"Environmental Review:" 08-13-05

[WalksInSpirit]

Earth Changes Chat: 08-13-05

"Environmental Review"

(08:08:54) (Nick) Tonight we will review the environment, looking at recent studies published. Not very nice things happening to Mother Earth.
(08:12:07) (Nick) The hurricane season has only gone one third of its duration. The most frequent time for hurricanes is still to come.
(08:13:12) (Nick) There are other indications around the world that the oceans are warming up.
(08:13:26) (Cris) Some of the coral is dying
(08:14:10) (Roz) what is killing the fish in th Tampa Bay Nick
(08:14:57) (Nick) In the southern Pacific, the southern pacific gyro, a rotation of water has warmed by one quarter of a degree Centigrade = half a degree Fahrenheit and the level of the current has risen by 12cm = 4 inches.
(08:15:44) (Nick) It is thought that it is the red tide, but I suspect that there is some sulfured waters being released underground which is causing this.
(08:16:14) (Roz) sent you an article
(08:17:21) (Nick) Florida and the eastern Gulf coast sit over coral reefs which are honeycombed with caverns. Inside these sulfur compounds may build up from decaying bodies and when disturbed start diffusing up wards.
(08:17:23) (Roz) what is the red tide
(08:17:43) (Cris) Algae
(08:18:26) (Nick) yes I got it, am not certain if it really is red tide. If silver is being blackened in water, this means there is the presence of the S-2 ion sulfide. This sulfide does not occur naturally in seawater.
(08:19:00) (Cris) Probably an emission from some industry
(08:19:15) (Nick) Red tide is the name given to an algae which appears periodically in the western Atlantic, along the coast of north America.
(08:20:21) (Nick) Could be, however, what if an underground source of fluid, whether volcanic or from plate tectonic movements is pushing [pockets of this gas and its fluids up wards into the Gulf of Mexico.
(08:21:11) (Roz) thanks being a lund lubber I don t know this stuff
(08:21:15) (Nick) There have started to be daily earthquakes north of Puerto Rico and the Dominican republic. Perhaps this is a sign of this region becoming more active seismically.
(08:21:28) (Cris) That could be if there is an underground fissure starting up
(08:21:58) (vjh) I heard that something around Puerto Rico could cause earthquakes here on the east coast.
(08:22:10) (Nick) There were also those earthquakes a couple of weeks ago in Nicaragua near the volcano Concepcion.
(08:24:10) (Nick) The south Pacific gyro's warming will mean the southern Pacific waters will become warmer, and thus hold less dissolved oxygen, and therefore be less life-supporting.
(08:26:04) (Roz) does that mean El Nino Nick?
(08:26:39) (Roz) gives us a great winter
(08:27:09) (Nick) This also means that the wind patterns along the east coast of Australia will shift further south. Bringing the dry eastern wind further down from the Gold Coast area towards Sydney. This is Australia's most fertile growing area.
(08:27:52) (Nick) No, just for Australia, it means the less chance of winter rainstorms coming north from the Antarctic seas.
(08:28:26) (Cris) If you remember history the Sahara once bloomed and was fertile - such a shift could hurt the farmlands
(08:28:46) (Cris) It would change to desert
(08:29:35) (Nick) Yes, Cris, the interior of Australia was also once a fertile plain like the Sahara was.
(08:31:24) (Nick) There are also other reports from the field which are painting a picture of a runaway climate, like Alaska, for example.
(08:32:53) (Nick) Native Alaskans have kept spoken records which have been handed down from generation to generation. These were not consulted by scientists when making surveys of the region for climate science purposes.
(08:33:18) (Nick) The picture they paint is quite alarming.
(08:34:00) (Nick) Barrow is the most northerly town in the United States, lying 300 miles inside the Arctic Circle.
(08:34:05) (Cris) the permafrost is vanishing
(08:34:21) (merri1) what is the picture they paint, Nick?
(08:35:13) (Nick) 92 year old Bertha Leavitt recalls: When I was a child", she says, "it was so much colder and the winds in winter used to be fierce." She remembers her elders telling in their stories that the weather was going to change. And since her childhood she believes this has come true.
(08:36:08) (Nick) Barrow whaling captain Percy Nusunginya has particular reason to be alert to change. Each autumn and spring his crew ventures out on the ice to fish at air holes. He says that working out on the Arctic Sea has become very dangerous.
(08:36:42) (Nick) Nowadays ice conditions are thinner than in the 1970s and 80s. The ice used to be 20 to 30 feet thick but now it is more like 10 feet thick. But what can we do? Sometimes I feel sad but we just have to go with what we have got.
