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tagged w/ Ocean Currents
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Japan Tsunami Debris Charts a Course Across the Pacific Ocean
Mother Nature Network...
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Japan tsunami debris charts a course across the ocean
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Like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, debris from the March 2011 tsunami is expected to begin washing up on shores, including the Hawaiian Islands.
By Brett Israel, OurAmazingPlanetWed, Feb 29 2012 at 11:55 AM EST
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PHOTO:
OUT TO SEA: An aerial view of debris from an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck northern Japan. (Photo: U.S. Navy/AFLO/ZUMA Press)
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The tsunami triggered by the devastating earthquake that struck off the east coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, produced an estimated 25 million tons of debris. Much of this debris was swept out into the Pacific Ocean as the waters retreated.
The new animation shows its probable path, which is helpful to shipping traffic since some of the debris is dangerously large. Debris-tracking missions have already found two fishing vessels that were carried out to sea by the tsunami.
Where it's heading
Since that magnitude 9.0 quake, the debris that has stayed afloat has drifted apart due to winds and ocean currents, with most of it moving eastward. Scientists have predicted the debris could wash up along the West Coast of the United States by next year. It is expected to hit Midway Atoll this winter and the main Hawaiian Islands in the winter of 2012-2013.
All is clear at the Midway Atoll so far this winter, though. The ocean currents have kept any debris away, said Jan Hafner of the International Pacific Research Center, who is part of the team that modeled the debris path.
"The currents are changing constantly and we expect the tsunami debris to reach there soon," Hafner told OurAmazingPlanet.
The debris has dispersed and is not visible by satellites, so scientists deployed hundreds of high-tech devices to help monitor the path of the debris, which could be hazardous to ships, marine life and coastlines.
Identifying Debris
A few big pieces of debris have turned up. At the end of September 2011, a Russian ship reported the edge of the debris field 250 miles (400 kilometers) northwest of Midway. About 100 miles (161 km) farther on, the ship found a 20-foot-long (6 meters) boat from Fukushima, which was identified by its markings.
Along the West Coast of North America, news reports have suggested that debris is already arriving. Debris from Asia, however, routinely washes up here, so scientists are cautious before confirming any debris they find is from the tsunami.
"If an unusually large amount of unusual types of debris washes on a beach, that is an indication of debris from the tsunami," Hafner said.
Scientists also look for identifying markers, such as registration numbers, Hafner said.
One of the fishing vessels had markings on the wheelhouse of the boat that showed its homeport to be in Fukushima Prefecture, the area hardest hit by the massive tsunami.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has urged anyone that spots potential tsunami debris to report it by emailing DisasterDebris@noaa.gov.
.Mother Nature Network... . Japan tsunami debris charts a course across the ocean... more-
- EthicalVegan
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- 3 months ago
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- 3 comments
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Science behind the big freeze: is climate change bringing the Arctic to Europe?
A loss of sea ice could be a cause of the bitter winds that have swept across the UK in the past week, weather experts say
The bitterly cold weather sweeping Britain and the rest of Europe has been linked by scientists with the ice-free seas of the Arctic, where global warming is exerting its greatest influence.
A dramatic loss of sea ice covering the Barents and Kara Seas above northern Russia could explain why a chill Arctic wind has engulfed much of Europe and killed 221 people over the past week.
The death toll from Arctic blast has been particularly severe in the Ukraine, where many of the dead have been people sleeping on the streets. Heating and food tents have been set up to ease their hardship. In Romania 24 people are known to have died and 17 in Poland.
A growing number of experts believe complex wind patterns are being changed because melting Arctic sea ice has exposed huge swaths of normally frozen ocean to the atmosphere above.
In particular, the loss of Arctic sea ice could be influencing the development of high-pressure weather systems over northern Russia, which bring very cold winds from the Arctic and Siberia to Western Europe and the British Isles, the scientists believe. An intense anticyclone over north-west Russia is behind the bitterly cold easterly winds that have swept across Europe and some climate scientists say the lack of Arctic sea ice brought about by global warming is responsible.
