The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the second warmest September on record, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Based on records going back to 1880, the monthly National Climatic Data Center analysis is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides.

NCDC scientists also reported that the average land surface temperature for September was the second warmest on record, behind 2005. Additionally, the global ocean surface temperature was tied for the fifth warmest on record for September.

Global Temperature Highlights

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.12 degrees F above the 20th century average of 59.0 degrees F. Separately the global land surface temperature was 1.75 degrees F above the 20th century average of 53.6 degrees F.

Warmer-than-average temperatures engulfed most of the world’s land areas during the month. The greatest warmth occurred across Canada and the northern and western contiguous United States. Warmer-than-normal conditions also prevailed across Europe, most of Asia and Australia.

The worldwide ocean temperature tied with 2004 as the fifth warmest September on record, 0.90 degree F above the 20th century average of 61.1 degrees F. The near-Antarctic southern ocean and the Gulf of Alaska featured notable cooler-than-average temperatures.

Other Highlights

Arctic sea ice covered an average 2.1 million square miles in September - the third lowest for any September since records began in 1979. The coverage was 23.8 percent below the 1979-2000 average, and the 13th consecutive September with below-average Arctic sea ice extent.

Antarctic sea ice extent in September was 2.2 percent above the 1979-2000 average. This was the third largest September extent on record, behind 2006 and 2007.

Typhoon Ketsana became 2009’s second-deadliest tropical cyclone so far, claiming nearly 500 lives across the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The storm struck the Philippines on September 26, leaving 80 percent of Manila submerged.

Source: ScienceDaily.Com

Scientists revealed that climate change brought mayhem on the Earth’s first rainforests but they quickly got well. The findings of the research team led by Dr Howard Falcon-Lang from Royal Holloway, University of London, are based on spectacular discoveries of a 300-million-year-old rainforests in coal mines in Illinois, USA.

Preserved over vast areas, these fossilized rainforests in Illinois are the largest of their kind in the world. The rocks at this site contain evidence for climate fluctuations. During ice ages, the fossils show that the tropics dried out and rainforests were pushed to the brink of extinction. Yet rainforests managed to recover and return to their former glory.

Dr Falcon-Lang worked with colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution and Illinois Geological Survey. In their paper published in the journal Geology, they show that all rainforest species vanished at the height of the ice ages. Yet they also revealed as the climate warmed that the coal beds that formed shortly after contains abundant rainforest species.

Falcon-Lang said, ‘These discoveries radically change our understanding of the Earth’s first rainforests. We used to think these were stable ecosystems, unchanged for tens of millions of years. Now we know they were incredibly dynamic, constantly buffeted by climate change’.

The research may also shed light on how climate change will affect the Amazon rainforest in the future. Dr Falcon-Lang commented, ‘If we can understand how climate shaped rainforests in the distant past, we can infer how they will respond in the future. We’ve shown that within certain limits, rainforests are resilient to climate change; however, extreme climate change may push rainforests beyond a point of no return’.

The work is part of a five-year project funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council and aims to study how climate change affected the Earth’s first rainforests. These ancient rainforests date from the Carboniferous period, 300 million years ago, when most of the world’s coal resources were formed.

Source: ScienceDaily.Com

NOAA scientists have demonstrated that tsunamis in the open ocean can change sea surface texture in a way that can be measured by satellite-borne radars. The finding could one day help save lives through improved detection and forecasting of tsunami intensity and direction at the ocean surface.

Large tsunamis crossing the open ocean stir up and darken the surface waters along the leading edge of the wave, according to the study. The rougher water forms a long, shadow-like strip parallel to the wave and proportional to the strength of the tsunami. That shadow can be measured by orbiting radars and may one day help scientists improve early warning systems. The new research challenges the traditional belief that tsunamis are too subtle in the open ocean to be seen at the surface. The findings confirm a theory, developed by Godin and published in 2002-05, that tsunamis in the deep ocean can be detected remotely through changes in surface roughness.

In 1994, a tsunami shadow was captured by video from shore moments before the wave struck Hawaii. That observation and earlier written documentation of a shadow that accompanied a deadly tsunami on April 1, 1946, inspired Godin to develop his theory. He tested the theory during the deadly December 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami, the result of the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake.Godin and colleagues analyzed altimeter measurements of the 2004 tsunami from NASA’s Jason-1 satellite. The data revealed clear evidence of an increased surface roughness along the leading edge of the tsunami as it passed across the Indian Ocean between two and six degrees south latitude. Tsunamis can be detected in several ways. One detection method uses a buoy system that warns coastal communities in the United States of an approaching tsunami. NOAA’s Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) early warning system uses sensors on the ocean floor to measure changes in pressure at each location. The DART network of 39 stations extends around the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean and along the western edge of the North Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. The technology provides accurate, real-time information on the amplitude, over time, of an approaching tsunami. NOAA’s tsunami warning centers then use this information to forecast the tsunami’s impact on coastlines.

