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Switchyard Project: A Very Successful Year
May 22: The 2011 field season has been a very very successful year, in fact the most successful one we have ever had. The weather has been great, the equipment proved to be mostly reliable, the people have been great and the samples are plenty. In the month to come, we will analyze the water samples and eventually end up with a tremendous amount of very exciting data. Thanks to everyone who made this happen.
We left Alert yesterday and are on our way back home. We are stranded in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, for a couple of days until the Air National Guard can take us and our valuable freight back to the U.S.
Best wishes.
The Switchyard Team.
Celebrating the end of the Antarctic field season
We decide today is the last day for our camp, and we pack up and drive back to our base camp, the Central Transantarctic Mountain camp (CTAM). A sadness in a way, because it was our cozy home for a week. We ate, slept, and joked around here night after night. Also, we realize that packing up camp represents the end of the field season, except for one more day. For the last day of work we will fly by helicopter to the Achernar area from the CTAM camp.
The last day at Mount Achernar. We use the helicopter to go near the southernmost part of the area, near the Lewis ice tongue, which comes off the East Antarctic ice sheet. After a long day, we collect our last samples, and wait for the helo to pick us up – the end of the field work for this season. We realize we had a very successful field season. Not one day of work was lost at either Mt Howe or Mt Achernar (a very rare experience for Antarctica). We think about how we accomplished our goals in terms of getting to both remote sites and collecting samples.
Back at CTAM camp, we scramble to get all our stuff packed up ready to be shipped back to McMurdo. They are closing the CTAM camp for scientific work in a week because they need to take everything down by the middle of February. The middle of February represents the end of the field work for everyone in Antarctica. It starts to get too cold, and the sun starts setting in some areas farther north. People start to go home then and McMurdo gets ready for the winter.
We all fly back to McMurdo. A bed and running toilets (!) for the first time since we left for our camping trips. Also, the dorms have dark curtains that go over the windows. So, darkness, a bed, and a toilet – who would have known life can get so good!
Mike Kaplan (Lamont)
Glacial deposits: A clue to reconstructing the history of the Antarctic ice sheet
We set out on the snowmobiles with all the sleds to Mount Achernar with all our stuff. After about three hours we reach the site (crossing the flagged crevasse zone with no problem). We are joined by a fifth team member, Tim Flood, a Professor at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin. Tim has expertise in petrology or rock composition. So, we will have one additional person for the Achernar part of the trip.
At first we only find 'blue ice' to set up camp. Blue ice gets its name mainly because – in contrast to the typical situation of having a layer of snow on top of the ice sheet – there is only ice. The snow layer that normally covers the top of the ice sheet is blown away where the winds blow pretty fast and consistently. This means there is no good place for camp right in the Achernar area because all the blue ice is a sign of strong winds. We decide to back up a few miles to where the snow starts again and camp a little but away from Mount Achernar. This means we will have a 'daily commute' to get to where we want to work, but at least we have a nice place to live for the week. It is less windy where we decide to set up camp and a nice layer of snow in which to pitch the tents and walk around. Blue ice is very difficult to walk on – it is just what it sounds like – walking on ice!
We set up camp. Unlike at Mount Howe, here each person will have their own tent. In addition, we set up the bathroom tent and a huge kitchen tent, named the 'Arctic oven.' The arctic oven will act as a kitchen and dining area. It is about 25 feet long, enough to be comfortable. And, when we have two stoves going inside, the temperature gets up to a comfortable 60 degrees or even higher (hence, its name); comfortable enough to start peeling off all our jackets while eating. Two little speakers that Tim picked up in an airport, attached to ipods, means we even have a stereo system in the arctic oven cook tent.
The first day we drive out to where we want to work. It takes about an hour and a half each way by snowmobile. This is quite a bit of time. In addition, the glacier deposits we want to study are much larger in area compared to at our first site at Mount Howe. It is not practical for us to drive everywhere and get to all the places by walking. We realize we will need to utilize the helicopter from nearby CTAM. So, the next week or so we alternate: a "snowmobile day" when we commute by snowmobile from camp to the field site and "helo days". On the helo days, the helicopter flies out to our camp (a short flight by helicopter from the CTAM camp) picks us up, takes us exactly where we want to go around Mount Achernar, and then at the end of the day, comes back out to bring us back to our camp. All these trips only take the helicopter folks about 75 minutes in total each day, given how fast they go.
We spend the next 8 days or so doing the same sort of work as at our first site Mount Howe. We map the glacier deposits (how red or oxidized are they – how do their elevations changes? How do the deposits themselves change in terms of shape and composition and other characteristics?). Mike K and Mike R (with occasional assistance from others) collect samples for the surface exposure dating, so they can eventually figure out how old all the deposits are. Kathy, Nicole and Tim study the composition and types of glacier rocks and sediments left behind.
Similar to our finding at Mt Howe, we find pronounced changes in the glacier moraine deposits around Mt Achernar. This indicates there are likely deposits of different ages, left behind at different times by the ice sheet when it was bigger. All the team members continue to collect samples that will be analyzed later in the lab.
Mike K, Kathy, Mike R, Nicole and Tim
How to cross a crevasse zone on the Antarctic ice sheet
We are back at the CTAM (Central Trans Antarctic Mountain) camp.
Over the last several days we take stock in that we accomplished the first major goal of our trip. That is, to study the glacier deposits at Mount Howe, the southernmost rock outcrop on Earth. We found (what we think are) deposits left behind by the ice sheet when it was bigger, at several different time periods in recent Earth's history. We can tell in a preliminary way, before we have carried out the laboratory work back home, that the glacier deposits must be of different ages because they are different 'colors' – red for more oxidized (rusted). They also show other signs of varying in age such as the weathering of the rocks and landforms, which increases away from the ice sheet (=older). This means that there will be a record of the glacier leaving behind different types of rocks over a period of time, likely well before the last ice age. It was an important goal to find such deposits for our sampling.
We quickly regroup our stuff over the next few days at the CTAM camp and start to get ready for the next major camp move, to Mount Achernar. For this stage of our trip, which is only about 25 kilometers from the CTAM camp, we are hoping to get there by snowmobile. We will use 4 snowmobiles pulling 6 sleds (two snowmobiles will pull two sleds each). This will allow us to move our entire camp, set it up for more than a week near the site, work, and then come back to CTAM after 8 days or so. However, there is a small problem. There is a crevasse shear zone in the ice sheet between the CTAM camp and Mount Achernar. So, we must figure out where to cross the crevasse zone. We do this two ways. First, we take a helicopter trip from CTAM for an hour (they are quick) to scope out or reconnaissance the area (a "reconn"). On the helicopter, we think we figure out where we might be able to cross the crevasse zone. The helicopter trip also allows us to see the whole area of Mt Achernar and where we want to camp. Camp ideally has to be on a snow patch so we can stake the tents down and in a spot not too windy.
The second way we figure out how to cross the crevasse zone is to go to it, by snowmobile on just a day trip from CTAM (another "reconn"). Mike R (Roberts), our mountain guide, shows us how to link the snowmobiles by ropes, in case one falls into a crevasse. We also put on climbing harnesses and rope ourselves to a second set of ropes between the snowmobiles. This is so that if we fall in, we can either climb out or be pulled out by others.
We get to the crevasse zone which starts at about 15 miles from the CTAM camp. The first few crevasses seem quite bad – each about 2 to 5 feet cross. Although they all seem to have natural 'snow bridges' that cross the top of the crevasse, which we can drive across, we need to be confident that they will not collapse due to the weight of the machine. Mike R slowly investigates each crevasse we cross to see how strong the overlying snow bridges are and how wide each crevasse is. After about an hour, we start thinking maybe there are just too many crevasses (every few hundred feet we are finding another one) and it would take too long to figure out how to get across the entire crevasse zone. Mike R suggests we park and get off the snowmobiles, link up with ropes and slowly walk for a while to see how much longer the bad crevasses continue. This seems easier at the moment then stopping and starting the snowmobiles every time we reach another crevasse. To our surprise, the crevasses quickly get smaller and disappear just as we start walking! We did it ! We found a reasonable and quick way to get across the crevasse zone which is less than a 1 mile wide at its bad part. We put flags next to each one so that we can easily see where they are when we come back through on the way to Mount Achernar site to do our work.
Mike Kaplan, Kathy Licht, Nicole Bader and Mike Roberts
Moraines and spaghetti in the Transantarctic Mountains
The first day of geologic work at our Mt Howe field camp. We start walking on the moraines (piles of debris left by a glacier, just like around NY, Indiana, Wisconsin, where we are from) and we have to put on crampons. These are spikes that go on the bottom of our boots. This is because the moraines are really hummocky to walk on and right under just a few inches of dirt is ice, making us slip and slide and do more leg splits than we can remember!
