1.
Water vapor
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Water vapor, water vapour or aqueous vapor, is the gaseous phase of water. It is one state of water within the hydrosphere, water vapor can be produced from the evaporation or boiling of liquid water or from the sublimation of ice. Unlike other forms of water, water vapor is invisible, under typical atmospheric conditions, water vapor is continuously generated by evaporation and removed by condensation. It is lighter than air and triggers convection currents that can lead to clouds, use of water vapor, as steam, has been important to humans for cooking and as a major component in energy production and transport systems since the industrial revolution. Likewise the detection of water vapor would indicate a similar distribution in other planetary systems. Water vapor is significant in that it can be evidence supporting the presence of extraterrestrial liquid water in the case of some planetary mass objects. Whenever a water molecule leaves a surface and diffuses into a surrounding gas, each individual water molecule which transitions between a more associated and a less associated state does so through the absorption or release of kinetic energy. The aggregate measurement of kinetic energy transfer is defined as thermal energy. Liquid water that becomes water vapor takes a parcel of heat with it, the amount of water vapor in the air determines how fast each molecule will return to the surface. When a net evaporation occurs, the body of water will undergo a net cooling directly related to the loss of water, in the US, the National Weather Service measures the actual rate of evaporation from a standardized pan open water surface outdoors, at various locations nationwide. Others do likewise around the world, the US data is collected and compiled into an annual evaporation map. The measurements range from under 30 to over 120 inches per year, formulas can be used for calculating the rate of evaporation from a water surface such as a swimming pool. In some countries, the evaporation rate far exceeds the precipitation rate, evaporative cooling is restricted by atmospheric conditions. Humidity is the amount of vapor in the air. The vapor content of air is measured with devices known as hygrometers, the measurements are usually expressed as specific humidity or percent relative humidity. This condition is referred to as complete saturation. Humidity ranges from 0 gram per cubic metre in dry air to 30 grams per cubic metre when the vapor is saturated at 30 °C, another form of evaporation is sublimation, by which water molecules become gaseous directly, leaving the surface of ice without first becoming liquid water. Sublimation accounts for the slow disappearance of ice and snow at temperatures too low to cause melting
2.
Cloud chamber
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The cloud chamber, also known as the Wilson chamber, is a particle detector used for detecting ionizing radiation. In its most basic form, a chamber is a sealed environment containing a supersaturated vapor of water or alcohol. When a charged particle interacts with the mixture, the fluid is ionized, the resulting ions act as condensation nuclei, around which a mist will form. The high energies of alpha and beta particles mean that a trail is left, Cloud chambers played a prominent role in the experimental particle physics from the 1920s to the 1950s, until the advent of the bubble chamber. In particular, the discoveries of the positron in 1932, the muon in 1936, Anderson detected the positron and muon in cosmic rays. Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, a Scottish physicist, is credited with inventing the cloud chamber, inspired by sightings of the Brocken spectre while working on the summit of Ben Nevis in 1894, he began to develop expansion chambers for studying cloud formation and optical phenomena in moist air. Very rapidly he discovered that ions could act as centers for water droplet formation in such chambers and he pursued the application of this discovery and perfected the first cloud chamber in 1911. When an ionizing particle passes through the chamber, water condenses on the resulting ions. Wilson, along with Arthur Compton, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for his work on the cloud chamber and this kind of chamber is also called a Pulsed Chamber because the conditions for operation are not continuously maintained. Further developments were made by Patrick Blackett who utilised a stiff spring to expand and compress the chamber very rapidly, a cine film was used to record the images. The diffusion cloud chamber was developed in 1936 by Alexander Langsdorf, instead of water vapor, alcohol is used because of its lower freezing point. Cloud chambers cooled by dry ice are a demonstration and hobbyist device. There are also water-cooled diffusion cloud chambers, using ethylene glycol, a simple cloud chamber consists of the sealed environment, radioactive source, dry ice or a cold plate and some kind of alcohol source. The alcohol falls as it cools down and the cold condenser provides a steep temperature gradient, the result is a supersaturated environment. The alcohol vapor condenses around ion trails left behind by the travelling ionizing particles, the result is cloud formation, seen in the cloud chamber by the presence of droplets falling down to the condenser. As particles pass through they leave ionization trails and because the vapor is supersaturated it condenses onto these trails. Since the tracks are emitted radially out from the source, their point of origin can easily be determined, just above the cold condenser plate there is an area of the chamber which is sensitive to radioactive tracks. At this height, most of the alcohol has not condensed and this means that the ion trail left by the radioactive particles provides an optimal trigger for condensation and cloud formation
3.
