Since the 1990s, a number of altimeter satellites have been measuring the height of the ocean surface and this has dramatically improved our understanding of sea level rise.

Travelling at 40,000MPH and just 82,000ft over the moon, the ‘white-knuckle’ flyby was the closest yet past any of Saturn’s moons.

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This image was captured on Cassini’s approach to the icy moon, 26,000 miles above the surface

Scientists are intrigued by the possibility that liquid water, perhaps even an ocean, exists beneath the surface of Enceladus.

Environmentalists hailed the listing decision, but criticized the time it took to materialize.

But John and Ann Till, it would seem, have worked harder than most.

The couple spent three months collecting an incredible 60,000 pieces of rubbish to gain 36,000 air miles in a supermarket recycling incentive scheme.

Rising human populations and clearance of forests for farming or biofuels were wrecking natural habitats, according to the study by Birdlife International, which groups experts in more than 100 conservation bodies worldwide.

Even common birds, such as doves or skylarks in Europe, were becoming scarcer in a worrying sign of wider upsets to nature. Birds are among the best researched of all wildlife and are a barometer of the environment.

“Bird species are slipping faster than ever towards extinction,” according to Birdlife’s “State of the World’s Birds” report issued at an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) congress in Barcelona.

This past summer, the Arctic sea ice dwindled to its second lowest level. Arctic sea ice is usually 1 to 3 meters, or as much as 9 feet thick. It grows during autumn and winter and shrinks in the spring and summer.

Scientists have monitored sea ice conditions for about 50 years with the help of satellites. Changes in the past decade have been alarming to climate researchers and oceanographers.

“It is the second lowest on record. ... If anything, it is reinforcing the long-term trend. We are still losing the ice cover at a rate of 10 percent per decade now, and that is quite an increase from five years ago,” Meier said. “We are still heading toward an ice cover that is going to melt completely in the summertime in the Arctic.”

In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through “methane chimneys” rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a “lid” to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.

US scientists found that grassland took up less CO2 than usual for two years following temperatures that are now unusually hot, but may become common.

The conclusion parallels a real-world finding from Europe’s 2003 heatwave, when the continent’s plant life became a net producer, not absorber, of CO2.

The latest study is published in the scientific journal Nature.

NASA Remembers

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Last September scientists were very concerned when the Arctic ice pack shrunk to its smallest size since satellite measurements began almost 30 years ago. This year the ice has already claimed the title of second smallest ice pack with three weeks of its melting season left to go.

Usually at this point in the season he melting rate would begin to slow, said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Data Center in Boulder Colorado. Instead it sped up.

Sea ice melt recorded on Monday exceeded the low recorded in 2005, which had held second place.

With several weeks left in the melt season, ice in summer 2008 has a chance to diminish below the record low set last year, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Environmental groups said the ice melt was another alarm bell warning of global warming.

“It’s an unfortunate sign that climate change is coming rapidly to the Arctic and that we really need to address the issue of global warming on a national level,” said Christopher Krenz, Arctic project manager for Oceana.

“This is not surprising but it is alarming,” said Deborah Williams, a former Interior Department special assistant for Alaska. “This was a relatively cool summer, and to have ice decrease to the second lowest minimum on record demonstrates that global warming’s ongoing impact is profound.”

The humpback whale calf had been trying to suckle from boats, which it apparently mistook for his parent.

The plight of the starving two-tonne animal, dubbed Colin, has captivated Australia since last weekend.

The whale was first given a sedative, then a lethal dose of anaesthetic, which took 10 minutes.

“It’s a tragic end to a programme that dozens of people have put their hearts and souls into,” National Parks and Wildlife Service official John Dengate told Australian radio.

Did you know that every time you breathe out, you are releasing the deadliest of greenhouse gasses… CO2?!?!? For the sake of the planet, and for the sake of the children, please stop breathing. If everyone would stop breathing, the planet could stop suffering our incessant CO2 emissions. Who cares that exhaling CO2 is a natural process, and that all plants NEED CO2 to survive and put out oxygen (you know, the stuff we breathe in so that we can survive)?

