Mother of all gushers - BP Oil Disaster in Gulf of Mexico
- Thread starter jelyfish
- Start date
On the subject of Matt Simmons' "heart attack in his bath":
In ex-Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky's book By Way of Deception he recounts a case where the 'assassinee', who was staying in a Belgian hotel room, was secretly given a sedative in his drink by 'room service' to first render him unconscious, at which point a group of Mossad operatives entered his room, stripped him naked, inserted a tube into his anus, inserted several tablets into the tube which raised his body temperature to dangerous levels, before dumping him in a bath full of cold war. The result? The man was found the next morning in his bath having suffered an "obvious" and verifiable 'heart attack'.
In ex-Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky's book By Way of Deception he recounts a case where the 'assassinee', who was staying in a Belgian hotel room, was secretly given a sedative in his drink by 'room service' to first render him unconscious, at which point a group of Mossad operatives entered his room, stripped him naked, inserted a tube into his anus, inserted several tablets into the tube which raised his body temperature to dangerous levels, before dumping him in a bath full of cold war. The result? The man was found the next morning in his bath having suffered an "obvious" and verifiable 'heart attack'.
Ljubica said:
I've been following this gulf loop current issue closely since the story broke because I think it is the trigger for a lot of the cataclysmic predictions mentioned in the Transcripts. While any aware observer will notice that there are definitely some climate changes going on, I have personally not been convinced that this loop current thing is significant based on the data that is available to me. At argo.colorado.edu/~realtime/welcome you can view a lot of the raw satelite data and do your own comparative analysis. I've posted a few images here to illustrate the loop current and certain "anomalous behavior" it has exhibited in the past.
The loop current usually looks something like this. You can see that it spins off a number of eddies that drift toward Mexico.
Here is the loop current in the process of spinning off a new eddy that will drift towards Texas.
Now here we have a situation which is almost identical to the one in June/July which created so much commotion. The Day After Tomorrow didn't occur so I'm inclined to believe that this eddy business isn't so important. However, if you can find that there was a lot of freakish weather around November 2003, then it does lend some credence to the idea that the Eddy is an important marker.
This is the eddy that Dr. Zangari wrote his paper on. As you can see, it is also a large and powerful eddy, but not quite as pronounced as the one in 2003. Both are semidetached from the overall loop current. This eddy goes through various degrees of detachment and then appears to collapse into smaller eddies.
Here is what the loop current looks like now. There are two inferences I could make from this. 1. The loop current is healing after spinning off such a large and rather unusual eddy because it somewhat resembles image 2. 2. The loop current is in total disarray. Although one could sort of trace a line where a proper loop is trying to reform, it is not a very clean restructuring, and when one views each individual part of the current, it is really just a mess of eddies. I think one could safely say that the loop current today is composed of 5-8 individual eddies (depending on how you want to define them) that are just kind of knotted together. Perhaps this is the breaking up of the loop current, but from the presently available data, I think it is too soon to draw a conclusion either way. Perhaps it is different this time because there are other factors such as the state of the sun and the cosmic magnetic environment which mitigated the effect of the 2003 eddy. It is also possible that such a narrow focus on gulf stream velocities is misguided. The Cassiopaeans mentioned the nonlinear effects of the oil disaster, so it may be that a subtle change in the gulf stream causes a subtle change in the jet stream which causes a subtle change somewhere else and the event has to "echo" around the world a few times before there is a significant shift in the gulf stream.
_http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
10 degrees Celsius? I can't find that on this chart anywhere. This chart is supposed to illustrate sea surface tempperature deviations from the mean. I haven't looked at any past charts, but if there was a 10 degree drop, it was a very transient effect. It might be interesting that southern Greenland is 2-3 degrees above normal, though. That could be melting the glaciers in a way more familiar to the Day After Tomorrow movie. Of course the PTB could be doctoring all data about this event, but I have no way of knowing.
_http://vids.eu.org/Zangari
The first four videos on this site have the second interview with Zangari, with his new data, if anyone is interested. Personally I saw the interviewer as being a bit sensational. Dr. Zangari kept using words like maybe and possibly and the interviewer seemed absolutely deadset on the idea that the gulf stream data was proof that the ice age was happening. I also think Zangari is reaching a bit for suggesting that this is a new event that has never happened before, unless he's just suggesting that the addition of oil makes this eddy more unpredictable than the 2003 one.
As far as the two wells theory goes, I think it is probably correct. The media blackout/propaganda plus the convenient death of Mr. Simmons plus the ongoing nuke deployment rumor equals something fishy. As with any good conspiracy theory, there are lots of stories and circuitous evidence, but smoking guns are hard to find. I guess it's like the Cassiopaeans say; Wait and see!
I don't think you can just look at the Gulf Loop Current, but must also look at the Gulfstream itself.
As it happens, I was in France in November of 2003 and, after the hottest summer on record where many people died, yeah, November was a surprisingly rainy and cold month. There was also early snow here in the South of France.
You can search "weather" here in the forum to find some posts about 2009 weather, not to mention the "living planet" section on Sott.net.
It is possibly quite normal for the Gulf Loop Current to stir things up from time to time as you have depicted it, however, I don't really see a consistent enough history above to justify that since the images you have presented all refer to periods AFTER the beginnings of climate change which I think began in the 80s. If all things were equal and there were no climate change factors in play, a mixed up Gulf Loop might be something that could be accommodated by the system, but with the system already weakened by other factors, the Gulf Oil spill might just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
As it happens, I was in France in November of 2003 and, after the hottest summer on record where many people died, yeah, November was a surprisingly rainy and cold month. There was also early snow here in the South of France.
You can search "weather" here in the forum to find some posts about 2009 weather, not to mention the "living planet" section on Sott.net.
It is possibly quite normal for the Gulf Loop Current to stir things up from time to time as you have depicted it, however, I don't really see a consistent enough history above to justify that since the images you have presented all refer to periods AFTER the beginnings of climate change which I think began in the 80s. If all things were equal and there were no climate change factors in play, a mixed up Gulf Loop might be something that could be accommodated by the system, but with the system already weakened by other factors, the Gulf Oil spill might just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Laura said:
Agree,
There's lot of data covering changes in Gulf Stream and anomalies in ocean's temperature, like:
The North Atlantic is dominated by the Gulf Stream - currents that bring warm water north from the tropics. At around 40° north - the latitude of Portugal and New York - the current divides. Some water heads southwards in a surface current known as the subtropical gyre, while the rest continues north, leading to warming winds that raise European temperatures by 5°C to 10°C.
But when Bryden's team measured north-south heat flow last year, using a set of instruments strung across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to the Bahamas, they found that the division of the waters appeared to have changed since previous surveys in 1957, 1981 and 1992. From the amount of water in the subtropical gyre and the flow southwards at depth, they calculate that the quantity of warm water flowing north had fallen by around 30%.
