NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recorded a panoramic view
before entering the upper end of a fluid-carved valley that descends
the inner slope of a large crater's rim.
The scene includes a broad notch in the crest of the crater's rim,
which may have been a spillway where water or ice or wind flowed over
the rim and into the crater. Wheel tracks visible in the area of the notch
were left by Opportunity as the rover studied the ground there and
took images into the valley below for use in planning its route.
"It is a tantalizing scene," said Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator
Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis.
"You can see what appear to be channels lined by boulders,
and the putative spillway at the top of Perseverance Valley.
We have not ruled out any of the possibilities of water, ice
or wind being responsible."
Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) took the component images
of the scene during a two-week driving moratorium in June 2017
while rover engineers diagnosed a temporary stall in the left-front
wheel's steering actuator. The wheel was pointed outward more
than 30 degrees, prompting the team to call the resulting vista Pancam's
"Sprained Ankle" panorama. Both ends of the scene show portions
of Endeavour Crater's western rim, extending north and south,
and the center of the scene shows terrain just
outside the crater.
The team was able to straighten the wheel to point straight ahead,
and now uses the steering capability of only the two rear wheels.
The right-front wheel's steering actuator has been disabled
since 2006. Opportunity has driven 27.95 miles (44.97 kilometers)
since landing on Mars in 2004.
On July 7, 2017, Opportunity drove to the site within upper
Perseverance Valley where it will spend about three weeks
without driving while Mars passes nearly behind the sun from
Earth's perspective, affecting radio communications.
The rover's current location is just out of sight
in the Sprained Ankle panorama, below the possible spillway.
Opportunity is using Pancam to record another grand view
from this location.
After full communications resume in early August, the team
plans to drive Opportunity farther down Perseverance Valley,
seeking to learn more about the process that carved it.
For more information about Opportunity's adventures on Mars, visit:
https://mars.nasa.gov/merNews Media Contact
Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.govLaurie Cantillo / Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1077 / 202-358-1726
laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov /
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov -------------------------------------
20 July 2017
With Sentinel-5 Precursor about to be packed up and shipped
to Russia for liftoff in late September, media representatives,
members of the UK Space Agency and National Centre
for Earth Observation had the chance to see this Copernicus
air-pollution monitoring satellite standing proud in the cleanroom.
Sentinel-5 Precursor – also known as Sentinel-5P
– is the first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring
our atmosphere.
It has been built to map a multitude of trace gases such as
nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane that
affect air quality.
The satellite will help to identify pollution hotspots
where public health could be at risk. It will also contribute
to services that warn of high levels of UV radiation,
which can cause skin cancer, and volcanic ash
monitoring for aviation safety.
Carrying the Tropomi instrument, the most advanced
of its kind, Sentinel-5P will map the entire planet every 24 hours.
The availability of accurate and up-to-date information will help
decision-makers to fight air pollution and climate change.
Josef Aschbacher
Sentinel-5P is the forerunner of the Sentinel-5 mission
to be carried on the MetOp Second Generation satellites
that will be launched in a few years. Until then Sentinel-5P
will deliver much needed information to monitor
and track air pollution.
The media event was held at Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage,
UK, where the satellite was built and tested.
ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Josef Aschbacher,
said, “It’s wonderful to see the satellite in all its glory,
and it’s thanks to a truly collaborative effort that it will take
the EC’s Copernicus programme into a new era
of atmospheric monitoring.
“ESA is very grateful to the Netherlands for its substantial contribution
to the Tropomi instrument. The mission as a whole was designed
and built by a consortium of 30 companies under the leadership
of Airbus Defence and Space.”
Nico van Putten, Deputy Director of the Netherlands Space Office,
added, “The development and the implementation
of the top-notch Tropomi instrument for Sentinel-5P
is thanks to the remarkable close cooperation between
different entities from all over Europe.
Bringing air pollution into focus
Access the video
“As a Dutch institution we are proud to contribute to this marvel
of space technology, which will now help to tackle global challenges,
making Europe even stronger in Earth observation.”
Pepijn Veefkind from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute,
KNMI, added, “Every day, Tropomi will make almost 20 million observations
of important air pollutants and gases affecting the climate.
“KNMI will use this data to improve air-quality forecasts and to keep
a close eye on emission increases or reductions, and to monitor
what mitigation measures are effective in protecting
the air we breathe.”
Engineers will now prepare the satellite for shipment
to the Plesetsk launch site in Russia. Once there it will be
thoroughly tested and prepared for launch in late September.
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Impacts of climate on past, present, and future fire regimes in Alaskan boreal forest and tundra ecosystems
JFSP Project Number: 14-3-01-07
Principal Investigators
Luigi Boschetti, University of Idaho
Philip Higuera, University of Montana
Adam Young, University of Idaho (GRIN recipient/student investigator )
Understanding how fire regimes may respond to climate change is
a key priority for Alaskan fire and resource managers. Statistical models
play an important role in developing this understanding, helping project
the timing and location of future fire-regime changes.
However, future projections are accompanied by significant
sources of uncertainty, particularly related to the calibration
of statistical models with data spanning a short observational record
(e.g., 60 yr). The goal of this project was to evaluate the ability
of statistical models to predict outside the observational record,
and thus identify key strengths and limitations when applying statistical
models to predict fire activity under scenarios of 21st-century climate change.
