Top 10 Cities for Grads Seeking Green Jobs

10.) San Francisco
9.) Denver
8.) New York City
7.) Portland
6.) Los Angeles
5.) Sacramento
4.) Boston
3.) Detroit
2.) Phoenix
1.) Houston

http://www.mnn.com/eco-biz/money-green-jobs/photos/top-10-cities-for-new-grads-seeking-green-jobs/green-collar-workers

Facebook Goes Green

Facebook 'friends' the green movement

Boosting its green profile, Facebook's new ‘Green on Facebook’ page shares green news and touts the site's own sustainability initiatives.

Eco-conscious Facebook users have a new page to “like” on the ever-popular social networking site: a Green on Facebook page that outlines what the company is doing to promote a sustainable environment.

Facebook launched the green page as a resource for people who not only want to know what the company is doing to go green, but also to share green news from around the Web, according to CNET and the Environmental Leader.

“By enabling millions of people from diverse backgrounds to easily connect and share, we believe we can help unleash innovative environmental initiatives across the globe,” states the Green on Facebook page. “When it comes to the environment, we are always looking to do more.”

The new Green on Facebook page coincides with strategic new partnerships for Facebook. The company has joined the Alliance to Save Energy and the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC), a group of tech companies working on environmental issues. Through the Alliance-Facebook partnership, Facebook will donate $500,000 worth of advertising and help promote the Alliance’s site, LivingEfficiently.org. Through its partnership with the DESC, Facebook will share best practices, the Environmental Leader reported.

Focusing on its green efforts could boost Facebook’s reputation, particularly after Greenpeace launched a campaign earlier this year to convince Facebook to use renewable energy instead of coal at a planned data center in Oregon, according to the Environmental Leader. (The “Unfriend Coal” campaign got support from 500,000 Facebook users.)

The new page pushes hard to convey Facebook as an eco-conscious company. In its own facilities, Facebook has reduced water consumption with dual-flush toilets and motion-sensor faucets. It has motion sensor-controlled lighting. In addition, Facebook’s green transportation program offers shuttles, carpooling, bike racks and subsidized public transportation for employees.

On the tech side, Facebook engineers have designed programming language, HopHop for PHP, which provides 50 percent CPU savings. (In other words, they can do the same amount of work with half the servers.) Facebook has also created programs to make photo storage more efficient; meanwhile, its data centers have reduced Facebook’s energy consumption by 2.42 million kilowatt hours annually.

“As our business continues to grow, we are committed to doing all we can through our people and innovation to help deliver a clean energy future,” Facebook said. “We only have one planet. Let’s do all we can to protect it.”

Heavy snow causes Metrodome roof to collapse in Minnesota

The eye of a blizzard lingered Sunday over parts of Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, where heavy snow caused the roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis to collapse, a spokesman for the Minnesota State Patrol said.

A low pressure system, pushed by heavy winds, is creating hazardous conditions in parts of the Midwest, which has been blanketed by near-whiteout conditions since the storm began Friday.

The National Weather Service issued an alert Sunday for parts of the three states and regions along the Mississippi River, warning travelers of hazardous conditions caused by heavy snow, fierce winds and subzero temperatures.

Full article and video-http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/12/winter.weather/index.html?hpt=T1

Earth's Lower Atmosphere Is Warming, Review of Four Decades of Scientific Literature Concludes

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101116080321.htm

The troposphere, the lower part of the atmosphere closest to the Earth, is warming and this warming is broadly consistent with both theoretical expectations and climate models, according to a new scientific study that reviews the history of understanding of temperature changes and their causes in this key atmospheric layer.

Scientists at NOAA, the NOAA-funded Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS), the United Kingdom Met Office, and the University of Reading in the United Kingdom contributed to the paper, "Tropospheric Temperature Trends: History of an Ongoing Controversy," a review of four decades of data and scientific papers to be published byWiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, a peer-reviewed journal.

In the 1990s, observations did not show the troposphere, particularly in the tropics, to be warming, even though surface temperatures were rapidly warming. This lack of tropospheric warming was used by some to question both the reality of the surface warming trend and the reliability of climate models as tools. This new paper extensively reviews the relevant scientific analyses -- 195 cited papers, model results and atmospheric data sets -- and finds that there is no longer evidence for a fundamental discrepancy and that the troposphere is warming.

