In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, photo, a Syrian refugee reaches for bread during the daily distribution at the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan. The camp’s five bread centers open at daybreak. About 500,000 pitas are handed out daily _ four per person. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, photo, a Syrian refugee reaches for bread during the daily distribution at the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan. The camp’s five bread centers open at daybreak. About 500,000 pitas are handed out daily _ four per person. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
In this Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, photo, dozens of Syrian refugees watch a tent and a trailer on fire at the Zaatari Refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan. With Syria’s civil war in its third year, more than 2 million Syrians have fled their country. About 100,000 live in this camp. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
In this Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, photo, a Syrian girl stands near her family shelter at the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan. With Syria’s civil war in its third year, more than 2 million Syrians have fled their country. About 100,000 live in this camp. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, photo, a coach's assistant does a handstand while Syrian children play soccer at the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan. With Syria’s civil war in its third year, more than 2 million Syrians have fled their country. About 100,000 live in this camp. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
ZAATARI CAMP, Jordan (AP) — Jordan's Zaatari camp for Syrians fleeing their country's civil war is one of the largest refugee camps in the world.
Here's a look at the camp in numbers, provided by the U.N. refugee agency.
—Residents: About 100,000, or as many as in Flint, Michigan;
—Households: 13,500 (capacity 15,000);
—Area: 530 hectares (1,310 acres);
—Distance from the Syrian border: 12 kilometers (7.5 miles);
—Established: July 2012;
—Districts: 12;
—Trailers: 18,000;
—Tents: 10,000 (though only about 4,000 families live in tents);
—Shops: 2,500, of those 680 larger ones;
—Schools: 3, with more than 16,000 students enrolled;
—Boys moving goods in wheelbarrows for a small fee: More than 1,000;
—Residents earning income: About 65 percent;
—Daily cost of operating the camp: At least $500,000;
—Monthly electricity bill for the camp: $500,000;
—Daily pita bread distribution: 500,000 pieces;
—Daily number of water trucks: 350;
—Daily number of sewage trucks: 200;
—Daily water use per person: 45 liters;
—Hospitals: 3, including one for maternal delivery;
—Clinics at the camp : Over 10;
—Babies born every month at the camp: More than 200;
—Deaths: About 200 since the camp opened;
—Number of refugees who have passed through Zaatari: 350,000 to 360,000;
___
And here are some other statistics on Syrian refugees:
—Syrians who have fled their country: 2.1 million;
—Syrian refugees living in Jordan: 550,000;
— Of those, refugees living in Jordan's urban areas: 423,000.
This compelling, eco-themed documentary will be of vital interest to anyone who loves acoustic guitars.
Opens
Nov. 1
Director
Maxine Trump
The Taylor, Martin and Gibson guitar companies may be longtime competitors, but they have one goal in common: to guarantee the continued supply of the high-quality wood essential to their product. MaxineTrump’s documentary Musicwood vividly illustrates the scope of the problem in its depiction of the battle to preserve the rapidly diminishing forests essential to supplying the next Bob Dylan with a high-quality acoustic guitar to strum.
The film’s central conflict is a complicated one, insofar as it involves Native American loggers, not a group that would normally be thought of as being harmful to the environment. But their stewardship of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, a rainforest whose Sitka Spruce tree is ideal for the building of the soundboards of acoustic guitars, has created problems. The supply is quickly being extinguished as the forests have fallen victim to their practice of clear-cutting, which destroys wide swaths in one fell swoop. Much of the wood goes not to the guitar manufacturers, but rather to Asian-based companies who need it to fuel that region’s ever growing construction industry.
Documenting the quest of the company’s CEOs to battle the foresting practices with the help of the environmental group Greenpeace, the film delivers a compelling portrait of the complicated issues involved. The filmmaker’s sympathies are made evident by the presence of numerous prominent musicians -- Steve Earle, Kaki King, members of such groups as Lambchop and Yo La Tengo, among others -- who movingly testify to the glories of the acoustic guitar as well as providing music for the soundtrack.
The heroes and villains of the story are not always clear -- Gibson, for instance, runs afoul of the U.S. government after it begins importing rosewood, another vital ingredient, from Madagascar. At times the film borders on being overly sentimental, such as an interview with one veteran guitar-maker who says, “It’s all I’ve ever done…I’m unemployable.” But anyone who’s ever lovingly handled a beautifully made guitar will be made uneasy by this account of the embattled industry’s struggles.
