The Latest News of the World
The American Geophysical Union fall meeting brings together more than 8,300 scientists who study natural processes within and above Earth. The latest meeting just concluded after five days, hundreds of talks, and the swapping of thousands of business cards and email addresses. Fresh from San Francisco, here's a sampling of the latest news of the world:
• 2000 ONE OF HOTTEST YEARS ON RECORD:
The average temperature for the United States in 2000 will be about 54.1 degrees Fahrenheit, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. In 106 years of record keeping, the year 2000 will be warmer than all but 12 years. The record hot year was 1998, which averaged 54.9. The average temperature for 1999 was also warmer than 2000, at 54.5 degrees.
• SCIENTIFIC USE FOUND FOR IRIDIUM SATELLITES:
A scientist at Johns Hopkins University has used the Iridium satellite telephone system for measurements of currents in the upper atmosphere. Iridium phones, which Alaska researchers and agencies purchased in the 1990s for communications from anywhere in the state, became obsolete after the system's organizers went bankrupt in 1999. Researcher Brian Anderson of Johns Hopkins University uses the 70-satellite network to detect fluctuations in Earth's magnetic field caused by currents in the aurora. Integral to Anderson's use of the satellites is electric-field information gathered by the SuperDARN network of radar sites in the Arctic. Two of the SuperDARN radar are in Alaska, at King Salmon and Kodiak.
• ARCTIC OZONE HOLE LARGE, BUT EXPECTED TO RECOVER:
In spring 1999 and 2000, ozone present in the arctic stratosphere about 12 miles above the north pole decreased more than 50 percent from previous measurements, taken from the 1970s to the present. Scientists said low levels of ozone, molecules that reflect ultraviolet radiation and in high doses can cause skin cancer, occur each spring over the Arctic. The Arctic "ozone hole" is not so severe that it is a danger to people, plants and animals, said Paul Newman, an atmospheric physicist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Newman added that the banning of ozone-damaging substances, such aschlorofluorocarbons found in old refrigerator cooling coils and solvents, seems to be working, and that the ozone over the Arctic may recover to normal levels by 2050.
• JUPITER MOON HOLDS WATER:
The largest moon in the solar system-Ganymede, which orbits around Jupiter, probably hides a salt-water ocean beneath its surface. NASA researchers say Ganymede's buckled and banded surface shows signs of cracking and refreezing in a similar pattern to the surface of Europa, another of Jupiter's moons. Scientists don't think the ocean holds any life because temperatures there are near minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit, but organic chemicals are present that may be signs of past life.
• BOREAL WILDFIRES INCREASE:
Wildfires in the boreal forests of Alaska, Canada, and the Pacific Northwest are the main sources of an increase of wildfires in North America. Thirty percent of the world's ground-based storage of carbon-a potential source of greenhouse gas if burned and liberated as carbon dioxide-is in the boreal forest worldwide. Forests of broadleaf trees hold almost as much carbon as evergreen forests, and two thirds of carbon stored by boreal forest is in mosses, peat, and other organic materials on the forest floor.