But, we quickly identify roughly where we think the ice was during the last ice age. We can do this because the deposits are 'grey' in color as they do not have time to oxidize (like rust on a car). The stuff left behind by older ice ages is red in color – because it has had time to oxidize. We start collecting our first samples. Kathy and Nicole collect material to figure out the type and chemistry of the glacier deposits left behind, which will help tell them which way the ice must have been moving in the past and what kind of rocks it brought up from below. Mike K and Mike R start measuring the elevations of all the glacial deposits and more important start collecting samples from the tops of large boulders. These samples will help us figure out the time at which they were left behind. Once back home, we will use a method called cosmogenic surface exposure dating. We will use our lab facilities at Lamont-Doherty Earth Obsservatory to date the rocks, using the cosmogenic nuclides Beryllium-10 as well as Helium-3.
Over the next 6 days or so, both teams just systematically collect samples from each set of ridges or moraines that the ice sheet left behind in the past. The idea is that each distinct moraine ridge represents a different time period or glacial period when the ice sheet was bigger. The weather holds up well, an important fact when you are only a couple hundred miles from the South Pole. The temperature remains about -10 to 0 during the day. Anytime the wind picks up thought, the wind chills causes it to get colder fast. Often exposed skin has to be covered quickly. Only a few days are cloudy, otherwise the sun adds a little bit more warmth. Fortunately, the tents are warmer, especially when we run the coleman stoves. So, eating dinner is way more comfortable than being outside.
Mike K., Mike R., Kathy and Nicole
Setting up camp 184 miles from the South Pole
We fly from McMurdo to our first base camp, named CTAM, which stands for Central Transantarctic Mountains. This camp is set up by the US National Science Foundation every 5 to 10 years, with input from scientists on the cutting edge research that can be done in the region where it is set up. An idea for having the camp is to make central Antarctica more accessible every once in awhile to scientists who want to carry out research in remote parts of the continent, such as our team. Otherwise, many of these areas are too hard to get to from the larger more permanent bases and camps such as McMurdo.
Here we will gather all our things, organize our gear for the final time, and then go to our remote 'deep' field sites to work. This is the third largest camp on the Antarctic continent this season, and is helping various science teams carry out research, such as in biology and on fossils, geology, and on the ice sheet (for example, how it flows). The camp allows teams such as ours to reach by helicopter and twin otter plane more remote locations this year in central Antarctica, which is normally very difficult.
First, Kathy and Mike R fly to the first of our major camps, at Mount Howe. The next day, Mike K and Nicole fly.
We use a twin otter plane to take all of our gear, including a snow mobile, and only two people can go at a time. The trip takes about two hours each way. This is the first time Mike K and Nicole really get to see Antarctica. The flight is one of those unique experiences of a lifetime as we fly over the mountains high enough to poke through the Antarctic ice sheet. Upon arriving, camp is set up (fortunately Mike and Kathy get much of this done the first day), including two three Scott tents and a mountain tent. One Scott tent is our bathroom – one of the most important tents to go up! Mike K's tent will act as a dining room and kitchen.
Using a GPS, we figure out the South Pole is only 184 miles from our camp. Less than 3 hours if we are driving on an interstate in the US.
Mike, Kathy and Nicole
Survival training in Antarctica – aka Happy Camper
We survived Happy Camper survival school! This is essential training for anyone who goes into the field on the coldest most remote continent on Earth. Kathy took hers 4 years ago. We learn to build snow trenches for survival and all things related to camping in the cold, although we still appreciate that it is warmer here than back home (in the 30s, dry and sunny). Also, everyone goes through snowmobile basic repair and use, rock climbing 101, and crevasse rescue training.
Tomorrow is the last day before flying out to the remote CTAM (central Transantarctic Mountains) camp that we will use a base for getting to Mt Howe and Mt Achernar. Mike Roberts, our mountaineering guide, uses the last day to give one more crevasse-rescue training course.
We learned how to stop a fall down a steep slope, set up rescue systems and traversed around an ice fall to learn to recognize and avoid crevasses. Upon our return, we found out that our flight will be delayed a day. Very typical for Antarctica!
Mike and Nicole
Antarctic Impressions
It's great to be back on this amazing continent. I certainly never tire of the beauty of this place. Well, I wouldn't call McMurdo a beautiful place, but it is buzzing with activity and provides great support for the scientists. Things are much the same here as 4 years ago when I was last on the ice. Dozens of science groups work out of McMurdo station, which acts as a hub of activity for a wide range of scientists, including geologists, biologists, glaciologists and atmospheric scientists.
Many groups, like ours, utilize McMurdo as a place to organize field gear for camping trips to distant sites on the continent to collect samples. Others groups stay in McMurdo to conduct experiments on samples collected nearby. All the science groups have small offices and some work on high tech equipment here in the Crary Lab. This is an amazing resource, particularly in terms of support staff who really work hard to help us out.
An exciting new addition to the local scenery is the small group of windmills erected to generate power for this energy hungry place. My understanding is that this effort was led by the New Zealanders, whose base (Scott Base) in only about a mile away. Luckily, the international cooperation between the NZ and US Antarctic programs means that McMurdo is benefitting from this great 'green' experiment in power generation.
McMurdo station rests on the South West tip of Ross Island, which is dominated by the active volcano, Mt. Erebus. As a current resident of the rather flat state of Indiana, I take pleasure in temporarily living on the flanks of a volcano rising more than 12,000 ft above sea level, with its nearly perpetual puff of smoke at the summit.
Kathy Licht, IUPUI
A beautiful day in Antarctica
We left Christchurch in the rain – the last we will see for awhile! After a 5 hour flight on a US air force plane, we land on the McMurdo Ice Shelf.
We get off the plane in Antarctica – and – it is beautiful – in the 30s (Fahrenheit) sunny and dry. When it is this dry and sunny, it is light jacket weather. Some people are working around in short sleeves and fleeces. Just like the weather in New York (as family tells me on email the next day), and significantly warmer than the weather in Wisconsin (where Nicole came from). This is Mike Kaplan and Nicole's first time here, but Mike Roberts and Kathy have been here before.
The planes land on snow, which is groomed with a special compacting machine so that a normal plane can land and take off on the snow.
The next 10 days are for packing, coordinating, and most important, taking safety classes of all types, including the most important – happy camper. Nicole and Mike need to do a two day/1 night class where we camp outside, learn about all the camping equipment, and show we can deal with the elements, before they send us out into the unknown. We also need snow mobile school, helicopter safety school, environmental safety and awareness, crevasse training, and on and on…With all the gear and packing to put together, including food, this will take well over a week before we can even think of leaving McMurdo and heading out to the next stage and field work.
Most of our time is getting our gear together, making wood 'rock boxes' (see photo) for storing our geologic samples after we collect them, choosing our tents, food, and other things we are taking. We need to make sure we have two of many things, such as stoves, for safety. Just planning our food for when we are working takes all afternoon and half the evening.
Mike K and Nicole are also starting to learn their way around McMurdo Sound, which is a really interesting place. It is like a small town with a library, general store, three gyms, a coffee shop and wine bar. We all room in dormitories like we are students again. Of course, Kathy and Mike R are old hats here. McMurdo is the base for the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). During out time here, we can see planes and helicopters coming and going, as they take supplies and scientists to various places, including the South Pole. We all eat in one big cafeteria for everyone, buffet style. Fortunately, for Mike K, they are two ice cream machines, in case one breaks down!
Kathy and Mike
Gearing up in New Zealand
After months of waiting, we leave Los Angeles on a non stop 12 hour flight to New Zealand. We 'are' Mike Kaplan at Lamont Doherty, Kathy Licht a professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and Nicole Bader a student from St. Norbert College in Wisconsin. Nicole is finishing her undergraduate at St. Norbert but will be doing her Master's thesis research with Kathy starting in the fall. Her project will focus on what we do in Antarctica.
It is hot and humid when we landed in Auckland. We went through customs and had the customary 15 minute walk to the domestic terminal. We noticed the heat and humidity not just because we just came from the 'winter' in the United States, but we are soon to go to the coldest part of the planet.
We stayed in Christchurch a day. This is to get our gear at the CDC (clothing distribution center). All the extreme cold weather clothing is issued here. We try things on, ask for more (and more!) clothing, and pack everything for our trip. We wait, and walk around Christchurch, including their beautiful Botanical Gardens, have a great Thai meal – knowing thesis will be the last of such sights and greenery (and hay fever!) we will see for a month. We also meet Mike Roberts here, a New Zealander originally, who is our mountaineering guide and new companion. He will be an integral part of our field season and our team and we are happy to meet him finally.
Mike, Kathy and Nicole
At AGU, Earth Institute's Columbia Water Center Adds to the Abundance of Scientific Riches
The annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting is an all-you-can-eat buffet of the most current scientific knowledge available on the planet. Name your pleasure: space, climate change, geomagnetism, nonlinear geophysics, volcanology, biogeosciences, etc. You have to be careful to indulge in moderation over the five-day event, or risk unseemly bloating.
