PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 124/2002 - 29 October 2002
-------------------------------
"Scientists from Irkutsk (Siberia) have located the site in
the
Irkutsk Region's north where a meteorite fell on September 25 at
night.
According to Sergey Yazev, director of the Irkutsk State
University's
observatory, who returned last Sunday from an expedition, trees
broken or chopped by the meteorite's fragments were found 37 km
from the
Mama settlement. No fragments of the sky body which exploded in
the
atmosphere have been found, as the area in the forest is covered
with deep snow now."
--Novosti News Agency, 28 October 2002
(1) SCIENTISTS LOCATE SIBERIAN IMPACT SITE: TREES BROKEN AND
CHOPPED
Novosti News Agency, 28 October 2002
(2) COMET CHASER SETS SIGHTS ON ASTEROID ANNEFRANK
UPI, 28 October 2002
(3) FLYBY OF ANNEFRANK ASTEROID TO HELP STARDUST PREPARE FOR
PRIMARY MISSION
University of Washington, 28 October 2002
(4) STUDYING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COMETARY AND ASTEROIDAL
IMPACT CRATERS
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(5) BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN IMPACT CRATERS
Charles Cockell <csco@bas.ac.uk>
(6) TOWARDS OTHER EARTHS: DARWIN/TPF CONFERENCE 2003
Alan Penny <alan.penny@rl.ac.uk>
(7) LIFE AMONG THE STARS
Sky and Space, Oct/Nov 2002
========
(1) SCIENTISTS LOCATE SIBERIAN IMPACT SITE: TREES BROKEN AND
CHOPPED
>From Novosti News Agency, 28 October 2002
http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=2818387&startrow=1&date=2002-10-28&do_alert=0
Scientists from Irkutsk (Siberia) have located the site in the
Irkutsk
Region's north where a meteorite fell on September 25 at night.
According to Sergey Yazev, director of the Irkutsk State
University's
observatory, who returned last Sunday from an expedition, trees
broken or
chopped by the meteorite's fragments were found 37 km from the
Mama
settlement. No fragments of the sky body which exploded in the
atmosphere
have been found, as the area in the forest is covered with deep
snow now.
In spring, scientists from Irkutsk and their colleagues of the
Russian
Academy of Sciences Meteorite Committee are going to organise a
more
large-scale expedition. According to Yazev, the meteorite's stone
must
contain a substance having more than four billion years of age,
which has a
great value for studying the history of the solar system's
formation.
The meteorite's location was found due to the research of Irkutsk
seismologists and an American satellite which fixed the flash of
the sky
body exploding in the air. Originally the meteorite was thought
to have
fallen in the Bodaibo district.
===========
(2) COMET CHASER SETS SIGHTS ON ASTEROID ANNEFRANK
>From UPI, 28 October 2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021025-115950-4574r
PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 28 (UPI) -- A NASA probe launched in 1999
to fetch
samples from a comet will be put through a full dress rehearsal
this week in
preparation for the one-shot flyby of Comet Wild-2 in January
2004, mission
officials told United Press International.
The spacecraft, called Stardust, is being prepared for a flyby of
asteroid
Annefrank, a 2.5-mile wide rock named for the famed Holocaust
victim. No
science is expected from the pass -- at best, the probe might be
able to
capture low-resolution, black-and-white pictures of the asteroid
as it whips
by it at 4 miles per second. Stardust will be nearly 2,000 miles
away from
the asteroid at its closest approach.
Stardust will keep its distance to assure it is not damaged by an
undiscovered Annefrank companion asteroid or any nearby dust or
debris. The
point of the exercise is to uncover any problems with Stardust's
target
acquisition, autonomous navigation and science instrument
operations before
the critical comet flyby.
"This is a great opportunity for us," Stardust
principal investigator Donald
Brownlee said in an interview. "It's like dress rehearsal
for a wedding. You
expect everything to go as planned, but just in case you'd like
to know
ahead of time," said Brownlee, an astronomy professor at the
University of
Washington in Seattle.
Stardust is an ambitious but low-cost mission to capture the
first samples
from a comet, as well as grains of interstellar dust, and return
them to
Earth. If successful, the probe will pass by the planet and
parachute its
collection back to the surface in January 2006.
The Stardust team had to scrimp and save to come up with the
hundreds of
thousands of dollars needed to plan, test and support the
asteroid Annefrank
flyby. With mission costs capped at $200 million, project
managers limited
communication sessions to just a few hours per week to cut the
number of
people and costs needed to support the mission during its cruise
phases.
"We probably track our spacecraft less than anyone,"
project manager Thomas
Duxbury told UPI. "In the last year, we've talked to it
maybe two-to-four
hours per week. If you do that you don't need a lot of flight
team on duty.
We worked very hard to juggle our resources to fit the test into
our budget.
We then had to convince our management that even though we are
doing this on
a shoestring budget, we weren't putting the spacecraft at
risk."
The scrutiny intensified after the loss earlier this year of
Stardust's
sister comet probe, Contour, now thought to have been destroyed
after a
failed engine burn.
Still, Duxbury, who is with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena,
said he would have considered it a personal failing of his
management if
Stardust had missed the opportunity to test its systems on a
celestial
practice target. The probe's launch was timed so that if money
were
available, the asteroid encounter could serve as an inflight
engineering
test.
"It was my absolute goal to not let this opportunity go by
without as
thorough a testing as possible," said Duxbury. "What
we've found on just
about every spacecraft we've ever flown is that the first time
you try
anything major, you run into a problem. We don't want to try its
exotic
imaging system and letting the spacecraft control itself when
we're inside
the coma of a comet because if it does even the slightest thing
wrong, the
spacecraft could be destroyed."
During the test, Stardust will run through the exact sequence
planned for
the comet encounter, with science instruments all running and
relaying data
at high speeds for the first time since before the satellite's
launch.
"Ideally, everything will work, but my guess is we'll have
some lessons
learned and then we'll have over a year to fix it before we get
to Comet
Wild-2," said Duxbury.
Stardust will begin receiving its operating instructions Monday.
The probe
will be instructed to take pictures of the asteroid as it
approaches on
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The images will not make front
page news,
however, Duxbury warned. At best, they will be only a pixel, or
single
digital image unit, in size. Even at its closest approach, the
asteroid
images will be just 10 to 20 pixels, he said.
"This is where I think we're going to disappoint a lot of
people," said
Duxbury. "We plan to take 60 or more images during the
flyby, but we'll be
very far out. It will look like nothing more than a sliver of new
moon. But
we'll be jumping up and down and patting each other on the back
and doing
high-fives if we get those images because it would mean that all
of our hard
work and testing were successful. Even a crummy image, and we'll
be
thrilled."
(Reported by Irene Brown, UPI Science News, at Cape Canaveral,
Fla.)
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
===========
(3) FLYBY OF ANNEFRANK ASTEROID TO HELP STARDUST PREPARE FOR
PRIMARY MISSION
>From University of Washington, 28 October 2002
http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/2002archive/10-02archive/k102802.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FROM: Vince Stricherz
206-543-2580
vinces@u.washington.edu
DATE: Oct. 28, 2002
Flyby of Annefrank asteroid to help Stardust prepare for primary
mission
It will be a moment tinged with history when the Stardust
spacecraft makes
an encounter with Asteroid 5535 Annefrank this weekend. The flyby
will test
many of the systems and procedures to be used when Stardust makes
its
encounter with comet Wild 2 in little more than a year.
