Sunday Chess Problem [EvolutionBlog]

For the past two weeks we have looked at calm, sane direct mate problems. Good stuff, but it’s time to mix it up a little. So this week we return to the crazy world of fairy chess. We shall consider a relatively new fairy condition called “Take and Make,” which has taken the problem world by storm over the last few years. I was a little skeptical at first, since it seemed a little too contrived to me, but I have gradually become a convert. There is a lot of room for intriguing themes with it.

Here’s how it works. In Take and Make chess, when a unit of either color makes a capture, it must immediately, as part of its move, make a non-capturing step in imitation of the unit it just captured. (That is, you Take a piece, and then Make a move in imitation of that piece.) So, if a rook takes a knight, the rook would immediately make a knight hop starting from the square on which the knight formerly resided. If no such imitation move is possible, then the capture is impossible. Note that the “Make” step is part of the move. This means a king can take a protected piece without walking into check, since his move is not complete until the imitation move is made. Checks are as in normal chess however. After the hypothetical capture of the king, the capturing piece is not then expected to carry out the “Make” step.

Weird stuff, but all will become clear when we look at this week’s problem. As a warm-up, have a look at this position:



If you understand that this position is checkmate, then you have the hang of Take and Make. The black king is in check from the white pawn on g4. At first blush it looks like black has two ways out, but actually neither of them work. If he takes the pawn on g4, then the black king will immediately have to make a move as if he were a white pawn. But the only such move takes him to g5, and on that square he is in check from the white pawn on h4. Likewise, if the black king takes the pawn on h4 he again needs to make a move in imitation of a white pawn. The only such move takes him to h5, and on that square he is in check from the pawn on g4.

So it is checkmate.

Now here’s this week’s problem. It was composed by Chris Feather in 2014. The stipulation is helpmate in two:



Actually, this problem has a twin, which is something we haven’t seen before. After you solve the diagram, you should move the black pawn from f6 to f5. Now you have another helpmate in two. Of course, we will expect the solutions to the two parts to be related in some way.

Recall that in a helpmate black moves first. White and black cooperate to create a situation in which black is mated. Thus, we are looking for a sequence of this general sort: Black moves, white moves, black moves, white gives mate. Remember, black is helping white here. He wants to get mated!

A quick glance at the position reveals that white has two different batteries pointed at the black king. If either knight moves, it will discover check from either the rook or the bishop. This makes us suspect that the solution will involve firing these batteries at the proper moment. Indeed we will, but not before a rather big shock!

We shall go through the first solution slowly, to make sure we have a grip on the Take and Make rule. Black will start by capturing the white knight on e5. He is not placing himself in check from the white bishop, because his move is not yet complete. After capturing, the black king immediately makes a non-capturing knight hop of his choosing, which he does by moving to g4. We can write this as 1. Kxe5-g4. The position is now this:



The next two moves are 1. … Rxa4-d7 2. Kxf4-d2, leading to this position:



Do you see the point? White still has a rook/knight battery, but the direction of the battery has reversed itself. White now completes his task with 2. … Nxb6-b5 mate.



Pretty neat. Now let’s consider the twin. We move the pawn from f6 to f5, so that we are now starting with this position:



If you suspect that the white bishop/knight battery is going to reverse itself, you’re right! Let’s see how it happens. Play begins 1. Kxd5-c3 Bxh6-d6 2. Kxd4-f4



As promised, the battery has reversed itself. And now 2. … Nxf7-f6 mate.



Very nice! There is tremendous unity here. In each part black’s king captures both pieces of one of white’s batteries, so that his king can get where it needs to be. White’s first move involves relocating the rear piece of a battery to a new location in the same line, while his second move his a knight capturing a pawn to give mate.

So what do you think? Would you like to see more problems with this condition, or is it just a little too weird?



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1BAn1dl

For the past two weeks we have looked at calm, sane direct mate problems. Good stuff, but it’s time to mix it up a little. So this week we return to the crazy world of fairy chess. We shall consider a relatively new fairy condition called “Take and Make,” which has taken the problem world by storm over the last few years. I was a little skeptical at first, since it seemed a little too contrived to me, but I have gradually become a convert. There is a lot of room for intriguing themes with it.

Here’s how it works. In Take and Make chess, when a unit of either color makes a capture, it must immediately, as part of its move, make a non-capturing step in imitation of the unit it just captured. (That is, you Take a piece, and then Make a move in imitation of that piece.) So, if a rook takes a knight, the rook would immediately make a knight hop starting from the square on which the knight formerly resided. If no such imitation move is possible, then the capture is impossible. Note that the “Make” step is part of the move. This means a king can take a protected piece without walking into check, since his move is not complete until the imitation move is made. Checks are as in normal chess however. After the hypothetical capture of the king, the capturing piece is not then expected to carry out the “Make” step.

Weird stuff, but all will become clear when we look at this week’s problem. As a warm-up, have a look at this position:



If you understand that this position is checkmate, then you have the hang of Take and Make. The black king is in check from the white pawn on g4. At first blush it looks like black has two ways out, but actually neither of them work. If he takes the pawn on g4, then the black king will immediately have to make a move as if he were a white pawn. But the only such move takes him to g5, and on that square he is in check from the white pawn on h4. Likewise, if the black king takes the pawn on h4 he again needs to make a move in imitation of a white pawn. The only such move takes him to h5, and on that square he is in check from the pawn on g4.

So it is checkmate.

Now here’s this week’s problem. It was composed by Chris Feather in 2014. The stipulation is helpmate in two:



Actually, this problem has a twin, which is something we haven’t seen before. After you solve the diagram, you should move the black pawn from f6 to f5. Now you have another helpmate in two. Of course, we will expect the solutions to the two parts to be related in some way.

Recall that in a helpmate black moves first. White and black cooperate to create a situation in which black is mated. Thus, we are looking for a sequence of this general sort: Black moves, white moves, black moves, white gives mate. Remember, black is helping white here. He wants to get mated!

A quick glance at the position reveals that white has two different batteries pointed at the black king. If either knight moves, it will discover check from either the rook or the bishop. This makes us suspect that the solution will involve firing these batteries at the proper moment. Indeed we will, but not before a rather big shock!

We shall go through the first solution slowly, to make sure we have a grip on the Take and Make rule. Black will start by capturing the white knight on e5. He is not placing himself in check from the white bishop, because his move is not yet complete. After capturing, the black king immediately makes a non-capturing knight hop of his choosing, which he does by moving to g4. We can write this as 1. Kxe5-g4. The position is now this:



The next two moves are 1. … Rxa4-d7 2. Kxf4-d2, leading to this position:



Do you see the point? White still has a rook/knight battery, but the direction of the battery has reversed itself. White now completes his task with 2. … Nxb6-b5 mate.



Pretty neat. Now let’s consider the twin. We move the pawn from f6 to f5, so that we are now starting with this position:



If you suspect that the white bishop/knight battery is going to reverse itself, you’re right! Let’s see how it happens. Play begins 1. Kxd5-c3 Bxh6-d6 2. Kxd4-f4



As promised, the battery has reversed itself. And now 2. … Nxf7-f6 mate.



Very nice! There is tremendous unity here. In each part black’s king captures both pieces of one of white’s batteries, so that his king can get where it needs to be. White’s first move involves relocating the rear piece of a battery to a new location in the same line, while his second move his a knight capturing a pawn to give mate.

So what do you think? Would you like to see more problems with this condition, or is it just a little too weird?



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1BAn1dl

Weekend Wonder: Keep The Universe Going! (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“The universe is big, its vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that’s the theory. 900 years, never seen one yet, but this would do me.” –Steven Moffat

They say that the best things in life are free, and I’m a firm believer in that. In fact, that’s part of the reason I think the stories I’m always telling — about the Universe, how it is, how we know it, and how it came to be — should be free as well. But I’m not going to lie: in terms of effort, time, energy, and (for my contributors) money, telling that story isn’t quite free at all.

Images courtesy of (clockwise, from top left) Paul Halpern, Amanda Yoho, Summer Ash, Jillian Scudder, Ethan Siegel, Sabine Hossenfelder, Brian Koberlein and James Bullock.

Images courtesy of (clockwise, from top left) Paul Halpern, Amanda Yoho, Summer Ash, Jillian Scudder, Ethan Siegel, Sabine Hossenfelder, Brian Koberlein and James Bullock.

But I don’t want to just keep doing what I’m doing now; I want to enhance our offerings, create more and better things, and have this be the focus of my professional life. I can’t do it alone, though, and I can’t do it without your support. So for the first time, I’ve set up a Patreon, where everything I create will still be free and freely accessible to all, but if you can support me and my contributors, you’ll receive a reward. Here’s our intro video:

Now go learn about this new endeavor, and then — if you can afford it — make a small, monthly donation to us here!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1JcjEBo

“The universe is big, its vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that’s the theory. 900 years, never seen one yet, but this would do me.” –Steven Moffat

They say that the best things in life are free, and I’m a firm believer in that. In fact, that’s part of the reason I think the stories I’m always telling — about the Universe, how it is, how we know it, and how it came to be — should be free as well. But I’m not going to lie: in terms of effort, time, energy, and (for my contributors) money, telling that story isn’t quite free at all.

Images courtesy of (clockwise, from top left) Paul Halpern, Amanda Yoho, Summer Ash, Jillian Scudder, Ethan Siegel, Sabine Hossenfelder, Brian Koberlein and James Bullock.

Images courtesy of (clockwise, from top left) Paul Halpern, Amanda Yoho, Summer Ash, Jillian Scudder, Ethan Siegel, Sabine Hossenfelder, Brian Koberlein and James Bullock.

But I don’t want to just keep doing what I’m doing now; I want to enhance our offerings, create more and better things, and have this be the focus of my professional life. I can’t do it alone, though, and I can’t do it without your support. So for the first time, I’ve set up a Patreon, where everything I create will still be free and freely accessible to all, but if you can support me and my contributors, you’ll receive a reward. Here’s our intro video:

Now go learn about this new endeavor, and then — if you can afford it — make a small, monthly donation to us here!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1JcjEBo

2015 SkS Weekly Digest #22

SkS Highlights

Making sense of the slowdown in global surface warming by Kevin C garnered the most comments of the articles posted on SkS during the past week. Coming in a close second was John Mason's Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK. 

El Niño Watch

Here’s What 2015’s Strong El Niño Means For This Year’s Hurricane Season by Natasha Geiling, Climate Progress, May 28, 2015

Is an El Niño next in pattern of treacherous weather? by Ben Tracy, CBS News, May 29, 2015

Toon of the Week

 2015 Toon 22

Hat tip to I Heart Climate Scientists

Quote of the Week

Andrew E. Dessler, a climate researcher at Texas A & M, compared the question of climate change and weather to trying to figure out which of Barry Bonds’s home runs were caused by his steroid use.

“You know statistically some of them were, but you don’t know which ones,” he said. “Almost certainly, it would have rained a lot even without climate change — but it’s possible climate change juiced it, added a little bit.”

Scientists warn to expect more weather extremes by John Schwartz, New York Times, May 27, 2015 

SkS in the News

In his letter-to-the-editor posted by the Augusta (GA) Free Press, Pete Kurtz touts the SkS website as a credible source of information about a prominent climate scince denier.

In his Guardian essay, How fossil fuel burning nearly wiped out life on Earth – 250m years ago, George Monbiot states:

The latest research into the catastrophe at the end of the Permian is summarised in two articles by the geologist John Mason on the Skeptical Science site. The strongest clues all seem to point to the same conclusion: that the extinctions were triggered by the eruption of an igneous belt even bigger than the Deccan plateau: the Siberian Traps. As well as CO2, the volcanoes there produced sulphur dioxide, chlorides and fluorides, causing acid rain and the depletion of ozone.

In his Vox post, Jeb Bush fumbles for "moderate" stance on climate, falls on face, David Roberts cites and links to the Intermediate version of the SkS Rebuttal article, The 97% consensus on global warming

In his Financial Post op-ed, Manufacturing doubt about climate consensus, John Cook sets the record staight about the TCP. 

Coming Soon on SkS

  • The Carbon Brief interview: Prof Dame Julia Slingo OBE (Leo Hickman)
  • Melting moments: a look under East Antarctica’s biggest glacier (Tas van Ommen)
  • Video: scientists simulate the climate of The Hobbit's Middle Earth (Dana)
  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #23A (John Hartz)
  • The Carbon Brief interview: Thomas Stocker (Roz Pidcock)
  • Guest post (John Abraham)
  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #23B (John Hartz)
  • 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #23 (John Hartz) 

Poster of the Week

 2015 Poster 22

SkS Week in Review

97 Hours of Consensus: Reto Knutti

97 Hours: Reto Knutti

Reto Knutti's bio page

Quote derived with permission from author from:

"Climate change is a fact and humans are very likely responsible for most of it. Long term impacts will mostly be negative. On the positive side: Costs of mitigation, that is to reduce emissions, are smaller than those for prevented damages."

 



from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1ADF9IC

SkS Highlights

Making sense of the slowdown in global surface warming by Kevin C garnered the most comments of the articles posted on SkS during the past week. Coming in a close second was John Mason's Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK. 

El Niño Watch

Here’s What 2015’s Strong El Niño Means For This Year’s Hurricane Season by Natasha Geiling, Climate Progress, May 28, 2015

Is an El Niño next in pattern of treacherous weather? by Ben Tracy, CBS News, May 29, 2015

Toon of the Week

 2015 Toon 22

Hat tip to I Heart Climate Scientists

Quote of the Week

Andrew E. Dessler, a climate researcher at Texas A & M, compared the question of climate change and weather to trying to figure out which of Barry Bonds’s home runs were caused by his steroid use.

