Safe Foundation?

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I have started constructing RCC structure on an area of 30'x40' with 12 nos of column with following details:

No of Columns : 12

Size of Pit : 5'x5'

Depth of excavation : 7'

Depth of Stone Soling : 8"

Depth of C.C. 1:2:4 mix : 4"

Study finds libertarian bloc largely supported McCain/Palin in 2008

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From Eric Dondero:

A much talked about new study by the Cato Institute's Dave Boaz and David Kirby looks at the bloc of independent-minded libertarian swing voters, described as "fiscally conservative/socially liberal," who are often overlooked by the two major parties. The study is titled "The Libertarian Vote in the Age of Obama."

Boaz and Kirby have found that after 2006, these soft libertarian voters sided with John McCain, and his libertarian-leaning running mate Sarah Palin over Obama/Biden. Though, notably there was a split between older libertaian-oriented voters, and younger ones.

Perhaps most importantly, the study finds some indications that the bloc increasingly open to the Republican message going into 2010 and beyond.

From Cato:

The Libertarian Vote in the Age of Obama

Libertarian — or fiscally conservative, socially liberal — voters are often torn between their aversions to the Republicans' social conservatism and the Democrats' fiscal irresponsibility. Yet libertarians rarely factor into pundits' and pollsters' analyses.

In 2004 libertarians swung away from Bush, anticipating the Democratic victories of 2006. In 2008, according to new data in this paper, libertarians voted against Barack Obama. Libertarians seem to be a lead indicator of trends in centrist, independent-minded voters. If libertarians continue to lead the independents away from Obama, Democrats will lose 2010 midterm elections they would otherwise win.

Libertarians shifted back to the Republican column in 2008, supporting John McCain over Barack Obama by 71 to 27 percent. Although many libertarian intellectuals had a real antipathy to McCain, the typical libertarian voter saw McCain as an independent, straight-talking maverick who was a strong opponent of earmarks and pork-barrel spending and never talked about social issues.

What McCain/Palin failed to do however, was to reach younger soft libertarian voters. Though, Boaz/Kirby predict that this younger contingent may now be shifting to the GOP column. Continuing:

Younger libertarians voted 59 percent for Obama versus 36 percent for McCain. But their enthusiasm for his policies may be short-lived. Younger Americans are an optimistic generation, but easily shaken when things go badly. If unemployment continues to remain weak, an economic issue that disproportionately affects young people, this generation of voters could quickly become disillusioned with Obama’s policies.

Before the 2006 elections, we predicted that if the swing away from the Republicans continued, “Republicans will lose elections they would otherwise win.” Now we offer the reverse prediction: if libertarians continue to lead the independents away from Obama, Democrats will lose 2010 midterm elections they would otherwise win.

Full analysis at Cato.org, including link for download of full report (PDF).

NASA Climatologist Gavin Schmidt Discusses the Surface Temperature Record

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Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, studies why and how Earth's climate varies over time. He offered some context on the annual surface temperature record, a data set that’s generated considerable interest — and some controversy — in the past. GISS updated its surface temperature record with 2009 data this week, and reported that the last decade was the warmest on record.

NASA's Earth Science News Team: Every year, some of the same questions come up about the temperature record. What are they?

Gavin Schmidt: First, do the annual rankings mean anything? Second, how should we interpret all of the changes from year to year -- or inter-annual variability -- the ups and downs that occur in the record over short time periods? Third, why does NASA GISS get a slightly different answer than the Met Office Hadley Centre does? Fourth, is GISS somehow cooking the books in its handling and analysis of the data?

NASA: 2009 just came in as tied as the 2nd warmest on record, which seems notable. What is the significance of the yearly temperature rankings?

Gavin Schmidt: In fact, for any individual year, the ranking isn't particularly meaningful. The difference between the second warmest and sixth warmest years, for example, is trivial. The media is always interested in the annual rankings, but whether it’s 2003, 2007, or 2009 that’s second warmest doesn't really mean much because the difference between the years is so small. The rankings are more meaningful as you look at longer averages and decade-long trends.

NASA: Why does GISS get a different answer than the Met Office Hadley Centre [a UK climate research group that works jointly with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia to perform an analysis of global temperatures]?