"The current weather pattern fits earlier predictions of computer models for how the atmosphere responds to the loss of sea ice due to global warming," said Professor Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "The ice-free areas of the ocean act like a heater as the water is warmer than the Arctic air above it. This favours the formation of a high-pressure system near the Barents Sea, which steers cold air into Europe."
Sea ice covering the Barents and Kara Seas has been exceptionally low this winter, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado. But air temperatures above the Barents and Kara Seas have been higher than average. The relatively mild westerly winds that have kept Britain from freezing much of this winter have been blocked by fierce high pressure over north-west Russia, centred on an area just south of the Barents Sea.
Studies by scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research have confirmed a link between the loss of Arctic sea ice and the development of high-pressure zones in the polar region, which influence wind patterns at lower latitudes further south. Scientists found that as the cap of sea ice is removed from the ocean, huge amounts of heat are released from the sea into the colder air above, causing the air to rise. Rising air destabilises the atmosphere and alters the difference in air pressure between the Arctic and more southerly regions, changing wind patterns.
Professor Rahmstorf said the Alfred Wegener study confirms earlier predictions from computer models by Vladimir Petoukhov of the Potsdam Institute, who forecast colder winters in western Europe as a result of melting sea ice.
Dr Petoukhov and his colleague Vladimir Semenov were among the first scientists to suggest a link between the loss of sea ice and colder winters in Europe. Their 2009 study simulated the effects of disappearing sea ice and found that for some years to come the loss will increase the chances of colder winters.
"Whoever thinks that the shrinking of some far-away sea ice won't bother him could be wrong. There are complex interconnections in the climate system, and in the Barents-Kara Sea we might have discovered a powerful feedback mechanism," Dr Petoukhov said.
More at the linkA loss of sea ice could be a cause of the bitter winds that have swept across the UK... more-
- JanforGore
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- 4 months ago
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- 88 comments
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Snow falls in Rome for first time in 26 years/European death toll rising
Snow fell in Rome today for the first time in 26 years as freezing temperatures took the death toll across Europe to more than 150.
The Italian capital is usually blessed by a moderate climate but the snowfall prompted authorities stop visitors from entering the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill, the former home of Rome's ancient emperors.
The last substantial snowfalls in Rome were in 1985 and 1986, though there have been other cases of lighter snow since then, including in 2010. The director of the Colosseum, Rossella Rea, said the sites were closed out of fears that visitors could slip on ice..
Snow began falling in the late morning Friday, leaving a light dusting on trees and cars and forming slush on the roads. It wasn't clear if there would be any significant accumulation on the ground.
The European Union is bracing for another potential energy crisis in the dead of winter as Russian gas supplies to some of its member states suddenly have dwindled by up to 30 percent.
The European Commission put its gas coordination committee on alert today, but insisted the situation had not yet reached an emergency level since coordination between nations to help each other had improved and storage facilities had been upgraded.
Commission spokeswoman Marlene Holzner said Russia was going through an extremely cold spell and needed more gas to keep its citizens warm.
She said that Russia's gas contracts 'allow for certain flexibility in case they also need the gas. And that is the situation that Russia is facing at the moment.' The severe winter in Russia has seen temperatures drop to minus 35 C (minus 30 F).
The north of the country has also been gripped by snow and ice that is disrupting train travel.Temperatures plunged as low as minus 22 Celsius (minus 7 Fahrenheit), in Trepalle, a village in the Italian Alps.
Snow in Rome came as the death toll across Europe reached 150. Temperatures have plummeted as low as -36c in parts of Ukraine and Siberia.
In Serbia, at least 11,000 villagers are stranded in their homes by heavy snow and blizzards which have hit remote areas that cannot be reached due to icy, snow-clogged roads.
The worst weather is near Serbia's southwestern town of Sijenica, where it has been freezing cold or snowing for 26 days, and diesel fuel supplies used by snowploughs are running low.Thirty-eight more people have died overnight as freezing weather grips Ukraine, authorities say. The death toll there from the past week is now 101.
The Emergency Situations Ministry in Ukraine said more than 1,200 other people have been treated in hospital for hypothermia and frostbite as temperatures in some parts of the country sank to -32C (-26F).