Clay
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Clay is a fine-grained natural rock or soil material that combines one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure. Clays are plastic due to water content and become hard, brittle. Depending on the content in which it is found, clay can appear in various colours from white to dull grey or brown to deep orange-red. Although many naturally occurring deposits include both silts and clay, clays are distinguished from other fine-grained soils by differences in size, silts, which are fine-grained soils that do not include clay minerals, tend to have larger particle sizes than clays. There is, however, some overlap in size and other physical properties. The distinction between silt and clay varies by discipline, geologists and soil scientists usually consider the separation to occur at a particle size of 2 µm, sedimentologists often use 4–5 μm, and colloid chemists use 1 μm. Geotechnical engineers distinguish between silts and clays based on the plasticity properties of the soil, as measured by the soils Atterberg limits, ISO14688 grades clay particles as being smaller than 2 μm and silt particles as being larger. These solvents, usually acidic, migrate through the rock after leaching through upper weathered layers. In addition to the process, some clay minerals are formed through hydrothermal activity. There are two types of deposits, primary and secondary. Primary clays form as residual deposits in soil and remain at the site of formation, secondary clays are clays that have been transported from their original location by water erosion and deposited in a new sedimentary deposit. Clay deposits are associated with very low energy depositional environments such as large lakes. Depending on the source, there are three or four main groups of clays, kaolinite, montmorillonite-smectite, illite, and chlorite. Chlorites are not always considered to be a clay, sometimes being classified as a group within the phyllosilicates. There are approximately 30 different types of clays in these categories. Varve is clay with visible annual layers, which are formed by deposition of those layers and are marked by differences in erosion. This type of deposit is common in glacial lakes
4.
Volcano
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A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. Earths volcanoes occur because its crust is broken into 17 major, therefore, on Earth, volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. This type of volcanism falls under the umbrella of plate hypothesis volcanism, Volcanism away from plate boundaries has also been explained as mantle plumes. These so-called hotspots, for example Hawaii, are postulated to arise from upwelling diapirs with magma from the boundary,3,000 km deep in the Earth. Volcanoes are usually not created where two plates slide past one another. Erupting volcanoes can pose hazards, not only in the immediate vicinity of the eruption. Historically, so-called volcanic winters have caused catastrophic famines, the word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano, a volcanic island in the Aeolian Islands of Italy whose name in turn comes from Vulcan, the god of fire in Roman mythology. The study of volcanoes is called volcanology, sometimes spelled vulcanology, at the mid-oceanic ridges, two tectonic plates diverge from one another as new oceanic crust is formed by the cooling and solidifying of hot molten rock. Most divergent plate boundaries are at the bottom of the oceans, therefore, most volcanic activity is submarine, black smokers are evidence of this kind of volcanic activity. Where the mid-oceanic ridge is above sea-level, volcanic islands are formed, for example, subduction zones are places where two plates, usually an oceanic plate and a continental plate, collide. In this case, the plate subducts, or submerges under the continental plate forming a deep ocean trench just offshore. In a process called flux melting, water released from the subducting plate lowers the temperature of the overlying mantle wedge. This magma tends to be very viscous due to its high content, so it often does not reach the surface. When it does reach the surface, a volcano is formed, typical examples of this kind of volcano are Mount Etna and the volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire. Because tectonic plates move across them, each volcano becomes dormant and is eventually re-formed as the plate advances over the postulated plume and this theory is currently under criticism, however. The most common perception of a volcano is of a mountain, spewing lava and poisonous gases from a crater at its summit, however. The features of volcanoes are more complicated and their structure. Some volcanoes have rugged peaks formed by lava domes rather than a summit crater while others have features such as massive plateaus
5.
