PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 65/2002 - 31 May 2002
---------------------------
"A study of past climate changes in the South American
tropics has
challenged traditional understanding of the mechanisms that
triggered the
advance and retreat of glaciers during the last ice age.
"If the
tropics warmed earlier than the northern latitudes, as our study
demonstrates, that means there is something else
influencing climate change
that we don't yet understand."
--Geoffrey Seltzer, Syracuse University, 30 May 2002
(1) NEW CLIMATE CHALLENGES ICE AGE THEORIES
Julie Smith <jasmith@nsf.gov>
(2) CORRELATION FOUND BETWEEN EARTHQUAKES AND OCEAN TIDES
Cosmiverse, 29 May 2002
(3) ESA SELECTS NEW EARTH-OBSERVATION MISSIONS
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(4) NEODyS ANNOUNCES NEW SERVICES
NEODyS <neodys@newton.dm.unipi.it>
(5) GOSH: "LIFE SEEMS TO BE INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCE OF
EXISTENCE"
UniSci, 30 May 2002
(6) EATING YOUR GREENEHOUSE GASES: VENTER TACKLES GLOBAL WARMING
BBC, 30 May 2002
(8) DRAGONS AND COMETS
Bob Kobres <bkobres@arches.uga.edu>
(9) DARK SKY PROTECTION
Josep Maria Trigo i Rodríguez <trigo@exp.uji.es>
(10) AND FINALLY: "OZONE HOLE TO CLOSE IN 2040"
The Japan TImes, 29 May 2002
==============
(1) NEW CLIMATE CHALLENGES ICE AGE THEORIES
>From Julie Smith <jasmith@nsf.gov>
NSF PR 02-48
Media Contacts:
Cheryl Dybas, NSF
(703) 292-8070/cdybas@nsf.gov
Judy Holmes, Syracuse University
(315) 443-5172/jlholmes@syr.edu
Program Contact:
D Verardo, NSF
(703) 292-8527/dverardo@nsf.gov
NEW CLIMATE STUDY CHALLENGES THINKING ON LARGE-SCALE, GLOBAL
CLIMATE CHANGE
A study of past climate changes in the South American tropics has
challenged
traditional understanding of the mechanisms that triggered the
advance and
retreat of glaciers during the last ice age. The National
Science
Foundation (NSF) funded study was published in this week's issue
of Science.
A research team found that glaciers in the tropical Andes
Mountains
retreated several thousand years earlier than North American
glaciers during
a period of wet climate conditions, and during a time when the
sun's warming
radiation (solar insolation) was at a minimum.
The finding contradicts traditional thinking that climate
conditions in the
northern latitudes generate the advance and retreat of global
glaciation,
and that glaciers retreated during dry climate conditions and
when solar
insolation was at its maximum, said lead researcher Geoffrey
Seltzer of
Syracuse University. "If the tropics warmed earlier than the
northern
latitudes, as our study demonstrates, that means there is
something else
influencing climate change that we don't yet understand."
David Verardo, director of the NSF's paleoclimate program, which
funded the
project, said that Seltzer and his colleagues "offer
remarkable insights
into the intricate movements of a climate tango of sorts between
the low and
high latitudes as one hemisphere alternately leads or follows in
influencing
long-term weather. Getting the moves of this tango
down is important for
understanding climate."
Added Seltzer, "We know from our experiences with El Nino,
that the tropics
are the focus of energy and water vapor that drives the global
climate
system. Our research provides a hint that something important
happened in
the tropics that could be an important trigger for the last
retreat of the
global ice age." The researchers compared climate data
derived from
sediment cores they collected from Lake Titicaca, located on the
border of
Peru and Bolivia, and Lake Junin, located in Peru, with published
data from
ice cores collected in Greenland and Antarctica. A key component
of the
research was an analysis of inorganic sediment accumulation in
the lakes.
The researchers found that during periods of maximum glaciation,
the
tropical lakes overflowed and the sediment that flowed into the
lakes from
the surrounding region contained a high concentration of
fine-grained
magnetic minerals. During periods of glacial retreat, the
sediment was
trapped behind moraines (mounds of rock and debris left by
glaciers),
resulting in a lower concentration of magnetic minerals flowing
into Lakes
Titicaca and Junin.