Scientists warn today that they are now one of the most dire environmental problems of the 21st century.

According to a report in Science Daily , the grass is being developed by Scientists at Gramina, a joint biotech venture by Australia’s Molecular Plant Breeding Cooperative Research Centre and New Zealand rural services group PGG Wrightson Genomics.

The grass will not only cut the amount of methane cows burp up when chewing the cud, but also grow in hotter climes.

This means that farmers should be able to maintain dairy herds’ productivity and profitability in the face of a changing climate, while cutting down their gaseous burps and reducing their contribution to global warming.

The loss of Arctic ice, which serves as a platform for resting and reproduction and provides a refuge from predators, would be particularly severe for species like the hooded seal.

The April special issue of Ecological Applications examines such potential effects and describes possible conservation measures to mitigate them.

The assessment reflects the latest thinking of experts representing multiple scientific disciplines.

Although Arctic marine mammals have survived past periods of extended warming and cooling, the rate and scale of current climate change are expected to dramatically different, said Sue Moore of Alaska Fisheries Science Centre.

Every area of the oceans is feeling the effects of fishing, pollution, or human-caused global warming, the study says, and some regions are being affected by all of these factors and more.

A team led by Ben Halpern of the University of California, Santa Barbara, created the first global map that shows the various kinds of damage being done to marine ecosystems.

2.Atmosphere is made of 4 layers: troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere.

Troposphere is the thinnest layer (12 km or 7.5 mi), but comprises 80 % of the weight of the atmosphere, being its densest layer. Planes do not fly over 9-11 km (5.5-7 mi). It is the warmest layer, because the reflected sun rays heat up the air. As we go further up into the atmosphere, the temperature decreases with 6.5oC each km (0.6 mi), reaching -55o C at the upper limit of the troposphere (called tropopause).

3.Stratosphere goes up to 50 km (30 mi) over the Earth. At its upper edge, there is the maximum ozone concentration,
called the ozone belt. Here, the temperature is higher than in the troposphere, because the ozone absorbs a great amount of the ultraviolet rays. Pollution causes the destruction of the ozone belt, and, without it, the Earth would be exposed to the deadly UV light. Stratopause makes the connection between stratosphere and mesosphere.

Dieter Janecek, a Green Party member who lives near Munich’s central ring road, complained to the city authorities that the level of particles in the air linked to car exhaust had breached the legal limit on more than the 35 days allowed in a year.

But his request to the local authority to draw up an action plan with short-term measures such as traffic bans to curb pollution was turned down and he took his case to the European Court of Justice.

“Where there is a risk that the limit values for particulate matter may be exceeded, persons directly concerned can require the competent authorities to draw up an action plan,” the court said in a statement on Friday.

In the summer of 2007, the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change was constituted on the eve of World Environment Day (6 June) to coordinate national action plans for assessment, adaptation and mitigation of climate change. In addition to advising the government on pro-active measures that can be taken to deal with the challenge of climate change, the Council will also facilitate inter-ministerial coordination and guide policy in relevant areas as well. The Council has official members – ministers and bureaucrats – from several ministries and other government bodies, and also includes non-official members representating industry, media and the social sector.

Four decades after the so-called Green Revolution enabled this vast nation to feed itself, some farmers are turning their backs on modern agricultural methods—the use of modified seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides—in favor of organic farming.

This is not a matter of producing gourmet food for environmentally attuned consumers but rather something of a life-and-death choice in villages like this one, where the benefits of the Green Revolution have been coupled with unanticipated harmful consequences from chemical pollution.

As driving their actions, the new organic farmers cite the rising costs of seed, fertilizer, and pesticides, and concerns that decades of chemical use is ruining the soil. But many are also revolting against what they see as the environmental degradation that has come with the new farming techniques, particularly the serious pollution of drinking water that village residents blame for causing cancer and other diseases.

