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  • Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education
    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of ...Read more

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    Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education

    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of sustainability. Here is a link to the one-page bill: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2366_00_0000.pdf. See report on Bloomberg News.
  • Earth's Center Is 1,000 Degrees Hotter Than Previously Thought, Synchrotron X-Ray Experiment Shows
    Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth’s center to be 6000 degrees Celsius, 1000 ...Read more

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    Earth's Center Is 1,000 Degrees Hotter Than Previously Thought, Synchrotron X-Ray Experiment Shows

    Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth’s center to be 6000 degrees Celsius, 1000 degrees hotter than in a previous experiment run 20 years ago. These measurements confirm geophysical models that the temperature difference between the solid core and the mantle above, must be at least 1500 degrees to explain why the Earth has a magnetic field. For more information about this study, see the press release from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.
  • Ocean Volcanic Rocks Contain Samples of Recycled Crust
    Scientists have long believed that lava erupted from certain oceanic volcanoes contains materials fr...Read more

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    Ocean Volcanic Rocks Contain Samples of Recycled Crust

    Scientists have long believed that lava erupted from certain oceanic volcanoes contains materials from the early Earth’s crust. But decisive evidence for this phenomenon has proven elusive. New research from a team including Carnegie’s Erik Hauri demonstrates that oceanic volcanic rocks contain samples of recycled crust dating back to the Archean era 2.5 billion years ago. Their work is published in Nature. Oceanic crust sinks into the Earth’s mantle at so-called subduction zones, where two plates come together. Much of what happens to the crust during this journey is unknown. Model-dependent studies for how long subducted material can exist in the mantle are uncertain and evidence of very old crust returning to Earth’s surface via upwellings of magma has not been found until now. For more information about these results, see the press release from the Carnegie Institution.

    Courtesy of Matthew Miller

From: Matthew Miller
NOAA RV Ronald H. Brown, October 23, 2008

Ronald H. Brown's Radar Observes Drizzle

The R/V Ronald Brown has a scanning precipitation radar. This is a valuable research instrument. For the VOCALS project, it is an essential part of observing drizzle and making rain maps of the marine stratocumulus.

Marine stratocumulus occurs in two configurations: open-cell and closed-cell. The cells that compose a large area of marine stratocumulus arrange themselves in a honeycomb-like pattern. Closed-cell stratocumulus has cloud in the middle of the cell with clear areas along the edges of the cell. Open-cell stratocumulus has the opposite - cloud around the edges and an open area in the middle.

When we use the Ronald Brown's radar to observe drizzle, the drizzle patterns match the arrangement of the clouds for a given cell. The image for this postcard shows a radar scan from the Ronald Brown that captures the drizzle around an open cell. The ring-shaped pattern in the lower right denotes the drizzle that we expect to see around the edges of open-cell stratocumulus clouds.

VOCALS Research Results

Postcards from the Field: Climate Science from the Southeast Pacific

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