The Columbia Water Center contributed its own tasty dishes to the feast, mostly under the hydrology section of the menu. (but enough of the food analogies)
Several CWC scientists and affiliated researchers gave talks at this year's event, December 13 – 17, in San Francisco, and several more had posters representing their work on display. The CWC contribution drew heavily on our research projects in India, but also explored other water issues. Detailed slideshows and posters, along with videos (some filmed in dark presentation rooms) are available on a web page devoted to CWC at AGU 2010.
Upmanu Lall started the week with a presentation called 'Why is it Flooding Everywhere this Year? Coincidence or a Predictable Climate Phenomenon, and How Can We Respond?' Without going into the technical material here, Lall concluded that a project on understanding and predicting global flood and drought patterns could facilitate flood risk management and climate change adaptation activities. These would benefit local, state and national planners, and also corporations and financial industries such as insurance.
Shama Perveen and Naresh Devineni are working on a project to develop an in-depth assessment of the growing water shortages in India, as discussed in an earlier post by Perveen. At AGU she spoke about 'Quantifying the Dimensions of Water Crisis in India: Spatial Water Deficits and Storage Requirements'. Preveen showed a series of diagrams that demonstrated the rapidly falling Indian groundwater levels, population pressure and agricultural demands. Devineni followed up with a look at the water storage capacity in different parts of India, relating them to crop water requirements. This work will help Indian policy makers decide which crops can be grown in each geographic region to maximize food production while minimizing water use.
PhD student Ram Fishman addressed 'How Low Can It Go? – Scenarios for the Future of Water Tables and Groundwater Irrigated Agriculture in India', which looked at the relationship between energy use, water use and agricultural production, and their combined effect on the water table. He also presented a poster, 'Does Irrigation Buffer Agriculture from Climatic Variability – Evidence from India', which further elaborates on this research.
Tobias Siegfried offered five posters, which ranged from water stress and conflict in Central Asia to groundwater sustainability in India, to climate change impacts in the western US.
Chandra Krishnamurthy, Christina Karamperidou and visiting professor Francesco Cioffi also used posters to explain their research projects, and IRI's Paul Block gave a presentation on 'Statistical Dynamical Climate Predictions to Guide Water Resources in Ethiopia'.
Lall then finished up the week with two more presentations. One, 'Will Hydrologists Learn from the World Around Them?', was a critique of climate research that doesn't adequately address the issues of bias in modeling.
In the other, 'Exploring Oceanic Source Regions and Moisture Transport of Extreme Floods over Large Basins in the Contiguous United States', Lall talked about the statistical analysis of atmospheric moisture circulation patterns, which may be able to help predict large flooding events in specific geographical regions.
As a group, the work presented was a significant contribution to the AGU meeting, which gave all the researchers the opportunity to interact with scientists in related fields, and keep increasing our collective knowledge and understanding of critical global climate and water issues.
Next year's AGU feast may be even more lavish….
Columbia Water Center AGU 2010 resources page here.
Antarctica's Secrets
A major factor in predicting future climate change and its impact on the planet is the response of the Earth's ice sheets to warming temperatures. Understanding the historical context and dynamics of Antarctica's massive ice sheets is critical for modeling future changes that have the potential to impact the globe, including significant contributions to sea level rise.
Michael Kaplan and Gisela Winckler, two climate scientists from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, along with Kathy Licht and Jeff Swope from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, have recently started a new project, funded by the National Science Foundation, to study the timing and extent of advances of the East Antarctic ice sheet in the past. Integrating field work, geochemical analyses and cutting-edge isotope-based dating tools will allow the scientists to develop a record of fluctuations in the East Antarctic ice sheet and to identify past changes in both ice sheet flow direction and bedrock composition.
On December 13th, Kathy Licht and Mike Kaplan, along with Tim Flood and undergraduate Nicole Bader, both from St. Norbert College, left for their exciting trip to the East Antarctic plateau to collect samples to address these research objectives. Their route will take them via Christchurch, New Zealand, to the Antarctic station McMurdo and on to the East Antarctic ice sheet. It will take them about two weeks to get to the field site.
Accompanied by mountaineer Mike Roberts, they will work from two remote field camps at the edge of the Transantarctic Mountains. The satellite image shows the study region with the major outlet glaciers from East Antarctica crossing the Transantarctic Mountains and flowing northeastward into the Ross Ice Shelf and West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The sites noted in purple will be the location of the two small field camps where the group will be collecting samples. The blue star shows the location of a large field camp, which will be the jumping off point for transport to the smaller camps. The green and yellow dots show the locations of samples collected during two previous expeditions to the region. Over the course of a month, the team will sample boulders and glacial sediments that have accumulated on the ice sheet surface over thousands of years.
Kathy and Mike will report from their adventurous trip on this blog while I will facilitate communication with the field camp and answer questions about the laboratory side of the project.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to ask. I will field questions and send them over to Antarctica from where Kathy and Mike will, whenever possible, send back answers.
Stay tuned for exciting dispatches from Antarctica.
The Last Arctic Sea Ice Refuge
If climate change proceeds apace, summer sea ice in the Arctic is projected to nearly disappear by the end of this century. But a group of researchers predicts that ice will continue to collect in one small area, perhaps providing a last-ditch stand for ringed seals, polar bears and other creatures that cannot live without it. The findings were presented yesterday at a heavily attended press conference put on by the American Geophysical Union by polar oceanographers Stephanie Pfirman and Robert Newton of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, along with colleagues from Alaska and Canada.
Studies of ice formation patterns, water currents, winds and the arrangement of arctic land masses has led the scientists to project that even as summer sea ice nearly disappears from the northern ocean by about 2050, floes will continue to pile up and persist along the northern flanks of the Canadian Archipelago and Greenland. This region is currently clogged with heavy ice, some of it drifting in from as far away as Siberia.
"We wanted to look at the tail end–what will happen after the arctic moves to largely ice-free state?" said Pfirman. "Where will the [last] ice be located? If it collects in one area, it could maintain a sea-ice ecosystem for decades." Brendan Kelly, a polar biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Juneau, Alaska, explored the ecological implications, but cited potential problems, including declines in the snow cover needed by seals, and the genetic dangers of having declining populations of rare creatures crammed into shrinking areas. Bruno Tremblay, a climatologist and oceanographer at McGill University, in Montreal, ran an animation showing the shrinkage of warm-season sea ice in the recent past, and a projection into the future . The scientists said that sea ice will continue to cover the ocean in the winter for the foreseeable future–but that arctic creatures need the ice during warmer seasons as well to breed and eat.
Newton said that if there is to be a remnant area, the "first step" is to identify where it might be. With this information, a wide community of governments and native peoples would then at least have information available to consider whether or how to manage such a place in the face of shipping, oil exploration, tourism and other activities that are expected to increase as the arctic becomes more accessible. "We're hoping to provoke this conversation," said Newton.
Read the news reports in:
The Caribbean's Growing Disaster Hotspots
The 125 million people of the Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico region are highly exposed to hurricanes, floods and landslides–and it is not only because of bad weather. Increasing numbers of the poor are crowding into confined areas that are most prone to destruction–low-lying flood plains, too-steep hillsides, and the like. Robert Chen, director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), will describe this alarming trend in an AGU talk on Friday, the last day of the meeting.
CIESIN specializes in creating maps that show humans' interaction with the natural environment. Ones for this region show deadly combinations of poverty and physical vulnerability to weather. (Blues signal low numbers; greens moderate; yellow to red, progressively more.) Hotspots are clustered across Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Along the coast of Latin America are wide swaths of danger spanning Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. Not surprisingly, low-lying parts of Texas, Louisiana and southern Florida also stand out.
Many scientists believe climate change will worsen extremes of weather. The CIESIN research suggest that even if this never happens, as the population of dangerous areas grows, these hotspots will continue to get more dangerous.
See CIESIN-generated maps of worldwide vulnerability to changing climate.
Is New York City Ready for Drought?
All day long a flood of thousands scientists and students ebbs and flows across San Francisco's 4th Street and Howard Avenue, coursing between the cavernous Moscone West and Moscone South convention buildings. The AGU is like a supercomputer of earth science, with human currents of data swapping information, heading from one talk to another, processing what they've heard, who they've met, what's coming next.
What's coming next in New York City, sooner or later, is a long dry spell, according to research by Lamont-Doherty's Neil Pederson. The city has seen repeated shortages of water over the past 20 years — even though the climate has been relatively wet over the past few decades, and despite a decline in overall water use. Pederson says the water system emergencies of recent years suggest that "maybe the system is not in tune with the climate."
Ultimately, he said in a talk today at AGU, New York City "is not prepared for the next significant drought."