"Looking at observed changes in tropospheric temperature and climate model expectations over time, the current evidence indicates that no fundamental discrepancy exists, after accounting for uncertainties in both the models and observations," said Peter Thorne, a senior scientist with CICS in Asheville, N.C., and a senior researcher at North Carolina State University. CICS is a consortium jointly led by the University of Maryland and North Carolina State University.

Mountain Ranges May Act as 'Safe Haven' for Species Facing Climate Change

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101109102718.htm

Swiss researchers studying the projected effects of climate change on alpine plant species have discovered that mountain ranges may represent a 'safer' place to live during changing climate conditions. The research, published in the Journal of Biogeography, finds that the habitat diversity of mountain ranges offer species 'refuge habitats' which may be important for conservation.

The research, led by Daniel Scherrer and Christian Körner from the University of Basel, Switzerland, was carried out over two seasons in the Swiss Central Alps at 2500m. The authors used a high resolution infrared camera and hundreds of soil sensors to monitor the actual temperature experienced by plants in alpine landscapes.

The authors used known 'indicator values' for thermal preferences of plant species permitted to link microhabitat life conditions with biodiversity, the number and abundance of species.

"In this study we examined if different vegetation types and plant species occur under different micro-habitat temperatures," said Körner. "We also estimated the potential loss and shift in abundance of micro-habitat temperatures under a warming climate scenario."

"Comparing various slopes, the study made it obvious that slope exposure and ruggedness of terrain produce a broad spectrum of life conditions not seen over similar areas in forests or in the forelands and plains," said Scherrer. "While it was known from measurements with thermometers that plant and air temperatures can differ substantially in alpine terrain, the high degree of sustained thermal contrasts among habitats still came as a surprise."

Depending on exposure, low stature alpine vegetation warms up dramatically when the sun is out, but under cloudy weather part of that warmth remains stored in the soil, which also makes nights cosier for roots in many places.

"We found that the occurrences of plant species across these mosaics of warmth match with their known temperature preferences," explained Körner. "This means that rugged alpine terrain offers refuge habitats -- or at least stepping stones to these -- at short distance, for both small plants and animals that prefer cool life conditions."

The authors simulated the frequency of certain temperatures for a 2 degrees warmer climate with a computer, and found that only 3% of all types of temperature conditions will disappear. So, while the extent of some of the cooler habitats will shrink, importantly, they will not be lost altogether.

Satellites Provide Up-to-Date Information on Snow Cover

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101112141122.htm

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.

Snowfall impedes transport but also causes floods in many countries. The seasons affect snow cover the most on the northern hemisphere. The average snow cover in winter extends over an area of 20-40 million square kilometers; in other words, the snow contains as much water as one billion Olympic swimming pools.

At the same time, the snow cover is one of the most important factors affecting the global climate, meteorology and water systems. Long distances between observation stations, especially in the sparsely-populated regions of Eurasia and North America, have made it difficult to chart snow and its volume at global level.

Access to satellite data enables researchers to monitor and analyse climatic trends. It has been discovered, for instance, that the snow cover has shrunk globally; this is one indicator of climate change. The database also provides increasingly accurate input data for climate models, thereby further improving the quality and accuracy of climate models.

Weather Affects Children's Injury Rate: Each 5-Degree Temperature Rise Boosts Kids' Hospital Admissions for Serious Injury by 10 Percent

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101124214724.htm

Every 5 degree Celsius rise in maximum temperature pushes up the rate of hospital admissions for serious injuries among children, reveals one of the largest studies of its kind published online in Emergency Medicine Journal.

Conversely, each 5°C drop in the minimum daily temperature boosts adult admissions for serious injury by more than 3%, while snow prompts an 8% rise, the research shows.

The authors base their findings on the patterns of hospital treatment for both adults and children in 21 emergency care units across England, belonging to the Trauma Audit and research Network (TARN), between 1996 and 2006.

But an even stronger pattern was seen among admissions for children, with equivalent temperature rises prompting a 10% increase in admissions and extra sunshine a 6% increase.

The authors calculate that the rate of children's admissions between the months of April and September may be up to 50% higher than average.

They conclude that this analysis could be used to predict daily admission rates, and therefore staffing levels and the planning of other resources.