A second method uses space-borne altimeters to detect tsunamis by measuring small changes in sea surface height. Only a handful of these instruments are in orbit and the observations are limited to points along a line. The new study presents a third way to detect tsunamis — by changes in the texture of the surface water across a wide span of the open ocean. Godin’s research confirmed his theory that a tsunami wave roughens the surface water through air-sea interaction. First the leading edge of the tsunami wave stirs up the surface winds. Those same winds, which become more chaotic than the wave itself, then churn the surface waters along the slope of the wave. Because rough water is darker than smooth water, a contrast forms between the dark, rough water of the wave and the bright, smooth water on either side of it. Common scientific instruments, called microwave radars and radiometers, are able to detect this contrast, known as a tsunami shadow. When orbiting the Earth, microwave radars and radiometers can observe a band of ocean surface hundreds of kilometers wide and thousands of kilometers long. If programmed correctly to observe sea surface roughness, they could potentially map an entire tsunami.

Partial eclipses of the sun pale in comparison to the overwhelming spectacle of a total solar eclipse! On Wednesday, 22 July 2009, a total eclipse of the sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor, which traverses a third of the Earth.

The eclipse will start off on the west coast of India and travel north east across the sub-continent passing over Varanasi and Darjeeling lasting for a duration of 4 minutes, then onward through Bhutan and Bangladesh till it reaches China. China will experience the longest visual of approx 5 minutes, seen best at Chongqing, along the River Yangtze and along the Shanghai coastline. Add the great 2009 total solar eclipse to your next season’s holiday abroad. on the go offer the opportunity to witness the display in holy Varanasi, tea tree terraced Darjeeling, Bhutan, aboard a Yangtze River cruiser crossing the Three Gorges and from the coast of the East China Sea, just south of Shanghai.

You should only partake in our India Solar Eclipse tours if the Eclipse is simply a bonus to already planned travels to India as the season dictates there will be a high chance of cloud cover and the sun being low on the horizon when the eclipse occurs.

The Philippines will witness a partial solar eclipse on July 22, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said Thursday. The state weather bureau said the path of the moon’s umbral shadow will begin in India and is expected to cross Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Central China, the Pacific Ocean, Ryukyu Island, Marshal Island and Kiribati. It said a partial eclipse will be witnessed in several parts of the Philippines including Metro Manila, Calayan Island, Laoag City, Tuguegarao City, Baguio City, Angeles City in Pampanga, Puerto Princesa in Palawan, Lucena City, Naga City, Iloilo, Cebu, Zamboanga, Sulu, Davao and General Santos City. PAGASA said the eclipse will start in Metro Manila at exactly 8:33:01 a.m. The eclipse’s full visibility will be seen at 9:43 a.m. and will end at 11:01:51 a.m. Other areas in the globe that will witness partial solar eclipse are those in eastern Asia and the Pacific Ocean. The weather bureau, meanwhile, cautioned spectators to avoid directly looking at the eclipse without safety eye devices. It said people can cover their eyes with X-ray films, sun glasses, smoked glass and photographic films and negatives. It said the safest method to view the eclipse is by indirect viewing “like projecting the image with a pinhole camera.”

Artist’s impression of the new source HLX-1 (represented by the light blue object to the top left of the galactic bulge) in the periphery of the edge-on spiral galaxy ESO 243-49. This is the first strong evidence for the existence of intermediate mass black holes.

A black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing including light can escape its pull. It has one way surface called an event horizon into which object can fall but out of which nothing can come. It is called black because it absorbs all the light that hits it reflecting nothing. Despite its invisible interior, it can reveal its presence through interaction with other matter. It can be inferred by tracking the movement of a group of stars that orbit a region in space which looks empty. One can see gas falling into a relatively small black hole from a companion star. This gas spirals inward, heating up to very high temperature and emitting large amounts of radiation that can be detected from earthbound and earth-orbiting telescopes.