(08:36:57) (Roz) well that then seems to be a very good change Nick
(08:37:21) (Nick) "Here" he says "the ice pack is almost all gone".
(08:38:34) (Nick) The seas levels will keep rising Roz and there will be less and less fresh water from rain. The oceans will absorb more heat and more water vapor. Fresh water will be less and less.
(08:39:34) (Nick) Percy says Western nations need to have scientific proof that the climate is warming rather than believing the word of the native people but he adds: "The white man, the climatologists are just learning what we knew was going on."
(08:40:56) (Nick) One of the first to realize the value of local knowledge was Mike Spindler, a US fish and wildlife refuge manager from the Koyukuk and Nowitna National Wildlife Refuge several hundred miles away in the interior of Alaska.
(08:41:38) (Nick) He first began collecting environmental observations from elders when he found that there had been no scientific research carried out in the area before 1980, when the Wildlife Refuge was created.
(08:42:11) (Nick) "In many of the interviews elders make reference to the 1970s as the time that they began to notice changes in the climate," says Mike.
(08:42:56) (Nick) An area near Mike's base is referred to as a "drunken forest". He explains that the spruce trees are falling over because of thawing permafrost. This could be due to changing climate, he says, or natural succession.
(08:43:32) (Nick) But in the interviews elders have spoken of what they describe as crazy changes in the climate
(08:44:00) (Nick) Margie Attla, an elder from the village of Galena, says "The last couple of years has been really crazy. It is kind of scary when the wind comes up at the wrong time and we have rain in the winter, the change is really there and I am not very comfortable with it."
(08:44:51) (Nick) This is more evidence that the Earth is continuing to get hotter as time passes by. There is even more stuff than this.
(08:46:14) (Nick) The world's largest frozen peat bog is melting, which could speed the rate of global warming, New Scientist reports.
(08:47:18) (Nick) This is western Siberia, east of the Ural mountains. The area, which is the size of France and Germany combined, could release billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
(08:48:00) (Nick) The situation is an "ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming," researcher Sergei Kirpotin, of Tomsk State University, Russia, told New Scientist magazine.
(08:49:04) (Nick) The whole western Siberian sub-Arctic region has started to thaw, he added, and this "has all happened in the last three or four years".
(08:49:29) (Nick) Western Siberia has warmed faster than almost anywhere on the planet, with average temperatures increasing by about 3C in the last 40 years.
(08:49:30) (Roz) midwest been much hotter than usual summer
(08:49:45) (Blu) Get use to it...
(08:50:09) (Nick) The warming is believed to be due to a combination of man-made climate change, a cyclical atmospheric phenomenon known as the Arctic oscillation and feedbacks caused by melting ice.
(08:50:47) (Nick) The 11,000-year-old bogs contain billions of tonnes of methane, most of which has been trapped in permafrost and deeper ice-like structures called clathrates.
(08:51:15) (Blu) might want to get used to breathing methane too
(08:51:21) (Nick) lol
(08:51:31) (Nick) But if the bogs melt, there is a big risk their hefty methane load could be dumped into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming.
(08:52:05) (Nick) When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it's unstoppable," David Viner, of the University of East Anglia, UK, told the Guardian newspaper. "There are no brakes you can apply.
(08:52:29) (merri1) we will have to go back to living in caves!
(08:52:35) (Nick) This is a big deal because you can't put the permafrost back once it's gone. The causal effect is human activity and it will ramp up temperatures even more than our emissions are doing."
(08:52:39) (Roz) use the methane instead of fossil fuel
(08:52:53) (Nick) Yup, back to the days of the Neanderthals! :o)
(08:52:54) (Cris) Too bad there isn't a way for us to harness the energy of that methane
(08:52:56) (Blu) can't tap a bog!
(08:53:27) (Nick) The intergovernmental panel on climate change speculated in 2001 that global temperatures would rise between 1.4C and 5.8C between 1990 and 2100.
(08:54:00) (Cris) They cap the slurry cyanide pons of gold mining they might could devise a cover and funnel it
(08:54:03) (Nick) However these estimates only considered global warming sparked by known greenhouse gas emissions.
(08:54:07) (Cris) ponds*
(08:54:47) (Nick) These positive feedbacks with landmasses weren't known about then," Dr Viner said. "They had no idea how much they would add to global warming."