Gavin Schmidt: It’s mainly related to the way the weather station data is extrapolated. The Hadley Centre uses basically the same data sets as GISS, for example, but it doesn't fill in large areas of the Arctic and Antarctic regions where fixed monitoring stations don't exist. Instead of leaving those areas out from our analysis, you can use numbers from the nearest available stations, as long as they are within 1,200 kilometers. Overall, this gives the GISS product more complete coverage of the polar areas.

NASA: Some might hear the word "extrapolate" and conclude that you’re “making up” data. How would you reply to such criticism?

Gavin Schmidt: The assumption is simply that the Arctic Ocean as a whole is warming at the average of the stations around it. What people forget is that if you don't put any values in for the areas where stations are sparse, then when you go to calculate the global mean, you’re actually assuming that the Arctic is warming at the same rate as the global mean. So, either way you are making an assumption.

Which one of those is the better assumption? Given all the changes we’ve observed in the Arctic sea ice with satellites, we believe it’s better to assume the Arctic Ocean is changing at the same rate as the other stations around the Arctic. That’s given GISS a slightly larger warming, particularly in the last couple of years, relative to the Hadley Centre.

NASA: Many have noted that the winter has been particularly cold and snowy in some parts of the United States and elsewhere. Does this mean that climate change isn't happening?

Gavin Schmidt: No, it doesn't, though you can't dismiss people's concerns and questions about the fact that local temperatures have been cool. Just remember that there's always going to be variability. That's weather. As a result, some areas will still have occasionally cool temperatures — even record-breaking cool — as average temperatures are expected to continue to rise globally.

NASA: So what's happening in the United States may be quite different than what's happening in other areas of the world?

Gavin Schmidt: Yes, especially for short time periods. Keep in mind that that the contiguous United States represents just 1.5 percent of Earth's surface.

NASA: GISS has been accused by critics of manipulating data. Has this changed the way that GISS handles its temperature data?

Gavin Schmidt: Indeed, there are people who believe that GISS uses its own private data or somehow massages the data to get the answer we want. That's completely inaccurate. We do an analysis of the publicly available data that is collected by other groups. All of the data is available to the public for download, as are the computer programs used to analyze it. One of the reasons the GISS numbers are used and quoted so widely by scientists is that the process is completely open to outside scrutiny.

NASA: What about the meteorological stations? There have been suggestions that some of the stations are located in the wrong place, are using outdated instrumentation, etc.

Gavin Schmidt: Global weather services gather far more data than we need. To get the structure of the monthly or yearly anomalies over the United States, for example, you’d just need a handful of stations, but there are actually some 1,100 of them. You could throw out 50 percent of the station data or more, and you’d get basically the same answers. Individual stations do get old and break down, since they're exposed to the elements, but this is just one of things that the NOAA has to deal with. One recent innovation is the set up of a climate reference network alongside the current stations so that they can look for potentially serious issues at the large scale – and they haven't found any yet.

Related Links:
› 2009: Second Warmest Year on Record; End of Warmest Decade (Related article)
› Gavin Schmidt Background
› GISS Surface Temperature Analysis Home
› GISSTEMP Source Code and Documentation
› Raw Station Data
› LIST of GISS Surface Temperature Analysis References

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Making Medical Grade Saline in Space

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Jane Moultrie, M.D. tests the hardware aboard NASA's Reduced Gravity Aircraft C-9 in May 2007Whenever an injured or ill person is admitted into an emergency room, one of the first steps in many treatments is for the patient to receive saline solution intravenously (through a vein). This basic, yet essential, treatment both keeps the patient hydrated and prepares them to receive any other needed drugs intravenously. Severely injured patients, such as burn victims, can require several liters of saline, a mixture of salt and purified water.

When astronauts venture out into space—whether to the International Space Station, the moon, Mars or beyond—they receive specialized first-aid and medical training to ensure they can care for health issues that might confront themselves or other crew members. NASA spacecraft are equipped with medical equipment and supplies, including saline solution. However, saline solution cannot be stored indefinitely, and given that NASA is developing vehicles and planning for exploration missions progressively further away from Earth, a method is needed to create sterile saline solution on spacecraft or the space station.

NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio is preparing to launch their IntraVenous Fluid Generation (IVGEN) technology demonstration hardware to the space station on shuttle mission STS-131, currently scheduled for March. IVGEN represents years of dedicated work by Glenn scientists and engineers and their industry partner, ZIN Technologies, Inc. of Middleburg Heights, Ohio. IVGEN will be tested on the space station to validate its performance in microgravity, and could eventually become a key component of the medical equipment carried on long-duration space flights.

