The fifth place is awarded to this design. This floating settlement contains a modern city square and it is more like floating town. This design also won the peoples’ choice award.

This design won award for best exterior design. This structure is shaped to use maximum of wind and solar energy. It is covered by solar panels. It is completely closed.

From the photo that has been provided, you can see that this settlement is still in construction. No, it is not mistake made by designers, they created a basic design of a sea settlement that it is not actually floating but it is fixed into the ground. Designers wanted to create a design that can be expanded without limitations and this is what they created in that manner.

This settlement reminds me on some of those incredible buildings that are used to be built in Dubai. It rather looks like a giant floating luxury hotel. This design won a best picture award. As you can see, this is completely solution for luxury life on the sea. Design also includes beach-like edges and small botanic gardens.

And this one is the winning design. As you can see, this design is more like a normal little urban settlement and when you’re inside you even wouldn’t notice that you are in a floating settlement. This floating settlement is designed to be just like a normal settlement that can be found on the ground. There are a few buildings, a few of little gardens and little square in the middle. Looks like it is perfect for peaceful life with family.

A polar ice cap is a high latitude province of a planet or natural satellite in the universe that is covered completely with ice. Polar ice caps form because of the high latitude regions receiving less of energy in the form of solar radiation from the sun than equatorial regions. It results in lower surface temperatures.

Thanks for photo to : digital

The Earths’ polar ice caps have distorted considerably over the last twelve thousand years or even more. Cyclic variations of the ice caps occur due to varied solar energy absorption as the planet or moon spins around the sun. Furthermore, in geologic point scales, the ice caps possibly will grow or disappear due to the climate variation. Anything can happen.

Arctic shrinkage is the diminution in size of the Arctic region. This is a variation in the regional climate as a consequence of global warming. Projections of sea ice loss points out the destruction of summer sea ice in the Arctic ocean within the coming few decades. In fact, according to studies, the destruction has already been started.

This fast change of Arctic to global warming looks like the high-sensitivity indicator of the climate change. Scientists also spot to the possibility for release of methane from the Arctic region. It will be through the melting of the permafrost and the methane clathrates.

The sea ice in the Arctic region itself is imperative to balance the global climate. Therefore, melting of these sea ice will make worse situation towards the global warming due to the effects where warming creates more warming by increased solar assimilation.

The sea ice is doomed to melt away within the next three centuries and it will as an aftermath will flood hundreds of millions of people out of their homes. This is the stark warning by scientists that current forecasts hideously overrate how long the ice sheet will continue to exist.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that a total meltdown is likely to take within 1,000 years or may be the risk is far greater than this. We can’t predict correctly, but strong indication gives this projection.

If the climate change crisis reached the point of ‘no return’ and it were to melt then the global sea levels would rise by 22ft and sip up most of the world’s coastal regions.

Not to forget that arctic sea ice acts like an air conditioner for the universal climate structure. It cools air and water and reflects solar emission back into the space. A warmer Arctic and thinner ice cap alters the equilibrium between the usually frozen Arctic and warmer lower latitudes. The disparity between icy high latitudes and warm equatorial regions is one that sets up the circulation patterns of winds, ocean and essentially the weather patterns. So, all of those things are matter to change as the ice cover changes. Thanks to sciencehax .

Fair Isle & Isle of Lewis
MCS explained that this wasn’t an isolated case and mauve stingers have been spotted off other parts of the west coast of the UK. Most recently large numbers have washed ashore on Fair Isle and at Reef Beach on the Isle of Lewis. This is in fact the third consecutive year that the jellyfish has been sighted. The small but destructive mauve stinger can cause serious economic problems, affecting aquaculture and the tourism industry through beach closures and unsafe bathing water.

“We are urging the public to help us record these jellyfish swarms so we can warn relevant local interests, such as fish farms, about their arrival”, said Peter Richardson, Biodiversity Programme manager, “We encourage anyone who encounters a jellyfish to download our free identification guide and report the jellyfish to our online survey on the MCS website (www.mcsuk.org)”.

The species is similar to the lion’s mane and moon jellyfish, but unlike these common UK coastal species, Pelagia noctiluca is an oceanic species. As an oceanic species it has direct development rather than a polyp phase on the seabed. Therefore the populations can reproduce rapidly when their plankton food is in plentiful supply, as it can be in coastal seas, which tend to be more productive than oceanic waters.

Source: 1 , 2

While the fall foliage in North America and East Asia takes on a fiery red hue, perplexingly, autumn leaves in Europe are mostly yellow in color.