"It turns out to be a tremendous plus because you end up
having a full dress
rehearsal more than a year ahead of the encounter," said
Donald Brownlee, a
University of Washington astronomy professor who is the mission's
chief
scientist. "It's a little like a dress rehearsal for a
wedding - you expect
things to be fine, but you practice just to make sure. If the
unexpected
does happen at the rehearsal, it's not a problem at the real
ceremony."
Stardust, launched in February 1999, is designed to capture
particles from
Wild 2 and return them to Earth for analysis. The spacecraft
already has
collected grains of interstellar dust. It is the first U.S.
sample-return
mission since the last moon landing in 1972.
Brownlee described Annefrank as typical for asteroids found in
the inner
asteroid belt, just beyond the orbit of Mars. Stardust's main
camera will
capture images, but the asteroid's relatively small size (2½
miles across)
and the spacecraft's distance (about 1,900 miles) mean the images
won't be
very detailed, he said. The closest approach to the asteroid will
be at 8:50
p.m. PST (11:50 p.m. EST) on Friday.
"We're just fortunate to have a target there that we can
approach at this
time," he said.
Asteroid 5535 was discovered by prolific German asteroid hunter
Karl
Reinmuth in March 1942 but was not named Annefrank until long
after World
War II.
The discovery came barely three months before Frank, a Jewish
teenager,
joined her parents, her sister and four others hiding from the
Nazis in
Amsterdam, Holland. For two years the group remained in their
hideaway,
subsisting with help from a small circle of outsiders. Anne
recorded their
life and her thoughts in a diary that was to become one of the
world's most
famous books. The group was discovered in 1944 and sent to Nazi
concentration camps. All except Anne's father perished. Otto
Frank survived
the war and returned to Amsterdam, where he published his
daughter's diary.
Now Annefrank happens to be the asteroid that lies on the right
course to
help Stardust and its controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., prepare for the tasks they face come Jan. 2,
2004.
On that day, Stardust will fly within 75 miles of Wild 2's main
body, close
enough to trap small particles from the coma, the gas-and-dust
envelope
surrounding the comet's nucleus. Stardust will be traveling at
about 13,400
miles per hour and will capture comet particles traveling at the
speed of a
bullet fired from a rifle. The main camera, built for NASA's
Voyager
program, will transmit the closest-ever comet pictures back to
Earth.
There are differences, however, between how the spacecraft will
function
during the Annefrank flyby and the comet encounter. For one
thing, if it
runs into serious problems during the asteroid encounter it will
be able to
go into "safe mode," where the spacecraft turns its
solar power collectors
toward the sun and essentially protects itself. But when it
approaches Wild
2 (pronounced Vilt two), Stardust will be working without a net -
the "safe
mode" function will be turned off.
Brownlee said the Annefrank flyby is "a very good
test," the kind that
ideally every mission should have. Such tests are particularly
important, he
said, for low-cost missions such as those in the National
Aeronautics and
Space Administration's Discovery program, of which Stardust is a
part.
"When we have the comet encounter, we want as few first-time
events as
possible," Brownlee said. "This fortunate opportunity
at the asteroid
increases our probability of success next year at the
comet."
Besides the UW and JPL, the Stardust collaboration includes
Lockheed Martin
Astronautics.
###
For more information, contact Brownlee at
brownlee@bluemoon.astro.washington.edu
or (206) 543-8575.
=============
(4) STUDYING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COMETARY AND ASTEROIDAL
IMPACT CRATERS
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
News Bureau
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois
Contact:
Jim Kloeppel, Physical Sciences Editor
(217) 244-1073; kloeppel@uiuc.edu
10/25/02
Scientists studying two big craters on earth find two causes
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Two of the three largest impact craters on
Earth have
nearly the same size and structure, researchers say, but one was
caused by a
comet while the other was caused by an asteroid. These surprising
results
could have implications for where scientists might look for
evidence of
primitive life on Mars.
Susan Kieffer of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Kevin Pope
of Geo Eco Arc Research and Doreen Ames of Natural Resources
Canada analyzed
the structure and stratigraphy of the 65 million-year-old
Chicxulub crater
in Mexico and the 1.8 billion-year-old Sudbury crater in Canada.
Chicxulub is well preserved, but buried, and can be studied only
by
geophysical means, remote sensing and at a few distant sites on
land where
some ejecta is preserved. In contrast, Sudbury has experienced up
to 4-6
kilometers of erosion, and is well exposed and highly studied by
mining
exploration companies because of its rich mineral resources.
By working back and forth with data from the two craters, the
researchers
were able to re-create the structures and then estimate the
amount of melt
in each structure. The amount of melt is critical for determining
if
long-lived hot-water circulation systems that might host life
forms
could have been formed after the impacts.
In their field studies, the researchers found that both craters
were about
200 kilometers in diameter. In addition, they identified five
ring-shaped
structures with similar character and dimensions. A sixth ring --
the peak
ring in the central basin -- was present at Chicxulub, but had
been eroded
away at Sudbury.
"While the size and structure of the two craters were
similar, they differed
greatly in the amount of impact melt that was produced,"
said Kieffer, who
presented the team's findings at the annual meeting of the
Geological
Society of America, held Oct. 27-30 in Denver.
"Through field studies, we determined that Chicxulub has
about 18,000 cubic
kilometers of impact melt, approximately four times the volume of
water in
Lake Michigan," Pope said. "Sudbury has about 31,000
cubic kilometers of
impact melt, approximately six times the volume of lakes Huron
and Ontario
combined, and nearly 70 percent more than the melt at Chicxulub.
These differences
in volume have significant implications about the amount of heat
available to drive
hot-water circulation systems."
The researchers then used an analytical cratering model to
examine possible
causes for the huge difference in melt. According to the
simulation results,
the difference in melt volume could be readily explained if
Chicxulub -- the
impact crater that doomed the dinosaurs -- was formed by an
asteroid and
Sudbury was formed by a comet.
"Our calculation of 18,000 cubic kilometers of impact melt
at Chicxulub
agreed well with model estimates for an asteroid striking at a 45
degree
angle," said Kieffer, the Walgreen Professor of Geology at
Illinois. "None
of the comet impact examples came close to agreeing."
In contrast, the Sudbury impact melt volume of 31,000 cubic
kilometers fell
between model estimates for a comet striking at an angle of 30-45
degrees,
Kieffer said. "Similarly, none of the asteroid impact
examples came close to
agreeing with the Sudbury melt volume."
Another clue to the craters' origins lies in the impact melts
themselves.
The majority of the excess melt at Sudbury is in the form of a
melt-rich
breccia -- called suevite -- inside the crater. This material
tends to form
in impacts where the crustal target rock contains a lot of water.
Sudbury has
much more suevite in the preserved crater than Chicxulub.
"The mystery was that there probably wasn't a lot of water
in the original
rocks at Sudbury to account for the excess suevite," Kieffer
said. "But in a
comet impact of this size, somewhere around 1,400-2,000 cubic
kilometers of
water from the comet gets mixed into the impact melt, and
that could play a major role in disrupting the melt and creating
the excess
suevite."
There is other independent evidence for an asteroid impact at
Chicxulub, the
team said, including the purported find of an asteroid fragment
in an
oceanic drill core, the amount of iridium spread around the world
at the
time of impact, and a telltale chromium 53 isotopic signature.
