Date Posted: 09-Feb-2010

FINED FOR CLIMBING CITY ICON

Four of the five Greenpeace activists who climbed the Sydney Opera House in a protest about climate change have been fined $750.

In December Matthew Kirwood, Adrian Wedd, Erica Lattughi, Emma Briggs and Sheena Beaton climbed to the top of the main eastern sails of the Sydney Opera House to hang a large banner that read 'stop the politics, climate treaty now.'

The Greenpeace activists staged the protest to coincide with the Copenhagen climate summit. In Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court, the five pleaded guilty to trespass. The court heard they felt compelled to take action for the future of humanity.

Date Posted: 09-Feb-2010

RAMMING RAISES WHALING TENSION

Frosty relations between Australian and Japan worsened after the conservation group Sea Shepherd protested its ship Bob Barker had been intentionally rammed by a Japanese whaling vessel off Antarctica.

The ramming is alleged to have taken place about 300 kilometres off Cape Darnley in the Australian Antarctic Territory.

It's the second major clash between the conservationists and Japanese whalers this year after the Ady Gil sank following a collision with a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean on January 6.

Sea Shepherd said four Japanese harpoon ships had circled the Bob Barker because it was actively blocking the slipway of the Nisshin Maru - the Japanese whaling fleet's factory ship.

Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson claimed the Yushin Maru 3 then intentionally rammed the Bob Barker, creating a hole in the side of the vessel above the waterline.

But Japanese whalers say they tried to avoid the collision.

Date Posted: 08-Feb-2010

ADVANCED TELESCOPE TRACKS SOLAR

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $298 million cooperative support agreement to

The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) will build the world's first 4-meter Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST).

This follows the Nation Science Foundation's decision to award US$298 so that the construction of the giant telescope can get underway.

ATST will be the largest and most capable solar telescope. No comparable facility exists or is planned. ATST will be the world's flagship facility for the study of magnetic phenomena in the solar atmosphere and will be the first large, ground-based, open-access solar telescope in the United States in more than 40 years.

"This is an exciting opportunity for the National Solar Observatory to lead the community," said Dr. William Smith, president of AURA. "We look forward to achieving a first-rate, cutting-edge facility."

Date Posted: 07-Feb-2010

AURA TO BUILD FIRST ADVANCED TELESCOPE

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $298 million cooperative support agreement to study solar effect on Earth life cycles.

The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) will build the world's first 4-meter Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST).

This follows the Nation Science Foundation's decision to award US$298 so that the construction of the giant telescope can get underway.

ATST will be the largest and most capable solar telescope. No comparable facility exists or is planned. ATST will be the world's flagship facility for the study of magnetic phenomena in the solar atmosphere and will be the first large, ground-based, open-access solar telescope in the United States in more than 40 years.

"This is an exciting opportunity for the National Solar Observatory to lead the community," said Dr. William Smith, president of AURA. "We look forward to achieving a first-rate, cutting-edge facility."

ATST is to be built atop Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii, pending completion of a Conservation District Use Agreement and other permits. Haleakala was selected after considering 72 sites and then narrowing those down to six for additional consideration through on-site testing. Of those six sites, only the Haleakala site met all of ATST's requirements: the least atmospheric blurring, the most annual hours of low sky brightness, the lowest dust levels, and the smallest temperature extremes. The site is next to the existing Mees Solar Observatory, which is owned and operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, a principal partner in the project.

Understanding the role of magnetic fields in the outer regions of the Sun is crucial to understanding the solar dynamo, solar variability, and solar activity, including flares and mass ejections, which can significantly affect life on Earth. ATST research will investigate solar variability and its impact on terrestrial climate; and the conditions responsible for solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other activities that can impact terrestrial communications and power systems, disrupt satellite communications, and endanger astronauts and air travelers.

ATST's 4-meter (13-foot) primary mirror will feed an advanced array of instruments designed to study the Sun in light ranging from near ultraviolet (350 nm) into the far infrared (28,000 nm, or 28 microns). High-order adaptive optics, pioneered by the NSO and its partners at NSO's Dunn Solar Telescope at Sunspot, NM, will correct blurring of solar images caused by Earth's atmosphere and thus allow ATST to observe features in the solar atmosphere with unprecedented sharpness, down to structures only a few tens of kilometers in size.