When Bryden added previously unanalysed data - collected in the same region by the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - he found a similar pattern. This suggests that his 2004 measurements are not a one-off, and that most of the slow-down happened between 1992 and 1998.
The changes are too big to be explained by chance, co-author Stuart Cunningham told New Scientist from a research ship off the Canary Islands, where he is collecting more data. "We think the findings are robust."
link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8398
or:
By disturbing a massive ocean current, melting Arctic sea ice might trigger colder weather in Europe and North America.
Global warming could plunge North America and Western Europe into a deep freeze, possibly within only a few decades.
....That's the paradoxical scenario gaining credibility among many climate scientists. The thawing of sea ice covering the Arctic could disturb or even halt large currents in the Atlantic Ocean. Without the vast heat that these ocean currents deliver--comparable to the power generation of a million nuclear power plants--Europe's average temperature would likely drop 5 to 10°C (9 to 18°F), and parts of eastern North America would be chilled somewhat less. Such a dip in temperature would be similar to global average temperatures toward the end of the last ice age roughly 20,000 years ago.
Some scientists believe this shift in ocean currents could come surprisingly soon--within as little as 20 years, according to Robert Gagosian, president and director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Others doubt it will happen at all. Even so, the Pentagon is taking notice. Andrew Marshall, a veteran Defense Department planner, recently released an unclassified report detailing how a shift in ocean currents in the near future could compromise national security.
..."It's difficult to predict what will happen," cautions Donald Cavalieri, a senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, "because the Arctic and North Atlantic are very complex systems with many interactions between the land, the sea, and the atmosphere. But the facts do suggest that the changes we're seeing in the Arctic could potentially affect currents that warm Western Europe, and that's gotten a lot of people concerned."
...Some scientists worry that melting Arctic sea ice will dump enough freshwater into the North Atlantic to interfere with sea currents. Some freshwater would come from the ice-melt itself, but the main contributor would be increased rain and snow in the region. Retreating ice cover exposes more of the ocean surface, allowing more moisture to evaporate into the atmosphere and leading to more precipitation.
Because saltwater is denser and heavier than freshwater, this "freshening" of the North Atlantic would make the surface layers more buoyant. That's a problem because the surface water needs to sink to drive a primary ocean circulation pattern known as the "Great Ocean Conveyor." Sunken water flows south along the ocean floor toward the equator, while warm surface waters from tropical latitudes flow north to replace the water that sank, thus keeping the Conveyor slowly chugging along. An increase in freshwater could prevent this sinking of North Atlantic surface waters, slowing or stopping this circulation.
.... Sea ice disintegrating off the coast of Greenland on March 15, 2003, as seen by the older Defense Meteorological Satellite Program SSMI sensor (14 km resolution) and the newer AMSR-E (~5 km resolution). Smaller cracks not visible in the left image show up clearly in the right one.
"Other important pieces of the puzzle, like rainfall, sea-surface temperatures, and oceanic winds, are also detected by AMSR-E. Looking at those variables together should help scientists assess the likelihood of a change in the Atlantic currents," adds Spencer.
Deja Vu?
Once considered incredible, the notion that climate can change rapidly is becoming respectable. In a 2003 report, Robert Gagosian cites "rapidly advancing evidence [from, e.g., tree rings and ice cores] that Earth's climate has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past." For example, as the world warmed at the end of the last ice age about 13,000 years ago, melting ice sheets appear to have triggered a sudden halt in the Conveyor, throwing the world back into a 1,300 year period of ice-age-like conditions called the "Younger Dryas."
Much depends on how fast the warming of the Arctic occurs, according to computer simulations by Thomas F. Stocker and Andreas Schmittner of the University of Bern. In their models, a faster warming could shut down the major Atlantic current completely, while a slower warming might only slow the current for a few centuries.
more on: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/05mar_arctic/
or:
Change in Atlantic circulation could plunge Europe into cold winters
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com
December 1, 2005
The Atlantic Ocean circulation that carries warm waters north and returns cold waters south is slowing, putting Europe at risk of colder temperatures, according to research published in Nature.
The Atlantic Heat Conveyor, the system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that result in a net transport of warm water into the northern hemisphere, keeps western Europe warmer than regions at similar latitudes in other parts of the world. A weakening of the system, which includes the Gulf Stream, could cause a cooling in northwest Europe.
Below are two news releases, one from the University of Southampton detailing the current study, and an earlier one from NASA looking at the slowing of currents in the Atlantic.
more on: http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1201-soton.html
or on: http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=3399&Method=Full&PageCall=&Title=New+Studies+Focus+on+Rapid+Climate+Change+Event&Cache=False
Slowing of current by a third in 12 years could bring more extreme weather
· Temperatures in Britain likely to drop by one degree in next decade
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday December 1, 2005
Guardian
The powerful ocean current that bathes Britain and northern Europe in warm waters from the tropics has weakened dramatically in recent years, a consequence of global warming that could trigger more severe winters and cooler summers across the region, scientists warn today.
Researchers on a scientific expedition in the Atlantic Ocean measured the strength of the current between Africa and the east coast of America and found that the circulation has slowed by 30% since a previous expedition 12 years ago.
The current, which drives the Gulf Stream, delivers the equivalent of 1m power stations-worth of energy to northern Europe, propping up temperatures by 10C in some regions. The researchers found that the circulation has weakened by 6m tonnes of water a second. Previous expeditions to check the current flow in 1957, 1981 and 1992 found only minor changes in its strength, although a slowing was picked up in a further expedition in 1998. The decline prompted the scientists to set up a £4.8m network of moored instruments in the Atlantic to monitor changes in the current continuously.
The network should also answer the pressing question of whether the significant weakening of the current is a short-term variation, or part of a more devastating long-term slowing of the flow.
If the current remains as weak as it is, temperatures in Britain are likely to drop by an average of 1C in the next decade, according to Harry Bryden at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton who led the study. "Models show that if it shuts down completely, 20 years later, the temperature is 4C to 6C degrees cooler over the UK and north-western Europe," Dr Bryden said.
Although climate records suggest that the current has ground to a halt in the distant past, the prospect of it shutting down entirely within the century are extremely low, according to climate modellers.
The current is essentially a huge oceanic conveyor belt that transports heat from equatorial regions towards the Arctic circle. Warm surface water coming up from the tropics gives off heat as it moves north until eventually, it cools so much in northern waters that it sinks and circulates back to the south. There it warms again, rises and heads back north. The constant sinking in the north and rising in the south drives the conveyor.
Global warming weakens the circulation because increased meltwater from Greenland and the Arctic icesheets along with greater river run-off from Russia pour into the northern Atlantic and make it less saline which in turn makes it harder for the cooler water to sink, in effect slowing down the engine that drives the current.
The researchers measured the strength of the current at a latitude of 25 degrees N and found that the volume of cold, deep water returning south had dropped by 30%. At the same time, they measured a 30% increase in the amount of surface water peeling off early from the main northward current, suggesting far less was continuing up to Britain and the rest of Europe. The report appears in the journal Nature today.