By studying the origin and structure of large impact craters on
Earth,
scientists might narrow the search for life on Mars. At Sudbury,
for
example, "there is evidence of a huge hydrothermal system
that was driven by
the heat of the impact melt," Ames said. "As a result,
there was
widespread hot spring activity on the crater floor possibly
capable of
supporting life."
The researchers are interested in "extrapolating these
conclusions about
comet and asteroid impacts to Martian conditions and asking where
we might
go to look for similar hydrothermal systems that could have
hosted primitive
life forms on Mars," Kieffer said. "Our next step is to
model these hot-water
circulation systems that were set up by the impact melts with
fluid flow controlled
by structures (fractures) inside the crater, and then extrapolate
the results to Martian
conditions."
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Natural
History
Museum of Los Angeles County funded this work.
[NOTE: A geological map and RADARSAT-1 image of the Sudbury
impact crater is
available at
http://www.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/ccrs/rd/apps/geo/sudbury/sudbury_e.html
]
=============
(5) BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN IMPACT CRATERS
>From Charles Cockell <csco@bas.ac.uk>
BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN IMPACT CRATERS
March 29-April 1, 2003, Cambridge, UK
The second announcement and registration materials are now
available on the
ESF website : http://pssri.open.ac.uk/ESF/Main.htm
The workshop, to be held in Cambridge, UK from March 29 to April
1 next year
will examine the ecological characteristics of impact craters and
the
biological processes that occur within them. The conference
should be of
interest to astrobiologists, impact scientists, geologists and
others. As
well as examining patterns of recovery in impact structures, the
workshop
will also explore themes such as the formation of hydrothermal
vents within
impact structures and the biological consequences.
__________________________
Dr. Charles Cockell,
British Antarctic Survey,
High Cross,
Madingley Road,
Cambridge.
CB3 0ET. UK
Tel : + 44 1223 221560
e-mail : csco@bas.ac.uk
==============
(6) TOWARDS OTHER EARTHS: DARWIN/TPF CONFERENCE 2003
>From Alan Penny <alan.penny@rl.ac.uk>
Dear Benny,
[This is a circular letter to people who signed a round-robin
last year to
ESA supporting Exoplanets and Astrobiology.]
Toward Other Earths
Darwin / TPF and the search for extra-solar terrestrial planets
Heidelberg,
Germany
22-25 April 2003
http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/DARWIN/
The conference "Toward Other Earths" is the first in a
series of
multi-disciplinary international meetings designed to provide a
forum for
scientists and engineers active in many different areas as well
as managers,
representatives of the space agencies and industry working on the
Darwin/TPF
mission. The aim of the conference is to exchange information,
formulate new
ideas and propose new approaches towards the implementation of a
multi-agency mission with the goal of detecting Earth-like
planets orbiting
stars other than our Sun. The primary goal of the Darwin mission
(and its
NASA counterpart TPF) is to detect and characterize extrasolar
Earth-like
planets orbiting other stars, and to search for signs of life on
these
planets. This conference will focus almost exclusively on this
goal.
A secondary goal of Darwin is to provide imaging of astrophysical
objects in
the mid-infrared at unprecedented angular scales.
Regards, Alan Penny
===========
(7) LIFE AMONG THE STARS
>From Sky and Space, Oct/Nov 2002
www.skyandspace.com.au
More than two hundred scientists converged on Hamilton Island,
Queensland, recently for a conference that was out of this world.
Michael Paine reports...
Every few years the International Astronomy Union holds a
symposium on
astrobiology - the study of life in outer space. This year the
conference,
called Bioastronomy 2002: Life Among the Stars, was held on
Hamilton Island,
adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. Not surprisingly many
scientists made an
extra effort to attend a conference at such a glorious location.
There were
70 speakers from 16 countries and well over two hundred
participants.
The wide range of topics covered included:
· space chemistry,
· the formation of planets,
· planetary atmospheres and surfaces,
· the search for planets around other stars,
· origins of life on Earth,
· the search for primitive life elsewhere in the solar system,
· obstacles to the evolution of intelligent life; and
· the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
To non-scientists (like myself) some of the titles appeared a
little
daunting but it was pleasing to see that most speakers addressed
the wider
audience. Australian astronomer Chris Tinney set the standard by
asking
participants to hold up a yellow card if he lapsed into
gobbledegook. Those
who dared to do this were rewarded with a chocolate frog. Later
in the
conference it was intriguing to see a few yellow cards raised but
the
speakers were oblivious to their purpose.
Here is a taster for the smorgasbord of topics covered by the
conference.
Harrison (Jack) Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and the only
scientist to walk
on the Moon, opened the conference with a talk called "Life
among the
craters". He showed how the rocks returned from the Apollo
17 landing site
confirmed cataclysmic impacts on Earth nearly four billions years
ago. Later
he expressed scepticism about the giant impact hypothesis for
formation of
the Moon - that is, that a Mars-size planet collided with the
Earth and the
debris from the impact formed our Moon. Also comparing the
surface of the
Moon with Mars and Earth, he suggested there was strong evidence
for a major
ocean on Mars about three billion years ago.
Barry Blumberg from the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI)
described how
educational outreach is a major aim of NAI. Astrobiology covers
many
disciplines of science and humanities and there are great
opportunities for
incorporating it into educational programs. The Australian Centre
for
Astrobiology at Macquarie University is an affiliate of NAI.
Blumberg had a
refreshing approach to the funding of scientific research. He
said that NAI
funding allows for changes in direction of projects because
'scientists
never do what they said they were going to do' when applying for
funds.
Planets
Australian Chris Tinney gave a lively introduction to the search
for
extra-solar planets. He described the very poor odds of detecting
an
Earth-like planet with current techniques but was optimistic that
the
necessary technology would soon be developed - particularly with
proposed
space-based missions. He described the Kepler space mission that
will look
for Earth-like planets at 'crazy precisions'. The proposed
European Space
Agency Darwin mission will use infrared interferometry but has
some technical
challenges. Similarly the NASA Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF)
mission is seen
as ambitious. He cautions that TPF will target 150 nearby stars
but if only 1 in 100
stars has an Earth-like planet then it is possible there is
nothing for TPF to find.
One technique that holds promise is 'gravitational microlensing',
where a
star with a planet passes in front of another star and the
bending of light
rays by gravity causes a brief brightening of the
background star. This is
a very infrequent event and it requires exceptional luck. Several
groups are
carrying out highly automated search for these events by
piggy-backing on
other (Earth-based) telescope projects. In some ways, the
automated
techniques are similar to those being used to search for Near
Earth
Asteroids. Later Penny Sackett from Mt Stromolo Observatory
described
Australian involvement in microlensing observations.
SETI
Jill Tarter from the SETI Institute pointed out that SETI is
looking for
extraterrestrial technology - particularly information
technology. There may
be signals that are intended to be intercepted by emerging
civilisations or
unintended noise like the radio waves that are now radiating in a
sphere
away from the Earth - ''I Love Lucy' is broadcasting our
intelligence!'
SETI, she says, is founded on the scientific principle of
repeatability.
Other researchers must be able to independently confirm any
discoveries.
She also suggested that if ET wants to be discovered then it
would make
sense to send a signal that was similar to a natural process and
so it would
be found during the normal course of science. This view may have
been partly
swayed by bitter experience in the USA, where in the early 1990s
Congress
short-sightedly banned NASA from spending any funds on SETI. SETI
is now
privately funded in the US and piggybacks on other
radio-telescope projects.
