Friday 4 February 2011

Catastrophic drought in the Amazon

 

Brazilians cross the muddy bottom of the Rio Negro, a major tributary to the Amazon river
REUTERS
Brazilians cross the muddy bottom of the Rio Negro, a major tributary to the Amazon river
 
A widespread drought in the Amazon rainforest last year caused the "lungs of the world" to produce more carbon dioxide than they absorbed, potentially leading to a dangerous acceleration of global warming. Scientists have calculated that the 2010 drought was more intense than the "one-in-100-year" drought of 2005.
They are predicting it will result in some eight billion tonnes of carbon dioxide being expelled from the Amazon rainforest, which is more than the total annual carbon emissions of the United States. For the second time in less than a decade, the earth's greatest rainforest released more carbon dioxide than it absorbed because many of its trees dried out and died.
Scientists believe that the highly unusual nature of the two droughts, which occurred in the space of just five years, may be the result of higher sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, which could also be influenced by global warming caused by the release of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Anglo-Brazilian team of researchers has emphasised that there is as yet no proof that the two highly unusual droughts in the Amazon are the direct result of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, but the scientists have warned that the world is gambling with its future if it fails to curb fossil fuel emissions.
"Two unusual and extreme droughts occurring within a decade may largely offset the carbon absorbed by intact Amazon forests during that time. If events like this happen more often, the Amazon rainforest would reach a point where it shifts from being a valuable carbon sink slowing climate change to a major source of greenhouse gases that could speed it up. Having two events of this magnitude in such close succession is extremely unusual, but is unfortunately consistent with those climate models that project a grim future for Amazonia."
The study, published in the journal Science, analysed satellite data on rainfall across two million square miles of rainforest during the 2010 dry season. The scientists were able to make a direct comparison with an earlier study of the 2005 drought, which also looked at the effect of the low rainfall on the growth of trees.
In the 2005 drought, the scientists estimated that the rainforest turned from a net absorber of about two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to an exporter of some five billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is almost as much as the 5.4 billion tonnes emitted annually by the US.
However, the drought last year was more widespread and more intense than the earlier drought, with a far bigger impact on the growth and death of trees, which is why the scientists expect the overall release of carbon dioxide from dead and decaying organic matter to reach eight billion tonnes.
"The extent of the 2010 drought was much larger than in 2005. In 2010, the Rio Negro river, which is the biggest tributary to the Amazon, was at its lowest level since records began at the start of the 20th century, so we have independent evidence of these droughts," Dr Lewis said.
Normally, the cycle of droughts that hit the Amazon affect northern areas of the region and are associated with the natural el Niño phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean. However, the 2005 and 2010 droughts occurred further south and may be linked with higher sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, the scientists said.
"In 2005, the spatial pattern of the drought affecting the south and southwest of the Amazon was very different from the usual droughts that impact the Amazon every five to seven years associated with el Niño events, which tend to affect the north-east. When climatologists investigated why, they associated it with Atlantic sea-surface temperatures," Dr Lewis said.
"In 2010 we see a drought with a very similar spatial pattern, again affecting the south and the south-west of the Amazon basin, and very similar to 2005, and we know that the Atlantic sea-surface temperatures were anomalously high, but the work has not been done yet to say definitively that that is the cause. Our best hypothesis at the present time is that this 2010 drought was associated with Atlantic sea-surface temperatures, but we have to wait until those scientific papers go through the peer-review process before we can say that more concretely."
Peter Cox, of Exeter University, who analysed the 2005 drought, said: "The droughts in Amazonia in 2005 and 2010 were both associated with unusually warm ocean temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic. This tends to draw the region of most intense rainfall further north and delays the wet season in Amazonia."

Thursday 3 February 2011

Aeroquest Acquires Mapping Group of Companies From OSI Geospatial

MISSISSAUGA, ON, Feb. 1  - Aeroquest International Limited ("Aeroquest") and OSI Geospatial Inc. ("OSI") announced today the acquisition by Aeroquest of the Mapcon Mapping group of companies from OSI, which closed on January 31, 2011. Mapcon provides LiDAR, photogrammetry and related geomatic services to customers in the North American marketplace. Mapcon consists of two entities: a Canadian sales, operations and project management team located in Burnaby, BC; and a United States sales team located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mapcon generated approximately $4 million of revenue in its last fiscal year.

Total purchase price is $1.15 million subject to an adjustment to reflect the difference between estimated and actual net working capital at closing.

"We are very excited to welcome the Mapcon group to Aeroquest," said Roy Graydon, President & CEO of Aeroquest. "Mapcon's staff in Burnaby, BC and Salt Lake City, Utah will provide an excellent complement to the Aeroquest Optimal business with minimal overlap of customers. This transaction will also allow us to leverage capacity within the entire aerial geomatics group."

"The divestiture of our mapping operations directly supports our strategy to focus on the development of our maritime systems business." said Ken Kirkpatrick, President and CEO of OSI Geospatial. "We are pleased that we have completed the mapping transaction and strongly believe this is the right decision for the company."

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Partnership merges semantic technology with geospatial analysis

Expert System and Esri Italia Announce Partnership

The partnership combines semantic technology with geospatial analysis to effectively support richer, improved decision making.


MODENA, ITALY--(Marketwire - Feb. 1, 2011) - Expert System, the leading provider of semantic software that searches, discovers, classifies and interprets text information, and Esri Italia, the Italian leading provider of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, announce today a partnership aimed to offer solutions which combine the capabilities of semantic technology with spatial and geo-referencing analysis and management technology, for increased OSINT capabilities.
Esri ArcGIS technology runs on more than one million desktops and thousands of web and enterprise servers worldwide, providing the backbone for worldwide spatial analysis and mapping. The partnership between Expert System and Esri Italia leverages the synergy between the respective technologies to automatically identify, extract and manage geographical information stored in unstructured data (documents, emails, social media, etc.).
"The geographic dimension of acquired open source data is a key element when making complex and sophisticated analysis today," said Andrea Melegari, Chief Operating Officer, Intelligence Division, Expert System. "The collaboration with Esri allows us to respond to our customers' requirements to maximize the potential of geo-referencing to more effectively support the decision making processes."
The integration of Esri geo-analysis technology and Expert System's knowledge management and text mining solutions renders geographic search and analysis activities more efficient. As a result, search results discovered through semantic analysis can be visualized in geographic maps derived from the geo-analysis, providing analysts with a deeper level of detail.
"The combination of Expert System's semantic expertise with our experience in geospatial intelligence gives us the ability to provide our customers with unconventional analysis tools," said Giancarlo Volpi, Sales Responsible for Defence & Intelligence market at Esri Italia. "This is an important collaboration not only for Defence and Intelligence, but even in the areas of National Security, Telecoms, Utilities and, in general, anywhere the analysis of large quantities of data, from a multitude of various and heterogeneous sources, can be summarized through a geographic vision."

GIS Market Experiences Vibrant Growth

The worldwide market for geospatial information systems (GIS) is forecast to grow 65% over the next five years, representing a compound annual growth rate of 10,5%, according to a new ARC Advisory Group study. With the global economic downturn now predominantly in the past, capital spending on information technology has rebounded vigorously. The GIS market has taken part in this rebound and is expected to experience vibrant growth.
Traditionally strong GIS market segments such as electric power, oil and gas distribution, and divisions of federal governments continue to expand their use of GIS solutions. Meanwhile, more contemporary segments such as insurance, real estate, and retail are expected to increase GIS adoption, according to Clint Reiser, enterprise software analyst, and the principal author of ARC’s ‘Geospatial Information Systems Worldwide Outlook’