(08:54:49) (docyabut) Aug. 12, 2005— A huge expanse of western Siberia is going through an unprecedented thaw that could speed the rate of global warming dramatically, a British weekly said.
(08:54:54) (merri1) Nick does the warming of the climate also cause new strains of viruses?
(08:55:19) (docyabut) Scientists recently back from the Russian region say the world's largest frozen peat bog is melting into shallow lakes. It is thawing for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago
(08:55:45) (Nick) No, but it might induce some bacteria and/or viruses to mutate into much nastier thingies than they are at present.
(08:56:05) (Nick) Yup, that was the article I was snipping docyabut.
(08:57:04) (Nick) There are more tales of woe, but y'all look a little burnt out at present. :o)
(08:57:12) (WalksInSpirit) Did anybody hear about NASA's proposed idea about introducing greenhouse gasses on Mars?
(08:57:21) (Nick) So unless anyone has any questions..................
(08:57:58) (Blu) I heard that the animals in these regions are being affected
(08:58:07) (merri1) why do that WIS?
(08:58:21) (Nick) Yup, your average polar bear now raids peoples' trash for food.
(08:58:34) (Blu) so we can get credit for destroying 2 planets instead of one!
(08:58:44) (Nick) lol
(08:58:51) (Blu) also the caribou have declined
(08:59:12) (WalksInSpirit) It was on ABC World News the other night. NASA thinks if they introduce the greenhouse gasses responsible for global warming on Earth, into Mars' atmosphere, it will cause climate change on Mars that will form an atmosphere that could sustain life.
(08:59:35) (Nick) It would be extremely difficult for Mars to attract an atmosphere since its magnetic field is hundreds of times weaker than Earth's.
(09:00:15) (Nick) The only gas which could "hold onto its orbit on the planet" would be oxygen which is magnetic.
(09:00:45) (Blu) quick everyone build air cleaners!
(09:00:55) (Blu) plant trees
(09:01:44) (Nick) We would have to find a way to scrub methane out of the atmosphere. Like putting a vacuum cleaner attachment onto every cow's backside. :o)
(09:01:59) (merri1) lol
(09:02:06) (Blu) that's it, boycott red meat!
(09:02:15) (merri1) what a picture that makes, Nick!!!!
(09:02:20) (Roz) or converting it to usable fuel
(09:02:42) (docyabut) well mentane gas is what destroyed the first dinosaurs
(09:02:43) (Cris) They use scrubbers on digester's at paper mills - couldn't a similar system be created?
(09:03:04) (Cris) They use scrubbers in other industries too
(09:03:29) (Cris) One of the best known plants for them is in western NY
(09:03:55) (Nick) The area of the melting permafrost is the size of France and Germany combined. And this report does not even mention the vanishing permafrost areas in northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland.
(09:10:59) (Nick) Friday, next week is the full moon @ 17:53 UTC = 10:53 eastern time. Stay alert if you are close to earthquake areas.
(09:11:17) (Nick) Oops, 12:53 Eastern.
(09:11:19) (docyabut) well nick i think it will be like the past climate change will cause man to almost go extinct
(09:12:19) (Blu) Well Cayce says that Nebraska will feed the world
(09:12:39) (docyabut) everything of the earth is warming and rattleing:0
(09:12:43) (Nick) The earthchanges predicted by the Cayce readings may be triggered by the increasing weigh of deeper oceans on shallow seas like the eastern coast of North America and western Europe.
(09:24:08) (docyabut) By Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY
(09:24:29) (docyabut) The sleeping giant of American earthquake faults, the New Madrid zone in the middle of the country, may be showing new signs of activity
(09:25:02) (docyabut) The journal Nature reported in June that a University of Memphis study had detected a half-inch of fault shift in the past five years. The movement, detected with the Global Positioning System (GPS), could be a sign that pressure is building toward a significant quake in a region that's home to millions
(09:25:07) (Nick) The New Madrid and the English Hills systems are still active, it is well to keep them under observation..
(09:25:35) (docyabut) We go from nothing moving to a little movement. That's a huge difference," says Arch Johnston, director of the university's Center for Earthquake Research and Information.
(09:26:00) (docyabut) The New Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid) zone is the most seismically active region east of the Rocky Mountains. It is a 120-mile series of rifts deep beneath the Earth's surface along the Mississippi River.
(09:26:27) (Blu) I had been born again in 2158 A.D. in Nebraska. the sea apparently covered all of the western part of the country, as the city where I lived was on the coast. The family name was a strange one.
