Ancient stormy weather: World's earliest environment could revise bronze age chronology

An inscription on the 3,500-year-old stone block from Egypt might be among the world's earliest weather reviews -- and may provide new evidence concerning the chronology of occasions within the ancient Middle East.

A brand new translation of the 40-line inscription around the 6-feet-tall calcite block known as the Tempest Stela describes rain, darkness and "heaven finding yourself in storm without cessation, even louder compared to cries from the public."

Two students in the College of Chicago's Oriental Institute believe the unusual weather designs referred to around the slab were the effect of a massive volcano explosion at Thera -- the current-day island of Santorini within the Mediterranean And Beyond. Because volcano eruptions may have a common effect on weather, the Thera explosion likely might have triggered significant interruptions in Egypt.

The brand new translation indicates the Egyptian pharaoh Ahmose ruled at any given time nearer to the Thera eruption than formerly thought -- a discovering that could change scholars' knowledge of a vital juncture in history as Bronze Age empires realigned. The study in the Oriental Institute's Nadine Moeller and Robert Ritner seems early in the year problem from the Journal of Near Eastern Studies.

The Tempest Stela goes back towards the reign from the pharaoh Ahmose, the very first pharaoh from the 18th Empire. His rule marked the start of the brand new Kingdom, a period when Egypt's energy arrived at its height. The block was discovered in pieces in Thebes, modern Luxor, where Ahmose ruled.

When the stela does describe the aftermath from the Thera catastrophe, the right dating from the stela itself and Ahmose's reign, presently regarded as about 1550 B.C., could really be 30-50 years earlier.

"This will be significant to students from the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean, generally since the chronology that archaeologists use is dependant on the lists of Egyptian pharaohs, which new information could adjust individuals dates," stated Moeller, assistant professor of Egyptian the archaeology of gortyn in the Oriental Institute, who is an expert in research on ancient urbanism and chronology.

In The Year 2006, radiocarbon testing of the olive tree hidden under volcanic residue placed the date from the Thera eruption at 1621-1605 B.C. So far, the ancient evidence for that date from the Thera eruption appeared at odds using the radiocarbon dating, described Oriental Institute postdoctoral scholar Felix Hoeflmayer, that has analyzed the chronological implications associated with the eruption. However, when the date of Ahmose's reign is sooner than formerly thought, the resulting change in chronology "might solve the entire problem," Hoeflmayer stated.

The modified dating of Ahmose's reign can often mean the dates of other occasions within the ancient Near East fit together more realistically, students stated. For instance, it realigns the dates of important occasions like the fall from the energy from the Canaanites and also the collapse from the Babylonian Empire, stated David Schloen, connect professor within the Oriental Institute and Near Eastern Languages

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Unique model simulates electron environment in space at 36000 km above the Earth

A spacecraft at near-Earth orbit is continuously bombarded by charged particles. Finnish Meteorological Institute has developed a unique model that simulates electron environment in the near-Earth space.

Finnish Meteorological Institute's new model specifies the electron environment at any orbit where important satellites are moving. FMI' s new IMPTAM (Inner Magnetosphere Particle Transport and Acceleration Model) model is a unique tool and the only one in Europe. "Specifying the electron flux at any satellite orbit, we will be able to provide satellite operators the critical information for surface charging of satellite materials," says the main developer of the IMPTAM model, FMI's researcher Dr. Natalia Ganushkina.

At present, there are about 1000 operational satellites at different orbits in the near-Earth space and all of them pass through the regions where the radiation environment can vary significantly with location. All the variability is imposed by the activity of the Sun.

Electrons with these energies constitute one of the most important parts of the radiation environment in the near-Earth space. First, they are responsible for discharges on the surface of the outer spacecraft layers that can cause significant damage and spacecraft anomalies. Second, they are accelerated to much higher energies of megaelectronvolts and populate the Earth's radiation belts which are from the radiation hazard viewpoint the two most critical regions around the Earth.

Main drivers of transport and acceleration of electrons with energies of 50 to 150 kiloelectronvolts (keV) to geostationary orbit (36000 km above the Earth) in space. Electrons come to geostationary orbit from the areas in space located at about 10 Earth Radii (1 Earth Radius is equal to 6400 km) from the Earth in the direction away from the Sun. They move towards the Earth not in empty space but in magnetic and electric fields whose presence was established from observations. These magnetic and electric fields guide electrons, and if they change, electrons move differently. Since we do not have satellites in every point in space to tell us what are the magnitudes of the fields, we need to use models for these fields.

