JERUSALEM (AP) ? Israel on Wednesday accused Iran of stalling in negotiations over its nuclear program with the international community, and said an upcoming round of talks can succeed only if the Iranians agree to halt all uranium enrichment.
Israel is staking out a hardline stance ahead of the May 23 talks in Baghdad, where six world powers will sit down with Iranian officials in hopes of resolving the standoff. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who considers a nuclear-armed Tehran to be a mortal threat, has hinted he would order an attack on Iran if he concludes that international diplomacy and sanctions have failed.
Israel, like the West, believes Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb. Enriched uranium is a key ingredient in an atomic weapon, although it can also be used in energy production and for medical isotopes. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Iran held a first nuclear meeting with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany last month in Turkey. The sides hailed the meeting as a key step forward and agreed to meet again in Baghdad.
Netanyahu told the visiting EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, on Wednesday that Iran is "playing for time" with these talks, an Israeli official said.
Netanyahu said the talks will be successful only if Iran agrees to halt all uranium enrichment, ship its current stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country and dismantle an underground enrichment facility near the city of Qom. He demanded a "clear timeline" for implementation, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.
Israel says a nuclear weapon in the hands of Iran would threaten the very existence of the Jewish state. It cites Iranian calls for Israel's destruction, Iran's support for anti-Israel militant groups and Iran's development of missiles capable of striking Israel.
The official would not say whether Netanyahu presented any ultimatums to Ashton.
But Israeli officials have said time is running out for military action. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said Iran will soon enter an "immunity zone" in which military action will no longer be an option.
The United States has urged Israel to refrain from attacking, saying that international pressure must be given time to work. A new set of tough economic sanctions is set to go into effect in the coming months, and officials fear an Israeli attack could set off a regional war.
The Israeli official said Netanyahu's new deputy prime minister, Shaul Mofaz, attended Wednesday's meeting.
Mofaz, the former opposition leader, has spoken out in the past against a unilateral Israeli strike, saying any action should be coordinated with the Americans.
But now that Mofaz, an ex-military chief and defense minister, is a member of Netanyahu's inner circle, he could give the military option an influential boost of support if he changes his mind.
Climate scientists discover new weak point of the Antarctic ice sheetPublic release date: 9-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sina Lschke medien@awi.de 49-047-148-312-008 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Bremerhaven, 9 May 2012. The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf fringing the Weddell Sea, Antarctica, may start to melt rapidly in this century and no longer act as a barrier for ice streams draining the Antarctic Ice Sheet. These predictions are made by climate researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association in the coming issue of the British science magazine "Nature". They refute the widespread assumption that ice shelves in the Weddell Sea would not be affected by the direct influences of global warming due to the peripheral location of the Sea.
The results of the climate modelers from the Alfred Wegener Institute will come as a surprise to the professional world with the majority of experts assuming that the consequences of global warming for Antarctica would be noticeable primarily in the Amundsen Sea and therefore in the western part of Antarctica. "The Weddell Sea was not really on the screen because we all thought that unlike the Amundsen Sea its warm waters would not be able to reach the ice shelves. But we found a mechanism which drives warm water towards the coast with an enormous impact on the Fichner-Ronne Ice Shelf in the coming decades", says Dr. Hartmut Hellmer, oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute and lead author of the study.
Using different model calculations, he and his colleagues Dr. Frank Kauker, Dr. Ralph Timmermann and Dr. Jrgen Determann as well as Dr. Jamie Rae from Met Office Hadley Centre, U.K., demonstrate that as a result of a chain reaction large ice masses could presumably slide into the ocean within the next six decades.
This chain reaction is triggered by rising air temperatures above the southeastern Weddell Sea. "Our models show that the warmer air will lead to the currently solid sea ice in the southern Weddell Sea becoming thinner and therefore more fragile and mobile in a few decades", says Frank Kauker. If this happens, fundamental transport processes will change. "This will mean that a hydrographic front in the southern Weddell Sea will disappear which has so far prevented warm water from getting under the ice shelf. According to our calculations, this protective barrier will disintegrate by the end of this century", explains Hartmut Hellmer.