Pederson and his colleagues looked at 12 species of trees along the Hudson River Valley and, combined with research by Ed Cook, director of Lamont's Lamont's Tree Ring Lab, and others, constructed a record of rain and drought going back into the 1500s. There are still a few trees around who've seen four or more centuries pass, Pederson said, including on in the Hudson Valley dating to the early 1500s. Additional records researched by Cook come from the beams cut for now-historic homes built in the 18th century, Pederson added.
The use of 12 species has expanded the accuracy of the chronology, Pederson believes, though it's hard to gauge by how much just yet. He found that the region has suffered severe droughts in every century through the 1800s. But except for a short period in the 1960s, the dry periods over the past 120 years have been relatively minor. Is the New York City region due for another paleo-scale drought?
Honoring a Pioneer in Planetary Evolution
David Walker, a professor of geochemistry at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, will be honored tonight by colleagues at the American Geophysical Union for decades of groundbreaking work to understand the early formation of the moon and Earth. Walker will receive the AGU's Harry H. Hess Medal, awarded for "outstanding achievements in research of the constitution and evolution of Earth and other planets."
Walker began his career as a student at Harvard University in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as samples of the moon were being returned by the Apollo space missions. Walker was into experimental petrology, a field in which lab scientists try to re-create and understand the conditions under which natural rocks form. With the aid of the moon samples, Walker helped helped piece together much of the story of lunar history accepted today. "Much of what we now take for granted about the formation of the lunar crust and mantle came out of the Harvard experimental petrology lab in the 1970s, clearly with Dave Walker's intellectual stamp on it," said Carl B. Agee, a planetary geologist at the University of New Mexico who wrote the citation for the award.
After coming to Lamont a few years later, Walker began working on questions about Earth, including its early separation into chemically distinct layers, and the genesis of magmas that flow out at mid-ocean ridges to form the seafloors. He is currently working on experimental studies to elucidate the formation of earth's core, and its interaction with the overlying mantle.
Walker also played a key role in developing devices that could duplicate the extreme high-pressure conditions found deep within planets, simplifying designs so that any decent machine shop could turn out the equipment cheaply. "Walker-type" anvils, used to compress experimental solutions to these extreme pressures, are now standard in labs across the world.
Along the way, Walker also has found time to become a popular teacher who has helped students explore topics as diverse as alternative energy sources; radioactive waste, and mineralogy. Agee wrote that Walker "is a true leader in experimental petrology, in both designing and improving experimental equipment, and pioneering new ideas of the evolution of the Earth, Moon and planets."
India's Water Is Running Out
India is running "the largest water-mining project in the world"–and it cannot be sustained much longer, Columbia Water Center researcher Shama Perveen told an audience on Monday. That is mainly because farmers, who depend heavily on irrigation water drawn from underground aquifers, are using far more water than rainfall can replenish. Perveen's talk, "Quantifying the Dimensions of Water Crisis in India," contained a series of daunting statistics:
–India's northern breadbasket region, home to 600 million people, lost about 60 cubic kilometers of water from its groundwater aquifers in 2002-2008.
–Farmers who used to pump water from five or 10 feet below the surface are now sometimes drilling down 200 or 300 feet.
–Unlike the United States and Australia, which have dams that can store up to 6,000 cubic meters of water for each person, India has a dismal storage capacity of 200 cubic meters per capita.
Perveen says that building dams will not suffice, because of the extreme imbalance between rains and usage; in some regions, dams would have to hold five years' worth of rainfall just to keep up. In the future, India will have to make irrigation far more efficient, and switch from water-intensive crops like rice, she said.
Read about the Columbia Water Center's research in India and elsewhere.
The Right Tools to Talk Climate
Navigating the ocean of AGU requires patience. For a newcomer, parsing the inch-thick spiral-bound notebook of presentations, with pages of maps of the enormous Moscone Center, is a bit like finding your way around a city in a foreign language (at least there's a nice crossword puzzle on Page 31).
You need the right tools to understand what's going on, and to get where you need to go. Columbia researchers have been looking for the right tools to navigate another complicated place: The gap between what climate science tells us, and how a lot of the public hears that information, and what policymakers are prepared to do about it. They're giving a couple of talks on the subject at AGU.
On Wednesday, Mary-Elena Carr will join colleagues from the Columbia Climate Center Lamont-Doherty to talk about "Climate Information and Misinformation: Getting the Message Out." With researchers from Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors, they looked at three ways to address climate change skepticism: blogging about it, talking to people in discussion groups, and writing a report.
"As scientists, I think we sometimes come at it in a very naïve way," Carr says. If you just give people the facts, they should be able to figure it out. That didn't work when they blogged: Pushing the climate hot button led down a rabbit hole of contention and suspicion. The discussion group left participants hungry for more information.
The conclusion: That using a single report – like one Carr prepared for Deutsche Bank in 2009 – is the best way to address the skeptics. Ultimately, Carr says, you need a variety of sources talking about climate change, including political and religious leaders – and people the audience can identify with.
On Thursday, Sabine Marx of the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions will speak on "The Psychology of Climate Change Communication." She has studied how different groups of people think about climate, and how to use that information to talk about the science.
"For most people abstract information does not translate into powerful vivid images that would trigger action," Marx wrote. "Furthermore, we have found that people's interpretation of scientific uncertainty can get in the way of using forecasts and projections. Other barriers include public risk perceptions and attitudes, cultural values, and myopia, as well as the importance that people place on self-interest/economic goals vs. collective interest/social goals."
But, Marx says, there are ways to overcome these barriers. For instance, you can start with a good story.
Deep Ocean Heat Is Melting Antarctic Ice
Like dirt swept under the carpet, some of the human-made heat produced over the last century has been getting soaked up by the world's oceans, and sinking into deep waters. Now, it is coming back to haunt the surface, in a very sensitive place: western Antarctica, where vast ice sheets meet the ocean. The result appears to be that ice is rapidly being eaten from the bottom, says Douglas Martinson, a polar scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who presented the findings Monday at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Martinson said that heat stored in deep waters far from Antarctica is being pushed southward and becoming entrained in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, a vast, wind-driven water mass that constantly circles the frozen continent. The evidence comes from 18 years of Antarctic voyages Martinson has made to measure water temperature, salinity and other qualities at different depths. He called the increases in ocean heat in the past few decades "jaw dropping." Temperatures have risen only a few degrees above the melting point–but that is all it takes to cut at the ice front. "This is like a huge freight of hot coals–fresh, hot water being delivered right to the the front door," he said.
This raises the specter of sea-level rise driven by melting in this region–but there is a larger implication, said Martinson. Even if all sources of human-produced carbon dioxide in the air were cut off, the built-up heat will remain in the ocean for many years to come. "Pretend your brains out that the politicians did something to stop global warming tomorrow. Even if they did, we will still have decades and decades of upwelling of that warmed water eating ice," he said.
Read a Discovery News article about Martinson's talk.
18,000 Scientists–In One Place
This week marks the world's largest annual gathering of earth and space scientists: the five-day December meeting of the American Geophysical Union. There will be about 18,000 of them, spread across two giant San Francisco convention halls giving talks and discussing the latest in their fields. Scores of researchers from the Earth Institute will be involved. Among many other things, they will give presentations on the destruction of Antarctic ice by warming oceans (from Douglas Martinson, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory); clues contained in ancient trees as to how climate change may affect New York City (Neil Pederson of Lamont); an examination of India's water crisis (Shama Perveen of the Columbia Water Center); and fast-growing "hotspots" of potential weather-related disasters in the Caribbean" (Bob Chen, director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network).
On brighter notes, William Ryan and colleagues at Lamont will demo a new mobile app called Earth Observer, scheduled to be released this week at the Apple iTunes store, which gives the general public access to fabulous graphics and information about the earth previously tapped mainly by scientists. There is also the traditional Lamont-Doherty alumni party, held every year on Tuesday night at AGU—a gathering that reunites top scientists from across the world who studied at Lamont.
Check out our press advisory for journalists , detailing just a few of the significant and interesting talks from Earth Institute staff: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2637.