Disruption of the conveyor-belt current was the basis of the film The Day After Tomorrow, which depicted a world thrown into chaos by a sudden and dramatic drop in temperatures. That scenario was dismissed by researchers as fantasy, because climate models suggest that the current is unlikely to slow so suddenly.
Marec Srokosz of the National Oceanographic Centre said: "The most realistic part of the film is where the climatologists are talking to the politicians and the politicians are saying 'we can't do anything about it'."
Chris West, director of the UK climate impacts programme at Oxford University's centre for the environment, said: "The only way computer models have managed to simulate an entire shutdown of the current is to magic into existence millions of tonnes of fresh water and dump it in the Atlantic. It's not clear where that water could ever come from, even taking into account increased Greenland melting."
Uncertainties in climate change models mean that the overall impact on Britain of a slowing down in the current are hard to pin down. "We know that if the current slows down, it will lead to a drop in temperatures in Britain and northern Europe of a few degrees, but the effect isn't even over the seasons. Most of the cooling would be in the winter, so the biggest impact would be much colder winters," said Tim Osborn, of the University of East Anglia climatic research unit.
The final impact of any cooling effect will depend on whether it outweighs the global warming that, paradoxically, is driving it. According to climate modellers, the drop in temperature caused by a slowing of the Atlantic current will, in the long term, be swamped by a more general warming of the atmosphere.
"If this was happening in the absence of generally increasing temperatures, I would be concerned," said Dr Smith. Any cooling driven by a weakening of the Atlantic current would probably only slow warming rather than cancel it out all together. Even if a slowdown in the current put the brakes on warming over Britain and parts of Europe, the impact would be felt more extremely elsewhere, he said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
on: http://www.jcrows.com/oceancurrent.html
Alarm over dramatic weakening of Gulf Stream
The powerful ocean current that bathes Britain and northern Europe in warm waters from the tropics has weakened dramatically in recent years, a consequence of global warming that could trigger more severe winters and cooler summers across the region, scientists warn today.
Researchers on a scientific expedition in the Atlantic Ocean measured the strength of the current between Africa and the east coast of America and found that the circulation has slowed by 30% since a previous expedition 12 years ago.
on: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2005/dec/01/science.climatechange
....The results, published today in Nature, show that the outward flow of the Gulf Stream has not changed, but the strength of the cold water returning from the Arctic has fallen by 30 per cent since 1992. Over the same period, the flow of warm water branching off towards Africa has increased by 30 per cent. This suggests that the warm waters are being diverted away from Europe.
Meric Srokosz, of the Natural Environment Research Council, which funded the work, said: “If it is persistent or there is a further decline then, yes, it would have an impact on the climate. The models suggest that if the change is persistent we might see the order of a 1C drop in temperature here over a decade or two.”
on: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article598464.ece
....Recent observations have shown that since 1950 there has been a decrease of 20% in the flow of cold water in the Faeroe Bank channel between Greenland and Scotland. This is one source of cold dense water that drives the density-based component of the Gulf Stream. There may be an increase in flow from other cold water sources, but, if not, it could be the start of the slow down of the Gulf Stream.
The IPCC believe it is very likely that the Gulf Stream will slow down during the 21st Century but very unlikely it will undergo a ‘large abrupt transition’. The average reduction predicted by the various models used is 25%. This slowing will have a cooling effect but the temperature will still increase in the region overall.
It suggests that the British Isles, especially western regions, will see a significantly smaller temperature increase than other areas of land mass.
on: http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/impact/gulf_stream.shtml
BP spill could only influence even more on allrady slow and weaken Gulf stream in Atlantic ocen, not to forget other factors like sun activties:
Global Cooling comes back in a big way
Dr. Kenneth Tapping is worried about the sun. Solar activity comes in regular cycles, but the latest one is refusing to start. Sunspots have all but vanished, and activity is suspiciously quiet. The last time this happened was 400 years ago -- and it signaled a solar event known as a "Maunder Minimum," along with the start of what we now call the "Little Ice Age."
Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, says it may be happening again. Overseeing a giant radio telescope he calls a "stethoscope for the sun," Tapping says, if the pattern doesn't change quickly, the earth is in for some very chilly weather.
During the Little Ice Age, global temperatures dropped sharply. New York Harbor froze hard enough to allow people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island, and in Britain, people reported sighting eskimos paddling canoes off the coast. Glaciers in Norway grew up to 100 meters a year, destroying farms and villages.
But will it happen again?
In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov predicted the sun would soon peak, triggering a rapid decline in world temperatures. Only last month, the view was echoed by Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. who advised the world to "stock up on fur coats." Sorokhtin, who calls man's contribution to climate change "a drop in the bucket," predicts the solar minimum to occur by the year 2040, with icy weather lasting till 2100 or beyond.
Observational data seems to support the claims -- or doesn't contradict it, at least. According to data from Britain's Met Office, the earth has cooled very slightly since 1998. The Met Office says global warming "will pick up again shortly." Others aren't so sure.
Researcher Dr. Timothy Patterson, director of the Geoscience Center at Carleton University, shares the concern. Patterson is finding "excellent correlations" between solar fluctuations, a relationship that historically, he says doesn't exist between CO2 and past climate changes. According to Patterson. we shouldn't be surprised by a solar link. "The sun [is] the ultimate source of energy on this planet," he says.
Such research dates back to 1991, when the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study showing that world temperatures over the past several centuries correlated very closely with solar cycles. A 2004 study by the Max Planck Institute found a similar correlation, but concluded the timing was only coincidental, as the solar variance seemed too small to explain temperature changes.
However, researchers at DMI continued to work, eventually discovering what they believe to be the link. The key factor isn't changes in solar output, but rather changes in the sun's magnetosphere A stronger field shields the earth more from cosmic rays, which act as "seeds" for cloud formation. The result is less cloud cover, and a warming planet. When the field weakens, clouds increases, reflecting more light back to space, and the earth cools off.
Recently, lead researcher Henrik Svensmark was able to experimentally verify the link between cosmic rays and cloud formation, in a cloud chamber experiment called "SKY" at the Danish National Space Center. CERN plans a similar experiment this year.
A few years ago, Stanford University's Hoover Institution also reported finding a correlation between the sun and climate. Hoover
Even NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies -- long the nation's most ardent champion of anthropogenic global warming -- is getting in on the act. Drew Shindell, a researcher at GISS, says there are some "interesting relationships we don't fully understand" between solar activity and climate.
from: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1967753/posts
Making even more anomalies:
Despite claims by global warming activists that rising temperatures are extending growing seasons around the world, the opposite seems to be happening this year. Cool weather has pushed growth of Western Canada's wheat and barley crop at least 10 days behind schedule, according to the Canadian Wheat Board. “You're pushing development into a period with better likelihood of getting a frost,” said Bruce Burnett, director of weather and market analysis for the Canadian Wheat Board. “It's not particularly what we need at this moment. It's just too cool.”
