Not only is Earth’s surface warming, but the troposphere — the lowest level of the atmosphere, where weather occurs — is heating up too, U.S. and British meteorologists reported on Monday.In a review of four decades of data on troposphere temperatures, the scientists found that warming in this key atmospheric layer was occurring, just as many researchers expected it would as more greenhouse gases built up and trapped heat close to the Earth.
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The European Space Agency´s (ESA) GlobSnow project, led by the Finnish Meteorological Institute, can map the extent and volume of snow cover especially on the northern hemisphere. Launched at the beginning of November, the service provides almost real-time data on snow cover and snow depth.The purpose of this service, accessed through the GlobSnow website maintained by the Institute, is to create a global database containing the snow data gathered by satellites.
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Half the world population lives at risk of malaria, a disease that kills 1.2 million people each year. Ninety percent of those deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
Malaria has affected Africa disproportionately more than in any other part of the world, though other areas, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, face a growing challenge to contain a mosquito-borne illness that now has resistance to the medicines used to treat malaria and to the pesticides used to kill mosquitoes.
For five years, Tatem and Smith have collaborated with a team of scientists, geographers, statisticians and on-the-ground health workers to create a single worldwide database for mapping and modeling P. falciparum transmission. Their assessments in The Lancet Series are based on malaria’s regional intrinsic transmission, the disease’s toll on crippling health systems and the levels in which population movement help spread malaria across borders. Tatem and Smith’s analysis may give the public health community a tool it needs to most effectively allocate financial and technical support for regions whose citizens suffer with the disease.Half the world population lives at risk of malaria, a disease that kills 1.2 million people each year. …
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India plans to step up mapping of rare-earth-mineral reserves over the next two years to boost domestic sources as China is reportedly planning to clamp down on supplies, according to a top official in the Ministry of Mines, India.
The mines ministry has asked the state-run Geological Survey of India, which maps mineral reserves, to undertake a survey to locate all possible reserves of rare-earth minerals. It has also asked the state-run Centre for Techno Economic Options to prepare a detailed report on the status of reserves. According to the official, the efforts will give equal emphasis to mapping the minerals inland and on beach sands.
The ministry plans to start exploration, depending on how quickly the agencies complete the data. The government hopes to begin exploration two years from now or even earlier.
China, which accounts for 95% of the global rare-earth output, had said in July that it will reduce export quotas by 40% in 2010 from last year. Rare-earth metals are critical to a variety of technologies ranging from iPhones to flat screen televisions and hybrid cars, as well as for geothermal, wind and solar energy. India is among four or five countries with known reserves of rare-earth minerals, and they are largely found in the country’s beach sands in southern and eastern states. Small quantities also exist inland along the eastern Jharkhand state’s Chhotanagpur Plateau.
Source:Geospatial World
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