Phytoplankton
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Phytoplankton /ˌfaɪtoʊˈplæŋktən/ are the autotrophic components of the plankton community and a key part of oceans, seas and freshwater basin ecosystems. The name comes from the Greek words φυτόν, meaning plant, most phytoplankton are too small to be individually seen with the unaided eye. Phytoplankton are photosynthesizing microscopic organisms that inhabit the upper layer of almost all oceans. They are agents for primary production, the creation of organic compounds from carbon dioxide dissolved in the water, Phytoplankton obtain energy through the process of photosynthesis and must therefore live in the well-lit surface layer of an ocean, sea, lake, or other body of water. Phytoplankton account for half of all activity on Earth. Their cumulative energy fixation in carbon compounds is the basis for the vast majority of oceanic, the effects of anthropogenic warming on the global population of phytoplankton is an area of active research. Additionally, changes in the mortality of phytoplankton due to rates of zooplankton grazing may be significant, as a side note, one of the more remarkable food chains in the ocean – remarkable because of the small number of links – is that of phytoplankton-feeding krill feeding baleen whales. Phytoplankton are also dependent on minerals. However, across large regions of the World Ocean such as the Southern Ocean and this has led to some scientists advocating iron fertilization as a means to counteract the accumulation of human-produced carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Large-scale experiments have added iron to the oceans to promote phytoplankton growth, however, controversy about manipulating the ecosystem and the efficiency of iron fertilization has slowed such experiments. Phytoplankton depend on other substances to survive as well, in particular, Vitamin B is crucial. Areas in the ocean have been identified as having a lack of Vitamin B. While almost all species are obligate photoautotrophs, there are some that are mixotrophic and other. Of these, the best known are dinoflagellate genera such as Noctiluca and Dinophysis, the term phytoplankton encompasses all photoautotrophic microorganisms in aquatic food webs. Phytoplankton serve as the base of the food web, providing an essential ecological function for all aquatic life. However, unlike terrestrial communities, where most autotrophs are plants, phytoplankton are a group, incorporating protistan eukaryotes. There are about 5,000 known species of marine phytoplankton, how such diversity evolved despite scarce resources is unclear. In terms of numbers, the most important groups of phytoplankton include the diatoms, cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates, one group, the coccolithophorids, is responsible for the release of significant amounts of dimethyl sulfide into the atmosphere
6.
Climate change
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Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time. Climate change may refer to a change in weather conditions. Climate change is caused by such as biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics. Certain human activities have also identified as significant causes of recent climate change. Scientists actively work to understand past and future climate by using observations, more recent data are provided by the instrumental record. The most general definition of change is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system when considered over long periods of time. Accordingly, fluctuations over periods shorter than a few decades, such as El Niño, the term climate change is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change. Anthropogenic climate change is caused by activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earths natural processes. In this sense, especially in the context of environmental policy, within scientific journals, global warming refers to surface temperature increases while climate change includes global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas levels affect. A related term is climatic change, in 1966, the World Meteorological Organization proposed the term climatic change to encompass all forms of climatic variability on time-scales longer than 10 years, regardless of cause. Change was a given and climatic was used as an adjective to describe this kind of change, when it was realized that human activities had a potential to drastically alter the climate, the term climate change replaced climatic change as the dominant term to reflect an anthropogenic cause. Climate change was incorporated in the title of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate change, used as a noun, became an issue rather than the technical description of changing weather. On the broadest scale, the rate at which energy is received from the Sun and this energy is distributed around the globe by winds, ocean currents, and other mechanisms to affect the climates of different regions. Factors that can shape climate are called climate forcings or forcing mechanisms, there are a variety of climate change feedbacks that can either amplify or diminish the initial forcing. Some parts of the system, such as the oceans and ice caps, respond more slowly in reaction to climate forcings. There are also key factors which when exceeded can produce rapid change. Forcing mechanisms can be internal or external. Internal forcing mechanisms are natural processes within the system itself
7.
