December 2006
Dear Colleagues
The Council of ABEC invites you - all Members and Friends of ABEC to
Christmas Season Dinner
on Wednesday December 27th 2006, 6 p.m. in
*** “IL MULINO RESTAURANTE” ***
[Bulgarian Lady is co-owner]
1060 Eglinton Ave. West,
Toronto, Ontario,
M6C 2C9
Tel: (416) 780-1173/1163
Fax: (416) 256-4015
By TTC – 2 Blocks east of “Eglinton West” Subway Station on University – Spadina Line.
A Green Parking is located on SW corner of Eglinton Ave. & Glencedar Rd- convenient for eastbound traffic.
Subway Parking on NE corner of Eglinton Ave. & Allen Road N on the exit lane, convenient for westbound traffic.
Menu: Appetizer- mix calamari, shrimp, mushroom salad with cheese
Choice of: Pasta gnocchi with 4 cheeses, veggie & potatoes
Spigola fish (Mediter. Bass), veggie & potatoes
Veal scaloppini with bocconcini & mushrooms, veggies & potatoes
Dessert and Coffee
Glass of wine $55.p.p.(+tax&tip)
Reviews:
Jacob Richler
(National Post)
"...go to IL MULINO...you can't go wrong here...topnotch food...deeply
impressive wine list... Margi and Michael Pagliaro [owners] greet everyone at
the door..."
BEST LITTLE ITALIAN RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR! - James Chatto,
Toronto Life Magazine, April 2005
http://www.toronto.com/restaurants/listing/138404
The Dufferin Mall Employment Resource Centre, funded by the Toronto.
The DERC is a
self-directed Centre and registration is required to use the facilities.
Resources include: knowledgeable and experienced staff, résumé critiques and
clinics, workshops, special speaker's series, referrals to community
resources, use of the Internet, computers, photocopier, phones, fax machines,
business directories, reference books, videos, small business resources, labour
market information, career planning and work search information,
and education and skills training information
http://www.skillsforchange.org/
Providing learning and training
opportunities
for immigrants and refugees so that they can
participate in the workplace and wider community
A skill for Change is an active member of CASIP - the Consortium of Agencies Serving Internationally Trained Persons. CASIP agencies have worked collaboratively since 1999.
There are eight organizations that are a part of this consortium:
ACCES <http://www.accestrain.com/>
COSTI Immigrant Services <http://www.costi.org/>
Humber College <http://www.look4work.humber.ca/>
JobStart <http://www.jobstart-cawl.org/>
JVS <http://www.jvstoronto.org/>
MicroSkills <http://www.microskills.ca/>
Seneca College <http://www.senecac.on.ca >
Skills for Change <http://www.skillsforchange.org/>.
Our mandate is to:
Improve service effectiveness through the sharing of best practices.
Advocate as direct service providers on issues facing internationally trained persons and the service delivery network within the GTA.
Increase employment opportunities for internationally-trained persons.
TechSkills http://www.skillsforchange.org/techskills/index.html
Sector Terminology, Information and Counseling - (STIC)
http://www.skillsforchange.org/stic/index.html
Skills for Change are proud to announce a new initiative geared towards assisting job seeking clients in getting back into their field.
The Newcomer Professionals at Work (NPW) program model targets clients who are job ready and have a high proficiency of English language skills.
The initiative will help participants to hone their employment preparation skills and help them to get integrated into the labour market through Mentoring, Internships, or Job Placements.
The program will start delivery in January 2007.
ESL classes – English Second Language -Develop English communication skills and expand your
Understanding http://www.skillsforchange.org/esl starting Saturday, December 9, are still accepting enrollment. Classes run for 12 weeks, every Saturday, from 9 am to 1 pm.
To register call: 416.658.6070.
Employment Ontario, Ontario's Employment and Training **** Network
Please refer to your local EI and Employment Ontario Office for information on a technical courses and new*** Programs for Internationally Educated Engineers and especially for Electronic and Electrical Engineers.
http://www.ontarioimmigration.ca/english/index.asp
http://www.settlement.org/site/events/nic_home.asp
http://www.citizenship.gov.on.ca/english/citdiv/apt/index.html
Brown Fleming Catholic Adult Center
870 Queen Street West
Tel.905-891-3034
Website: www.dpcdsb.org/coopcentre
New ENGINEERING.com.
