The weather at Scott Base, Ross Island, Antarctica

It is cooler at Scott Base than on the Peninsula, but, there ain't no snow. And the sailing looks remarkably easy in the middle picture.

One of my greatest concerns and one that is dearly not addressed in literature is the outcome of the Blue Ice when the Ice Terraces fail. I hope the world's populations don't learn the 'hard way.' I sincerely believe the terraces protect the Blue Ice from a shrinking base and instability of an ice mass with a very high center of gravity.

The weather in Antarctica is (Crystal Wind Chime) RIDICULOUSLY warm.

Surface winds are mostly 'still' over the Peninsula, but, there is plenty of air movement over the Blue Ice. That is what is keeping any significang accumulation of 'frigid' air. I guanantee there is sublimination of the Blue Ice in Vostok. Has to be.



Arriving Heat Transfer Systems noted.

There is absolutely no 'frigid' air over Antarctica noted below.

Why Climate Change isn't just a matter of 'warming.'

Humans have a heritage. Many have lived in one place for all their lives as have their ancestors. While others have migrated and found new ways of life without incident. But, for Ade'lie Penguines they have only known one home all their years. They only have survived on Antarctica. They don't have the 'capacity' to 'change' as people do.

They are what 'scientists' call 'hard wired.' They have lived exclusively on the Antarctica continent for so very, very long that they do not have the 'genetic variability' to change. Their instincts in nesting and feeding grounds are so deeply imprinted into their genes that they are doomed to fail on a warming Earth.

It isn't as though Antarctica will then be without Penguins. There will always be Penguins, such as the Chinstrap Penguins, that find warmer climates and migration an easy task. But, we, the people of Earth will have failed the Ade'lies. We will have allowed such drastic changes in climate that they can no longer survive in their homeland.

Oh, yeah, we can find ways to keep the species on Earth alive, but, that isn't really the point is it? We are the stewards of planet Earth, the ones that have cognition beyond most of the creatures of this planet. We are the ones that understand the dynamics of climate and science and while animals have instincts that dictate their movements and the methods they nest and reproduce, we are the 'quintessential' species that have control.

We can choose to allow an entire planet to be destroyed by our own inability to grasp the overwhelming power we have over every other species or we can find a way to be 'responsible' and protect those species that can no longer dominate a survival strategy on a warming planet they did not create.

Today, Antarctica is hideously warm. We have the ability to change the course of greenhouse gas emissions and I do not believe for one minute we cannot achieve those goals. We cannot continue on the path as we are now. Its out of the question.


Hollywood penguins threatened by climate change - January 27, 2009 (click title to entry - thank you)
...Emperor penguins rely on sea ice both as a platform to breed on, and because krill – the penguins’ main food source – thrive by grazing algae that grow on the underside of the ice. When the ice shrank suddenly in the 1970s, for instance, half of the emperor penguins in the Adélie Land were wiped out....
..."Unlike some other Antarctic bird species that have altered their life cycles, penguins don’t catch on so quickly," Jenouvrier adds – so the chances of the penguins coping with melting ice by migrating or shifting breeding patterns, for instance, are slim....


Base Arturo Prat, Antarctica (click here)

Local Time :: 3:11 AM GMT (GMT +00)

Lat/Lon :: 62.5° S 59.7° W

Elevation :: 16 ft

Temperature :: 38 °F

Conditions :: Partly Cloudy

Humidity :: 81%

Dew Point :: 34 °F

Wind :: Calm

Wind Gust :: -

Pressure :: 29.00 in (Rising)

Visibility :: 12.0 miles

Clouds :: Mostly Cloudy 1673 ft
(Above Ground Level)

Vostok, Antarctica (click here)

Local Time: 9:19 AM VOST (GMT +06)

Lat/Lon: 78.4° S 106.9° E

Elevation :: 11220 ft

Temperature :: -36 °F

Humidity :: 37%

Dew Point :: -46 °F

Wind :: 12 mph from the SW

Wind Gust :: -

Pressure :: in (Rising)

Visibility :: 12.0 miles

Will the voters of Minnesota ever seat a Senator?

