https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6584Páginas

29/1/11

Arctic Waters Warmer Than in 2,000 Years







The New York Times
2011/01/28



Water flowing from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean is warmer today than at any time in the past 2,000 years, a new study shows.
The waters of the Fram Strait, which runs between Greenland and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, have warmed roughly 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 100 years, the study’s authors said. The water temperatures are about 2.5 degrees higher than during the Medieval Warm Period, a time of elevated warmth from A.D. 900 to  1300.
The findings are another indication that recent global warming is atypical in the context of historical climate fluctuations, said Thomas Marchitto, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a co-author of the study.
“It doesn’t necessarily prove that the change that we see is man-made, but it does strongly point toward this being an unusual event,” Dr. Marchitto said. “On a scale of 2,000 years, it stands out dramatically as something that does not look natural.”

The scientists used cores of ocean sediment containing fossils of microscopic shelled organisms called foraminifera to reconstruct past water temperatures in the strait. They found that the abundance of a species of warmer-water foraminifera rose sharply in the last 100 years, becoming dominant over a cold-water variety for the first time in 2,000 years.
The scientists also tested the shells for levels of magnesium, which rise in tandem with water temperature.
“Both of those approaches gave us the same answers,” Dr. Marchitto said.
Scientists called the study yet another validation of the so-called “hockey stick” graph, a historical reconstruction of global temperatures first published in the late 1990s that showed a steep rise in temperatures in modern times.
“It’s one more piece of evidence that the past 100 years has been an anomaly,” Joshua Willis, an oceanographer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told a science writer with the journal Nature.
The hockey stick graph has long been a target of climate skeptics, who assert that temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period, when vineyards were planted in England and southern Greenland was settled by Norse colonists, were probably higher than they are today. Were temperatures higher in the past, skeptics argue, then recent warming is more likely to be a result of natural variability than a consequence of human activity.
A growing number of studies in the last decade have added weight to the theory that the warming seen over the last 100 years is unusual, however.

27/1/11

EEUU sufre una de las peores tormentas de nieve


Una de las peores tormentas de nieve que ha sufrido Estados Unidos en décadas, que causó la muerte de al menos cinco personas, está avanzando este domingo hacia el norte, después que partes de la región del este registraran un récord de 61 centímetros de nieve.
A su paso, la tormenta se extendió sobre una superficie de 800 kilómetros en unos 12 estados, afectando a un cuarto de la población de Estados Unidos.
Las condiciones extremas obligaron al cierre de aeropuertos y la suspensión de 1.200 vuelos, provocaron miles de accidentes de tránsito, dejaron sin energía eléctrica a la región y obstaculizaron las compras de Navidad.
El domingo había cerca de 61 centímetros de nieve en la zona de Baltimore-Washington.
Las zonas de Boston y Cabo Cod, en Massachusetts, esperaban hasta 30 centímetros de nieve antes de que la tormenta se adentre en el mar.
Los estados de Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Delaware, junto a las ciudades de Filadelfia y Washington D.C. declararon el estado de emergencia.
Los muertes se registraron en Virginia (tres) y en Ohio (dos).
Long Island, una de las islas del estado de Nueva York, sufrió el embate de los vientos y las precipitaciones. Además, 150 personas se quedaron atascadas por cinco horas en un tren de la isla. Mientras que en la ciudad de Nueva York cayeron unos 28 centímetros de nieve.
Las alertas siguen en pie en algunas partes de Massachusetts y Rhode Island.
Zonas en recuperación
Partes del este de Estados Unidos están empezando a recuperarse de la tormenta de nieve. El alcalde de Nueva York, Michael Bloomberg, dijo que hay miles de trabajadores limpiando las calles de la nieve este domingo.
El corresponsal de la BBC en Washington Imtiaz Tyab indica que ahora comienza el trabajo duro de limpiar las calles de la capital y de los estados aledaños.
El aeropuerto nacional Reagan de Washington reabrió cerca del mediodía del domingo, luego de haber estado cerrado el sábado.
El alcalde de Washington, Adrian Fenty, declaró una emergencia de nieve y pidió a los residentes del Distrito de Columbia mantenerse alejados de las calles. Sin embargo, se mostró confiado en que la mayoría de las calles de la ciudad estarían sin nieve para el lunes.
Washington tuvo este sábado su marca de nieve más alta en los registros, de acuerdo al meteorólogo Bernie Rayno.
“Históricamente, esto probablemente quedará como la tormenta de nieve más grande en Washington D.C. en el mes de diciembre y es probablemente una de las cinco peores tormentas de Washington de todos los tiempos”, aseguró.
Además, la ciudad cerró las operaciones sobre la superficie del tren subterráneo y paralizó los servicios de autobuses en la tarde del sábado.
Origen de la tormenta
El sistema se originó en el Golfo de México, provocando inundaciones en gran parte del sureste de Estados Unidos.
A medida que el sistema avanzaba hacia el noreste, las lluvias se convirtieron en nieve al adentrarse en zonas de temperaturas bajo cero.
El corresponsal Tyab indica que el temporal amainará para principios de esta semana, aunque se prevé que la nieve vuelva a caer.

