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ANNOUNCEMENTS

May 14, 2007 - Office hours during finals week: Monday 5/14 1:00-2:00; Tuesday 5/15 1:00-2:00; Wednesday 5/16 no set hours but I'll be in my office for most of the day.

May 8, 2007 - Online Assignment 4: Ice Ages is due in my email box by midnight, Wednesday, May 9.

May 1, 2007 - Last chance for extra credit! You may do Part 4 of Exercise 19 for extra credit. You can use the extra credit to replace a zero on another lab exercise (but not a zero on exercise 19), or if you have no zeros by the end of the semester, it will just count as extra points added on to your final grade. This is due on Monday, May 7th in class.

April 16, 2007 - Here are color versions of the topographic maps in exercise 17: Thousand Springs and Hartford.
You may do Part 3 of Exercise 17 for extra credit. You can use the extra credit to replace a zero on another lab exercise (but not a zero on exercise 17), or if you have no zeros by the end of the semester, it will just count as extra points added on to your final grade. Part 3 is due on Monday, April 23.

March 8, 2007 - Office hours for Friday, March 9 will be from 9:00-9:45 due to a 10:00 appointment. Sorry for any inconvenience.

March 6, 2007 - Online Assignment 3: Global Warming is due in my email box by midnight Friday, March 9.

March 1, 2007 - Extra credit! If you'd like some extra credit, you may do lab exercise 8, parts 2 and 3 for extra credit. This is due Friday March 9th in class. Extra credit works this way: if you have any zeros for any lab exercises or assignments, you may do extra credit labs to replace those zeros. If you have no zeros at the end of the semester, the extra credit counts as points added on to your final grade. The syllabus states that lab exercises and assignments are worth 14% of your final grade (or 14 points out of 100). If you have no zeros, and you do some extra credit, you can earn more than 14 points.

February 14, 2007 - Online Assignment 2 is due in my email box by midnight Friday, February 16.

February 11, 2007 - FYI The Midwest Renewable Energy Association will be showing the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" on February 15 at 7:00 PM at the ReNew the Earth Institute, 7558 Deer Rd., Custer, WI (7 miles east of Stevens Point). For details email info@the-mrea.org.

February 6, 2007 - A question was asked in class about emissions from ethanol compared to gas. According to Argonne National Laboratory (2004), greenhouse gas emissions would be significantly reduced by using cellulosic ethanol and they would be somewhat reduced by using corn ethanol compared to emissions from gas. A more recent report from UC Berkeley (2006) reports that the production of ethanol requires less fuel than the production of gas, but only slightly reduces emissions when the ethanol is made from corn. If it's cellulosic ethanol, then the reductions in emissions are significant. Cellulosic ethanol is ethanol made from plants such as switch grass and willow trees. The US Department of Energy has a variety of information on alternative fuel vehicle (biodiesel, electricity, ethanol, hydrogen, natural gas) emissions (and other things) compared to traditional gas powered vehicles.

Someone else asked about the impact of long-term variability in the sun's energy output on the earth's climate. A NASA (2003) study shows that solar irradiance varies with sunspot activity, and also indicates that the total irradiance of the sun may have increased since 1970. The question is whether the increase in solar irradiance seen so far is sufficient to alter climate. If the trend continues, the impact on climate could be significant. Understanding the impact of changes (even small ones) in the sun's irradiance on earth's climate is important for being able to determine what portion of the current warming is due to human activities and what portion is due to increases in solar radiation. Another study from NCAR/UCAR (2006) indicates that the sun's brightness has increased over the past 400 years, but the increase is not sufficient to explain the current global warming trends.

January 22, 2007 - Online Assignment 1 is due in my email box by midnight Wednesday, January 24.

January 17, 2007 - Welcome to Geography 101!

Here's a link to Weather Underground, which is a good source for daily and weekly weather conditions. The link is set for Stevens Point, but you can request weather conditions from many places around the world.