"From the analysis, it is clear that the tropical Andes
deglaciated several
thousand years earlier than higher latitude warming," the
authors wrote. "In
contrast, maximum glaciation in the U.S. Sierra Nevada
persisted several
thousand years after deglaciation had commenced in the tropical
Andes." If
early warming occurred throughout the tropics, this climate
change could
have been transmitted both atmospherically and by ocean
circulation
processes to produce deglaciation of alpine and continental ice
sheets in
the Northern Hemisphere, the scientists believe.
The study is part of a larger, ongoing research project on
climate change in
the tropics that includes a $2 million expedition to Lake
Titicaca, funded
through NSF's Earth System History (ESH) program.
===========
(2) CORRELATION FOUND BETWEEN EARTHQUAKES AND OCEAN TIDES
>From Cosmiverse, 29 May 2002
http://www.cosmiverse.com/news/science/science05290205.html
A Columbia University scientist studying an active seafloor
volcano in the
Pacific Ocean has determined that there is a correlation between
the
hundreds of micro earthquakes she recorded and the ocean tides.
Dr. Maya Tolstoy, Associate Research Scientist at the
Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory at Columbia University, is publishing in the June
issue of the
journal Geology, research showing that earthquakes coming from
the Axial
Volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, located off the coast of
Washington and
Oregon, are occurring during tidal lows when the weight of the
water is at a
minimum. Tolstoy and her colleagues also found a tidal
correlation with
signals for harmonic tremors, which are thought to result from
super heated
water moving in the cracks.
The research suggests that the seafloor crust is essentially
breathing with
the ocean tides, allowing more movement of water through the
crust and the
release of seismic energy on a regular tidal schedule.
"Scientists have long postulated that earthquakes and tidal
movements are
somehow connected, but on land the link has been quite difficult
to
identify. It makes sense that if this correlation were to be seen
strongly
anywhere, the ocean floor would be the most likely site, since it
will be
strongly influenced by the tides. However, it's only within the
last decade
that the technology has been available to make the long-term
seismic
recordings of the seafloor necessary to find this correlation.
Our first
study on the Axial Volcano began in 1994. Today, we have an
interesting and
important view into how its deformation, and perhaps the
deformation of
other underwater volcanoes, works," said Tolstoy.
The Axial Volcano was chosen as a research site because it was
thought to be
volcanically active. In 1994, Tolstoy and her team deployed
equipment on the
ocean floor to record both seismic activity and tides. Over a
period of two
months, 402 micro earthquakes were recorded and they showed both
a
fortnightly and a diurnal pattern. It was also recorded that
there was a two
hour lag between the movement of the tides and the deformation of
the
Earth's crust, which is a process called an Earth tide. This
indicates that
the movement of water appears to be a more important force in
day-to-day
earthquake triggering than the movement of the earth.
In 1998, a major eruption on Axial Volcano occurred. The activity
observed
in 1994 occurred largely at the site of the 1998 eruption and may
have
indicated precursory volcanic activity at a site on the brink of
an
eruption. The existence and timing of the earthquakes is also
important in
understanding the nutrient supply to the biological communities
living in
these extreme environments devoid of sunlight.
At the time of the experiment, this research constituted the
longest period
of continuous recording of seismic activity in a single location.
Since
then, other longer-term deployments have been made, and similar
correlations
have been observed in additional locations on the Juan de Fuca
Ridge. It is
therefore probable that ocean tidal influences are occurring
elsewhere on
the seafloor and on other mid-ocean ridge chains.
Source: Geological Society of America; NSF
Copyright 2002, Cosmiverse
=============
(3) ESA SELECTS NEW EARTH-OBSERVATION MISSIONS
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
European Space Agency
Press Release No. 38-2002
Paris,
France
28 May 2002
ESA selects new Earth-Observation missions
For its second cycle of the Earth Explorer Opportunity Missions,
ESA has
recently selected three proposals to enter feasibility study:
ACE+, an
Atmosphere and Climate-Explorer; EGPM, the European contribution
to Global
Precipitation Mission, and SWARM, a constellation of small
satellites to
study the dynamics of the Earth's magnetic field and its
interactions with
the Earth system.
