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Domain: fed.us
Stories and comments across the archive that link to fed.us.
Stories · 9
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Analyzing Climate Change On Carbon Rich Peat Bogs
eldavojohn writes "A new report (PDF) from Climate Central shows that climate change has been affecting some states more than others for the past 100 years. As you can see from a video released by NASA, things have become most problematic since the 70s. Among the states most affected is Minnesota, where moose populations are estimated to have dropped 50% in the past six years. Now the U.S. Department of Energy is spending $50 million on a massive project at the Marcell Experimental Forest to build controlled sections of 36 feet wide and 32 feet tall transparent chambers over peatland ecosystems. Although peat bogs only account for 3% of Earth's surface, they contain over 30% of carbon stored in soil. They aim to manipulate these enclosures to see the effects of warming up to 15 degrees, searching for a tipping point and also observing what new ecosystems might arise. The project hopes to draw attention and analysis from hundreds of scientists and researchers around the globe." -
Mount St. Helens Shoots Steam, Ash
Wynken de Word writes "Months after the preliminary signs starting showing, Washington State's Mount St. Helens is sending a plume of steam and ash 7,600 metres into the air as of Tuesday, 17:25 PST. See the U.S. Geological Survey site for more updates and, come daylight, check out the Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam." -
Bringing the Library of Congress Newspapers Online
smooth wombat writes "If you want to read a newspaper article from sometime in the past (say 1920 for example) your only options right now are to go to your local library and hope they have a microfiche file of that paper or take a visit to Washington, DC and the Library of Congress. That may soon change. CNN is reporting that by 2006 the government will have the first of 30 million digitized pages from papers published from 1836 through 1922 which will be available to anyone who has a connection to the net. The project is a joint cooperation between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. The span of the joint project is limited because type faces of printers used before 1836 are too difficult for optical scanners to read, and copyright restrictions are in force on papers published after 1923." -
Free Video Software For The Volcanocam Team?
nogreenthumbnerd writes "The guys who run the website of the VolcanoCam on Mount St. Helens are having to resort to using Windows Movie Maker to make the movies of the eruptions. Their requirement is that the software be free and easy to use and takes still images and turns them into movies. And I'm sure Windows is their software platform. Can we help these guys out or not, Slashdotters?" (Read on for more.) nogreenthumbnerd continues "Here is what they say on the website:'The VolcanoCam recorded its first-ever images of Mount St. Helen erupting. We have five sets of images as well as VolcanoCam movies of these eruptions available for downloading. All images are in the .jpg file format. The movies are in the .wmv file format. We offer the movie in two download versions:
Check here for the vidz in WMV format."- A self-extracting .exe file (containing the .wmv movie) that runs only on Windows O/S systems.
- A zipped file (containing the .wmv movie).
We would like to offer the VolcanoCam movies in other file formats. However, we have no funding for the VolcanoCam, and we have been unsuccessful at locating any freeware software that will create movies from our still images. We apologize for the inconvenience.'
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Mount St. Helens Lets Off Some Steam
jdray writes "The cube farm is all a twitter right now, as Mt. St. Helens is spewing out a steam plume, and you can see if from our building. The cam for the volcano seems to be down, but we just saw a news helicopter from KATU, one of our local news stations, headed that direction. They should have some content up shortly." Other readers suggest: KOIN, KOIN webcams, Kiro TV, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, or CNN. -
VolcanoCam Back On The Air
Cyberherbalist writes "Over a year after the camera went on the fritz, the Mount Saint Helens VolcanoCam is finally back on the air. It's just in time to catch the famous firework as its earthquake level rises dramatically. All MSH climbing permits have been cancelled due to the danger of rocks and such flying from the lava dome inside the crater. If the weather holds, you may get some good views if the volcano continues ramping up its activity." -
VolcanoCam Back On The Air
Cyberherbalist writes "Over a year after the camera went on the fritz, the Mount Saint Helens VolcanoCam is finally back on the air. It's just in time to catch the famous firework as its earthquake level rises dramatically. All MSH climbing permits have been cancelled due to the danger of rocks and such flying from the lava dome inside the crater. If the weather holds, you may get some good views if the volcano continues ramping up its activity." -
Greenhouse Gases and Carbon Sequestration
Nechton writes: "The results of a study discussed in an article in the May 24 research journal Nature indicate that elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide may have more limited effect on forest growth than previously expected. While many short-term studies have shown atmospheric carbon dioxide (a "greenhouse" gas) increases tree growth, the experiments reported in Nature showed that without additional nutrients, initial growth increases of mature loblolly pine trees leveled off after the first three years of exposure. The presence of elevated levels of carbon dioxide alone, which is occurring due to global industrialization and land use changes, may not result in a long-term increase in the rate of tree growth. However, the results also suggest that forest fertilization, already a practice in Southern pine plantations, might become even more beneficial in a high carbon dioxide world." In a nutshell (or a pinecone): it doesn't seem that increasedw forest growth will "cancel" out increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. -
Greenhouse Gases and Carbon Sequestration
Nechton writes: "The results of a study discussed in an article in the May 24 research journal Nature indicate that elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide may have more limited effect on forest growth than previously expected. While many short-term studies have shown atmospheric carbon dioxide (a "greenhouse" gas) increases tree growth, the experiments reported in Nature showed that without additional nutrients, initial growth increases of mature loblolly pine trees leveled off after the first three years of exposure. The presence of elevated levels of carbon dioxide alone, which is occurring due to global industrialization and land use changes, may not result in a long-term increase in the rate of tree growth. However, the results also suggest that forest fertilization, already a practice in Southern pine plantations, might become even more beneficial in a high carbon dioxide world." In a nutshell (or a pinecone): it doesn't seem that increasedw forest growth will "cancel" out increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.