House is
either ignoring, suppressing or distorting science. One example cited
involves the suppression of an Environmental Protection Agency study that
found that the bipartisan Senate clean air legislation would reduce
mercury contamination and prevent human illness more than the
administration's misnamed "Clear Skies Act."

4.  Interior Department Changes Tune on Navy Landing Field

In a move that some critics called a "political fix," the Department of
the Interior has changed its mind about the negative effects that a
military jet landing field will have on endangered red wolves and a slew
of migratory birds in North Carolina. A letter drafted by the Interior
Department in November expressed concerns with the landing field site –
located near Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge – stating that it
could have negative effects on birds and other species. Craig Manson,
assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, now states that the
department "can accept the Navy's decision." Local communities and a
group of conservation organizations, including Defenders, are suing to
halt the construction of the field. Learn more.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

DENlines is a biweekly update of Defenders of Wildlife, a leading
national conservation organization recognized as one of the nation's most
progressive advocates for wildlife and its habitat. It is known for its
effective leadership on endangered species issues, particularly predators
such as brown bears and gray wolves. Defenders also advocates new
approaches to wildlife conservation that protect species before they
become endangered. Founded in 1947, Defenders is a nonprofit 501(c)(3)
organization with more than 450,000 members and supporters.

Defenders of Wildlife
1130 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC  20036

Copyright © Defenders of Wildlife 2004













Donna Bettinger
U.S. Representative

Scandinavian Joint Action For Wolves
http://www.fellesaksjonenforulv.org/engelskesider/English.htm

Nordulv
http://www.nordulv.org/presentation_e.shtml

The Lone Wolf of Langedrag
http://community-2.webtv.net/Sno_4_Ever/The_Lone_Wolf/

"To look into the eyes of a wolf is to see your soul ..... "

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SaveWildlife/join



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--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "erbudge"
To: Paleontology_and_Climate@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 03:38:54 -0000
Subject: [P&C] "Climate change set to poke holes in ozone"
Hi all--
"Arctic clouds could make ozone depletion three times worse than
predicted."

Climate change set to poke holes in ozone

Philip Ball
Nature  Scienceupdate  3 March 2004

http://www.nature.com/nsu/nsu_pf/040301/040301-5.html

--Ed Budge





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From: StephanPickering@...
To: paleo_bio_dinosaur_ontology@yahoogroups.com
Cc: birds-and-landscapes@yahoogroups.com,
	  darkraptorsdinosaurclub@yahoogroups.com,
	  DinosaurEvolution@yahoogroups.com, npat1@...,
	  palaeornithology@yahoogroups.com,
	  thedinosaurabyss@yahoogroups.com,
	  theraptorsrealm@yahoogroups.com,
	  theropod_dinosaurs@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 21:11:57 EST
Subject: theropod migration phenology & global climate changeProc.
National Academy of Sciences  | October 14, 2003 | vol.
100(21):12219-12222
Avian migration phenology and global climage change. Peter A. Cotton
ABSTRACT. There is mounting evidence that global climate change has
extended growing seasons, changed distribution patterns, and altered the
phenology of flowering, breeding, and migration. For migratory birds, the
timing of arrival on breeding territories and over-wintering grounds is a
key determinant of reproductive success, survivorship, and fitness. But
we know little of the factors controlling earlier passage in
long-distance migrants. Over the past 30 years in Oxfordshire, U.K., the
average arrival and departure dates of 20 migrant bird species have both
advanced by 8 days; consequently, the overall residence time in
Oxfordshire has remained unchanged. The timing of arrival has advanced in
relation to increasing winter temperatures in sub-Saharan Africa, whereas
the timing of departure has advanced after elevated summer temperatures
in Oxfordshire. This finding demonstrates that migratory phenology is
quite likely to be affected by global climate change and links events in
tropical winter quarters with those in temperate breeding areas.

STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
The Dinosaur Fractals Project
2333 Portola Drive # 4
Santa Cruz, California 95062-4250 USA
stephanpickering@...
website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paleo_bio_dinosaur_ontology
theropod research summarized: <www.dinodata.net> see under PICKERING at
their Reference Base

________________________________________________________________
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SUMMARY

Is the transport of heat northward by the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic
Drift, and its subsequent release into the midlatitude westerlies, the
reason why Europe’s winters are so much milder than those of eastern
North America and other places at the same latitude? Here, it is shown
that the principal cause of this temperature difference is advection by
the mean winds. South-westerlies bring warm maritime air into Europe and
northwesterlies bring frigid continental air into north-eastern North
America.

Further, analysis of the ocean surface heat budget shows that the
majority of the heat released during winter from the ocean to the
atmosphere is accounted for by the seasonal release of heat previously
absorbed and not by ocean heat-flux convergence. Therefore, the existence
of the winter temperature contrast between western Europe and eastern
North America does not require a dynamical ocean.

Two experiments with an atmospheric general-circulation model coupled to
an ocean mixed layer confirm this conclusion. The difference in winter
temperatures across the North Atlantic, and the difference between
western Europe and western North America, is essentially the same in
these models whether or not the movement of heat by the ocean is
accounted for. In an additional experiment with no mountains, the flow
across the ocean is more zonal, western Europe is cooled, the trough east
of the Rockies is weakened and the cold of north-eastern North America is
ameliorated.

In all experiments the west coast of Europe is warmer than the west coast
of North America at the same latitude whether or not ocean heat transport
is accounted for. In summary the deviations from zonal symmetry of winter
temperatures in the northern hemisphere are fundamentally caused by the
atmospheric circulation interacting with the oceanic mixed layer.

In the current paper we demonstrate that transport of heat by the ocean
has little inŹ uence on the contrast between the mild winters of western
Europe south of 60±N
and the harsh ones of eastern North America. North of 60±N the OHT
accounts for
about a quarter of the contrast by restricting winter sea-ice cover.

The dominant cause of the contrast, at both latitudes, is atmospheric
advection around the Icelandic Low and the simple maritime–continental
climate distinction. The exact positioning and strength of the Icelandic
Low is important to the climate contrast and is shown to be greatly
influenced by the orographic forcing of the Rocky Mountains.

Therefore, the difference in the winter climates arises fundamentally
through
atmospheric processes and the seasonal storage and release of heat by the
ocean mixed layer. This is also all that is required to establish the
difference in winter climates between the west coast of Europe and the
west coast of North America at the same latitudes.

KEYWORDS: European winters
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Gulf.pdf

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: mtneuman@...
To: Paleontology_and_Climate@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 22:27:15 -0600
Subject: [P&C] Advection of Wind Reason for Europe's Relatively Mild
Temperatures, Not Ocean Currents

Is the Gulf Stream responsible for Europe’s mild winters?
By R. SEAGER1¤, D. S. BATTISTI2, J. YIN2, N. GORDON1, N. NAIK1, A. C.
CLEMENT3 and M. A. CANE1
1Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, USA
2University of Washington, USA
3Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, USA
(Received 23 July 2001; revised 19 April 2002)

THE WORLD IS IN CRISIS DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING!
Hydrologist's recommended links:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/608
Financial incentives-ConserveNow!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/229
Thank you for your comments to P&C. [Pat N.]

Yahoo! Groups Links








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1 March 2004
Report Questions Role of Mexican Crater
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A Mexican crater often cited as evidence that a single
asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs may not have been involved in that
extinction at all, according to a new report.A group of researchers led
by Gerta Keller of Princeton University contends that the impact that
caused the crater occurred 300,000 years before the extinction.In a paper
appearing in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, the group cites a layer of sediment it found between
the impact layer and the co-called K-T boundary that marked the mass
extinction 65 million years ago.Because it would have taken hundreds of
thousands of years for the limestone layer to form, they argue the impact
must have occurred well before the extinction.However, Richard D. Norris
of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, responded that the group has
incorrectly located the K-T boundary and noted it suggests the sediments
were deposited mainly in deep, quiet water."The laminations, particularly
since they are not of uniform thickness or horizontal, could easily be
the product of high energy bottom currents," he said."The evidence they
present, can in most cases be argued either way and so does not really
resolve anything," Norris commented.