A team of researchers has a new idea as to why the autumnal colors differ between the continents, one that involved taking a step back 35 million years in time.

Pigment processes

The green color of leaves during the spring and summer is a result of the presence of the pigment chlorophyll, which allows plants to capture sunlight and produce energy by the process of photosynthesis.

When the weather begins to turn cool in the fall, chlorophyll, which is sensitive to the cold, stops being produced. As the green fades, yellow and orange pigments called carotenoids (also responsible for the orange color of carrots) take over. These pigments were always present in the background of the leaves’ color, but can finally shine through as the green diminishes.

While this process has long been known to scientists, the mechanism that results in red hues has proved trickier to understand, particularly because of the energy the tree must use to produce them at a time when the leaves are about to die anyway.

The red color comes from anthocyanins, which unlike carotenoids are produced only in the fall. These red pigments act as sunscreen for the trees by blocking out harmful radiation and preventing overexposure to light. They also act as an antifreeze, preventing leaf cells from freezing easily in the autumn chill.

Some scientists have even suggested that the red colors ward off pests that would munch on the leaves if they were a more appetizing-looking yellow. It’s from this premise that scientists figured out what might be going on.

Color evolution

Until 35 million years ago, the idea goes, large areas of the globe were covered with evergreen jungles or forests composed of tropical trees, say Simcha Lev-Yadun of the University of Haifa-Oranim in Israel and Jarmo Holopainen of the University of Kuopio in Finland. During this phase, a series of ice ages and dry spells transpired, and many tree species evolved to become deciduous, dropping their leaves for winter.

Many of these trees also began an evolutionary process of producing red deciduous leaves in order to ward off insects, the researchers say.

In North America, as in East Asia, north-to-south mountain chains enabled plant and animal ‘migration’ to the south or north with the advance and retreat of the ice according to the climatic fluctuations. And, of course, along with them migrated their insect ‘enemies’. Thus the war for survival continued there uninterrupted.

In Europe, on the other hand, the mountains – the Alps and their lateral branches – reach from east to west, and therefore no protected areas were created. Many tree species that did not survive the severe cold died, and with them the insects that depended on them for survival.

At the end of the repeated ice ages, most tree species that had survived in Europe had no need to cope with many of the insects that had become extinct, and therefore no longer had to expend efforts on producing red warning leaves.

To back up this theory, the researchers offer an example of the exception that proves the rule: Dwarf shrubs, which grow in Scandinavia, still color their leaves red in autumn.

Unlike trees, dwarf shrubs have managed to survive the ice ages under a layer of snow that covered them and protected them from the extreme conditions above. Under the blanket of snow, the insects that fed off the shrubs were also protected – so the battle with insects continued in these plants, making it necessary for them to color their leaves red, the thinking goes.

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The concept of green printing goes an extra mile in saving our environment. It always recycles the paper waste to reduce any harmful impact on the environment. With the help of Green Printing you can get products like business cards, greeting cards, panel cards, calendars, newsletters, brochures etc. The best part with them is that they use the latest technology and state of the art production facilities to deliver with a lighting fast turnaround time.

With the help of Design it! Online design tool, you can create your own customized business card in a matter of few minutes. You can also get any customized template for any product you choose. This green printing technology is fast becoming popular and also a norm in most parts of the world today. So you can surely make a great impression by going for green printing. For any marketing or promotional offers that you want to launch you can always try out green printing technology and take an advantage. So go ahead and give green printing a try today itself.

At a first-of-its-kind climate change meeting in Beverly Hills, international and state leaders said the problems that global warming present to the world are too big not to do everything possible to address it.

“When you realize the kind of impact that climate change can have on a state like Florida, as any other … I think the people of our respective states expect us to at least try to make a difference,” Fla. Gov. Charlie Crist said last week at the conference hosted by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

International climate help
Rising sea levels and other global warming-related problems could devastate Florida and its tourist-driven economy, Crist said.

He and 12 other governors, as well as leaders from five other countries, signed a wide-reaching agreement Wednesday to work together on strategies to combat global warming.

Under the agreement, they also will create international working groups that will provide recommendations to United Nations negotiators who are drafting new global limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Helping tropical forests
In one step, Schwarzenegger and governors from Illinois and Wisconsin signed an agreement to work with six other governors from Brazil and Indonesia to share technology and other resources to help reduce clear-cutting of tropical forests. The agreement was billed as the first of its kind between sub-national government leaders.