The enormous success of the SETI@home
computing project has proved that
Congress was dead wrong about public support for SETI.
Tarter said that the prospects for 'optical SETI' had recently
been boosted
by developments with Stars Wars Technology (US missile defence).
Very short
intense bursts of light could now be emitted and methods of
detecting these
bursts (possibly from ET) are being developed. In the long term
she sees
omni-directional detectors as the way to go - a radio 'fly's
eye'. This
would create a massive computational task but may be possible in
about 15
years. She mentioned Project Argus, a proposal to build 5000
backyard
receivers around the world to create a 'poor man's fly's eye'.
Finally, the
Allen Telescope Array is under construction in northern
California. 'This
will speed up the search by a factor of 100' she said.
Mars and Europa
Malcolm Walter, the head of the Australian Centre for
Astrobiology, outlined
the methods of searching for evidence of microbes on Mars, based
on his
research in Central Australia. He has studied ancient
hydrothermal systems
that are similar to Yellowstone National Park in the USA. He
explained that,
on Earth, these systems are 'full of life' and that the chemicals
in the
water make fossilisation extremely efficient. In studying these
ancient
Earth systems he is developing techniques that could be used to
examine
similar systems on Mars. He said he would like to go the Daar
Vallis area of
Mars because there are indications of hydrothermal deposits.
Chris Chyba from the SETI Institute in California described the
search for
life in the Solar System. He was excited about the recent
evidence of 'a
great deal of water on Mars' - frozen just under the harsh
surface - and the
hundreds of ancient features that appear to show erosion by
flowing water.
He is looking forward to the landing of the Beagle 2 spacecraft
on Mars
because that could resolve many of the tantalising unanswered
questions
resulting from the Viking Landers in the mid 1970s. He also
pointed out that
scientists were still debating a definition of life.
Chyba then turned to Europa. By precisely tracking spacecraft
such as
Galileo and Voyager, scientists have determined that the outer
100km of the
surface of Europa has the density of water and the simplest
explanation is
that it is salty water. He explained that tidal forces from the
giant planet
Jupiter should be sufficient to maintain liquid water below
Europa's ice
crust, which is thought to be several kilometres thick. Based on
the count
of impact craters the average age of this crust is no more than
50 million
years... so there must be some unknown processes that are
refreshing the
surface. There are signs of recent solidification of water and
these might
be the best places to look for life. He said we can learn about
the buried
ocean and possibility of life by studying such sites rather than
'boring through the
ice' (a current NASA proposal).
If there is (or was) life on Europa there are two possible
origins. Firstly
it may have arisen independently, say in deep ocean vents.
Alternatively it
may have been transferred from Earth, or perhaps Mars, via
meteoroids
blasted off the planet by large asteroid impacts (known as
'panspermia' or,
more precisely 'transpermia'). Chyba explained that the icy crust
and lack
of atmosphere hindered both mechanisms on Europa - an asteroid or
comet
striking the solid ice surface at 20km/s or more would be
instantly
vaporised. However, some organic material such as
non-biological amino acids could be expected to reach the surface
intact and
find its way to the oceans. Over billions of years this may have
provided
sufficient raw material to support the development of life.
During question time it was suggested that Jupiter might have
been hotter
billions of years ago (it still radiates more energy than it
receives from
the Sun). Chyba said he was not aware of any studies of this
mechanism.
Later, over coffee, I discussed this possibility with him. He
agreed that a
hotter Jupiter may have resulted in liquid water on the surface
of Europa.
This would have generated an atmosphere which, in turn, would
have slowed
down fragments of asteroids and comets sufficiently to greatly
increase the
chances of intact material reaching the ocean. There is therefore
the
exciting possibility that three billion years ago the Earth, Mars
and Europa
exchanged life-bearing rocks.
Everett Gibson from NASA was one of the original authors to the
controversial paper that claimed evidence of life in Martian
meteorite
ALH84001. Gibson went over the claims and counter-claims,
focusing on the
tiny magnetite crystals found deep inside the meteorite. He said
that within
the scientific community, six properties of magnetite had been
identified in
order to establish that a crystal of magnetite was 'biogenic'
(i.e. formed
by a living organism). He claimed that some of the crystals in
ALH84001 met
all six properties. In other words, the debate about ALH84001 is
far from over.
Betty Pierazzo from Arizona University has been developing
computer models
to simulate the climatic effects of asteroid and comet impacts.
She
described her successful modelling of the Chicxulub impact in
Mexico 65
million years ago. This is a well studied event associated with
the
extinction of the dinosaurs.
Pierazzo then discussed mechanisms for delivery of organic
material to the
surface of planets and moons. She said that the smaller slower
impacts
delivered the most intact organic material and this 'was not good
news for
Europa' with its current surface of ice. Later I discussed
the environmental effects of impacts with her, since I had
prepared a poster
paper [co-authored with Benny Peiser] on this topic
[ http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/bioastr2002.pdf
] and had referred to
her work. To my surprise she said that her work was partially
hampered by a
lack of access to the most advanced computing available in the
USA...
apparently because she was not born in the USA.
Cosmologist Paul Davies from Macquarie University discussed the
possible
role of quantum mechanics in the origin of life. He explained
that there was
nothing in classical physics that might 'fast track' the
formation of life.
Making the building blocks of life, like amino acids, was
straightforward
and widespread in nature. He pointed out, however, that this was
a long way
from a self-replicating molecules.
Davies said that when the theory of quantum mechanics was first
developed it
was thought that it would eventually explain the origin of life.
Fifty years
on and quantum mechanics 'has no direct relevance' to the origin
of life.
But there are signs that information theory and quantum computing
may
provide some answers. Quantum computing
[ http://www4.tpgi.com.au/users/aoaug/qtm_comp.html
] harnesses the quirks of
quantum mechanics to provide an exponential improvement in
computing power.
He said there was circumstantial evidence that nature uses
quantum
computations. There is therefore the possibility that the
extraordinary
power of quantum computing resulted in the first self-replicating
molecule.
He cautioned, however, that the RNA/DNA on which life is based is
a long way
from such a molecule. There is also the major problem of
"decoherance",
where the atomic environment interferes with the quantum
processes and
destroys the computation. Davies suggested that the
developing fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology might
provide some
answers.
There were many other fascinating talks during the week. It was
remarkable
to hear from top scientists who tailored their talks to a general
science
audience and were evidently delighted to share their exciting
discoveries.
c2002 Sky and Space
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*
CCNet TERRA 8/2002 - 29 October 2002
------------------------------------
"Contrary to an opinion held by some researchers, a new
analysis of
more than 20 years of historical data has found no evidence that
the
increasing number of large icebergs off Antarctica's coasts is a
result of global warming trends. "The dramatic increase in
the number of
large icebergs as recorded by the National Ice Center database
does not
represent a climatic change. Our reanalysis suggests that the
number
of icebergs remained roughly constant from 1978 to the late
1990s."
--David Long, Brigham Young University, 24 October 2002
"By the year 2080, Manhattan and Shanghai could be
underwater,
droughts and floods could become more extreme and hundreds of
millions
of people will be at risk from disease, starvation and water
shortages. That is the picture that a Greenpeace senior official
painted of the future if the world failed to take urgent steps to
curb
greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming. "We're
talking of about
the submergence of islands, submergence of Shanghai, the
submergence of
Bombay, the submergence of New York City," Greenpeace
climate policy
director Steve Sawyer told Reuters late last week."