"IVGEN is important because medical requirements stipulate that exploration missions carry over 100 liters of IV fluid. The vehicle cannot afford the mass and volume necessary to meet that requirement," says DeVon Griffin, the Exploration Medical Capability Project Manager at Glenn and the project manager for IVGEN. "IVGEN technology will consume much less mass and volume, while allowing the crew to generate the needed treatment fluid should that become necessary."

IVGEN sends water through a variety of filters and mixes it with salt to create a sterile saline solutionThe goal of IVGEN is to generate U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) grade IV solution using "in situ" resources—to make sterile saline solution using the water that is available on the space station. This solution is normal saline, or a mix of .9% salt and water. The saline must meet strict medical requirements and weigh less and take up less space than pre-prepared solution would (it’s expensive to launch liquid into space because it's heavy.)

DeVon Griffin, his Glenn team and ZIN Technologies have developed, designed and extensively tested their invention. IVGEN has exceeded expectations in its Earth bound trials as well as in reduced gravity flight tests aboard the NASA C-9 aircraft. Now, it is ready to be tested in the long duration microgravity environment on the space station.

To operate, the device is hooked up to the Water Processor Assembly (WPA) on the space station because USP regulations require using potable, or drinkable, water. The water first flows into an accumulator—a plastic bag within a container. Nitrogen from the space station pressurizes the accumulator between the inner wall of the container and the outer wall of the bag, to push the water out of the container and through the first filter. The IVGEN team also developed concepts to provide fluid flow in the event of an emergency where nitrogen is not available.

This Glenn-designed filter, called a deionizing filter, is a high-tech version of a water softening filter that is commonly used on Earth. The filter contains beads coated in special chemicals to remove impurities and sterilize the water. The water flows through additional filters to remove air (to prevent bubbles which could lead to embolisms during injection) and any remaining particles.

The accumulator transfers water from the Space Station into IVGENThe water then flows into an IV bag, similar to the kind that are used in hospitals on Earth. This bag, which contains a stir bar and salt, is then pressurized to evenly and thoroughly mix the saline solution. After a final filtration to ensure the solution is completely bacteria-free, the sterile saline solution is complete.

During the upcoming testing on the space station, crew members will run the device several times. For the purposes of this flight test, additional computers and sensors have been installed to take on-orbit data of all solution created and measure the equipment performance. Two bags of the sterile saline solution will return to Earth on a shuttle for additional testing.

The ability to manufacture sterile saline solution—of the same high quality that can be made on Earth—has the potential to influence even more than life aboard the space station. It could quite possibly change the way we explore space, helping enable our astronauts to travel farther than ever before.

"IVGEN is currently the number one priority of the Exploration Medical Capabilities Element of the Human Research Program," DeVon Griffin says.

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Bob Hedlund, the next US Congressman from Massachusetts?

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by Eric Dondero

Well, this didn't take long. The Boston Herald, Red Mass and other Mass GOP-oriented sites are reporting on the strong likelyhood that famed libertarian Republican State Senator from the South Coast (Weymouth), might very well be preparing for a run for the US Congress.

From the Herald:

Last night was a great victory for Scott Brown, the Commonwealth and the Republican Party. Republicans are energized and believing that once again we can win at the ballot box.

At the victory party, there was one question that people kept asking over and over again. It was: Who’s next? There many people last night thinking that they should now run for office. I expect you will see at least a dozen new candidates for the Massachusetts legislature.

The biggest proclamation came from Senator Bob Hedlund. He is seriously considering running against Congressman Bill Delahunt (photo getting a hug from Hugo Chavez). If Bob can capture the momentum of the Brown campaign, we could be saying –Bye bye, Bill — next November. Hedlund has always been a maverick and voted his conscience. On the other hand, Bill Delahunt has the same condition that took down Martha Coakley.

I've known Bob for over 20 years. He flew down with a staffer in 1994, to attend our first real national Republican Liberty Caucus convention held in Gatlingurg, Tennessee. He was one of two state legislators in attendance (45 attendees in all). The other being Michigan State Rep. Greg Kaza. (Though, Leon Drolet, Kaza's then Legislative Aide was also there, who would later become a legislator himself.) Bob then attended our second RLC convention a couple years later in DC.

He's also a friend of the Massachusetts Libertarian Party. He's attended numerous LP meetings and has been a speaker at LP conventions.