Voters ask court to add absentees to MN Recount (click here)
By (Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Minnesota voters have waded into the state's U.S. Senate election fracas as Republican Norm Coleman fights for the inclusion of disqualified absentee ballots.

Six voters told their personal stories to a three-judge panel yesterday, saying their ballots had been unfairly rejected.

A statewide recount gives Democrat Al Franken a 225-vote edge. Coleman thinks he'll have the edge, and the win, if the additional votes are counted.

Yesterday, much of the panel's time was spent with state officials, lawyers and court staff working out a plan to get about 11,000 rejected ballots to St. Paul from counties throughout the state.

The case is expected to last weeks.

Fundamental Differences - For as long as there was the North and the South it divided the country.

President Obama has a difficult job, he has to convince the elected Republican members of the House and Senate that it is in their best interest to vote 'as the people of the country' voted. The Republicans are scared of losing their party more than they already have and they simply see this as a temporary 'fix' for the Democrats.

The Republicans don't believe in Human Induced Global Warming or Stem Cell Research. They believe that religion should be taught in public classrooms and science eliminated from any cirriculum. They don't believe in a woman's right to use her own mind and morality to decide about an abortion and they don't care that 'teaching abstinence' is a failed and dangerous agenda for the country. They don't see 'helping' the states as a good idea, because they want to stop taxes and they want to eliminate government at all levels.

The Republicans are 'counter-culture' to the decisions the majority made in the election of 2008. They won't vote for any of the measures of the current President. The Republicans are waiting for the entire Obama administration to fall on its face and then reep the rewards in 2010. They are hoping the country does poorly and they are hoping the job losses increase.

The Republicans don't see the strength of this country and the will of the people as the way to economic growth and success. They cater to MULTI-NATIONAL companies and Wall Street as the only venue of saving grace for the USA economy. Yet. Those very people are the ones that caused the mess in the first place. No restraint, no regulation and now the people of the USA are supposed to bail them out and continue to do so.

I don't think so.

The Obama plan will work and it will revitalize our communities. It will put new technologies back in business creating life saving measures through genetic research, new energy measures and a change in personal transportation, either that be auto or mass transit. It will give jobs back to government infrastructure, move along necessary services, put teachers back to work, place importance on medical streamlining and advanced technologies, it will require large public work projects to replace old energy infrastructure and it will upgrade and enlighten the American road and automakers. And that is only a start.

The Republicans that are still in office don't realize how loudly the American people spoke. They aren't willing to 'give up' the idea that they will return to a majority and again attempt to rule the world with oil wars, tax cuts, rocketing deficits and outsourcing to the point where there are dearly no jobs in the USA and the country is left in ruins.

The Republicans know their people are accustomed to economic impoverishment met with religious fervor that justices their ideologies.

I don't expect to see one Republican to ever vote for a measure by President Obama. In order for him to 'reach' a bipartisan effort, he'll have to 'change the Red States' and bring them out of their economic slumps. That is his sincere challenge. Regaining the international ground is nearly the easiest part of his Presidency. Every country in the world wanted the change that President Obama has to offer, even Russia.

...Last November (click here), President Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would deploy Iskander missile systems in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between NATO members Lithuania and Poland, in response to any deployment by Washington of elements of a missile defense shield in Europe....

Prime Minister Putin is talking about " inter-independence " while sounding like a capitalist.

...Putin also said the financial crisis (click here), which has already brought down energy prices, could lead to a global energy shortage.
The current dramatic decline in oil prices could trigger cuts in investment in the sector and production, and as a result a hike in prices later....

It is these changes that the future electorate of the USA will appreciate and find economic strength and rebuilding as well. President Obama will not fail. He has an entire nation and a global community intently listening to his every word and watching the signing of every bill. He will never fail, but, the Republicans that resist him will.