Working for ‘Kudumbasree’, a project launched by the City Corporation in March 2004 under the Centre’s Development of Women and Children in Urban Areas Scheme, these women collect wastes daily from door-to-door for a meagre sum Re one.

Disregarding health hazards they face due to direct contact with stinking garbage, they carry on their job from six a.m. in the morning till the dirt from the last house earmarked for them is collected.

But in spite of the noble work they do, the women rue, they are often ill-treated by the people.

According to a report jointly conducted by WHO and UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), the next three most offending countries are Indonesia, Ethiopia and Pakistan.

While 66 million people in Indonesia have no access to toilets, in Ethiopia it is 52 million and 50 million in Pakistan. In China, a whopping 32 million people don’t have access to toilets.

There are very few urban design solutions that address housing the inevitable tide of displaced people that could arise as oceans swell under global warming. Certainly none are as spectacular as this one. The Lilypad, by Vincent Callebaut, is a concept for a completely self-sufficient floating city intended to provide shelter for future climate change refugees. The intent of the concept itself is laudable, but it is Callebaut’s phenomenal design that has captured our imagination.
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World Heritage Sites are named by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The sites, both cultural and natural, added to the list are deemed “of outstanding value to humanity” and deserve protection and preservation, according to the UNESCO Web site.

With the new additions, the World Heritage List now boasts 878 sites (679 cultural, 174 natural and 25 mixed) in 145 countries.

Spied while doing some testing around Stuttgart recently, the upcoming E-class estate will follow rather quickly on the heels of the 2009 launch of its sedan counterpart. Both cars ride on an all-new large car platform that affords the fitting of gas, diesel, and hybrid powertrains.

According to Santram Pradhan, president of the union representing the 8,000 Delhi Jal sewage workers, around 1,000 sewage workers have died in the past seven years. He says 200 have died from asphyxiating on the noxious gasses and drowning in excreta, and about 800 others have died from tuberculosis, hepatitis and other diseases. “Half die, half retire,” Pradhan says, ascribing many of the safety lapses to the lack of concern for low-caste Valmiki workers shown by Delhi Jal Board officials. Numerous requests to interview Delhi Jal Board officials in charge of sewer workers went unanswered.

The country already uses 70% renewable electricity, primarily hydro- and geothermal power and will continue to increase its use of renewables over the next 20 years.

Eventually, the Prime Minister would like to see the country carbon-neutral. “I have set out the challenge to our nation to become the first truly sustainable nation on earth…to dare to aspire to be carbon neutral,” Prime Minister Clarke said.

The Prime Minister also gave a brief outline of further goals, which included a 2040 target of reducing by half per capita emissions from transport and widely introducing electric vehicles. She also stated the goal of achieving a net increase in forest area of 250,000 hectares (617,000 acres) by 2020.

“Studying the dynamics that gave rise to the presence of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere deepens our appreciation of the complex interaction
between biology and geochemistry.”, said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, not involved in these researches.

The plants use mirrors arranged in a Fresnel configuration to heat tubes of liquid rather than solar cells that convert the sunlight directly into electricity. The steam produced by the heated liquids power turbines that create electricity. While not a new technique, Mills says the technology will allow liquids to hold heat and produce steam during the night also. The paper calculates that 92 square miles of solar thermal farm could power the entire country.

Despite the optimistic results of their calculations, they warn that a plan like this requires a complete revamping of the current electric infrastructure. The country’s AC grid would have to be converted to High Voltage DC in order to decrease transmission loss from 50% to around 3% while moving the power from the sunny Southwest to the power-hungry North East. Miles says this would be a huge undertaking that would help move the country from “capital-intensive fossil fuel plants that need to run 24/7” to “electricity created by people’s and the economy’s daily rhythm,” which solar and wind energy follows closely.