Results tagged “dohertyearthobservatory”

Yesterday the bedrock blasting tests at Ground Zero went off without anyone really noticing. Tishman Construction is clearing the way for the Freedom Tower's foundation, and project manager Mel Raffini explained to NY1 that the blasting means there won't be "2,000 hours of drilling and chopping with a huge jackhammer. Versus this which takes several seconds. A total of fifty to sixty blasts, production blasts, which we expect to do in the next two months equates to about fifteen minutes total with a noise that many people didn't hear it." Well, just because there won't be drilling at Ground Zero doesn't mean all the residents will be free of noise - there's always another development or roadwork that leads to some jackhammering at 7AM on a Saturday morning.

Look! Up in the sky! It's Superman, no wait, it's Spiderman, no wait, it's Underdog, no wait, it's a whole lot of dust and aerosols! Led by scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, research has shown that the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface decreased by 1.3% from 1960-1990. The cause of this dimming is the ever increasing amount of made-made aerosol particles in the atmosphere. The aerosols reflect and absorb incoming solar radiation. They also alter the optical properties of clouds, making them more reflective. The cooling effect of the aerosols is counteracting the warming effect of increased greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. In other words, were it not for the aerosols the climate would be warming faster than it currently is.