Following a call for proposals in June 2001, ESA received 27
responses,
which encompassed all science and application oriented
disciplines of Earth
Observation remote sensing. In January 2002, 25 were submitted
for
evaluation to scientific Peer Teams for an in-depth scientific
and
engineering review. The review was then analysed by the Earth
Science
Advisory Committee (ESAC) which established a shortlist of six
missions.
Finally, on May 15-16, ESA's Programme Board for
Earth-Observation selected
three missions to undergo feasibility study.
The first Earth Explorer Opportunity Mission selection took place
in 1999
and resulted in the selection of Cryosat and SMOS. Cryosat, to be
launched
in 2004, will study ice sheets and sea ice, while SMOS, scheduled
for launch
in 2006, will measure soil moisture and ocean salinity. The first
Earth
Explorer Core Mission selection of 1999, saw the birth of the
Earth Gravity
field and Ocean Circulation (GOCE) mission and the Atmospheric
Dynamics
Mission (ADM-Aeolus) to be launched in 2005 and 2007
respectively.
Unlike the larger Earth Explorer Core Missions, which are ESA-led
research
missions, Opportunity Missions are smaller, have a larger degree
of
industrial implication and are not necessarily ESA-led. Their
cost-to-completion ranges in the order of 110M euro.
The three candidate opportunity missions recently selected will
complement
areas of research currently under development in the Earth
Explorer
programme. Once the feasibility studies are complete, two of the
three
missions will be retained for implementation, with the launch of
the first
envisaged for 2008.
ACE+
The principal goal of ACE+ is to measure variations and changes
in global
atmospheric temperature and water vapour distribution and so
provide
valuable data for monitoring climate change. ACE+ will also be
used to
improve weather forecasting. The mission will use four satellites
in orbits
between 650 and 850 km altitude. Each will carry an L band
receiver for
GPS/Galileo sounding and a multi- frequency X-K band transmitter
or receiver
for satellite-to-satellite cross-link measurements.
The areal coverage of the mission must be such that the profiles
are
globally and homogeneously distributed. The proposed
constellation of 4
satellites will produce around 7000 humidity and temperature
soundings per
month, which will be appropriate for use in climate monitoring.
Approximately 5000 refractivity soundings per day from
GPS/Galileo radio
occultations will also be produced and will be assimilated into
weather
forecasting systems.
EGPM
This mission is a major European contribution to the Global
Precipitation
Mission (GPM), which is an international initiative to ensure the
delivery
of global precipitation fields 8 times per day. GPM is based on a
satellite
constellation and is the successor of the NASA/NASDA Tropical
Rainfall
Measuring Mission (TRMM).
Since availability of fresh water is so vital for life on Earth
and human
development, the scientific reasons and the justification for a
precipitation-measuring mission are self-evident. Almost all
aspects of
meteorology, climate studies, hydrology, economy and society are
directly
influenced by the presence or absence of precipitation.
EGPM is a mission consisting of a single satellite in a
sun-synchronous low
Earth orbit and carries a precipitation microwave radiometer,
which will
provide global rainfall observations. It is an element of the
joint
NASA-NASDA GPM mission proposal, which comprises a 'core'
satellite,
carrying a precipitation radar and a precipitation radiometer,
and a number
of smaller satellites with only a precipitation radiometer on
each.
EGPM extends the proposed GPM mission by providing data that are
needed at
high latitudes (such as Europe and Canada).
SWARM
The objective of the SWARM mission is to provide the best survey
ever of the
geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution, and gain new
insights into
improving our knowledge of the Earth's interior and climate.
The SWARM concept consists of a constellation of four satellites
in two
different polar orbits between 400 and 550 km altitude. Each
satellite will
provide high-precision and high-resolution measurements of the
magnetic field. Together they will provide the necessary
observations for the global high-precision survey of the
geomagnetic field
that is needed to model its various sources.