Proving that this isn't only a Northern Hemisphere phenomenon, Brazil may cut this year’s corn output forecast for a third consecutive time, as a frost in several states caused more crop damage. According to Silvio Porto, agriculture policy director, corn growers may harvest less than the 49.9 million metric tons forecast previously announced as frost struck Parana and Mato Grosso do Sul states in the past two weeks. “It’s a worrying situation as corn has already suffered with a severe drought,” Porto said. “Still, it’s too early to know the size of the damage.”
New record cold temperature have been seen in a number of locations around the world, marking this as one of the coldest springs in years. With reports of late season frost and snow falls, some are already forecasting a very cool summer. Not trying to sound alarmist or start any rumors but scientists' best conjecture regarding the conditions that signal the start of a new glacial period are cool, cloudy summers. Is this the beginning of Little Ice Age II, the sequel? If so, we will look back fondly on the time we were all so concerned about global warming. Remember, in the words of SF author Orson Scott Card, “'global warming' is just another term for 'good weather.'”
from: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3561
BP spill is ecocide, as said on: http://www.thisisecocide.com/general/bp-ecocide-oil-rig-explosion/ and only time will show how big will be negative inpact of this spill on our planet, but we must not forget there are other spills other ecocides around the world happening right now or they happened recently and eyes of the mass media are diverted from them like in case of:
Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it
The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for 5 decades
more on: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell
or: Alberta tar sands: Referred to as the most damaging project on the planet. According to Greenpeace, emissions from tar sands extraction could grow to between 127 and 140m tonnes by 2020, exceeding the current emissions of Austria, Portugal, Ireland and Denmark. If proposed expansion proceeds,it will result in the loss of vast tracts of boreal forest and peat bogs of a territory the size of England
or: Toxic dumping by Chevron Texaco in Ecuador: Chevron, formerly Texaco, is alleged to have dumped billions of gallons of crude oil and toxic waste waters into the Amazonian jungle over two decades. This oily pond is at the oil production site of Guanta, near the city of Lago Agrio. Ecuador's recent bill of rights for nature has changed the legal status of nature from being simply property to being a right-bearing entity.
or: The Amazon: The razing of the Amazonian rainforest, a key stabiliser of the global climate system, by logging, mining, crop planting and beef production. Almost 60% of the region's forests could be wiped out or severely damaged by 2030
or: Coal Fires Keep Blazing in China
In Inner Mongolia, more than 60 underground coal fires have been burning since the 1960s, potentially causing up to 3 percent of the world's carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. Coal is just as bad for people in China as it is for the environment; as many as 13 coal miners are killed each day while working under extremely dangerous conditions. Chinese workers face the world's highest risk of mine accidents, followed by Russia and Turkey.
or: The massive "soup of plastic and debris one-and-a-half times the size of the United States" that is floating in the Pacific Ocean is only the most widely publicized example of a major global problem, Keating writes: "According to the U.N. Environment Program the world's oceans contain 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile. These plastics are responsible for the deaths more than a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals every year."
or: Damming and canalization in Central Asia by the Soviet Union, which sought to build a cotton industry in Uzbekistan's desert, have shrank the Aral Sea dramatically and made it so salty that all the fish species that once lived in it are extinct. Dilapidated boats moored in a sea of sand are a famously poignant image of environmental destruction, but the shrinking of the sea has less visible impacts as well: "When the wind sweeps across the now-dry sea bed, it spreads up to 75 million tons of toxic dust and salt across Central Asia every year."
more on: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/07/beyond-gulf-oil-spill-five-ongoing-ecological-disasters.php
Like humanity is determined to wipe out whole planet and leave nothing to the future
Yes, I read your post regarding the long loop animation from the DEOS website. I must agree with the assessment that there appears to be a gradual retrenchment of the higher magnitude vectors back toward the eastern seaboard. The overall current appears to slow in a stair-step pattern with periods of retreat followed by periods of resurgence, but the overall trend is down. The latest DEOS data suggest we are in a resurgence period, but I have noticed that the eastern Gulf Stream appears to have been especially tenuous lately. Dr. Zangari talks a bit in the interview about the Gulf Stream stopping around the 40th meridian, which is about where the DEOS chart ends. I don't know if there is "supposed" to be significant velocity beyond this point, but judging by previous years in the long loop animation it appears that there was. The anamoly chart showed temperatures about 1 degree below normal off the coast of England. It may or may not be significant depending on the other factors that augment the effects.Laura said:
So it does seem that the loop current has the power to" tweak" the climate, interesting... I do wonder if the loop current played a role in this "frozen jet stream" phenomenon we're now witnessing.Laura said:
Well, for the record, I don't think all of these people who are going around saying it's just a cycle are entirely correct either. I don't have the time to look at the satelite photos day by day, but have looked at most months since 2000 and a few into the 90s. The eddies pictured in the first two images are pretty representative of the normal cycle and they happen all the time. I think anyone who looks at the 2003 and 2010 eddies in comparison will see that they are quite different. 1. They pinch off the entire loop current instead of just the tip or quietly spinning off. 2. They have a much broader and more powerful circulation. As far as the periods being after the beginnings of climate change go, I have noticed that as we get closer to present day, there are generally more perturbations from the clean structure in the first image. You may be right that comparative analysis is flawed because all of our data comes from abnormal times. The main thrust of my argument was that a lot of the alternative sites that cross posted the story, especially Mr. Deagle, seem to think that eddy=ice age and I don't think that's borne out by the data. I know that's not necessairly the position of SOTT, but that's what a lot of people seem to believe. Yeah, 2009 was a wild year for my part of Florida. Even the local MSM were scratching their heads as "global warming" brought us our 2nd coldest winter on record. Most of the world seemed surprised at how cold it got. When I first discovered the Cass material in 05 I thought that the concept of an imminent, sudden ice age was a little "out there." Now it seems this concept of ice age is really becoming a part of the mainstream reality.Laura said:
Seraphina said:
Yep, more cases of this "opening up" phenomenon. I think this is actually the most important Earth change right now because it seems to be driving the others. The slowing of the Earth's rotation caused increased volcanism, which contributed to the oil spill, which contributed to the eddy, which contributed to the jet stream, and who knows what else. I receantly read about the recent oil spill near Trinidad and I wonder if this is what the Hopi prophecies were really getting at when they mentioned the seas turning black. The Exxon Valdez was a regional catastrophe, but really a localized event. Since the Cassiopaeans mentioned that oil seeps were "happening in other places too," it makes me wonder if the Gulf was a prelude to a worldwide series of blowouts. The gulf may be the biggest and worst reservoir to blow, but oil could be a worldwide cataclysm in itself to some degree. Then there's this:
So basically the pressure is still rising and we don't know anything about BP's operation to seal the well. The way they're handling this is reminiscent of the UFO phenomenon in my opinion. There seems to be something real fishy going on with the well, which some people have speculated is a hole in the seafloor, but no one really knows for sure. Then they release a ridiculous report which will be easily debunked by the alternative community, which will lead with a slightly less ridiculous report that will be laced with a generous degree of plausible deniability so that no one can be blamed for lying, per se. Little tidbits of truth will slip out here and there and the government will create and maintain controversy about it as long as possible.