Una gran tormenta de nieve bloquea Nueva York



 La Vanguardia 27/01/2011
Nueva York (dpa) - Una de las mayores tormentas de nieve sufridas en este invierno en Nueva York obligó hoy a cancelar cientos de vuelos en sus tres aeropuertos internacionales.
El alcalde de la ciudad, Michael Bloomberg, declaró la máxima alerta debido a la quinta tormenta de nieve de este invierno que asola Nueva York y que está dejando casi 40 centímetros de nieve en las calles.
Todos los colegios y las oficinas públicas fueron cerrados y el transporte de autobuses y metro se redujo al mínimo. Estas precipitaciones complican aun más la situación de muchas zonas de la ciudad que se encuentran heladas desde hace días. Las pasadas Navidades, la urbe ya sufrió una de sus peores tormentas, que dejó más de un metro de nieve.
En los aeropuertos internacionales JFK, La Guardia y Liberty, en Nueva York y Nueva Jersey, fueron cancelados cientos de vuelos, según informaron varios medios.
Wall Street permanecía abierta a sus operaciones bursátiles, pero muchas oficinas de la zona estaban cerradas. La sede de la ONU, por ejemplo, cerró sus puertas.
Tanto Bloomberg como las autoridades de protección civil habían sido criticados duramente por su respuesta inefectiva en la tormenta de Navidad, por lo que ahora han movilizado más de 2.000 dispensadores de sal, máquinas quitanieves y otros vehículos para limpiar las calles.
La tormenta afecta a la costa Este de los Estados Unidos, de Washington a Boston. También en el estado de Nueva Jersey se suspendió el transporte y en la capital del país cayó el tendido eléctrico en algunas zonas dejando a cientos de miles de personas sin luz desde el miércoles.
El periódico 'New York Times' afirmó que la tormenta también desbarató los planes del presidente, Barack Obama, de volver a Washington, que se encontraba de visita en Wisconsin, ya que no pudo llegar ni en coche ni en helicóptero.

19/1/11

LIFE ON THIS EARTH JUST CHANGED …THE NORTH ATLANTIC CURRENT IS GONE…




POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 7, 2010 BY ROCKINGJUDE

by Lord Stirling Evansville, IN, United States

The latest satellite data establishes that the North Atlantic Current (also called the North Atlantic Drift) no longer exists and along with it the Norway Current. These two warm water currents are actually part of the same system that has several names depending on where in the Atlantic Ocean it is. The entire system is a key part of the planet’s heat regulatory system; it is what keeps Ireland and the United Kingdom mostly ice free and the Scandinavia countries from being too cold; it is what keeps the entire world from another Ice Age. This Thermohaline Circulation System is now dead in places and dying in others.

This ‘river’ of warm water that moves through the Atlantic Ocean is called, in various places, the South Atlantic Current, the North Brazil Current, the Caribbean Current, the Yucatan Current, the
Loop Current, the Florida Current, the Gulf Stream, the North Atlantic Current (or North Atlantic Drift) and the Norway Current.