Solar cycle
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The solar cycle or solar magnetic activity cycle is the nearly periodic 11-year change in the Suns activity and appearance. They have been observed for centuries, the changes on the sun cause effects in space, in the atmosphere, and on Earths surface. While it is the dominant variable in solar activity, aperiodic fluctuations also occur, Solar cycles have an average duration of about 11 years. Solar maximum and solar minimum refer respectively to periods of maximum and minimum sunspot counts, cycles span from one minimum to the next. The solar cycle was discovered in 1843 by Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, following Wolfs numbering scheme, the 1755–1766 cycle is traditionally numbered 1. Wolf created a standard sunspot number index, the Wolf index, the period between 1645 and 1715, a time of few sunspots, is known as the Maunder minimum, after Edward Walter Maunder, who extensively researched this peculiar event, first noted by Gustav Spörer. In the second half of the nineteenth century Richard Carrington and by Spörer independently noted the phenomena of sunspots appearing at different latitudes at different parts of the cycle, the cycles physical basis was elucidated by Hale and collaborators, who in 1908 showed that sunspots were strongly magnetized. In 1919 they showed that the polarity of sunspot pairs, Is constant throughout a cycle, Is opposite across the equator throughout a cycle. Hales observations revealed that the complete magnetic cycle spans two solar cycles, or 22 years, before returning to its original state, however, because nearly all manifestations are insensitive to polarity, the 11-year solar cycle remains the focus of research. In 1961 the father-and-son team of Harold and Horace Babcock established that the cycle is a spatiotemporal magnetic process unfolding over the Sun as a whole. Horaces Babcock model described the Suns oscillatory magnetic field, with a periodicity of 22 years. It covered the exchange of energy between poloidal and toroidal solar magnetic field ingredients. The level of activity beginning in the 1940s is exceptional – the last period of similar magnitude occurred around 9,000 years ago. The Sun was at a high level of magnetic activity for only ~10% of the past 11,400 years. Almost all earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode, fossil records suggest that the Solar cycle has been stable for at least the last 290 million years. For example, the cycle length during the early Permian is estimated to be 10.62 years, since observations began, cycles have ranged from 9–14 years. The current solar cycle began on January 4,2008, with minimal activity until early 2010 and it is on track to have the lowest recorded sunspot activity since accurate records began in 1750. The cycle featured a double-peaked solar maximum, the first peak reached 99 in 2011 and the second in early 2014 at 101
8.