(09:26:39) (docyabut) Almost two centuries ago, it produced the largest earthquake ever in the continental USA. The earthquake, later estimated at magnitude 8.1 or stronger, was more powerful than any in California, home of the San Andreas fault.
(09:26:42) (Bear) Oklahoma will find those awash from Texas on their shores, as they will be a shore from the sloshing of the Gulf
(09:26:52) (Cris) Didn't EC say something about the Mississippi changing the water flow direction?
(09:27:00) (docyabut) But the New Madrid fault, named for a frontier Missouri village rocked by powerful quakes in the winter of 1811-12, hasn't had a big one since. The last of considerable strength, about magnitude 6.0, was in 1895. More than 100 quakes a year occur in the zone, which runs from northeastern Arkansas to southern Illinois. Most are too small to be felt.
(09:27:05) (Blu) At an early age as a child I declared myself to be Edgar Cayce who had lived 200 yrs. before. Scientists, men with long beards, little hair, and thick glasses, were called in to observe me.
(09:27:33) (docyabut) The hazard here is greater than one would think," says Eugene Schweig of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) office in Memphis. "Even if earthquakes happen somewhat less frequently here, they can cause damage over a much bigger area
(09:27:47) (Blu) They decided to visit the places where I said I had been born, lived and worked, in Ky., Ala., N.Y., Mich., and Va. Taking me with them the group of scientists visited these places in along, cigar-shaped, metal flying ship which moved at high speed.
(09:28:01) (docyabut) That's because seismic waves travel farther in the "very old, very cold and hard" crust under the central USA, Schweig says. Compared with the 1906 earthquake that all but destroyed San Francisco, the New Madrid quakes had "strong shaking over about 20 times as much area," he says
(09:28:25) (docyabut) The USGS calculates a 40% chance of a major earthquake of magnitude 6.0 or greater within the next 35 years, and a 10% chance of a quake the size of the ones that made New Madrid famous. "A repeat today of the earthquakes of 1811-12 would cause widespread loss of life and billions of dollars in property damage," a USGS fact sheet says.
(09:28:39) (Blu) Water covered part of Ala. Norfolk, Va. had become an immense seaport. N.Y. had been destroyed either by war or an earthquake and was being rebuilt. Industries were scattered over the countryside. Most of the houses were of glass.
(09:29:23) (Blu) Many records of my work as Edgar Cayce were discovered and collected. The group ret'd to Nebraska taking the records with them to study.
(09:29:54) (docyabut) Another group of researchers, however, questions the findings. A team from Northwestern University studied the New Madrid zone in 1998, also with GPS, but found no seismic movement. Team members, including Andrew Newman, now a professor at Georgia Tech, suggest that "noise" in the data and too few measuring points showing movement make the new results dubious
(09:30:23) (docyabut) "An 1811-type event is not very likely in our future," Newman says. "There's definitely fewer earthquakes there now." The last sizable one was in 1895, and "since then, none. In the same time, you've seen a couple of dozen on the San Andreas fault in California."
(09:30:46) (docyabut) New Madrid's dynamics are largely unknown. In California, faults are easily studied because they are on the Earth's surface, where two continental plates collide. New Madrid's faults lie beneath thick sediments deposited over millions of years. Recent research also suggests the thick sediments may magnify, not dampen, the shock waves of an earthquake
(09:31:17) (docyabut) Scientists believe the faults are a failed "rift" zone, created when Earth's crust was separating into continents. The crust fractured but did not split apart. That left a weak spot where earthquakes occur
(09:31:58) (docyabut) New Madrid's dynamics are largely unknown. In California, faults are easily studied because they are on the Earth's surface, where two continental plates collide. New Madrid's faults lie beneath thick sediments deposited over millions of years. Recent research also suggests the thick sediments may magnify, not dampen, the shock waves of an earthquake.
(09:32:21) (Nick) Have you got the URL, docyabut?
(09:32:27) (docyabut) Scientists believe the faults are a failed "rift" zone, created when Earth's crust was separating into continents. The crust fractured but did not split apart. That left a weak spot where earthquakes occur.
(09:32:32) (merri1) wonder why glass houses?
(09:32:47) (docyabut) History shows that the New Madrid earthquakes were fearsome. In 1811 and 1812, three major quakes triggered landslides, caused the Mississippi River to flow backward, swamped boats, created a lake, leveled New Madrid, Mo., and knocked down chimneys and cabins in St. Louis and Cincinnati. The shaking caused church bells to ring in Boston.
(09:33:22) (Cris) Glass can me made to be very sturdy and it's energy efficient
(09:33:46) (merri1) so why don't we build them now?
