PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 109/2003 - 20 November 2003
UNPREDICTABLE SOLAR OUTBURSTS RAISE NEW QUESTIONS
-------------------------------------------------
This is the right moment for us to stand firm with the United
States
in defeating terrorism wherever it is and delivering us safely
from
what I genuinely believe to be the security threat of the 21st
century.
Now is not the time to waver, now is the time to see it through.
--Tony Blair, 17 November 2003
(1) THREE SUNSPOTS RETURN, FIRST STORM EN ROUTE
Space.com, 19 November 2003
(2) UNPREDICTABLE SOLAR OUTBURSTS RAISE NEW QUESTIONS
ESA News, 19 November 2003
(3) SUN SHEDS SKIN AND FLIPS
Paal Brekke <pbrekke@esa.nascom.nasa.gov>
(5) LEONIDS 2003: WEAK PERFORMANCE
Rainer Arlt <rarlt@aip.de>
(6) CBS ASTEROID SHOW
Rusty Schweickart
(7) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS MAY EFFECT EL NINO ONSET
Jamie Smith< jvsmith@nsf.gov>
(8) PROXY EVIDENCE FOR AN EL NINO-LIKE RESPONSE TO VOLCANIC
FORCING
Nature 426, 274 - 278 (20 November 2003)
(9) THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
The Guardian, 20 November 2003
(10) GET REAL: CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS TO INCREASE BY 50% BY
2020
Reuters, 19 November 2003
(11) AND FINALLY: NOTORIOUS DOOM-MONGER PREDICTS GLOBAL FOOD
SHORTAGE
Space Daily, 19 November 2003
========
(1) THREE SUNSPOTS RETURN, FIRST STORM EN ROUTE
Space.com, 19 November 2003
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solar_weather_031119.html
By Robert Roy Britt
A moderate space storm kicked up by the Sun yesterday could
arrive at Earth later today, possibly sparking colorful Northern
Lights to reach farther south than normal. Meanwhile, a trio of
infamous, energetic sunspots have returned to the face of the
Sun.
The coronal mass ejection, an expanding bubble of charged
particles, leapt from the Sun Tuesday morning, ET. It was
associated with a medium (M-class) solar flare.
The storm could arrive as early as this afternoon. Its possible
effects are unpredictable. Northern lights, called auroras, could
be visible from many northern locations, such as Alaska. There is
a chance the auroras could dip into northern America and Europe.
[Aurora Cam]
Solar storms can also threaten satellites and power grids, though
this one is not expected to be particularly powerful.
The effects of coronal mass ejections typically last for about 24
hours, waning as the storm gradually passes.
Record output
The outburst was generated by Sunspot 484, one of a trio of
unusually large sunspots that generated a record-breaking string
of 10 major (X-class) solar flares in late October and early
November. The spots then rotated around the back side of the Sun.
All three are again on the visible disk of the Sun, with No. 484
front and center and facing squarely at Earth.
Sunspot 484 has shrunk considerably compared to when it was on
the face of the Sun last time, but it is currently the one most
threatening because of its position. It has developed a complex
magnetic field, according to the NASA-run web site
Spaceweather.com. That suggests it has the potential for a major
solar flare in the days ahead.
Sunspots 486 and 488 have just come into view on the left limb of
the solar system's central star in the past two days. Last time
around, they were as big as Jupiter. Scientists are just getting
a look at them this time and it appears they have maintained much
of their size.
"It looks like both regions still have some punch,"
said Paal Brekke, deputy project scientist for the SOHO
spacecraft, which monitors solar activity.
Rare trio
Sunspots are cooler regions of the Sun were pent-up magnetic
energy can erupt, kicking out radiation and superheated gas.
Rarely have scientists witnessed three sunspots so large and
powerful on the face of the Sun at once. In fact, it happens
about every 10 years, said solar physicist David Hathaway of
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
But the last two times a big trio appeared -- in February 1989
and July 1981 -- the Sun was near the maximum of its 11-year
cycle of activity, Hathaway told SPACE.com. Right now the Sun is
two or three years past peak activity and on its way to a low
point in another three years or so.
"The surprise this time is where it came in the cycle,"
Hathaway said.