“You know statistically some of them were, but you don’t know which ones,” he said. “Almost certainly, it would have rained a lot even without climate change — but it’s possible climate change juiced it, added a little bit.”

Scientists warn to expect more weather extremes by John Schwartz, New York Times, May 27, 2015 

SkS in the News

In his letter-to-the-editor posted by the Augusta (GA) Free Press, Pete Kurtz touts the SkS website as a credible source of information about a prominent climate scince denier.

In his Guardian essay, How fossil fuel burning nearly wiped out life on Earth – 250m years ago, George Monbiot states:

The latest research into the catastrophe at the end of the Permian is summarised in two articles by the geologist John Mason on the Skeptical Science site. The strongest clues all seem to point to the same conclusion: that the extinctions were triggered by the eruption of an igneous belt even bigger than the Deccan plateau: the Siberian Traps. As well as CO2, the volcanoes there produced sulphur dioxide, chlorides and fluorides, causing acid rain and the depletion of ozone.

In his Vox post, Jeb Bush fumbles for "moderate" stance on climate, falls on face, David Roberts cites and links to the Intermediate version of the SkS Rebuttal article, The 97% consensus on global warming

In his Financial Post op-ed, Manufacturing doubt about climate consensus, John Cook sets the record staight about the TCP. 

Coming Soon on SkS

  • The Carbon Brief interview: Prof Dame Julia Slingo OBE (Leo Hickman)
  • Melting moments: a look under East Antarctica’s biggest glacier (Tas van Ommen)
  • Video: scientists simulate the climate of The Hobbit's Middle Earth (Dana)
  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #23A (John Hartz)
  • The Carbon Brief interview: Thomas Stocker (Roz Pidcock)
  • Guest post (John Abraham)
  • 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #23B (John Hartz)
  • 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #23 (John Hartz) 

Poster of the Week

 2015 Poster 22

SkS Week in Review

97 Hours of Consensus: Reto Knutti

97 Hours: Reto Knutti

Reto Knutti's bio page

Quote derived with permission from author from:

"Climate change is a fact and humans are very likely responsible for most of it. Long term impacts will mostly be negative. On the positive side: Costs of mitigation, that is to reduce emissions, are smaller than those for prevented damages."

 



from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1ADF9IC

How do hurricanes get their names?

Ever wonder how hurricanes get their names? And why do hurricanes have names at all? Meteorologists long ago learned that naming tropical storms and hurricanes helps people remember the storms, communicate about them more effectively, and so stay safer if and when a particular storm strikes a coast. These experts assign names to hurricanes according to a formal list of names that is approved of prior to the start of each hurricane season. The U.S. National Hurricane Center started this practice in 1950. Now, the World Meteorological Organization generates and maintains the list of hurricane names. Find out more about hurricane names below.

How and why did hurricanes first begin receiving names?

When does a storm receive a name?

What are “hurricane name lists?”

What are the hurricane names for 2015?

How and why did hurricanes first begin receiving names? While people have been naming major storms for hundreds of years, most hurricanes were originally designated by a system of latitude-longitude numbers, which was useful to meteorologists trying to track these storms. Unfortunately, this system was confusing to people living on coasts seeking hurricane information.

In 1950, a formal practice for storm naming was first developed for the Atlantic Ocean by the U.S. National Hurricane Center. At that time, storms were named according to a phonetic alphabet (e.g., Able, Baker, Charlie) and the names used were the same for each hurricane season; in other words, the first hurricane of a season was always named “Able,” the second “Baker,” and so on.

In 1953, to avoid the repetitive use of names, the system was revised so that storms would be named after female names. By doing this, the National Weather Service was mimicking the habit of Naval meteorologists, who named the storms after women, much as ships at sea were traditionally named for women.

In 1979, the system was revised again to include both female and male hurricane names.

See the complete history of naming hurricanes, from NOAA

When does a storm receive a name? Tropical storms are given names when they display a rotating circulation pattern and wind speeds of 39 miles per hour. A tropical storm develops into a hurricane when wind speeds reach 74 miles per hour.

What are “hurricane name lists?” Lists of hurricane names have been developed for many of the major ocean basins around the world. Today, there are six lists of hurricane names in use for Atlantic Ocean storms. These lists rotate, one each year. That means the list of this year’s hurricane names will come up again six years from now. There’s an exception to this practice, however. The names of hurricanes that are particularly damaging are retired for legal and historical reasons. For example, the use of the name Katrina was retired in 2005 following the devastating impact that Hurricane Katrina had on New Orleans.

See NOAA’s six lists of hurricane names for the Atlantic Ocean

hurricane-katrina-noaa-500

A satellite image of Hurricane Katrina taken on August 29, 2005. Image Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

What are the hurricane names for 2015? Atlantic hurricane names for the 2015 season include Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor, and Wanda.

Eastern North Pacific hurricane names for the 2015 season include Andres, Blanca, Carlos, Dolores, Enrique, Felicia, Guillermo, Hilda, Ignacio, Jimena, Kevin, Linda, Marty, Nora, Olaf, Patricia, Rick, Sandra, Terry, Vivian, Waldo, Xina, York, and Zelda.

Hurricanes in other ocean basins around the world, which are called tropical cyclones, are also given names. If you’re interested, you can view those names here.

hurricane-isabel-nasa-500

Astronaut Ed Lu captured this view of Hurricane Isabel in 2003 from the International Space Station. Image via Mike Trenchard, NASA.

Bottom line: Hurricanes are given names according to a formal system that is managed by the World Meteorological Organization. Hurricane name lists are recycled after a period of years; in the case of the Atlantic Ocean, the lists are re-used every six years.

Close-up views of large hurricane on Saturn



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1kHu4LC

Ever wonder how hurricanes get their names? And why do hurricanes have names at all? Meteorologists long ago learned that naming tropical storms and hurricanes helps people remember the storms, communicate about them more effectively, and so stay safer if and when a particular storm strikes a coast. These experts assign names to hurricanes according to a formal list of names that is approved of prior to the start of each hurricane season. The U.S. National Hurricane Center started this practice in 1950. Now, the World Meteorological Organization generates and maintains the list of hurricane names. Find out more about hurricane names below.

How and why did hurricanes first begin receiving names?

When does a storm receive a name?

What are “hurricane name lists?”

What are the hurricane names for 2015?

How and why did hurricanes first begin receiving names? While people have been naming major storms for hundreds of years, most hurricanes were originally designated by a system of latitude-longitude numbers, which was useful to meteorologists trying to track these storms. Unfortunately, this system was confusing to people living on coasts seeking hurricane information.

In 1950, a formal practice for storm naming was first developed for the Atlantic Ocean by the U.S. National Hurricane Center. At that time, storms were named according to a phonetic alphabet (e.g., Able, Baker, Charlie) and the names used were the same for each hurricane season; in other words, the first hurricane of a season was always named “Able,” the second “Baker,” and so on.

In 1953, to avoid the repetitive use of names, the system was revised so that storms would be named after female names. By doing this, the National Weather Service was mimicking the habit of Naval meteorologists, who named the storms after women, much as ships at sea were traditionally named for women.

In 1979, the system was revised again to include both female and male hurricane names.

See the complete history of naming hurricanes, from NOAA

When does a storm receive a name? Tropical storms are given names when they display a rotating circulation pattern and wind speeds of 39 miles per hour. A tropical storm develops into a hurricane when wind speeds reach 74 miles per hour.

What are “hurricane name lists?” Lists of hurricane names have been developed for many of the major ocean basins around the world. Today, there are six lists of hurricane names in use for Atlantic Ocean storms. These lists rotate, one each year. That means the list of this year’s hurricane names will come up again six years from now. There’s an exception to this practice, however. The names of hurricanes that are particularly damaging are retired for legal and historical reasons. For example, the use of the name Katrina was retired in 2005 following the devastating impact that Hurricane Katrina had on New Orleans.

See NOAA’s six lists of hurricane names for the Atlantic Ocean

hurricane-katrina-noaa-500

A satellite image of Hurricane Katrina taken on August 29, 2005. Image Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

What are the hurricane names for 2015? Atlantic hurricane names for the 2015 season include Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor, and Wanda.

Eastern North Pacific hurricane names for the 2015 season include Andres, Blanca, Carlos, Dolores, Enrique, Felicia, Guillermo, Hilda, Ignacio, Jimena, Kevin, Linda, Marty, Nora, Olaf, Patricia, Rick, Sandra, Terry, Vivian, Waldo, Xina, York, and Zelda.

Hurricanes in other ocean basins around the world, which are called tropical cyclones, are also given names. If you’re interested, you can view those names here.

hurricane-isabel-nasa-500

Astronaut Ed Lu captured this view of Hurricane Isabel in 2003 from the International Space Station. Image via Mike Trenchard, NASA.

Bottom line: Hurricanes are given names according to a formal system that is managed by the World Meteorological Organization. Hurricane name lists are recycled after a period of years; in the case of the Atlantic Ocean, the lists are re-used every six years.

Close-up views of large hurricane on Saturn



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1kHu4LC

Now is the time to prepare for hurricanes

In conjunction with the start of the hurricane season in the Eastern Pacific (May 15) and Atlantic Oceans (June 1), officials with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are urging residents in coastal areas to develop preparedness plans.

Hurricanes are powerful storms with strong winds (74 miles per hour or greater) that develop over ocean basins. If they make landfall, they can be deadly. Not only can high winds topple trees and power lines, but storms surges can flood coastal zones and areas far inland. Storms surges often pose the greatest risk during a hurricane.

To help protect coastal residential along the eastern seaboard and Gulf coasts, NOAA officials will – for the first time – be producing storm surge watch and warning graphics during the 2015 hurricane season. These graphics will be available from the National Hurricane Center and will look similar to the picture posted below.

Example of a storm surge forecast that will be issued during the 2015 hurricane season. Image Credit: NOAA.

Example of a storm surge forecast that will be issued during the 2015 hurricane season. Watch for these forecasts at this link. Image via NOAA.

This year’s hurricane forecast from NOAA is calling for a below-normal season in the Atlantic with the potential for 3 to 6 hurricanes and an above-normal season in the Eastern Pacific with the potential for 7 to 12 hurricanes.

Kathryn Sullivan, NOAA Administrator, is urging coastal residents to be prepared for the upcoming hurricane season. She said:

A below-normal season doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. As we’ve seen before, below-normal seasons can still produce catastrophic impacts to communities.

Hurricane Katrina on August 28, 2005. Image Credit: NASA.

Hurricane Katrina on August 28, 2005. Image Credit: NASA.

There are several steps you can take to prepare for hurricane. First, pay close attention to weather forecasts during the hurricane season. Second, have an evacuation plan in place in case you need to leave your home. Third, prepare a home emergency preparedness kit—this kit should include things like non-perishable food, water, toiletries, first aid supplies, a hand-crank radio, and a flashlight. Visit Ready.gov for more good tips on what to do before, during, and after a hurricane.

Joseph Nimmich, the Deputy Adiministrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said:

It only takes one hurricane or tropical storm making landfall in your community to significantly disrupt your life. Everyone should take action now to prepare themselves and their families for hurricanes and powerful storms. Develop a family communications plan, build an emergency supply kit for your home, and take time to learn evacuation routes for your area. Knowing what to do ahead of time can literally save your life and help you bounce back stronger and faster should disaster strike in your area.

Image via NOAA.

Image via NOAA.

Bottom line: Hurricane season 2015 starts on May 15 in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and June 1 in the Atlantic Ocean. If you live in a coastal area, it is important to have a preparedness plan in place.

How do hurricanes get their names?

NOAA forecasts slow 2015 Atlantic hurricane season

Nature’s roadblock to accurate seasonal hurricane forecasts



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1crUDUf

In conjunction with the start of the hurricane season in the Eastern Pacific (May 15) and Atlantic Oceans (June 1), officials with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are urging residents in coastal areas to develop preparedness plans.

Hurricanes are powerful storms with strong winds (74 miles per hour or greater) that develop over ocean basins. If they make landfall, they can be deadly. Not only can high winds topple trees and power lines, but storms surges can flood coastal zones and areas far inland. Storms surges often pose the greatest risk during a hurricane.

To help protect coastal residential along the eastern seaboard and Gulf coasts, NOAA officials will – for the first time – be producing storm surge watch and warning graphics during the 2015 hurricane season. These graphics will be available from the National Hurricane Center and will look similar to the picture posted below.

Example of a storm surge forecast that will be issued during the 2015 hurricane season. Image Credit: NOAA.

Example of a storm surge forecast that will be issued during the 2015 hurricane season. Watch for these forecasts at this link. Image via NOAA.

This year’s hurricane forecast from NOAA is calling for a below-normal season in the Atlantic with the potential for 3 to 6 hurricanes and an above-normal season in the Eastern Pacific with the potential for 7 to 12 hurricanes.

Kathryn Sullivan, NOAA Administrator, is urging coastal residents to be prepared for the upcoming hurricane season. She said:

A below-normal season doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. As we’ve seen before, below-normal seasons can still produce catastrophic impacts to communities.

Hurricane Katrina on August 28, 2005. Image Credit: NASA.

Hurricane Katrina on August 28, 2005. Image Credit: NASA.

There are several steps you can take to prepare for hurricane. First, pay close attention to weather forecasts during the hurricane season. Second, have an evacuation plan in place in case you need to leave your home. Third, prepare a home emergency preparedness kit—this kit should include things like non-perishable food, water, toiletries, first aid supplies, a hand-crank radio, and a flashlight. Visit Ready.gov for more good tips on what to do before, during, and after a hurricane.