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Sour Grapes
- Directed by Larry David
===Story=== Even ''Seinfeld'' fans will probably shun this dreadful, nasty-hearted film by ''Seinfeld'' cocreator and writer Larry David. It's a tepid comedy about cousins--Richie (Craig Bierko) and Evan (Steven Weber)--who enter into a feud after one borrows two quarters from the other while on a vacation in Atlantic City, and then wins a $400,000 jackpot, which he refuses to share. His action fuels retaliation and one-upmanship that results in death, racism, and a general bad taste in the mouth (you'll have to see the film to figure that one out). ''Sour Grapes'' is a misanthropic movie about cheapness that's supposed to be clever in its play on the "Jewishness" that permeated Jerry Seinfeld's hit TV series. But it doesn't gel here, and the movie is full of more self-loathing than one might care to admit. It also introduces several subplots that go nowhere. All in all, its TV mentality doesn't translate to feature film. ''--Paula Nechak''
|Steven Weber
|Evan Maxwell
|Craig Bierko
|Richie Maxwell
|Jennifer Leigh Warren
|Karen Sillas
|Orlando Jones
|Alan Wilder
|Philip Baker Hall
|Mr. Bell
|Iqbal Theba
|Dr. Alagappan
|Jack Kehler
|Jill Talley
Recent threads
- Best Fantasy franchise Oct 25
- After Hours (1985) Oct 25
- Doctor Strange (2016) Oct 25
- What Have You Seen This Month? (October 2016 Edition) Oct 24
- Genre: Comedy Movies
- Director: Larry David
- Producer: Warner Brothers
- Length: 98 min
- Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Theatrical Release North America Apr 17, 1998
Ratings North America R


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MUNITH, MI – A man was arrested Friday afternoon after police said he stole a vehicle and tried to elude an officer by driving it into a field off M-106.
Police found the Chevrolet full-size pickup truck wrecked in a swamp and eventually located the man and an alleged accomplice drinking a beer at Portage Lake County Park on Portage Lake Road in Waterloo Township, township police Chief Tom Cottrell wrote in an email.
Cottrell had received word the truck, reported stolen in Blackman Township earlier Friday, was heading to Munith. "As luck would have it," he spotted the vehicle and tried to stop it, but it pulled into RTC Enviro-Fab Inc., a shop at 9043 M-106, "floored it" and headed west on M-106, Cottrell wrote.
The truck traveled about a mile before driving directly into a field on the south side of the road. When the truck exited the field, Cottrell was waiting and the man drove across the road and fled deep into the fields on the north side of the highway. Police surrounded the area, but the truck did not return this time, Cottrell wrote.
A passerby, however, soon called Cottrell and reported seeing a man run out of a ditch west of Fitchburg Road and jump into a gray sedan.
The car, the man and the sedan driver were found at the park, according to Cottrell.
Cottrell will ask the prosecutor's office to charge the man with fleeing and eluding police and an automobile theft crime.
He has an extensive criminal record and is being held in the Jackson County Jail on a district court warrant for contempt of court, Cottrell reported.
A towing company impounded the vehicle and pulled it out of the swamp, Cottrell said.
The Blackman-Leoni Township public safety department assisted Waterloo Township.


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You will notice that sun and shade patterns change during the day. The western side of a house may even be shady due to shadows cast by large trees or a structure from an adjacent property. If you have just bought a new home or just beginning to garden in your older home, take time to map sun and shade throughout the day. You will get a more accurate feel for your site's true light conditions. Conditions : Full Sun for Houseplants Don't underestimate the light needs of houseplants that require full sun -- they are often tropicals. Place them within 2 feet of a southern exposure window, or at the very minimum, a room that stays bright. Bright rooms have light colored walls, allowing for light reflection. Conditions : Types of Pruning Types of pruning include: pinching, thinning, shearing and rejuvenating.
Pinching is removing the stem tips of a young plant to promote branching. Doing this avoids the need for more severe pruning later on.
Thinning involves removing whole branches back to the trunk. This may be done to open up the interior of a plant to let more light in and to increase air circulation that can cut down on plant disease. The best way to begin thinning is to begin by removing dead or diseased wood.
Shearing is leveling the surface of a shrub using hand or electric shears. This is done to maintain the desired shape of a hedge or topiary.
Rejuvenating is removal of old branches or the overall reduction of the size of a shrub to restore its original form and size. It is recommended that you do not remove more than one third of a plant at a time. Remember to remove branches from the inside of the plant as well as the outside. When rejuvenating plants with canes, such as nandina, cut back canes at various heights so that plant will have a more natural look. Conditions : Light and Plant Selection For best plant performance, it is desirable to match the correct plant with the available light conditions. Right plant, right place! Plants which do not receive sufficient light may become pale in color, have fewer leaves and a "leggy" stretched-out appearance. Also expect plants to grow slower and have fewer blooms when light is less than desirable. It is possible to provide supplemental lighting for indoor plants with lamps. Plants can also receive too much light. If a shade loving plant is exposed to direct sun, it may wilt and/or cause leaves to be sunburned or otherwise damaged. Conditions : Full Sun Full Sun is defined as exposure to more than 6 hours of continuous, direct sun per day.
If the problem is only on the surface, it maybe diverted to a drainage ditch. If drainage is poor where water table is high, install an underground drainage system. You should contact a contractor for this. If underground drains already exist, check to see if they are blocked.
French drains are another option. French drains are ditches that have been filled with gravel. It is okay to plant sod on top of them. More obtrusive, but a good solution where looks aren't as important, think of the French drain as a ditch filled with gravel. Ditches should be 3 to 4 feet deep and have sloping sides.
A soakway is a gravel filled pit where water is diverted to via underground pipes. This works well on sites that have compacted soil. Your soakway should be about 6'wide and deep and filled with gravel or crushed stone, topped with sand and sodded or seeded.
Keep in mind that it is illegal to divert water onto other people's property. If you do not feel that you can implement a workable solution on your own, call a contractor. Tools : Watering Aides No gardener depends 100% on natural rainfall. Even the most water conscious
garden appreciates the proper hose, watering can or wand.
* The key to watering is water deeply and less frequently. When watering, water
well, i.e. provide enough water to thoroughly saturate the root ball. With
in-ground plants, this means thoroughly soaking the soil until water has
penetrated to a depth of 6 to 7 inches (1' being better). With container grown plants, apply enough water to allow water to flow through the drainage holes.
* Try to water plants early in the day or later in the afternoon to conserve
water and cut down on plant stress. Do water early enough so that water has
had a chance to dry from plant leaves prior to night fall. This is paramount
if you have had fungus problems.
* Don't wait to water until plants wilt. Although some plants will recover from this,
all plants will die if they wilt too much (when they reach the permanent
wilting point).
* Consider water conservation methods such as drip irrigation, mulching, and
xeriscaping. Drip systems which slowly drip moisture directly on the root
system can be purchased at your local home and garden center. Mulches can significantly cool the root zone
and conserve moisture.
* Consider adding water-saving gels to the root zone which will hold a reserve
of water for the plant. These can make a world of difference especially under
stressful conditions. Be certain to follow label directions for their use.
Conditions : Normal Watering for Outdoor Plants Normal watering means that soil should be kept evenly moist and watered regularly, as conditions require. Most plants like 1 inch of water a week during the growing season, but take care not to over water. The first two years after a plant is installed, regular watering is important for establishment. The first year is critical. It is better to water once a week and water deeply, than to water frequently for a few minutes.
A week to 10 days before planting, add 2 to 4 inches of aged manure or compost and work into the planting site to improve fertility and increase water retention and drainage. If soil composition is weak, a layer of topsoil should be considered as well. No matter if your soil is sand or clay, it can be improved by adding the same thing: organic matter. The more, the better; work deep into the soil. Prepare beds to an 18 inch deep for perennials. This will seem like a tremendous amount of work now, but will greatly pay off later. Besides, this is not something that is easily done later, once plants have been established. How-to : Pinching and Thinning Perennials Once you plant a perennial, it does not mean that you will enjoy years of maintenance-free gardening. Perennials need to be cared for just like any other plant. One thing that distinguishes perennials is that they tend to be active growers that have to be thinned out occasionally or they will loose vigor.
As perennials establish, it is important to prune them back and thin them out occasionally. This will prevent them from completely taking over an area to the exclusion of other plants, and also will increase air circulation thereby reducing the incidence of diseases like botrytis and powdery mildew.
Many species also flower abundantly and produce ample seed. As blooms fade it is advisable to deadhead your plant; that is, to remove spent flowers before they form seed. This will prevent your plants from seeding all over the garden and will conserve the considerable energy it takes the plant to produce seed.
As perennials mature, they may form a dense root mass that eventually leads to a less vigorous plant. It is advisable to occasionally thin out a stand of such perennials. By dividing the root system, you can make new plants to plant in another area of the garden or give away. Also root pruning will stimulate new growth and rejuvenate the plant. Most perennials may be successfully divided in either spring or fall. Do a little homework; some perennials do have a preference. How-to : Planting Shrubs Dig a hole twice the size of the root ball and deep enough to plant at the
same level the shrub was in the container. If soil is poor, dig hole even wider
and fill with a mixture half original soil and half compost or soil
Carefully remove shrub from container and gently separate roots. Position in center of hole, best side facing forward. Fill in with original soil or an amended mixture if needed as described above. For larger shrubs, build a water well. Finish by mulching and watering well.