It was launched a new version of ENGINEERING.com last week.
Take a look; find a job; the latest news, technology advancements and events in the world of engineering.
Engineering Jobs
http://www.maple-reinders.com/careers.php
http://www.mypowercareer.com/powerfulopps/powerfulopps_fs.html
News
Evidence from Hawaiian Volcanoes Shows that Earth Recycles its Crust
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061129151446.htm
Source: Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Date: November 30, 2006
A geologist at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has come up with evidence our planet practices recycling on a grand scale.
Writing in the prestigious British science journal Nature, geological sciences professor Claude Herzberg offers new evidence that parts of the Earth's crust that long ago dove hundreds or thousands of kilometers into the Earth's interior have resurfaced in the hot lava flow of Hawaiian volcanoes.
Snow caps the summits of Mauna
Loa (center) and Mauna Kea (toward the top, center) volcanoes on the island of
Hawaii. This true-color image was acquired by the Moderate-resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS), flying aboard NASA's Terra satellite, on February
28, 2002. (Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
at NASA GSFC)
"This concept has been a big issue in the earth sciences," Herzberg said. While it had been proposed earlier by some geologists, the profession hasn't embraced it because evidence until now remained sketchy. "Many geologists felt that when Earth's crust was forced deep into the mantle, a process called subduction, it would simply stay there."
Herzberg claims to have found telltale chemical evidence at Mauna Kea that pieces of this submerged crust have been forced up through plumes and now make up most of this volcano's lava flow. "The low calcium in the Hawaiian magma pegs it as crust that had melted and been forced to the surface," he said. The calcium levels in traditional magma, which comes from melting the Earth's mantle layer below the crust, are much higher.
Herzberg said his research doesn't stop in Hawaii and that his chemical findings will be useful in understanding the makeup and action of other volcanoes around the world. These findings extend beyond calcium and include sulfur, along with isotopes of the heavier elements hafnium and lead that are tracers for clays and other materials that originated close to the surface prior to subduction.
"Chemical patterns we've found elsewhere used to be puzzles but are now starting to make sense," he said.
Still, the big island of Hawaii remains the prime site for uncovering the secrets of volcanic action, as it has the largest volcanoes on Earth and is the most productive in terms of lava outpouring. Herzberg believes the information he's uncovered about magma chemistry might one day help scientists predict eruptions, as different chemical abundances show up at different times in the volcanoes' eruption cycles.
Strontium Atomic Clock Demonstrates Super-fine 'Ticks'
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061130191605.htm
Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology
Date: December 1, 2006
Using an ultra-stable laser to manipulate strontium atoms trapped in a "lattice" made of light, scientists at JILA have demonstrated the capability to produce the most precise "ticks" ever recorded in an optical atomic clock--techniques that may be useful in time keeping, precision measurements of high frequencies, and quantum computers using neutral atoms as bits of information.
In JILA's new optical atomic clock, blue
laser light is used to cool and trap strontium atoms as the first step before
loading them into a "lattice" made of light. The blue light and
fluorescing atoms are visible in the magnetic-optical trap, located inside a
vacuum chamber. (Credit: Martin Boyd and Tetsuya Ido/JILA)
The JILA strontium lattice design, described in the December 1 issue of Science,* is a leading candidate for next-generation atomic clocks that operate at optical frequencies, which are much higher than the microwaves used in today's standard atomic clocks and thus divide time into smaller, more precise units. JILA is a joint institution of the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder).
The JILA group, led by NIST Fellow Jun Ye, achieved the highest "resonance quality factor"--indicating strong, stable signals when a very specific frequency of laser light excites the atoms--ever recorded in coherent spectroscopy, or studies of interactions between matter and light. "We can define the center, or peak, of this resonance with a precision comparable to measuring the distance from the Earth to the Sun with an uncertainty the size of a human hair," says first author Martin Boyd, a CU-Boulder graduate student. This enabled observation of very subtle sublevels of the atoms' electronic energy states created by the magnetic "spin" of their nuclei.