Cosmic ray
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Cosmic rays are high-energy radiation, mainly originating outside the Solar System. Upon impact with the Earths atmosphere, cosmic rays can produce showers of particles that sometimes reach the surface. Composed primarily of protons and atomic nuclei, they are of mysterious origin. Data from the Fermi space telescope have been interpreted as evidence that a significant fraction of cosmic rays originate from the supernovae explosions of stars. Active galactic nuclei probably also produce cosmic rays, the term ray is a historical accident, as cosmic rays were at first, and wrongly, thought to be mostly electromagnetic radiation. In current usage, the cosmic ray almost exclusively refers to massive particles. Massive particles – those that have rest mass – can gain additional, kinetic, mass-energy when they are moving, through this process, some particles acquire tremendously high mass-energies. These are significantly higher than the energy of even the highest-energy photons detected to date. The energy of the massless photon depends solely on frequency, not speed, at the higher end of the energy spectrum, relativistic kinetic energy is the main source of the mass-energy of cosmic rays. Hence, the highest-energy detected fermionic cosmic ray was around 3×106 times more energetic than the highest-energy detected cosmic photons, of primary cosmic rays, which originate outside of Earths atmosphere, about 99% are the nuclei of well-known atoms, and about 1% are solitary electrons. Of the nuclei, about 90% are simple protons, i. e. hydrogen nuclei, 9% are alpha particles, identical to helium nuclei, a very small fraction are stable particles of antimatter, such as positrons or antiprotons. The precise nature of this fraction is an area of active research. An active search from Earth orbit for anti-alpha particles has failed to detect them, one can show that such enormous energies might be achieved by means of the Centrifugal mechanism of acceleration in Active galactic nuclei. At 50 J, the highest-energy ultra-high-energy cosmic rays have energies comparable to the energy of a 90-kilometre-per-hour baseball. As a result of discoveries, there has been interest in investigating cosmic rays of even greater energies. Most cosmic rays, however, do not have such extreme energies, however, his paper published in Physikalische Zeitschrift was not widely accepted. In 1911 Domenico Pacini observed simultaneous variations of the rate of ionization over a lake, over the sea, Pacini concluded from the decrease of radioactivity underwater that a certain part of the ionization must be due to sources other than the radioactivity of the Earth. In 1912, Victor Hess carried three enhanced-accuracy Wulf electrometers to an altitude of 5300 meters in a balloon flight
9.
Algal bloom
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An algal bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in freshwater or marine water systems, and is recognized by the discoloration in the water from their pigments. Cyanobacteria were mistaken for algae in the past, so cyanobacterial blooms are also called algal blooms. Blooms which can injure animals or the ecology are called harmful algal blooms, since algae is a broad term including organisms of widely varying sizes, growth rates and nutrient requirements, there is no officially recognized threshold level as to what is defined as a bloom. For some species, algae can be considered to be blooming at concentrations reaching millions of cells per milliliter, bright green blooms in freshwater systems are frequently a result of cyanobacteria such as Microcystis. Blooms may also consist of macroalgal species and these blooms are recognizable by large blades of algae that may wash up onto the shoreline. Such blooms often take on a red or brown hue and are known colloquially as red tides, freshwater algal blooms are the result of an excess of nutrients, particularly some phosphates. The excess of nutrients may originate from fertilizers that are applied to land for agricultural or recreational purposes and they may also originate from household cleaning products containing phosphorus. These nutrients can then enter watersheds through water runoff, excess carbon and nitrogen have also been suspected as causes. Presence of residual sodium carbonate acts as catalyst for the algae to bloom by providing dissolved carbon dioxide for enhanced photosynthesis in the presence of nutrients, when phosphates are introduced into water systems, higher concentrations cause increased growth of algae and plants. Algae tend to very quickly under high nutrient availability, but each alga is short-lived. The decay process consumes dissolved oxygen in the water, resulting in hypoxic conditions, without sufficient dissolved oxygen in the water, animals and plants may die off in large numbers. Use of an Olszewski tube can help combat problems with hypolimnetic withdrawal. Blooms may be observed in freshwater aquariums when fish are overfed and these are generally harmful for fish, and the situation can be corrected by changing the water in the tank and then reducing the amount of food given. A harmful algal bloom is a bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms via production of natural toxins, mechanical damage to other organisms. HABs are often associated with large-scale marine mortality events and have associated with various types of shellfish poisonings. In studies at the population level bloom coverage has been related to the risk of non-alcoholic liver disease death. In the marine environment, single-celled, microscopic, plant-like organisms naturally occur in the surface layer of any body of water. These organisms, referred to as phytoplankton or microalgae, form the base of the food web upon which all other marine organisms depend
10.
