PopSci Walks the Walk (Instead of Driving)

Bravo you guys, but how about popsci itself

green features 1 day, conspicuous consumption the next
(mega stadiums, massive Bentleys, the list goes on)

Be green or be a popular science mag

The Sun had the overwhelming last laugh on Earth Day
The Sea Ice Polar Melt - (opps now we see it had an error)
Record lows (and associated droughts from lower solar radiation to evaporate water) continue around the world.

Ocean heat content and atmospheric temperature both started declining after the peak in solar proton flare and geomagnetic activity in 2003. This established cooling trend is expected to accelerate. The current cooling has already has an effect on agricultural production, with the 2009 Canadian wheat crop down 20% due to a cold spring.

The Sun's Conveyor Belt has slowed to a record-low crawl (characteristic of a solar minimum), according to research by NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. "It"s off the bottom of the charts",he says. "This has important repercussions for future solar activity." This past August (2008), the sun created no visible spots. The last time that happened was in June 1913 and the solar cycle thus far has remained a dud.

Here is an update, 4/1/09, NASA announced that the sun has plunged into the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. "Sunspots have all but vanished and consequently the sun has become very quiet. In 2008, the sun had no spots 73% of the time, a 95-year low. In 2009, sunspots are even more scarce, with the "spotless rate" jumping to 87%. We are currently experiencing a stretch of days uninterrupted by sunspots--and there's no end in sight." And the sun remains to be quiet as of June 2009.

Polar Ice Melt - Opps - was it a data error?

On February 16, 2009, as emails came in from puzzled readers, it became clear that there was a significant problem—sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as open ocean. The problem stemmed from a failure of the sea ice algorithm caused by degradation of one of the DMSP F15 sensor channels. Upon further investigation, we found that data quality had begun to degrade over the month preceding the catastrophic failure. As a result, our processes underestimated total sea ice extent for the affected period. Based on comparisons with sea ice extent derived from the NASA Earth Observing System Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (EOS AMSR-E) sensor, this underestimation grew from a negligible amount in early January to about 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February (Figure 2). (NASA Site)