Governors like Schwarzenegger and Crist, both Republicans, have been on the national forefront on climate change in recent years as the Bush administration’s approach to global warming was criticized as lackadaisical.

Under Crist’s leadership, Florida passed a comprehensive energy bill this year that calls for the state to get 10 percent of its fuels from alternative sources by next year and provides millions of dollars in grants and incentives to develop and promote solar and other types of renewable energy.

In California, Schwarzenegger is fighting the Bush administration to require automakers to meet more stringent emissions regulations. He also launched one of the biggest solar energy initiatives in the world. And last week, he signed an order requiring California to get a third of its energy from renewable power by 2020, increasing previous goals.

Prodding Bush
Schwarzenegger and other governors began organizing the climate summit several years ago, partly to push the Bush administration and the next president to do more to address global warming.

Last week, they apparently got their wish.

In a videotaped address to conference attendees, Obama on Tuesday reiterated a campaign pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. The Bush administration in the past has declined to adhere to measurable emission limits, claiming that doing so would hurt the U.S. economy and give economic advantages to still-maturing countries like China and India.

Delay not an option
Obama, however, made it clear he has a different view.

“Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all,” he said in his remarks. “Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high, the consequences too serious.

“When I am president, any governor who is willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House,” he said.

Obama’s remarks encouraged many at the conference.

“I do think this political issue is largely resolved with the election of … Obama,” said Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle. “And states that don’t get on this bandwagon are going to find they’re 15 to 20 years behind in the future.”

The vast plume of contamination from factories, fires, cars and deforestation contains some particles that reflect sunlight away from the earth, cutting its ability to heat the earth.

“One of the impacts of this atmospheric brown cloud has been to mask the true nature of global warming on our planet,” United Nations Environment Programme head Achim Steiner said at the launch in Beijing of a new report on the phenomenon.

The amount of sunlight reaching earth through the murk has fallen by up to a quarter in the worst-affected areas and if the brown cloud disperses, global temperatures could rise by up to 2 degrees Celsius.

But the overall effect of slowing climate change is not the silver lining to a dark cloud that it appears to be.

The choking soup of pollutants may hold temperatures down overall, but the mix of particles means it is also speeding up warming in some of the most vulnerable areas and exacerbating the most devastating impacts of higher temperature.

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The complex impact of the cloud, which tends to cool areas near the surface of the earth and warm the air higher up, is believed to be causing a shortening of the monsoon season in India while increasing flooding there and in southern China.

Soot from the cloud is also deposited on glaciers, which are at the centre of environmentalists’ and politicians’ concerns because they feed Asia’s key rivers and provide drinking water for billions who live along them.

Scientists are still studying the impact on crops, but possible problems include falling harvests because of less energy for photosynthesis and higher ozone concentrations.

There may also be damage from acidic and toxic particles in the cloud that land on plants, and wider changes to weather patterns may dry up or flood fields.

“The emergence of the atmospheric brown cloud problem is expected to further aggravate the recent dramatic escalation of food prices and the consequent challenge for survival among the world’s most vulnerable populations,” the report said.

One consolation, however, is that if the world stopped emitting the particles that form the cloud, it could be expected to vanish in weeks, unlike many longer-lasting greenhouse gasses.

The ingredients that make up the cloud are little different from the smog that cloaks many of the world’s large cities, particularly in developing nations.

“Our study shows that only tropical rainforests are beneficial, which helps slow down global warming,” said team leader Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Forests affects our climate in many different ways: by absorbing carbon dioxide (the main gas of greenhouse effect) to help cooling down the planet, water evaporation, cloud formation, that helps preserving the planet cooler and the absorption of sunlight with their dark leaves, which is warming the Earth.

Trees that grow in snow covered places like Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia absorb sunlight that would otherwise be reflected back into space, bright white snow.

But tropical rainforests trap larger quantities of carbon dioxide and evaporate more water to produce clouds that reflect sunlight back into space.

“Tropical forests are like Earth’s air conditioning,” said Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Bala, comrades.

Simulating the effects of deforestation in different parts of the world, including the study which was published on Apr 9 online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that deforestation, which tropics is more devastating to the Earth’s climate than deforestation in higher latitudes, and trees among high latitudes might lead to warming.

But do not take ths facts like this is the time when you should take an axe and chop down all the trees that are not growing in tropics, scientists warn.

“The main reason why it aims to slow global warming, to protect nature,” said Caldeira. “It simply makes no sense to destroy natural ecosystems name of saving natural ecosystems.”