--Planet Ark, 28 October 2002
(1) BETTER DETECTION, NOT GLOBAL WARMING, BEHIND INCREASE IN
LARGE ICEBERGS
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(2) GREENLAND MELTING?
John-Daly.com, 27 October 2002
(3) TRENDS IN SOUTHERN OCEAN SEA-ICE SEASON
CO2 Science Magazine, 23 October 2002
(4) GROWING SEASON: IS IT INCREASING AS A RESULT OF GLOBAL
WARMING?
CO2 Science Magazine, 23 October 2002
(5) THE CO2 PUZZLE: WHAT'S MAN-MADE AND WHAT'S NOT?
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(6) THE PRICE OF UK CLIMATE CHANGE LEVY: WINTER DEATHS AMONG THE
ELDERLY RISE
BBC News Online, 24 October 2002
(7) DISASTER AREA: BLAMING CO2 FOR NATURAL CATASTROPHES
Tech Central Station, 18 October 2002
(8) AND FINALLY: STOP GLOBAL WARMING OR NEW YORK SUBMERGES,
PROPHETS OF DOOM PREDICT
Planet Ark, 28 October 2002
===============
(1) BETTER DETECTION, NOT GLOBAL WARMING, BEHIND INCREASE IN
LARGE ICEBERGS
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
Brigham Young University
Contact:
Michael Smart, (801) 422-7320, michael_smart@byu.edu
OCT 24, 2002
Better detection, not global warming, behind increase in large
Antarctic
icebergs, new BYU study shows
PROVO, Utah -- Contrary to an opinion held by some researchers, a
new
analysis of more than 20 years of historical data has found no
evidence that
the increasing number of large icebergs off Antarctica's coasts
is a result
of global warming trends.
"The dramatic increase in the number of large icebergs as
recorded by the
National Ice Center database does not represent a climatic
change," said
Brigham Young University electrical engineering professor David
Long, who,
with Cheryl Bertoia of the U. S. National Ice Center, reports
these findings
in the new issue of EOS Transactions, a publication of the
American
Geophysics Union. "Our reanalysis suggests that the number
of icebergs
remained roughly constant from 1978 to the late 1990s."
Using BYU's supercomputers, Long enhanced images of the waters
around
Antarctica transmitted by satellite. Comparing this data to
records from the
federal government's National Ice Center, which tracks icebergs
larger than
ten miles on one side, he determined that previous tracking
measures were
inadequate, resulting in a gross undercounting. An additional
recent spike
in large icebergs can be explained by periodic growth and
retraction of the
large glaciers that yield icebergs every 40 to 50 years, he said,
noting
previous research done by other scientists.
"Dr. Long's analysis shows that the increase is only an
'apparent increase,'
and that it is premature to think of any connection between this
kind of
iceberg (growth) and global warming," said Douglas MacAyeal,
a University of
Chicago glaciologist who tracks icebergs. "His research,
particularly that
with his amazing ability to detect and track icebergs, is really
the best
method" for determining the actual rate of the creation of
icebergs.
Long is careful to distinguish between the birth of large
icebergs and the
widely publicized collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf last year,
which
yielded many smaller icebergs. Other scientists have clearly
shown, Long
said, that event was the result of localized warming.
Referring to his current study, he said, "This data set is
not evidence of
global warming. Nor does it refute global warming."
Long and his student assistants have pioneered the use of images
generated
from the SeaWinds-on-QuikSCAT satellite for tracking icebergs.
The NASA
satellite carries a device called a scatterometer, which measures
the wind
speed and direction by recording the reflection of radar beams as
they
bounce off ocean waves. Until recently, the resolution of the
images
generated by the scatterometer was too low to distinguish
icebergs. Long's
team developed a computer processing technique that produces
images sharp
enough to reliably track icebergs.
The BYU group has been working with the National Ice Center since
1999, when
Long rediscovered a massive iceberg, the size of Rhode Island,
threatening
Argentine shipping lanes. The Ice Center had lost track of it
because of
cloudy skies.
Both Long and MacAyeal said this study does not rule out the
possibility
that global warming is occurring, or that it could have a future
effect on
the creation of large icebergs.
"Global warming is real," Long said. "The issues
are -- is this strictly
man-made or is it part of normal cycles? There is evidence to
support both
sides on that one."
============
(2) GREENLAND MELTING?
>From John-Daly.com, 27 October 2002
http://www.john-daly.com/#greenland
On October 24, 2002, the National Geographic Channel and the
National
Geographic News, ran a story titled "Greenland Melting?
Satellite to Help
Find Answer"
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1024_021024_TVGreenland.htm
l). After an overview of a new NASA satellite named ICESat to be
launched in
December 2002 and tasked to the study of ice and how it moves,
the report
goes on to examine the impact of `global warming' on the
Greenland ice cap.
The focus of the story was the Greenland fishing village of
Ilulissat, on
the west coast of Greenland at (69.23°N, 51.07°W), The National
Geographic
reports that 10% of all Greenland's icebergs come from Ilulissat
(which
means "place by the icebergs") and that the residents
of the town say the
ice is changing and not for the better, or so says the National
Geographic.
An obvious question is: has the temperature in and about
Ilulissat changed
as would be expected under conditions of global warming? While
there is no
temperature history for Ilulissat available, there are two nearby
GISS
Stations which can be used as a proxy for the temperature
conditions in the
vicinity of Ilulissat. The two stations are Jakobshavn
(69.25°N, 51.07°W)
which is a mere 2km (1.24 miles) north of Ilulissat and
Egedesminde
(68.70°N, 52.75°W) 89km (55.30 miles) south-west.
The histories for the two stations overlap for the period from
1950 to 1980
and show surprisingly good correlation, with Egedesminde being
0.41°C
(0.74°F) cooler on average than Jakobshavn, which is in a more
sheltered
location. Current temperature conditions in the vicinity of
Ilulissat are
cooler than they were during the period from the 1930's to the
1940's. Lest
climate alarmists gain false hopes from the increasing
temperatures for
Egedesminde since 1993, it should be pointed out that if current
trends
continue for 2002, Egedesminde will be a bit colder when the
seasonal year
ends in November 2002, as GISS data for Egedesminde is already
showing.
Given a 136 year temperature history for the area about Ilulissat
Greenland,
three observations can be made:
1. The area about Ilulissat Greenland is subject to frequent and
extreme
temperature changes.
2. From the 1860's to the 1930's the temperature in the vicinity
of
Ilulissat was increasing,
3. Since the 1940's the temperature in the vicinity of Ilulissat
has been
decreasing.
Other then the National Geographic, one has to wonder where all
the hot air
is. It is certainly not in Ilulissat Greenland.
(Item contributed by Miceal O'Ronain)
=================
(3) TRENDS IN SOUTHERN OCEAN SEA-ICE SEASON
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 23 October 2002
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2002/v5n43c1.htm
Reference
Parkinson, C.L. 2002. Trends in the length of the
southern Ocean sea-ice
season, 1979-99. Annals of Glaciology 34: 435-440.
What was done
Satellite passive-microwave data were used to calculate and map
the length
of the sea-ice season throughout the Southern Ocean for each year
of the
period 1979-99.