********************************************************
NOTE: AP has not yet -- as far as I know -- posted
this article at their archives site, and so the author
remains unknown to me.

STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
The Dinosaur Fractals Project
2333 Portola Drive # 4
Santa Cruz, California 95062-4250 USA
stephanpickering@...
website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paleo_bio_dinosaur_ontology
theropod research summarized: <www.dinodata.net> see under PICKERING at
their Reference Base









________________________________________________________________
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http://www.spacedaily.com/news/climate-04h.html

EARTH OBSERVATION

NASA Beefs Up Online World Climate Model and Information Tools

Greenbelt - Mar 04, 2004
Students, scientists, teachers, reporters and the scientifically curious can
locate any kind of Earth science data much easier and quicker than ever before,
using NASA's Global Change Master Directory (GCMD). The redesigned website, a
directory of Earth science data and services is being re-launched on March 1st
to provide easier access to data and services.
The GCMD, updated daily, provides Earth science data sets and services relevant
to global change research. The GCMD's 13 data set topics, found under the
"Data Sets" tab, provide summaries of the data sets and specific
information such as data over time and location, a citation for the creator of
the database, and direct links to data and services.

Available dataset topics range from tiny airborne particles (aerosols) to the
continental-sized ozone hole to global sea surface temperatures. The GCMD topics
include: Agriculture, Atmosphere, Biosphere, Climate Indicators, Human
Dimensions, Hydrosphere, Land Surface, Oceans, Paleoclimate, Snow and Ice, Solid
Earth, Spectral/Engineering and Sun-Earth Interactions.

Users can search over 15,000 data sets and services and link to more than over
76,000 resources within the descriptions The individual data set descriptions
were contributed by more than 1,300 data centers, government agencies,
universities, research institutions, and private researchers around the world.

For scientists and others who want to add or modify GCMD datasets, they can do
so under the "Authoring" tab by using the new "docBUILDER"
web-based tools. Under the "Data Services" tab are available services
from analysis and visualization tools to education and environmental
advisories.

The "Portals" tab is the most important to specific groups of data
users. "Perhaps the greatest contribution of the GCMD to the public has
been the ability to create customized subsets of the directory that can be
displayed, in turn, by special interest groups," said Lola Olsen, Directory
Project Manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"These groups save major development and maintenance costs by re-using the
directory capabilities." For example, member countries of the Joint
Committee on Antarctic Data Management (JCADM) contribute directory entries
using the GCMD tools and may then, in turn, host individual, customized subsets
of the database through "portals" through which they can display their
own contribution.

Reporters and others interested in upcoming recent climate change conferences
can find up to 1,000 entries under the "Calendar" tab. Under the
"What's New" tab, there are new Earth science and climate change
research stories and the latest GCMD data set descriptions.

Students and teachers will also benefit from the "Learning Center"
that can be found under the "Community" tab. Clicking on "FAQ:
Frequently Asked Questions" at the bottom of the homepage, one can see
answers to questions such as "Where can I find information about the ozone
hole and ozone depletion?" Finally, the "Links" tab acts as a
web-based search engine for easy access to over 2,500 Earth science web
resources.

For those who use the directory often, there is also a search box icon that
permits direct access to the directory through a simple download to a user's
website. Users can also subscribe to an email notification on postings of new
datasets for "Earth Science Topics" and "Geographic
Locations" by clicking on "Subscribe" on the left tool bar.

The directory content is shared and available as part of NASA's contribution to
the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites' (CEOS) International Directory
Network (IDN). The content is also made available to the National Spatial Data
Infrastructure's (NSDI) Federal Geographic Data Committee's (FDGC)
Clearinghouse
--------------


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