This year's low-oxygen "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the largest ever, about the size of Massachusetts, and overlaps areas hit by oil from BP's broken Macondo well, as stated on:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-oil
BP right now is making fund of $20 billion for victims of BP Plc’s oil spill (although BP reported a second-quarter loss of $17.2 billion compared with a profit of $4.39 billion in the year-earlier period) so from where will money come, BP PR's stated following: using BP’s production as collateral is “wildly inappropriate” because it may give the administration pause in pursuing criminal charges against the London-based oil company and in cracking down on its safety failings, Public Citizen, a Washington-based advocacy groupt.
more on: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/bp-spill-victims-fund-will-be-backed-by-future-revenue-from-oil-drilling.html
Seems like BP is in real financial trouble as said on:
The containment efforts played out as investors deserted BP amid fears that the company might be forced to suspend dividends, end up in bankruptcy and find itself overwhelmed by the cleanup costs, penalties, damage claims and lawsuits generated by the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
Shrimpers, oystermen, seafood businesses, out-of-work drilling crews and the tourism industry all are lining up to get paid back the billions of dollars washed away by the disaster, and tempers have flared as locals direct outrage at BP over what they see as a tangle of red tape.
"Every day we call the adjuster eight or 10 times. There's no answer, no answering machine," said Regina Shipp, who has filed $33,000 in claims for lost business at her restaurant in Alabama. "If BP doesn't pay us within two months, we'll be out of business. We've got two kids."
An Alabama property owner who has lost vast sums of rental income angrily confronted a BP executive at a town meeting. The owner of a Mississippi seafood restaurant said she is desperately waiting for a check to come through because fewer customers come by for shrimp po-boys and oyster sandwiches.
Some locals see dark parallels to what happened after Hurricane Katrina, when they had to wait years to get reimbursed for losses.
more on: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/09/bp-worth-more-dead-than-alive_n_606968.html
We might think that BP could pay for everything they did directly from dividends or even giving away whole production as collateral damage (although they are against this idea right now, future will probably show differently) in June this year BP was worth $91.4 billion. In mid-April, the company was worth $180 billion, today even less than $90 billion , right now BP needs assure $20 billion fund for the victims (and ecocide is still going on, for sure in the future there will be much more people fighting for BP money) how they will make such amount of money is still to see. I'm afraid that super strong world wide oil Menagerie will somehow throw BP mess under the carpet and without the shame made US taxpayers to clean the BP mess. Something like that is already cooking as stated in:
Boehner Says Taxpayers Should Pay To Clean Up BP's Mess
Boehner agrees with the Chamber of Commerce that taxpayers should pay for oil spill cleanup.
Late last month, Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donohue said that he feels its appropriate for taxpayers to cover some of the costs of cleaning up the Gulf Coast in the wake of British Petroleum’s ongoing oil spill. “Everybody is going to contribute to this clean up. We are all going to have to do it. We are going to have to get the money from the government and from the companies and we will figure out a way to do that,” he said. Evidently, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) agrees that taxpayers should be footing the bill, as reported by TPMDC’s Brian Beutler:
In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner backed Tom Donohue, President of the Chamber of Commerce, in saying taxpayers should help pick up the tab. “I think the people responsible in the oil spill — BP and the federal government — should take full responsibility for what’s happening there.”
or from: GOP Leader Boehner: Taxpayers Should Pay For This BP Oil Mess
link: http://www.businessinsider.com/boehner-bp-2010-6
quote: ...today I asked Boehner, "Do you agree with Tom Donohue of the Chamber that the government and taxpayers should pitch in to clean up the oil spill?" The shorter answer is yes....,...I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what's happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/boehner-bp-2010-6#ixzz0wZkQDK3M
Hm mm, people are responsible in the oil spill???? OK, I understand BP and US government are responsible directly, government with lack of positive legislative controlling ultra strong companies operating on US soil and BP with lack of safety equipment and technologies able to work in such depths, but people, how could US citizens, fighting for they own every day existence be responsible for something out of their controll. Perhaps Boehner and Donohue doing PR and softening public opinion in case when BP financially collapse and since a great deal of the liquidity in the global financial world is dependent on a solvent BP in the same way as the entire global financial system is dependent on solvent large banks, its collapse will send serious shockwaves to financial systems all around the world like domino effect.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-oil
BP right now is making fund of $20 billion for victims of BP Plc’s oil spill (although BP reported a second-quarter loss of $17.2 billion compared with a profit of $4.39 billion in the year-earlier period) so from where will money come, BP PR's stated following: using BP’s production as collateral is “wildly inappropriate” because it may give the administration pause in pursuing criminal charges against the London-based oil company and in cracking down on its safety failings, Public Citizen, a Washington-based advocacy groupt.
more on: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/bp-spill-victims-fund-will-be-backed-by-future-revenue-from-oil-drilling.html
Seems like BP is in real financial trouble as said on:
The containment efforts played out as investors deserted BP amid fears that the company might be forced to suspend dividends, end up in bankruptcy and find itself overwhelmed by the cleanup costs, penalties, damage claims and lawsuits generated by the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
Shrimpers, oystermen, seafood businesses, out-of-work drilling crews and the tourism industry all are lining up to get paid back the billions of dollars washed away by the disaster, and tempers have flared as locals direct outrage at BP over what they see as a tangle of red tape.
"Every day we call the adjuster eight or 10 times. There's no answer, no answering machine," said Regina Shipp, who has filed $33,000 in claims for lost business at her restaurant in Alabama. "If BP doesn't pay us within two months, we'll be out of business. We've got two kids."
An Alabama property owner who has lost vast sums of rental income angrily confronted a BP executive at a town meeting. The owner of a Mississippi seafood restaurant said she is desperately waiting for a check to come through because fewer customers come by for shrimp po-boys and oyster sandwiches.
Some locals see dark parallels to what happened after Hurricane Katrina, when they had to wait years to get reimbursed for losses.
more on: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/09/bp-worth-more-dead-than-alive_n_606968.html
We might think that BP could pay for everything they did directly from dividends or even giving away whole production as collateral damage (although they are against this idea right now, future will probably show differently) in June this year BP was worth $91.4 billion. In mid-April, the company was worth $180 billion, today even less than $90 billion , right now BP needs assure $20 billion fund for the victims (and ecocide is still going on, for sure in the future there will be much more people fighting for BP money) how they will make such amount of money is still to see. I'm afraid that super strong world wide oil Menagerie will somehow throw BP mess under the carpet and without the shame made US taxpayers to clean the BP mess. Something like that is already cooking as stated in:
Boehner Says Taxpayers Should Pay To Clean Up BP's Mess
Boehner agrees with the Chamber of Commerce that taxpayers should pay for oil spill cleanup.