He's closely affiliated with the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), and other local Hemp organizations. Bob has been honored by these groups as being the Number One Pro-Marijuana Reform Republican in the U.S. He has spoken to large Hemp rallies in the Boston area.

Bob is a diehard Rock 'n Roller. He's not only purely libertarian ideologicically. He is a cultural libertarian through and through. He "sort of" plays in a rock band at special events. He pals around with the likes of Boston-area Rock stars and enthusiasts, and never misses a big concert.

Bob and I probably don't see eye-to-eye on foreign policy. He's a solid Ron Paulist. And he's been a Ron Paul fan since the early 1990s. But foreign policy is not something he emphasizes. He served as Ron Paul's State Campaign Co-Chair in his 2008 Presidential run. He even flew down to Florida to campaign for Paul, at the spur of the moment, during the primary there. Though, he's probably more along the lines of a pragmatic Rand Paul/Peter Schiff mode, than hardline non-interventionist.

But Bob has a pragmatic side. He is friends with Mitt Romney, and worked tirelessly with the former Governor on legislation. He was also influential behind-the-scenes, in getting his buddy and State Senate colleague Scott Brown to run for US Senate originally, back in the fall.

There's little doubt that if Bob does decide to run, and a decision could come in a few weeks, maybe even a few days, this could become the most important political race for the entire libertarian Republican movement nationwide for 2010.

If elected Bob Hedlund would instantly become one of the top four hardline libertarian Republicans in Congress, joining his friend Ron Paul, of course, Tom McClintock of California and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

My hunch, based on some personal conversations I had with him two months ago, is that it's a go.

Hat tip to our alert Libertarian Republlican readers who spotted this developing news. Photo of Bob right, with lead guitarist of the Scorpions.

2009: Second Warmest Year on Record; End of Warmest Decade

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The map shows temperature changes for the last decade—January 2000 to December 2009—relative to the 1951-1980 mean. Warmer areas are in red, cooler areas in blue2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis, conducted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade -- due to strong cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean -- 2009 saw a return to near-record global temperatures. The past year was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 1998 and 2007 -- as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began.

“There’s always an interest in the annual temperature numbers and on a given year’s ranking, but usually that misses the point,” said James Hansen, the director of GISS. “There's substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Niño-La Niña cycle. But when we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find that global warming is continuing unabated."

January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. Throughout the last three decades, the GISS surface temperature record shows an upward trend of about 0.2°C (0.36°F) per decade. Since 1880, the year that modern scientific instrumentation became available to monitor temperatures precisely, a clear warming trend is present, though there was a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s.

The near-record temperatures of 2009 occurred despite an unseasonably cool December in much of North America. High air pressures in the Arctic decreased the east-west flow of the jet stream, while also increasing its tendency to blow from north to south and draw cold air southward from the Arctic. This resulted in an unusual effect that caused frigid air from the Arctic to rush into North America and warmer mid-latitude air to shift toward the north.

"Of course, the contiguous 48 states cover only 1.5 percent of the world area, so the U.S. temperature does not affect the global temperature much,' said Hansen.

As seen by the blue point farthest to the right on this graph, 2009 was the warmest year on record in the Southern HemisphereIn total, average global temperatures have increased by about 0.8°C (1.4°F) since 1880.

“That’s the important number to keep in mind,” said Gavin Schmidt, another GISS climatologist. “In contrast, the difference between, say, the second and sixth warmest years is trivial since the known uncertainty -- or noise -- in the temperature measurement is larger than some of the differences between the warmest years."

Decoding the Temperature Record

Climate scientists agree that rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap incoming heat near the surface of the Earth and are the key factors causing the rise in temperatures since 1880, but these gases are not the only factors that can impact global temperatures.

Three others key factors -- including changes in the sun’s irradiance, oscillations of sea surface temperature in the tropics, and changes in aerosol levels -- can also cause slight increases or decreases in the planet's temperature. Overall, the evidence suggests that these effects are not enough to account for the global warming observed since 1880.

El Niño and La Niña are prime examples of how the oceans can affect global temperatures. They describe abnormally warm or cool sea surface temperatures in the South Pacific that are caused by changing ocean currents.

Global temperatures tend to decrease in the wake of La Niña, which occurs when upwelling cold water off the coast of Peru spreads westward in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. La Niña, which moderates the impact of greenhouse-gas driven warming, lingered during the early months of 2009 and gave way to the beginning of an El Niño phase in October that’s expected to continue in 2010.