It is a university level physics experiment to use a tub of cool water and inject a colored stream of warm water into it. You can see the boundary layers of the warm water stream. If you add oil to the tub it breaks down the boundary layers of the warm water stream and effectively destroys the current vorticity . This is what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Atlantic Ocean.
The entire ‘river of warm water’ that flows from the Caribbean to the edges of Western Europe is dying due to the Corexit that the Obama Administration allowed BP to use to hide the scale of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster. The approximately two million gallons of Corexit, plus several million gallons of other dispersants, have caused the over two hundred million gallons of crude oil, that has gushed for months from the BP wellhead and nearby sites, to mostly sink to the bottom of the ocean. This has helped to effectively hide much of the oil, with the hopes that BP can seriously reduce the mandated federal fines from the oil disaster. However, there is no current way to effectively ‘clean up’ the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, which is about half covered in crude oil. Additionally, the oil has flowed up the East Coast of America and into the North Atlantic Ocean, and there is no way to effectively clean up this ‘sea bottom oil’. It is likely, based on numerous reports, that the oil is still flowing in massive amounts from multiple places on the seabed floor. This effectively means, that even if we had the technology in place to somehow clean up the free flowing thick crude oil deep in the ocean, it would likely not be enough to reverse the damage to the Thermohaline Circulation System in the Atlantic Ocean.
Dr. Deagle: The evidence has come in from ROV video and other experts such as Matt Simmons, BK Lim, and Lindsay Williams and my own anonymous whistleblowers from inside the closed circle of Cameron Ironworks, Tranocean Marine , Oceaneering International. My source provided very solid info re the ROV analysis by Oceaneering engineers that the BOP Blow Out Preventer was ‘modified’ and never had hydraulics to close the BOP. BP knew that the field had dangerous high levels of methane, hydrogen sulphide, and pressures exceeded any valve technology as the current state of the art. The seeps continue along a fractured fault line from the Macondo well site where evidence presented by BK Lim that the only well of three that reached the abiotic batholith ocean of oil and gas was never capped or stopped and has continued to leak along the ocean floor and inject oil and gas and tar into the rock strata.
Dr Gianluigi Zangari PhD from the Frascati Institute is a Theoretical Physicist, who has worked for years with a collaborative network of scientists monitoring the Gulf of Mexico Loop Current and its contribution to the Thermohaline Current System that makes the Gulf Stream that becomes the North Atlantic DriftCurrent and subcurrents. After receiving a contact from a naval scientist via a regular guest on the NutriMedical Report national radio show, on Genesis Network, John Moore sent Dr. Deagle the info on Dr Zangari’s work. Dr. Deagle contacted him by SKYPE and and within minutes was conversing by SKYPE to Italy with Dr Zangari re his serious analysis with data from six satellites of the May to June 12th 2010 dissolution of the Loop Current. Over the next few weeks to July 28th, with numerous interviews on The NutriMedical Report and LiveStream.com/TheNutriMedicalReportShowupdates, final proof was provided that the Gulf Stream had been stopped cold at the 47th longitudinal parallel with a 10 degree Celsius ocean temperature drop, and loss of velocity and energy, so that the Gulf Stream was only able to be measured by satellite to less than one-third the way across theAtlantic ocean. As Dr Zangari stated, this is not the butterfly effect but the ‘elephant effect’, and with the amount of oil released, the natural system linked as the pacemaker to world climate for millions of years, this was now gone, replaced by an artificial system with a Gulf of Mexico by late July seven degrees Celsius above normals, and totally disconnected Loop Current from the Florida current that becomes the Gulf Stream. In his reported on June 12th 2010 in a journal article, the CCAR Colorado data agreed with the NOAA and US Naval Satellites data. This live satellite data map later altered on the CCAR servers, and he emailed that this was “to falsify” and he could not explain this fact logically. He returned to NOAA and US Naval data on the same and later dates and stated by early August that the CCAR data was no longer reliable and his conclusions was not changed in quality or quantity of the serious consequences. His conclusion that ‘glaciation’ at an unknown pace was inevitable from this disaster.
Almost a month ago, we broke the story that the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico had effectively died. We quoted Dr. Gianluizi Zangari, who first discovered the damage to the Thermohaline Circulation System:
“As displayed by both by the sea surface maps and the sea surface height maps, the Loop Current broke down for the first time around May 18th and generated a clock wise eddy, which is still active. As of today the situation has deteriorated up to the point in which the eddy has detached itself completely from the main stream therefore destroying completely the Loop Current. ..”
“It is reasonable to foresee the threat that the breaking of [such] a crucial warm stream as the Loop Current may generate a chain reaction of unpredictable critical phenomena and instabilities due to strong non-linearities which may have serious consequences on the dynamics of the Gulf Stream thermoregulation activity of the Global Climate.“ —Dr. Gianluigi Zangari,
The massive amount of crude oil, ever expanding in volume and covering such an enormous area, has seriously affected the entire thermoregulation system of the planet, by breaking up the boundary layers of the warm water flow. The Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico ceased to exist a month ago, the latest satellite data clearly shows that the North Atlantic Current is now GONE and the Gulf Stream begins to break apart approximately 250 miles from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Thermohaline Circulatory System, where the warm water current flows through a much cooler, much larger, ocean, effects the upper atmosphere above the current as much as seven miles high. The lack of this normal effect in the eastern North Atlantic has disrupted the normal flow of the atmospheric Jet Stream this summer, causing unheard of high temperatures in Moscow (104F) and drought, and flooding in Central Europe, with high temperatures in much of Asia and massive flooding in China, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Asia.
.