Late last month, Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donohue said that he feels its appropriate for taxpayers to cover some of the costs of cleaning up the Gulf Coast in the wake of British Petroleum’s ongoing oil spill. “Everybody is going to contribute to this clean up. We are all going to have to do it. We are going to have to get the money from the government and from the companies and we will figure out a way to do that,” he said. Evidently, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) agrees that taxpayers should be footing the bill, as reported by TPMDC’s Brian Beutler:
In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner backed Tom Donohue, President of the Chamber of Commerce, in saying taxpayers should help pick up the tab. “I think the people responsible in the oil spill — BP and the federal government — should take full responsibility for what’s happening there.”
or from: GOP Leader Boehner: Taxpayers Should Pay For This BP Oil Mess
link: http://www.businessinsider.com/boehner-bp-2010-6
quote: ...today I asked Boehner, "Do you agree with Tom Donohue of the Chamber that the government and taxpayers should pitch in to clean up the oil spill?" The shorter answer is yes....,...I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what's happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/boehner-bp-2010-6#ixzz0wZkQDK3M
Hm mm, people are responsible in the oil spill???? OK, I understand BP and US government are responsible directly, government with lack of positive legislative controlling ultra strong companies operating on US soil and BP with lack of safety equipment and technologies able to work in such depths, but people, how could US citizens, fighting for they own every day existence be responsible for something out of their controll. Perhaps Boehner and Donohue doing PR and softening public opinion in case when BP financially collapse and since a great deal of the liquidity in the global financial world is dependent on a solvent BP in the same way as the entire global financial system is dependent on solvent large banks, its collapse will send serious shockwaves to financial systems all around the world like domino effect.
Neil said:
I wonder if part of the reason for the break-up of the loop in the Gulf is also due to the weakening of the Gulf Stream? Like, when water flows it creates a current, but it has to have somewhere to go to make that current. If there is a dam, the flow stops and the water backs up and begins to eddy.
So, what makes the Gulf Stream flow North? Could it be partly the Earth's electromagnetism which we know is weakened dramatically?
Neil said:
Those of us who are saying it is a cycle are saying that in terms of thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. That is based on geological records. We don't know what the close-up data will look like, we have to look at these cycles and extrapolate what may have happened and what it might look like happening now.
Neil said:
Of course "eddy" does not = ice age. It is just one more piece of data and possibly a key one.
Neil said:
And once again, the Cs hit the nail on the head - or close enough for horseshoes.
Thing is, I'm sitting here at my desk, it is mid-August, supposed to be the hottest month of the year, and it's cool enough for a long sleeved tee shirt. It's been this way almost the entire summer. We've had maybe two weeks total of weather warm enough for the beach or to sleep without a blanket. Right now, we sleep with two medium blankets and I put on a fleece robe in the mornings!!! And it's AUGUST fer crissakes!
That suggests to me that the Gulf stream warmth is NOT making it over here. It's backing up along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and cranking up the thermostat over there. I dunno why it is so hot in Russia. I'll have to study that for a bit. I just know it is Sept/Oct weather here and has been nearly all summer.
Neil said:
I agree. And WHAT is slowing the earth's rotation, and what is suppressing the solar cycle, are of intense interest. The Cs say it is the approach of a solar companion, a brown dwarf. That may or not be possible. The science of Victor Clube and Bill Napier suggest a stream of comet dust from the break up of a giant comet tens of thousands of years ago. Dust of that sort on a very long orbit, could be pouring into the solar system and affecting every body in the solar system. That would explain "global warming" on the other planets. It could also explain the sudden acquisition of new moons by the gas planets. It could explain the increase in "space rocks" that are showing up with greater and greater frequency over the past 10 years. If it starts with dust, then little rocks and pebbles, bigger chunks may be out there coming our way.
It could be BOTH things: a companion star AND the rubble from the break-up of a giant comet.
Neil said:
Could be. Thing is, the Gulf Oil Spill is kinda like 9-11. You see it and you know that life is never going to be the same again.
Bluestar
Jedi Council Member
Being there is this discussion on the Gulf Stream and the effects this may have, thought this might add to the situation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/07/petermann-glacier-giant-i_n_674326.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129183533
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/07/petermann-glacier-giant-i_n_674326.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129183533
Now looks as though the fish and other sea creatures are trying to move away from the afflicted area en masse.
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Mote: Unusually large fish seen close to shore
By SARA KENNEDY
BRADENTON — A scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory has reported unusually large fish closer to shore than is typical along Florida’s west coast, and plans to study whether it might be related to the Gulf oil spill.
“This is pretty unusual,” said Robert Hueter, senior scientist and director of the Center for Shark Research at Sarasota’s Mote Marine Laboratory.
About a month after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill began in April, large sharks began appearing along the shoreline out to about 25 miles, Hueter said Thursday. Over the course of the next couple of months, he had reports of everything from very large tiger sharks to species like blackfin tuna, mahi mahi, wahoo and sailfish.
“Most of those, you usually have to go out 60 miles or more, and people are catching them within 20 miles,” said Hueter.
Whale sharks were very close to shore all summer, he said; the huge fish, which primarily feed on plankton and microscopic plants and animals, can reach 40 feet or more in length.
“It led to a hypothesis that these animals have possibly been displaced by the oil in the northwestern Gulf, where we know these species do reside in the summertime,” Heuter said.
Or, the phenomenon might be due to something else, which has prompted Mote scientists to investigate. The marine lab is planning a workshop on the topic and a research cruise, among other things, scientists said.
Other researchers reported similar findings.
Fish usually found 30 miles out are occurring closer than 10 miles,” said Ernst Peebles, a biological oceanographer and associate professor at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, in St. Petersburg.
Unusual distributions of fish are common, however, he emphasized.
“Everybody’s going to attribute things to the spill, but it’s very hard to say whether it’s causing these unusual fish distributions,” said Peebles.
Fishermen contacted by the Herald had varying views. Several from the Bradenton-Sarasota area had noticed an unusually large number of whale sharks, but had not seen any other type of large fish nearer to shore than has been typical in the past.
Capt. Kim Ibasfalean, who operates a charter boat business near Bradenton, said she had seen an unusual number of large, bonnethead sharks.
“They’re normally really little, the ones I see, I’m talking a foot-and-a-half,” she said. “And, I’m seeing three-foots.”
She’s also “hip deep” in big blue crabs, she said.
Normally, she sees crabs smaller than her hand, but now, she’s seeing much bigger ones — everywhere. She thought it might be attributable to a severe winter, which caused fish kills that the crabs cleaned up by dining on the carcasses.