An inflow of warmer water beneath the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf will melt the ice from below. "We expect the greatest melting rates near the so-called grounding line, the zone in which the ice shelf settles on the sea floor at the transition to the glacier. At this point the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf is melting today at a rate of around 5 metres per year. By the turn of the next century the melt rates will rise to up to 50 metres per year", says Hellmer's colleague Jrgen Determann.
How the ice streams behind will react in the event of a melt of such enormous proportions is currently being investigated by Jrgen Determann. One thing is obvious, however: "Ice shelves are like corks in the bottles for the ice streams behind them. They reduce the ice flow because they lodge in bays everywhere and rest on islands. If, however, the ice shelves melt from below, they become so thin that the dragging surfaces become smaller and the ice behind them starts to move", explains Hartmut Hellmer. "If the high melting rates are completely compensated by inland ice flow, this loss in mass would correspond to an additional rise in global sea level of 4.4 millimetres per year", adds Jrgen Determann. According to the latest estimates based on remote sensing data, global sea level rose for the period 2003-2010 at a rate of 1.5 millimetres per year due to melting of glaciers and ice shelves. This occurs in addition to the 1.7 millimetres per year due to thermal expansion of the oceans.
The forecasts of the current study are based on independent calculations of the ocean models BRIOS (Bremerhaven Regional Ice Ocean Simulations) and FESOM (Finite Element Sea Ice Ocean Model). The scientists used the atmospheric projections of the British Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter as forcing data. These included, for example, information on the future development of the wind and of the temperature in Antarctica. Hartmut Hellmer and his colleagues have thoroughly checked the model results for being realistic: "We started the BRIOS model in 1860 to see whether its results also represent the current situation. We found that this condition was satisfied. For example, the water temperatures for the Weddell Sea predicted by BRIOS are close to those we have actually measured in the recent past", says Ralph Timmermann and adds: "The BRIOS model has been verified on many occasions in the past. It correctly predicts sea ice thickness, concentration, and drift as well as circulation patterns. And FESOM is well on the way to attaining BRIOS status. However, it has a far higher resolution, which is why we have to wait a long time until the computer has calculated several decades and more. BRIOS only needs less than a week for a century."
The study was conducted as part of the EU-funded research programme "Ice2sea". This project brings together scientists from 24 leading research institutions of the European Union and from Chile, Norway and Iceland. Together, the scientists aim for decoding the interactions between ice and climate and in this way facilitate more precise predictions about the effects of melting ice on sea level. More information on the Ice2sea project is available at: www.ice2sea.eu
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Climate scientists discover new weak point of the Antarctic ice sheetPublic release date: 9-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sina Lschke medien@awi.de 49-047-148-312-008 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Bremerhaven, 9 May 2012. The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf fringing the Weddell Sea, Antarctica, may start to melt rapidly in this century and no longer act as a barrier for ice streams draining the Antarctic Ice Sheet. These predictions are made by climate researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association in the coming issue of the British science magazine "Nature". They refute the widespread assumption that ice shelves in the Weddell Sea would not be affected by the direct influences of global warming due to the peripheral location of the Sea.
The results of the climate modelers from the Alfred Wegener Institute will come as a surprise to the professional world with the majority of experts assuming that the consequences of global warming for Antarctica would be noticeable primarily in the Amundsen Sea and therefore in the western part of Antarctica. "The Weddell Sea was not really on the screen because we all thought that unlike the Amundsen Sea its warm waters would not be able to reach the ice shelves. But we found a mechanism which drives warm water towards the coast with an enormous impact on the Fichner-Ronne Ice Shelf in the coming decades", says Dr. Hartmut Hellmer, oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute and lead author of the study.
