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Japanese weather forecasters issued flood and high seas warnings for parts of Honshu as Tropical Storm Banyan approached from the south.
Banyan, with maximum sustained winds of about 100 kph (60 mph) was about 600 kilometers (360 miles) southwest of Tokyo at 3:00 a.m. local time today and moving northeast at 14 mph, the U.S. government's Joint Typhoon Warning Center Web site said.
Japan's Meteorological Agency issued warnings of storms, high seas, heavy rains and floods for central Honshu from Kinki prefecture to Ibaraki prefecture east of Tokyo, parts of north Kyushu and most of Shikoku, it said on its Web site.
The storm, the seventh named tropical depression of the Pacific season, will probably make landfall on Izu Peninsula at about 7 p.m. today, before passing across Tokyo, the Joint Typhoon Center's Web site said. Banyan's winds are forecast to slow to about 58 mph by then, the Web site said.
(Источник: www.bloomberg.com) |
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Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) is pushing a bill that some fear would restrict what information the National Weather Service (NWS) provides to the public.
The bill has drawn criticism from those who say it unfairly favors private weather providers, and would endanger the public by preventing the dissemination of certain weather data.
Under the proposed legislation, the NWS would be allowed to offer particular types of services only if the private sector does not offer them — a provision similar to rules that guided the agency for 14 years until last year.
When the rule changed, the NWS and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), expanded into areas already served by the commercial weather industry, according to Santorum's office.
The bill would protect the 14 private weather service companies in Pennsylvania — including AccuWeather in State College, Pa., Santorum spokeswoman Chrissy Shott said. AccuWeather, which says it employs about 340 people, provides weather data to a variety of outlets — including media organizations such as The Associated Press.
'This is about job retention in Pennsylvania,' Shott said. The NWS would still issue severe weather information, she said.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has criticized the bill, saying the NWS received nine million hits on its Web site during the four hurricanes that hit his state last year, and the information they were seeking went beyond that of the warnings issued.
Nelson's spokesman, Dan McLaughlin, said it is a dangerous precedent to begin shutting down government services because the private sector offers it.
The (Florida) Palm Beach Post, which was first to report on the issue last week after the bill was introduced, said NOAA has taken no position on it. The story quoted Ed Johnson, the NWS's director of strategic planning and policy, as saying his agency is expanding its online offerings.
(Источник: www.usatoday.com) |
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An upgrade to the Met Office’s supercomputing system has cut error rates for weather forecasts by 11 per cent over the past year.
A spokesperson said it had achieved an 11 per cent reduction in the error rate for its predictions for the northern hemisphere.
This follows the installation of an NEC SX-6 supercomputer in spring 2004, and compares with an average error reduction rate of 3 per cent in the other five major weather modelling centres in Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the US.
On a global basis, the Met Office has achieved a 6 per cent reduction in the error rate.
The supercomputer has provided a six-fold increase in processing capacity compared with the old model, and enabled the Met Office to use models with a finer resolution to predict the weather.
On 12 April 2005, it began to use a new supercomputer with even more processing nodes: the NEC SX-8. The spokesperson said it is working on a model that uses 12km 'boxes' from the atmosphere, that these should be reduced to 4km in the near future, and that there are long term plans to shrink them to 1km.
The Met Office hopes this will enable it to achieve further improvements in its accuracy, but is not making projections on any future reduction in the error rate.
Roger Hunt, chief operating officer at the Met Office, said: 'We need to continually improve our forecasts to meet the growing expectations of the public and our other customers. The improvements will continue as we produce more and more detailed forecasts in the future.'
(Источник: hardware.silicon.com) |
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The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors yesterday approved a US$80 million loan for the National Hydromet Modernization Project to the Russian Federation. The primary objective of the project is to mitigate loss of human life and economic cost from adverse weather conditions through improved weather forecasts and traditional public service delivery. The will be achieved by modernizing key elements of RosHydromet's technical base and strengthening its institutional arrangements.
Annual economic losses associated with dangerous weather and hydrological events (such as floods, avalanches and torrential storms) in Russia are estimated to be between US$1-2 billion. RosHydromet’s capacity to provide accurate weather services has steadily declined over the last decade.
The National Hydromet Modernization Project will be implemented in the cities of Moscow, Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, Obninsk, as well as in the Northern Caucasus and Far East of Russia.
The five-year project is a Specific Investment Loan and has a total cost of US$133.3 million, of which IBRD will finance US$80.0 million. Counterpart financing from the Russian Federation will total US$53.33 million.
The terms of the loan include a 5-year grace period and 17 years maturity.
(Источник: www.harolddoan.com) |
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A photo of Mount Kilimanjaro stripped of its snowcap for the first time in 11,000 years will be used as dramatic testimony for action against global warming as ministers from the world's biggest polluters meet on Tuesday.
Gathering in London for a two-day brainstorming session on the environment agenda of Britain's presidency of the Group of Eight rich nations, the environment and energy ministers from 20 countries will be handed a book containing the stark image of Africa's tallest mountain, among others.
This is a wake-up call and an unequivocal message that a low-carbon global economy is necessary, achievable and affordable,' said Steve Howard of the Climate Group charity which organised the book and an associated exhibition.
'We are breaking climate change out of the environment box. This crisis affects all of us. This is a global challenge and we need real leadership to address these major problems - and these ministers can give that leadership,' he told Reuters.