If the plant is balled-and-burlapped, remove fasteners and fold back the top of natural burlap, tucking it down into hole, after you've positioned shrub. Make sure that all burlap is buried so that it won't wick water away from rootball during hot, dry periods. If synthetic burlap, remove if possible. If not possible, cut away or make slits to allow for roots to develop into the new soil. For larger shrubs, build a water well.
Finish by mulching and watering well.
If shrub is bare-root, look for a discoloration somewhere near the base; this mark is likely where the soil line was. If soil is too sandy or too clayey, add organic matter. This will help with both drainage and water holding capacity. Fill soil, firming just enough to support shrub. Finish by mulching and watering well. How-to : Preparing Containers Containers are excellent when used as an ornamental feature, a planting option when there is little or no soil to plant in, or for plants that require a soil type not found in the garden or when soil drainage in the garden is inferior. If growing more than one plant in a container, make sure that all have similar cultural requirements. Choose a container that is deep and large enough to allow root development and growth as well as proportional balance between the fully developed plant and the container. Plant large containers in the place you intend them to stay. All containers should have drainage holes. A mesh screen, broken clay pot pieces(crock) or a paper coffee filter placed over the hole will keep soil from washing out. The potting soil you select should be an appropriate mix for the plants you have chosen. Quality soils (or soil-less medias) absorb moisture readily and evenly when wet. If water runs off soil upon initial wetting, this is an indicator that your soil may not be as good as you think.
Prior to filling a container with soil, wet potting soil in the bag or place in a tub or wheelbarrow so that it is evenly moist. Fill container about halfway full or to a level that will allow plants, when planted, to be just below the rim of the pot. Rootballs should be level with soil line when project is complete. Water well.
Prevention and Control: Keep weeds down and remove infested plants. Dry
air seems to worsen the problem, so make sure plants are regularly watered,
especially those preferring high humidity such as tropicals, citrus, or tomatoes. Always check new plants prior to bringing them home from the garden center or nursery. Take advantage of natural enemies such as ladybug larvae. If a miticide is recommended by your local garden center professional or county Cooperative Extension office, read and follow all label directions. Concentrate your efforts on the undersides of the leaves as that is where spider mites generally live. Pest : Whiteflies Whiteflies are small, winged insects that look like tiny moths, which attack many types of plants. The flying adult stage prefers the underside of leaves to feed and breed. Whiteflies can multiply quickly as a female can lay up to 500 eggs in a life span of 2 months. If a plant is infested with whiteflies, you will see a cloud of fleeing insects when the plant is disturbed. Whiteflies can weaken a plant, eventually leading to plant death if they are not checked. They can transmit many harmful plant viruses. They also produce a sweet substance called honeydew (coveted by ants) which can lead to an unattractive black surface fungal growth called sooty mold.
Possible controls: keep weeds down; use screening in windows to keep them out; remove infested plants away from non-infested plants; use a reflective mulch (aluminum foil) under plants (this repels whiteflies); trap with yellow sticky cards, apply labeled pesticides; encourage natural enemies such as parasitic wasps in the garden; and sometimes a good steady shower of water will wash them off the plant. Pest : Aphids Aphids are small, soft-bodied, slow-moving insects that suck fluids from plants. Aphids come in many colors, ranging from green to brown to black, and they may have wings. They attack a wide range of plant species causing stunting, deformed leaves and buds. They can transmit harmful plant viruses with their piercing/sucking mouthparts. Aphids, generally, are merely a nuisance, since it takes many of them to cause serious plant damage. However aphids do produce a sweet substance called honeydew (coveted by ants) which can lead to an unattractive black surface growth called sooty mold.
Aphids can increase quickly in numbers and each female can produce up to 250 live nymphs in the course of a month without mating. Aphids often appear when the environment changes - spring & fall. They're often massed at the tips of branches feeding on succulent tissue. Aphids are attracted to the color yellow and will often hitchhike on yellow clothing.
Prevention and Control: Keep weeds to an absolute minimum, especially around desirable plants. On edibles, wash off infected area of plant. Lady bugs and lacewings will feed on aphids in the garden. There are various products - organic and inorganic - that can be used to control aphids. Seek the recommendation of a professional and follow all label procedures to a tee. Fungi : Leaf Spots Leaf spots are caused by fungi or bacteria. Brown or black spots and patches may be either ragged or circular, with a water soaked or yellow-edged appearance. Insects, rain, dirty garden tools, or even people can help its spread.
Prevention and Control: Remove infected leaves when the plant is dry. Leaves that collect around the base of the plant should be raked up and disposed of. Avoid overhead irrigation if possible; water should be directed at soil level. For fungal leaf spots, use a recommended fungicide according to label directions.
Pest : Scale Insects Scales are insects, related to mealy bugs, that can be a problem on a wide variety of plants - indoor and outdoor. Young scales crawl until they find a good feeding site. The adult females then lose their legs and remain on a spot protected by its hard shell layer. They appear as bumps, often on the lower sides of leaves. They have piercing mouth parts that suck the sap out of plant tissue. Scales can weaken a plant leading to yellow foliage and leaf drop. They also produce a sweet substance called honeydew (coveted by ants) which can lead to an unattractive black surface fungal growth called sooty mold.
Prevention and Control: Once established they are hard to control. Isolate infested plants away from those that are not infested. Consult your local garden center professional or Cooperative Extension office in your county for a legal recommendation regarding their control. Encourage natural enemies such as parasitic wasps in the garden.
You will often
hear loam referred to as a sandy loam (having more sand, yet still plenty of
organic matter) or a clay loam (heavier on the clay, yet workable with good
drainage.) The addition of organic matter to either sand or clay will result
in a loamy soil. Still not sure if your soil is a sand, clay, or loam? Try
this simple test. Squeeze a handfull of slightly moist, not wet, soil in your
hand. If it forms a tight ball and does not fall apart when gently tapped
with a finger, your soil is more than likely clay. If soil does not form a
ball or crumbles before it is tapped, it is sand to very sandy loam. If soil forms a
ball, then crumbles readily when lightly tapped, it's a loam. Several quick, light
taps could mean a clay loam. Glossary : Fertilize Fertilize just before new growth begins with a complete fertilizer.


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A woman driving a taxi cab was taken to the hospital after crashing into a flipped manhole cover in Ypsilanti Thursday, fire officials said.
The Ypsilanti Fire Department was called to the intersection of Huron River Drive and Hewitt around 2:30 p.m. Thursday for the crash, Lt. Mike Kouba said.
A car driving eastbound on Huron River Driver in front of the cab drove over the manhole and somehow jostled the lid, which was left sticking up into the roadway, Kouba said.
"It flipped the cover up," Kouba said. "The cab came up and hit it."
The cab hit the manhole cover with such force that the airbags deployed. The woman was taken to the hospital to be treated for injuries. Fire officials did not immediately know how severe the injuries were.


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Typically, an auction suggests that the seller is inviting bidders to make offers, which may be accepted or rejected. Usually the seller has reserved the right to accept or reject the bid, or set a minimum price the bidder must meet. Unless otherwise specified, all auctions are presumed to be like this. However, a seller can announce the sale is to be "without reserve", which means the auction is an offer to sell to the highest bidder regardless of price. This is also referred to as an "absolute auction." In this case, once the auction has opened to bids, the seller cannot withdraw the property nor reject the highest bid, because the seller is essentially promising to sell the property to the highest bidder once a bid has been made. Unless there were special terms of acceptance that were clearly disclosed before the start of the auction, the seller cannot withdraw the property from the sale after a bid. In any event, precise facts need to be nailed down, and you should contact an attorney to discuss your rights and options against the real estate auction company.
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JACKSON, MI – Welcome to the Jackson Five, your weekly peek at five Jackson-area government and school stories you may have missed, and a look ahead at what to expect next.
CUT: Seventeen Jackson College employees received layoff notices as a result of declining fall enrollment and the need to trim about $3.5 million from this year's budget.
JC has seen a 33 percent decline in enrollment over the past three years and now officials must "rethink" what it means to be a community college in overcoming continued downturns in enrollment.
IN THE DARK: The fate of the air traffic control tower at the Jackson County Airport remains unknown.
It was headed for a shutdown Oct. 1 as the Federal Aviation Administration threatened to cut funding for contract towers Sept. 30. With just days before the originally anticipated closure, airport officials have not received a shutdown notice.
HIRED: Jackson officials recently voted to pay an outside engineering firm nearly $30,000 to prepare a water tank for renovations.
Lake Odessa-based Dixon Engineering and Inspection Services will be paid $29,920 after Jackson City Council voted unanimously last week to contract with the company.
Dixon employees will prepare a 7.5 million gallon water storage tank for painting and repairs – part of a $1.05 million project to repair and repaint three water storage tanks within Jackson.
LIGHTS OUT: While the county incinerator will no longer burn garbage after Sept. 30, the facility will remain open for haulers and residents for an undetermined amount of time.