Contact: Kim Martineau kmartine@ldeo.columbia.edu 646-717-0134 The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Parts of pacific warming 15 times faster than in past 10,000 years
A recent slowdown in global warming has led some skeptics to renew their claims that industrial carbon emissions are not causing a century-long rise in Earth's surface temperatures. But rather than letting humans off the hook, a new study in the leading journal Science adds support to the idea that the oceans are taking up some of the excess heat, at least for the moment. In a reconstruction of Pacific Ocean temperatures in the last 10,000 years, researchers have found that its middle depths have warmed 15 times faster in the last 60 years than they did during apparent natural warming cycles in the previous 10,000.
"We're experimenting by putting all this heat in the ocean without quite knowing how it's going to come back out and affect climate," said study coauthor Braddock Linsley, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "It's not so much the magnitude of the change, but the rate of change."
In its latest report, released in September, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted the recent slowdown in the rate of global warming. While global temperatures rose by about one-fifth of a degree Fahrenheit per decade from the 1950s through 1990s, warming slowed to just half that rate after the record hot year of 1998. The IPCC has attributed the pause to natural climate fluctuations caused by volcanic eruptions, changes in solar intensity, and the movement of heat through the ocean. Many scientists note that 1998 was an exceptionally hot year even by modern standards, and so any average rise using it as a starting point would downplay the longer-term warming trend.
The IPCC scientists agree that much of the heat that humans have put into the atmosphere since the 1970s through greenhouse gas emissions probably has been absorbed by the ocean. However, the findings in Science put this idea into a long-term context, and suggest that the oceans may be storing even more of the effects of human emissions than scientists have so far realized. "We may have underestimated the efficiency of the oceans as a storehouse for heat and energy," said study lead author, Yair Rosenthal, a climate scientist at Rutgers University. "It may buy us some time how much time, I don't really know. But it's not going to stop climate change."
Ocean heat is typically measured from buoys dispersed throughout the ocean, and with instruments lowered from ships, with reliable records at least in some places going back to the 1960s. To look back farther in time, scientists have developed ways to analyze the chemistry of ancient marine life to reconstruct the climates in which they lived. In a 2003 expedition to Indonesia, the researchers collected cores of sediment from the seas where water from the Pacific flows into the Indian Ocean. By measuring the levels of magnesium to calcium in the shells of Hyalinea balthica, a one-celled organism buried in those sediments, the researchers estimated the temperature of the middle-depth waters where H. Balthica lived, from about 1,500 to 3,000 feet down. The temperature record there reflects middle-depth temperatures throughout the western Pacific, the researchers say, since the waters around Indonesia originate from the mid-depths of the North and South Pacific.
Though the climate of the last 10,000 years has been thought to be relatively stable, the researchers found that the Pacific intermediate depths have generally been cooling during that time, though with various ups and downs. From about 7,000 years ago until the start of the Medieval Warm Period in northern Europe, at about 1100, the water cooled gradually, by almost 1 degree C, or almost 2 degrees F. The rate of cooling then picked up during the so-called Little Ice Age that followed, dropping another 1 degree C, or 2 degrees F, until about 1600. The authors attribute the cooling from 7,000 years ago until the Medieval Warm Period to changes in Earth's orientation toward the sun, which affected how much sunlight fell on both poles. In 1600 or so, temperatures started gradually going back up. Then, over the last 60 years, water column temperatures, averaged from the surface to 2,200 feet, increased 0.18 degrees C, or .32 degrees F. That might seem small in the scheme of things, but it's a rate of warming 15 times faster than at any period in the last 10,000 years, said Linsley.
One explanation for the recent slowdown in global warming is that a prolonged La Nia-like cooling of eastern Pacific surface waters has helped to offset the global rise in temperatures from greenhouse gases. In a study in the journal Nature in August, climate modelers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography showed that La Nia cooling in the Pacific seemed to suppress global average temperatures during northern hemisphere winters but allowed temperatures to rise during northern hemisphere summers, explaining last year's record U.S. heat wave and the ongoing loss of Arctic sea ice.