The new strontium clock is among the best optical atomic clocks described to date in the published literature. It is currently less accurate overall than NIST's mercury ion (charged atom) clock. Although the strontium clock operates at a lower optical frequency, with fewer than half as many ticks per time period, the JILA clock produces much stronger signals, and its "resonant" frequency--the exact wavelength of laser light that causes the atoms to switch back and forth between energy levels--was measured with higher resolution than in the mercury clock. The result is a frequency "ruler" with finer hash marks.
Improved time and frequency standards have many applications. For instance, ultra-precise clocks can be used to improve synchronization in navigation and positioning systems, telecommunications networks, and wireless and deep-space communications. Better frequency standards can be used to improve probes of magnetic and gravitational fields for security and medical applications, and to measure whether "fundamental constants" used in scientific research might be varying over time--a question that has enormous implications for understanding the origins and ultimate fate of the universe.
One of JILA's major innovations enabling the new level of precision is a customized probe laser that is highly resistant to "noise" caused by vibration and gravity, based on a compact, inexpensive design originally developed by 2005 Nobel Laureate Jan Hall, a Fellow and senior research associate at JILA .
The laser can be locked reliably on a single atomic frequency, 430 trillion cycles per second (terahertz) with a "linewidth" or uncertainty of under 2 Hertz, 100 times narrower (or more precise) than the Ye group's previously published measurements of the strontium lattice clock.
The lattice consists of a single line of 100 pancake-shaped wells -- created by an intense near-infrared laser beam -- each containing about 100 atoms of the heavy metal strontium. The lattice is loaded by first slowing down the atoms with blue laser light and then using red laser light to further cool the atoms so that they can be captured. Scientists detect the atoms' "ticks" (430 trillion per second) by bathing them in very stable red light at slightly different frequencies until they find the exact frequency that the atoms absorb best.
Optical lattices constrain atom motion and thereby reduce systematic errors that need to be managed in today's standard atomic clocks, such as NIST-F1, that use moving balls of cold atoms. Lattices containing dozens of atoms also produce stronger signals than clocks relying on a single ion, such as mercury. In addition, the JILA clock ensures signal stability--a particular challenge with large numbers of atoms--by using a carefully calibrated lattice design to separate control of internal and external atom motions. Similar work is under way at a number of standards labs across the globe, including the NIST ytterbium atoms work.
The JILA work may enable quantum information to be processed and stored in the nuclear spins of neutral atoms, and enable logic operations to proceed for longer periods of time. The enhanced measurement precision also could make it easier for scientists to use optical lattices to engineer condensed matter systems for massively parallel quantum measurements.
The JILA research is supported by NIST, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Science Foundation.
As a non-regulatory agency of the Commerce Department's Technology Administration, NIST promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.
* Martin M. Boyd, Tanya Zelevinsky, Andrew D. Ludlow, Seth M. Foreman, Sebastian Blatt, Tetsuya Ido, and Jun Ye. Optical atomic coherence at one second time scale.
Science. Dec. 1, 2006.
![[FSU Seal Image]](image010.gif)
Device offers unprecedented opportunities
http://www.fsu.edu/indexTOFStory.html?lead.magnet
Biologists, chemists, engineers and physicists from all over the world are positively "charged" over a colossal new research tool at FSU's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. It's a world-record 900-megahertz magnet, standing 16 feet tall and weighing more than 15 tons—and it signals a major scientific leap forward for one of the nation's top research facilities.
"This is the most important magnet in the world right now," said Stan Opella, editor of the Journal of Magnetic Resonance. "It has tremendous potential."
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The device
offers unprecedented opportunities for scientists working on everything from
creating stronger building materials to developing medications that can more
effectively combat tuberculosis, brain tumors and even AIDS. Using the magnet,
researchers from around the world are able to expand the horizons of scientific
investigation using nuclear magnetic resonance and magnetic-resonance imaging
technologies.