OUCH!: Due to a national shortage of tuberculosis skin testing supplies, the Jackson County Health Department was forced to make some changes that will "significantly" increase the cost to get tested.
LOOKING AHEAD: Jackson City Council is set to meet at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 8, on the second floor of City Hall, 161 W. Michigan Ave. in Jackson.
Jackson County's K-12 public schools will join others in Michigan in reporting this fall's enrollment during the state's annual count day on Wednesday, Oct. 2. We'll have a report on who's gained, stayed the same or lost students in the last year.


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SPRINGFIELD -- Trinity United Methodist Church, in partnership with Forest Park Middle School, is honoring state Rep. Benjamin Swan, D-Springfield, through the "Springfield Icons of the Civil Rights Movement" project.
Swan, who has represented the 11th Hampden District since 1994, is a U.S. Army veteran. He was arrested several times protesting for civil rights in the city, during the summer of 1965, when he was one of the leaders of the Springfield chapter of the Congress on Racial Equality.
Pamela Chatterton-Purdy is creating an icon paying tribute to Swan's civil rights work for the Springfield project at Forest Park Middle School.
Chatterton-Purdy is the originator of the installation, "Icons of the Civil Rights Movement," that featured 30 icons on exhibit, in November, at Elms College in Chicopee. Her project uses an ancient art form, often associated with religious adoration, to honor national leaders in the fight for equality. The artist, who lives on Cape Cod, has taught art at Bay Path College in Longmeadow, Springfield College and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Through their social studies classes, students at Forest Park have researched the civil rights movement in Springfield. Art students have been studying the movement, along with the art of iconography. In the fall, Trinity sponsored a school bus trip to see Chatterton-Purdy's exhibit at Elms. That exhibit, with icons of Abraham, Lincoln Rosa Parks and Barack Obama, was displayed in Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Swan will visit a social studies class of Ann Barone on March 31, and Chatterton-Purdy is scheduled to visit the school's social studies and art classes on April 9, according to a release.
Chatteron-Purdy's icon of Swan will be unveiled in May, with the artwork then on display in the Forest Park Middle School library.
For more information call Trinity Church at 413-737-5311.


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$ 14.00 $ 12.00 per yard
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A thin & drapey wool that has a tiny, tiny stripe woven into it. Very unique and very lovely!
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Island Storm logo
By Scott Briggs
SAINT JOHN – Anthony Anderson scored a game-high 37 points to lead the Saint John Mill Rats to a 106-104 win over the Island Storm in Thursday night's National Basketball League of Canada action before 1,461 fans at Harbour Station.
The dynamic point guard also went 5-for-11 from beyond the three-point arc, but it's the trey he missed in the game's dying seconds that set up the decisive bucket. Anderson threw up a three that fell short, but Jermaine Blackburn grabbed it and scored. There was still 0.4 seconds on the clock and the Storm's Ed Jones barely missed tying it up after an Island timeout. The teams will face each other again Friday night in Charlottetown.
"I honestly didn't see him at all," Anderson said about Blackburn, who had 14 points. "I just threw it up and I might have got fouled on my way down, and then Blackburn comes out of nowhere."
Saint John's other double-digit scorers included Tyrone Levett (18 points), Doug Herring Jr. (12) and Raheem Singleton (11). The Mill Rats improved to 15-9 and went 31-for-34 from the foul line for over 91 per cent.
"Earlier in the season, we couldn't make free throws to save our life," Anderson said. "That's something we've been keying on more since we had those troubles.
"It's definitely crucial. We feel like we have one of the best perimeters in the league and we try to put pressure on guys. If we can knock those down, we can make them pay."
Antonio Ballard scored 27 points for the Storm (11-13), while Steve Tchiengang tallied 20. Nick Okorie notched 17 in the losing cause and Jones added 14.
The Storm led 29-25 after the first quarter, thanks in large part to Ballard's 11-point effort. But the Mill Rats pulled ahead early in the second quarter and led by 11 with a little less than six minutes left in the frame after making their first 15 free throws.
But the Storm had pulled within four when Saint John head coach Rob Spon called a timeout with 2:39 left in the quarter. Jones made three of four from the line to tie the tilt 44-44 with less than two minutes left in the period.
But Saint John regained the lead on Herring's jam and gained a 50-46 edge by halftime.
With just over two minutes left in the third, Anderson potted two free throws and followed by knocking down his third three-pointer. He nailed another three-ball late in the quarter before making two more shots from the line with nine seconds on the clock, giving Saint John an 82-75 lead entering the final frame.
But the visitors gained the momentum back early in the fourth quarter. Jones' three-pointer gave the Storm an 83-82 edge with 10:20 remaining. Levett's fifth foul sent Tchiengang to the line and he made both free throws for a 97-93 Island lead with just under five minutes left. With the score tied 99-99 and 2:55 left, Blackburn swished two from the charity stripe for a two-point lead. Anderson's three made it 104-101 with just over two minutes remaining.
The Mill Rats return to the Harbour Station hardwood when they host the two-time defending champion London Lightning Sunday at 4 p.m.


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DETROIT — In a word, Victor Martinez describes Miguel Cabrera as "unbelievable."
"I've seen a lot of good hitters with a lot of power, but never seen anything like that," Martinez said of the 6-foot-4, 240-pound machine who is batting .311 with team highs in RBIs (26) and home runs (7). "Hits for average, drives in runs, hits for power — what else can you ask for?"
Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland might respond, "To not get kicked out of any more games."
Cabrera was ejected for arguing balls and strikes during the sixth inning of Wednesday's 9-7, see-saw victory at Minnesota. The Tigers were able to overcome the slugger's departure, thanks in large part to the red-hot Martinez's 3-for-4, three-RBI afternoon and Jhonny Peralta's pinch-hit, two-run home run in the eighth.
Adding Martinez and Peralta to the Cabrera and Brennan Boesch duo gives Detroit a formidable foursome. In Tuesday's 10-2 thumping of the Twins, the middle of Leyland's lineup card read: No. 4 Cabrera, No. 5 Martinez, No. 6 Peralta, No. 7 Boesch, who collectively went 7-for-15 and drove in eight runs.
Cabrera is Cabrera. Boesch is showing signs of maturation in terms of plate discipline. Martinez and Peralta, they're the ones at the center of a recent surge that has the Tigers riding a five-game winning streak into this weekend's home series against Kansas City.
"Victor Martinez being here ... it takes a lot of pressure really off the manager because you're not answering questions about who you're going to hit behind Cabrera, how you're going to protect Cabrera," Leyland said earlier this season. "So, it takes a little bit of the question away for me, to be honest with you. That sounds selfish, but it's true."
Martinez has gone 15-for-30 with five doubles, two home runs and 13 RBIs since he returned from the disabled list (strained groin) on May 4, coinciding with a stretch that has seen the Tigers win seven of eight. During his current 11-game hitting streak, Martinez has elevated his batting average from .200 to a team-best .333. More impressively, seven of Martinez's last 10 hits have gone for extra bases.
During that same span, Peralta has batted .458 (11-for-24) with nine RBIs. The shortstop has homered in each of the past two games, and is now hitting .295. The timely two-run shot Peralta delivered Wednesday ironically came from the No. 4 spot in the lineup after Cabrera had been booted.
The switch-hitting Martinez has gone 3-for-4 in each of his last three games and totaled 10 RBIs. During that same time frame, Cabrera was 2-for-10.
How's that for protection? That's getting your teammate's back.
"When he starts to hit the ball, he gets three and four hits a game," Peralta said about Martinez, a 10-year veteran with a career .300 average.
Peralta should know. He and Martinez played together in Cleveland from 2003 to '08, both batting anywhere from third to fifth in the lineup.
"(Martinez's) quality of at-bats seem to be good whether he gets out or gets a hit. It's something that I think trickles throughout the entire team," said Tigers catcher Alex Avila, who called Peralta "the epitome of a professional" and so regimented that it's "almost boring."
Both come off as quiet guys in the public eye, although teammates claim Martinez gets intense when it matters. Peralta is more ho-hum.
"We were in the playoffs against the Red Sox in Cleveland, and (Peralta) hit a big homer," Martinez recalled. "I think it was like in the seventh or eighth inning to give us the lead. I mean, it was just him — I think I was more happy than he was. I was jumping around and to him it was just another homer. It was great."
Contact Scott DeCamp at email@example.com or 269-388-8518.
Steve Kornacki of Booth Newspapers contributed to this story.


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I am running a simulink simulation using the fixed-step discrete solver. I've even specified the fixed-step size. I save some data via a "To Workspace" block (I've used the Scope to save to workspace as well with equivalent results). When I look at the time data in the object, the time is not monotonically increasing.
The time value is constant for 5-10 samples, then continues. Any ideas why this happens?