A unique aspect of ATST's design is that it will observe both on the bright solar disk and in the ultra-faint corona. ATST will accurately measure magnetic fields in the ultra-faint corona, which is only a few parts in a million as bright as the solar disk.

Date Posted: 06-Feb-2010

CALIFORNIA SOLAR CASH

California is wooing consumers to go solar with cash incentives to boost the solar water heater market and make the heating systems green.

The California Public Utilities Commission said it has established an incentive to promote the installation of solar water heating systems in new and existing homes and businesses.

The incentives range as high as $1,500, depending on the system, and the program is set up to run for 8 years or until the program funds are exhausted.

"The dispersion of solar heating systems can play an important role as we strive to achieve the goal of zero net energy in residential and commercial buildings by 2020 and 2030 respectively," CPUC Commissioner Dian Grueneich said in a statement.

The commission said 40 per cent of the $350 million incentive budget is reserved for single-family residential systems, and 60 per cent for commercial and multifamily systems.

Date Posted: 05-Feb-2010

DON'T BLAME CARES SAYS LUTZ

Senior General Motors executive Bob Lutz has slammed scientists and environmentalists, saying global warming has little to do with humans and more to do with solar flares and sunspots.

The man who proudly claims to be a progenitor of the Chevrolet Volt electric car scoffs at global warming.

In 2008 Lutz described global warming as a "crock of shit". And at the the Detroit motor show said: "All I ever say is look at the data, look at the empirical evidence. Look at what they said 10 years ago what would happen with rising ocean levels, it hasn't happened.

"Those of you who have watched the Al Gore 'Inconvenient Truth' movie saw his hands over the Gulf of Mexico and all this boiling hot water. 'You think Hurricane Katrina is bad you haven't seen anything yet, we are going to have all these horrible hurricanes every year'. We haven't had one, Katrina was six years ago and we have yet to have the next hurricane."

Instead of CO2-driven global warming, Lutz embraces the theory that the planet is actually cooling because of lower solar flare and sunspot activity.

"It has got nothing to do with CO2, it's got everything to do with solar activity, and when the solar flares stopped and the sun has been unusually quiet almost to the point of worrying people, then global temperatures go down."

So why is Lutz such a strong proponent of the Volt and the electrification of the automobile? Peak oil is the answer.

Lutz argues that continued dependence on oil as demand inevitably increases will simply exacerbate boom and bust economic cycles.

Date Posted: 04-Feb-2010

DECEMBER 2009 HOTTEST

The global ocean surface temperature was the second warmest on record for December, according to scientists at NOAA's (U.S.) National Climatic Data Center.
    
Based on records going back to 1880, the monthly NCDC also reported the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the eighth warmest on record for December.

For 2009, global temperatures tied with 2006 as the fifth-warmest on record. Also, the earth's land surface for 2009 was seventh-warmest (tied with 2003) and the ocean surface was fourth-warmest (tied with 2002 and 2004.)

The highlights for Earth temperatures for December 2009 are as follows:
 
    * The global ocean temperature was the second warmest on record, behind 1997. The temperature anomaly was 0.97 degree F above the 20th century average of 60.4 degrees F.
    * The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the eighth warmest on record, at 0.88 degree F above the 20th century average of 54.0 degrees F.
    * The global land surface temperature was 0.63 degree F above the 20th century average of 38.7 degrees F - the coolest December anomaly since 2002.
    * For the calendar year 2009, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 58.0 degrees F tied with 2006 as the fifth-warmest on record. This value is 1.01 degree F above the 20th century average.
    * NCDC scientists also noted the average temperature for the decade (2000-09), 57.9 degrees F, was the warmest on record surpassing the 1990-99 average of 57.7 degrees F. value.

Scientists, researchers and leaders in government and industry use NCDC's monthly reports to help track trends and other changes in the world's climate.