For all three spots to maintain their size during a complete
revolution of the Sun is not so unusual, Hathaway said. The Sun
rotates once every 25 days at its equator. "When they're
this big, it takes one or two or even more rotations before they
get smaller," he said.
On Nov. 4, Sunspot 486 unleashed the strongest flare ever
recorded.
Scientists cannot predict if or when the next major flare will
erupt.
Copyright 2003, Space.com
===========
(2) UNPREDICTABLE SOLAR OUTBURSTS RAISE NEW QUESTIONS
ESA News, 19 November 2003
http://www.esa.int
19 November 2003
Focus on solar outbursts
While scientists and aurora spotters marvel at the explosions on
the Sun,
everyone responsible for the hundreds of satellites that serve
human needs, from
weather observations to car navigation, wishes that these
potentially damaging
events were more predictable.
So do the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, who
recently had to
shelter from energetic particles flung out by the most powerful
solar flare ever
recorded. Now, from space observations of the Sun going back more
than 20 years,
experts are beginning to make more sense of the solar outbursts.
Apparently random events turn out to be signs of the Sun's
diligent
housekeeping. It keeps sweeping away, out into space, untidy
magnetic fields
created by sunspots and other contortions in its atmosphere. The
climax comes in
a busy period of spring cleaning after the count of sunspots has
peaked, every
11 years. It leaves the Sun with its main magnetic field
completely overturned,
and its north and south magnetic poles swapped around.
Great blasts of gas coming from the Sun, called coronal mass
ejections,
sometimes cause magnetic mayhem in the Earth's vicinity. A report
published this
month takes stock of 7 years of observations of such events by
the ESA/NASA SOHO
spacecraft. It also compares them with the mass ejections
recorded in 1979-85 by
an American satellite, P78-1. Helping the scientists to decipher
the events seen
by the spaceborne telescopes are data from ground-based
instruments at Kitt
Peak, USA, and Nobeyama, Japan.
What emerges is a systematic pattern in the outbursts. It changes
during the
sunspot cycle, as the numbers of dark sunspots seen each day on
the Sun's bright
surface first increases and then diminishes again. The mass
ejections are often
directly associated with the sunspots, which always lie in the
Sun's equatorial
belt or at mid-latitudes.
Other mass ejections occur near the Sun's poles, far away from
any sunspots.
These events are most frequent at the peak of sunspot activity,
but they can
continue for a while as the count of sunspots begins to decline.
By getting rid
of the magnetic remnants of previous activity, the high-latitude
outbursts groom
the polar magnetic fields in a new configuration.
"The Sun is like a snake that sheds its skin," comments
Nat Gopalswamy of NASA
Goddard, lead author of the new report, which appears in the
Astrophysical
Journal. "In this case, it's a magnetic skin. The process is
long-drawn-out and
it's pretty violent. More than a thousand coronal mass ejections,
each carrying
billions of tonnes of gas from the polar regions, are needed to
clear the old
magnetism away. But when it's all over the Sun's magnetic stripes
are running in
the opposite direction."
A chronicle from SOHO
This report is the latest in a series of studies of coronal mass
ejections as
seen by the LASCO instrument on SOHO, undertaken recently by
Gopalswamy and his
colleagues. When SOHO began its watch early in 1996, the Sun was
quiet. There
were very few sunspots and mass ejections happened less than once
a day. But
during the most intense solar activity, 1999-2000, there were
more than five a
day, on average -- twice as many as scientists expected. What's
more, the
average speed of the ejected clouds of gas doubled, from 275 to
550 kilometres
per second.
When the sunspot count passed its peak in July 2000, mass
ejections continued at
a high rate. They did not reach their own peak in frequency until
October 2002.
Events followed a different timescale in the two polar regions of
the Sun. A
flurry of high-latitude mass ejections occurred near the north
pole, completing
the magnetic reversal there by November 2000. The south polar
region lagged
behind, and its new magnetic pole was not 'clean' until May 2002.
In effect, the
solar snake shed the magnetic skin first from its head and then
from its tail.
Only a minority of the coronal mass ejections have significant
effects on the
space weather near the Earth. About a hundred times a year, when
the Sun is at
its stormiest, a blast of gas aims itself directly at our planet.