Joseph Nimmich, the Deputy Adiministrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said:

It only takes one hurricane or tropical storm making landfall in your community to significantly disrupt your life. Everyone should take action now to prepare themselves and their families for hurricanes and powerful storms. Develop a family communications plan, build an emergency supply kit for your home, and take time to learn evacuation routes for your area. Knowing what to do ahead of time can literally save your life and help you bounce back stronger and faster should disaster strike in your area.

Image via NOAA.

Image via NOAA.

Bottom line: Hurricane season 2015 starts on May 15 in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and June 1 in the Atlantic Ocean. If you live in a coastal area, it is important to have a preparedness plan in place.

How do hurricanes get their names?

NOAA forecasts slow 2015 Atlantic hurricane season

Nature’s roadblock to accurate seasonal hurricane forecasts



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The Growth of My Digital Photography [Uncertain Principles]

Over at Wired, Rhett has a post providing mathematical proof that he takes too many photos. As is traditional, he includes homework at the end of the post, specifically:

Now it is your turn. Find the number of photos you have taken each year. Is it possible for you to detect changes in your life by significant changes in the image rate? Maybe you purchased a new phone or had a new addition to your family which resulted in an increase in images. That would be cool if you could see that in your data.

Well, I can’t really resist a challenge like that, so I went looking at my own photo collection. The problem is, though, that most of my older digital photos exist only in an off-site backup, as it were– I was running short of disk space, so I deleted the local copies, keeping backups on an online service that Kate uses. Re-downloading all those pictures just to count files would be tedious and also stupid, so I’ll do this using a proxy measure, namely the size of the folder containing each year’s photos. Since this is in response to Rhett, I’ll use Plotly to display the resulting graph:

Saved Photos (GB) vs Year-2003

As you can see, there’s a clear break point in the graph at around 2009. There’s a very good reason for that, namely that in 2009 I upgraded my camera from a Canon A93 point-and-shoot to a Canon Rebel XSi DSLR model. This brought a big jump up in the size of the files, and also an increase in the rate of picture taking, since the DSLR has a continuous shooting mode. I split the data into two series, and color-coded them by the camera type for the graph above, to make that clearer.

Lacking a local copy, I don’t have a very good way to convert this to number-of-pictures. A ballpark estimate of the file sizes for the two cameras produces results that I know are wrong– the average file size for the A93 camera is about 1.6MB, but using that suggests that I took only 530-odd photos in 2007, when I know I took over 1500 on our trip to Japan that year, so something is screwy. Maybe the Japan photos aren’t in the backup 2007 folder? In that case, though, the 2007 number would jump way up, changing the trend in that plot…

The big take-away from this, though, is that these data don’t look anywhere near as cleanly exponential as Rhett’s did. It looks much more like two different linear trends, but with a lot of noise. I did attempt to fit an exponential curve to this, but Plotly insists on giving it a negative constant offset, which is nonsensical, and I don’t care enough to crank this into SigmaPlot.

I am a little surprised that you can’t see the point where I took over as department chair (August of 2012), though, because my vague sense is that I’ve been doing much less photography since then, due to lack of time. That’s not really reflected in the data, though. I also would’ve expected 2014 to involve more pictures than 2013, what with our trip to London last year. But that’s also not in the data in any obvious way. Go figure.



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LQZNpr

Over at Wired, Rhett has a post providing mathematical proof that he takes too many photos. As is traditional, he includes homework at the end of the post, specifically:

Now it is your turn. Find the number of photos you have taken each year. Is it possible for you to detect changes in your life by significant changes in the image rate? Maybe you purchased a new phone or had a new addition to your family which resulted in an increase in images. That would be cool if you could see that in your data.

Well, I can’t really resist a challenge like that, so I went looking at my own photo collection. The problem is, though, that most of my older digital photos exist only in an off-site backup, as it were– I was running short of disk space, so I deleted the local copies, keeping backups on an online service that Kate uses. Re-downloading all those pictures just to count files would be tedious and also stupid, so I’ll do this using a proxy measure, namely the size of the folder containing each year’s photos. Since this is in response to Rhett, I’ll use Plotly to display the resulting graph:

Saved Photos (GB) vs Year-2003

As you can see, there’s a clear break point in the graph at around 2009. There’s a very good reason for that, namely that in 2009 I upgraded my camera from a Canon A93 point-and-shoot to a Canon Rebel XSi DSLR model. This brought a big jump up in the size of the files, and also an increase in the rate of picture taking, since the DSLR has a continuous shooting mode. I split the data into two series, and color-coded them by the camera type for the graph above, to make that clearer.

Lacking a local copy, I don’t have a very good way to convert this to number-of-pictures. A ballpark estimate of the file sizes for the two cameras produces results that I know are wrong– the average file size for the A93 camera is about 1.6MB, but using that suggests that I took only 530-odd photos in 2007, when I know I took over 1500 on our trip to Japan that year, so something is screwy. Maybe the Japan photos aren’t in the backup 2007 folder? In that case, though, the 2007 number would jump way up, changing the trend in that plot…

The big take-away from this, though, is that these data don’t look anywhere near as cleanly exponential as Rhett’s did. It looks much more like two different linear trends, but with a lot of noise. I did attempt to fit an exponential curve to this, but Plotly insists on giving it a negative constant offset, which is nonsensical, and I don’t care enough to crank this into SigmaPlot.

I am a little surprised that you can’t see the point where I took over as department chair (August of 2012), though, because my vague sense is that I’ve been doing much less photography since then, due to lack of time. That’s not really reflected in the data, though. I also would’ve expected 2014 to involve more pictures than 2013, what with our trip to London last year. But that’s also not in the data in any obvious way. Go figure.



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LQZNpr

This date in science: Walt Whitman’s birthday

May 31, 1819. Walt Whitman might not have approved of having his birthday listed among great dates in science. After all, he was a poet. But this quote by itself caused us to include him:

This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

Because don’t these ideas remind you of science? Not yet? Then how about this one?

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

Walt Whitman as photographed by Matthew Brady.

Walt Whitman as photographed by Matthew Brady.

Poet and journalist Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 in West Hills, New York. He is considered to be one of America’s most influential poets, and his collection Leaves of Grass is considered a landmark in American literature.

Bottom line: Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819.



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1KFOdQk

May 31, 1819. Walt Whitman might not have approved of having his birthday listed among great dates in science. After all, he was a poet. But this quote by itself caused us to include him:

This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

Because don’t these ideas remind you of science? Not yet? Then how about this one?

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

Walt Whitman as photographed by Matthew Brady.

Walt Whitman as photographed by Matthew Brady.

Poet and journalist Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 in West Hills, New York. He is considered to be one of America’s most influential poets, and his collection Leaves of Grass is considered a landmark in American literature.

Bottom line: Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819.



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1KFOdQk

Students Take On Lab Design Challenge at Natick

By Tazanyia Mouton
USAG-Natick Public Affairs

More than 150 students, from 17 colleges and universities and three service academies, were on hand at the Natick Soldier Systems Center, April 13-17, as they participated in the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) University and Service Academy Design Challenge.

The AFRL is a scientific research organization operated by the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command, dedicated to leading the discovery, development and integration of affordable aerospace warfighting technologies.

The laboratory, formed in 1997, has conducted numerous experiments and technical demonstrations in conjunction with a wide range of agencies to include the Department of Defense.

The AFRL design challenge makes great efforts to deliver creative solutions to challenging problems, and presents an exciting opportunity for students to exercise their talents and contribute to the nation’s defense.

Students from Wright State University prepare their test subject to enter the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center's Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton, USAG Natick Public Affairs)

Students from Wright State University prepare their test subject to enter the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton/USAG Natick Public Affairs/Released)

This year’s challenge asked students to design and prototype a heat stress prevention kit that could safely, rapidly and effectively remove undesired heat away from body exteriors during special operations in hot and humid environments.

In hot environments, it is often difficult for the warfighter to wear heavy protective equipment so, the challenge also called for the kit to be rapidly deployable, self contained, and portable.

In September, students were given their mission. They had seven months to develop their ideas and create their prototypes.

Students from Johns Hopkins University unload their heat stress prevention prototype during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center's Doriot Climatic Chambers, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton/USAG Natick Public Affairs/Released)

Students from Johns Hopkins University unload their heat stress prevention prototype during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Doriot Climatic Chambers, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton/USAG Natick Public Affairs/Released)

The prototypes were tested in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Doriot Climatic Chambers. This one-of-a-kind facility can reproduce environmental conditions that occur anywhere in the world, producing tropic wind with temperatures as high as 165 degrees, and arctic wind with temperatures as low as minus 70 degrees.

The chambers can also simulate rain up to four inches per hour and wind up to 40 miles per hour.

Through these extreme conditions, testing of physical properties of military equipment, as well as testing of physiology and adaptations of human subjects, can be performed here.

Josh Osborne, an aerospace engineer and AFRL design competition program manager, said the challenge is unique because it can present a solution to a real-world need for Air Force Special Operations.

“The overall purpose is to get a system [or] an idea together to solve the problem,” Osborne said. “At the same time, grow the future engineers that are ready to graduate and get them interested.”

Osborne said that the students also had to consider the dimensions of the system.

“When a special operations person takes something with them, they have to think, ‘Would I leave a (meal, ready-to-eat) behind to take this?’ So it has to be important enough for them to bring it to begin with, so weight and size is a big thing,” Osborne said.

Test subjects walk on a treadmill with student prototypes of heat stress prevention kits in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center's Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton/USAG Natick Public Affairs)

Test subjects walk on a treadmill with student prototypes of heat stress prevention kits in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton/USAG Natick Public Affairs/Released)

After several months of working on their innovations, the challengers tested their prototypes in the chambers. Test subjects donned the students’ prototypes and walked on a treadmill for one hour at an approximate pace of three miles per hour with temperatures nearing 100 degrees Fahrenheit with 40-percent relative humidity.

Osborne said throughout the test, subjects’ heart rates and skin temperatures were monitored.

A test administrator holds up a sign to gauge how test subjects feel in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center's Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge in the Doriot Climatic Chambers, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton, USAG Natick Public Affairs)

A test administrator holds up a sign to gauge how test subjects feel in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge in the Doriot Climatic Chambers, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton, USAG Natick Public Affairs/Released)

Cadet Ioannis Wallingford, a senior at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, said he is proud of the work his team has done.

“It feels great; it’s something that actually touches me pretty deep,” Wallingford said.

Wallingford said that during cadet basic training, a classmate of his died due to a heat-related incident.

“I chose this capstone because this is something that would have decreased the risk for an incident like that to happen,” Wallingford said.

Wallingford described his teams’ prototype as sophisticated but also simple.

“Our system uses a passive system combined with an active system because we realized our passive system alone would not produce the cooling capacity required,” Wallingford said. “It creates a synergistic effect between the two.”

The winner of the university challenge was Michigan Technological University, followed by second place, Auburn University, and third place Utah State University.

The winning university team of the AFRL challenge was not only awarded a symbolic “Wright Brothers” trophy, but the potential for a $100,000 grant to further develop their innovative idea.

The service academy winner of this year’s challenge was the team from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The service academies were in a separate competition among themselves, where they had a chance to win bragging rights for the next year, as well as a trophy of their own.

Students also “win” by experiencing solutions to real-world problems, while getting an opportunity to contribute to products that could potentially help save the lives of our nation’s warfighters.

Story and information provided by the U.S. Army
Follow Armed with Science on Facebook and Twitter!

———-

Disclaimer: Re-published content may have been edited for length and clarity. The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense. For other than authorized activities, such as, military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.



from Armed with Science http://ift.tt/1KFNMW9

By Tazanyia Mouton
USAG-Natick Public Affairs

More than 150 students, from 17 colleges and universities and three service academies, were on hand at the Natick Soldier Systems Center, April 13-17, as they participated in the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) University and Service Academy Design Challenge.

The AFRL is a scientific research organization operated by the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command, dedicated to leading the discovery, development and integration of affordable aerospace warfighting technologies.

The laboratory, formed in 1997, has conducted numerous experiments and technical demonstrations in conjunction with a wide range of agencies to include the Department of Defense.

The AFRL design challenge makes great efforts to deliver creative solutions to challenging problems, and presents an exciting opportunity for students to exercise their talents and contribute to the nation’s defense.

Students from Wright State University prepare their test subject to enter the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center's Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton, USAG Natick Public Affairs)

Students from Wright State University prepare their test subject to enter the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton/USAG Natick Public Affairs/Released)

This year’s challenge asked students to design and prototype a heat stress prevention kit that could safely, rapidly and effectively remove undesired heat away from body exteriors during special operations in hot and humid environments.

In hot environments, it is often difficult for the warfighter to wear heavy protective equipment so, the challenge also called for the kit to be rapidly deployable, self contained, and portable.

In September, students were given their mission. They had seven months to develop their ideas and create their prototypes.

Students from Johns Hopkins University unload their heat stress prevention prototype during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center's Doriot Climatic Chambers, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton/USAG Natick Public Affairs/Released)

Students from Johns Hopkins University unload their heat stress prevention prototype during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Doriot Climatic Chambers, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton/USAG Natick Public Affairs/Released)

The prototypes were tested in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Doriot Climatic Chambers. This one-of-a-kind facility can reproduce environmental conditions that occur anywhere in the world, producing tropic wind with temperatures as high as 165 degrees, and arctic wind with temperatures as low as minus 70 degrees.

The chambers can also simulate rain up to four inches per hour and wind up to 40 miles per hour.

Through these extreme conditions, testing of physical properties of military equipment, as well as testing of physiology and adaptations of human subjects, can be performed here.