Key Findings
Climate is a dominant control of fire activity in Alaskan boreal forest
and tundra ecosystems: spatial variability in climate can explain much
of the variability in modern fire activity. The relationship between climate
and fire is strongly nonlinear, with the likelihood of a fire occurring
within a 30-yr period much higher where mean July temperatures exceed 13.4 °C.
Under a range of 21st-century climate-change scenarios,
Alaskan ecosystems are projected to become increasingly conducive
to burning. The magnitude of change will vary across space
and throughout time, largely depending on the proximity
of a region to the temperature threshold to burning.
In particular, tundra and forest-tundra ecosystems may be particularly
vulnerable to climatically induced changes in fire activity,
with some regions projected to experience novel fire regimes relative
to the past 6000-32000 yr.
Applying statistical models outside of the observational record,
as done here for the past millennium (850-1850 CE), reveals important
limitations and sources of uncertainty; projections are particularly sensitive
to any data inaccuracies when predicting fire activity for regions
near climatic thresholds.
http://mailchi.mp/blm/webinar-sagebrush-ecosystems-in-a-changing-climate-opportunities-for-adaptive-management-2680585We will be requesting proposals through one or more formal Funding Opportunity Notice (FON) announcements
beginning approximately early September 2017 and remaining open through November 16, 2017.
This is an early alert to investigators interested in the topics listed below so you can begin considering responsive ideas with potential partners and collaborators.
Please recognize that final decisions regarding topic selection will not be made until September, 2017, and that final topic selection may differ from that posted below.
Cohesive Strategy Potential topics directly and indirectly support
the three goals of the 2014 National
Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy:
* Resilient Landscapes
• Fire Adapted Communities
• Safe and Effective Wildfire Response
FON 1- Primary
Ecological effects of fuel treatments and wildfire
management at landscape scales
Fuel treatment longevity
Relationships between prescribed fire and wildfire regimes
Effectiveness of fuel breaks and fuel break systems
Sources and distribution of ignitions and their relation
to wildfire impacts
Socio-political factors that influence the costs associated
with wildfire
FON 2 - Graduate Research Innovation (GRIN) Award
In partnership with the Association for Fire Ecology, the Joint Fire
Science Program (JFSP) will likely continue
the Graduate Research Innovation (GRIN) program
for current master and doctoral students in the field
of wildland fire and related physical, biological, and social sciences.
The purpose of these awards is to enhance student exposure
to the management and policy relevance of their research.
As a result, these awards will enable graduate students
to conduct research that will supplement and enhance
the quality, scope, or applicability of their thesis or dissertation
to develop information and products useful to managers
and decision-makers.
Proposals must describe new, unfunded work that extends
ongoing or planned research that is the subject of a thesis
or dissertation that has been approved by the graduate student’s
advisory committee. Proposals must be directly related to the mission
and goals of JFSP to be considered, and they must address management-
or policy-related questions related to one or more of the following general
topic areas: fuels management and fire behavior, emissions and air quality,
fire effects and post-fire recovery, relative impacts of prescribed fire versus wildfire,
or human dimensions of fire.
FON 3 - Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE)
The Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP), in partnership with
the Department of Defense, Environmental Security Technology
Certification Program (ESTCP), has completed planning
for the Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE; Phase 1).
It is anticipated that the JFSP September 2017
FON will include an open solicitation for proposals
to participate in Phase 2—data collection, data archival,
and initial model evaluation—of FASMEE. In brief, this experiment
is being designed as a large-scale, interagency effort to (1)
identify the critical measurements necessary to improve operational
wildland fire and smoke prediction systems, (2) collect observations
through coordinated field campaigns, and (3) use these measures
and observations to advance science and modeling capabilities
and utility to end users. FASMEE is aimed at modeling systems
in operational use today as well as the next generation
of modeling systems expected to become operationally
useful in the next five to 10 years.
The FASMEE field campaigns are anticipated to be conducted
as large operational prescribed fires targeting (1) heavier fuel
loads and high-intensity fires, (2) large fires capable of producing
significant atmospheric plume dynamics and a substantial downwind
smoke plume, and (3) where possible (particularly in the West),
free-running fire. Candidate sites include the Fishlake National Forest
in Utah, North Kaibab Ranger District in Arizona, Fort Stewart
in Georgia, and Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Research
burns are planned for ignition no earlier than late summer 2019
and no later than early spring 2022. Depending on total funding
availability, four or more burns are planned.
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=5f6de7b069a57255f980944b4&id=0ae5910163ECRIT DE
TAY
LA CHOUETTE EFFRAIE
POUR LES DEUX FRERES "ENNEMIS" ET POURTANT AMOUREUX DES U.S.A
QUE SONT KENNEDY ET NIXON
Accueil 
(grec: Ἀνάχαρσις, russe: Анахарсис) était un philosophe Scythe qui a voyagé de sa patrie sur les rives nord de la mer Noire à Athènes au début du 6ème siècle av. j.-c. et a fait une grande impression comme un franc, franc-parler "barbare". Prétendument un précurseur des cyniques, aucun de ses œuvres n'a survécu.