Magnetism is a critical component of many scientific discoveries and a surprising number of modern technologies, including computer memory and disk drives. High-field magnets now stand beside lasers and microscopes as essential research tools for probing the mysteries of nature. Long used by the physics community to understand the fundamental nature of matter and electronic structures, magnetic fields now are used by biologists, chemists and even pharmacists to better understand complex molecules and tissues, and in fact are responsible for the development of the MRI technology that has changed the face of modern medicine. The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, established by the National Science Foundation in 1990, is the world's premier magnetic-research facility. It is operated jointly by FSU, the University of Florida and Los Alamos National Laboratory, and is located in Tallahassee's Innovation Park. |
"The incredibly precise magnetic field of this 900-megahertz magnet immediately positions our international chemistry and biology programs at the forefront of magnetic resonance research—research that will help us understand the workings of biological molecules, as well as the workings of the cell and the brain," said Greg Boebinger, director of the magnet lab. "Its large volume also enables us to probe the unusual properties of materials under extreme conditions of heat and pressure similar to those found deep within the Earth."
At full strength, the magnet has a magnetic field of 21 teslas—teslas being a scientific measure of magnetic field intensity. Twenty-one teslas is roughly 420,000 times the strength of the Earth's magnetic field.
What makes the magnet particularly useful for scientific research, however, is not just its power, but also its bore size—105 millimeters, or slightly more than 4 inches. The bore is the space within the magnet that holds the sample being tested. The larger the bore size, the larger the sample—and the greater the range of scientific experiments that can be conducted.
"This marks the successful completion of the third of the 'Big Three' magnet projects on which the magnet lab was founded. Whereas our other big magnet projects specialized in making the most powerful magnetic fields, this magnet specializes in precision," Boebinger said.
The 900-megahertz magnet delivers 21-tesla magnetic fields that vary by less than 0.0000002 teslas over a volume roughly equal to the size of a small orange, Boebinger explained—an accomplishment unrivaled anywhere else in the world.
Timothy Cross, an FSU chemistry and biochemistry professor and director of the NMR Spectroscopy and Imaging Program at the magnet lab, said the magnet will offer opportunities for observing specific chemical and biological properties that were not available at lower magnetic fields.
"There are unique benefits that arise at high fields—some atoms become observable that were not practical to observe at a lower field," he said.
"In particular, we are finding that oxygen, a major component of most biological molecules, is observable in the new magnet. This provides us with a new tool for studying biological systems that was not previously available."
Cross added that the magnet can be used to determine the shapes and chemical properties of biological molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. This is useful in determining how certain drugs affect those molecules.
"Pharmaceuticals or drugs bind to biological molecules to enhance the biological function of useful molecules and interfere with the function of damaging ones," he explained.
"For instance, a drug called amantadine binds to a particular protein on the surface of the influenza virus, preventing it from functioning and thus stopping the viral infection in its tracks."
In similar fashion, the electrical and physical properties of materials can be characterized, leading to the development and understanding of new materials, Cross said.
A team of engineers based at the magnet lab worked for 13 years to develop, design, manufacture and test the giant magnet at the laboratory.
The 900-megahertz magnet isn't the only one to set a world record in recent months at the magnet lab. In December 2005, the lab also brought online the highest-field "resistive" magnet in the world. (Resistive, or "powered," magnets require both electricity and cooled water while being used; by comparison, superconducting magnets, such as the 900-megahertz one, require little or no electrical power to run once they are brought up to full field.) The new, state-of-the-art, 35-tesla magnet, which incorporates "Florida-Bitter" technology invented at the magnet lab, also was designed and built on the premises. It will be used primarily for physics and materials science research.
Enhancements to the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
The ultra-wide bore 900 MHz magnet, the world’s largest nuclear magnetic resonance magnet, is recognized as an engineering and scientific marvel.
http://pathways.fsu.edu/facilities/mag.lab
QinetiQ Awarded DARPA Contract to Explore 'First-Of-Their-Kind' Sensors
By Staff
Writers
Farnborough, UK (SPX)
Dec 04, 2006
QinetiQ has secured a two-year $5.0m research contract from
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in support of its Large
Area Coverage Optical Search While Track and Engage (LACOSTE) programme. This
will investigate using first-of-their-kind sensors, like lensless imaging, to
provide persistent tactical
surveillance and precision tracking capabilities.