Josh Osborne, an aerospace engineer and AFRL design competition program manager, said the challenge is unique because it can present a solution to a real-world need for Air Force Special Operations.

“The overall purpose is to get a system [or] an idea together to solve the problem,” Osborne said. “At the same time, grow the future engineers that are ready to graduate and get them interested.”

Osborne said that the students also had to consider the dimensions of the system.

“When a special operations person takes something with them, they have to think, ‘Would I leave a (meal, ready-to-eat) behind to take this?’ So it has to be important enough for them to bring it to begin with, so weight and size is a big thing,” Osborne said.

Test subjects walk on a treadmill with student prototypes of heat stress prevention kits in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center's Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton/USAG Natick Public Affairs)

Test subjects walk on a treadmill with student prototypes of heat stress prevention kits in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton/USAG Natick Public Affairs/Released)

After several months of working on their innovations, the challengers tested their prototypes in the chambers. Test subjects donned the students’ prototypes and walked on a treadmill for one hour at an approximate pace of three miles per hour with temperatures nearing 100 degrees Fahrenheit with 40-percent relative humidity.

Osborne said throughout the test, subjects’ heart rates and skin temperatures were monitored.

A test administrator holds up a sign to gauge how test subjects feel in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center's Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge in the Doriot Climatic Chambers, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton, USAG Natick Public Affairs)

A test administrator holds up a sign to gauge how test subjects feel in the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Doriot Climatic Chambers during the 2015 Air Force Research Laboratory University and Service Academy Design Challenge in the Doriot Climatic Chambers, April 17, 2015. (Photo: Tazanyia Mouton, USAG Natick Public Affairs/Released)

Cadet Ioannis Wallingford, a senior at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, said he is proud of the work his team has done.

“It feels great; it’s something that actually touches me pretty deep,” Wallingford said.

Wallingford said that during cadet basic training, a classmate of his died due to a heat-related incident.

“I chose this capstone because this is something that would have decreased the risk for an incident like that to happen,” Wallingford said.

Wallingford described his teams’ prototype as sophisticated but also simple.

“Our system uses a passive system combined with an active system because we realized our passive system alone would not produce the cooling capacity required,” Wallingford said. “It creates a synergistic effect between the two.”

The winner of the university challenge was Michigan Technological University, followed by second place, Auburn University, and third place Utah State University.

The winning university team of the AFRL challenge was not only awarded a symbolic “Wright Brothers” trophy, but the potential for a $100,000 grant to further develop their innovative idea.

The service academy winner of this year’s challenge was the team from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The service academies were in a separate competition among themselves, where they had a chance to win bragging rights for the next year, as well as a trophy of their own.

Students also “win” by experiencing solutions to real-world problems, while getting an opportunity to contribute to products that could potentially help save the lives of our nation’s warfighters.

Story and information provided by the U.S. Army
Follow Armed with Science on Facebook and Twitter!

———-

Disclaimer: Re-published content may have been edited for length and clarity. The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense. For other than authorized activities, such as, military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.



from Armed with Science http://ift.tt/1KFNMW9

LightSail phones home after 8-day silence

Artist's concept of LightSail in orbit around Earth. Image by Josh Spradling/The Planetary Society.

Artist’s concept of LightSail in orbit around Earth. Image by Josh Spradling/The Planetary Society.

The Planetary Society’s LightSail spacecraft went silent after two days of communications, falling victim to a suspected software glitch following a successful launch into orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket on May 20, 2015. Now, as expected, LightSail has phoned home. Jason Davis, who is covering the mission for the Planetary Society, wrote at his blog on May 30, 2015:

At 5:21 p.m. EDT (21:21 UTC), an automated radio chirp was received and decoded at the spacecraft’s Cal Poly San Luis Obispo ground station. Another came in eight minutes later at 5:29 p.m. The real-time clock on board the spacecraft, which does not reset after a software reboot, read 908,125 seconds—approximately ten-and-a-half days since LightSail’s May 20 launch.

The LightSail team will soon determine when to attempt deployment of the spacecraft’s thin, lightweight reflective sails. LightSail is a solar sailing spacecraft test mission and precursor to a 2016 mission. The satellite is about the size of a loaf of bread and consists of four identical triangular Mylar solar sails, attached to four 4-meter booms. When fully deployed, its square sail is designed to be pushed upon by radiation pressure from our sun. In full-scale, future light sail missions, steady pressure from the sun’s radiation would at first move the craft slowly, but eventually accelerate up to very fast speeds. The Planetary Society hopes solar sails will someday be used to propel spacecraft to the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond.

Bill Nye (The Science Guy), CEO at The Planetary Society, issued the following statement:

Our LightSail called home! It’s alive! Our LightSail spacecraft has rebooted itself, just as our engineers predicted. Everyone is delighted. We were ready for three more weeks of anxiety. In this meantime, the team has coded a software patch ready to upload. After we are confident in the data packets regarding our orbit, we will make decisions about uploading the patch and deploying our sails — and we’ll make those decisions very soon.

LightSail’s exact position is not yet clear, complicating two-way communication. Jason Davis wrote:

The ten ULTRASat spacecraft [which launched together with LightSail on May 20, aboard the Atlas V] have drifted into two groups. At the time the first signal was received at Cal Poly, all ten spacecraft appeared to be in range — no help, from a visual standpoint. But when the second signal came in eight minutes later, only the trailing group appeared to be close enough. [The image below] is only a rough estimation; a full simulation by Georgia Tech is pending.

The primary goal of this test flight is to practice the procedure for sail deployment.

LightSail’s second flight, scheduled for 2016, will mark the first controlled, Earth-orbit solar sail flight. The plan there is that LightSail will ride along with the first operational launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket.

This isn’t the first-ever test of solar sail technology. Japan’s Ikaros solar sail was tested in 2010, and NASA’s Nanosail-D spacecraft orbited in 2011.

Bottom line: Two days after its launch aboard an Atlas V on May 20, 2015, the Planetary Society’s LightSail test satellite fell silent. It has now re-booted and is back in communications with Earth. The LightSail team will soon determine when to attempt deployment of the spacecraft’s sails.

Via Planetary Society

For more in-depth coverage of LightSail’s test and 2016 missions, follow Jason Davis’ blog at the Planetary Society.



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1crjDLm
Artist's concept of LightSail in orbit around Earth. Image by Josh Spradling/The Planetary Society.

Artist’s concept of LightSail in orbit around Earth. Image by Josh Spradling/The Planetary Society.

The Planetary Society’s LightSail spacecraft went silent after two days of communications, falling victim to a suspected software glitch following a successful launch into orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket on May 20, 2015. Now, as expected, LightSail has phoned home. Jason Davis, who is covering the mission for the Planetary Society, wrote at his blog on May 30, 2015:

At 5:21 p.m. EDT (21:21 UTC), an automated radio chirp was received and decoded at the spacecraft’s Cal Poly San Luis Obispo ground station. Another came in eight minutes later at 5:29 p.m. The real-time clock on board the spacecraft, which does not reset after a software reboot, read 908,125 seconds—approximately ten-and-a-half days since LightSail’s May 20 launch.

The LightSail team will soon determine when to attempt deployment of the spacecraft’s thin, lightweight reflective sails. LightSail is a solar sailing spacecraft test mission and precursor to a 2016 mission. The satellite is about the size of a loaf of bread and consists of four identical triangular Mylar solar sails, attached to four 4-meter booms. When fully deployed, its square sail is designed to be pushed upon by radiation pressure from our sun. In full-scale, future light sail missions, steady pressure from the sun’s radiation would at first move the craft slowly, but eventually accelerate up to very fast speeds. The Planetary Society hopes solar sails will someday be used to propel spacecraft to the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond.

Bill Nye (The Science Guy), CEO at The Planetary Society, issued the following statement:

Our LightSail called home! It’s alive! Our LightSail spacecraft has rebooted itself, just as our engineers predicted. Everyone is delighted. We were ready for three more weeks of anxiety. In this meantime, the team has coded a software patch ready to upload. After we are confident in the data packets regarding our orbit, we will make decisions about uploading the patch and deploying our sails — and we’ll make those decisions very soon.

LightSail’s exact position is not yet clear, complicating two-way communication. Jason Davis wrote:

The ten ULTRASat spacecraft [which launched together with LightSail on May 20, aboard the Atlas V] have drifted into two groups. At the time the first signal was received at Cal Poly, all ten spacecraft appeared to be in range — no help, from a visual standpoint. But when the second signal came in eight minutes later, only the trailing group appeared to be close enough. [The image below] is only a rough estimation; a full simulation by Georgia Tech is pending.

The primary goal of this test flight is to practice the procedure for sail deployment.

LightSail’s second flight, scheduled for 2016, will mark the first controlled, Earth-orbit solar sail flight. The plan there is that LightSail will ride along with the first operational launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket.

This isn’t the first-ever test of solar sail technology. Japan’s Ikaros solar sail was tested in 2010, and NASA’s Nanosail-D spacecraft orbited in 2011.

Bottom line: Two days after its launch aboard an Atlas V on May 20, 2015, the Planetary Society’s LightSail test satellite fell silent. It has now re-booted and is back in communications with Earth. The LightSail team will soon determine when to attempt deployment of the spacecraft’s sails.

Via Planetary Society

For more in-depth coverage of LightSail’s test and 2016 missions, follow Jason Davis’ blog at the Planetary Society.



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1crjDLm

How do you sell death? The tangled world of illicit tobacco

illicit tobacco

Tobacco companies make more profit every year than Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Google, and Disney combined – a staggering £30 billion.

That vast amount of money is difficult to comprehend, and even more so if you think about how those profits are made: divide those billions by the 6 million tobacco-linked deaths worldwide each year, and it turns out that the tobacco industry makes about £6,000 from each death.

So how do they get away with it, and still make billions?

Clearly, it helps if you use whatever means necessary to keep people addicted to your deadly product.

So to mark this year’s World No Tobacco Day, let’s delve into the tangled history of the illicit tobacco trade, where corporate words fail to match corporate actions – and public health loses out.

World No Tobacco Day

This year’s World No Tobacco Day sets out to focus the public’s mind on this illicit trade, which has been fuelled by both criminal networks and by tobacco companies’ own leaky supply-chains. Consequently, ‘illicit’ tobacco products are both genuine cigarettes smuggled across borders to avoid tax, and counterfeit products.

Each year, sales of these products cost more than €10 billion in lost tax and customs revenue across Europe.

And given that Governments continue to use tax to reduce smoking rates, illicit trade undermines public health by making smoking cheaper and more accessible to children and vulnerable communities.

So what do the tobacco companies have to say for themselves on the matter?

An argument made of air

During the campaign for standard packs, one of the tobacco industry’s key arguments was that plain packs would make counterfeit and smuggled tobacco easier to come by. As we said at the time, this argument is deeply flawed, for two reasons:

Firstly, because of the clear evidence that these companies themselves play a role in illegal trade.

Secondly, as we’ll see below, because of the very nature of international tobacco smuggling.

In fact, there is no reliable evidence that the introduction of standardised packs – due in the UK in 2016 – will increase smuggling. When the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) looked in depth at the issue, they found “no evidence to suggest the introduction of standardised packaging will have a significant impact on the overall size of the illicit market or prompt a step-change in the activity of organised crime groups”.

But as well as using tobacco smuggling and illicit trade as a red herring to try to interfere with measures like standard packs, it grates to hear tobacco companies say that legal cigarettes represent a ‘safer’ option.

Let’s be clear: there is no such thing as a safe cigarette – legally manufactured or illicit – with ‘legitimate’ cigarettes containing around 70 cancer causing chemicals.

A history of mischief

So let’s look at the smuggling trade – and how the industry has been found out.

Each year some 400 billion cigarettes are illegally smuggled across international borders, making it the most widely smuggled legal product.

In 2001, the European Commission, along with 10 EU Member States filed legal action against three of the largest tobacco companies, Philip Morris International (PMI), R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co and Japan Tobacco International (JTI), for:

‘…an ongoing global scheme to smuggle cigarettes, launder the proceeds of narcotics trafficking, obstruct government oversight of the tobacco industry, fix prices, bribe foreign public officials, and conduct illegal trade with terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism’. (Emphasis ours)

Smuggling is an age-old problem

Smuggling is an age-old problem

PMI and JTI settled their cases in 2004 and 2007 respectively. But in August 2014, the courts upheld a decision which will allow the EU to pursue a case against R.J. Reynolds relating to the company’s alleged involvement in a criminal money-laundering and cigarette smuggling scheme.

And there’s more. In the UK in June 2013, the National Audit Office reported that HMRC had also kept a watch on manufacturers’ ‘oversupply’, i.e. producing or importing far too much tobacco in one area, making smuggling to another much easier (we blogged about it at the time).

In some instances, the HMRC estimated that the total supply of some brands of rolling tobacco to some countries exceeded demand by 240 per cent in 2011.

Since this report, HMRC hit British American Tobacco with a £650,000 fine in November 2014 for oversupplying cigarettes to Belgium which has lower tobacco taxes than the UK.

Fox guarding the hen house

The agreements following the European Commission’s legal action included obligations on several companies to make large payments.

PMI alone agreed to pay £674 million over 12 years – but it was also ordered to control the future smuggling of its cigarettes through a range of measures.

Frustratingly, however, it was left to the company itself to put these measures into practice. Given its track record, it’s hard to believe that it was put in charge of monitoring its own illicit trade.

Andy Rowell, research fellow at the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, is not convinced at all. ”The tobacco companies have a history of complicity in smuggling. But we know that leopards do not change their spots,” he told us.

“The companies are spending millions trying to con people that they are the victims of smuggling rather than the villains,” he says.