Authorities have closed schools and colleges and set up nearly 3,000 heating and food shelters across the country. Health officials instructed hospitals not to discharge homeless patients, even after treatment is finished, to save them from the cold.Experts said the high death toll reflects the country's inability to deal with the homeless. There have been dozens of death elsewhere in Eastern Europe with thousands of villagers trapped by heavy snow and blizzards in Serbia.
Snow fell across large parts of the UK, with two inches covering Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk in white, while in the Pennines, fences and phone masts resembled ice sculptures.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095509/Eastern-European-death-toll-hits-150-big-freeze-continues-continent.html#ixzz1lLAK4MWv
More at the link
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/03/article-2095509-11937090000005DC-753_964x632.jpgSnow fell in Rome today for the first time in 26 years as freezing temperatures took... more-
- JanforGore
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- 4 months ago
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- 8 comments
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Britain battered by storms- two dead
Fierce winter storms battered Britain on Tuesday, leaving two men dead and causing widespread chaos for air, sea and rail travellers.
Winds of more than 100 miles per hour (160 kilometres per hour) swept in, closing the English Channel port of Dover for several hours and causing major disruption to train services across Britain and flights at Scottish airports.
A van driver in his 50s died after his stationary vehicle was crushed by a falling oak tree in Tunbridge Wells, a town southeast of London, police said.
A second man died after a chemical tanker was hit by a large wave in the Channel amid stormy conditions, coastguards said. A Navy helicopter evacuated the man, who was unconscious, from the vessel, but he died later in hospital.
The renowned Epsom racecourse, home of the English Derby in southeast England, was evacuated after part of the grandstand roof blew off, although there were no spectators there at the time.
Some of the worst weather was in Scotland, where at least 35 flights were cancelled at Glasgow airport and 40 at Edinburgh airport.
In Dunoon in western Scotland, five people were injured when high winds overturned caravans, while 15 people were rescued from a boat that was blown away as it was being repaired in a west coast shipyard.
Many train services that normally take passengers from England to Scotland were forced to halt their journeys in northern England due to the high winds, while bridges across Scotland were forced to close.
In Northern Ireland, 10,000 properties were left without electricity after fallen trees and severe winds damaged power lines.Fierce winter storms battered Britain on Tuesday, leaving two men dead and causing... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 5 months ago
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- 4 comments
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Tons of Los Angeles River Trash to Be Captured Before Reaching Pacific Ocean
Los Angeles Times...
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Environmental news from California and beyond
Greenspace
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Tons of L.A. River trash to be captured before hitting the sea
November 1, 2011 | 4:57 pm
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Tons of trash normally swept to the ocean by the Los Angeles River should be captured by thousands of trash screens that have been installed beneath nearly every storm drain in the lower reaches of the river.
The project is believed to be the largest debris-capturing effort in the nation and marks the most aggressive attack yet on river trash in the Los Angeles region.
The project spans 16 cities and is expected to keep 840,000 pounds of debris -- the equivalent of about 450 Volkswagen Beetles -- from reaching the ocean each year, according to the Gateway Authority, a coalition of cities and public water agencies in southeastern L.A. County.
The biggest winner from the project is Long Beach, where workers routinely have to scoop floating islands of plastic bottles, grocery bags and other debris flowing from dozens of communities upstream before it litters the city’s coastline.
In August 2010, crews began installing the stainless-steel, full-capture trash devices inside nearly 12,000 catch basins.
The simple mesh contraptions sit just below the drains where water from city streets flows into the storm-water system and can catch debris as small as a cigarette butt.
Another 5,400 drains in the most-littered areas also were outfitted with street-level retractable screens as a second layer of defense.
.Los Angeles Times... . Environmental news from California and beyond... more-
- EthicalVegan
- added this
- 7 months ago
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- 2 comments
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Greenland Massive Flash Flood from Super Volcano Will Affect Ocean Currents and Global Temps (VIDEO)
Every so often the earth chooses to remind us that we really aren't in control of this planet. Greenland's massive runoff causing desalination of North Atlantic Shutdown of thermohaline circulation.Every so often the earth chooses to remind us that we really aren't in control of... more-
- dryeraser
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- 10 months ago
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Arctic ice at record low: NSIDC director Serreze: 'ice free summer by 2030/downward spiral'
We’re at a record low Arctic sea ice extent and volume:
The area of the Arctic ocean at least 15% covered in ice is … lower than the previous record low set in 2007 – according to satellite monitoring by the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado. In addition, new data from the University of Washington Polar Science Centre, shows that the thickness of Arctic ice this year is also the lowest on record.