Farther north in Tarpon Springs, near Tampa, fish have been a little bit out of their normal habitats, said John Cox, owner of Cox Seafood.
“A lot of those fish are smart enough to avoid the oil, and really, bluefin tuna are really fast swimmers,” Cox said. “They feed in clean water, they’re going to search out clean waters.
“They’re smart fish, if they can get away from it, they’ll get away from dirty water,” he added. “During the winter, they migrate toward warmer waters, they will move out of where they were, and move to cleaner waters; ... it’s like Red Tides. We see a tremendous amount of fish in Red Tide. We also see fish that outrun the Red Tide to get away from it.”
Gulf currents shift back and forth, and with them, big fish may move closer or farther away from shore, said Roger Zimmerman, laboratory director at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Services facility at Galveston, Texas.
“Twenty miles is close, it must mean pretty good fishing for the recreational fishermen,” he said when told of reports of unusually large fish close to the Florida west coast.
“I would say it’s unlikely that it’s associated with the oil, and the oil spill, but I agree with him (Mote’s Robert Heuter), you can’t leave out that possibility,” said Zimmerman.
http://www.bradenton.com/2010/08/13/2503456/mote-unusually-large-fish-seen.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mote: Unusually large fish seen close to shore
By SARA KENNEDY
BRADENTON — A scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory has reported unusually large fish closer to shore than is typical along Florida’s west coast, and plans to study whether it might be related to the Gulf oil spill.
“This is pretty unusual,” said Robert Hueter, senior scientist and director of the Center for Shark Research at Sarasota’s Mote Marine Laboratory.
About a month after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill began in April, large sharks began appearing along the shoreline out to about 25 miles, Hueter said Thursday. Over the course of the next couple of months, he had reports of everything from very large tiger sharks to species like blackfin tuna, mahi mahi, wahoo and sailfish.
“Most of those, you usually have to go out 60 miles or more, and people are catching them within 20 miles,” said Hueter.
Whale sharks were very close to shore all summer, he said; the huge fish, which primarily feed on plankton and microscopic plants and animals, can reach 40 feet or more in length.
“It led to a hypothesis that these animals have possibly been displaced by the oil in the northwestern Gulf, where we know these species do reside in the summertime,” Heuter said.
Or, the phenomenon might be due to something else, which has prompted Mote scientists to investigate. The marine lab is planning a workshop on the topic and a research cruise, among other things, scientists said.
Other researchers reported similar findings.
Fish usually found 30 miles out are occurring closer than 10 miles,” said Ernst Peebles, a biological oceanographer and associate professor at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, in St. Petersburg.
Unusual distributions of fish are common, however, he emphasized.
“Everybody’s going to attribute things to the spill, but it’s very hard to say whether it’s causing these unusual fish distributions,” said Peebles.
Fishermen contacted by the Herald had varying views. Several from the Bradenton-Sarasota area had noticed an unusually large number of whale sharks, but had not seen any other type of large fish nearer to shore than has been typical in the past.
Capt. Kim Ibasfalean, who operates a charter boat business near Bradenton, said she had seen an unusual number of large, bonnethead sharks.
“They’re normally really little, the ones I see, I’m talking a foot-and-a-half,” she said. “And, I’m seeing three-foots.”
She’s also “hip deep” in big blue crabs, she said.
Normally, she sees crabs smaller than her hand, but now, she’s seeing much bigger ones — everywhere. She thought it might be attributable to a severe winter, which caused fish kills that the crabs cleaned up by dining on the carcasses.
Farther north in Tarpon Springs, near Tampa, fish have been a little bit out of their normal habitats, said John Cox, owner of Cox Seafood.
“A lot of those fish are smart enough to avoid the oil, and really, bluefin tuna are really fast swimmers,” Cox said. “They feed in clean water, they’re going to search out clean waters.
“They’re smart fish, if they can get away from it, they’ll get away from dirty water,” he added. “During the winter, they migrate toward warmer waters, they will move out of where they were, and move to cleaner waters; ... it’s like Red Tides. We see a tremendous amount of fish in Red Tide. We also see fish that outrun the Red Tide to get away from it.”
Gulf currents shift back and forth, and with them, big fish may move closer or farther away from shore, said Roger Zimmerman, laboratory director at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Services facility at Galveston, Texas.
“Twenty miles is close, it must mean pretty good fishing for the recreational fishermen,” he said when told of reports of unusually large fish close to the Florida west coast.
“I would say it’s unlikely that it’s associated with the oil, and the oil spill, but I agree with him (Mote’s Robert Heuter), you can’t leave out that possibility,” said Zimmerman.
http://www.bradenton.com/2010/08/13/2503456/mote-unusually-large-fish-seen.html
Here's another clue:
______________________________
Ancient Hawaiian Glaciers Reveal Clues To Global Climate Impacts
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/213497-Ancient-Hawaiian-Glaciers-Reveal-Clues-To-Global-Climate-Impacts
Terra Daily / SPX
Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:32 EDT
© Oregon State University
Gray rubble on the flanks of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii lie in contrast to the red volcanic rock behind them, and were deposited by a glacier that disappeared thousands of years ago.
Boulders deposited by an ancient glacier that once covered the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii have provided more evidence of the extraordinary power and reach of global change, particularly the slowdown of a North Atlantic Ocean current system that could happen again and continues to be a concern to climate scientists.
A new study has found geochemical clues near the summit of Mauna Kea that tell a story of ancient glacier formation, the influence of the most recent ice age, more frequent major storms in Hawaii, and the impact of a distant climatic event that changed much of the world.
The research was published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters by scientists from Oregon State University, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, University of British Columbia and U.S. Geological Survey. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation.
"Mauna Kea had a large glacial ice cap of about 70 square kilometers until 14,500 years ago, which has now all disappeared," said Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at OSU. "We've been able to use new data to determine specifically when, where and most likely why the glacier existed and then disappeared."
Mauna Kea, at 13,803 feet above sea level, is in a sense the tallest mountain in the world because it rises 30,000 feet from the sea floor. Dormant for thousands of years, it once featured a large glacier on its massive peak at the height of the last ice age about 21,000 years ago. As the ice age ended and the global climate warmed, the glacier began to disappear.
However, the new research found that the glacier on Mauna Kea began to re-advance to almost its ice age size about 15,400 years ago. That coincides almost exactly with a major slowdown of what scientists call the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or AMOC, in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The AMOC is part of a global ocean circulation system that carries heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic. This transported heat is the primary reason that much of Europe is warmer in the winter than would be expected, given the latitude of the continent.
Studies of past climate change indicate that the AMOC has slowed a number of times, in surprisingly short periods, causing substantial cooling of Europe. Because of that, the potential future decline of the current is of considerable interest.
But scientists have found that the AMOC does more than just keep northern Europe habitable. Its effects can extend far beyond that.