Thanks, Eric
http://i.imgur.com/NC37E5n.png http://i.imgur.com/S7XTQZh.png
The sample rate changes from 208MHz to 104MHz. Note that I received the same kind of data with or without the rate transition block.
What is the sample time in that 1/z block? What is the sample time in the to workspace block? What is the save format in the to workspace block?
If it is sampling faster than it is receiving data, it will repeat values in the data.
@Ryan G: Even if sampling is faster than update, data saved will be monotonically increasing although not strictly because of repeat values.
@Eric Cope: Do you mean monotonically increasing or strictly monotonically increasing? If you meant latter, its expected as Ryan explains. If its former, its intriguing - upload your model.
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Plants & Animals
/ Large Indian Breadroot (Pediomelum esculentum)
Plants & Animals
Highlights - Plant Materials Program
Scientific Name: Pediomelum esculentum (Pursh.) Rybd.; formerly Psoralea esculenta.
Family Name: Pea (Fabaceae).
Common Name: large Indian breadroot, breadroot scurfpea, white apple.
Morphological Characteristics:
Habit - native perennial legume, diffusely branched and erect from a large, thick, tuberous root; plants 20 to 25 cm (8 to 10 in.) in height and covered in long, bristly hairs; entire plant disarticulates at maturity and blows away in wind.
Leaves – lupine-like, compound with five leaflets, 2 to 5 cm (0.8 to 2 in) long, smooth above with long, silky, appressed hairs below. Flowers – dense, short, clover-like spike, 2 to 8 cm (0.8 to 3.2 in) tall; calyx tube 10 to 15 mm (0.4 to 0.6 in) long and swollen towards one side; petals (corolla) 14 to 18 mm (0.6 to 0.7 in) long, bluish-purple, fading to yellowish.
Pea Pods – small, egg-shaped pods with slender beaks and enclosed by persistent sepals.
Fruit - seed is brown and 4 to 6 mm (0.16 to 0.24 in) long.
Blooming: Flowers in May to July, and seed matures in July to August.
Distribution & Habitat: In Montana, east of Continental Divide at low to mid elevations in sandy areas of dry hills and plains. In Wyoming, mostly just in the east.
Cultural Significance: This plant was a mainstay of the American Indian diet in the Great Plains Region. The large, starchy root is still gathered today for food and is either fresh roasted, prepared as a pudding, or dried or smoked for later consumption.
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Achieving Water Conservation: Dilution Isn't the Solution!
To conserve and better manage their water use, more and more businesses are opting for closed water systems, where every drop of water taken is reused internally. Closing their water system to reduce water consumption as much as possible not only allows businesses to lower their operation costs, but more importantly, to decrease their environmental footprint. In many industries, such as pulp and paper, less heating is required, which translates into less non-renewable energy, and consequently, less greenhouse gases.
However, beneficial as this all sounds, closed water systems can pose an unintended, unanticipated challenge due to the fact that consuming less water can increase concentrations of substances in water to a point that companies fail toxicity testing. And, as we know, toxicity regulations can carry salty penalties.
In 2004, Cascades was ordered to pay $138,000 in penalty for having failed Canada's "rainbow trout test," a sensitive toxicity analysis based on the survival of rainbow trout in undiluted effluents for a period of 96 hours. Internal audits were unsuccessful at identifying the root cause of the problem, but testing results eventually came back to normal. One of our assumptions was that as long as you use a biological test with a living organism, there is a chance that you will get a false positive. The other kicker for us was that if lots of wastewater had been discharged by our plant (which it wasn't), we actually would have received a passing grade, simply due to the effect of dilution.
You see, toxicity methodologies were developed at a time when the majority of companies did not work on having an environmentally sound closed water system and it was a forgone conclusion that a large quantity of water was being discharged. For example, effluent flow by U.S. pulp and paper mills averaged about 150m3/ton in 1959, whereas the industry's average annual water use has lowered to about 60m3/ton in the last few years. By comparison, Cascades averaged 12.4m3/ton in 2010 when factoring all types of paper-based products.
Conserving more water has all kinds of benefits, such as reduced environmental impact (including greenhouse gases), biological oxygen demand (BOD) and quantity of suspended solids rejected in the effluent, but unfortunately, it also increases companies' risks of not meeting regulated toxicity levels merely due to the greater concentration of effluents. Failing the toxicity tests has major business and reputational consequences, not the least of which is being perceived as polluting water streams. Important relationships built over years of close work with NGOs, consumers, municipalities, and governments towards environmental protection hang so much in the balance that some companies may simply restrain from working harder on water conservation. So what changes need to happen for businesses to focus even more on water conservation?
In looking for answers, the solution is not to do away with testing effluents or to use less stringent testing methods. Companies have to reduce their environmental impact by replacing chemicals with less damaging products and by getting the best available water treatment systems.
Abolishing or easing up the liabilities of toxicity isn't the answer either. Penalties are necessary and companies that pollute can't get free passes.
The solution seems simple enough: have water used and discharged factor in the determination of toxicity levels. For example, if the toxicity is calculated with a normal effluent of 60m3/ton, a company that discharges half the quantity of water should be allowed to release twice the concentration of chemicals, which is equivalent in terms of loads to the river. We all know that the test itself does not represent what goes on in reality since fish don't live in concentrated effluents. If water conservancy is the goal, then new and adapted regulations are warranted.
There are about 53,000 water agencies in the United States, so we can imagine that getting all of them and businesses to come together and develop a coherent point of view about water management isn't going to happen all at once. The challenge of water conservation will require that we balance out all of these needs and develop a global perspective.
With studies and facts on hand, it should be easier to focus on water conservation and better understand all the implications. Participating in water working groups with NGOs, governments and businesses is one way of better understanding this multifaceted issue and work towards better regulations. Another way to create a partnership and better understand other stakeholders' viewpoints is to work with other parties to conduct studies on the potential impact on ecosystems. In my previous article on water conservation, it was established that businesses should perform water life cycle analysis to distinguish between wisdom and facts about water reduction. By precisely measuring environmental footprint and challenging each other, it will be clear that dilution isn't the solution.
Elaine Tassoni, M.Sc., is the Communication and Sustainability Manager at Cascades Tissue Group's head office. Cascades Tissue is the fourth largest manufacturer of tissue paper in North America. It sells the North River line of environmentally preferable towel and tissue products, which are entirely composed of recycled paper, mostly from post-consumer material, and are produced using Green-e certified wind energy and 80 percent less water than the North American paper industry average. Elaine can be reached at: email@example.com or 450-444-6459.
Reader Comments
"if the toxicity is calculated with a normal effluent of 60m3/ton, a company that discharges half the quantity of water should be allowed to release twice the concentration of chemicals, which is equivalent in terms of loads to the river. We all know that the test itself does not represent what goes on in reality since fish don't live in concentrated effluents."
The EPA's National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) which is responsible for permitting discharges to the nation's waters has wrangled with these issues for quite some time. I suggest reading up on those regulations which are intimately tied with the issues in this article. Excuse me, but the quote above is so oversimplified, ill-informed, and short-sighted that it can't even be taken seriously. The biological systems impacted by the discharges are not concerned with how efficient a particular industry has become over time with their water or pollutant discharges. They only care whether the water they are immediately in contact with will kill them. To suggest that someone that conserves water should be allowed to discharge a more concentrated and potent level of pollutants is to dismiss numerous fundamental aspects of environmental sciences. TOXICITY is not a "calculation", it is an observable effect. "Dilution is NOTthe solution" to pollution is certainly true, however neither is water conservation.
"I suggest reading up on those regulations which are intimately tied with the issues in this article. Excuse me, but the quote above is so oversimplified, ill-informed, and short-sighted that it can't even be taken seriously."
Marcelo – Thanks for your dialogue on this matter, though I take issue with your dismissal as Cascades is much more credentialed in this area than you suggest. We have been working with the Government at the federal level on multiple studies on the impact of water pollutants on the ecosystem. Furthermore, my colleague, Leon Marineau, Vice-President Environment, sits on a multi-stakeholder committee with Government and NGOs to address water issues and regulations like the very one brought up here.
To address your comment, taking it to its extreme, one drop of toxic water discharged in the river would be more damaging to the environment than 10 times more polluted water with the same ratio of toxic chemicals. This reasoning proves that water conservation is not an issue at present in North America because of our abundance of fresh water supply. You note that "the biological systems impacted by the discharges are not concerned with how efficient a particular industry has become over time with their water or pollutant discharges." That statement actually seems more short-sighted to me.
I will give you that reviewing water regulations is a complex issue that should not be done carelessly so not to jeopardize our ecosystems. But we can't just ignore the fact that a fresh water crisis is expected in a matter of a few decades, making it the most important global crisis after climate change, according to the Nature Conservancy. Looking at the big picture, it just seems we need to adopt a global point of view about fresh water supply which encompasses and balances out toxicity and water conservation issues.
– Elaine
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