An especially powerful El Niño cycle in 1998 is thought to have contributed to the unusually high temperatures that year, and Hansen’s group estimates that there’s a good chance 2010 will be the warmest year on record if the current El Niño persists. At most, scientists estimate that El Niño and La Niña can cause global temperatures to deviate by about 0.2°C (0.36°F).

Warmer surface temperatures also tend to occur during particularly active parts of the solar cycle, known as solar maximums, while slightly cooler temperatures occur during lulls in activity, called minimums.

A deep solar minimum has made sunspots a rarity in the last few years. Such lulls in solar activity, which can cause the total amount of energy given off by the sun to decrease by about a tenth of a percent, typically spur surface temperature to dip slightly. Overall, solar minimums and maximums are thought to produce no more than 0.1°C (0.18°F) of cooling or warming.

“In 2009, it was clear that even the deepest solar minimum in the period of satellite data hasn’t stopped global warming from continuing,” said Hansen.

Small particles in the atmosphere called aerosols can also affect the climate. Volcanoes are powerful sources of sulfate aerosols that counteract global warming by reflecting incoming solar radiation back into space. In the past, large eruptions at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines and El Chichón in Mexico have caused global dips in surface temperature of as much as 0.3°C (0.54°F). But volcanic eruptions in 2009 have not had a significant impact.

Meanwhile, other types of aerosols, often produced by burning fossil fuels, can change surface temperatures by either reflecting or absorbing incoming sunlight. Hansen’s group estimates that aerosols probably counteract about half of the warming produced by man-made greenhouse gases, but he cautions that better measurements of these elusive particles are needed.

Data Details

Except for a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s, Earth's surface temperatures have increased since 1880To conduct its analysis, GISS uses publicly available data from three sources: weather data from more than a thousand meteorological stations around the world; satellite observations of sea surface temperature; and Antarctic research station measurements. These three data sets are loaded into a computer program, which is available for public download from the GISS website. The program calculates trends in temperature anomalies -- not absolute temperatures — but changes relative to the average temperature for the same month during the period of 1951-1980.

Other research groups also track global temperature trends but use different analysis techniques. The Met Office Hadley Centre, based in the United Kingdom, uses similar input measurements as GISS, for example, but it omits large areas of the Arctic and Antarctic, where monitoring stations are sparse.

In contrast, the GISS analysis extrapolates data in those regions using information from the nearest available monitoring stations, and thus has more complete coverage of the polar areas. If GISS didn't extrapolate in this manner, the software that performs the analysis would assume that areas without monitoring stations warm at the same rate as the global mean, an assumption that doesn't line up with changes that satellites have observed in Arctic sea ice, Schmidt explained. Although the two methods produce slightly different results in the annual rankings, the decade-long trends in the two records are essentially identical.

"There's a contradiction between the results shown here and popular perceptions about climate trends," Hansen said. "In the last decade, global warming has not stopped."

Related Links

GISS Surface Temperature Analysis
› data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

Annual Temperature Summation for 2008
› data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/

The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature
› data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html

James Hansen Biography
› http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/jhansen.html

Q&A Session: NASA Climatologist Gavin Schmidt
› http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/gavin-schmidt.html

For a reporter package of background data and video on this topic, visit NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio site

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January Listening Period Ends with No Word from Phoenix Mars Lander

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Mars OdysseyNASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has completed all 30 relay overflights of the Phoenix landing site that were scheduled for Jan. 18 to 21, and heard nothing from the lander. Additional listening campaigns will be conducted in February and March. The Phoenix landing site will be receiving more sunshine during those periods, but the lander is still unlikely to be able to reawaken after the harsh Martian winter conditions that it was not designed to withstand. Phoenix operated for two months longer than its planned three-month mission on Mars in 2008.

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Routine Change on Mechanical Assets

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In our company maintenance standard it is required to Routine Change our assets for every 10 years of service. Is this really necessary for routine changing when all assets are regularly maintained (Preventive Maintenance)? Why do we have to routine change or what are the main reasons of routine cha

From Space to the Classroom: NASA Science Improves Climate Change Education

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NASA has awarded approximately $1.4 million in cooperative agreements to enhance learning through the use of the agency's unique Earth science resources. The grants will support elementary, secondary and undergraduate education, along with lifelong teaching and learning.