Using different model calculations, he and his colleagues Dr. Frank Kauker, Dr. Ralph Timmermann and Dr. Jrgen Determann as well as Dr. Jamie Rae from Met Office Hadley Centre, U.K., demonstrate that as a result of a chain reaction large ice masses could presumably slide into the ocean within the next six decades.
This chain reaction is triggered by rising air temperatures above the southeastern Weddell Sea. "Our models show that the warmer air will lead to the currently solid sea ice in the southern Weddell Sea becoming thinner and therefore more fragile and mobile in a few decades", says Frank Kauker. If this happens, fundamental transport processes will change. "This will mean that a hydrographic front in the southern Weddell Sea will disappear which has so far prevented warm water from getting under the ice shelf. According to our calculations, this protective barrier will disintegrate by the end of this century", explains Hartmut Hellmer.
An inflow of warmer water beneath the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf will melt the ice from below. "We expect the greatest melting rates near the so-called grounding line, the zone in which the ice shelf settles on the sea floor at the transition to the glacier. At this point the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf is melting today at a rate of around 5 metres per year. By the turn of the next century the melt rates will rise to up to 50 metres per year", says Hellmer's colleague Jrgen Determann.
How the ice streams behind will react in the event of a melt of such enormous proportions is currently being investigated by Jrgen Determann. One thing is obvious, however: "Ice shelves are like corks in the bottles for the ice streams behind them. They reduce the ice flow because they lodge in bays everywhere and rest on islands. If, however, the ice shelves melt from below, they become so thin that the dragging surfaces become smaller and the ice behind them starts to move", explains Hartmut Hellmer. "If the high melting rates are completely compensated by inland ice flow, this loss in mass would correspond to an additional rise in global sea level of 4.4 millimetres per year", adds Jrgen Determann. According to the latest estimates based on remote sensing data, global sea level rose for the period 2003-2010 at a rate of 1.5 millimetres per year due to melting of glaciers and ice shelves. This occurs in addition to the 1.7 millimetres per year due to thermal expansion of the oceans.
The forecasts of the current study are based on independent calculations of the ocean models BRIOS (Bremerhaven Regional Ice Ocean Simulations) and FESOM (Finite Element Sea Ice Ocean Model). The scientists used the atmospheric projections of the British Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter as forcing data. These included, for example, information on the future development of the wind and of the temperature in Antarctica. Hartmut Hellmer and his colleagues have thoroughly checked the model results for being realistic: "We started the BRIOS model in 1860 to see whether its results also represent the current situation. We found that this condition was satisfied. For example, the water temperatures for the Weddell Sea predicted by BRIOS are close to those we have actually measured in the recent past", says Ralph Timmermann and adds: "The BRIOS model has been verified on many occasions in the past. It correctly predicts sea ice thickness, concentration, and drift as well as circulation patterns. And FESOM is well on the way to attaining BRIOS status. However, it has a far higher resolution, which is why we have to wait a long time until the computer has calculated several decades and more. BRIOS only needs less than a week for a century."
The study was conducted as part of the EU-funded research programme "Ice2sea". This project brings together scientists from 24 leading research institutions of the European Union and from Chile, Norway and Iceland. Together, the scientists aim for decoding the interactions between ice and climate and in this way facilitate more precise predictions about the effects of melting ice on sea level. More information on the Ice2sea project is available at: www.ice2sea.eu
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, received an initial grant of $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which they will use to explore the effectiveness of cutting-edge facial-recognition technology in centuries-old portraits and other fine art. More »
A multibillion-dollar flood-prevention system will be put in place starting next year, a decade after the project began.
Venetians have been coping with tidal flooding, or ?acqua alta,? for centuries. A recent study suggests the problem may be worsening faster than previously believed.
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But a multibillion-dollar system to be implemented starting next year could help prevent major flooding, according to two engineers who presented the project yesterday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass.
According to scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, the University of Miami, and Tele-Rilevamento Europa, an Italian company specializing in ground deformation measurement, the lagoon city is sinking, and won?t stop any time soon.