The pictures include one of Kilimanjaro almost bare of its icecap because of global warming, and coastal defences in the Marshall Islands threatened with swamping from rising sea levels.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed to make climate change and Africa the twin targets of Britain's presidencies of both the G8 and European Union this year - bringing both to the fore at a summit meeting in Gleneagles in Scotland in July.
The Kyoto Protocol on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases came into force in February but is still shunned by the world's biggest emitter, the United States, and puts scant limits on China, rising fast up the ranks.
(Источник: www.alertnet.org) |
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Nigerian Meteorelogical Agency (NIMET) will soon set up a Weather Early Warning System (WEWS) to enable it prepare adequately for catastrophies like the Tsunami that ravaged Eastern Asia and some parts of Africa last year.
In achieving this objective, NIMET's Director General, Mr. Liwhu Akeh, disclosed that the Agency has commenced the acquisition of advanced Doppler Weather Radars to monitor natural disasters and storms before they occur, adding that the equipment will assist with relevant information for farmers in rural areas.
According to him, European Union is assisting NIMET with meteorological second generation statellite Ground Receiving System, which, he said, is being installed at the moment.
Akeh added that after installing the prototype, 'we will begin gradual replacement of the old equipment under the second phase with the new ones in our weather stations.'
Akeh, who is the Vice President of United Nations World Meteorological Organisation's Technical Committee on Agromet and Natural Disasters, said the organisation is meeting in Brazil this month to kick-start assisting nations in putting weather early warning systems in various parts of the world.
(Источник: allafrica.com) |
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This spring two Russian satellites will be orbited with the task of blocking natural disasters and lighting certain spots on the Earth's surface. They will use the simple method of reflected light from thin-filmed space reflectors.
According to Aerospace Systems, thin-filmed reflectors are a kind of a sail made of modern materials that feel like a mixture of foil and cellophane. The most difficult task is to open the 25m sail in space.
It is believed that the miracle sail will be able to correct weather, sending reflected light and warming the clouds to ensure good weather for a football match, for example.
The same goes for tornadoes, which are provoked by a concentration of low pressure in some areas, where air is sucked in giving birth to a violently rotating column of air. As soon as such dangerous concentrations are registered, the satellites would send a ray of reflected light there, heating the air and raising the pressure, which will prevent the emergence of a tornado.
If the orbital mirror is used as a giant sun umbrella, for example over a volcano, this will help to quickly and effectively freeze its activity and hence prevent an eruption or an earthquake.
The sail can be used to make daylight in a limited territory. To create a 5km light spot, the scientists need a 30x30m sail; but the sail must be 300x300m to light up a big city such as Moscow.
(Источник: en.rian.ru) |
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The weather bureau's website has received about 6 billion hits in the past year to make it the most popular government and educational Internet site. It has been recognised at the Hitwise Australian Online Performers Awards. Bureau spokesman Geoff Douel says most people log on to watch the radars.
'I think most people are looking nowadays for the radar images that we've got around the state [New South Wales],' he said.
'They leave the radar images looping and it's always producing a lot of hits. 'People want to know whether to take an umbrella to lunch, or follow the cyclones or follow the rain bands as they're coming across different parts of Australia.'
(Источник: au.news.yahoo.com) |
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The northeastern U.S. will get a break from heavy snow later today after being blanketed by as much as a foot yesterday.
Snow was expected to continue after midnight from Washington to Massachusetts as a winter storm moved up the East Coast, the National Weather Service said. The snow was expected to let up early this morning, with forecasts calling for skies to be mostly cloudy throughout the day.
In Washington and Virginia, 'many roads are snow covered and slippery across the entire region,' the weather service said on its Web site. 'Roads and bridges will remain slick as temperatures continue to fall overnight.'
As much as 8 inches more of snow was expected to fall through early morning in Boston, the weather service said. As much as seven inches was expected in Philadelphia, three inches in New York City and an inch in Washington and Baltimore.
Flights at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, Philadelphia International Airport and LaGuardia Airport in New York were delayed last night because of the winter weather, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Officials in Boston and New York worried about the morning commute, and crews in New York worked overtime in case of problems, said Deirdre Parker, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Massachusetts has 5,100 pieces of snow-removal equipment under contract and is keeping a 'close eye' on the storm, said Jon Carlisle, a spokesman for the state Transportation Department.
(Источник: www.bloomberg.com) |
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Freezing temperatures overnight have sparked a warning for motorists against icy roads across much of the UK. A severe ice warning has been issued for early morning travel in East Anglia and south east England on Friday.
Snowfall overnight was heaviest in south east Scotland and parts of the Thames estuary.
But the worst of the week's weather has passed, giving way to patchy rain, sleet and snow flurries in the south of the UK, said BBC forecasters. Temperatures were expected to drop below freezing on Friday night, leading again to widespread ice. Conditions were not likely to warm up over the weekend, added BBC Weather Centre forecasters, with further sleet and snow showers expected in eastern parts of the country.
Lincolnshire, the East Midlands and northern England have been the worst affected by snow this week, with drifts up to 1m high. More than 600 schools were closed across the UK on Thursday. Blizzard conditions have been seen on higher routes in northern England with drivers warned not to venture out unless their journeys are essential.
The late winter cold snap is due to high pressures over Scandinavia and northern Europe and low pressures to the west of the UK, causing temperatures to plunge.
(Источник: news.bbc.co.uk) |
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