With temperatures around the world climbing, melt waters from the continental ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are raising sea levels.

Those ice sheets are melting from both above and below. Much of the ice lost from ice sheets comes from a process called calving where ice erodes, breaks off, and flows rapidly into the ocean. A large volume of ice is also lost from ice sheets melting on their surfaces.

To determine to what extent Greenland’s glaciers are being melted from underneath, NASA recently began a five-year airborne and ship-based mission called Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG).

Previous research has shown that Greenland's glaciers, which flow like rivers of ice into the ocean, sit on the ground deeper below sea level than had been thought. Warm ocean currents sweep across and erode the hidden glacier faces. As a result, they’re melting faster – a few feet a day in summer – than anyone suspected.

Oceanographer Josh Willis is the Principal Investigator for the OMG mission. “We’re investigating how the ice interacts with the ocean, and how much the oceans are melting away the glaciers from the edges of the ice sheet,” he said.

For this study, a NASA aircraft is flying the Glacier and Ice Surface Topography Interferometer (GLISTIN) instrument around Greenland for a few weeks each year.

Willis said, “GLISTIN is making very high resolution maps of the ice, showing us how fast the glaciers are thinning and retreating right at the edge.”

The aircraft will also continue dropping more than 200 ocean probes each year through 2020 to measure how temperature and salinity change between the ocean surface and the sea floor – from the cold meltwater at the surface down to the warmer, heavier saltwater below. This will help determine how changes in the ocean affect the ice.

In addition, OMG has completed surveys using a ship equipped with sonar to measure the seafloor shape and depth, which affect where and how much the warm water from the Atlantic eats away at the coastal glaciers.

The mission also conducted airborne measurements of gravity off the coast of Greenland, giving the team more information about the depth of water in those locations.

While OMG is looking at the effects on ice sheets from below, NASA’s Operation IceBridge mission is surveying polar ice from above.

The overlap of OMG and IceBridge is providing the most accurate measurements to date of changes in Greenland’s ice sheet mass.

Glaciologist Ala Khazendar, a member of the OMG science team said, “IceBridge's highly-accurate Airborne Topographic Mapper is the gold standard of measuring the surface elevation changes of the ice sheet. With OMG uncovering how much ice is being lost at the periphery of the ice sheet, and IceBridge telling us how the thickness of the glaciers is changing further upstream, we can better attribute Greenland’s ice loss either to changes in the ocean or warming of the atmosphere, which directly melts the ice from above.”

“Greenland contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 20 feet (6 meters) if it all melted,” noted Willis. “Right now we think this will take at least several hundred years, but data from OMG are helping scientists better understand how much the oceans are melting Greenland’s ice. From now through 2020, OMG will be making annual visits to measure the oceans and ice together, helping scientists study changes to Greenland’s ice sheet and how those changes may impact Earth’s environment.”

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A search is continuing in and around Clearlake for a 13-year-old boy who disappeared early Saturday morning.

Isaiah Blevins, a sixth grader at Pomo Elementary School, was last seen at 6 a.m. Saturday when he left home to take his dog for a walk, according to his older brother, Chris Arizmendez.

Later in the morning, the Clearlake Police Department issued an alert on the missing teen, but on Saturday evening authorities confirmed the boy was still listed as missing.

On Saturday evening, Arizmendez said he and his family, along with friends and many community members, were actively searching for Isaiah, who was last seen in the area of Lenore Avenue north of Davis Avenue.

Arizmendez estimated about 100 people had been involved with looking for the boy, with people continuing to arrive to ask where they could help search.

At around 6 a.m. Saturday Isaiah got up and asked his mother if he could take his dog out for a walk, Arizmendez said, adding that his brother never left the house without checking first with his mother.

She gave permission and he changed clothes and left. At that point, his mother was cooking breakfast and didn’t see what he was wearing when he went out, Arizmendez said.

Arizmendez said his brother usually took his female pit bull for a walk up the hill on a dead end street in the area of Lenore and Davis avenues. “He does it every day.”

A short time later, after he hadn’t returned, Isaiah’s mother went out and began calling for him. When she got no answer, she sent his grandfather out to look for him, Arizmendez said.

About 25 minutes after Isaiah had left the house, his dog came home, still wearing her leash, Arizmendez said.

Arizmendez said police were notified. That led to the alert issued by the agency and a police search earlier in the day.

The area where Isaiah is known to have walked was checked thoroughly. No one has reported seeing him or anything out of the ordinary, Arizmendez said.

They’ve also checked to see if he has contacted any of his friends. “No one has heard from him, no one has seen him,” Arizmendez said.

Arizmendez described his brother as “a good kid” who has never run away.

“We don’t know what else to do,” Arizmendez said.

Isaiah Blevins is described as being 5 feet 7 inches tall and about 90 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.