Recipients are the University of Washington, the National Wildlife Federation in Reston, Va., and Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia. NASA also provided approximately $210,000 in additional funding for an earlier award made to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

The awards will fund innovative uses of data from NASA's Earth observations and Earth system models. The goal is to engage students in the critical disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and inspire the next generation of explorers.

NASA provided $6.1 million to 15 colleges and universities, nonprofit groups, museums, science centers and a school district in October 2009. At the same time, NASA identified these four proposals for selection if funds became available in 2010. To continue the program in 2010, NASA expects to issue a new solicitation for proposals this spring.

The cooperative agreements are part of a program Congress began in fiscal year 2008. For a complete list of selected organizations and projects descriptions, click on "Selected Proposals" and look for "Global Climate Change Education (GCCE): Research Experiences, Teaching & Learning" or solicitation NNL09ZB1005C at:

http://nspires.nasaprs.com

For more information about NASA's Global Climate Change Education initiative, visit:

http://gcce.larc.nasa.gov

For information about NASA's Education programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/education

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NASA Research Finds Last Decade was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years

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A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 -- for the second warmest on record.

"There's always interest in the annual temperature numbers and a given year's ranking, but the ranking often misses the point," said James Hansen, GISS director. "There's substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Nino-La Nina cycle. When we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find global warming is continuing unabated."

January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. Looking back to 1880, when modern scientific instrumentation became available to monitor temperatures precisely, a clear warming trend is present, although there was a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s.

In the past three decades, the GISS surface temperature record shows an upward trend of about 0.36 degrees F (0.2 degrees C) per decade. In total, average global temperatures have increased by about 1.5 degrees F (0.8 degrees C) since 1880.

"That's the important number to keep in mind," said GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt. "The difference between the second and sixth warmest years is trivial because the known uncertainty in the temperature measurement is larger than some of the differences between the warmest years."

The near-record global temperatures of 2009 occurred despite an unseasonably cool December in much of North America. High air pressures from the Arctic decreased the east-west flow of the jet stream, while increasing its tendency to blow from north to south. The result was an unusual effect that caused frigid air from the Arctic to rush into North America and warmer mid-latitude air to shift toward the north. This left North America cooler than normal, while the Arctic was warmer than normal.

"The contiguous 48 states cover only 1.5 percent of the world area, so the United States' temperature does not affect the global temperature much," Hansen said.

GISS uses publicly available data from three sources to conduct its temperature analysis. The sources are weather data from more than a thousand meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperatures, and Antarctic research station measurements.

Other research groups also track global temperature trends but use different analysis techniques. The Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom uses similar input measurements as GISS, for example, but it omits large areas of the Arctic and Antarctic where monitoring stations are sparse.

Although the two methods produce slightly differing results in the annual rankings, the decadal trends in the two records are essentially identical.

"There's a contradiction between the results shown here and popular perceptions about climate trends," Hansen said. "In the last decade, global warming has not stopped."

For more information about GISS's surface temperature record, visit:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

For video and still images about this story, visit:

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?010557

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

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Rover Gives NASA an "Opportunity" to View Interior of Mars

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Sample from 'Marquette Island' on Mars

NASA's Mars exploration rover Opportunity is allowing scientists to get a glimpse deep inside Mars.

Perched on a rippled Martian plain, a dark rock not much bigger than a basketball was the target of interest for Opportunity during the past two months. Dubbed "Marquette Island," the rock is providing a better understanding of the mineral and chemical makeup of the Martian interior.

"Marquette Island is different in composition and character from any known rock on Mars or meteorite from Mars," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres is principal investigator for Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. "It is one of the coolest things Opportunity has found in a very long time."

During six years of roving, Opportunity has found only one other rock of comparable size that scientists conclude was ejected from a distant crater. The rover studied the first such rock during its initial three-month mission. Called "Bounce Rock," that rock closely matched the composition of a meteorite from Mars found on Earth.

Marquette Island is a coarse-grained rock with a basalt composition. The coarseness indicates it cooled slowly from molten rock, allowing crystals time to grow. This composition suggests to geologists that it originated deep in the crust, not at the surface where it would cool quicker and have finer-grained texture.

"It is from deep in the crust and someplace far away on Mars, though exactly how deep and how far we can't yet estimate," said Squyres.