Black hole interesting facts:
When the star ten times more massive than our own Sun, explodes (Supernova) it leaves behind the strangest phenomenon in the Universe. The Black Hole. After explosion what is left behind is heavy core of subatomic particles, a Neutron Star. It can be very small, but with enormous density. Scientists calculated that approximately one teaspoon of Neutron Star would weight around billions of tons. The gravitational pressure of this highly dense object is so large that it can bend fabric of time and space. This theory is based on Einstein’s proposition that space and time are woven together in a flexible fabric. Massive objects like Sun warp the fabric of space and time and pull smaller objects like Earth. Very large Neutron Star can warp time and space fabric so much that it could create a hole where gravity is so strong that not even light could escape. Black Holes are pulling everything around them closer to the center of the hole. In some sense black holes are creators of the galaxies since they are pulling planets and stars towards the spiral center. Each galaxy has a Black Hole and occasionally galaxies collide together because of the gravitational pull from the larger black holes. It is expected that in 5 billion years Andromeda galaxy will collide with our Milky Way galaxy.

News:
“Astronomers see a new class of black hole”
Scientists say X-ray data collected by the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton spacecraft show evidence of a new type of black hole in a galaxy about 290 million light years from Earth and more than 500 times the mass of the sun. Astronomer Sean Farrell explains what the discovery might tell us about galaxy evolution. The new discovery is the first solid evidence of a new class of medium-sized black holes.

Scientists are seeking clues to what is life in the extrasolar planets, they are studying various biosignatures found in the light spectrum leaking out to earth to speculate on something more basic and essential than the musical expertise of Droopy McCool.What they are concerned with is to what kind of photosynthesis might occur on such planets and what extrasolar plants might look alike.

There are 9 planets within our solar system and all of them are rotating around the sun. That’s a unique setup and until the mid 90s the idea of other solar systems in distant galaxies was mere speculation. That speculation became a reality in 1995 when the first extra-solar planet called 51 Pegasi b was discovered. What exactly is an extra-solar planet then ? Well simply put it’s a planet that not only exists outside of our solar system but also has its own central star which it rotates around. These planets are known as exoplanets or extra-solar planets. Since 1995 more than 200 extra-solar planets have been found and all of these are as big if not bigger than Jupiter. As technology improves perhaps smaller exo-planets can also be found but for now the mere existence of these exoplanets is an amazing discovery and really brings the subject of extra terrestrial life to the forefront of scientific discussion.

It could be that the plants are black there. Plants on Earth are green because of chlorophyll, which harnesses the energy of the sun to make sugars for metabolism. But our plants aren’t completely efficient — they waste a little bit of light. “Ideally, what you want is a black molecule that absorbs all of the light,” Blankenship said. “There could be another system developed on an extrasolar planet where plants are completely black if the spectrum of light that’s available to organisms is different from the light available to organisms on Earth.

They also are looking into the “red edge” effect. Seen at 700 nanometers out, beyond the limit of normal human vision, this reflectance spectrum is a signature of the fact that there is very intense chlorophyll absorption going on.

NASA has two missions in the works designed to find possible evidence for life on extrasolar planets. One features a space-based instrument that will make measurements in the near infrared region; the other measures longer wavelengths to get good biosignatures for things like methane and oxygen. Blankenship said that speculation about the natural world of extrasolar planets is at this point speculative, but that it is important to get a handle on what the possibilities are, how things might look, what measurements to make and what experiments to do to conclude whether there is life on another world.

This photo, based on imagery captured by the XMM-Newton and Chandra X-ray observatories, shows the supernova remnant known as RCW 86. Scientists studied the stellar leftovers to trace the source of energetic cosmic rays.

A new study shows that a supernovae will serve as gigantic particle accelerators - ranging up to almost the speed of light. This new discovery helps explain where the extremely energetic cosmic rays we find near earth come from. Cosmic rays are energetic particles originating from outer space that impinge on Earth’s atmosphere. They carry such an energetic punch they knock out electronics systems on earth if they manage to make it past our atmosphere. Almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic ray particles are protons, alomost 10% are helium nuclei (alpha particles), and slightly under 1% are heavier elements and electrons (beta minus particles). The term ray is a misnomer, as cosmic particles arrive individually, not in the form of a ray or beam of particles.

The variety of particle energies reflects the wide variety of sources. The origins of these particles range from energetic processes on the Sun all the way to as yet unknown events in the farthest reaches of the visible universe. Cosmic rays can have energies of over 1020 eV, far higher than the 1012 to 1013 eV that man-made particle accelerators can produce. There has been interest in investigating cosmic rays of even greater energies. Until now, scientist couldn’t be sure how cosmic rays acquire there energy and speed.

