Siberian permafrost beginning to thaw

[mhaille.livejournal.com]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1546797,00.html


Warming hits 'tipping point'

Siberia feels the heat
It's a frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combined, contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas and, for the first time since the ice age, it is melting

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday August 11, 2005

Guardian

A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists
warn today.

Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and
Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

( Read more... )

Out West, a Paradox: Densely Packed Sprawl; L.A. Area Growing Crowded the Fastest

[mhaille.livejournal.com]

Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
2,536 words
11 August 2005
The Washington Post
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved


Sure, it looks like sprawl.

From atop this hill near the port of Long Beach, greater Los Angeles splays out through the midsummer haze as a low-rise suburban muddle stitched together by freeways.

But take a closer look: What you knew about sprawl turns out to be wrong.

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