Magnetic fields play an important role in physical processes
throughout the
Universe. The magnetic field exerts a very direct control of the
electrodynamic environment, on thermospheric dynamics, and
possibly even on
the evolution of the lower atmosphere.
SWARM will provide important new knowledge of the expanding and
deepening
South Atlantic Anomaly, with its serious implications for
low-Earth orbit
satellite operations. Geographically, the recent decay of the
Earth's
magnetic dipole is largely due to changes in the field in that
region. The
geomagnetic field models resulting from this mission will have
practical
applications in many different areas, such as space weather and
radiation
hazards as well as furthering our understanding of atmospheric
processes
related to climate and weather.
For further information, please contact:
Einar-Arne Herland
Head, Earth Sciences Division
ESA/ESTEC
+ 31 71 565 5673.
einar-arne.herland@esa.int
ESA Media Relations Office
Tel: +33(0)1.53.69.7155
Fax: +33(0)1.53.69.7690
===========
(4) NEODyS ANNOUNCES NEW SERVICES
>From NEODyS <neodys@newton.dm.unipi.it>
The online information service NEODyS has significantly expanded
its
services, both in qualitative terms, by introducing new
algorithms, and in
terms of performance and guaranteed availability.
1) We have now implemented and extensively tested a new close
approach
monitoring system, called CLOMON2, to replace the previous CLOMON
which has
been in operational service since late 1999. Although this new
system is
still being developed, and still has some points needing
improvement, it has
already a better performance than the old system, in that it
finds
significantly more Virtual Impactors, and avoids several dubious
cases. The
theory behind CLOMON2 has been developed by Milani, Valsecchi,
Sansaturio
and Tommei, also in continous discussion with the JPL team
running the other
impact monitoring system Sentry. Unfortunately the papers
documenting this
theory are being written, although some idea could be obtained
from the
review paper of the Asteroids III book, preprint available at
http://copernico.dm.unipi.it/~milani/preprints/asteroids3.pdf
2) A service such as NEODyS (and even more CLOMON2) needs to have
guaranteed
availability. Since network failures are one possible source of
down time,
this problem cannot be solved by duplication in the same physical
site, the
University of Pisa. Recently, thanks to the support of the
Spanish Ministery
of Science and Technology and of the Observatory of Mallorca, the
group led
by Genny Sansaturio at the University of Valladolid has been able
to setup a
full duplicate NEODyS/CLOMON2 system at the address
http://unicorn.eis.uva.es/neodys/.
The two systems are maintained and kept
aligned by Genny, but occasionally one of the two could be out of
service,
or unreachable, thus the users are advised to have the address
above, as
well as http://newton.dm.unipi.it/neodys
, in their bookmarks.
3) Although the internet address is not changed, the computer in
Pisa with
the name newton.dm.unipi.it which hosts NEODyS has in fact been
upgraded to
new hardware, 2.6 times faster (in number crunching). The
computer in
Valladolid has exactly the same processor. Some additional
performance
improvements have been obtained by software optimization, and by
the use of
additional computational servers for some heavy tasks (especially
the
computation of proper elements). The users should note a
signifcantly
faster response, even for complicated tasks like predicting
observations far
in time.
Andrea Milani Comparetti
Maria Eugenia Sansaturio
Pisa, 24 May 2002
=============
(5) WISDOM OF THE DAY: "LIFE SEEMS TO BE INEVITABLE
CONSEQUENCE OF
EXISTENCE"
>From UniSci, 30 May 2002
http://unisci.com/stories/20022/0530021.htm
Is life a highly improbable event, or is it just the inevitable
consequence
of a rich chemical soup available everywhere in the cosmos?
Scientists have recently found new evidence that amino acids, the
"building-blocks" of life, can form not only in comets
and asteroids, but
also in the interstellar space.
This result is consistent with (although of course does not
prove) the
theory that the main ingredients for life came from outer space,
and
therefore that chemical processes leading to life are likely to
have
occurred elsewhere.
This focuses attention on an already "hot" research
field, astrochemistry.