In the past 10 days, the Arctic ocean has been losing as much as 150,000 square kilometres of sea a day, said Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC.
“The extent [of the ice cover] is going down, but it is also thinning. So a weather pattern that formerly would melt some ice, now gets rid of much more. There will be ups and downs, but we are on track to see an ice-free summer by 2030. It is an overall downward spiral.“
The trend is painfully obvious to all who aren’t blinded by ideology. Indeed, many, including me, believe we’ll see virtually ice-free summers within a decade.
What do the experts — and deniers — predict for the September sea ice extent minimum? The Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) has released its second Sea Ice Outlook report for July. Just about all the cryo-scientists think the Arctic will easily beat last year’s minimum:
More at the linkWe’re at a record low Arctic sea ice extent and volume: The area of the... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 11 months ago
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- 35 comments
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Recycling Sand: Dredging and Beach Nourishment in South Padre Island Texas
In the southern part of South Padre Island Texas, there is too much sand at the bottom of the Brownsville channel entrance. At the same time, there is not enough sand in the more northern part of the island’s beach. What to do? The answer is to dredge the channel and pump the sand through large pipes from the channel entrance near Isla Blanca Park, all the way up to the northern part of the beach near Andie Bowie Park. A 5 mile (8km) stretch. In essence, recycling sand. As we say, killing two birds with one stone.In the southern part of South Padre Island Texas, there is too much sand at the bottom... more-
- JacquesHalle
- added this
- 1 year ago
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Record low Arctic sea ice extent for January
During the Northern Hemisphere winter of 2010-2011, unusually cold temperatures and heavy snowstorms plagued North America and Europe, while conditions were unusually warm farther north. Now the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has reported that Arctic sea ice was at its lowest extent ever recorded for January (since satellite records began).
This image shows the average Arctic sea ice concentration for January 2011, based on observations from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite.
Blue indicates open water; white indicates high sea ice concentrations; and turquoise indicates loosely packed sea ice. The yellow line shows the average sea ice extent for January from 1979 through 2000.
NSIDC reported that ice extent was unusually low in Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, and Davis Strait in the early winter. Normally frozen over by late November, these areas did not completely freeze until mid-January 2011. The Labrador Sea was also unusually ice-free.
NSIDC offered two possible explanations. One reason is the Arctic Oscillation (AO), a seesaw pattern of differences in atmospheric pressure.
In "positive" mode, the AO includes high pressure over the mid-latitudes and low pressure over the Arctic, setting up wind patterns that trap cold air in the far North.
In "negative" mode, air pressure isn't quite as low over the Arctic and isn't quite as high over the mid-latitudes. This enables cold air to creep south and relatively warm air to move north.
The AO was in negative mode in December 2010 and January 2011, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
At mid-latitudes, the negative mode resulted in extremely cold temperatures and heavy snow in Europe and North America. At the same time, warm air over the Arctic impeded sea ice growth. NOAA has forecast that the AO should return to positive mode in February 2011, but for how long was unclear.
Another factor in the low Arctic sea ice extent, NSIDC explained, could be that the areas of open ocean were still releasing heat to the atmosphere. Due to its bright appearance, sea ice reflects most of the Sun's light and heat back into space. Dark ocean water, by contrast, absorbs most of that energy and reinforces the melting process.During the Northern Hemisphere winter of 2010-2011, unusually cold temperatures and... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
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- 99 comments
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"Alarming" Amazon drought may have global fallout
The world's largest tropical forest, the Amazon, experienced something rare last year —a drought. It wasn't the earth-cracking kind of drought that happens in the American Southwest or the Australian outback, but it did stunt or kill lots of trees.
It was the second such drought in the Amazon in five years, and forest scientists are trying to understand why these droughts are happening, and what their effects will be for the planet.