The most current data continues to show a dying of the entire Thermohaline Circulation System in the Atlantic Ocean. This is indicative of the fact that the dispersants have caused the oil to remain in place below the surface, and according to most reports remain in almost full amounts (up to 80%) long after the BP Oil Disaster began. Since there is no current way to remove this massive amount of free flowing oil below the sea at depths up to one mile deep, it is apt to continue to effect any natural recovery of the Thermohaline Circulation System.
So what does this mean? Violent mixing of the seasons, crop failures, and increased drought and floods in diverse places is now daily news since the April 20th 2010 BP Oil Volcano. They have killed the pacemaker of world climate in the worlds of Dr Zangari PhD. Dr Mike Coffman PhD geologist resource climatologist, and Dr Tim Ball PhD climatologist have confirmed that if this data is correct, that an ice age and massive climate shift with famine is now imminent. We are now seeing Russia stop all delivery of wheat crops on prior contracts, and most sources of staple food crops moving worldwide in a crisis of famine. The Gulf Stream and related currents are effectively DEAD. This should enrage the public and bring forth scientists to challenge and support the data and analysis, for the consequences to the civilization of mankind and ecological collapse have global consequence producing famine, death and massive population migration away from zones of advancing ice age and regions unfit for human habitation. Let us get the facts and call the corporate and government to task on these issues now or face worldwide catechisms of biblical proportions. We shall continue to report with new scientific experts on this most important disaster.
The ‘process’ of entering a new Ice Age could begin coming upon us in full force (rather like in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow”) at any time, or it could take three to five year to fully play out with early glaciation beginning in North America and Europe and Asia this winter (both models have existed in the beginnings of different Ice Ages in Earth’s past).
Current sea surface temperature satellite data show pre-Ice Age cooling continuing – image ~

