LIVERMORE, Calif.

AMES, Iowa – The metal poles that carry power lines across the country are built to take whatever blows at them. So they're big and round and sturdy – as much as 12 feet in diameter and 100 feet high.

The yearly General Assembly of the European Geological Union is taking place in Vienna, Austria and Dr. Olaf Eisen from the German Alfred Wegener Institute has presented results from an environmentally friendly measurement method that he and his colleagues used on an Antarctic ice-shelf for the first time in early 2010.

Major greenhouse gas-emitting countries agreed in the December, 2009, climate talks in Copenhagen that substantial action is required to limit the increase of the global average temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).