"The new data from Mauna Kea, along with other findings from geological archives preserved in oceans and lakes in many other areas, show that the decline of the AMOC basically caused climate changes all over the world," Clark said. "These connections are pretty remarkable, a current pattern in the North Atlantic affecting glacier development thousands of miles away in the Hawaiian Islands.
"The global impact of the AMOC changes," Clark added, "was just massive."
The formation, size and movement of glaciers can provide valuable data, he said, because these characteristics reflect current and historic changes in temperature, precipitation or both.
The study concludes that the growth of the Mauna Kea glacier caused by the AMOC current changes was a result of both colder conditions and a huge increase of precipitation on Mauna Kea - triple that of the present - that scientists believe may have been caused by more frequent cyclonic storm events hitting the Hawaiian Islands from the north.
The findings were supported by measurements of an isotope of helium being produced in boulders left by the Mauna Kea glacier thousands of years ago. The amount of this helium isotope reveals when the boulders were finally uncovered by ice and exposed to the atmosphere.
The deposits containing the boulders are the only record of glaciation in the northern subtropical Pacific Ocean. Nearby Mauna Loa probably also was glaciated, but evidence of its glaciation has since been destroyed by volcanic eruptions.
The study by Clark and colleagues provides additional evidence that rapid changes in the AMOC can trigger widespread global change. Some past abrupt decreases in the AMOC have been linked to an increase of freshwater flowing off the continents into the North Atlantic.
The potential under global warming for increases in freshwater from melting ice and changes in precipitation patterns have heightened concerns about the AMOC and related climate effects in the future, researchers said.
______________________________
Ancient Hawaiian Glaciers Reveal Clues To Global Climate Impacts
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/213497-Ancient-Hawaiian-Glaciers-Reveal-Clues-To-Global-Climate-Impacts
Terra Daily / SPX
Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:32 EDT
© Oregon State University
Gray rubble on the flanks of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii lie in contrast to the red volcanic rock behind them, and were deposited by a glacier that disappeared thousands of years ago.
Boulders deposited by an ancient glacier that once covered the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii have provided more evidence of the extraordinary power and reach of global change, particularly the slowdown of a North Atlantic Ocean current system that could happen again and continues to be a concern to climate scientists.
A new study has found geochemical clues near the summit of Mauna Kea that tell a story of ancient glacier formation, the influence of the most recent ice age, more frequent major storms in Hawaii, and the impact of a distant climatic event that changed much of the world.
The research was published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters by scientists from Oregon State University, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, University of British Columbia and U.S. Geological Survey. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation.
"Mauna Kea had a large glacial ice cap of about 70 square kilometers until 14,500 years ago, which has now all disappeared," said Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at OSU. "We've been able to use new data to determine specifically when, where and most likely why the glacier existed and then disappeared."
Mauna Kea, at 13,803 feet above sea level, is in a sense the tallest mountain in the world because it rises 30,000 feet from the sea floor. Dormant for thousands of years, it once featured a large glacier on its massive peak at the height of the last ice age about 21,000 years ago. As the ice age ended and the global climate warmed, the glacier began to disappear.
However, the new research found that the glacier on Mauna Kea began to re-advance to almost its ice age size about 15,400 years ago. That coincides almost exactly with a major slowdown of what scientists call the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or AMOC, in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The AMOC is part of a global ocean circulation system that carries heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic. This transported heat is the primary reason that much of Europe is warmer in the winter than would be expected, given the latitude of the continent.
Studies of past climate change indicate that the AMOC has slowed a number of times, in surprisingly short periods, causing substantial cooling of Europe. Because of that, the potential future decline of the current is of considerable interest.
But scientists have found that the AMOC does more than just keep northern Europe habitable. Its effects can extend far beyond that.
"The new data from Mauna Kea, along with other findings from geological archives preserved in oceans and lakes in many other areas, show that the decline of the AMOC basically caused climate changes all over the world," Clark said. "These connections are pretty remarkable, a current pattern in the North Atlantic affecting glacier development thousands of miles away in the Hawaiian Islands.
"The global impact of the AMOC changes," Clark added, "was just massive."
The formation, size and movement of glaciers can provide valuable data, he said, because these characteristics reflect current and historic changes in temperature, precipitation or both.
The study concludes that the growth of the Mauna Kea glacier caused by the AMOC current changes was a result of both colder conditions and a huge increase of precipitation on Mauna Kea - triple that of the present - that scientists believe may have been caused by more frequent cyclonic storm events hitting the Hawaiian Islands from the north.
The findings were supported by measurements of an isotope of helium being produced in boulders left by the Mauna Kea glacier thousands of years ago. The amount of this helium isotope reveals when the boulders were finally uncovered by ice and exposed to the atmosphere.
The deposits containing the boulders are the only record of glaciation in the northern subtropical Pacific Ocean. Nearby Mauna Loa probably also was glaciated, but evidence of its glaciation has since been destroyed by volcanic eruptions.
The study by Clark and colleagues provides additional evidence that rapid changes in the AMOC can trigger widespread global change. Some past abrupt decreases in the AMOC have been linked to an increase of freshwater flowing off the continents into the North Atlantic.
The potential under global warming for increases in freshwater from melting ice and changes in precipitation patterns have heightened concerns about the AMOC and related climate effects in the future, researchers said.
More Oil Washes Up In Gulf Shores
Published: Wed, August 11, 2010 - 7:15 pm CST
24224 Views |Short URL: http://wkrg.com/a/912934
Pat PetersonGULF SHORES, Alabama - For the first time in more than five weeks, oil has impacted Gulf Shores. On Wednesday, massive amounts of oil and tar washed up near the pier at Gulf State Park, turning the sugar-white beaches an ugly brown. But what's even more disturbing....not one single BP clean-up or piece of beach-cleaning equipment could be found at the state park.
BP has drastically reduced its beach clean-up force because the company says they're not needed since oil has impacted local beaches in weeks. But the tropical disturbance in the Gulf churned up oil and pushed it onshore. Not one person assigned to clean-up the beach could be found for miles.
Video
http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/article/more-oil-washes-up-in-gulf-shores/912934/Aug-12-2010_12-59-am/
Published: Wed, August 11, 2010 - 7:15 pm CST
24224 Views |Short URL: http://wkrg.com/a/912934
Pat PetersonGULF SHORES, Alabama - For the first time in more than five weeks, oil has impacted Gulf Shores. On Wednesday, massive amounts of oil and tar washed up near the pier at Gulf State Park, turning the sugar-white beaches an ugly brown. But what's even more disturbing....not one single BP clean-up or piece of beach-cleaning equipment could be found at the state park.
BP has drastically reduced its beach clean-up force because the company says they're not needed since oil has impacted local beaches in weeks. But the tropical disturbance in the Gulf churned up oil and pushed it onshore. Not one person assigned to clean-up the beach could be found for miles.
Video
http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/article/more-oil-washes-up-in-gulf-shores/912934/Aug-12-2010_12-59-am/