The 2005 drought in the Amazon was so unusual that scientists called it a "100-year event" — something supposed to happen only once a century.
"This is what's quite alarming — that we've seen these two very unusual events," says Simon Lewis, a forest ecologist at the University of Leeds in Great Britain, who watched both droughts hit the Amazon. Lewis notes that several of the computer models that calculate the effects of climate change do predict that parts of the planet are going to get drier.
"And those two unusual events are consistent with those predictions that suggest that the Amazon may be severely impacted over the next few decades by these droughts," he says.
How Droughts Affect Forests
Writing in the journal Science, Lewis and his scientific team say the droughts are probably caused by the northward movement of especially warm water in the Atlantic Ocean. That shift carries moisture north, robbing big chunks of the Amazon of rain it normally would get.
The droughts can create a different forest — thinner, smaller and with a different mix of tree species. That, in turn, could affect the Earth's climate. As trees grow, they suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it, so a big forest like the Amazon is a carbon "sink."
But drought slows that process down — more carbon remains in the atmosphere, and that could warm the planet.
If the forest gets dry enough, air can get into the vessels that carry water through a tree — kind of like an air bubble in a fuel line — and a tree dies. If enough die, that too could affect the atmosphere.
"As these dead trees rot and release their carbon in their trunks and roots into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, then we see it probably turning into a source of carbon emissions," Lewis says.The world's largest tropical forest, the Amazon, experienced something rare last... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
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- 93 comments
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Gulf Oil Ecocide: Most toxic oil still in water columns?
This video exposes a confidential report of an experiment done in Norway in 2000 by a consortium of oil companies including BP and the US government showing how a deep water blowout would create clouds of super toxic oil which could not be recovered. Was it a surprise that most of the oil from the BP well stayed in the Gulf of Mexico, at depth, in clouds of small particles? It may have been to us but it shouldn't have been to BP or MMS (the government agency whose job it is to regulate deep water drilling). It also should have come as no surprise to NOAA (the government agency that regulates anything in the sea around the U.S.) All of those institutions did deny the first reports of the clouds when they were found by the Pelican research vessel and the University of Missisippi's Dr. Ray Highsmith and his crew. But they must have known because MMS and the oil companies paid for, and conducted an experiment off the coast of Norway in 2000 to see what would happen in a deepwater oil well blowout. Remember all that "this is a new problem" you heard on television? Well the study showed that the oil would not all rise to the surface to be collected but would tend to form cloud layers of neutrally buoyant particles that might be the most toxic part of the oil.
Here's a direct quote from the report:
"This is important information, because the water-soluble compounds are generally the most toxic ones when exposed to marine biota. The results from these measurements show that the rising of the oil through the water column represents a kind of a "stripping" process of some of the most toxic compounds in the oil. The end result is therefore that a portion of the most toxic compounds is left in the water column."
to see the final report go to
http://afterthepress.com/?p=315
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But hey, the media and government told us everything is all gone, and a "study" just coming out (how timely) states that bacteria ate every little bit of the methane in three months! Gee did it chase it through the atmosphere too? Wow! What a miracle! G U L L I B I L I T Y is killing this planet. But hey, let's not seek truth or rock the boat or try to connect the dots. Afterall, it was only a little over a few million gallons of toxic oil and pounds of toxic soup mixed in.This video exposes a confidential report of an experiment done in Norway in 2000 by a... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
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- 53 comments
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From Snowstorms to Heat Waves, How Global Warming Causes Extreme Weather and Climate Instability
The East Coast is struggling to recover from the massive blizzard that slammed into hundreds cities and towns from the Carolinas to Maine. The storm was a grimly fitting end to 2010, which was characterized by extreme weather from start to finish with heat waves, floods, volcanoes, blizzards, landslides and droughts. While TV networks closely follow extreme weather events around the world, they rarely make the connection between extreme weather and global warming. We speak with Dr. Paul Epstein of Harvard University’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. [includes rush transcript]
AMY GOODMAN: Much of the East Coast is still struggling to recover from the massive blizzard that slammed into hundreds of cities and towns from the Carolinas to Maine the day after Christmas. Six states—Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia—declared states of emergency. The storm buried cities in more than two feet of snow and unleashed winds of up to 80 miles per hour. Thousands of passengers have been stranded during the busy holiday season with thousands of flights as well as train and bus routes canceled.