Arizmendez believes his brother was wearing red Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers, which are his favorite shoes.

Anyone who has information on Isaiah’s whereabout is asked to call the Clearlake Police Department at 707-994-8251.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Six dogs, ranging from little lap dogs to big working dogs, are waiting for new homes at Lake County Animal Care and Control.

This week’s dogs include mixes of Chihuahua, German Shepherd, Great Pyrenees and pit bull.

Lake County Animal Care and Control is adopting out dogs this week with a $50 discount – waiving the county adoption fee portion and costs for microchipping. There will will be costs for spaying and neutering dogs.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.

In addition to the animals featured here, all adoptable animals in Lake County can be seen here: http://bit.ly/Z6xHMb .

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).

‘Honey’

“Honey” is a female Chihuahua mix.

She has a long gold-colored coat, brown eyes and floppy ears.

Shelter staff said she is good with other dogs.

Honey is in kennel No. 2, ID No. 7602.

Female Chihuahua

This female Chihuahua has a medium-length brown coat.

She’s in kennel No. 3, ID No. 7624.

Male pit bull terrier

This male pit bull terrier has a short fawn and white coat.

Shelter staff said he is good with other dogs and not aggressive. He needs to learn how to play and is timid with loud noises.

He’s in kennel No. 18, ID No. 7639.

Great Pyrenees

This male Great Pyrenees is a great big fluffy and friendly guy.

He has a long white coat and floppy ears. He’s already been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 19, ID No. 7655.

‘Charley’

“Charley” is a female German Shepherd.

She has a classic medium-length black and tan coat.

Charley already has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 26, ID No. 7605.

Female pit bull

This female pit bull terrier has a short brown coat with white markings.

Shelter staff said she is great with other dogs, listens well and knows basic commands, and showed no interest in cats. She would be good with children and make a great family dog.

She is in kennel No. 27, ID No. 7601.

To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .

Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.

Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .

For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The updated Lake County forecast calls for the possibility of more rain this weekend.

The county received some June rain on Thursday, with cloudy skies on Friday that cleared as the day wore on. Temperatures also have been far cooler than seasonal norms.

The National Weather Service’s updated Lake County forecast for the weekend calls for chances of rain both Saturday and Sunday, along with winds of up to 20 miles per hour.

On Sunday, there also are chances of thunderstorms, based on the forecast.

Daytime temperatures this weekend are expected to be in the mid 60s, with nighttime lows in the low 40s.

Forecasters said conditions should begin clearing on Sunday night, with sunny conditions to return on Monday and extend through the coming week.

Temperatures also are forecast to rise with the clearing weather, with predictions putting daytime highs near the century mark on Friday.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Old bottles hold more than their intended contents.

Collectors, who enjoy bottles' unique artisanship, understand that historic bottles have personality and secrets galore if you know how to find them.

Believe it or not, some of the very first bottles in the world were created in Asia, in approximately 100 BC, and here in the United States glass bottles and jars were produced in the 1600s with the creation of the Jamestown glass liquefying process in their early furnaces.

The making of glass bottles became even more prevalent when the glass bottle-blowing industry began in the 1880s.

The oldest of the old bottles were formed by melting glass, and then dunking a clay structure or mold, and, finally, when cool, breaking out the fragments of clay for the end product – a hollow vessel.

Archaeologists and bottle collectors have learned to identify how, when and where a particular bottle was produced by the bottle's identifying markings on the bottom of the vessel.

Another important means to determine that information can be found in the type of bottle closure, or cap.

The first bottles were stopped up with wax, then came corks, and finally, various kinds of lids and stoppers were put to use.

Archaeologists state that although you can determine a bottle's age within 10 to 15 years, it is often difficult to pinpoint its exact age accurately.

This could stem from the bottle having been recycled into use by different companies when the newer company may have relabeled a bottle for its new use.

There are, however many diagnostic tools to date a bottle to determine closely, its age range.

There is a "bottle dating key" developed by T. Stell Newman in 1970 that is very useful, and can be viewed as a link on the Society for Historical Archaeology's Web site.

Some bottle-age indicators that stand out to historians include mold seams, any glass that has stuck to the bottle's base, determining if the base is smooth, noting any embossing and color variations of the bottle, to name but a few methods.

During Dr. John Parker's Fireside Chat at the Gibson Museum in Middletown, he had literally unearthed many of those secrets and surprises, then shared them with the public. His bottle talk was highly engaging.

Dr. John Parker is a local archaeologist who helped preserve part of Lake County's valuable past when Anderson Marsh State Historic Park was created.

If you haven't yet viewed the movie of the making of Anderson Marsh State Historic Park, it's a must see.

It's called "A Walk Through Time," and the team who created the video recently garnered several prestigious awards, including an Emmy Award.

Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also formerly wrote for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.