A very good agreement is achieved between the observed electrons in form of electron fluxes measured by several satellites at geostationary orbit and our model electron fluxes at the same locations as satellites. The main factor was found to be the inclusion of small-scale electric fields related to reconfiguration of electric and magnetic fields during substorms, phenomena which occurs in our space very often, almost every day and last 1-3 hours. Substorms are responsible for spectacular aurora displays which we can see at high latitudes. The good agreement indicates that our model contains the necessary physical processes correctly, and can be used for other orbits, not only for geostationary.

Journal Reference:

N. Y. Ganushkina, O. A. Amariutei, Y. Y. Shprits, M. W. Liemohn. Transport of the plasma sheet electrons to the geostationary distances. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 2013; 118 (1): 82 DOI: 10.1029/2012JA017923

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U.N. report warns environment is at tipping point

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – The earth's environmental systems "are being pushed towards their biophysical limits," beyond which loom sudden, irreversible and potentially catastrophic changes, the United Nations Environment Program warned Wednesday.

By Felipe Dana, AP

Brazil's Secretary of Research and Development Programs and Politics, Ministry of Science and Technology, Carlos Nobre, speaks during the launch of U.N. Environment Program Global Environment Outlook 5 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Wednesday.

By Felipe Dana, AP

Brazil's Secretary of Research and Development Programs and Politics, Ministry of Science and Technology, Carlos Nobre, speaks during the launch of U.N. Environment Program Global Environment Outlook 5 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Wednesday.

In a 525-page report on the health of the planet, the agency paints a grim picture: The melting of the polar ice caps, desertification in Africa, deforestation of tropical jungles, spiraling use of chemicals and the emptying out of the world's seas are just some of myriad environmental catastrophes posing a threat to life as we know it.

"As human pressures on the earth … accelerate, several critical global, regional and local thresholds are close or have been exceeded," the report says. "Once these have been passed, abrupt and possibly irreversible changes to the life-support functions of the planet are likely to occur, with significant adverse implications for human well-being."

Such adverse implications include rising sea levels, increased frequency and severity of floods and droughts, and the collapse of fisheries, said the report, which compiles the work of the past three years by a team of 300 researchers.

The bad news doesn't end there. The report says about 20 percent of vertebrate species are under threat of extinction, coral reefs have declined by 38 percent since 1980, greenhouse gas emissions could double over the next 50 years, and 90 percent of water and fish samples from aquatic environments are contaminated by pesticides.

It adds that of the 90 most crucial environmental goals, little or no progress has been made over the past five years on nearly a third of them, including global warming. Significant progress has been made on just four of the objectives, the report says.

"This is an indictment," UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said at a news conference in Rio De Janeiro, which is to host later this month a U.N. conference on development that protects the environment. "We live in an age of irresponsibility that is also testified and documented in this report.

"In 1992 (when the first of the agency's five reports was released) we talked about the future that was likely to occur. This report 20 years later speaks to the fact that a number of the things that we talked about in the future tense in 1992 have arrived," Steiner said. "Once the tipping point occurs, you don't wake up the next morning and say, 'This is terrible, can we change it?' That is the whole essence of these thresholds. We are condemning people to not having the choice anymore."

Steiner called for immediate action to prevent continued environmental degradation, with its ever-worsening consequences.

"Change is possible," he said, adding that the report includes an analysis of a host of environmental preservation projects that have worked. "Given what we know, we can move in another direction."

The United Nations' upcoming Rio+20 conference on sustainable development would be the ideal forum to spearhead the kind of global action that's needed if the worst is to be avoided, Steiner said.

However, the run-up to June 20-21 conference has been plagued with problems, as developing and developed countries continue to bicker over what the objectives of the event should be.

Speaking in New York on Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged that negotiations on a final document for the conference have been "quite difficult" but he said he was "cautiously optimistic" that the 193 U.N. member states will reach agreement.

"We live in a world of economic uncertainty, growing inequality and environmental decline," Ban told a news conference at U.N. headquarters. "This (conference) is a once in a generation opportunity. … We need leaders to have political commitment and political courage and vision. Short-term measures will not be the answers. You need to have mid- and longer-term visions for sustainable development."

UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall said the agency deliberately scheduled the release of its report to coincide with the run-up to the conference.

"It tells, we hope in a polite way, but in a scientifically honest way, world leaders who are coming in a few weeks' time why they are coming and why they need to define an impressive outcome for everybody in the world," Nuttall said at the Rio news conference.

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