The 12 year agreement is now coming to an end – but the European Commission is now discussing its ‘renewal’ with Phillip Morris.

This is incredibly worrying.  There’s a fundamental conflict here, considering that the international community recognises the threat the industry poses to public health policy.

Now 180 parties have signed up to an international treaty to help reduce smoking rates and deal with the tobacco industry. Within this treaty – the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (the FCTC treaty) – there’s a specific section worth noting. Known as Article 5.3, it’s designed to keep these companies at arm’s length when it comes to decisions about people’s well being.

Article 5.3 states that governments should engage with tobacco companies:

 ‘only when and to the extent strictly necessary to enable them to effectively regulate the tobacco industry and tobacco products’.

But is it really ‘strictly necessary’ for the EU to engage with PMI over illicit trade? And when it does, what does it say? Over the last 10 years there has been a worrying lack of transparency.

What needs to be done

We already have the blueprint for tackling illicit trade. The World Health Organisation’s Protocol to Eliminate Trade in Illicit Tobacco Products (ITP) outlines the introduction of a tracking and tracing system for tobacco products. But the protocol is useless without action – all 180 parties to the FCTC treaty should sign and ratify this protocol.

And we need to make sure the ‘track and trace’ system is one that will work, NOT one run by industry itself – something Rowell says is their preferred end-game, “which would be very much letting the foxes take over the hen house.”

It’s vital that this system – and all future initiatives to tackle the illicit trade – are completely independent of tobacco industry involvement, and that we learn from the past.

Tobacco products – which have no safe level of use – kill the population equivalent to Scotland every year. The industry’s involvement in the illicit trade demonstrates why we must raise the drawbridge, and not give them the key.

  • Stephanie McClellan is a press officer at Cancer Research UK

Image: Illicit tobacco via HMRC/Flickr, used under CC-BY 2.0



from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1FMalUJ
illicit tobacco

Tobacco companies make more profit every year than Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Google, and Disney combined – a staggering £30 billion.

That vast amount of money is difficult to comprehend, and even more so if you think about how those profits are made: divide those billions by the 6 million tobacco-linked deaths worldwide each year, and it turns out that the tobacco industry makes about £6,000 from each death.

So how do they get away with it, and still make billions?

Clearly, it helps if you use whatever means necessary to keep people addicted to your deadly product.

So to mark this year’s World No Tobacco Day, let’s delve into the tangled history of the illicit tobacco trade, where corporate words fail to match corporate actions – and public health loses out.

World No Tobacco Day

This year’s World No Tobacco Day sets out to focus the public’s mind on this illicit trade, which has been fuelled by both criminal networks and by tobacco companies’ own leaky supply-chains. Consequently, ‘illicit’ tobacco products are both genuine cigarettes smuggled across borders to avoid tax, and counterfeit products.

Each year, sales of these products cost more than €10 billion in lost tax and customs revenue across Europe.

And given that Governments continue to use tax to reduce smoking rates, illicit trade undermines public health by making smoking cheaper and more accessible to children and vulnerable communities.

So what do the tobacco companies have to say for themselves on the matter?

An argument made of air

During the campaign for standard packs, one of the tobacco industry’s key arguments was that plain packs would make counterfeit and smuggled tobacco easier to come by. As we said at the time, this argument is deeply flawed, for two reasons:

Firstly, because of the clear evidence that these companies themselves play a role in illegal trade.

Secondly, as we’ll see below, because of the very nature of international tobacco smuggling.

In fact, there is no reliable evidence that the introduction of standardised packs – due in the UK in 2016 – will increase smuggling. When the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) looked in depth at the issue, they found “no evidence to suggest the introduction of standardised packaging will have a significant impact on the overall size of the illicit market or prompt a step-change in the activity of organised crime groups”.

But as well as using tobacco smuggling and illicit trade as a red herring to try to interfere with measures like standard packs, it grates to hear tobacco companies say that legal cigarettes represent a ‘safer’ option.

Let’s be clear: there is no such thing as a safe cigarette – legally manufactured or illicit – with ‘legitimate’ cigarettes containing around 70 cancer causing chemicals.

A history of mischief

So let’s look at the smuggling trade – and how the industry has been found out.

Each year some 400 billion cigarettes are illegally smuggled across international borders, making it the most widely smuggled legal product.

In 2001, the European Commission, along with 10 EU Member States filed legal action against three of the largest tobacco companies, Philip Morris International (PMI), R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co and Japan Tobacco International (JTI), for:

‘…an ongoing global scheme to smuggle cigarettes, launder the proceeds of narcotics trafficking, obstruct government oversight of the tobacco industry, fix prices, bribe foreign public officials, and conduct illegal trade with terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism’. (Emphasis ours)

Smuggling is an age-old problem

Smuggling is an age-old problem

PMI and JTI settled their cases in 2004 and 2007 respectively. But in August 2014, the courts upheld a decision which will allow the EU to pursue a case against R.J. Reynolds relating to the company’s alleged involvement in a criminal money-laundering and cigarette smuggling scheme.

And there’s more. In the UK in June 2013, the National Audit Office reported that HMRC had also kept a watch on manufacturers’ ‘oversupply’, i.e. producing or importing far too much tobacco in one area, making smuggling to another much easier (we blogged about it at the time).

In some instances, the HMRC estimated that the total supply of some brands of rolling tobacco to some countries exceeded demand by 240 per cent in 2011.

Since this report, HMRC hit British American Tobacco with a £650,000 fine in November 2014 for oversupplying cigarettes to Belgium which has lower tobacco taxes than the UK.

Fox guarding the hen house

The agreements following the European Commission’s legal action included obligations on several companies to make large payments.

PMI alone agreed to pay £674 million over 12 years – but it was also ordered to control the future smuggling of its cigarettes through a range of measures.

Frustratingly, however, it was left to the company itself to put these measures into practice. Given its track record, it’s hard to believe that it was put in charge of monitoring its own illicit trade.

Andy Rowell, research fellow at the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, is not convinced at all. ”The tobacco companies have a history of complicity in smuggling. But we know that leopards do not change their spots,” he told us.

“The companies are spending millions trying to con people that they are the victims of smuggling rather than the villains,” he says.

The 12 year agreement is now coming to an end – but the European Commission is now discussing its ‘renewal’ with Phillip Morris.

This is incredibly worrying.  There’s a fundamental conflict here, considering that the international community recognises the threat the industry poses to public health policy.

Now 180 parties have signed up to an international treaty to help reduce smoking rates and deal with the tobacco industry. Within this treaty – the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (the FCTC treaty) – there’s a specific section worth noting. Known as Article 5.3, it’s designed to keep these companies at arm’s length when it comes to decisions about people’s well being.

Article 5.3 states that governments should engage with tobacco companies:

 ‘only when and to the extent strictly necessary to enable them to effectively regulate the tobacco industry and tobacco products’.

But is it really ‘strictly necessary’ for the EU to engage with PMI over illicit trade? And when it does, what does it say? Over the last 10 years there has been a worrying lack of transparency.

What needs to be done

We already have the blueprint for tackling illicit trade. The World Health Organisation’s Protocol to Eliminate Trade in Illicit Tobacco Products (ITP) outlines the introduction of a tracking and tracing system for tobacco products. But the protocol is useless without action – all 180 parties to the FCTC treaty should sign and ratify this protocol.

And we need to make sure the ‘track and trace’ system is one that will work, NOT one run by industry itself – something Rowell says is their preferred end-game, “which would be very much letting the foxes take over the hen house.”

It’s vital that this system – and all future initiatives to tackle the illicit trade – are completely independent of tobacco industry involvement, and that we learn from the past.

Tobacco products – which have no safe level of use – kill the population equivalent to Scotland every year. The industry’s involvement in the illicit trade demonstrates why we must raise the drawbridge, and not give them the key.

  • Stephanie McClellan is a press officer at Cancer Research UK

Image: Illicit tobacco via HMRC/Flickr, used under CC-BY 2.0



from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1FMalUJ

Moon, Saturn, star Antares on May 31

Tonight – May 31, 2015 – be sure to enjoy the picturesque pairing of the bright waxing gibbous moon and the golden planet Saturn above the ruddy star Antares. Saturn is at its best now, having passed its 2015 opposition – when Earth flew between Saturn and the sun – on May 22-23.

In the bright moonlight, you might have difficulty distinguishing the colors of Saturn and Antares. But if you have binoculars, they can help you to make out the colors of these celestial gems. Saturn is golden, and Antares is reddish.

Have a telescope – even a modest backyard one? Dust it off and try your luck viewing Saturn’s majestic rings. In your telescope, the rings should be visible tonight, despite the drenching moonlight.

Watch for the threesome – the moon, Saturn and Antares – to go westward across the sky throughout the night. They’ll be highest up for around midnight, and will sit low in the southwest at dawn June 1.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Are you an early riser? Look in the southeast sky in the predawn/dawn sky for the moon, Saturn and Antares.

Are you an early riser? Look in the southeast sky in the predawn sky for the moon, Saturn and Antares.

Saturn will stay in the vicinity of Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion, for the rest of this year.

Antares depicts the Scorpion’s beating Heart. Beating? Yes, because from our northerly latitudes we tend to look at Antares low in the south, and the atmosphere causes it to scintillate.

Thus Antares, a red star, is know to twinkle fiercely. Antares is a red supergiant star, whose volume is a few hundred million times greater than that of our sun. If Antares replaced the sun in our solar system, its circumference would extend all the way into the asteroid belt in between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Contrasting the sizes of the red supergiant star Antares, the red giant star Arcturus and the sun.

Contrasting the sizes of the red supergiant Antares, the red giant star Arcturus and the sun.

Saturn is near Antares – Scorpius’ brightest star – but Saturn actually resides in front of the constellation Libra the Scales, quite close to the Libra-Scorpius border. Saturn will remain within Libra until October 2015, at which time the ringed planet will pass in front of the constellation Scorpius.

When the moon drops out of the early evening sky in the second week of June 2015, it will be much easier to see Libra’s two brightest stars, Zubenelgenubi and Zubenschamali. These moderately-bright stars are easily visible in a dark country sky. In fact, if you have binoculars, you can see that Zubenelgenubi is actually a double star – two stars in one (even on a moonlit night).

The constellation Libra the Scales and its brightest stars Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali. Image via Wikimedia Commons

At one time, Scorpius was a much larger constellation, and included what is now known as the constellation Libra. Before Libra became its own constellation, the stars Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali depicted the Scorpion’s Claws.

The names of these two stars pay tribute to the glory days of Scorpius as a super constellation. Zubenelgenubi is an Arabic term meaning “the Southern Claw of the Scorpion” whereas Zubeneschamali is Arabic for “the Northern Claw of the Scorpion.”

Bottom line: Use the moon to locate the ring planet planet Saturn and the red supergiant star Antares on the night of May 31, 2015. After that, look for Saturn to light up the constellation Libra, and to guide you to the Scorpion’s ancient Claw stars, for months to come!

Looking for a sky almanac? EarthSky recommends…

EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1d6K8q5

Tonight – May 31, 2015 – be sure to enjoy the picturesque pairing of the bright waxing gibbous moon and the golden planet Saturn above the ruddy star Antares. Saturn is at its best now, having passed its 2015 opposition – when Earth flew between Saturn and the sun – on May 22-23.

In the bright moonlight, you might have difficulty distinguishing the colors of Saturn and Antares. But if you have binoculars, they can help you to make out the colors of these celestial gems. Saturn is golden, and Antares is reddish.

Have a telescope – even a modest backyard one? Dust it off and try your luck viewing Saturn’s majestic rings. In your telescope, the rings should be visible tonight, despite the drenching moonlight.

Watch for the threesome – the moon, Saturn and Antares – to go westward across the sky throughout the night. They’ll be highest up for around midnight, and will sit low in the southwest at dawn June 1.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Are you an early riser? Look in the southeast sky in the predawn/dawn sky for the moon, Saturn and Antares.

Are you an early riser? Look in the southeast sky in the predawn sky for the moon, Saturn and Antares.

Saturn will stay in the vicinity of Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion, for the rest of this year.

Antares depicts the Scorpion’s beating Heart. Beating? Yes, because from our northerly latitudes we tend to look at Antares low in the south, and the atmosphere causes it to scintillate.

Thus Antares, a red star, is know to twinkle fiercely. Antares is a red supergiant star, whose volume is a few hundred million times greater than that of our sun. If Antares replaced the sun in our solar system, its circumference would extend all the way into the asteroid belt in between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Contrasting the sizes of the red supergiant star Antares, the red giant star Arcturus and the sun.

Contrasting the sizes of the red supergiant Antares, the red giant star Arcturus and the sun.

Saturn is near Antares – Scorpius’ brightest star – but Saturn actually resides in front of the constellation Libra the Scales, quite close to the Libra-Scorpius border. Saturn will remain within Libra until October 2015, at which time the ringed planet will pass in front of the constellation Scorpius.

When the moon drops out of the early evening sky in the second week of June 2015, it will be much easier to see Libra’s two brightest stars, Zubenelgenubi and Zubenschamali. These moderately-bright stars are easily visible in a dark country sky. In fact, if you have binoculars, you can see that Zubenelgenubi is actually a double star – two stars in one (even on a moonlit night).

The constellation Libra the Scales and its brightest stars Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali. Image via Wikimedia Commons

At one time, Scorpius was a much larger constellation, and included what is now known as the constellation Libra. Before Libra became its own constellation, the stars Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali depicted the Scorpion’s Claws.

The names of these two stars pay tribute to the glory days of Scorpius as a super constellation. Zubenelgenubi is an Arabic term meaning “the Southern Claw of the Scorpion” whereas Zubeneschamali is Arabic for “the Northern Claw of the Scorpion.”

