Jacobshavn Isbrae is one of the fastest moving and most productive glaciers in the world. Scientists estimate that close to the snout (front) its movement has accelerated in recent years from 20 to 40 meters a day. At the same time that the front has accelerated the glacier has been rapidly retreating through ‘calving’ (large sections breaking…
I recently posted a piece on the ‘Deep Green’ project to generate electricity from deep ocean currents. Here is another of the ocean-based generation schemes: Land Installed Marine Powered Energy Transformer, or LIMPET.
The project to core the glaciers of Puncak Jaya was officially launched today at a press conference in Jakarta, at the offices of the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG). Agency director general Sri Woro B. Harijono hailed the project as “a milestone for climate study in Indonesia” that will produce important data for…
Invasive Vine Said to Add Ozone in Southeastern U.S.
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation continued to support the Earth Institute, Columbia University and the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI), with grants totaling over a half million dollars, to further progress on optimizing nitrogen’s beneficial role in sustainable food production while minimizing nitrogen’s negative effects on human health and the environment resulting from food and…
Our team is planning to recover and analyze ice cores from glaciers on opposite sides of the tropical Pacific Ocean: Puncak Jaya in Papua-Indonesia (4,884 meters above mean sea level) and Nevado Haulcán, Peru (6,100 meters.). Puncak Jaya offers the only potential opportunity to acquire an ice core history from the western side of what…
After years of preparation, scientists are about to ascend Indonesia’s 4,884-meter (16,000-foot) Puncak Jaya, earth’s highest mountain between the Andes and the Himalayas, to drill samples of some of the last, fast-dwindling glacial ice in the tropics. From deep cores representing centuries of accumulation, they hope to extract clues to past cyclic swings in the…
Having seen the Russell glacier from the air (May 13, 2010 blog post), several of us decided to travel the 35 miles by land from our Kangerlussuaq station with a local guide named Adam. Adam is from Southern Greenland and fills us in on local information. He notes in that area it is illegal to…
Over the last year, the government has been working on passing a new water bill, the Hydraulic Resources Law, which would, as I understand it, allow the concessions to stand, codify privatization of water rights and centralize decision-making at the state level, possibly further excluding traditional local water-management structures from the process. In the last…