 |
The concept is to develop a suite of sensors that can be operated at high altitude (~20 km), possibly on an airship or endurance UAV, that detect and simultaneously track large numbers of moving vehicles in dense urban areas with a high degree of accuracy, 24-hours a day. In order to achieve this the sensors need to be high resolution and sensitivity and have a wide field-of-regard and a variable almost instantaneous reconfigurable field of-view. QinetiQ's novel lensless imaging solution is the basis of this approach and is itself a disruptive camera technology with a wide range of defence, security, industrial and commercial applications. QinetiQ is being assisted in delivering the LACOSTE programme by subcontractor Goodrich Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems. |
|
Artist's impression of lacoste sensor. |
The first phase of the programme is intended to provide a complete description of the initial objective system to meet the LACOSTE goals. This includes mechanical design (mass, volume, power, cooling); digital signal processing (decoding, gain, diffraction) and operational concept (resource management and tracking). It will also describe the critical technologies assumed and map out a clear technology development path, with scaled concept demonstrations supporting a decision for the next phase.
"This contract award is an important endorsement of QinetiQ's novel lensless imaging approach," explained Dr Chris Slinger, Technical Director in QinetiQ's Optronics business. "Our long heritage in novel sensor systems, coupled with our understanding of the downstream systems and signal processing algorithms and our ongoing work on endurance UAVs, also put us in an excellent position to be awarded this programme. The benefits of being able to identify and track multiple moving targets over very large urban and open areas are crucial today, whether it be a modern mechanized battlefield or a large city conurbation."
Isolated Armenia Leads the Way in Using Cleaner Car Fuel
by Mariam
Harutunian
Yerevan (AFP) Dec 03, 2006
Cut off from world energy markets, the mountainous state of Armenia is making a virtue of adversity and may be leading the world in using cleaner car fuel, officials say. While the European Union is looking at 2020 before 10 percent of vehicles there will use alternative fuel, in Armenia up to 30 percent of cars already run on clean compressed gas, officials here say
This statistic includes about 45,000 private cars and 90 percent of public transport.
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Such high levels of clean fuel use are due "to the fact that Armenia, which has no energy resources of its own, is trying to use the most affordable alternative fuel," said Pavel Siradegian, a transport ministry official. In this the ex-Soviet republic appears be leading a trend. Around the world some five million vehicles are run on compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas, according to the United States energy department's Internet site.
Natural gas vehicles are just as safe as conventional petrol and diesel-fuelled ones and produce lower harmful emissions, the department says.
In Armenia, the switch has its origins in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Before then, Armenia got petrol from its oil-rich neighbor Azerbaijan, but after the two countries plunged into a war over the Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorny Karabakh, Armenia cut ties with both Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Armenia buys its gas from Russia for 110 dollars (77 euros) per 1,000 cubic metres, with 84 percent of the population having access to gas at home.
The gas used for cars is three or four times cheaper than petrol and half the price of diesel fuel "and so people convert to gas of their own accord," Siradegian said.
The gas containers are usually imported from Russia or Italy and are installed in the car's trunk at licensed centres -- an operation that costs the equivalent of 700 to 1,000 dollars (530-760 euros).
"Even with such high installation prices it's cheaper to use gas than petrol. A 20-litre-canister of petrol would cost some 17 dollars, while topping up with gas costs only four dollars," said the head of Yerevan's Ultra taxi service, Aram Hachian, who has converted all his cars.
"If we used petrol, many people here wouldn't be able to afford a taxi," he said.
Armenia currently has 140 filling stations equipped with gas compressing equipment.
"Drivers have no fear of being left without fuel," Siradegian said.
But some admit the choice has been forced on them.
"If I were rich, I'd fill my car with petrol because gas is bad for your engine and it is not very nice carrying an 80-kilogramme container in your trunk," said one Yerevan resident, 37-year-old Artem.
At the country's environment ministry, officials hail the benefits of increased gas use after the damage done to the environment in the 1990s.
"Switching to gas has been a real salvation for... Armenia, whose forests suffered very much during the energy crisis," said environment official Martin Tsarukian.
"Gas-using cars emit half the amount of nitric oxide than petrol-driven cars," he said. "Conversion to gas was an economic necessity, but there have been ecological benefits as a result."