It was a grimly fitting end to 2010, which was characterized by extreme weather from start to finish, with earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts. In Pakistan, massive flooding submerged one-fifth of the country under water. In Russia, a record heat wave sparked wildfires that left 15,000 people dead. In Niger, first a severe drought threatened widespread famine, then floods left more than 100,000 homeless. In Europe, heavy snow and blizzards threw air traffic into turmoil. Deadly floods and mudslides killed thousands in China, India, Venezuela, Indonesia and many other countries. Meanwhile, preliminary data show that 18 countries broke their records for the hottest day ever. In fact, 2010 may go down as the hottest on record worldwide, this according to the World Meteorological Organization.
While TV networks blare the two words "extreme weather," what about another two: global warming? Dr. Paul Epstein is associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. He’s co-author of the forthcoming book Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It. He’s joining us via Democracy Now! video stream from his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Dr. Epstein, welcome to Democracy Now! Let’s get an assessment from you. One article said, "Bundle up. It’s global warming." Relate the two—the freezing weather to global warming.
DR. PAUL EPSTEIN: Good morning, Amy. Good to be with you.
Yes, we are certainly in a spate of extreme weather events, and it seems that this year has been a real uptick in all sorts of events, from heavy rains to droughts to heat waves and now cold weather. And I think if we think back at last winter, we also had a very intense winter with three large snowstorms together. And now we’re seeing this heavy snowfall in the United States, but also the last several months in Europe, as you recall here.
The underlying issue between global warming and climate change, meaning warming and changes in weather patterns, is that in the last 50 years, the oceans have absorbed 22 times as much heat as has the atmosphere. Let me repeat that, because it’s not often considered as part of the global warming story, but the heat of the last half century has built up in the oceans, and it’s the accelerated evaporation off of warm oceans that drives the heavy rains. A warmer atmosphere also holds more water vapor. For each one degree centigrade it heats up, it holds seven more—seven percent more water vapor. So there’s a push and a pull on the whole water cycle. And the key here is that global warming in the hemisphere, through the ocean engine, is now changing the weather patterns, and it’s the hydrological cycle, the earth’s water cycle, that’s been dramatically changed, with more droughts in some areas and more intense rains in others, and now intense snows.
AMY GOODMAN: We are getting tremendous wall-to-wall, 24-hour-a-day coverage of weather. In fact, we got an email from a friend. The subject said, "News?" with a question mark. And then it said, questioning why we were covering weather, saying, "What’s next? Traffic and sports?" But the weather is news, if the newscasters on television took it on by talking about the issue of global warming—you know, what people can do about this. I want to go to the issue of how it’s covered in the media. Dr. Paul Epstein, start off by talking about this issue.
cont.The East Coast is struggling to recover from the massive blizzard that slammed into... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
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- 46 comments
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Dead fish all over east coast-lack of oxygen from gulf ecocide?
What a coverup. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the oil more than likely has entered the ocean current loop and may well be depriving oxygen to marinelife causing these huge fishkills all up the East Coast. The media is covering it up, the government is covering it up. And yes, there are such things as fishkills and that is understood. However, this seems out of the ordinary. It isn't enough that we are killing the oceans with our plastic, poisons, acidification, overfishing and agricultural run off, we will now let BP get away with dealing the final blow.
I give props to the person who compiled all of this information and News.
These news links are located at the video.
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623 Satellite photos from the University of Miami that you don't see on TV (thnx2 HexAngler) : http://www.cstars.miami.edu/Media/pho...
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My previous video on this subject, (actual news clips) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg5vQU...
Animation of the oil and chemical path :
http://www2.ucar.edu/news/ocean-curre...
and another one:
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/soest_web...
"Scientists are also looking into systemwide problems that could result from the disaster. It's still a possibility that oil could worsen the pre-existing, oxygen-free "dead zone" in the Gulf, which is known to cause massive fish kills.