Because it
appears to surround the Sun, in the SOHO images, it is called a
halo event. Its
impact on the magnetic shield that protects the Earth causes a
magnetic storm,
which can for example produce extra current flowing in power
lines and pipelines
on the ground, with the risk of causing damage to these systems
and, in extreme
cases, equipment failure.
Also potentially harmful are high-speed mass ejections occurring
near the
western edge of the Sun around sunspot maximum. Although the gas
does not come
our way, energetic particles released in the outburst can do so,
causing damage
to spacecraft and endangering astronauts. Outbursts of this type
are fortunately
rare.
"The analysis of what we've recorded since 1996 takes us a
big step forward in
making sense of space weather," says Bernhard Fleck, ESA's
project scientist for
SOHO. "By clarifying when and why different kinds of coronal
mass ejections
occur, it gives us a better idea of what trouble-spots to watch,
for possible
solar outbursts, at different stages of the sunspot cycle."
Still a major challenge
For all space agencies, the Sun's outbursts pose an increasing
problem. As the
equipment of spacecraft is miniaturized, it becomes more
vulnerable to energetic
particles and electromagnetic stresses of space weather. The
planning of manned
spaceflights has to take account of the hazards to astronauts.
For a prolonged
flight, such as now contemplated for a possible manned mission to
Mars, the
calendar of likely outbursts in relation to the sunspot cycle
becomes a major
consideration.
A workshop convened earlier this month at ESTEC, ESA's science
and technology
centre at Noordwijk in the Netherlands, looked forward towards
better monitoring
and prediction services. 'Embarrassing' was the word used by
Rainer Schwenn of
Germany's Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie, to describe the
current state of
space weather forecasting. He pointed out that a significant
number of magnetic
storms are still not predicted ('missing alarms') and a similar
percentage of
predicted events never occur ('false alarms').
The Space Environments and Effects Analysis Section in ESTEC acts
as a focus for
Europe-wide activities. This year it has fostered, as a pilot
project, a network
of nearly 30 European space weather services, 16 of which have
received
co-funding from ESA. The network will expand and more services
will become
operational over the next two years. Then it will be easier to
assess the needs
and benefits, and to consider what form a long-term European
space weather
programme might take.
"Until now, much of our information about space weather
gained from spacecraft
comes from missions conceived for scientific purposes,"
notes Alexi Glover, who
works on the pilot project at ESTEC. "But these scientific
missions have limited
life-spans, often with no policy for maintaining the flow of data
after a
mission has ended. Also, the delivery of data in near-real time
is not always
considered important for a scientific mission, whereas this would
be crucial for
any space weather monitoring mission. Meanwhile, European space
weather services
make the most of the valuable data coming from SOHO and other
existing spacecraft."
Related articles
* It's official: the biggest solar X-ray flare ever is classified
as X28
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM5AUWLDMD_Protecting_0.html
* Another giant solar explosion follows Tuesday's enormous solar
flare
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM6N9WLDMD_Protecting_0.html
* Enormous X-ray solar flare seen by SOHO
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMY3X7O0MD_Protecting_0.html
Related links
* Space Weather
http://www.esa.int/spaceweather/
* ESA Space Weather Applications Pilot Project
http://www.estec.esa.nl/wmwww/wma/spweather/esa_initiatives/pilotproject/pilotproject.html
* ESA space weather workshop: developing a European space weather
service network
http://www.estec.esa.nl/wmwww/wma/spweather/workshops/spw_w5/index.html#agenda
* Today's space weather
http://www.estec.esa.nl/wmwww/wma/spweather/current_sw/index.html
* Tomorrow's space weather forecast?
http://www.estec.esa.nl/wmwww/wma/spweather/MISCELLANEOUS/tomorrow_space_weather.pdf
* SOHO homepage
http://sohowww.estec.esa.nl/
* SOHO overview
http://www.esa.int/export/esaSC/120373_index_0_m.html
* LASCO homepage
http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/lasco.html
* Catalogue of coronal mass ejections
http://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/CME_list/
* The Sun now
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/ASE08Y9KOYC_Protecting_0.html
* ESA Science
http://www.esa.int/science
IMAGE CAPTIONS:
[Movie 1:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM1V5XLDMD_FeatureWeek_1.html#subhead1]
SOHO/LASCO movie of a high latitude CME in the North polar region
on February 27 2000.