The European Space Agency (ESA)'s forthcoming missions Rosetta
and Herschel
will provide a wealth of new information for this topic.
Amino acids are the "bricks" of the proteins, and
proteins are a type of
compound present in all living organisms. Amino acids have been
found in
meteorites that have landed on Earth, but never in space.
In meteorites, amino acids are generally thought to have been
produced soon
after the formation of the Solar System by the action of aqueous
fluids on
comets and asteroids -- objects whose fragments became today's
meteorites.
However, new results published recently in Nature by two
independent groups
show evidence that amino acids can also form in space.
Between stars there are huge clouds of gas and dust, the dust
consisting of
tiny grains typically smaller than a millionth of a millimeter.
The teams
reporting the new results, led by a United States group and a
European
group, reproduced the physical steps leading to the formation of
these
grains in the interstellar clouds in their laboratories, and
found that
amino acids formed spontaneously in the resulting artificial
grains.
The researchers started with water and a variety of simple
molecules that
are known to exist in the "real" clouds, such as carbon
monoxide, carbon
dioxide, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide. Although these initial
ingredients
were not exactly the same in each experiment, both groups
"cooked" them in a
similar way.
In specific chambers in the laboratory, they reproduced the
common
conditions of temperature and pressure known to exist in
interstellar
clouds, which is, of course, quite different from our
"normal" conditions.
Interstellar clouds have a temperature of 260°C below zero, and
the pressure
is also very low (almost zero). Great care was taken to exclude
contamination. As a result, grains analogous to those in the
clouds were
formed.
The researchers illuminated the artificial grains with
ultraviolet
radiation, a process that typically triggers chemical reactions
between
molecules and that also happens naturally in the real clouds.
When they analyzed the chemical composition of the grains, they
found that
amino acids had formed. The United States team detected glycine,
alanine and
serine, while the European team listed up to 16 amino acids. (The
differences are not considered relevant since they can be
attributed to
differences in the initial ingredients.)
According to the authors, what is relevant is the demonstration
that amino
acids can indeed form in space, as a by-product of chemical
processes that
take place naturally in the interstellar clouds of gas and dust.
Max P. Bernstein from the United States team points out that the
gas and
dust in the interstellar clouds serve as "raw material"
to build stars and
planetary systems such as our own. These clouds "are
thousands of light
years across; they are vast, ubiquitous, chemical reactors. As
the materials
from which all stellar systems are made pass through such clouds,
amino
acids should have been incorporated into all other planetary
systems, and
thus been available for the origin of life."
The view of life as a common event would therefore be favored by
these
results. However, many doubts remain. For example, can these
results really
be a clue to what happened about four billion years ago on the
early Earth?
Can researchers be truly confident that the conditions they
recreate are
those in the interstellar space?
Guillermo M. Muñoz Caro from the European team writes,
"several parameters
still need to be better constrained (...) before a reliable
estimation on
the extraterrestrial delivery of amino acids to the early Earth
can be made.
To this end, in situ analysis of cometary material will be
performed in the
near future by space probes such as Rosetta ..."
The intention for ESA's spacecraft Rosetta is to provide key data
for this
question. Rosetta, to be launched next year, will be the first
mission ever
to orbit and land on a comet, namely Comet 46P/Wirtanen. Starting
in 2011,
Rosetta will have two years to examine in deep detail the
chemical
composition of the comet.
As Rosetta's project scientist Gerhard Schwehm has stated,
"Rosetta will
carry sophisticated payloads that will study the composition of
the dust and
gas released from the comet's nucleus and help to answer the
question: did
comets bring water and organics to Earth?"
If amino acids can also form in the space amid the stars, as the
new
evidence suggests, research should also focus on the chemistry in
the
interstellar space. This is exactly one of the main goals of the
astronomers
preparing for ESA's space telescope Herschel.
Herschel, with its impressive mirror 3.5 meters in diameter (the
largest of
any imaging space telescope) is due to be launched in 2007. One
of its
strengths is that it will "see" a kind of radiation
that has never been
detected before. This radiation is far-infrared and submillimeter
light,
precisely what you need to detect if you are searching for
complex chemical
compounds such as the organic molecules.
