dontmerysitaly

For two decades, Phil Jones was a household name only at home and among perhaps a couple of thousand scientists studying climate change. He crunched numbers at Britain's University of East Anglia – charting Earth's temperature – and became director of the university's world renowned Climatic Research Unit. Things were fine in his world, except that he was accumulating evidence of what he considered a looming global catastrophe and faced increasing harassment from those who insist climate change isn't a problem or, if it is, humans aren't the cause. This quiet, relatively obscure life ended last fall, when someone hacked 1,073 emails from the Unit's computers, launching the brainlessly named "climategate." As I've written before, the deniers claimed the messages between Jones and colleagues prove he'd manipulated data and suppressed opposing views. The Associated Press had five reporters read every message. Their conclusion: The emails showed the "scientists are guilty of anger toward global warming skeptics, but they do not support claims that climate change is a vast conspiracy."

Unexpectedly huge quantities of Siberian methane are being released into the atmosphere, according to a new study. The resulting feedback loop could dramatically outpace the climate models that scientists and policy makers have been using as they attempt to roll back emissions. When it comes to climate change, methane is bad news: It is 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide in causing increased atmospheric temperatures. A National Science Foundation study in today’s issue of Science found that melting permafrost in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is causing an annual release of nearly 8 million tons of methane. In deeper ocean areas, methane that escapes from the seabed has time to oxidize as it rises to the surface, transforming into less potent carbon dioxide by the time it is released into the atmosphere. In the shallow waters of East Siberia, however, methane that escapes through the thawing permafrost rises quickly to the surface and enters the atmosphere in its original form. Eight million tons is a relative a pittance compared to the 80 million metric tons produced by livestock around the world each year. But the Siberian methane problem will only get worse as temperatures increase and more permafrost melts. Joe Romm at Climate Progress describes this methane release as “the most dangerous amplifying feedback in the entire carbon cycle.” According to the NSF, “the Earth’s geologic record indicates that atmospheric concentrations of methane have varied from about 0.3 to 0.4 parts per million during cold periods to about 0.6 to 0.7 parts per million during warm periods.” Today’s study pegs methane levels in the Arctic at 2.85 parts per million, the highest concentration in 400,000 years, so the methane feedback loop is already well under way.

Before Microsoft announced its intention to debut a mobile environment called Windows Phone 7 later this year, the company was already at work on slick new mobile devices under a separate initiative known internally as Project Pink. Pictures and other materials leaked to a popular tech blog this week appear to reveal new details about two phones Microsoft is known to be developing under the Pink line—the Pure and the Turtle. (The model names may be subject to change. If Microsoft sticks with Pure, it may have a trademark dispute on its hands, as HTC already sells a mobile device called Pure. HTC, of course, is having legal troubles of its own with Apple). Apparent from the photos and documents, published over the past two days by Gizmodo, is that mobile devices developed under Project Pink will run on the Windows CE operating system, which also is thought to be the core OS for Windows Phone 7 devices. Gizmodo’s photos, which have not been confirmed by Microsoft as legitimate, indicate the Pure and the Turtle use Sidekick-style, slide-out keyboards. Gizmodo also reported that Verizon will be the network provider for both devices. BusinessWeek, meanwhile, reported that the Pure and Turtle may be available as early as May. Microsoft may well intend to position the Pure and Turtle as bridge devices for consumers that aren’t ready to shell out for full-featured Windows Phone 7-based devices when they hit stores in the 2010 holiday season.