Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Friday, June 27, 2008
The oceans are currently uptaking 22 million tons of CO 2 daily which is making a significant and exponential change in the ocean’s chemistry.
In 2004, it was projected that the pH balance of the oceans would be lower in the middle of this century than they had been for more than 20 MILLION years.
There was a spike in methane release last year from the thawing Arctic permafrost too. Scientists are concerned that as the Arctic continues to warm and the permafrost thaws a cycle of carbon release and temperature rise will add to the reverberating feedback cycle…In April Ed Dlugokencky from NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab said, “It’s too soon to tell whether last year’s spike in emissions includes the start of such a trend.”
__________________________________________________
That was just 2 short months ago. Now the grim news is that for the first time in human history the ice at the North Pole will disappear entirely if it continues its current rate it will be gone by summer’s end. Science is placing the odds at 50:50. About 70% of the sea ice this spring was new ice formed over last winter. New ice melts faster than the old ice.
Inuit natives, near Baffin Bay, are reporting the sea ice is breaking up much earlier than normal this year. They have also seen wide cracks appearing where the ice normally remains stable.
The rate of Arctic land warming is 3.5 times greater than the average 21st century
warming rates predicted in climate models; more feedback cycles. So much so that
Science News is reporting over the past century the leading edges of conifer forests
have crawled from 20-60 meters of the mountains and have begun to overrun the tundra.
There are now conifers growing where no living tree has grown in the last 1,000 years. The greening of the Arctic is something we don’t want. The albedo, or the extent of which light from the sun can be reflected will be decreased more and more as the ‘green’ of the plant material continues to advance toward the Arctic.
The cycle continues to compound as the tundra thaws and releases methane. Scientists think between 1/3 and 1/2 the CO 2 that has been produced by humans since
the industrial revolution is now in the ocean. Water that is upwelling today is water that was exposed to 1958 CO 2 concentrations. 50 years from now the water being upwelled will be that exposed to the methane and carbon dioxide levels of today…
So, the last thing the Bush Administration wants getting out is a 250 page report by the EPA giving detailed alternative approaches of how to regulate greenhouse gases!
________________________________________________
Did you ever hit that nasty ’send’ button on an email, and wish you could bring it back?
You aren’t alone. It generally happens to me after I’ve had a little too much wine. I’m not suggesting that’s the problem at the White House, but if the cork fits…
The White House demanded that an email the EPA had ’sent’ be ‘recalled’. If, however, the pesky ’send’ button has already been hit, then the White House has its own simple and fairly elegant solution to news it just doesn’t want to see. Just don’t open the email.
That won’t work either.
The EPA apparently had 250 pages of ‘detailed alternative approaches’ to regulate greenhouse gases from fuels, cars and some industry. But, no; the White House doesn’t want anything to do with solving problems. It appears, as is widely speculated, this administration is all about creating problems. Speculated is a generous term in this case. The time for speculation, in regard to the intentions of this administration, has long past.
The Supreme Court had already tried to set the White House straight when it ruled carbon dioxide is an air pollutant, and the Clean Air Act gave the EPA the power to start mandating that new vehicles to reduce their pollutants.
If we do have the technology and the money to regulate greenhouse gases it seems apparent those in power don’t want us to know about them.
Photo Thanks: NOAA
Labels: Acid Ocean, Arctic, Arctic Ice, Baffin, CO2, EPA, Methane, NOAA, North Pole, Ocean, Speak no Evil, Tundra, carbon dioxide, cover-up
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Learn To Take Your Drinks ‘neat’; We’re running out of ice, among other things.
Monday, October 22, 2007
After 4 years, $8.5 Million and 24,000 interviews with commercial and general aviation pilots NASA deems findings would undermine the public’s confidence in commercial air travel. Yikes!
NASA shut down this project a year ago and refused to divulge the results. Obviously an already cash-strapped NASA felt there were good reasons to spend $8.5 Million on an aviation safety study. NASA has been auctioning off their own artifacts. One example includes a multi-million dollar satellite from the 1960’s a collector was lucky enough to snag for $50 which now sits in his barn!
Much more troubling than refusing to divulge the results of the lengthy and expensive survey is that last week NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers.
Ya Think?
Thomas S. Luedtke, a senior NASA official acknowledged that the findings of this study could damage the public’s confidence in the airlines adversely affecting airline profits.
For 14 months the Associated Press has tried to obtain the survey data under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. In the end, Luedtke issued a final statement which justified the cover-up. Pilots that participated in the survey might in the end lose their lively hood if the public lost faith in the safety of aviation. The pilots participated in the survey with the promise of anonymity along with the companies for whom they worked.
Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Somebody did ask. The U.S. tax payers have spent $8.5 million on this survey. For NASA not to tell what they learned, in order to protect the profits of the airline industry, is reprehensible.
What is that nasty smell?
Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., Congress chairman House Science and Technology investigations and oversight subcommittee said “There is a faint odor about it all”.
A faint odor isn’t exactly what a red herring gives off.
Officials at NASA Ames Research Center in California have said they want publish their own report on the project. I hope they saved the data they ultimately ordered to be disposed of, otherwise their report may contain the usual vague recollection spin that permeates the U.S.’s selective memory.
Labels: Aviation Safety, NASA, Speak no Evil, cover-up
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
NASA Orders Cover-up of Commercial Aviation Safety!
