MEASURING THE RISE AND RISE OF THE OCEANS
The BBC's website has a good overview of the effect of climate-change on the sea and the technology used to measure it.
Wednesday 23 January 2008
Tuesday 15 January 2008
WEST ANTARCTICA MELT PROVES IPCC WRONG
The rate at which West Antartica is losing ice, up 75% in the last ten years, shows that the models used by the IPCC to predict sea-level rise are wrong.
Click here for ScienceDaily's report and here for the NZ Herald's.
The rate at which West Antartica is losing ice, up 75% in the last ten years, shows that the models used by the IPCC to predict sea-level rise are wrong.
Click here for ScienceDaily's report and here for the NZ Herald's.
Friday 11 January 2008
AIR-POLLUTION SHRINKS UNBORN CHILDREN
A ten-year study by the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, which used ultrasound to measure 15,000 unborn children, found a negative correlation with air-pollution. Mothers with a higher exposure to pollution had foetuses that on average had heads and abdomens with smaller circumferences and had shorter femurs.
If pollution levels were high the size of the foetus decreased significantly.
Birthweight is a major predictor of future health, such as IQ in childhood IQ and cardiovascular disease in adulthood.
Click here for the report in ScienceDaily
A ten-year study by the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, which used ultrasound to measure 15,000 unborn children, found a negative correlation with air-pollution. Mothers with a higher exposure to pollution had foetuses that on average had heads and abdomens with smaller circumferences and had shorter femurs.
If pollution levels were high the size of the foetus decreased significantly.
Birthweight is a major predictor of future health, such as IQ in childhood IQ and cardiovascular disease in adulthood.
Click here for the report in ScienceDaily
Wednesday 9 January 2008
ARE WE MAKING AN OXYGEN TIPPING-POINT?
The percentage of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere has fluctuated during its history, and it is obviously no coincidence that mass extinctions have followed drops. The question is: are we creating another one? We are pumping carbon-dioxide into the sky at a rate the planet cannot handle, we are removing vast areas of forest by felling it or killing it with the effects of global overheating, and we are thus removing vast amounts of photosynthesis, a double-whammy that must surely reduce the amount of oxygen significantly.
Computer models predict that the Amazon, which is a huge part of the planet's 'lungs', will become a desert.
In a previous era when the planet became hot and arid and experienced a marked drop in the amount of photosynthesis, the percentage of oxygen plummetted to about 15%. Human beings would scarcely be functioning at that level. Our performance begins to drop off at 20%, only 1% below the 21% now in the atmosphere.
See NewScientist for the article that aroused the question in this posting.
The percentage of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere has fluctuated during its history, and it is obviously no coincidence that mass extinctions have followed drops. The question is: are we creating another one? We are pumping carbon-dioxide into the sky at a rate the planet cannot handle, we are removing vast areas of forest by felling it or killing it with the effects of global overheating, and we are thus removing vast amounts of photosynthesis, a double-whammy that must surely reduce the amount of oxygen significantly.
Computer models predict that the Amazon, which is a huge part of the planet's 'lungs', will become a desert.
In a previous era when the planet became hot and arid and experienced a marked drop in the amount of photosynthesis, the percentage of oxygen plummetted to about 15%. Human beings would scarcely be functioning at that level. Our performance begins to drop off at 20%, only 1% below the 21% now in the atmosphere.
See NewScientist for the article that aroused the question in this posting.
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