Bottom line: Use the moon to locate the ring planet planet Saturn and the red supergiant star Antares on the night of May 31, 2015. After that, look for Saturn to light up the constellation Libra, and to guide you to the Scorpion’s ancient Claw stars, for months to come!

Looking for a sky almanac? EarthSky recommends…

EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1d6K8q5

Frustrations Of the Academic Life [EvolutionBlog]

After writing yesterday’s post, I found I was still muttering about Michael Ruse’s paper. So I thought to myself, why should I just rant here at the blog? How about I get down to business and write a proper journal article about it?

Mentally I started doing just that. To my surprise, I found the article practically writing itself. I quickly had an outline of what I wanted to say, started composing paragraphs, and thought about various books and articles I would want to cite. I started to get excited. Figured I could toss it off in a week, and then get back to my various other unfinished projects.

Of course, upon having decided to write a paper it behooves you to go prowling through the literature, to see what everyone else has been saying. So I spent part of this afternoon browsing through back issues of Zygon, which published the paper I discussed yesterday. Zygon is a journal about science and religion, you see.

Well, it wasn’t long before I came across the article, “Michael Ruse On Science and Faith: Seeking Mutual Understanding,” by philosopher David Wisdo, from the September 2011 issue of the journal. The abstract made it clear that Wisdo was not impressed with Ruse’s attempt at science/religion reconciliation. Wisdo was addressing Ruse’s then recent book Science and Spirituality. The Ruse paper I addressed yesterday was basically an abbreviated version of the argument from the book.

I started to get nervous. Had Wisdo anticipated me? So I read the article. And the nervousness turned to defeat. The two main points I made in yesterday’s post: that Ruse was essentially making a God of the gaps argument, and that he was putting religion in a highly subordinate position relative to science, were discussed at length in Wisdo’s paper. Discussed in almost precisely the terms I had in mind.

Crap!

Ruse replied to Wisdo in the same issue of the journal, and I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn that for the most part I found his replies inadequate. I can think of other articles that could be written around this issue, that would use Ruse’s views as just one part of a larger argument. So I may yet write a paper about this. (Whether I could get it published is a separate issue!) But it will definitely take longer than a week, which means it has to get in line behind a bunch of other partially-formed projects.

Oh well! Maybe I should just stick to math.



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1cqie7T

After writing yesterday’s post, I found I was still muttering about Michael Ruse’s paper. So I thought to myself, why should I just rant here at the blog? How about I get down to business and write a proper journal article about it?

Mentally I started doing just that. To my surprise, I found the article practically writing itself. I quickly had an outline of what I wanted to say, started composing paragraphs, and thought about various books and articles I would want to cite. I started to get excited. Figured I could toss it off in a week, and then get back to my various other unfinished projects.

Of course, upon having decided to write a paper it behooves you to go prowling through the literature, to see what everyone else has been saying. So I spent part of this afternoon browsing through back issues of Zygon, which published the paper I discussed yesterday. Zygon is a journal about science and religion, you see.

Well, it wasn’t long before I came across the article, “Michael Ruse On Science and Faith: Seeking Mutual Understanding,” by philosopher David Wisdo, from the September 2011 issue of the journal. The abstract made it clear that Wisdo was not impressed with Ruse’s attempt at science/religion reconciliation. Wisdo was addressing Ruse’s then recent book Science and Spirituality. The Ruse paper I addressed yesterday was basically an abbreviated version of the argument from the book.

I started to get nervous. Had Wisdo anticipated me? So I read the article. And the nervousness turned to defeat. The two main points I made in yesterday’s post: that Ruse was essentially making a God of the gaps argument, and that he was putting religion in a highly subordinate position relative to science, were discussed at length in Wisdo’s paper. Discussed in almost precisely the terms I had in mind.

Crap!

Ruse replied to Wisdo in the same issue of the journal, and I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn that for the most part I found his replies inadequate. I can think of other articles that could be written around this issue, that would use Ruse’s views as just one part of a larger argument. So I may yet write a paper about this. (Whether I could get it published is a separate issue!) But it will definitely take longer than a week, which means it has to get in line behind a bunch of other partially-formed projects.

Oh well! Maybe I should just stick to math.



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1cqie7T

Scientists discuss how strongly a warming Arctic is implicated in extreme weather

This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Robert McSweeney

The possibility that a warming Arctic could be influencing extreme weather elsewhere in the world seemed to receive a boost this week.  A new paper presented further evidence linking diminishing Arctic sea ice to extreme cold winters elsewhere in the northern hemisphere.

Lead author, Prof Jennifer Francis from Rutgers University, tells us: "Our new results, together with other new studies in this field of research, are adding substantial evidence in support of the connection."

But not everyone is so sure. We asked a few scientists in the field how strong they consider the evidence linking Arctic sea ice and extreme weather to be. Here's what they told us.

Arctic amplification

The US, Canada, Japan and UK have all experienced very cold and snowy winters in recent years. In 2012, a  paper by Francis and Dr Stephen Vavrus suggested that this extreme weather was a result of rapid warming in the Arctic.

Temperatures in the Arctic are increasing around twice as fast as the global average. As Arctic sea-ice diminishes, energy from the sun that would have been reflected away by sea-ice is instead absorbed by the ocean, a phenomenon known as  Arctic amplification.

Francis and Vavrus suggested that warmer Arctic temperatures weaken the jet stream, a fast-flowing river of air high up in the atmosphere. The theory goes that a weaker jet stream becomes 'wavier' and leads to more persistent weather conditions, such as long cold spells in winter and heatwaves in summer.

The new paper by the same authors, published this week in Environmental Research Letters, offers further evidence to support the link.

Jet stream waviness

Francis and Vavrus' work triggered what has become a  lively area of research. One of the difficulties with the theory proposed is that it's very hard to measure the 'waviness' of the jet stream directly. Instead, Francis and Vavrus use a number of metrics to measure it in other ways.

One method tries to see the mechanism in action by looking for evidence of temperature differences causing wind patterns to change and the jet stream to get wavier. Another way looks at whether these wavy jet stream patterns are occurring more frequently across the northern hemisphere.

Identifying these patterns of waviness is important because they lead to 'blocking', which causes cold weather patterns to hold on for longer. In the 2013-14 US winter, the prolonged spell of very cold weather caused 91 per cent of the Great Lakes to freeze over.

Francis says we're seeing more of this persistent extreme weather as the Arctic warms up:

"Occurrence of these events has increased during recent decades when Arctic amplification has emerged as a strong signal."

Arctic amplification is greatest in autumn and winter (see graph below), which is why it mainly results in persistent cold weather events, Francis explains.

Francis & Vavrus (2014) Fig 2a

Timeseries of the Arctic amplification index for each season. A positive index indicates that the Arctic is warming faster than the mid-latitudes. Source: Francis & Vavrus (2015).

Controversial theory

Understanding the effect Arctic amplification could be having in other parts of the world is tricky because it's a relatively recent phenomenon. Francis and Vavrus define the 'Arctic amplification era' as beginning in 1995, which gives scientists less than 20 years' of data to work with.

As Dr James Screen from Exeter University tells us:

"The changes are only seen over a very short period, so it is impossible to say if they are secular trends or just natural variability."

Another issue is how you define jet stream 'waviness', as Prof Ian Simmonds from the University of Melbourne explains:

"Getting an appropriate definition is important, as conclusions as to whether waviness is increasing or decreasing seem to depend on the metrics being used."

As a result, not all scientists have been won over by the theory. Francis acknowledges that Arctic warming contributing to a wavier jet stream is the "most controversial aspect of the hypothesis we proposed in our 2012 paper."

The Arctic may not be to blame

Scientists also haven't ruled out other factors being involved in the extreme weather, as Screen tells us:

"Correlation and trends doesn't tell you cause and effect. It is still impossible to pin the blame on the Arctic, so to speak."

A paper published in October last year, for example, finds that temperature changes in the Atlantic ocean could be triggering warm conditions in the Arctic, and cold weather over Europe and Asia. Simmonds says findings such as these mean there is still doubt regarding the Arctic's influence:

"Seen in this light, the magnitude of the direct influence of a warm Arctic on mid-latitude extremes becomes more problematic."

So it seems that scientists are still some way from agreeing on what's causing these cold winters. As Screen puts it:

"Without evidence of causality or a convincing dynamical mechanism, I would say the evidence still remains suggestive but far from conclusive."

Pinpointing if and how the Arctic is implicated in extreme weather around the rest of the world is clearly of huge interest, stretching beyond just scientific circles. But teasing out the details is still a very new and active area of research, making this topic one to watch in 2015.

Francis, J.A. and Vavrus, S.J. (2015) Evidence for a wavier jet stream in response to rapid Arctic warming, Environmental Research Letters, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/1/014005 [This article is open-access and therefore free to download.]



from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1GMxqZE

This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Robert McSweeney

The possibility that a warming Arctic could be influencing extreme weather elsewhere in the world seemed to receive a boost this week.  A new paper presented further evidence linking diminishing Arctic sea ice to extreme cold winters elsewhere in the northern hemisphere.

Lead author, Prof Jennifer Francis from Rutgers University, tells us: "Our new results, together with other new studies in this field of research, are adding substantial evidence in support of the connection."

But not everyone is so sure. We asked a few scientists in the field how strong they consider the evidence linking Arctic sea ice and extreme weather to be. Here's what they told us.

Arctic amplification

The US, Canada, Japan and UK have all experienced very cold and snowy winters in recent years. In 2012, a  paper by Francis and Dr Stephen Vavrus suggested that this extreme weather was a result of rapid warming in the Arctic.

Temperatures in the Arctic are increasing around twice as fast as the global average. As Arctic sea-ice diminishes, energy from the sun that would have been reflected away by sea-ice is instead absorbed by the ocean, a phenomenon known as  Arctic amplification.

Francis and Vavrus suggested that warmer Arctic temperatures weaken the jet stream, a fast-flowing river of air high up in the atmosphere. The theory goes that a weaker jet stream becomes 'wavier' and leads to more persistent weather conditions, such as long cold spells in winter and heatwaves in summer.

The new paper by the same authors, published this week in Environmental Research Letters, offers further evidence to support the link.

Jet stream waviness

Francis and Vavrus' work triggered what has become a  lively area of research. One of the difficulties with the theory proposed is that it's very hard to measure the 'waviness' of the jet stream directly. Instead, Francis and Vavrus use a number of metrics to measure it in other ways.

One method tries to see the mechanism in action by looking for evidence of temperature differences causing wind patterns to change and the jet stream to get wavier. Another way looks at whether these wavy jet stream patterns are occurring more frequently across the northern hemisphere.

Identifying these patterns of waviness is important because they lead to 'blocking', which causes cold weather patterns to hold on for longer. In the 2013-14 US winter, the prolonged spell of very cold weather caused 91 per cent of the Great Lakes to freeze over.

Francis says we're seeing more of this persistent extreme weather as the Arctic warms up:

"Occurrence of these events has increased during recent decades when Arctic amplification has emerged as a strong signal."

Arctic amplification is greatest in autumn and winter (see graph below), which is why it mainly results in persistent cold weather events, Francis explains.

Francis & Vavrus (2014) Fig 2a

Timeseries of the Arctic amplification index for each season. A positive index indicates that the Arctic is warming faster than the mid-latitudes. Source: Francis & Vavrus (2015).

Controversial theory

Understanding the effect Arctic amplification could be having in other parts of the world is tricky because it's a relatively recent phenomenon. Francis and Vavrus define the 'Arctic amplification era' as beginning in 1995, which gives scientists less than 20 years' of data to work with.

As Dr James Screen from Exeter University tells us:

"The changes are only seen over a very short period, so it is impossible to say if they are secular trends or just natural variability."

Another issue is how you define jet stream 'waviness', as Prof Ian Simmonds from the University of Melbourne explains:

"Getting an appropriate definition is important, as conclusions as to whether waviness is increasing or decreasing seem to depend on the metrics being used."

As a result, not all scientists have been won over by the theory. Francis acknowledges that Arctic warming contributing to a wavier jet stream is the "most controversial aspect of the hypothesis we proposed in our 2012 paper."

The Arctic may not be to blame

Scientists also haven't ruled out other factors being involved in the extreme weather, as Screen tells us:

"Correlation and trends doesn't tell you cause and effect. It is still impossible to pin the blame on the Arctic, so to speak."

A paper published in October last year, for example, finds that temperature changes in the Atlantic ocean could be triggering warm conditions in the Arctic, and cold weather over Europe and Asia. Simmonds says findings such as these mean there is still doubt regarding the Arctic's influence:

"Seen in this light, the magnitude of the direct influence of a warm Arctic on mid-latitude extremes becomes more problematic."

So it seems that scientists are still some way from agreeing on what's causing these cold winters. As Screen puts it:

"Without evidence of causality or a convincing dynamical mechanism, I would say the evidence still remains suggestive but far from conclusive."

Pinpointing if and how the Arctic is implicated in extreme weather around the rest of the world is clearly of huge interest, stretching beyond just scientific circles. But teasing out the details is still a very new and active area of research, making this topic one to watch in 2015.

Francis, J.A. and Vavrus, S.J. (2015) Evidence for a wavier jet stream in response to rapid Arctic warming, Environmental Research Letters, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/1/014005 [This article is open-access and therefore free to download.]



from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1GMxqZE

2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #22B

A heatwave that’s too hot for India to handle, with more to come

India is currently in the throes of yet another extreme heat event, with the death toll rising past 1,100. The current heatwave began on May 21, and is forecast to continue until May 30, with temperatures in many regions exceeding 45C, and reaching 47.6C and beyond.