When the La Nia cycle switches, and the Pacific reverts to a warmer than usual El Nio phase, global temperatures may likely shoot up again, along with the rate of warming. "With global warming you don't see a gradual warming from one year to the next," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who was not involved in the research. "It's more like a staircase. You trot along with nothing much happening for 10 years and then suddenly you have a jump and things never go back to the previous level again."
The study's long-term perspective suggests that the recent pause in global warming may just reflect random variations in heat going between atmosphere and ocean, with little long-term importance, says Drew Shindell, a climate scientist with joint appointments at Columbia's Earth Institute and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and a lead author on the latest IPCC report. "Surface temperature is only one indicator of climate change," he said. "Looking at the total energy stored by the climate system or multiple indicators--glacier melting, water vapor in the atmosphere, snow cover, and so onmay be more useful than looking at surface temperature alone."
The study's third author, Delia Oppo, is a climate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
###
The study, "Pacific Ocean Heat Content During the Past 10,000 Years," is available from the authors, or Science, scipak@aaas.org.
Kim Martineau Science Writer Lamont-Doherty kmartine@ldeo.columbia.edu 646-717-0134
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Is global heating hiding out in the oceans?
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Kim Martineau kmartine@ldeo.columbia.edu 646-717-0134 The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Parts of pacific warming 15 times faster than in past 10,000 years
A recent slowdown in global warming has led some skeptics to renew their claims that industrial carbon emissions are not causing a century-long rise in Earth's surface temperatures. But rather than letting humans off the hook, a new study in the leading journal Science adds support to the idea that the oceans are taking up some of the excess heat, at least for the moment. In a reconstruction of Pacific Ocean temperatures in the last 10,000 years, researchers have found that its middle depths have warmed 15 times faster in the last 60 years than they did during apparent natural warming cycles in the previous 10,000.
"We're experimenting by putting all this heat in the ocean without quite knowing how it's going to come back out and affect climate," said study coauthor Braddock Linsley, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "It's not so much the magnitude of the change, but the rate of change."
In its latest report, released in September, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted the recent slowdown in the rate of global warming. While global temperatures rose by about one-fifth of a degree Fahrenheit per decade from the 1950s through 1990s, warming slowed to just half that rate after the record hot year of 1998. The IPCC has attributed the pause to natural climate fluctuations caused by volcanic eruptions, changes in solar intensity, and the movement of heat through the ocean. Many scientists note that 1998 was an exceptionally hot year even by modern standards, and so any average rise using it as a starting point would downplay the longer-term warming trend.
The IPCC scientists agree that much of the heat that humans have put into the atmosphere since the 1970s through greenhouse gas emissions probably has been absorbed by the ocean. However, the findings in Science put this idea into a long-term context, and suggest that the oceans may be storing even more of the effects of human emissions than scientists have so far realized. "We may have underestimated the efficiency of the oceans as a storehouse for heat and energy," said study lead author, Yair Rosenthal, a climate scientist at Rutgers University. "It may buy us some time how much time, I don't really know. But it's not going to stop climate change."
Ocean heat is typically measured from buoys dispersed throughout the ocean, and with instruments lowered from ships, with reliable records at least in some places going back to the 1960s. To look back farther in time, scientists have developed ways to analyze the chemistry of ancient marine life to reconstruct the climates in which they lived. In a 2003 expedition to Indonesia, the researchers collected cores of sediment from the seas where water from the Pacific flows into the Indian Ocean. By measuring the levels of magnesium to calcium in the shells of Hyalinea balthica, a one-celled organism buried in those sediments, the researchers estimated the temperature of the middle-depth waters where H. Balthica lived, from about 1,500 to 3,000 feet down. The temperature record there reflects middle-depth temperatures throughout the western Pacific, the researchers say, since the waters around Indonesia originate from the mid-depths of the North and South Pacific.
Though the climate of the last 10,000 years has been thought to be relatively stable, the researchers found that the Pacific intermediate depths have generally been cooling during that time, though with various ups and downs. From about 7,000 years ago until the start of the Medieval Warm Period in northern Europe, at about 1100, the water cooled gradually, by almost 1 degree C, or almost 2 degrees F. The rate of cooling then picked up during the so-called Little Ice Age that followed, dropping another 1 degree C, or 2 degrees F, until about 1600. The authors attribute the cooling from 7,000 years ago until the Medieval Warm Period to changes in Earth's orientation toward the sun, which affected how much sunlight fell on both poles. In 1600 or so, temperatures started gradually going back up. Then, over the last 60 years, water column temperatures, averaged from the surface to 2,200 feet, increased 0.18 degrees C, or .32 degrees F. That might seem small in the scheme of things, but it's a rate of warming 15 times faster than at any period in the last 10,000 years, said Linsley.