The team, who published their findings in the March issue of Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, combined GPS and space-borne radar information on the lagoon over the past 10 years and came to the conclusion that the city is sinking about two millimeters (0.08 inches) per year. This contradicts previous studies, according to which Venice?s land subsidence, the scientific term that refers to its slow sinking into the waters, had stopped after the city discontinued groundwater pumping in the 1990s, as reported by the Italian newspaper Il Gazzettino.
?It?s a small effect, but it?s important,? lead author Yehuda Bock said in a press release.
In 20 years, the study says, 80 millimeters (3.2 inches) of the lagoon will be taken over by the sea. But that is not the only thing Venetians should be worried about: The city is also tilting eastward, a problem the authors of the research say wasn?t detected in other studies.
So, is Venice doomed? ?Perhaps not. First of all, some question the study?s methodological approach. Pierpaolo Campostrini, director of Corila, a Venice-based research center that studies the lagoon, told Italian daily Corriere della Sera that subsidence may not be constant. ?It could accelerate or slow down,? he said.
Then there is Mose, a complex 5 billion euro ($6.5 billion) flood-prevention system part of which will be operational in 2013 ? 10 years after the project, one of Italy's largest public works, first began. Mose engineers Maria Teresa Brotto and Giovanni Cecconi were at MIT yesterday to present the project, which MIT faculty helped to develop. Mose?s four barriers, placed in the water at the lagoon?s inlets, are designed to rise with the water level, thus protecting the lagoon from flooding.
The goal, Mr. Cecconi said, is ?to keep the water level under 100 centimeters [3.28 feet]? in the city. Critics of the project, however, are concerned about its environmental impact and its maintenance costs, which Ms. Brotto said will amount to 15 to 20 million euros per year.
It's been a while since we've seen a Kyocera smartphone for the US market, and if you'll recall, its previous two attempts -- the Milano and Echo -- didn't manage to sway many consumers. Today, the company is adding two new Android handsets to the deck: the Hydro and Rise. True to its name, the Hydro plays off of Kyocera's experience in the waterproof segment, and while it's not mil-spec, the phone's able to withstand submersion at depths of up to one meter for a half-hour. The Hydro is a CDMA handset, although Kyocera is keeping the carrier close to its chest.
The Hydro will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich, and we're pleased to report that the interface is largely unmolested, save for Kyocera's app to conserve battery life -- whether the carrier dictates future changes remains to be seen. Beyond the OS and the waterproof aspect, however, it's rather humdrum in the spec department. It features a Qualcomm MSM8655 SoC with a 1GHz CPU, a 3.5-inch, 480 x 320 display, a 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash and a 1,500 mAh battery. Because the screen is an IPS LCD, the quality is definitely a step-above your run-of-the-mill TFT-LCD mainstays, although it's hard to ignore the low-res image quality. The Hydro also offers 512MB of RAM, 2GB of built-in storage and a 2GB microSD card. In terms of connectivity, you'll find 802.11n (WiFi), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and EV-DO Rev. A. The handset itself is comfortable to hold, though its plasticky build materials reinforce the fact that it's a low-end handset. While the Hydro doesn't blaze any new trails, it may very well be suitable for those on a budget who'd like a phone that can handle life's accidents. Follow the break for our hands-on video.
Man dogs are great. Having a dog is great. Playing with your dog is especially amazingly great. But leaving man's best friend for a whole day at work? Ugh no never HOW CAN WE FIX THIS? Skype, apparently. More »
The world's second (or third) biggest PC manufacturer has announced plans to invest $800 million in a new mobile product-centric facility. Lenovo wants to get closely involved with the lucrative world of smartphones and tablets, promising that several thousand employees at the new base in Wuhan will focus on new mobile devices for both China and overseas. Lenovo's pegged to launch the K800, one the first Intel-powered Android phones, at the end of the month, but this marks a concerted effort to advance both its tablet and phone collections -- and offer up more space for those other side projects.
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Public release date: 9-May-2012
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