Credits: SOHO/LASCO
[Image 1:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM1V5XLDMD_FeatureWeek_1.html]
Outburst of gas from near the Sun's south pole. The bright loop
is cool,
strongly magnetized material being swept away from the Sun. The
white ring
inside the central mask shows the size of the visible Sun.
Credits: SOHO/LASCO
[Image 2:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM1V5XLDMD_FeatureWeek_1.html#subhead2]
Artist's impression of SOHO spacecraft.
Credits: ESA
[Image 3:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM1V5XLDMD_FeatureWeek_1.html#subhead3]
A blast of gas from the Sun can buffet the Earth's magnetic
field.
Credits: ESA
===========
(3) SUN SHEDS SKIN AND FLIPS
Paal Brekke <pbrekke@esa.nascom.nasa.gov>
Research with the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft has revealed
the process that may implement the reversal
in the direction of the Sun's magnetic field
that is known to occur every 11 years. This
newly recognized factor in the Sun's magnetic
flipping is the cumulative effect of more than
a thousand huge eruptions called Coronal
Mass Ejections (CMEs). (The bright area at
the bottom of Image 2 is an example of a
CME.)
Full story and images here:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1120sun_flip.html
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM1V5XLDMD_FeatureWeek_0.html
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/spacesci/pictures/2003/1120sun_flip/2002_EIT_lowloop.jpg
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Paal Brekke, SOHO Deputy Project Scientist (European
Space Agency - ESA)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Email: pbrekke@esa.nascom.nasa.gov
Mail Code 682.3, Bld. 26, Room 1, Tel.:
1-301-286-6983/301 996 9028 (cell)
Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA.
Fax: 1-301-286-0264
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOHO WEB: http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/
PERSONAL WEB: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/localinfo/brekke.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
==========
(5) LEONIDS 2003: WEAK PERFORMANCE
Rainer Arlt <rarlt@aip.de>
-------------------------------------
I M
O S h o w e r C i r c u l a r
-------------------------------------
LEONIDS 2003, VISUAL
The 2003 Leonid meteor shower has not yet provided distinct
peaks of activity. A full week of moderate Leonid meteor
rates has shown only one clear maximum; near 2003 Nov 19.4 UT
with an uncertainty of roughly +-6 hours.
This maximum coincides with the predicted times of about
06h30 - 08h00 UT for the encounter with the 15-revolution
dust trail of parent comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. The dust
was ejected from the comet near its perihelion passagein
1533.
The material ejected in 1499 has produced enhanced rates
on November 13, but no clear peak time can be derived from
the data received so far.
The ZHR gives the number of meteors as if the radiant would
be in the zenith, and at an observer's stellar limiting
magnitude of +6.5. The latter condition implies strong
extrapolations of observed meteor numbers, since the waning
moon interfered with most of the observing periods.
At this preliminary state, only the relative variations in
the ZHR should be of interest. Absolute values must be
discussed and fixed with the full dataset.
--------------------------------------
Date Solarlong nINT
nLEO ZHR
--------------------------------------
Nov 12.80 229.93
1 0 (0)
Nov 13.50 230.64
4 13 26
Nov 13.72 230.86
7 12 21
Nov 14.01 231.15
7 9 27
Nov 14.77 231.92
1 2 (47)
Nov 15.76 232.91
13 28 15
Nov 16.24 233.40
1 4 (20)
Nov 17.21 234.37
4 7 7
Nov 18.52 235.69
6 18 13
Nov 19.06 236.24
9 63 23
Nov 19.14 236.32
10 51 39
Nov 19.37 236.55
14 88 53
Nov 19.90 237.09
14 35 39
--------------------------------------
A population index of r=2.3 was used to extrapolate to lm=+6.5.
All solar longitudes refer to equinox J2000.0. nINT is the
number of observing periods, nLEO the number of Leonid meteors.