30-May-2002
=============
(6) EATING YOUR GREENEHOUSE GASES: VENTER TACKLES GLOBAL WARMING
>From the BBC, 30 May 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2016000/2016896.stm
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor
Having sequenced the human genome, Craig Venter now has his
sights set on
another great scientific task: tackling global warming.
One of his post-genome aims is to scour the deep-ocean trenches
to look for
bacteria that could convert the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide
into useful
products like starches and sugars.
"We have explored less than 1% of the microbial
universe," he told BBC News
Online.
Because of this, he believes that it is highly likely that such
useful
micro-organisms can be found and is sponsoring deep-sea
expeditions to look
for them.
Dr Venter quit as boss of his genome cracking company, Celera
Genomics, in
January.
Celera is producing the privately funded version of the human
genome - the
biochemical instructions that cells use to build and maintain our
bodies.
Somewhere out there
Speaking from new offices in Rockville, Maryland, Dr Craig Venter
told BBC
News Online of the ways he hopes biology can mitigate the
influence humans
appear to be having on the global climate.
The idea really hit home with him, he says, when he learnt that
most of the
atmosphere came about as a result of biological processes.
"But the idea became more tangible when he began sequencing
the genetic code
of micro-organisms," he quickly adds.
Could microbes like this combat climate change?
"I seriously started thinking about it when we first
sequenced the genetic
code of the first Archea, Methanococcus. This was the third
genome ever to
be sequenced and the first representative of the Archea family of
life."
Archea seem to be an ancient form of life - as different from
bacteria as
bacteria are from us. They inhabit the deepest parts of the Earth
and ocean.
They do not infect humans, making them safer to manipulate.
Remarkably, when Methanococcus was analysed, it was discovered
that 60% of
its genes were unknown to science.
"Methanococcus takes carbon dioxide from the environment and
turns it into
proteins, sugars and methane," Dr Venter said.
Venter hopes that somewhere out there could be another microbe
similar to
Metahnococcus that has just the right properties to remove carbon
dioxide
from the atmosphere, thereby combating human-induced climate
change.
The microbial universe
"We have explored less than 1% of the microbial universe. It
is more than
likely that there are organisms that can do this. So we should be
out
looking for them."
One expedition to look for these extremophiles, as they are
termed, has just
left the Galapagos Islands. It will probe deep-sea vents in the
Pacific that
are known to be home to hardy and unusual organisms.
"We hope to bring back some samples and hopefully culture
new organisms,"
said Dr Venter.
"We are more than likely to find what we are looking for.
This is basic
research trying to solve a growing problem for society," he
added.
The famous code cracker is tapping into a $100m research
endowment he is
creating from his stock holdings to fund his new projects.
Copyright 2002, BBC
===============
(8) DRAGONS AND COMETS
>From Bob Kobres <bkobres@arches.uga.edu>
Below are some links to pages within online books encoded with
the layered
wavelet compression format, DjVu. You will need a free plugin to
view these
titles and I recommend that you download the install file and run
it
locally. The books are searchable but the optical character
recognition
(OCR) is not perfect so every instance of --dragon-- might not be
found. It
often helps to try variations and use a 'wildcard' option such as
-- drag*
near red* -- from the
global: http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/query.htm
or specific to a title search tool:
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/dbooks.html
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/eotd/
The plugin can be linked to from here:
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/
Also I've placed Bill Napier's 1998 Frontiers article on Comets
and sky
dragons here:
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/fball/comdoom.djvu?djvuopts&zoom=100
Interesting pages:
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/eotd/eotdocr.djvu?djvuopts&page=88&zoom=100
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/dcj/dcjocr.djvu?djvuopts&page=30&zoom=100
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/sotb/sotbocr.djvu?djvuopts&page=243&zoom=100
note the drawing for a comet:
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/sotb/sotbocr.djvu?djvuopts&page=316&zoom=100
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/sotb/sotbocr.djvu?djvuopts&page=17&zoom=100
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/sotb/sotbocr.djvu?djvuopts&page=20&zoom=100
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/omet/ometocr.djvu?djvuopts&page=69&zoom=100
115. Lucifer. The planet Venus, the second in the solar system,
is called
Lucifer when it precedes the sun in the morning, and Hesperus
when it
follows the sun in the evening.