The moon hanging in the night sky sent Robert Hurt’s mind into deep space – to a region some 40 light years away, in fact, where seven Earth-sized planets crowded close to a dim, red sun.

Hurt, a visualization scientist at Caltech’s IPAC center, was walking outside his home in Mar Vista, California, shortly after he learned of the discovery of these rocky worlds around a star called TRAPPIST-1 and got the assignment to visualize them. The planets had been revealed by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and ground-based observatories.

“I just stopped dead in my tracks, and I just stared at it,” Hurt said in an interview. “I was imagining that could be, not our moon, but the next planet over – what it would be like to be in a system where you could look up and see continental features on the next planet.”

So began a kind of inspirational avalanche. Hurt and his colleague, multimedia producer Tim Pyle, developed a series of arresting, photorealistic images of what the new system’s tightly packed planets might look like – so tightly packed that they would loom large in each other’s skies. Their visions of the TRAPPIST-1 system would appear in leading news outlets around the world.

Artists like Hurt and Pyle, who render vibrant visualizations based on data from Spitzer and other missions, are hybrids of sorts, blending expertise in both science and art.

From squiggles on charts and columns of numbers, they conjure red, blue and green worlds, with half-frozen oceans or bubbling lava. Or they transport us to the surface of a world with a red-orange sun fixed in place, and a sky full of planetary companions.

“For the public, the value of this is not just giving them a picture of something somebody made up,” said Douglas Hudgins, a program scientist for the Exoplanet Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “These are real, educated guesses of how something might look to human beings. An image is worth a thousand words.”

Hurt says he and Pyle are building on the work of artistic pioneers.

“There’s actually a long history and tradition for space art and science-based illustration,” he said. “If you trace its roots back to the artist Chesley Bonestell (famous in the 1950s and ’60s), he really was the artist who got this idea: Let’s go and imagine what the planets in our solar system might actually look like if you were, say, on Jupiter’s moon, Io. How big would Jupiter appear in the sky, and what angle would we be viewing it from?”

To begin work on their visualizations, Hurt divided up the seven TRAPPIST-1 planets with Pyle, who shares an office with him at Caltech’s IPAC center in Pasadena, California.

Hurt holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics, and has worked at the center since he was a post-doctoral researcher in 1996 – when astronomical art was just his hobby.

“They created a job for me,” he said.

Pyle, whose background is in Hollywood special effects, joined Hurt in 2004.

Hurt turns to Pyle for artistic inspiration, while Pyle relies on Hurt to check his science.

“Robert and I have our desks right next to each other, so we’re constantly giving each other feedback,” Pyle said. “We’re each upping each other’s game, I think.”

The TRAPPIST-1 worlds offered both of them a unique challenge. The two already had a reputation for illustrating many exoplanets – planets around stars beyond our own -- but never seven Earth-sized worlds in a single system. The planets cluster so close to their star that a “year” on each of them -- the time they take to complete a single orbit -- can be numbered in Earth days.

And like the overwhelming majority of the thousands of exoplanets found so far, they were detected using indirect means. No telescope exists today that is powerful enough to photograph them.

Real science informed their artistic vision. Using data from the telescopes that reveal each planet’s diameter as well as its “weight,” or mass, and known stellar physics to determine the amount of light each planet would receive, the artists went to work.

Both consulted closely with the planets' discovery team as they planned for a NASA announcement to coincide with a report in the journal Nature.

“When we’re doing these artist’s concepts, we’re never saying, ‘This is what these planets actually look like,’” Pyle said. “We’re doing plausible illustrations of what they could look like, based on what we know so far. Having this wide range of seven planets actually let us illustrate almost the whole breadth of what would be plausible. This was going to be this incredible interstellar laboratory for what could happen on an Earth-sized planet.”

For TRAPPIST-1b, Pyle took Jupiter’s volcanic moon, Io, as an inspiration, based on suggestions from the science team. For the outermost world, TRAPPIST-1h, he chose two other Jovian moons, the ice-encased Ganymede and Europa.

After talking to the scientists, Hurt portrayed TRAPPIST-1c as dry and rocky. But because all seven planets are probably tidally locked, forever presenting one face to their star and the other to the cosmos, he placed an ice cap on the dark side.

TRAPPIST-1d was one of three that fall inside the “habitable zone” of the star, or the right distance away from it to allow possible liquid water on the surface.

“The researchers told us they would like to see it portrayed as something they called an ‘eyeball world,’” Hurt said. “You have a dry, hot side that’s facing the star and an ice cap on the back side. But somewhere in between, you have (a zone) where the ice could melt and be sustained as liquid water.” 

At this point, Hurt said, art intervened. The scientists rejected his first version of the planet, which showed liquid water intruding far into the “dayside” of TRAPPIST-1d. They argued that the water would most likely be found well within the planet’s dark half.