We would like to thank the following observers for their
contributions to the above ZHR table:
Alexandre Amorim, Joseph Assmus, Jure Atanackov, Aleksandar
Atevik,
Shushrut Bhanushali, Michael Boschat, Dustin Brown, Ed Cannon,
Parag Deotare, Kshitija Deshpande, Lucio Furlanetto, Kearn Jones,
Paul Jones, Javor Kac, Ashish Kuvelkar, Anna Levina, Michael
Linnolt,
Qiang Ma, Xiaoyun Ma, Paul Martsching, Mikhail Maslov, Alastair
McBeath, Norman McLeod, Huan Meng, Yatin Patnekar, Nilesh
Puntambekar,
Tushar Purohit, Jurgen Rendtel, Rahul Sangole, Mikiya Sato,
Tomoko
Sato, Vladimir Slusarenko, Wesley Stone, Kazumi Terakubo, Richard
Taibi, Michel Vandeputte, Jeremie Vaubaillon, Linjia Wang, Yi
Wang,
Guangjie Wu, Quanzhi Ye, Chao Zhang, Menglin Zhang, Zhousheng
Zhang.
Rainer Arlt, 2003 Nov 20, 09h UT
--
Rainer Arlt -- Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam
-- www.aip.de
Visual Commission - International Meteor Organization -- www.imo.net
rarlt@aip.de -- phone:
+49-331-7499-354 -- fax: +49-331-7499-526
==============
(6) CBS ASTEROID SHOW
Rusty Schweickart
Benny:
I thought that your readers might be interested in an about to be
released 2 hour CBC documentary film on asteroid impact and the
potential for deflection. Despite the rather sensationalist
title, Asteroid! The Doomsday Rock, the film should be
pretty good. The writer/director is Jerry Thompson
(Raincoast Storylines Ltd.) who has done award-winning work in
the past. It will first air in Canada on 24 November at 8
PM on CBC... for those who have access. Subsequently it is
slated to be carved into 2 one hour shows for Channel 4 in
London... date to be announced.
Further info at http://www.cbc.ca/cbcworldwide/asteroid/index.html.
Rusty Schweickart
=============
(7) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS MAY EFFECT EL NINO ONSET
Jamie Smith< jvsmith@nsf.gov>
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
4201 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22230
"Where discoveries begin"
Embargoed Until 1 p.m. Eastern Time
November 19, 2003
Media Contacts:
National Science Foundation - Cheryl Dybas, 703-292-7734, cdybas@nsf.gov
National Center for Atmospheric Research -
Anatta, anatta@ucar.edu,
303-497-8604
University of Virginia - Fariss Samarrai, samarrai@uva.edu, 434-924-3778
VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS MAY AFFECT EL NINO ONSET
A new study by scientists at the University of
Virginia (UVa) in Charlottesville and the National
Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder,
Colorado, suggests that explosive volcanic eruptions
in the tropics may increase the probability of an El
Niño event occurring during the winter following the
eruption. The research was funded by the National
Science Foundation (NSF).
"The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the
dominant mode of interannual climate variability on
the planet," says NCAR scientist Caspar Ammann.
"When thinking about long-term climate, we must ask
whether this system itself undergoes changes, perhaps
in response to changes in radiative forcing or in the
background climate itself. Our findings, based on
two reconstructions, suggest that it indeed might."
When a volcano erupts in the tropics, its aerosol
emissions spread into the stratosphere across the
northern and southern hemispheres, reflecting some of
the sun's heat back toward space and thereby cooling
the Earth's atmosphere. This cooling alters the
interaction between the oceans and atmosphere,
possibly encouraging a warming response in the
Pacific Ocean as the massive body of water attempts
to restore an initial equilibrium.
"Our results suggest that the atmospheric cooling
from an eruption may help nudge the climate system
towards producing an El Niño event," said Michael
Mann, an environmental scientist at the University of
Virginia. The study results will appear in the
November 20 issue of the journal Nature.
"This research illustrates the value of paleoclimate
studies that draw on research from disparate fields
to uncover connections," said David Verardo, director
of NSF's paleoclimate program, which funded the
research. "Studies of modern climate conditions
gleaned from thermometers and barometers can only get
you so far. Challenging the conventional wisdom, as
this research does, is necessary to achieve a
comprehensive understanding of Earth's climate," he
said.
Some scientists had previously noted that during the
20th century, El Niño events-the periodic warming of
sea surface temperatures in the equatorial
Pacific-tended to follow the eruption of volcanoes in
the tropics. But that 100-year period, the only time
span for which reliable instrumental records were
kept, was considered too short a duration to
substantiate a link between the two phenomena. The
connection was thought to be coincidental. "So we
turned to the paleoarchives for a longer history,"
Mann said. "We actually didn't expect the
relationship to hold up in the long run."