Delhi has now endured seven consecutive days over 44C, the worst extreme heat event recorded in a decade, according to the India Meteorological Department.

Even in the mountain town of Mussoorie close to Nepal, 2,010 m above sea level, temperatures rose to 36C.

Residents of the Indian subcontinent might be acclimatised to heat and humidity, but they too have their heat tolerance limits. So what can this tell us about the future?

A heatwave that’s too hot for India to handle, with more to come by Liz Hanna, The Conversation AU, May 28, 2015


Climate benefits of a natural gas bridge 'unlikely to be significant'

Natural gas can only be a worthwhile bridge to a low carbon future if a series of tough conditions are met, according to a working paper from the influential New Climate Economy initiative.

The paper says the climate benefits of gas, including shale gas, could in theory be significant. It suggests a 10% increase in global gas supplies could prevent 500 gigawatts (GW) of new coal capacity being added by 2035, avoiding 1.3 billion tonnes of annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

But it warns that any theoretical benefits could easily be wiped out without controls on methane leakage, limits on total energy use and targets to ensure low-carbon energy sources are not displaced.

Climate benefits of a natural gas bridge 'unlikely to be significant' by Simon Evans, Carbon Brief, May 29, 2015


Climate change, a factor in Texas floods, largely ignored

Climate change is taking a toll on Texas, and the devastating floods that have killed at least 15 people and left 12 others missing across the state are some of the best evidence yet of that phenomenon, state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said in an interview Wednesday. 

"We have observed an increase of heavy rain events, at least in the South-Central United States, including Texas," said Nielsen-Gammon, who was appointed by former Gov. George W. Bush in 2000. "And it's consistent with what we would expect from climate change." 

Climate change, a factor in Texas floods, largely ignored by Neena Satija and Jim Malewitz, The Texas Tribune, May 27, 2015


Climate change may have , souped up record-breaking Texas deluge

Large swaths of Houston were underwater yesterday after more than 10 inches of rain fell on the city during a 24-hour window.

The bulk of the rain came during intense Monday night thunderstorms, bringing America’s fourth-largest city to a standstill by yesterday morning. Major highways were flooded, schools and mass transit systems were shut down, rivers were swollen above flood stage, and the city’s Emergency Operations Center had declared a Level 1 emergency for the first time since Hurricane Ike struck in 2008. Houston Mayor Annise Parker proclaimed a state of disaster for the city yesterday afternoon.

Austin, San Antonio and several other central Texas communities also faced severe flooding over the weekend after several days of intense rain. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) described flooding along the Blanco River between Wimberley and San Marcos as a “tsunami-style” flood.

Climate change may have souped up record-breaking Texas deluge by Elizabeth Harball and Scott Detrow, ClimateWire/Scientific America, May 27, 2015


Climate school hits home: Why warming’s impacts will be so much worse than deniers believe

Climate denial school can be a scary place. Those crazy, totally anti-science myths we’ve been discussing week after week in Denial101x keep popping up in the real world, and in recent weeks were spotted everywhere from Judith Curry’s blog to Australia’s federal government.

And it just got even scarier. Because this week, we delved into the real-world implications of human-caused warming, from just how warm scientists believe the planet’s going to get, to the ways that the environment, wildlife and human society will suffer as a result. Five weeks in, we’re getting to the heart of why it’s so important to fight climate denial: the stakes are huge, and they are already affecting us today.

Climate deniers try to minimize the impact that a lot of the climate change-related phenomena discussed this week will have, which is why the interviews with experts this week are particularly striking. These are people who have looked closely at the data, and who understand better than any of us what we’re in for. Watch their warnings closely, then try to tell yourself they’re blowing this all out of proportion.

Climate school hits home: Why warming’s impacts will be so much worse than deniers believe by Lindsay Abrams, Salon, May 27, 2015


Cutting soot and methane distracts from 2C goal, says Oxford scientist

Politicians have agreed that global temperatures need to be limited to below 2C, and scientists say that this will mean drastically reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. But which one should be cut first?

Humans emitted  35.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide  (CO2) in 2013 - a volume that is increasing every year, putting the world on course to exceed its goal to keep temperature increase since the start of the Industrial Age below 2C.

But this is not the only pollutant that causes the planet to warm. Methane, ozone, black carbon (soot) and hydrofluorocarbons have an even more powerful warming effect, per tonne, than CO2.

Yet unlike CO2, which can last in the atmosphere for up to millennia, these stick around in the atmosphere for a matter of years or even days. As a result, they are known as short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs).

Cutting soot and methane distracts from 2C goal, says Oxford scientist by Sophie Yeo, Carbon Brief, May 28, 2015


El Niño can raise sea levels along U.S. Coast

The El Niño event underway in the Pacific Ocean is impacting temperature and weather patterns around the world. But its effects aren’t confined to the atmosphere: A new study has found that the cyclical climate phenomenon can ratchet up sea levels off the West Coast by almost 8 inches over just a few seasons.

The findings have important implications in terms of planning for sea level rise, as ever-growing coastal communities might have to plan for even higher ocean levels in a warmer future. In California alone, some $40 billion of property and nearly 500,000 people could be affected by the sea level rise expected through mid-century, not including any additional boost from El Niño events.

“This paper is an important reminder that we cannot neglect interannual sea level variability and we need a quantitative understanding of its impact,” John Church, an oceanographer with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said in an email.

El Niño can raise sea levels along U.S. Coast by Andrea Thompson, Climate Central, May 28, 2015


Hillary Clinton plans to get "aggressive" on climate. Here's what that might entail.

Hillary Clinton's advisers say she plans to take "aggressive" steps on global warming if elected president. Here's John Podesta last week:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is "quite" involved in climate change policy as a 2016 presidential candidate and will carry on with President Obama's limits on coal-fired power plants if she is elected, her campaign chairman, John Podesta, said yesterday. ...

"I have no doubt that she will move forward with an aggressive program to move the country to a cleaner energy system and do what the United States needs to do to meet the target," he said.

So what would an "aggressive program" mean? One place to look for clues is in this big new report by the World Resources Institute. To be clear, the report isn't affiliated with the Clinton campaign at all. But it does lay out, in detail, what policies the next president could pursue to cut US emissions drastically — even without Congress. If Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Jeb Bush wanted to go big on climate, this would be the place to start.

Hillary Clinton plans to get "aggressive" on climate. Here's what that might entail. by Brad Plumer, Vox, May 28, 2015


Memo to Jeb Bush: denying human-caused global warming is ignorant

In a campaign event last week, Republican presidential frontrunner Jeb Bush exhibited Stage 2 climate denial, saying (video available here),

Look, first of all, the climate is changing. I don’t think the science is clear what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It’s convoluted. And for the people to say the science is decided on, this is just really arrogant, to be honest with you. It’s this intellectual arrogance that now you can’t even have a conversation about it.

Memo to Jeb Bush: denying human-caused global warming is ignorant by Dana Nuccitelli, Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian, May 27, 2015


Report: U.S. can make good on climate pledge — barely

When the U.S. arrives at the international climate negotiations in Paris at the end of the year it will bring to the table its pledge to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions between 26 and 28 percent under 2005 levels over the next decade.

The World Resources Institute, or WRI, a global environmental sustainability think tank, released a reportWednesday showing how the U.S. can make good on its pledge and possibly exceed it. Doing so, however, may involve strengthening controversial emissions cuts in the works, cuts that largely are expected to be watered down and challenged in court before taking effect, possibly later this year.

To achieve its Paris emissions pledge, the Obama administration is betting that its proposed Clean Power Plan, slated to be finalized this summer, will deliver carbon dioxide emissions cuts from existing coal-fired power plants as promised. The White House also is relying on its Climate Action Plan to cut emissions and increase efficiency in other sectors of the economy.

Report: U.S. Can Make Good on Climate Pledge — Barely by Bobby Magill, Climate Central, May 28, 2015


Scientists warn to expect more weather extremes

Torrential rains and widespread flooding in Texas have brought relief from a yearslong drought to many parts of the state. Such unpredictable and heavy rains are a big part of what climate scientists say that many Texans can expect in years to come.

The relief has come at a great cost. The death toll from storms across the state and Oklahoma has reached at least 19, by some estimates, and the property damage is so extensive that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has declared some 40 counties disaster areas.

It was not long ago that the state was dealing with a searing drought. In 2011, the drought was so pronounced that the governor then, Rick Perry, proclaimed three days in April “days of prayer for rain in Texas.” Parts of the state began to see the drought ease by 2012, but much of it has remained parched. 

Scientists warn to expect more weather extremes by John Schwartz, New York Times, May 27, 2015


The Carbon Brief interview: Thomas Stocker

Thomas Stocker is a professor of climate and environmental physics at the University of Bern. He served as Co-Chair of working group one for the IPCC's fifth assessment report, Coordinating Lead Author in the third and fourth assessment reports, and is now running to succeed Dr Rajendra Pachauri as IPCC chair.

The Carbon Brief interview: Thomas Stocker by Roz Pidcock, The Carbon Brief, May 28, 2015


This is climate skeptics’ latest argument about melting polar ice — and why it’s wrong

We’ve had two weeks of worrying news about the melting of Antarctica. The Larsen C and especially the remaining Larsen B ice shelves appear vulnerable to collapse, even as the glaciers of the Southern Antarctic Peninsula region have just been shown to be pouring large volumes of water into the ocean.

Most people, I think, would find this pretty alarming. However, as I wrote about these Antarctic news stories over the past two weeks, I became aware that those skeptical of human-caused climate change (whether its existence, or its severity) had found a new argument to minimize concerns about polar ice melt. In particular, I came across numerous citations of a much-read article at Forbes by James Taylor, titled “Updated NASA Data: Global warming not causing any polar ice retreat.”

There are many problems with this claim. In effect — and as we’ll see — Taylor is falling into a long climate “skeptic” tradition of pointing toward growing sea ice around Antarctica, and thereby suggesting that this trend undermines broader concerns about polar ice melt, or climate change in general. It doesn’t. (For another strong rebuttal to Taylor, see here from Slate’s Phil Plait.)

This is climate skeptics’ latest argument about melting polar ice — and why it’s wrong by Chris Mooney, Energy & Environment, Wahsingto Post, May 28, 2015


Warming oceans could mean typhoons are 14% stronger by 2100

On 7 November 2013, one of the strongest typhoons in human history hit the Philippines. With gusts up to 171 miles per hour (mph), Typhoon Haiyan tore through the many thousands of islands, killing over 6,200 people and affecting 14 million more.

Every year, these giant storms cause damage and destruction across southeast Asia. Now, a new study suggests that even under a moderate temperature rise, warming oceans could fuel more intense typhoons in the future.

Warming oceans could mean typhoons are 14% stronger by 2100 by Robert McSweeney, Carbon Brief, May 29, 2015


This is climate skeptics’ latest argument about melting polar ice — and why it’s wrong


Why carbon is the best marker for the new human epoch

Fire ranks among humanity's oldest and most powerful tools. Now the residue from all the oil and coal burned to power modern civilization may provide the best marker for the start of a new geologic epoch that highlights Homo sapiens’s world-changing impact, known as the Anthropocene, or "new age of humans."

"We're actually changing and continuing to change how the Earth system functions and leaving markers that could still be found in a million years time," says Earth scientist Karen Bacon of the University of Leeds in England. "That's quite incredible to think about."

Why Carbon Is the Best Marker for the New Human Epoch by David Biello. Scientific American, May 28, 2015



from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1BxEcMD

A heatwave that’s too hot for India to handle, with more to come

India is currently in the throes of yet another extreme heat event, with the death toll rising past 1,100. The current heatwave began on May 21, and is forecast to continue until May 30, with temperatures in many regions exceeding 45C, and reaching 47.6C and beyond.

Delhi has now endured seven consecutive days over 44C, the worst extreme heat event recorded in a decade, according to the India Meteorological Department.

Even in the mountain town of Mussoorie close to Nepal, 2,010 m above sea level, temperatures rose to 36C.

Residents of the Indian subcontinent might be acclimatised to heat and humidity, but they too have their heat tolerance limits. So what can this tell us about the future?

A heatwave that’s too hot for India to handle, with more to come by Liz Hanna, The Conversation AU, May 28, 2015


Climate benefits of a natural gas bridge 'unlikely to be significant'

Natural gas can only be a worthwhile bridge to a low carbon future if a series of tough conditions are met, according to a working paper from the influential New Climate Economy initiative.

The paper says the climate benefits of gas, including shale gas, could in theory be significant. It suggests a 10% increase in global gas supplies could prevent 500 gigawatts (GW) of new coal capacity being added by 2035, avoiding 1.3 billion tonnes of annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

But it warns that any theoretical benefits could easily be wiped out without controls on methane leakage, limits on total energy use and targets to ensure low-carbon energy sources are not displaced.

Climate benefits of a natural gas bridge 'unlikely to be significant' by Simon Evans, Carbon Brief, May 29, 2015


Climate change, a factor in Texas floods, largely ignored

Climate change is taking a toll on Texas, and the devastating floods that have killed at least 15 people and left 12 others missing across the state are some of the best evidence yet of that phenomenon, state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said in an interview Wednesday. 

"We have observed an increase of heavy rain events, at least in the South-Central United States, including Texas," said Nielsen-Gammon, who was appointed by former Gov. George W. Bush in 2000. "And it's consistent with what we would expect from climate change." 

Climate change, a factor in Texas floods, largely ignored by Neena Satija and Jim Malewitz, The Texas Tribune, May 27, 2015


Climate change may have , souped up record-breaking Texas deluge

Large swaths of Houston were underwater yesterday after more than 10 inches of rain fell on the city during a 24-hour window.