The composition of Marquette Island, as well as its texture, distinguishes it from other Martian basalt rocks that rovers and landers have examined. Scientists first thought the rock could be another in a series of meteorites that Opportunity has found. However, a much lower nickel content in Marquette Island indicates a Martian origin. The rock's interior contains more magnesium than in typical Martian basalt rocks Spirit has studied. Researchers are determining whether it might represent the precursor rock altered long ago by sulfuric acid to become the sulfate-rich sandstone bedrock that blankets the region of Mars that Opportunity is exploring.

"It's like having a fragment from another landing site," said Ralf Gellert of the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada. Gellert is lead scientist for the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on Opportunity's robotic arm. "With analysis at an early stage, we're still working on some riddles about this rock."

The rover team used Opportunity's rock abrasion tool to grind away some of Marquette Island's weathered surface and expose the interior. This was the 38th rock target Opportunity has ground into, and one of the hardest. The tool was designed to grind into one Martian rock, and this rock may not be its last.

"We took a conservative approach on our target depth for this grind to ensure we will have enough of the bit left to grind the next hard rock that Opportunity comes across," said Joanna Cohen of Honeybee Robotics Spacecraft Mechanisms Corp., in New York, which built and operates the tool.

Opportunity currently is about 30 percent of the way on a 12-mile trek begun in mid-2008 from a crater it studied for two years. It is en route toward a much larger crater, Endeavour. The rover traveled 3.3 miles in 2009, farther than in any other year on Mars. Opportunity drove away from Marquette Island on Jan. 12.

"We're on the road again," said Mike Seibert, a rover mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The year ahead will include lots more driving, if all goes well. We'll keep pushing for Endeavour crater but watch for interesting targets along the way where we can stop and smell the roses."

Since landing on Mars in 2004, Opportunity has made numerous scientific discoveries, including the first mineralogical evidence that Mars had liquid water. After working 24 times longer than originally planned, Opportunity has driven more than 11 miles and returned more than 133,000 images. JPL manages the rovers for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the rovers, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/rovers

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Los Angeles Students Connect with and Query Orbiting Space Station Astronauts

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Elementary students at Vintage Math, Science and Technology Magnet School in Los Angeles will get to ask questions of astronauts aboard the International Space station while the crew orbits 220 miles above Earth. Station Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineers T.J. Creamer and Soichi Noguchi will speak with the students during a video call from 8:35 a.m. to 8:55 a.m. PST on Wednesday, Jan. 27.

In 2007, Vintage was selected as a NASA Explorer School. Explorer Schools develop and implement three-year action plans to address local challenges in science, technology, and mathematics education. The goal is to bring educators, administrators, students, and families together in sustained involvement with NASA's education programs.

Students have been preparing for the event by participating in NASA Digital Learning Network events and hosting a NASA Community Night. Students also participated in an "Ask an Astronaut" contest to develop the best questions to ask during the event, presenting their suggestions to a panel of students, scientists and administrators who helped choose the winning questions. Following the event, students will construct a space station model that will be displayed in the auditorium to commemorate the event.

The event is part of a series with educational organizations in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is an integral component of Teaching From Space Project. The project promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the kindergarten through 12th grade education community using the unique environment of human spaceflight.

NASA Television will air video of Williams, Creamer and Noguchi during the downlink. For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For information about NASA's education programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/education

For information about the space station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

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Reporters Invited To "Dig It" With NASA in Hawaii

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Reporters are invited to field tests of NASA equipment and concept vehicles that demonstrate how explorers might prospect for resources and make their own oxygen for survival while on other planetary bodies. The demonstrations will take place Thursday, Feb. 4, starting at 9 a.m. HST, outside of Hilo, Hawaii.

Journalists will be able to observe and photograph tests of prototype rovers designed to prospect for ice in craters and systems to manufacture oxygen from soil. Engineers involved in the systems' development will be available for interviews.

Reporters should contact Kimberly Land at 757-746-4749 (kimberly.w.land@nasa.gov), or Ashley Edwards at 202-358-1756 (ashley.edwards-1@nasa.gov) by Friday, Jan.22, to attend. Access to the test site requires an escort and a letter of assignment on company letterhead for credentials.

This second round of Hawaii field tests highlights international collaboration. U.S., Canadian, and German scientists and engineers will test concepts for survival, transportation, communication, fuel production, and construction on other planetary bodies. The Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, or PISCES, at the University of Hawaii, Hilo, hosts the collaborative mission.