And others worry deep-water dead zones could develop as bacteria chew on the oil and, in the process, deplete the oxygen that's available to other organisms."
(quote from this article : http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/08/09/...
7.23 - James Island, SC - "hundreds of dead fish"
http://www.live5news.com/Global/story...
8.3 - Beloxi Mississippi - "1000s dead fish from accidental fishing boat spill"?
http://www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5unKu...
8.4 - Hampton VA - 20,000 dead fish from "accidental fishing boat spill"??
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=600&sid=2019016
8.6 Port St. Joe, FL, mass numbers of dead fish
http://www.wjhg.com/news/headlines/10...
8.8 - New Hampshire, beach closings, bacteria
http://www.eagletribune.com/newhampsh...
8.9 - Queens Park, NY dead fish
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-...
8.11 - Maine, beach closings, bacteria
http://www.seacoastonline.com/article...
8.11 - thousands of dead fish in Massachusetts
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/...
8.12 - Two 14 foot great white sharks spotted feeding off Chatham on Cape Cod, beaches closed http://www.boston.com/news/local/mass...
8.12 - Rhode Island beaches closed, bacteria
http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/massachu...
8.12 - Thirty-three beaches in Boston area closed because of bacteria
http://www.boston.com/news/local/mass...
8.12 - "tens of thousands of dead fish" on New Jersey shore
"Strangest of all, seagulls aren't going near what would normally appear to be a free lunch for the area's birds."
http://globalgrind.com/channel/news/c...
8.13 - Long Island, beach closings, bacteria
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/su...
more in Long Island
http://town.huntington.ny.us/departme...
8.13 - "hundreds of dead fish", Collier County, FL
http://www.abc-7.com/Global/story.asp...
8.13
Alabama, all kinds of dead everything washing up?
http://www.jrdeputyaccountant.com/201...
8.13 - Tampa, FL - beach closings, bacteria
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/aug/...
8.14 - New Jersey beach closings, bacteria
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/ne...
8.14 - Miami, FL - beaches closed, bacteria
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/14...
8.14 - Ft. Lauderdale beaches closed, bacteria
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/brow...
MASS RESIDENTS : here is a link for updated beach info :
http://mass.digitalhealthdepartment.c...What a coverup. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the oil more than... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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- 18 comments
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Arctic sea ice shrinks to third lowest area on record
Arctic sea ice melted over the summer to cover the third smallest area on record, US researchers said Wednesday, warning global warming could leave the region ice free in the month of September 2030.
Last week, at the end of the spring and summer "melt season" in the Arctic, sea ice covered 4.76 million square kilometers (1.84 million square miles), the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center said in an annual report.
"This is only the third time in the satellite record that ice extent has fallen below five million square kilometers (1.93 million square miles), and all those occurrences have been within the past four years," the report said.
A separate report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that in August, too, Arctic sea ice coverage was down sharply, covering an average of six million square kilometers (2.3 million square miles), or 22 percent below the average extent from 1979 to 2000.
The August coverage was the second lowest for Arctic sea ice since records began in 1979. Only 2007 saw a smaller area of the northern sea covered in ice in August, NOAA said.
The record low for Arctic sea ice cover at the end of the spring and summer "melt season" in September, was also in 2007, when ice covered just 4.13 million square kilometers (1.595 million square miles).
Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC, said climate-change skeptics might seize the fact that Arctic sea ice did not hit a record-low extent this year, but said they would be barking up the wrong tree if they claimed the shrinkage had been stopped.
"Only the third lowest? It didn't set a new record? Well, right. It didn't set a new record but we're still headed down. We're not looking at any kind of recovery here," he told AFP.
In fact, Serreze said, Arctic sea ice cover is shrinking year-round, with more ice melting in the spring and summer months and less ice forming in the fall and winter.
"The Arctic, like the globe as a whole, is warming up and warming up quickly, and we're starting to see the sea ice respond to that. Really, in all months, the sea ice cover is shrinking -- there's an overall downward trend," Serreze told AFP.
"The extent of Arctic ice is dropping at something like 11 percent per decade -- very quickly, in other words.
"Our thinking is that by 2030 or so, if you went out to the Arctic on the first of September, you probably won't see any ice at all. It will look like a blue ocean, we're losing it that quickly," he said.
