Tag Archives: switzerland

Menschen lassen Gletscher immer rascher schmelzen

Mit Hilfe einer Kombination von Klima- und Gletschermodellen haben Forscher um Ben Marzeion von der Universität Innsbruck eindeutig nachgewiesen, dass die Menschen für das weltweite Abschmelzen der Gletscher mitverantwortlich sind. In Science berichten die Forscher, dass von 1851 bis 2010 der vom Menschen verursachte Klimawandel rund ein Viertel zur Gletscherschmelze beitrug.

Schmelzende Gletscher lassen den Meeresspiegel steigen, verändern die saisonale Verfügbarkeit von Trinkwasser und können Auslöser von Naturkatastrophen sein. Sie stehen heute symbolisch für den vom Menschen verursachten Klimawandel. Allerdings reagieren Gletscher nur sehr langsam auf klimatische Veränderungen. „Typischerweise dauert es Jahrzehnte oder Jahrhunderte bis ein Gletscher sich an das Klima angepasst hat“, sagt Klimaforscher Ben Marzeion vom Institut für Meteorologie und Geophysik der Universität Innsbruck. Ihr Abschmelzen hat bereits mit dem Ende der kleinen Eiszeit Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts begonnen. Natürliche Ursachen wie die veränderte Sonneneinstrahlung sind dafür genauso verantwortlich wie die vom Menschen ausgelösten Veränderungen. Bisher war allerdings unklar, wie viel die Menschen tatsächlich zum Verschwinden der Gletscher beitragen. (more…)

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Microsoft releases global survey revealing widespread belief in developing and developed nations that personal technology is transforming lives for the better

Findings: technology strongly impacts business innovation including starting new businesses; developing countries believe strongly that personal tech spurs job opportunities and eliminates harmful economic gaps, boosts education.

DAVOS, Switzerland — Jan. 24, 2014 — A new global survey of Internet users conducted by Microsoft Corp. reveals distinct regional findings and differing viewpoints between the developed and developing world. However, overwhelmingly the more than 10,000 people surveyed from 10 nations said they embrace personal technology, particularly in emerging markets, and see it as the foundation of innovation and economic empowerment. (more…)

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A shot in the dark: Detector at UW on the hunt for dark matter

Leslie Rosenberg and his colleagues are about to go hunting. Their quarry: A theorized-but-never-seen elementary particle called an axion.

The search will be conducted with a recently retooled, extremely sensitive detector that is currently in a testing and shakeout phase at the University of Washington’s Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics. (more…)

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UCLA physicists played prominent role in Nobel Prize-winning Higgs boson research

Two large collaborations of scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland made worldwide news in July 2012 when they announced independent observations of the elusive Higgs boson particle — a discovery hailed as one of the greatest scientific accomplishments of recent decades.

This so-called “God particle” was first postulated some 50 years ago as a crucial element of the modern theory of the forces of nature — it is, physicists say, what gives everything in the universe mass — and it had been the subject of worldwide searches ever since. (more…)

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Higgs Boson Discussion Launches UChicago Discovery Series

The long-sought Higgs boson—the particle that endows all elementary particles in the universe with mass—was elusive no longer when scientists at the CERN physics laboratory in Switzerland, discovered it last summer.

The July 4, 2012 announcement of the discovery appealed to both the general public and the media: Fifty-five media organizations and more than one billion television viewers made it an event that couldn’t be missed. Time even dubbed the Higgs boson “Particle of the Year.” (more…)

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Kofi Annan to students: ‘It’s your world now’

Former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan predicted during a campus visit that the civil war in Syria will become even more tragic before the international community takes action to help resolve the conflict, but said he is optimistic about the political and economic prospects for Africa in the years ahead. (more…)

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Solar Fuel Success

UD-developed solar reactor can produce solar hydrogen, but how much?

Last spring University of Delaware doctoral candidate Erik Koepf and research associate Michael Giuliano spent two months in Switzerland testing a novel solar reactor Koepf developed to produce hydrogen from sunlight.

Eight weeks of sophisticated testing at temperatures up to 1,200 degrees Celsius revealed that the reactor’s mechanical, electrical and thermal systems worked just as Koepf had predicted. (more…)

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Analysis of Greenland Ice Cores Adds to Historical Record and May Provide Glimpse into Climate’s Future

The International North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project results indicate that melting of Antarctic ice sheet may have contributed more to sea level rise than melting of the Greeland ice sheet some 100,000 years ago

A new study that provides surprising details on changes in Earth’s climate from more than 100,000 years ago indicates that the last interglacial–the period between “ice ages”–was warmer than previously thought and may be a good analog for future climate, as greenhouse gases increase in the atmosphere and global temperatures rise.

The research findings also indicate that melting of the massive West Antarctic ice sheet may have contributed more to sea-level rise at that time than melting of the Greenland ice sheet. (more…)

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