NASA's In Situ Resource Utilization project develops methods for explorers to take advantage of resources at potential landing sites. For more information about NASA's exploration plans, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration

For more information about PISCES, visit:

http://pisces.uhh.hawaii.edu

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You can’t hide in the herd

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Can you hide in the herd?  Well, I suppose the title has given away the punch line.

Herd immunity is a fascinating effect, and one of the mainstays of a public vaccination effort.  The idea is that if enough people in the community are immune to a particular disease, then those who are susceptible will rarely come into contact with a person who is contagious, and the disease will be unable (or find it difficult) to spread.  This results in a greatly reduced risk of infection for the entire population regardless of their individual immunity.

This has lead to the belief that because of the protection of the herd’s immunity, individuals now have the option to avoid even the minimal cost and risk of vaccination while having the same reduced risk of infection as if they had vaccinated.

Let’s set aside the fact that that there are people who have no choice but to rely upon herd immunity as their sole line of protection against these infections.  Forget that there is a threshold below which herd immunity collapses, and that our current vaccination rates tend to be right on the cusp of that threshold.  Pay no attention to the fact that the personal decision to not vaccinate deprives others of their sole protection from these infections.  Finally, ignore the ethics and self-defeating nature of benefiting from the sacrifice of others while simultaneously eroding the efficacy of the herd immunity being exploited.  On a small enough scale, doesn’t the tactic of hiding in the herd provide the same protection as getting vaccinated without incurring the minimal risk of vaccination?

Not so much.

Countless reports of outbreaks around the world consistently describe a disproportionate number of infections during vaccine-preventable outbreaks occurring in the unvaccinated.  For instance, in Indiana in 2005 an outbreak of measles infecting 34 people was traced to a 17-year-old unvaccinated girl who had contracted measles in Romania.  In that outbreak 94% of the infected were unvaccinated.

This scenario was repeated during a measles outbreak in California in 2008 where 12 children were infected.  The index case, an unvaccinated boy who had traveled to Europe, infected both of his siblings, five schoolmates, and four children from his pediatrician’s office.  None of the children were vaccinated, though three of the four infected in the office were too young to have been vaccinated.  Zero vaccinated children contracted measles.

Reports such as these highlight how quickly these diseases can spread, how easily the unvaccinated are infected, and the limited effectiveness of voluntary isolation.  They also demonstrate the effectiveness of herd immunity in containing the infection, and rather strongly suggest that, even with intact herd immunity, the vaccinated and unvaccinated are not at equal risk of infection.

How much greater is the risk, though?  10%?  50%?  Perhaps fully twice as likely to be infected?  The magnitude matters to parents (and physicians) who are weighing the risks of vaccines and their corresponding diseases.

A group from Kaiser Permanente of Colorado has attempted to help put a number on that increased risk.  Within the last year they have provided two matched case-control studies that quantify the magnitude of the risk children incur because of vaccine refusal.

Their first study found that the act of refusing to vaccinate against pertussis (whooping cough) placed children at a 23 times greater risk of contracting pertussis.  That’s a 23 fold-increased risk of a disease that, in children under 12 months of age from 2000-2004 in the US caused 62.8% to require hospitalization, 55.8% to have apnea, pneumonia in 12.7%, and death in 0.8%.

Their second study, published just this month and following the same format as the first, focused instead on the risk of varicella (chickenpox) infection after vaccine refusal.  Here they identified an 8.6-fold increased risk of infection with a disease that as recently as 1995 (when the vaccine was released), tallied 3,000,000 infections, 10,000 hospitalizations, 4,000 cases of pneumonia, 600 cases of encephalitis and 100 deaths per year.

These findings further reinforce the fact that even in a community with intact herd immunity, the choice to remain unvaccinated places children at a markedly higher risk than their vaccinated counterparts.  The delusion that hiding children within the herd provides them with protection even remotely equal to vaccination must be abandoned.

It bears to be stated again, frankly and clearly.  The choice to refuse a vaccine, to “hide in the herd,” is an active decision to accept a markedly higher risk of infection, its complications, the associated medical costs and lost wages, the responsibility of spreading the disease to others should an infection occur, and to choose to undermine the very herd immunity on which we all depend.

Parents want to be fully informed about the medical decisions they make for their children, and rightfully so.  To that end, we do everyone a disservice by allowing the public discussion to be dominated by the risks of vaccines to the exclusion of other equally important topics, including the risks of not vaccinating.  Studies such as these are a needed and welcome addition to the literature, and should provide a valuable insight for people wanting to make a properly informed decision.


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