(09:34:09) (Cris) people are more used to standard building materials
(09:34:25) (Nick) Perhaps because of the ability of some types of glass to be 'hot' mirrors and others 'cold' mirrors. In terms of allowing the light through but blocking the heat, depending on the climate of the region.
(09:34:47) (docyabut) In 1990, a New Mexico climatologist with no formal earthquake training predicted a big one for early that December. The forecaster supposedly had predicted the California's 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. That quake, which struck as the World Series was being played in the San Francisco Bay Area, killed 63 people and caused $6 billion in damage.
(09:35:17) (docyabut) No movement occurred in New Madrid except for an invasion of tourist traffic and news media. Sales of "It's our fault" T-shirts and "Quake burgers" were brisk
(09:35:22) (Cris) some new things are coming about steel framing is being used for more houses instead of wood in some areas
(09:35:44) (docyabut) The publicity did remind people that big earthquakes had happened there and could again. "Everybody got their earthquake kits together," says Schweig of the USGS. As fears subsided over the years, precautions were forgotten
(09:35:45) (Blu) I had a dream where I was flying over glass buildings, I knew it was the future, everything was close together, but looked nice.
(09:36:14) (docyabut) "We're somewhat overdue for a magnitude 6, but earthquakes are not 'on the clock,' " says Chuck Langston of the University of Memphis quake center. A variety of preparedness efforts already are underway
(09:36:33) (merri1) we should be building them now especially if energy efficient
(09:36:38) (docyabut) The Federal Emergency Management Agency is starting a "catastrophic planning initiative" for the Memphis area, the closest major city to the fault line. FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney says the object is to prepare for any threat, not just an earthquake. But the project will be designed for a widespread disaster that perhaps only a quake could produce: schools, hospitals, airports and power plants hit at once
(09:37:06) (docyabut) The USGS is mapping the geology in cities affected by the fault to identify areas most prone to quake damage. The mapping is finished for Memphis and has begun for St. Louis and Evansville, Ind.
(09:37:31) (Blu) Memphis is in big trouble
(09:37:31) (docyabut) A major earthquake on the Mississippi River will be the scenario next June for the Coast Guard's annual "Spill of National Significance" exercise, a drill for accidents with oil or hazardous materials
(09:37:42) (WalksInSpirit) Here's the URL for the article: www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050808/a_newmadrid8.art.htm
(09:38:00) (Blu) That clay will turn to water, called liquefaction
(09:38:06) (Nick) Good
(09:38:12) (docyabut) A year-old, $235 million FEMA program that issues grants for designing and refurbishing buildings to withstand catastrophes is getting proposals that include earthquake readiness. Kinerney says at least two schools in the New Madrid region have added a "seismic component" to their grant requests.
(09:38:18) (Blu) One reason I moved out of there!
(09:38:33) (docyabut) The USGS and other agencies conduct "Earthquake 101" seminars in cities within the zone. In June, a small quake occurred during one such meeting in Dyersburg, Tenn.
(09:38:39) (Andrew) changes are gradual though
(09:38:52) (Blu) not always Andrew
(09:39:10) (Andrew) Cayce said it, not me.
(09:40:09) (Andrew) he said it exactly 64 years ago !
(09:40:43) (Bear) Safety is to be found in the highest mountains of northern Spain, away from the cross flow of water.
(09:41:43) (Nick) The Land of the Pyrenees, Bear.
(09:42:02) (WalksInSpirit) And in my lifetime (35 yrs.) I have seen the hurricane seasons go from almost nil to vicious, weather in general go berserk, and one Christmas, we grilled out and wore shorts!!!
(09:42:23) (Andrew) Reading 1152-11, given on August 13th, 1941 !
(09:42:45) (Nick) This was also a safe land during the time of the destruction of Atlantis.
(09:42:45) (merri1) lol, WIS I remember a Thanksgiving like that!
(09:42:57) (Blu) I have been having earthquake dreams, they are very close
(09:43:49) (Blu) Wrap all your Cayce books in air tight bags people
(09:43:52) (Andrew) "Changes here are gradually coming about."
(09:44:22) (merri1) geeezzzBlue, mine are already 25 yrs old!!
(09:44:33) (Blu) with all this lightening around here I can't believe we are still on line
(09:44:41) (Nick) The dangerous part of the New Madrid area is the English Hills system, about 25 miles to the northwest parallel to the Ohio river valley projection underneath the Mississippi. This area has not moved in over one thousand years.