“It has long been thought that the super-accelerators that produce these cosmic rays in the Milky Way are the expanding envelopes created by exploded stars, but our observations reveal the smoking gun that proves it,” said Eveline Helder of the Astronomical Institute Utrecht of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, leader of the new study. The blast releases a huge amount of energy when a star dies in a supernova. Much of that energy is used to heat up a bubble of gas that expands around the remnant of the star though some energy goes toward speeding up the particles that become cosmic rays. “When a star explodes in what we call a supernova, a large part of the explosion energy is used for accelerating some particles up to extremely high energies,” Helder said. “The energy that is used for particle acceleration is at the expense of heating the gas, which is therefore much colder than theory predicts.”

Helder and team looked at the leftovers from a supernova called RCW 86 with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. The star exploded about 8,200 light-years away in A.D. 185, and was recorded by Chinese astronomers. The modern researchers measured the temperature and speed of the gas behind the shock wave created by the stellar explosion. They found that the gas, at 54 million degrees Fahrenheit (30 million degrees Celsius), was much lower than would be expected given the shock wave’s velocity. The astronomers concluded that rather than heat up the gas, some of the supernova’s energy went toward speeding up particles to near the velocity of light. “The missing energy is what drives the cosmic rays,” said collaborator Jacco Vink, also from the Astronomical Institute Utrecht.

It is a wonderful and amazing fact that in an extreme cold the human body can be preserved over 1000’s of years. A great example of this was the Otzi during September 19, 1991 when hikers (German tourist) in the Otztal Alps near the border between Austria and Italy came across the body of a man who turned out to be over 5000 years old. He was preserved in an airtight pocket beneath a huge glacier which ultimately stopped his body from decaying in the normal manner. Not only were many of his organs still intact but he was still wearing a boot stuffed with grass. Bodies caught in glaciers are usually crushed and torn apart so the fact that this body was so well preserved was an amazing feat in itself.

The most common way to preserve a dead body is through embalming process however, cooling the body down will also slow down the process of decomposition and help to preserve the body. the purpose of embalming is to preserve the dead body from natural decomposition and also to restore a natural appearance. If the body isn’t embalmed, immediately upon death various enzymes and bacteria begin to break down the corpse and cause extreme swelling. There is such a found evidence that the body can be preserve, the Otzi. The details is as follows.

The well-preserved body of a 30-to-45-year old man dates back to 3300 BC. The body was examined, measured, x-rayed, and dated. Tissues were examined microscopically, as was the pollen found on his gear. The approx. 160-centimeter-tall body had numerous tattoos. His clothes, including a woven grass cloak and leather vest and shoes, were quite sophisticated - the shoes were waterproof and wide, seemingly designed for walking across the snow. They were constructed using bearskin for the soles, deer hide for top panels, and a netting made of tree bark. Soft grass went around the foot and in the shoe and functioned like warm socks. The Iceman’s equipment was incomplete or faulty. It is argued that he may have been a hunter or a shepherd, but others have put forth the theory that he was a chieftain, and his death was a ritual murder. A CAT scan revealed that Ötzi had what appeared to be an arrowhead lodged in one shoulder when he died. This, combined with the evidence that he appeared to have died alone in the Alps in winter, suggested that he was fleeing from attackers. Later discoveries have suggested that he may have died in the spring. The ritual murder theory argues that, rather than fleeing attackers, he was killed to propitiate a god or gods, or that he was a chieftain and therefore ritually killed to ensure fertility. Among Ötzi’s possessions were two species of polypore mushrooms. One of these (the birch fungus) is known to have antibacterial properties, and was likely used for medical purposes. The other was a type of tinder fungus, included with part of what appeared to be a complex fire starting kit. The kit featured pieces of over a dozen different plants, in addition to flint and pyrite for creating sparks.

An image of Death Valley overlaid with digital topography data from the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model

The most complete terrain map of the Earth’s surface has been published by the US and Japan. The resulting Global Digital Elevation covers 99% of the planet’s surface.