The ministry is aware that the popularity of compressed gas could be time-limited if the country pulls itself out of economic hardship -- the average salary is currently 100 dollars a month.
But it is now looking at ways of ensuring drivers stick to compressed gas -- for example through tax benefits.
Source: Agence France-Presse
Producers Strain to Supply Growing Wind Power Market
By
Delphine Touitou
Stockholm (AFP) Dec
03, 2006
There is an inexhaustible supply of wind
to drive their blades, but materials needed to make wind turbines are limited
and the industry fears it will fail to keep pace with growing demand for the
clean energy source. "We do whatever we can but it's impossible to
increase our (production) capacity overnight," a spokesman for the Danish
group Vestas told AFP.
"There is a gap between industrial capacity and demand, and it will take several years before we can fill the gap. Don't expect miracles," Peter Wenzel Kruze added.
Vestas is the world leader
in wind turbine manufacturing.
Benefiting from spiraling oil prices and the popularity of green energy sources, wind farms -- mostly on land but also offshore -- have in recent years become an increasingly common sight throughout Europe.
Wind-generated power now accounts for three percent of Europe's electricity requirements, according to the European Wind Energy Agency (EWEA). In Denmark the figure is 20 percent, eight percent in Germany and seven percent in Spain.
Between 1995 and 2005 the amount of electricity produced using wind power grew on average by 32 percent per year in Europe while the number of wind turbines rose by around 22 percent.
Similar growth in the sector has been recorded in the United States where wind power production expanded by 36 percent in 2005 with the help of federal funding.
A number of countries have announced plans for major wind farm programmes both on land and at sea. The rush to wind power has proved a boon for the industry in the shape of lucrative contracts but it has also caused problems for companies as they struggle to meet multiplying deadlines.
Almost all producers have been affected by the problem for some months, according to a spokeswoman at German energy group REpower.
While there was no immediate impact on the group's results, she conceded that future production capacity could be reduced if delays in deliveries of wind turbine parts continued.
Robert Gleitz, wind product chief at General Electric, explains that current supply problems have not affected major component parts of wind turbines such as blades, plinths or turbine pods.
Gleitz does however say that turbines ordered today would not be delivered until 2008 or possibly 2009.
"The industry is adapting and companies are in the process of reorganizing their entire supply chain," EWEA spokeswoman Isabelle Valentiny said.
Source: Agence France-Presse
Southern Ocean Could Slow Global Warming
by Staff
Writers
Tuscon AZ
(SPX) Dec 06, 2006
This image shows the oceans and continents that surround Antarctica. The tip of South America is on the upper left, the tip of Africa is at the upper right and Australia is at the bottom right. The ocean colors indicate temperature, with the darkest blue indicating the coldest water. The black arrows show the direction the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current take as they swirl around the southernmost continent. Copyright 2006 Paul J. Goodman, the University of Arizona.
The Southern Ocean may slow the rate of global warming by absorbing significantly more heat and carbon dioxide than previously thought, according to new research.
The Southern Hemisphere westerly winds have moved southward in the last 30 years. A new climate model predicts that as the winds shift south, they can do a better job of transferring heat and carbon dioxide from the surface waters surrounding Antarctica into the deeper, colder waters.
The new finding surprised the scientists, said lead researcher Joellen L. Russell. "We think it will slow global warming. It won't reverse or stop it, but it will slow the rate of increase."
The new model Russell and her colleagues developed provides a realistic simulation of the Southern Hemisphere westerlies and Southern Ocean circulation.
Previous climate models did not have the winds properly located. In simulations of present-day climate, those models distorted the ocean's response to future increases in greenhouse gases.
"Because these winds have moved poleward, the Southern Ocean around Antarctica is likely to take up 20 percent more carbon dioxide than in a model where the winds are poorly located," said Russell, an assistant professor of geosciences at The University of Arizona in Tucson.
"More heat stored in the ocean means less heat stored in the atmosphere. That's also true for carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas."
"But there are consequences," Russell said. "This isn't an unqualified good, even if more carbon dioxide and heat goes into the ocean."
As the atmosphere warms, storing more heat in the ocean will cause sea levels to rise even faster as the warmed water expands, she said. Adding more CO2 to the oceans will change their chemistry, making the water more acidic and less habitable for some marine organisms.