One explanation for the recent slowdown in global warming is that a prolonged La Nia-like cooling of eastern Pacific surface waters has helped to offset the global rise in temperatures from greenhouse gases. In a study in the journal Nature in August, climate modelers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography showed that La Nia cooling in the Pacific seemed to suppress global average temperatures during northern hemisphere winters but allowed temperatures to rise during northern hemisphere summers, explaining last year's record U.S. heat wave and the ongoing loss of Arctic sea ice.
When the La Nia cycle switches, and the Pacific reverts to a warmer than usual El Nio phase, global temperatures may likely shoot up again, along with the rate of warming. "With global warming you don't see a gradual warming from one year to the next," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who was not involved in the research. "It's more like a staircase. You trot along with nothing much happening for 10 years and then suddenly you have a jump and things never go back to the previous level again."
The study's long-term perspective suggests that the recent pause in global warming may just reflect random variations in heat going between atmosphere and ocean, with little long-term importance, says Drew Shindell, a climate scientist with joint appointments at Columbia's Earth Institute and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and a lead author on the latest IPCC report. "Surface temperature is only one indicator of climate change," he said. "Looking at the total energy stored by the climate system or multiple indicators--glacier melting, water vapor in the atmosphere, snow cover, and so onmay be more useful than looking at surface temperature alone."
The study's third author, Delia Oppo, is a climate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
###
The study, "Pacific Ocean Heat Content During the Past 10,000 Years," is available from the authors, or Science, scipak@aaas.org.
Kim Martineau Science Writer Lamont-Doherty kmartine@ldeo.columbia.edu 646-717-0134
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Asia’s preeminent MMA promotion, ONE FC, will return to action on November 15 at the Stadium Putra in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for ONE FC 12. The fight card will be headlined by an inaugural welterweight title fight between Adam Kayoom and Nobutatsu Suzuki. The lineup will also feature the Malaysian featherweight final between A.J. Lias Mansor and Melvin Yeoh.
CEO of ONE FC Victor Cui stated, “MMA fans in Malaysia are about to be blown away by this fight card! It is stacked with the most exciting fighters from start to finish. I can’t tell you how excited I am that Malaysia has produced such elite talent and now they get to showcase their skills on the world stage on 15 November.”
ONE FC 12 will air live via online pay-per-view in the United States for $9.99 with the first two undercard bouts airing for free.
ONE FC 12 Fight Card:
Inaugural Welterweight Title: Adam Kayoom vs. Nobutatsu Suzuki
Malaysian Featherweight Final: A.J. Lias Mansor vs. Melvin Yeoh
App developers must stop making unauthorized use of Google Voice by May 14, 2014
Starting with the launch of the Nexus 5, Hangouts will integrate seamlessly with your SMS messages. That is, unless you're a Google Voice user — always a bridesmaid and never a bride, Google Voice is getting left out in the cold again with the latest Hangouts update. Google has confirmed that you'll only be able to use SMS in Hangouts v2 through your regular carrier number, but rest assured that it plans to bring Google Voice support soon.
The plan is to have Google Voice integrated into Hangouts "by early next year," citing that there are obvious carrier hurdles to making it all work. Additionally, work is being done to bring Google Voice numbers to international users as well as support MMS. While we wish there was a clearer time frame for how quickly Google Voice users can be brought up to speed, we'll never turn down some reassurance that the feature integration is coming.
Kyle Richards, from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (which premieres November 4 at 8 P.M. on Bravo) carries a luxe Valentino tote…and SpongeBob Band-Aids. "I got them for my youngest daughter," says the mom to Portia, 5, Sophia, 13, Alexia, 17, and Farrah, 25. "But we all use them!" What else is she packing?
Not So Swell
"I am severely allergic to bees so I have an EpiPen. When I was 5 and filming an episode of Little House on the Prairie, I got stung. Michael Landon drove me to a hospital."
"I constantly text on my iPhone with my sister Kim. She uses so many emojis. Yesterday it was ghosts, witches and pumpkins. I have no clue how the hell she finds these things!"
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