A new Ice Age, could kill 2/3 of the human race in the first year in a rapid onset; a slower onset would likely kill close to this number but simply take a handful of years.! Thank you BP; thank you President Obama, the lies and the dispersants were just great. Now if you could just direct all that hot air to the right places maybe we can avoid a icy hell in our near future.
UPDATE 2September2010: Europe is going into an early winter ~ link ~ with snowfall in the Alps coming a month early ~ link ~ half a meter of snow in late August in Norway ~ link ~ early snow in Russia ~ link ~ Additionally, sea ice in the Antarctic is at near record levels ~link ~ and coldest August in South Australia in 35 years ~ link ~ This is indicative of a major climatic change to the entire planet and is to be expected from the dying Thermohaline Circulation System in the Atlantic Ocean.
Dr Bill Deagle MD AAEM
The NutriMedical Report Show on Genesis Network
www.NutriMedical.com
Dr. Bill Deagle is a environmental physician with a background in marine oceanography and host of the NutriMedical Report international radio talk show. Lord Stirling has been a consultant to a number of high-technology firms and is host of EUROPE a popular news site.
Links:
The Gulf Steam ~
 link ~ The Gulf Stream is bigger than the combined flow of the Mississippi, the Nile, the Congo, the Amazon, the Volga, the Yangtze and many other major rivers of the world. The best technical estimate is that one hundred thousand million tons of warm salt water flow between Florida and the Bahamas every hour. At 235 gallons per ton, we have 235 x 1010 gallons per hour flowing between two and five miles per hour northward. This flow has been estimated to be about twenty times greater than all the fresh water in the world flowing into the oceans of the world from rain, rivers, and melting ice.
This great mass of flowing water, or energy, has no beginning or ending, for its waters flow continuously northward along our east coast then east across the North Atlantic to the coasts of Europe and the United Kingdom, where it turns south and flows along western Europe and Africa, before again turning westward across the South Atlantic to the Caribbean basin. Lake any large river, it has tributaries, counter currents and eddies.
This entire circulation is not called the Gulf Stream; only the portion that flows northward beginning in the Caribbean Islands and flows to the mid-Atlantic at the latitude of the North Sea is so named. There are many other names for the other segments.
How is it possible to have such a continuous source of energy that moves the estimated one hundred thousand million tons of water (100,000,000,000 [1010]) past Miami at the rate of two to five miles per hour? This is perhaps the greatest simple source of power in the world.
Simply explained, the earth rotates counter-clockwise, and the combination of the rotation and the viscous fluids, air and water, produces a pumping action that pushes the water of the South Atlantic westward. The atmosphere, resisting the world’s rotation, produces what we call Trade Winds. Because the earth is spinning faster than the surrounding mantle of air, on the surface of the earth the winds blow from the east. Thus, the great expanse of water in the South Atlantic is pushed westward by both the earth’s rotation and the less viscous air, until it is thrust against the land masses of Central and South America, and is forced to split into two streams–the Brazil Current, flowing south, and the Gulf Stream, flowing north, the Gulf Stream being greater of the two.
The volume of water returning from Europe and Africa has been calculated to be substantially less than the volume of water of the Gulf Stream between Miami and the Bahamas. Some of this increased volume is attributed to the funnel, or venture, effect, caused by the narrowing of the Gulf Stream between Miami, Bimini and Cat Cay, which increases the Gulf Stream’s velocity and drags additional volumes of water along.
There are many doubts about who actually discovered the Gulf Stream. Credit is often given to Anto de Alaminos, the pilot for Ponce de Leon, who sailed to Florida in 1513. Benjamin Franklin has received credit for recognizing, publicizing and naming the current the Gulf Stream in 1770 (see exhibit #23). Walden Hoxton in 1735, however, had already charted and named the Stream, though his work was not published until a later date. Perhaps the discovery and naming of the Gulf Stream is a moot question, but to cartography it becomes important in tracing history, particularly in the Age of Exploration and Discovery of the New World.
From the available records, the title “Gulf Stream” was first used to identify the flowing waters off the southeast coast of Florida in 1768 or 1769 by William Gerand De Brahm, while in the employ of the British Government. In 1771, he requested the opportunity to publish a description of the waters of eastern Florida for the benefit of all ships sailing in these dangerous waters. Permission was granted and his work appeared in 1772. This publication, “The Atlantic Pilot,” together with its charts, described the “Gulf Stream” and its flows and eddies. His information was derived from the data he had collected as the Surveyor General of the new colony of East Florida, and as Surveyor General of the newly created Southern District. Since he began to work in St. Augustine, Florida, in January of 1765, the assumption is that his material for the “Atlantic Pilot” was collected between this date and his request for publication in 1771. His research predated Franklin’s, though he is not generally considered to have “discovered” the Gulf Stream. (See exhibit #21)
By the middle of the 18th Century, American ships sailing from England to America were completing the voyage as much as two weeks ahead of British Admiralty vessels making the same voyage, and England wanted to know why.
In 1786, Benjamin Franklin, who was then Postmaster General of the North American Colonies, was summoned to England to give a possible explanation. A cousin of Franklin’s, a sea captain named Folger, accompanied him. Folger had had much experience sailing the American coastline for fish and whales. Testifying before the Admiralty, he described, by sketching, the flow of water along the coast and the effect this had on shipping. The British Admiralty dismissed his information as of little account, and continued to follow their own, established routes. The rejection of this information may have had a major influence on America’s defeat of England during the Revolutionary War, because the information described by Captain Folger gave the American fleet an advantage. Benjamin Franklin published a map in 1770 showing the Gulf Stream. De Brahm’s work and maps were published in 1772, although his research was done prior to 1770. Although their objectives were different, both reached substantially the same conclusion about the Gulf Stream.
Pictures& figures:

16/1/11

If Quakes Weren’t Enough, Enter the ‘Superstorm’

New York Times

By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: January 15, 2011

SACRAMENTOCalifornia faces the risk not just of devastating earthquakes but also of a catastrophic storm that could tear at the coasts, inundate the Central Valley and cause four to five times as much economic damage as a large quake, scientists and emergency planners warn.
The potential for such a storm was described at a conference of federal and California officials that ended Friday. Combining advanced flood mapping and atmospheric projections with data on California’s geologic flood history, over 100 scientists calculated the probable consequences of a “superstorm” carrying tropical moisture from the South Pacific and dropping up to 10 feet of rain across the state.
“Floods are as much a part of our lives in California as earthquakes are,” said Lucy Jones, the chief scientist for the United States Geological Survey’s multi-hazards initiative, adding, “We are probably not going to be able to handle the biggest ones.”
The geological survey estimates that such a storm could cause up to $300 billion in damage. The scientists’ models estimate that almost one-fourth of the houses in California could experience some flood damage from one.
The conference was convened by the geological survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the California Emergency Management Agency to help disaster-response planners draft new strategies to limit the storms’ impact.
Climate scientists have for years noted that the rising temperature of the earth’s atmosphere increases the amount of energy it stores, making more violent and extreme weather events more likely.
Californians have learned to expect earthquakes the way Floridians expect hurricanes. (A minor earthquake, with a preliminary magnitude of 4.1, rattled windows in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area about a week ago.)
The existing engineering systems that dispose of floodwater are so efficient that the effects of moderate storms often go unnoticed, Dr. Jones said. So while many Californians know whether they live or work close to an earthquake-prone fault and what to do should there be a serious quake, few realize that the state could be hit by storms that at their worst could rival the largest hurricanes that devastate the Gulf Coast and the southeastern Atlantic Seaboard.
Yet vast floods have also been documented, both through tree-ring data and more modern historical records. Marcia K. McNutt, the director of the geological survey, said that 150 years ago, over a few weeks in the winter of 1861-62, enough rain fell to inundate a stretch of the Central Valley 300 miles long and 20 miles wide, from north of Sacramento south to Bakersfield, near the eastern desert.
The storms lasted 45 days, creating lakes in parts of the Mojave Desert and, according to a survey account, “turning the Sacramento Valley into an inland sea, forcing the state capital to be moved from Sacramento to San Francisco for a time, and requiring Gov. Leland Stanford to take a rowboat to his inauguration.”
Just like a major earthquake, a superstorm could be a severe blow to the state’s agriculture and to the water-supply system that now diverts water from the north to Southern California.
Dr. Jones said in an interview that improved satellite imagery available in recent years allowed scientists to clearly identify what they call “atmospheric rivers” — moisture-filled air currents up to 200 miles wide and 2,000 miles long, which flow from tropical regions of the Pacific Ocean to the West Coast.
The West Coast winter weather systems popularly known as the Pineapple Express, air currents carrying moisture from the Hawaiian Islands are just one moderate subset of these rivers, Dr. Jones said. The abbreviation for atmospheric river, A.R., gave the geological survey the root of its name for these major weather events, which they call ARk storms.
A version of this article appeared in print on January 16, 2011, on page A17 of the New York edition.