The scientists instead found that, when looking back
over a 350-year period, as far back as paleorecords
allow, there was credible evidence that volcanic
activity in the tropics may play a significant role
in the occurrence of El Niño events. "We now have a
long record showing that the relationship between
volcanic eruptions and an increased probability of El
Niño events continues to hold up over several
centuries," Mann said. "It's probably not just a
fluke."
Mann, Ammann, and UVa scientist Brad Adams used the
paleoclimate records stored in ice cores, corals, and
tree ring records to reconstruct El Niño events.
They used independent ice-core volcanic dust evidence
to reconstruct volcanic activity back to the early
1700s.
The paleoclimate records are called 'proxy records'
because they are not direct measurements of current
climate and ocean conditions, but instead are
reconstructions of past conditions gleaned from the
physical, biological, or chemical records or,
"signatures," stored in natural archives in the
environment. Using these records, the scientists were
able to precisely identify the years when eruptions
occurred and the years when El Niño events occurred.
When they counted, year by year, the separate events
and brought them together for comparison, they found
that there was a nearly one-in-two chance that an El
Niño event will occur after a volcanic eruption in
the tropical zone, roughly double the normal
probability. "I wouldn't call this a tight
connection - it's not a one-to-one relationship,"
Mann said, "but it appears that the eruption of a
tropical volcano nudges the climate towards a more El
Niño-like state."
El Niño is a prominent altering factor on world
climate, affecting weather patterns for months and
years, often causing drought and severe weather in
different parts of the world. "We seek to understand
how El Niño responds to changes in natural factors
such as volcanic activity in part, so we can
potentially better understand how El Niño might
respond to more recent human influences on climate,"
Mann said.
Adams added that the findings might help
oceanographers and atmospheric scientists to make
better probabilistic forecasts of El Niño activity.
"This is not a strictly predictive tool, but it may
help in anticipating the odds that an El Niño event
might occur in a given period," Adams said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
also sponsored the research.
###
NSF PR03-126
NSF Program Contact: Dave Verardo, dverardo@nsf.gov
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an
independent federal agency that supports fundamental
research and education across all fields of science
and engineering, with an annual budget of nearly $5.3
billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through
grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions.
Each year, NSF receives about 30,000 competitive
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Receive official NSF news electronically through the
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===========
(8) PROXY EVIDENCE FOR AN EL NINO-LIKE RESPONSE TO VOLCANIC
FORCING
Nature 426, 274 - 278 (20 November 2003)
http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eMq80FG1G20Ch0FlU0Aw
Proxy evidence for an El Niño-like response to volcanic forcing
J. BRAD ADAMS1, MICHAEL E. MANN1 & CASPAR M. AMMANN2
1 Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia,
Clark Hall, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903, USA
2 Climate Global Dynamics Division, National Center for
Atmospheric Research, 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, Colorado
80307-3000, USA
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to
J.B.A. (jba7g@virginia.edu).
Past studies have suggested a statistical connection between
explosive volcanic eruptions and subsequent El Niño climate
events. This connection, however, has remained controversial.
Here we present support for a response of the El Niño/Southern
Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon to forcing from explosive volcanism
by using two different palaeoclimate reconstructions of El Niño
activity and two independent, proxy-based chronologies of
explosive volcanic activity from AD 1649 to the present. We
demonstrate a significant, multi-year, El Niño-like response to
explosive tropical volcanic forcing over the past several
centuries. The results imply roughly a doubling of the
probability of an El Niño event occurring in the winter
following a volcanic eruption. Our empirical findings shed light
on how the tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere system may respond
to exogenous (both natural and anthropogenic) radiative forcing.
© 2003 Nature Publishing Group
===========
(9) THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
The Guardian, 20 November 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/farout/story/0,13028,1088578,00.html
Mark Pilkington
Thursday November 20, 2003
The Guardian
Polymath, professional psychoanalyst and life-long friend of
Albert Einstein, Immanuel Velikovsky created an international
furore with his 1950 book Worlds in Collision.