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/omet/ometocr.djvu?djvuopts&page=71&zoom=100
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/troy/troyocr.djvu?djvuopts&page=183&zoom=100
I further call the reader's very particular attention to the
terra-cotta
ball, No. 1997, * on which we see in the middle an owl's face in
monogram;
to its right a wheel, which may represent the sun; to its left,
three
concentric circles, which may represent the moon, and below a
small
circle, perhaps intended to represent the morning star. All these
representations can be best distinguished in the developed
pattern (No.
1998). On the back the female hair is indicated by deep
scratchings. As the
hair cannot be distinguished in the engraving, I strongly advise
the
reader to see the ball itself in my collection in the South
Kensington
Museum. This owl's face, between the sun and moon and morning
star, proves
better, I think, than all the vases and idols, that the owl's
head is the
symbol of the Ilian Athene.
http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/troy/troyocr.djvu?djvuopts&page=453&zoom=100
Later.
bobk
Bob Kobres
Main Library
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
bkobres@arches.uga.edu
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk
====================
(9) DARK SKY PROTECTION
>From Josep Maria Trigo i Rodríguez <trigo@exp.uji.es>
Dear colleagues,
Only a short note to inform that the department of Experimental
Sciences of
University Jaume I has decided promote a manifest to protect the
night sky
in Castelló (Spain). Our initiative is only one in the important
movement
born around spanish universities and amateur astronomical
associations of
Alicante, Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia f.e.
The full version of the document is today in the following
address (at the
moment only in spanish): http://www.spmn.uji.es/ESP/noveda23.html
In any case we can provide a english version for all
interested people
soon. We would be happy to promote similar social movements to
save energy
and protect the dark sky around the world.
Perhaps our children also reach the stars...
********************************************
Josep M. Trigo-Rodriguez
Astrophysicist
Prof. Assoc. Dept. Experimental Sciences
SPANISH FIREBALL NETWORK
Campus del Riu Sec (E.S.T.C.E)
University Jaume I
12071 Castellon (SPAIN)
Phones: (964) 728057- 282968
FAX: (964)285161
Homepage: http://www.spmn.uji.es/
E-mail: trigo@exp.uji.es
===============
(10) AND FINALLY: "OZONE HOLE TO CLOSE IN 2040"
>From The Japan TImes, 29 May 2002
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020529a3.htm
The hole in the ozone layer will be mostly gone by around 2040
due to
restrictions placed on chlorofluorocarbons, a Japanese research
team said
Tuesday.
In the 1980s, the ozone layer, which protects animals and plants
from
dangerous ultraviolet rays, started to deplete above the South
Pole.
CFCs are efficient at eating away the ozone layer.
"What influences the South Pole is not global warming, but
chlorine in the
atmosphere that mostly originates from CFCs," said Tatsuya
Nagashima of the
National Institute for Environmental Studies.
The study was carried out by Nagashima and Masaaki Takahashi, a
professor at
the Center for Climate System Research at the University of
Tokyo. It will
soon be published in the academic journal American Geophysical
Union.
The team's findings are different from those of the U.S. National
Aeronautics and Space Administration as well as other
institutions, which
have predicted the hole will continue to grow until after 2050.
The team used a supercomputer to predict changes in the ozone
layer above
the South Pole and the North Pole while the restrictions on CFCs
are in
place.
Based on detailed calculations on atmospheric movement and
chemical
reactions that occur in the atmosphere, they concluded that the
ozone layer
will mostly recover.
According to their findings, the amount of ozone over the South
Pole will
not change over the next 15 years. However, it will suddenly rise
in the
late 2030s before recovering around 2040.
Over the North Pole, where destruction of the ozone layer is not
as serious,
the amount of ozone will decrease until 2010, after which it will
mostly
remain unchanged, according to the researchers.
The Japan Times: May 29, 2002
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