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Scientific theories need to be proven as true before anyone can try to disprove them.

"Proof" is very different matter in the empirical world. There one would look for data and tests that allow one to distinguish between rival hypotheses.

Which step is the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW) on?

Which AGW theory? We actually have strong evidence that there is an AGW effect. For example, isotope concentrations of carbon isotopes (C14 having a short half life, is not present in fossil fuels, but is present in surface carbon due to solar radiation) indicate that in the last couple of centuries, there has been a considerable increase in atmospheric carbon from geological sources like fossil fuels or volcanoes (with human generated sources overwhelming all other known sources of geological carbon). It's varies in difficulty to determine the human contribution of some other greenhouse gases, methane tends to be harder since geological carbon contributes far less to that, but CFCs are easier (since non-human contributions are very low).

This demonstrates the first pillar of any AGW theory, that humans have made a significant contribution to the growing CO2 concentrations in Earth's atmosphere.

Second, we can directly observe the radiative and reflective properties of default atmosphere (excluding clouds and other weather effects). These indicate that CO2 does indeed block certain infra-red spectrum gaps of water vapor and thus, causes the atmosphere to retain heat. That demonstrates the second important part of any AGW theory, namely, that increased levels of CO2 do result in some degree of warming of the Earth.

There are plenty of issues with determining the human contribution past that, but it remains that the key two aspects of any AGW theory are pretty much nailed down qualitatively.

The real problem comes in with what the effects of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases are and how much harm those effects will cause. There, I think climate research has gone off the rails completely. For example, short term warming from a doubling of CO2 is around 1.5 C per doubling, based on the actual temperature changes of the past century and a half and the actual changes in the concentration of CO2. The IPCC claims that the long term warming from a doubling of CO2 is 3 C per doubling (actually 1.5 C to 4.5 C per doubling due to the huge errors in the estimate) due to positive feedback mechanisms, most which have not been demonstrated as existing while simultaneously downplaying negative feedback such as weather.

There there's the accounting games played with estimating the harm of global warming. For example, a common ploy is to greatly deflate time value via a discount rate. For example, the Stern Review, an early attempt to calculate the cost of global warming used a 1.4% discount rate (I believe derived from the historical growth rate of UK GDP at the time the report was issued) versus roughly 3% discount rate (derived from the growth rate of world GDP over a similar time frame), if we assume that GDP is roughly proportional to the size of an economy and that the current global growth rate continues for a century (aside from climate change-related adjustments), we get roughly that a 10% reduction of the global economy now is equivalent in the Stern report to a 5% reduction in the global economy in 50 years or a little over a 2% reduction in 100 years.

Other sorts of harm are similarly exaggerated such as rising sea levels, movement of agriculture, or extreme weather. The last is particularly notorious for being a textbook confirmation bias thing, in particular with the moral hazard of US public flood insurance (which has long encouraged humans to live in flood zones and is responsible for a huge increase in US property damage from floods and hurricanes to the extent that it swa

Looks like a sphere with an empty column down the middle

In other words, it's a torus. It may not be of the standard donut dimensions people are accustomed to when they think torus, but it's still a torus. It's like saying that a rectangle with dimensions of 50x51 is a square-like rectangle. Simply calling it a rectangle would do.

Looks like a sphere with an empty column down the middle

Thank you for pointing it out. The correct URL is : http://www.dpi.inpe.br/sismaden/english/index.php.

The former company I used to work for had a project like this (not for IBM but for my local government). Very roughly it did not really prediction, like the article says, but it would map cells, and given information (like millimeters of rain, wind data, seismic data, and so on ) on these cells and it's neighborhood, it would draw a map with given risk, in an arbitrary scale, for each area.

It's open source software, so, if it interests you, it's available here.

Agreed.
The guys at CBS may also explain how those hackers built the lightning generator that burned down the transmission towers in Macae and Campos.

Long live the Nigerian Space Agency!

Of course, we can still send somebody up to help that poor Nigerian astronaut to come back to Earth.

The nice thing about Nigeria is that they do have a relatively large coast, although they are more suited to polar orbits based on the direction of their coast, dispite being near the equator. Madagascar, on the other hand, has plenty of coastline and it takes quite a bit to hit Australia (or more likely, China if they launch something).

One prime candidate for orbital flight is Brazil, with a true equitorial launch facility, lots of ocean to the east, and a generous government that already has an astronaut corp of their own.

If you could find a few dozen people willing to spend months understanding a near-unique and tightly integrated hardware/software combination.

Perhaps, they might start looking in their own backyard and have their National Institute for Space Research (a goverment backed organization) open source the excellant SPRING GIS package from what is already a free download, but no source. Works on Linux/Solaris and Windows, and is rather easier to use than GRASS.

>The US and France (not that France has any kind
>of space program) are not at the best of terms,
>Germany is still re-building the eastern half,
>the UK... what are they up to, and Japan.
>Actually, I'm surprised that Japan isn't
>involved... well, maybe they are, but if so, the
>newspeople are ignoring it.

>You can pretty much count out all of Africa, the
>Middle East, most of Asia, South America,and a
>fair chunk of Europe. No one really lives in
>Antarctica, so that really leaves the Aussies.
>Are they involved? If not, why not? (Probably
>because you couldn't convince an Aussie he'd
>need a spacesuit...)

Well while it is true Russia and the U.S. are doing the majority of the work and cost, there are a number of other countries that will contribute after the core of the station is built.

Some of the countries future contributions include:

U.S.:
-Truss and Photovoltaic Arrays
-U.S. Lab
-Centrifuge Accomodation Module
-Node 2
-Node 3
-Crew Return Vehicle (X-38)
-Habitation Module

Russia:
-Science Power Platform
-Universal Docking Module
-Research Module 1
-Research Module 2
-Docking Compartment

Japan:
-Kibo [JEM Experimental Logistics Module, JEM Remote Manipulator System, JEM Exposed Facility]

European Union:
-European Lab/Columbus Orbital Facility

Canada:
-CSA Remote Manipulator System (robot arm)

Italy:
-Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (A supply "van" for moving stuff from Earth to the station) Brazil: Express Express

Some excellent links:

• Diagram
• Timeline
• Progress