Comparing accounts in the Bible's books of Exodus and Joshua and
a contemporaneous Egyptian document, The Admonitions of Ipuwer,
Velikovsky concluded that they chronicled a series of
catastrophic events during the second millennium BC. These
include the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of smoke and fire,
the eruption of Mount Sinai and the various plagues described in
Exodus and, recorded in the Book of Joshua, a huge meteorite fall
and a period of time when the Sun stood still in the sky.
Velikovsky theorised that these events signalled the emergence of
Venus as it broke loose from Jupiter and swept through the Solar
System in the shape of a comet. This Venus-comet, he suggested,
almost collided with Mars and the Earth before settling into its
current orbit, causing our own planet to stop rotating for a
brief period.
Worlds in Collision rode the bestseller lists for 20 weeks, but
the response from the astronomical establishment was devastating.
Perhaps because of his lack of academic astronomical credentials,
Velikovsky was denounced as a charlatan and fool. One conspiracy
theory even suggested that Velikovsky, a Russian Jew, was being
fed disinformation by Russian scientists seeking to destabilise
western academia. Some of his supporters in science and
publishing lost their jobs, while academics organised boycotts of
his lectures and books until his death in 1979.
Although much of his evidence has been proven to be flawed,
Velikovsky's basic premise, that millennia ago some kind of
catastrophe took place in our solar system, has gained some
acceptability. By studying the motion and makeup of asteroid
belts, astronomer Tom van Flandern has posited that there may
have been two extra planets in our solar system at one time, and
that Mars was once a moon that exploded from a now-vanished
planet.
Velikovsky is unlikely to join Bruno and Galileo in the pantheon
of redeemed cosmological heretics, but he is at least assured a
prominent footnote in the annals of science.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
===========
(10) GET REAL: CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS TO INCREASE BY 50% BY
2020
Reuters, 19 November 2003
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20031120/sc_nm/environment_warming_dc
By Jeff Franks
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide,
considered a culprit in global warming, are expected to increase
by 3.5 billion tonnes, or 50 percent, annually by the year 2020,
an executive for ExxonMobil Corp said on Wednesday.
At the same time, global demand for energy will rise by 40
percent as the world population increases and economies grow,
said Randy Broiles, global planning manager for Exxon's oil and
gas production unit.
"Between now and 2020 we estimate increases of some 3.5
billion tonnes per year of additional carbon emissions, so it's
definitely increasing," Broiles said at an energy conference
sponsored by accounting and consulting firm Deloitte.
He said about 7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is a
byproduct of burning fossil fuels, go into the earth's atmosphere
each year from power plants, cars and other sources.
Experts say the United States, which has the world's largest
economy and 4 percent of its population, is responsible for about
25 percent of so-called "greenhouse" gases now
produced, but Broiles said most future growth in output will come
from developing countries.
"Eighty percent of that number, 80 percent of 3.5 billion
tonnes, is going to be driven by those developing countries,
those economies that are growing at the 4 to 5 percent range, so
that's where it's coming from," he said.
A huge increase in the number of cars will cause part of the
pollution growth.
Broiles said there are now 15 cars for every 1,000 people in the
world, but ExxonMobil expects that number to rise to 50 cars per
1,000 by 2020.
He said ExxonMobil foresees a 40 percent increase in energy
demand even though humans are boosting their energy efficiency by
about 1 percent a year. Despite advances in technology most
energy will still come from fossil fuels, and in particular oil
and gas, of which there remain very large reserves, he said.
"The oil resource base is huge -- it's huge -- and we expect
it to satisfy world demand growth well beyond 2020," he
said.
==========
(11) AND FINALLY: NOTORIOUS DOOM-MONGER PREDICTS GLOBAL FOOD
SHORTAGE
Space Daily, 19 November 2003
http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/031119092535.06oc4p3k.html
BEIJING (AFP) Nov 19, 2003
US environmentalist Lester Brown warned Wednesday that sudden
food price hikes in China
could be the sign of a coming world food crisis brought on by
global warming and increasingly
scarce water supplies among major grain producers.
"I view the price rises as an indication, as the warning
tremors before the earthquake,"
Brown, director of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute,
told an audience of Chinese
environmental non-governmental organizations....
-----------
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