Magnetic shielding and vacuum test for passive hydrogen masers

Vibration tests on high permeability magnetic shields used in the SAO-NRL Advanced Development Model (ADM) hydrogen maser were made. Magnetic shielding factors were measured before and after vibration. Preliminary results indicate considerable (25%) degradation. Test results on the NRL designed vacuum pumping station for the ADM hydrogen maser are also discussed. This system employs sintered zirconium carbon getter pumps to pump hydrogen plus small ion pumps to pump the inert gases. In situ activation tests and pumping characteristics indicate that the system can meet design specifications

Reconstructed warm season temperatures for Nome, Seward Peninsula, Alaska

[1] Understanding of past climate variability in the Bering Strait region and adjacent land areas is limited by a paucity of long instrumental and paleoclimatic records. Here we describe a reconstruction of May - August temperatures for Nome, Seward Peninsula, Alaska based on maximum latewood density data which considerably extends the available climatic information. The reconstruction shows warm conditions in the late 1600s and middle-20th century and cooler conditions in the 1800s. The summer of 1783, coinciding with the Laki, Iceland volcanic event, is among the coldest in the reconstruction. Statistically significant relationships with the North Pacific Index and Bering-Chukchi sea surface temperatures indicate that the Seward tree-ring data are potentially useful as long-term indices of atmosphere-ocean variability in the region.</p

Informing Climate Policy Given Incommensurable Benefits Estimates

Abstract in HTML and technical report in PDF available on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://mit.edu/globalchange/www/).The determination of long-term goals for climate policy, or of near-term mitigation effort, requires a shared conception among nations of what is at stake. Unfortunately, because of different attitudes to risk, problems of valuing non-market effects, and disagreements about aggregation across rich and poor nations, no single benefit measure is possible that can provide commonly accepted basis for judgment. In response to this circumstance, a portfolio of estimates is recommended, including global variables that can be represented in probabilistic terms, regional impacts expressed in natural units, and integrated monetary valuation. Development of such a portfolio is a research task, and the needed program of work suggested.Results cited from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change were developed with the support of the US Department of Energy, Office of Biological and Environmental Research [BER] (DE-FG02-94ER61937) the US Environmental Protection Agency (X-827703-01-0), the Electric Power Research Institute, and by a consortium of industry and foundation sponsors

The effects on developing countries of the Kyoto Protocol and carbon dioxide emissions trading

The trading of rights to emit carbon dioxide has not officially been sanctioned by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but it is of interest to investigate the consequences, both for industrial (Annex B) and developing countries, of allowing such trades. The authors examine the trading of caps assigned to Annex B countries under the Kyoto Protocol and compare the outcome with a world in which Annex B countries meet with their Kyoto targets without trading. Under the trading scenario the former Soviet Union is the main seller of carbon dioxide permits and Japan, the European Union, and the United States are the main buyers. Permit trading is estimated to reduce the aggregate cost of meeting the Kyoto targets by about 50 percent, compared with no trading. Developing countries, though they do not trade, are nonetheless affected by trading. For example, the price of oil and the demand for other developing country exports are higher with trading than without. The authors also consider what might happen if developing countries were to voluntarily accept caps equal to Business as Usual Emissions and were allowed to sell emission reductions below these caps to Annex B countries. The gains from emissions trading could be big enough to give buyers and sellers incentive to support the system. Indeed, a global market for rights to emit carbon dioxide could reduce the cost of meeting the Kyoto targets by almost 90 percent, if the market were to operate competitively. The division of trading gains, however, may make a competitive outcome unlikely: Under perfect competition, the vast majority of trading gains go to buyers of permits rather than to sellers. Even markets in which the supply of permits is restricted can, however, substantially reduce the cost to Annex B countries of meeting their Kyoto targets, while yielding profits to developing countries that elect to sell permits.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Markets and Market Access,Montreal Protocol,Climate Change,Environmental Economics&Policies,Carbon Policy and Trading,Energy and Environment,Economic Theory&Research,Montreal Protocol

Uranium dependence and the proliferation problem

"2134"--handwritten on cover"May 1977.

Project MK Ultra: a Site of Forgotten Calamity

Project MK Ultra refers to a set of top-secret CIA experiments that took place from 1953 to 1973 and involved unwitting subjects being administered drugs and hypnosis. As there is little information currently existent digitally relating to the project, an archive was established through this essay which relates information regarding the truth of what happened during the experiments without conspiracy theories as are often found in relation to this project. After having done research on the project as a whole and subsequently finding fifteen artifacts that communicate important truths about the project, it can be concluded that the CIA, in a time of mass national paranoia, abused their powers in the search of techniques to assist in espionage and other similar practices. This can be seen in the detrimental effects which the experiments had on individuals who took place in them as is discussed in a few of the artifacts. The other artifacts reveal the CIA’s true intentions during the experiment, concluded to be a form of control over other nations in espionage by more thoroughly understanding the use of drugs and hypnosis on the brain. Valid intentions were thus shifted to abuse of power as the agency performed the experiments often without the subject’s knowledge of what was truly taking place. It was because of the underlying reasons for the experiment that it was able to be done and still remains a topic about which talking is not common.https://ir.library.louisville.edu/uars/1016/thumbnail.jp

Sharing the Burden of GHG Reductions

Abstract and PDF report are also available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://globalchange.mit.edu/).The G8 countries propose a goal of a 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050, in an effort that needs to take account of other agreements specifying that developing countries are to be provided with incentives to action and protected from the impact of measures taken by others. To help inform international negotiations of measures to achieve these goals we develop a technique for endogenously estimating the allowance allocations and associated financial transfers necessary to achieve predetermined distributional outcomes and apply it in the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model. Possible burden sharing agreements are represented by different allowance allocations (and resulting financial flows) in a global cap-and-trade system. Cases studied include agreements that allocate the burden based on simple allocation rules found in current national proposals and alternatives that specify national equity goals for both developing and developed countries. The analysis shows the ambitious nature of this reduction goal: universal participation will be necessary and the welfare costs can be both substantial and wildly different across regions depending on the allocation method chosen. The choice of allocation rule is shown to affect the magnitude of the task and required emissions price because of income effects. If developing countries are fully compensated for the costs of mitigation then the welfare costs to developed countries, if shared equally, are around 2% in 2020, rising to some 10% in 2050, and the implied financial transfers are large—over $400 billion per year in 2020 and rising to around$3 trillion in 2050. For success in dealing with the climate threat any negotiation of long-term goals and paths to achievement need to be grounded in a full understanding of the substantial amounts at stake.Development of the EPPA model used has been supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. National Science Foundation, and by a consortium of industry and foundation sponsors of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

Technology detail in a multi-sector CGE model : transport under climate policy

Abstract in HTML and technical report in PDF available on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://mit.edu/globalchange/www/).A set of three analytical models is used to study the imbedding of specific transport technologies within a multi-sector, multi-region evaluation of constraints on greenhouse emissions. Key parameters of a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model are set to mimic the behavior of a model of modal splits and a MARKAL model of household and industry transport activities. In simulation mode, the CGE model provides key economic data to an analysis of the details of transport technology under policy restraint. Results focus on the penetration of new automobile technologies into the vehicle market