Losing sea ice cover in the Arctic would affect everything from the obvious, such as people who live in the far north and polar bears, to global weather patterns, said Serreze.
"The Arctic acts as a sort of refrigerator of the northern hemisphere. As we lose the ice cover, we start to change the nature of that refrigerator, and what happens up there affects what happens down here in the middle latitudes," he said.
"We might have less cold outbreaks, which you might say is a good thing, but it's not such a good thing in regions that depend on snowfall for their water supply."
NOAA noted in its report that the first eight months of 2010 were in equal first place with the same period in 1998 for the warmest combined land and ocean surface temperatures on record worldwide, and the summer months were the second warmest on record globally, after 1998.Arctic sea ice melted over the summer to cover the third smallest area on record, US... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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- 102 comments
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The End of Life in Earth's Oceans
More evidence that the liberal media are lying.-
- Progresshiv
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- 2 years ago
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NASA: the ocean's carbon balance
"For eons, the world’s oceans have been sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and releasing it again in a steady inhale and exhale. The ocean takes up carbon dioxide through photosynthesis by plant-like organisms (phytoplankton), as well as by simple chemistry: carbon dioxide dissolves in water. It reacts with seawater, creating carbonic acid. Carbonic acid releases hydrogen ions, which combine with carbonate in seawater to form bicarbonate, a form of carbon that doesn’t escape the ocean easily.
Crew members aboard the R/V Roger Revelle retrieve a CTD rosette from the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean. As the device is lowered into the ocean, electronic instruments measure salinity, temperature, and depth. Each of the white bottles collects seawater at different depths for detailed analysis. (Photograph ©2008 Brett longworth.)
As we burn fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels go up, the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide to stay in balance. But this absorption has a price: these reactions lower the water’s pH, meaning it’s more acidic. And the ocean has its limits. As temperatures rise, carbon dioxide leaks out of the ocean like a glass of root beer going flat on a warm day. Carbonate gets used up and has to be re-stocked by upwelling of deeper waters, which are rich in carbonate dissolved from limestone and other rocks.
In the center of the ocean, wind-driven currents bring cool waters and fresh carbonate to the surface. The new water takes up yet more carbon to match the atmosphere, while the old water carries the carbon it has captured into the ocean.
The warmer the surface water becomes, the harder it is for winds to mix the surface layers with the deeper layers. The ocean settles into layers, or stratifies. Without an infusion of fresh carbonate-rich water from below, the surface water saturates with carbon dioxide. The stagnant water also supports fewer phytoplankton, and carbon dioxide uptake from photosynthesis slows. In short, stratification cuts down the amount of carbon the ocean can take up."
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Good article about the scientific research that goes into determining the natural and human factors behind Co2 absorption and balance in our oceans. And as this article illustrates, humans will have to mitigate their emissions of Co2 in order for our oceans to continue to be able to balance Co2 in a way that sustains them, our planet, and all species that depend on them for life."For eons, the world’s oceans have been sucking carbon dioxide out of the... more-
- JanforGore
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- 3 years ago
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- 4 comments
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New ocean current discovered
Information about the effects of global warming on salinity/nutrients levels in the sea and how it's going to effect us on a large scale soon.Information about the effects of global warming on salinity/nutrients levels in the... more-
- KeithdaSneith
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- 4 years ago
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- 28 comments
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My Three Left Feet
Three severed left feet have washed up in Canada aboard running shoes.
"According to a spokesman for the RCMP, the chance of two right feet washing up in size 12 running shoes were 'a million to one'. That was before the next foot arrived. What is unbelievable is the fact that the feet had running shoes on."
Clearly there is something foul afoot. (Ouch! Sorry, that hurt.)
"Where or from whom these shoes came from [sic] are anyone’s guess. They could be from anywhere and easily be from 1000 miles away. Japan is not even out of the question. The authorities have begun DNA testing to try and determine what part of the world the shoes came from and perhaps can link them to a missing person."Three severed left feet have washed up in Canada aboard running shoes.... more-
- JordanRoth
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- 4 years ago
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- 0 comments
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