What was learned
Over the 21 years of the study, most of the Ross Sea has, in the
words of
the author, "undergone a lengthening of the sea-ice season,
whereas most of
the Amundsen Sea ice cover and almost the entire Bellingshausen
Sea ice
cover have undergone a shortening of the sea-ice season,"
while "results for
the Weddell Sea are mixed." Overall, Parkinson reports
that "the area of
the Southern Ocean experiencing a lengthening of the sea-ice
season by at
least 1 day per year over the period 1979-99 is 5.6 x 106 km2,
whereas the
area experiencing a shortening of the sea-ice season by at least
1 day per
year is 46% less than that, at 3.0 x 106 km2."
What it means
Although different sea-ice trends are clearly occurring in
different sectors
of the Southern Ocean, there is no question that "a much
larger area of the
Southern Ocean experienced an overall lengthening of the sea-ice
season over
the 21 years 1979-99 than experienced a shortening,"
according to the
author, which, according to simple logic, is absolutely contrary
to what
would be expected in a world that climate alarmists claim was
concurrently
experiencing a warming they describe as unprecedented over the
past thousand
years.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
===========
(4) GROWING SEASON: IS IT INCREASING AS A RESULT OF GLOBAL
WARMING?
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 23 October 2002
http://www.co2science.org/subject/g/summaries/growingseason.htm
Climate model predictions of global warming suggest that a number
of
climate, weather and biological phenomena will be affected by the
atmosphere's increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. One such
phenomenon
is the length of the growing season, which is projected by the
models to
increase in direct response to a rise in global temperature. In
this
summary, we review several studies that have examined growing
season trends
and whether they can properly be attributed to CO2-induced global
warming.
For the period 1930 to 1998, Kozlov and Berlina (2002) examined
several
phenological variables to look for possible changes in the length
of the
growing season in the taiga forests of northern Russia. No
trend in the
date of first snow was detected, but the date of permanent snow
cover in the
forests began 13 days earlier at the end of the study period than
at its
beginning. In addition, snow around tree-trunks was found to melt
16 days
later in the spring at the end of the record. The duration
of the snow-free
period in the forests also decreased by 20 days over the 68-year
period,
while the ice-free period of lakes decreased by 15 days.
Comparison of the
above trends with seasonal precipitation data failed to provide
an
explanation for the observations.
Kozlov and Berlina note that the results of their study
"clearly contradict
the expected regional warming" that is championed by
believers in
CO2-induced global warming. In fact, the data represent such a
dramatic
contradiction of the climate-alarmist thesis that the authors
openly
questioned whether something was wrong with their data. However,
as they
report, "close scrutiny of the original records, protocols,
and other
relevant information did not reveal any possible source of
error." Thus,
they confidently concluded that the length of the growing season
on the Kola
Peninsula "really declined during the past 60 years due to
both delayed
spring and advanced autumn/winter."
Elsewhere, Menzel and Fabian (1999) report different results for
the growing
season in Europe, although their findings apply to a much shorter
period of
time. In a study of 30 years of phenological data derived
from observations
of identical clones of trees and shrubs maintained by the
European network
of the International Phenological Gardens - which network is
located within
the area bounded by latitudes 42 and 69° N and by longitudes
10° W and 27° E
- they determined that the mean date of spring bud-break had
advanced by
fully six days since the early 1960s, while leaf senescence in
the fall had
been delayed by an average of 4.8 days over the same
period. Thus, for this
much shorter interval of time, Menzel and Fabian reported an
approximate
eleven-day increase in the growing season.
What is the source of the apparent discrepancy between the
results of the
two papers noted above? The answer may lie in the degree to
which the North
Atlantic Oscillation influences climate at the two
locations. According to
D'Odorico et al. (2002) - who investigated the possibility that
earlier
onsets of the growing season in Europe are due to warmer winters
that are
associated with a change in the phase of the North Atlantic
Oscillation
(NAO) - "spring phenology in Europe is found to be
significantly affected by
the North Atlantic Oscillation," with high-NAO (warm)
winters hastening the
occurrence of spring phenophases (budburst and bloom), as well as
the
production, release, dispersal and transport of pollen. In
fact, they
describe the relationship between the dependence of the onset of
the pollen
season on the phases of the NAO as nothing short of
remarkable. They also
identified "a significant degree of dependence between NAO
and spring
cryophenology in northern-central Europe," with high-NAO
phases being
characterized by warmer winters leading to earlier dates of ice
breakup. In
accomplishing this task, D'Odorico et al. determined the NAO
index
dependency of the dates of first leafing and blooming in a number
of
different plants, the time of pollen season initiation, and the
beginning
dates of ice breakup on several lakes. Hence, if changes in
the NAO largely
explain "both the high- and the low-frequency variability of
plant
phenology," as these authors have shown, there's not much
need to invoke
anything else as their cause, including global warming.
Moving to the United States, Robeson (2002) used daily minimum
air
temperature data for the period 1906-1997 obtained from 36 U.S.
Historical
Climatology Network stations in the state of Illinois to
calculate the date
of last spring freeze, the date of first fall freeze, and the
resulting
length of the freeze-free growing season. They report that,
"(1) the date
of the last spring freeze is nearly one week earlier now than it
was 100
years ago, (2) fall freeze dates have not changed in a systematic
fashion,
and (3) the growing season is nearly one week longer now,"
which directly
follows from observations 1 and 2.
With respect to the first of these observations, Robeson notes
that it is
driven by the century-long amelioration of the very coldest
spring minimum
temperatures and not by a uniform upward shift (warming) of the
entire
distribution of all minimum temperatures for the month in which
they
normally occur, i.e., April. Likewise, he notes that the
second phenomenon
is a result of the fact that the very coldest autumn minimum
temperatures
have not changed all that much over the century of record, in
spite of the
fact that the entire distribution of all minimum temperatures for
the month
in which they normally occur, i.e., October, actually cooled at a
very
significant rate. The complexity of the results makes it
difficult to point
to a particular forcing mechanism that could be responsible for
the observed
trends.
Lastly, White et al. (1999) investigated growing season length
over an
88-year period (1900-1987) for twelve sites in the eastern
deciduous
broadleaf forest of the United States, noting that ten-day
growing season
length decreases were characteristically observed over periods of
one to two
decades throughout the 88-year study period, while increases of
the same
magnitude occurred in as little as four to six years. Thus,
recent
observations of seven- to eight-day increases in growing season
length in
high northern latitudes over the past decade or so (Myneni et
al., 1997;
Zhou et al., 2001), which have been suggested by some to be
evidence of
CO2-induced global warming, are, according to White et al.,
"neither unusual
nor necessarily a sign of permanent climate change."
In conclusion, it does not appear that changes in the length of
the growing
season can be construed as evidence of CO2-induced global
warming.
References
D'Odorico, P., Yoo, J-C. and Jaeger, S. 2002.
Changing seasons: An effect
of the North Atlantic Oscillation? Journal of Climate 15:
435-445.
Kozlov, M.V. and Berlina, N.G. 2002. Decline in
length of the summer
season on the Kola Peninsula, Russia. Climatic Change 54:
387-398.
Menzel, A. and Fabian, P. 1999. Growing season
extended in Europe. Nature
397: 659.
Myneni, R.C., Keeling, C.D., Tucker, C.J., Asrar, G. and Nemani,
R.R. 1997.
Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981
to 1991.
Nature 386: 698-702.