Russell and her colleagues conducted the study while she was a researcher at Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J.
Her co-authors on the article, "The Southern Hemisphere Westerlies in a Warming World: Propping open the Door to the Deep Ocean," are GFDL researchers Keith W. Dixon, Anand Gnanadesikan, Ronald J. Stouffer and J.R. Toggweiler. The article will be published in the December 15 issue of the Journal of Climate. NOAA funded the work.
The researchers characterize the Southern Ocean as "the crossroads of the global ocean's water masses, connecting the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans as well as connecting the deep ocean to the surface."
The current set of computer models that scientists use to predict future climate differ in the degree to which heat is sequestered by the Southern Ocean. The models vary in how they represent the behavior of the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the largest current on the planet.
The team's model does a better job of depicting the location and observed southward shift of the Southern Hemisphere atmospheric winds than do previous global climate circulation models. The new model developed at GFDL shows that the pole ward shift of the westerlies intensifies the strength of the winds as they whip past the tip of South America and circumnavigate Antarctica.
"It's like a huge blender," Russell said as she held up a globe and demonstrated how the winds whirl around the southernmost continent. Those winds, she said, propel the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The current drives the upwelling of cold water from more than two miles deep. The heavy, cold water comes to the surface and then sinks back down, carrying the carbon dioxide and heat with it.
The new model forecasts this shift in the winds will continue into the future as greenhouse gases increase.
Stouffer said, "The pole ward intensification of the westerlies will allow the ocean to remove additional heat and anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Thus, the deep ocean has the potential to slow the atmospheric warming through the increased storage of heat and carbon."
The team's next step will be figuring out how warming, ice-melt and ongoing shifts in the Southern Hemisphere westerlies will affect the biogeochemistry of the Southern Ocean and the global budgets for heat and carbon dioxide.
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Southern_Ocean_Could_Slow_Global_Warming_999.html
Related Links:
University of
Arizona http://www.arizona.edu
Geophysical
Fluid Dynamics Laboratory http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov
NOAA http://www.noaa.gov
ABEC’s News
On 19th of November 2006, ABEC organized Lecture in the lower hall of the Macedono Bulgarian Orthodox Cathedral “Sts. Cyril and Methody”
In her lecture, Professor Dr in Geophysics Marianna Shepherd - member of the Centre for Research on Earth & Space Science (CRESS) in York U, described the temperature structure of the Earth's middle atmosphere 60-100 km height. The mesosphere plays role in two important atmospheric phenomena: a) the “ozone hole” in the stratosphere, influenced by particular processes in the mesosphere, and b) the global climate change, “Green house effect”, for which the mesosphere gives us the first indication. It was touched also information for the formation of a borealis.
We appreciate very mach the time which Professor Marianna Shepherd share with us and explained in details the data’s from her research and the methods involved for the different observations.
We will try to organize more lectures for this so important field of geophysics and engineering, related to the role of the industries on our environment.
Professor Marianna Shepherd was greeted from Bulgarian General Consul in Toronto Mrs. Genka Beleva.
Please reed the info for the ABEC’s Christmas Dinner in “IL MULINO” restaurant on 27th of December 2006.
Membership fee, due for 2007 year is $50 per year. Please send your cheque (making it payable to ABEC) to our Treasurer -Mrs. Tonya Bojkova, 903 – 91 Cosburn Ave., Toronto, Ontario, M4K 2G2.
New Members are always welcome!
2007
Dear Colleagues,
The
Council of the Association of Bulgarian Engineers in Canada – ABEC is sending a
most cordial Christmas Greetings to all Bulgarian Engineers in Canada.
Wishing you peace, joy and friendship for the Christmas Season and throughout
the New Year!!!
Let the ambitions and perseverance lead to fulfillment of our family’s and professional
dreams. Merry Christmas and a Happy 2007 New Year!!
Vessela Koleda!!
Pauline Loultcheva Lawrence
Nikolay Paskalev
President of ABEC Vice
President of ABEC
Tel: 905 832-4451
Tel: 416 839-1569
p_lawrence@abec.ca n_paskalev@abec.ca