“Then I kind of pushed back, and said, ‘If it’s on the dark side, no one can look at it and understand we’re saying there’s water there,’” Hurt said. They struck a compromise: more water toward the dayside than the science team might expect, but a better visual representation of the science.

The same push and pull between science and art extends to other forms of astronomical visualization, whether it’s a Valentine's Day cartoon of a star pulsing like a heart in time with its planet, or materials for the blockbuster announcement of the first detection of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in February 2016. They've also illustrated asteroids, neutron stars, pulsars and brown dwarfs.

Visualizations based on data can also inform science, leading to genuine scientific insights. The scientists’ conclusions about TRAPPIST-1 at first seemed to suggest the planets would be bathed in red light, potentially obscuring features like blue-hued bodies of water.

“It makes it hard to really differentiate what is going on,” Hurt said.

Hurt decided to investigate. A colleague provided him with a spectrum of a red dwarf star similar to TRAPPIST-1.

He overlaid that with the “responsivity curves” of the human eye, and found that most of the scientists’ “red” came from infrared light, invisible to human eyes.

Subtract that, and what is left is a more reddish-orange hue that we might see standing on the surface of a TRAPPIST-1 world – “kind of the same color you would expect to get from a low-wattage light bulb,” Hurt said. “And the scientists looked at that and said, ‘Oh, ok, great, it’s orange.’ When the math tells you the answer, there really isn’t a lot to argue about.”

For Hurt, the real goal of scientific illustration is to excite the public, engage them in the science, and provide a snapshot of scientific knowledge.

“If you look at the whole history of space art, reaching back many, many decades, you will find you have a visual record,” he said. “The art is a historical record of our changing understanding of the universe. It becomes a part of the story, and a part of the research, I think.”

For more information on exoplanets, visit https://exoplanets.nasa.gov .

Pat Brennan works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A teenage boy who went missing early Saturday morning has been located and is safe.

Just before 8:30 p.m. the Clearlake Police Department reported that 13-year-old Isaiah Blevins was found.

The boy had gone missing at around 6 a.m. in the area of Lenore and Davis avenues while walking his dog, as Lake County News has reported.

Chris Arizmendez, Isaiah’s older brother, told Lake County News that the search had continued all day, with about 100 people taking part.

Arizmendez told Lake County News that Isaiah was located in the area of 30th Avenue Saturday evening.

He confirmed that his younger brother was OK.

Additional details about what led to the boy’s disappearance were not immediately available.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Library is a recipient of a grant of $5,000 to host the NEA Big Read in Lake County.

An initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, the NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book.

Lake County Library is one of 75 nonprofit organizations to receive an NEA Big Read grant to host a community reading program between September 2017 and June 2018.

The NEA Big Read in Lake County will focus on “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel. Activities will take place in October.

“The Big Read isn’t just a series of fun community events, it’s a great way to promote the importance of reading and literacy for our community,” said Christopher Veach, director of the Lake County Library. “There is more information out there than ever and people need a high level of literacy to be able to evaluate and understand the information they need for their school, work, or personal life. The best way to increase literacy is to read.”

“Through the NEA Big Read we are bringing contemporary works to communities across the country, helping us better understand the diverse voices and perspectives that come with it,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “These 75 organizations have developed unique plans to celebrate these works, including numerous opportunities for exploration and conversation.”

The NEA Big Read showcases a diverse range of contemporary titles that reflect many different voices and perspectives, aiming to inspire conversation and discovery.

The main feature of the initiative is a grants program, managed by Arts Midwest, which annually supports approximately 75 dynamic community reading programs, each designed around a single NEA Big Read selection.

Planning is already underway for the Big Read in Lake County. As well as the library the Lake County Friends of Mendocino College, the Friends of the Lake County Library, the Friends of the Middletown Library, and many other community organizations will be helping to bring the Big Read to Lake County.

Since 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts has funded more than 1,400 NEA Big Read programs, providing more than $19 million in grants to organizations nationwide. In addition, Big Read activities have reached every Congressional district in the country.

Over the past 11 years, grantees have leveraged more than $42 million in local funding to support their NEA Big Read programs. More than 4.8 million Americans have attended an NEA Big Read event, approximately 79,000 volunteers have participated at the local level, and 37,000 community organizations have partnered to make NEA Big Read activities possible.

Last summer, the NEA announced a new focus for the NEA Big Read Library on contemporary authors and books written since the NEA was founded 50 years ago.

For more information about the NEA Big Read, please visit www.neabigread.org .

Since its creation in 1974, the Lake County Library system has provided library service to the public of Lake County with four convenient branch locations in Lakeport, Clearlake, Middletown and Upper Lake.

To learn more about the programs and services offered by the library, including the Big Read, visit http://library.lakecountyca.gov .

Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities.

Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. Visit www.arts.gov to learn more about NEA.

Jan Cook is a technician with the Lake County Library.