Robeson, S.M. 2002. Increasing growing-season length
in Illinois during
the 20th century. Climatic Change 52: 219-238.
White, M.A., Running, S.W. and Thornton, P.E. 1999.
The impact of
growing-season length variability on carbon assimilation and
evapotranspiration over 88 years in the eastern US deciduous
forest.
International Journal of Biometeorology 42: 139-145.
Zhou, L., Tucker, C.J., Kaufmann, R.K., Slayback, D., Shabanov,
N.V. and
Myneni, R.B. 2001. Variations in northern vegetation
activity inferred
from satellite data of vegetation index during 1981 to
1999. Journal of
Geophysical Research 106: 20,069-20,083.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
============
(5) THE CO2 PUZZLE: WHAT'S MAN-MADE AND WHAT'S NOT?
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
Carnegie Institution of Washington
Contact:
Erik Hauri, 202-478-8471, Hauri@dtm.ciw.edu
News Release: October 21, 2002
A new technique advances the CO2 puzzle -- what's man-made and
what's not?
Washington, D.C. -- Until now, scientists have been unable to
measure how
much of the heat-trapping greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2)
escapes from
the Earth's interior through lava -- an important piece of
information for
determining how much atmospheric CO2 comes from man-made
sources instead of natural ones. Using a new technique that is
able to
measure the concentration of different elements in incredibly
tiny samples
of rock, researchers determined for the first time how much CO2
the molten
material contains. "Among other things," says study
researcher Erik Hauri of
the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Department of
Terrestrial
Magnetism, "it's now possible to estimate precisely the
sources of carbon in
the volcanic part of the planet's carbon cycle." Hauri and
colleagues
published their results in the October 3 Nature.
The researchers analyzed bits of magma entrapped in crystals
called olivine
from samples collected from the mid-ocean Siqueiros transform
fault, which
is offset from the East Pacific Rise off of the coast of Mexico.
Some 85% of
the world's volcanoes are located on such mid-ocean rises.
Typically CO2 and
other volatiles bubble away into the atmosphere as they reach the
surface during eruptions and thus elude measurement. The trapped
particles
of magma that the scientists collected, however, contained the
original
amount of volatiles because the surrounding crystal prevented
volatile loss.
Using a device called an ion microprobe, the researchers
determined the
abundance of different isotopes, or atomic species, and measured
the
volatiles present. They found that other non-volatile elements,
notably
potassium and niobium, were correlated with the CO2, providing
added
evidence that the CO2 concentrations are original.
"It's always eye opening," says Hauri, "to find
quantitative connections
between the deep interior of the Earth and the chemistry of the
oceans and
atmosphere. I believe that this new technique, applied to other
volcanic
areas, will help scientists better define how much volcanoes are
contributing to the greenhouse effect." In addition to
helping scientists
learn more about the planet's carbon cycle, the study is also
important for advancing
our understanding of the convection process of the Earth's deep
mantle, its
chemical composition, and the behavior of the overlying crust.
Researchers for this study include Alberto Saal and Charles
Langmuir of the
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University; Michael
Perfit of
the University of Florida's Department of Geological Sciences;
and Erik
Hauri of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie
Institution of
Washington.
The Carnegie Institution of Washington (www.CarnegieInstitution.org)
has
been a pioneering force in basic scientific research since 1902.
It is a private, nonprofit
organization with six research departments in the U.S.: Plant
Biology,
Global Ecology, The Observatories, Embryology, Geophysical
Laboratory, and
the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism.
===========
(6) THE PRICE OF UK CLIMATE CHANGE LEVY: WINTER DEATHS AMONG THE
ELDERLY RISE
>From BBC News Online, 24 October 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2357237.stm
More and more elderly people are dying unnecessarily during
winter cold
snaps, a charity has claimed.
Official figures released on Thursday show that excess winter
deaths
increased by 10% last year.
In total, 27,300 more people than expected died last winter - and
of these
25,100 were aged 65 or over.
The charity Age Concern says the number of excess deaths grew
because more
and more pensioners are unable to heat their homes effectively
over winter.
Director General of Age Concern England, Gordon Lishman,
criticised the
government for leaving the elderly with too little cash to keep
warm.
Disgrace
He said: "It is a national disgrace. A large proportion of
these (deaths)
will be vulnerable older people who die in England and Wales in
the winter
because of the cold.
"While we welcome the government's initiatives to fight fuel
poverty among
older people, many of them still cannot afford sufficient heating
or they
live in housing with inadequate insulation."
Excess winter deaths are the total number of deaths recorded
between
December and March minus the average mortality rate for the
four-month
periods preceding and following winter.
Mr Lishman said the government must now increase the level of
state pension
and pledged that Age Concern would continue to offer vital winter
services.
They include benefits advice, luncheon and day club services,
emergency
heater loans, insulation grants and advice on repairs.
Ministers lambasted
Paul Burstow, Liberal Democrat spokesman on older people, said:
"Ministers
should hang their heads in shame at these figures and explain why
there has
been an increase on last year.
"The government cannot pretend that its winter fuel payments
scheme is the
answer to this problem because these deaths occurred at a time
when
pensioners have been receiving winter payments of £200 for two
years.
"The oldest, frailest and most vulnerable old people are
particularly at
risk in the winter.
"The government has consistently refused a substantial
increase in pensions.
"Pensioner poverty and living conditions must be addressed
as a matter of
urgency."
The ONS report said although the excess winter deaths figure was
up, it was
still low when compared with previous years.
It said the winters of 1998.99 and 1999/2000 recorded excess
deaths of
46,840 and 48,440 respectively.
Copyright 2002, BBC
=============
(7) DISASTER AREA: BLAMING CO2 FOR NATURAL CATASTROPHES
>From Tech Central Station, 18 October 2002
http://www.techcentralstation.be/2051/wrapper.jsp?PID=2051-100&CID=2051-101802A
by Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon
The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) just released a
document
that calls for reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gas
emissions. No surprise there. But this time UNEP is saying such
reductions
are needed so that climate-disaster economic losses can be
curtailed.
The UNEP Finance Initiatives Climate Change Working Group report
(October 8,
2002) tries to pin economic losses from natural disasters like
storms and
floods to the air's increase in human-made greenhouse gases which
supposedly
has caused a globally-averaged warming. This warming, the report
alleges,
should have spawned more - or more powerful - climate-related
disasters like
storms.
Thus, UNEP asks developed economies like the United States to
ration energy:
"...[P]olicymakers should commit to clear GHG [greenhouse
gas] emissions
reduction targets via policies and measures consistent with the
Kyoto
Protocol that establish a clear value on carbon ..." (p. 5,
Module 1).
How credible is UNEP's speculation on increased storm or other
weather
damage? Not very, since it includes several errors of fact and
logic.
The UNEP report says, "Worldwide economic losses due to
natural disasters
appear to be doubling every ten years, and have reached almost $1
trillion
[in U.S. 2001 dollars] over the past 15 years... If the current
trends
persist, the annual loss amounts will, within the next decade,
come close to
US$150 billion ..." (p. 6, Module 1).
UNEP shows a chart representing losses owing to "Great
natural catastrophes"
over the last 50 years. It is complete with a red line curving
quickly
upward demonstrating rapidly increasing losses (Figure 1, p. 6,
Module 1).
UNEP extends that red line into the future in order to reach its
projection
of US $150 billion annual losses within the next decade.