Earth is the third palnet of the solar system fron the sun and the largest of the terrestial planets int the solar system in terms of diameter , mass and density. According to study, it is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist, it is the home to millions of species including humans. The earth’s terrain varies greatly from place to place and the planetary surface undergoes reshaping over geological time periods due to the effects of tectonics and errosion. The surface features built up or deformed through plate tectonics and are subject to steady weathering and precipatation, thermal cycles, and chemical effects, glaciation, coastal errosion, the build-up of coral reefs and the large meteorites impact also act to reshape the landscape. Ther is a new published most complete earth’s map and the detail is as follows. The data, comprising 1.3 million images, come from a collaboration between the US space agency Nasa and the Japanese trade ministry. The images were taken by Japan’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (Aster) aboard the earth-monitoring Terra satellite.

The Terra satellite, dedicated to Earth monitoring missions, has shed light on issues ranging from algal blooms to volcano eruptions. For the Aster measurements, local elevation was mapped with each point just 30m apart. “This is the most complete, consistent global digital elevation data yet made available to the world,” said Woody Turner, Nasa programme scientist on the Aster project. “This unique global set of data will serve users and researchers from a wide array of disciplines that need elevation and terrain information.”

Previously, the most complete such topographic map was Nasa’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, covering 80% of the Earth’s surface. However, the mission’s results were less accurate in steep terrain and in some deserts. Nasa is now working to combine those data with the new Aster observations to further improve on the global map. Terra was launched in December 1999 as part of NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS). The three EOS platforms are part of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and the Earth-Sun System that observe, understand, and model the Earth system to find out the way it is changing and thereby better predict changes.

“The two-qubit processor is the first solid-state quantum processor that resembles a conventional computer chip and is able to run simple algorithms.”

A team of researchers led by Yale University has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, taking another step toward the ultimate dream of building a quantum computer.

They also used the two-qubit superconducting chip to successfully run elementary algorithms, such as a simple search, demonstrating quantum information processing with a solid-state device for the first time. “Our processor can perform only a few very simple quantum tasks, which have been demonstrated before with single nuclei, atoms and photons,” said Robert Schoelkopf, the William A. Norton Professor of Applied Physics & Physics at Yale. “But this is the first time they’ve been possible in an all-electronic device that looks and feels much more like a regular microprocessor.”

Working with a group of theoretical physicists led by Steven Girvin, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics & Applied Physics, the team manufactured two artificial atoms, or qubits (”quantum bits”). While each qubit is actually made up of a billion aluminum atoms, it acts like a single atom that can occupy two different energy states. These states are akin to the “1″ and “0″ or “on” and “off” states of regular bits employed by conventional computers. Because of the counterintuitive laws of quantum mechanics, however, scientists can effectively place qubits in a “superposition” of multiple states at the same time, allowing for greater information storage and processing power. For example, imagine having four phone numbers, including one for a friend, but not knowing which number belonged to that friend. You would typically have to try two to three numbers before you dialed the right one. A quantum processor, on the other hand, can find the right number in only one try. “Instead of having to place a phone call to one number, then another number, you use quantum mechanics to speed up the process,” Schoelkopf said. “It’s like being able to place one phone call that simultaneously tests all four numbers, but only goes through to the right one.”

These sorts of computations, though simple, have not been possible using solid-state qubits until now in part because scientists could not get the qubits to last long enough. While the first qubits of a decade ago were able to maintain specific quantum states for about a nanosecond, Schoelkopf and his team are now able to maintain theirs for a microsecond—a thousand times longer, which is enough to run the simple algorithms. To perform their operations, the qubits communicate with one another using a “quantum bus”—photons that transmit information through wires connecting the qubits—previously developed by the Yale group. The key that made the two-qubit processor possible was getting the qubits to switch “on” and “off” abruptly, so that they exchanged information quickly and only when the researchers wanted them to, said Leonardo DiCarlo, a postdoctoral associate in applied physics at Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science and lead author of the paper.

Next, the team will work to increase the amount of time the qubits maintain their quantum states so they can run more complex algorithms. They will also work to connect more qubits to the quantum bus. The processing power increases exponentially with each qubit added, Schoelkopf said, so the potential for more advanced quantum computing is enormous. But he cautions it will still be some time before quantum computers are being used to solve complex problems.

“We’re still far away from building a practical quantum computer, but this is a major step forward.”

Authors of the paper include Leonardo DiCarlo, Jerry M. Chow, Lev S. Bishop, Blake Johnson, David Schuster, Luigi Frunzio, Steven Girvin and Robert Schoelkopf (all of Yale University), Jay M. Gambetta (University of Waterloo), Johannes Majer (Atominstitut der Österreichischen Universitäten) and Alexandre Blais (Université de Sherbrooke).