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Archive for February, 2016
Unusually warm Arctic winter stuns scientists with record low ice extent for January
Posted by Mashable: None Given on February 7th, 2016
Mashable: Right about now, Arctic sea ice should be building up toward its annual maximum, making most of the region impenetrable to all but the most hardened icebreakers. Instead, January and indeed much of the winter so far has been unusually mild throughout large parts of the Arctic.
A freak storm brought temperatures to near the freezing point, or 32 degrees Fahrenheit, near the North Pole for a short time in late December and early January, and other storms have repeatedly acted like space heaters...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Unusually warm Arctic winter stuns scientists with record low ice extent for JanuaryAttorney sought oversee possible telescope hearing
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 7th, 2016
Associated Press: Hawaii officials are looking for a hearings officer to oversee proceedings for a permit to build the Thirty Meter Telescope.
Telescope officials haven't indicated whether they will pursue a new contested case hearing after the state Supreme Court in December voided the project's permit to build on conservation land on Mauna Kea.
Anticipating a possible new hearing, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources is starting to look for a hearings officer who can commit to spending substantial...
Proposed bill would create science ‘subzones’
Posted by West Hawaii Today: Tom Callis on February 7th, 2016
West Hawaii Today: Several Big Island lawmakers are backing legislation that would establish seven “science and technology research subzones,” including one covering Mauna Kea’s astronomy precinct.
The 21-page bill would give the Board of Land and Natural Resources authority over subzone activities in Conservation Districts, such as those covering the mountain, and would appear to simplify rules for building within those areas.
Barry Taniguchi, a Big Island businessman who circulated the bill among lawmakers,...
South Africa won’t declare national disaster over drought
Posted by Reuters: Maha El Dahan on February 7th, 2016
Reuters: South Africa will not declare a national disaster in response to its worst drought in a century as it hopes ample late rains will continue to improve the situation, deputy minister of agriculture Bheki Cele said on Sunday.
"For some reason God has been kind and late rains did come, and we think the 6 million tonnes (of maize) we were looking to import - we have downgraded that to four," he told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a conference in Dubai.
The country's largest grain producer...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on South Africa won’t declare national disaster over droughtCalif Drought: Global Warming Is Making Longer Droughts A Normality
Posted by Inquisitr: Nichole Tucker on February 7th, 2016
Inquisitr: California and the rest of the Southwest have been experiencing droughts since the nation`s existence. The main difference today is that these droughts occur more frequently, last longer and wet days are scarce. The new dry weather pattern is thought by scientists to be directly related to global warming, and it is only expected to get worse.
Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research have conducted a study which assessed weather patterns in the Southwest from the 1970s to today....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Calif Drought: Global Warming Is Making Longer Droughts A NormalityThe waterless toilet that turns your poo into power
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 7th, 2016
Guardian: Human excrement is rife with pathogens, “odorant volatiles” (the chemicals that make it smell) and parasites, but it has something going for it: it’s about 75% water. What’s more, water is the smallest of all its component molecules.
It’s these qualities of our faecal matter that got researchers at Cranfield Water Science Institute thinking about how to make a new kind of toilet that can provide safe sanitation to the 2.5 billion people around the world who do not currently have it.
The result...
Scientists say climate change fuelled Zika outbreak
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 7th, 2016
Bloomberg: Climate change may have fuelled the outbreak of the mosquito-borne Zika virus in Latin American and make it harder for developing countries to manage future epidemics, researchers said.
Record-high temperatures last year in Brazil, Ecuador and other South America countries created ideal conditions for the mosquito that transmits Zika, which is suspected of causing birth defects, scientists said on conference call with reporters Friday (Feb 5).
The researchers, who cautioned any link between...
New York investigates radioactive leak groundwater near city
Posted by Guardian: Sam Thielman and Alan Yuhas on February 6th, 2016
Guardian: Radioactive material has leaked into the groundwater below a nuclear power plant north of New York City, prompting a state investigation on Saturday and condemnation from governor Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo ordered an investigation into “alarming levels of radioactivity” found at three monitoring wells at the Indian Point energy center in Buchanan, New York, about 40 miles north of Manhattan.
“Our first concern is for the health and safety of the residents close to the facility and ensuring the groundwater...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on New York investigates radioactive leak groundwater near cityNew science helps put spotlight on unseen global impacts
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 6th, 2016
ScienceDaily: As the world grows more connected, "out of sight, out of mind" looms as a perilous consequence of globalization. A sustainability scholar presents an integrated way to track the many footprints that are made in global transactions in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment this month. Jianguo "Jack" Liu, the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability at Michigan State University, has been putting the award-winning telecoupling framework to the test to examine the often unseen and unaccounted...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on New science helps put spotlight on unseen global impactsTotal Conducting Seismic Testing on Congo Oil Block
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 6th, 2016
Reuters: French oil major Total is conducting seismic testing on a block it operates in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a company spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday, making it the first oil major to conduct such testing in the country.
Congo produces just 25,000 barrels of oil per day along its Atlantic coast in the west but hopes that further exploration offshore and near Lake Albert, which straddles the eastern border with Uganda, will boost that figure significantly in coming years.
Total...