But to have minimal credibility, a forecast trend needs to start
by fitting
the extant data. Mathematically, the UNEP fast-rising red line
fails to fit
the data. For example, 1994 and 1995 had the highest loss costs
of any years
in the 50-year record. Since then, losses have dropped. The
rapidly-rising
red line fails to reflect the post-1995 data, and that failure
means the
forecast trend for future high losses rests on all the confidence
of
quicksand.
Next consider the relevance of the record of natural disasters to
the air's
increased carbon dioxide content. The extraordinary losses in
1994 (over $80
billion) and 1995 (over $167 billion) are dominated by the costs
of the
Northridge and Kobe earthquakes. Natural disasters like
earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions cannot be linked in any believable way to the
air's
increased concentration of greenhouse gases. Once non-weather
events are
discarded from the analysis, the upswept curve is even less
justifiable.
The possibility of grave economic losses in the future must be
based on
credible predictions of weather disasters, a task not considered
in the UNEP
report, since no one - including the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change - knows just how to do so.
To examine the believability of the UNEP claim of increasing
carbon-emission-related weather disasters, let's concentrate on
the U.S.
record of economic losses due to hurricanes, which are America's
costliest
weather disasters. The record accounting for these losses is
thorough and
reaches back 100 years. That's a period that can be split into
two parts,
before and after 1950 - that is, before and after the air's
dramatic rise in
carbon dioxide content.
To make a fair comparison, the history of U.S. economic losses
for
hurricanes must be adjusted for socio-economic factors. To
compare losses
across decades, the values must be adjusted for increased
population density
in areas harmed by hurricanes, increased property values and
wealth, and
inflation. Once that's done, the normalized losses would have to
show a rise
related to the air's increased content in carbon dioxide, in
parallel with a
rise in storm severity or number of intense storms, as rated by
measured
meteorological parameters.
Colorado and Florida researchers have provided the normalized
losses for
U.S. hurricane damage over the last 100 years. In terms of
normalized
losses, the most destructive year was 1926 with the Great Miami
Hurricane.
That hurricane would have caused $80-90 billion in losses had it
occurred in
the year 2000. The largest annual loss since 1926 occurred in
1992 with $40
billion in losses attributable primarily to Hurricane Andrew.
Of the years with normalized losses totaling $20 billion or more,
five of
them occurred prior to 1950 (1900 - including the unnamed
Galveston
Hurricane which killed over 6,000 people, the largest hurricane
death toll
in U.S. history - then 1915, 1926, 1938 and 1944).
But after 1950 there are only two such years: 1954 (Hurricanes
Carol and
Hazel) and 1992 (Hurricane Andrew).
Thus, the single largest normalized loss year for hurricanes, and
five out
of seven of the years in which losses exceed $20 billion,
occurred before
1950 - before the major increase in the air's concentration of
human-produced greenhouse gases. A linear trend of the normalized
losses
from most-costly hurricanes through the 20th century would slope
downward,
not upward, as UNEP contends.
As for measured hurricane parameters, consider maximum intensity
or maximum
wind speed. If those parameters increase, it would likely yield
greater
economic losses. But the maximum wind speed of the strongest
Atlantic
hurricanes decreased from 1944 to 2000, the period studied by
Florida and
Colorado hurricane experts.
Moreover, the most intense hurricanes come in three categories:
Categories
3, 4 and 5 with a value of 5 indicating the most intense on the
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane scale. But the annual total number of
the most
intense hurricanes over the Atlantic decreased since 1944. More
precisely,
U.S. hurricane experts concluded that "[b]y far the biggest
decade during
the last active era was the 1940s, where five major hurricanes
made landfall
in Florida. This contrasts dramatically with the very low
activity of the
1970s, 1980s and 1990s."
Thus, there is no evidence that a greenhouse-gas enhanced
atmosphere has
produced either more intense or a greater number of severe
hurricanes for
the U.S or evidence of greater economic losses, in terms of
normalized
losses that fairly account for socio-economic changes.
The UNEP report goes so far as to acknowledge that any recent
upsurge in
devastation is due not to climate-related factors, but to
socio-economic
factors: "Although the steady increase in economic and
insured losses is
more a function of the concentration of economic development in
vulnerable
regions than climate change per se, it is clear that climate
change will
exacerbate these loss trends" (p. 7, Module 1).
Nonetheless, against the views of normative science, the UNEP
report claims
that, "Scientific and technical reports present compelling
evidence that
human-induced climate change is upon us, and that its
consequences could be
devastating..." (p. 8, Module 2).
And then the report frankly reveals its anxiety about being
sidetracked by
recent "U.S. corporate governance and accounting
scandals" or "increasing
concerns over the ability to fund burgeoning health and
retirement
programs." UNEP frets: "...there is clearly a risk that
the climate change
issue will not garner the level of attention necessary for any
serious
action to take place" (p. 15, Module 2).
The UNEP disaster claim may be expected but is scientifically
unsupported.
Copyright 2002, Tech Central Station
==============
(8) AND FINALLY: STOP GLOBAL WARMING OR NEW YORK SUBMERGES,
PROPHETS OF DOOM
PREDICT
>From Planet Ark, 28 October 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18347/story.htm
NEW DELHI - By the year 2080, Manhattan and Shanghai could be
underwater,
droughts and floods could become more extreme and hundreds of
millions of
people will be at risk from disease, starvation and water
shortages.
That is the picture that a Greenpeace senior official painted of
the future
if the world failed to take urgent steps to curb greenhouse gas
emissions
and limit global warming.
"We're talking of about the submergence of islands,
submergence of Shanghai,
the submergence of Bombay, the submergence of New York
City," Greenpeace
climate policy director Steve Sawyer told Reuters late last week.
"Manhattan would be under water."
Sawyer, who is in New Delhi for a 10-day annual U.N. climate
change
conference, said global warming would lead to the melting of the
Greenland
ice sheet, which in turn would cause a five to seven metre (16 to
23 ft)
sea-level rise and the inundation of coastal regions.
"Most coastal cities would be uninhabitable in their present
forms...and
that's a catastrophic change of the shape of continents."
Some environmentalists have said that recent climate disasters
around the
world - from droughts in India, Australia and the United States
to floods in
Europe - have been graphic harbingers of some of the expected
consequences
of global warming.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted
that by
2100 global average surface temperature will be 1.4 to 5.8
degrees Celsius
higher than it was in 1990.
Sawyer said an increase in temperatures would lead to more
extreme droughts
and a rise in frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones.
"What these temperature changes are going to do to the
hydrological cycle,
particularly in the tropics, is not a very pretty picture,"
he said.
Between 2050 and 2080, tens of millions of people would be more
at risk of
malaria, coastal flooding and starvation and hundreds of millions
of people
would be at risk from water shortages, he said.
Delegates from 185 countries are attending the climate
conference, which is
likely to be the last major climate meeting before the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol
is expected to come into force early next year.
The Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from
the
developed world by 2012 to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels.
But the United States, the world's biggest air polluter, has
refused to
ratify the treaty, which it sees as flawed because it does not
bind
developing countries. It also says it would hurt the U.S.
economy.
The Earth Summit in Johannesburg earlier this year was widely
criticised by
environmentalists and vulnerable Pacific nations for barely
touching on the
problem of global warming. The United States was singled out for
criticism.
Story by Sugita Katyal
Copyright 2002, Reuters
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