Photosynthesis
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Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms activities. In most cases, oxygen is released as a waste product. Most plants, most algae, and cyanobacteria perform photosynthesis, such organisms are called photoautotrophs, in plants, these proteins are held inside organelles called chloroplasts, which are most abundant in leaf cells, while in bacteria they are embedded in the plasma membrane. In these light-dependent reactions, some energy is used to strip electrons from suitable substances, such as water, in the Calvin cycle, atmospheric carbon dioxide is incorporated into already existing organic carbon compounds, such as ribulose bisphosphate. Using the ATP and NADPH produced by the light-dependent reactions, the compounds are then reduced and removed to form further carbohydrates. Cyanobacteria appeared later, the oxygen they produced contributed directly to the oxygenation of the Earth. Today, the rate of energy capture by photosynthesis globally is approximately 130 terawatts. Photosynthetic organisms also convert around 100–115 thousand million tonnes of carbon into biomass per year. Photosynthetic organisms are photoautotrophs, which means that they are able to synthesize food directly from carbon dioxide, however, not all organisms that use light as a source of energy carry out photosynthesis, photoheterotrophs use organic compounds, rather than carbon dioxide, as a source of carbon. In plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, photosynthesis releases oxygen and this is called oxygenic photosynthesis and is by far the most common type of photosynthesis used by living organisms. Although there are differences between oxygenic photosynthesis in plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, the overall process is quite similar in these organisms. There are also varieties of anoxygenic photosynthesis, used mostly by certain types of bacteria. Carbon dioxide is converted into sugars in a process called carbon fixation, photosynthesis provides the energy in the form of free electrons that are used to split carbon from carbon dioxide that is then used to fix that carbon once again as carbohydrate. Carbon fixation is a redox reaction, so photosynthesis supplies the energy that drives both process. In the first stage, light-dependent reactions or light reactions capture the energy of light and use it to make the energy-storage molecules ATP, during the second stage, the light-independent reactions use these products to capture and reduce carbon dioxide. Most organisms that utilize oxygenic photosynthesis use visible light for the light-dependent reactions, some organisms employ even more radical variants of photosynthesis. Some archea use a method that employs a pigment similar to those used for vision in animals. The bacteriorhodopsin changes its configuration in response to sunlight, acting as a proton pump and this produces a proton gradient more directly, which is then converted to chemical energy
11.
Global dimming
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Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earths surface that was observed for several decades after the start of systematic measurements in the 1950s. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it has estimated to be of the order of a 4% reduction over the three decades from 1960–1990. However, after discounting an anomaly caused by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, global dimming is thought to have been caused by an increase in particulates such as sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere due to human action. It has interfered with the cycle by reducing evaporation and may have reduced rainfall in some areas. Global dimming also creates an effect that may have partially counteracted the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming. It is thought that global dimming is probably due to the presence of aerosol particles in the atmosphere caused by human action. Aerosols and other particulates absorb solar energy and reflect back into space. The pollutants can also become nuclei for cloud droplets, water droplets in clouds coalesce around the particles. Increased pollution causes more particulates and thereby creates clouds consisting of a number of smaller droplets. The smaller droplets make clouds more reflective, so that more incoming sunlight is reflected back into space and this same effect also reflects radiation from below, trapping it in the lower atmosphere. In models, these smaller droplets also decrease rainfall, clouds intercept both heat from the sun and heat radiated from the Earth. Their effects are complex and vary in time, location, in the late-1960s, Mikhail Ivanovich Budyko worked with simple two-dimensional energy-balance climate models to investigate the reflectivity of ice. He found that the ice-albedo feedback created a feedback loop in the Earths climate system. The more snow and ice, the solar radiation is reflected back into space and hence the colder Earth grows. Other studies found that pollution or an eruption could provoke the onset of an ice age. His findings appeared to contradict global warming — the global temperature had been rising since the 70s. Less light reaching the earth seemed to mean that it should cool, ohmura published his findings Secular variation of global radiation in Europe in 1989. Dimming has also observed in sites all over the former Soviet Union