The bulk of the rain came during intense Monday night thunderstorms, bringing America’s fourth-largest city to a standstill by yesterday morning. Major highways were flooded, schools and mass transit systems were shut down, rivers were swollen above flood stage, and the city’s Emergency Operations Center had declared a Level 1 emergency for the first time since Hurricane Ike struck in 2008. Houston Mayor Annise Parker proclaimed a state of disaster for the city yesterday afternoon.

Austin, San Antonio and several other central Texas communities also faced severe flooding over the weekend after several days of intense rain. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) described flooding along the Blanco River between Wimberley and San Marcos as a “tsunami-style” flood.

Climate change may have souped up record-breaking Texas deluge by Elizabeth Harball and Scott Detrow, ClimateWire/Scientific America, May 27, 2015


Climate school hits home: Why warming’s impacts will be so much worse than deniers believe

Climate denial school can be a scary place. Those crazy, totally anti-science myths we’ve been discussing week after week in Denial101x keep popping up in the real world, and in recent weeks were spotted everywhere from Judith Curry’s blog to Australia’s federal government.

And it just got even scarier. Because this week, we delved into the real-world implications of human-caused warming, from just how warm scientists believe the planet’s going to get, to the ways that the environment, wildlife and human society will suffer as a result. Five weeks in, we’re getting to the heart of why it’s so important to fight climate denial: the stakes are huge, and they are already affecting us today.

Climate deniers try to minimize the impact that a lot of the climate change-related phenomena discussed this week will have, which is why the interviews with experts this week are particularly striking. These are people who have looked closely at the data, and who understand better than any of us what we’re in for. Watch their warnings closely, then try to tell yourself they’re blowing this all out of proportion.

Climate school hits home: Why warming’s impacts will be so much worse than deniers believe by Lindsay Abrams, Salon, May 27, 2015


Cutting soot and methane distracts from 2C goal, says Oxford scientist

Politicians have agreed that global temperatures need to be limited to below 2C, and scientists say that this will mean drastically reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. But which one should be cut first?

Humans emitted  35.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide  (CO2) in 2013 - a volume that is increasing every year, putting the world on course to exceed its goal to keep temperature increase since the start of the Industrial Age below 2C.

But this is not the only pollutant that causes the planet to warm. Methane, ozone, black carbon (soot) and hydrofluorocarbons have an even more powerful warming effect, per tonne, than CO2.

Yet unlike CO2, which can last in the atmosphere for up to millennia, these stick around in the atmosphere for a matter of years or even days. As a result, they are known as short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs).

Cutting soot and methane distracts from 2C goal, says Oxford scientist by Sophie Yeo, Carbon Brief, May 28, 2015


El Niño can raise sea levels along U.S. Coast

The El Niño event underway in the Pacific Ocean is impacting temperature and weather patterns around the world. But its effects aren’t confined to the atmosphere: A new study has found that the cyclical climate phenomenon can ratchet up sea levels off the West Coast by almost 8 inches over just a few seasons.

The findings have important implications in terms of planning for sea level rise, as ever-growing coastal communities might have to plan for even higher ocean levels in a warmer future. In California alone, some $40 billion of property and nearly 500,000 people could be affected by the sea level rise expected through mid-century, not including any additional boost from El Niño events.

“This paper is an important reminder that we cannot neglect interannual sea level variability and we need a quantitative understanding of its impact,” John Church, an oceanographer with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said in an email.

El Niño can raise sea levels along U.S. Coast by Andrea Thompson, Climate Central, May 28, 2015


Hillary Clinton plans to get "aggressive" on climate. Here's what that might entail.

Hillary Clinton's advisers say she plans to take "aggressive" steps on global warming if elected president. Here's John Podesta last week:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is "quite" involved in climate change policy as a 2016 presidential candidate and will carry on with President Obama's limits on coal-fired power plants if she is elected, her campaign chairman, John Podesta, said yesterday. ...

"I have no doubt that she will move forward with an aggressive program to move the country to a cleaner energy system and do what the United States needs to do to meet the target," he said.

So what would an "aggressive program" mean? One place to look for clues is in this big new report by the World Resources Institute. To be clear, the report isn't affiliated with the Clinton campaign at all. But it does lay out, in detail, what policies the next president could pursue to cut US emissions drastically — even without Congress. If Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Jeb Bush wanted to go big on climate, this would be the place to start.

Hillary Clinton plans to get "aggressive" on climate. Here's what that might entail. by Brad Plumer, Vox, May 28, 2015


Memo to Jeb Bush: denying human-caused global warming is ignorant

In a campaign event last week, Republican presidential frontrunner Jeb Bush exhibited Stage 2 climate denial, saying (video available here),

Look, first of all, the climate is changing. I don’t think the science is clear what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It’s convoluted. And for the people to say the science is decided on, this is just really arrogant, to be honest with you. It’s this intellectual arrogance that now you can’t even have a conversation about it.

Memo to Jeb Bush: denying human-caused global warming is ignorant by Dana Nuccitelli, Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian, May 27, 2015


Report: U.S. can make good on climate pledge — barely

When the U.S. arrives at the international climate negotiations in Paris at the end of the year it will bring to the table its pledge to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions between 26 and 28 percent under 2005 levels over the next decade.

The World Resources Institute, or WRI, a global environmental sustainability think tank, released a reportWednesday showing how the U.S. can make good on its pledge and possibly exceed it. Doing so, however, may involve strengthening controversial emissions cuts in the works, cuts that largely are expected to be watered down and challenged in court before taking effect, possibly later this year.

To achieve its Paris emissions pledge, the Obama administration is betting that its proposed Clean Power Plan, slated to be finalized this summer, will deliver carbon dioxide emissions cuts from existing coal-fired power plants as promised. The White House also is relying on its Climate Action Plan to cut emissions and increase efficiency in other sectors of the economy.

Report: U.S. Can Make Good on Climate Pledge — Barely by Bobby Magill, Climate Central, May 28, 2015


Scientists warn to expect more weather extremes

Torrential rains and widespread flooding in Texas have brought relief from a yearslong drought to many parts of the state. Such unpredictable and heavy rains are a big part of what climate scientists say that many Texans can expect in years to come.

The relief has come at a great cost. The death toll from storms across the state and Oklahoma has reached at least 19, by some estimates, and the property damage is so extensive that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has declared some 40 counties disaster areas.

It was not long ago that the state was dealing with a searing drought. In 2011, the drought was so pronounced that the governor then, Rick Perry, proclaimed three days in April “days of prayer for rain in Texas.” Parts of the state began to see the drought ease by 2012, but much of it has remained parched. 

Scientists warn to expect more weather extremes by John Schwartz, New York Times, May 27, 2015


The Carbon Brief interview: Thomas Stocker

Thomas Stocker is a professor of climate and environmental physics at the University of Bern. He served as Co-Chair of working group one for the IPCC's fifth assessment report, Coordinating Lead Author in the third and fourth assessment reports, and is now running to succeed Dr Rajendra Pachauri as IPCC chair.

The Carbon Brief interview: Thomas Stocker by Roz Pidcock, The Carbon Brief, May 28, 2015


This is climate skeptics’ latest argument about melting polar ice — and why it’s wrong

We’ve had two weeks of worrying news about the melting of Antarctica. The Larsen C and especially the remaining Larsen B ice shelves appear vulnerable to collapse, even as the glaciers of the Southern Antarctic Peninsula region have just been shown to be pouring large volumes of water into the ocean.

Most people, I think, would find this pretty alarming. However, as I wrote about these Antarctic news stories over the past two weeks, I became aware that those skeptical of human-caused climate change (whether its existence, or its severity) had found a new argument to minimize concerns about polar ice melt. In particular, I came across numerous citations of a much-read article at Forbes by James Taylor, titled “Updated NASA Data: Global warming not causing any polar ice retreat.”

There are many problems with this claim. In effect — and as we’ll see — Taylor is falling into a long climate “skeptic” tradition of pointing toward growing sea ice around Antarctica, and thereby suggesting that this trend undermines broader concerns about polar ice melt, or climate change in general. It doesn’t. (For another strong rebuttal to Taylor, see here from Slate’s Phil Plait.)

This is climate skeptics’ latest argument about melting polar ice — and why it’s wrong by Chris Mooney, Energy & Environment, Wahsingto Post, May 28, 2015


Warming oceans could mean typhoons are 14% stronger by 2100

On 7 November 2013, one of the strongest typhoons in human history hit the Philippines. With gusts up to 171 miles per hour (mph), Typhoon Haiyan tore through the many thousands of islands, killing over 6,200 people and affecting 14 million more.

Every year, these giant storms cause damage and destruction across southeast Asia. Now, a new study suggests that even under a moderate temperature rise, warming oceans could fuel more intense typhoons in the future.

Warming oceans could mean typhoons are 14% stronger by 2100 by Robert McSweeney, Carbon Brief, May 29, 2015


This is climate skeptics’ latest argument about melting polar ice — and why it’s wrong


Why carbon is the best marker for the new human epoch

Fire ranks among humanity's oldest and most powerful tools. Now the residue from all the oil and coal burned to power modern civilization may provide the best marker for the start of a new geologic epoch that highlights Homo sapiens’s world-changing impact, known as the Anthropocene, or "new age of humans."

"We're actually changing and continuing to change how the Earth system functions and leaving markers that could still be found in a million years time," says Earth scientist Karen Bacon of the University of Leeds in England. "That's quite incredible to think about."

Why Carbon Is the Best Marker for the New Human Epoch by David Biello. Scientific American, May 28, 2015



from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1BxEcMD

This Week in EPA Science

By Kacey FitzpatrickResearch Recap Graduation

Finals are over, graduations have commenced, and summer vacation is right around the corner. Think you’re totally done with science forever? Ha—think again!

Make your teachers proud and keep up with the latest in environmental science by reading about EPA research here every week.

Here’s what we’re highlighting this week.

  • Supporting Small Business Innovation Research
    “Seeding America’s Future Innovations” is a national effort to spread the word about the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs. Together, these programs provide $2.5 billion of contracts and other awards to small, advanced technology firms to spur discoveries and facilitate the commercialization of innovations.
    Read more about “America’s Largest Seed Fund” in the blog On the Road from Cajun Country to the Heartland to Seed Small Business Innovation Research.
  • Hacking for Change
    Hacking has become a buzzword with negative connotations, but people across the country can use the same computer savvy often associated with security breaches for good. On June 6th EPA will take part in The National Day of Civic Hacking via the Visualizing Nutrients Challenge – hosted by the U.S. Geological Survey, EPA, and Blue Legacy International.
    Read more about the event in the blog Become a Civic Hacker.
  • Creating a Healthier Environment for Students
    Nearly seven million U.S. children have asthma. EPA and University of Texas at Austin (UT) are researching gaps in information between environmental factors and student health. UT Austin’s project, Healthy High School PRIDE (Partnership in Research on Indoor Environments), is investigating a wide range of environmental parameters such as noise, lighting and indoor air quality in Texas high schools.
    Read more about the project in this press release.
  • Science to Safeguard Drinking Water
    Toxins from harmful algal blooms are increasingly contaminating source waters, as well as the drinking water treatment facilities that source waters supply. EPA researchers are helping the treatment facilities find safe, cost effective ways to remove the toxins and keep your drinking water safe.
    Learn more about this research in the video Science safeguards drinking water from harmful algal blooms.

If you have any comments or questions about what I share or about the week’s events, please submit them below in the comments section!

About the Author: Kacey Fitzpatrick is a student contractor and writer working with the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.



from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1eGIQDi

By Kacey FitzpatrickResearch Recap Graduation

Finals are over, graduations have commenced, and summer vacation is right around the corner. Think you’re totally done with science forever? Ha—think again!

Make your teachers proud and keep up with the latest in environmental science by reading about EPA research here every week.

Here’s what we’re highlighting this week.

  • Supporting Small Business Innovation Research
    “Seeding America’s Future Innovations” is a national effort to spread the word about the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs. Together, these programs provide $2.5 billion of contracts and other awards to small, advanced technology firms to spur discoveries and facilitate the commercialization of innovations.
    Read more about “America’s Largest Seed Fund” in the blog On the Road from Cajun Country to the Heartland to Seed Small Business Innovation Research.
  • Hacking for Change
    Hacking has become a buzzword with negative connotations, but people across the country can use the same computer savvy often associated with security breaches for good. On June 6th EPA will take part in The National Day of Civic Hacking via the Visualizing Nutrients Challenge – hosted by the U.S. Geological Survey, EPA, and Blue Legacy International.
    Read more about the event in the blog Become a Civic Hacker.
  • Creating a Healthier Environment for Students
    Nearly seven million U.S. children have asthma. EPA and University of Texas at Austin (UT) are researching gaps in information between environmental factors and student health. UT Austin’s project, Healthy High School PRIDE (Partnership in Research on Indoor Environments), is investigating a wide range of environmental parameters such as noise, lighting and indoor air quality in Texas high schools.
    Read more about the project in this press release.
  • Science to Safeguard Drinking Water
    Toxins from harmful algal blooms are increasingly contaminating source waters, as well as the drinking water treatment facilities that source waters supply. EPA researchers are helping the treatment facilities find safe, cost effective ways to remove the toxins and keep your drinking water safe.
    Learn more about this research in the video Science safeguards drinking water from harmful algal blooms.

If you have any comments or questions about what I share or about the week’s events, please submit them below in the comments section!

About the Author: Kacey Fitzpatrick is a student contractor and writer working with the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.



from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1eGIQDi