This Blog is created to stress the importance of Peace as an environmental directive. “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” – Harry Truman
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Gal Wiener, owner and manager of the Winner's auction house in Jerusalem, holds two notes, including one on happiness, written by Albert Einstein in November 1922. Both notes were written in German on stationary from the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.
October 25, 2017
By Laura Geggel
Two advice-filled notes (click here) Albert Einstein wrote to a bellboy in Japan 95 years ago, including one that advocated for "a calm and modest life," fetched more than $1.5 million at an auction on Tuesday (Oct. 24).
In October 1922, Einstein was traveling to Japan to deliver a series of lectures when he received a telegraph announcing that he had won the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics. The physicist was hardly ever short on groundbreaking theories, but found himself short on cash when he wanted to tip a bellboy who had delivered an item to his room at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.
In lieu of a monetary tip, Einstein gave the bellboy two thoughtful notes he had just written on hotel stationary. Einstein told the bellboy to keep the letters, "as their future value may be much higher than a standard tip," according to Winner's Auctions and Exhibitions, in Jerusalem, which auctioned the letters....
27 July 2017 By Avi Steinber For 10 years, Nasa has been flying over the ice caps to chart their retreat. This data is an invaluable record of climate change. But does anyone care?
...Imagine (click here) a thousand centuries of heavy snowfall, piled up and compacted into stone-like ice atop the bedrock of Greenland, an Arctic island almost a quarter the size of the US. Imagine all of modern human history, from the Neolithic revolution 12,000 years ago – when humans moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from there, eventually, to urban societies – until today. All of the snow that fell on the Arctic during that entire history is gathered up in just the top layers of the ice sheet.
Imagine the dimensions of that ice: 1.71m sq km (656,000 sq miles), three times the size of Texas. At its belly – from the top layer, yesterday’s snowfall, to the bottom layer, which is made of snow that fell out of the sky 115,000-130,000 years ago – it reaches 3,200 metres (10,500ft) thick, nearly four times taller than the world’s highest skyscraper....
...When you fly over entire mountain ranges whose tips barely peek out from under the ice – and these are just the visible ones – it’s possible to imagine what would happen if even a fraction of this quantity of pent-up freshwater were unleashed. You can plainly see how this thing would flood the coasts of the world, from Brooklyn to Bangladesh.
The crew of Nasa’s Operation IceBridge have seen this ice from every imaginable angle. IceBridge is an aerial survey of the polar regions that has been underway for nearly a decade – the most ambitious of its kind to date. It has yielded a growing dataset that helps researchers document, among other things, how much, and at what rate, ice is disappearing from the poles, contributing to global sea-level rises, and to a variety of other phenomena related to climate change.... ...In April, I travelled to Kangerlussuaq, in south-west Greenland, and joined the IceBridge field crew – a group of about 30 laser, radar, digital mapping, IT and GPS engineers, glaciologists, pilots and mechanics. What I saw there were specialists who have, over the course of almost 10 years on this mission, mastered the art and science of polar data hunting while, at the same time, watching as the very concept of data, of fact-based discourse, has crumbled in their culture at home. On each flight, I witnessed a remarkable tableau. Even as Arctic glaciers were losing mass right below the speeding plane, and even as raw data gleaned directly from those glaciers was pouring in on their monitors, theNasaengineers sat next to their fact-recording instruments, sighing and wondering aloud if Americans had lost the eyes to see what they were seeing, to see the facts.... ...But at pre-flight weather meetings, polar ice is mostly of concern to him for the quirky way it might affect that day’s weather..... ...What’s needed is the ability to grasp constant dynamic change.... The caliper of intelligence and experience for this level of science cannot be understated. John Sonntag is at least as valuable as all his instrumentation. Scientists like Sonntag make the leap from machine data to human understanding in the depth of the meaning of climate and weather to the human experience. Sorry, but, no instrumentation will provide that insight. Who would want to take the chance of a machine misinterpreting what data means to the human experience? ...Each of the 63 flight plans for this season in the Arctic was the result of months of meticulous planning. A team of polar scientists from across the US sets the research priorities, in collaboration with flight crews, who make sure the routes are feasible; the mission is managed from Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Sonntag is there at every phase, including at the construction and installation of the scientific instruments, and he is the person in the field responsible for executing the mission.... ...Sea levels, which were more or less constant for the past 2,000 years, have climbed at a rate of roughly 1.7mm a year in the past century; in the past 25 years, that rate has doubled to 3.4mm a year, already enough to create adverse effects in coastal areas. A conservative estimate holds that waters will rise roughly 0.9 metres (3ft) by the year 2100, which will place hundreds of millions of people in jeopardy.... The Greenland Icesheet is a real hazard to the countries that line the Atlantic Ocean. The meander of the icesheet is measured to be sure there is not a significant increase to indicate the icesheet could or is becoming unstable. ...The IceBridge data has also helped create a 3D map of an ice-locked land that no human eyes have ever seen: the territory of Greenland, its mountains, valleys, plains and canyons, and also a clear view of the layers of ice that have grown above it..... The ice that could potentially fall into or slide into the Atlantic Ocean from Greenland is not a minor issue. It could ultimately cause tsunamis that would wipe out Washington, DC among the coastal areas of every continent, except, Asia and Australia.
Above is a graph from "Fairfax (Virginia) Climate Watch" clearly illustrating the loss of land, but, also displaced populations due to expected sea level rise caused by anthropogentic climate change. The study was conducted in 2013. No one would expect Virginia to face the same flood problems as New Orleans, but, it is true. The climate crisis effects the lives of many Virginians.
October 27, 2017 Series of large earthquakes hit Bárðarbunga last night. Icelandic Met Office
Four large earthquakes (click here) occurred in the Bárðarbunga volcanic system last night, the largest earthquakes since the 2014-2015 volcanic eruption.
The first earthquake of magnitude 3.9 on the richter scale occured at 23:02 last night, followed by a 3.2 earthquake at 23:03. The third quake hit the volcano at 23:26 and measured 4.7. The fourth earthquake of magnitude 4.7 occured 16 minutes past midnight.
An earthquake measuring 4.1 took place in the volano earlier this week and several earthquakes hit the volcano in September.
Bárðarbunga is the largest and most powerful volcano in Iceland. It is located under the northern part of the Vatnajökull glacier in South Iceland, Europe’s largest glacier. The Bárðarbunga volcanic system is approximately 200 km (120 miles) long.
Earthquakes of magnitude 4.7 are the largest quakes that have occured in the Bárðarbunga caldera since the 2014 eruption. The Holuhraun eruption began on August 31st 2014 and lasted until February 28, 2015. It is the largest eruption in Iceland since 1783 and produced a massive lava field of more than 85 km2 (33 square miles) in the middle of the island. Epicenter of largest earthquake.
October 25, 2017 The wind forecast for tomorrow night. Map/ Iceland Met Office The Iceland Met Office (click here) has issued a storm warning in North Iceland on Thursday night with winds up to 30-40 metres per second. On election day, Saturday, the weather is going to be cold and possibly snowy in North East Iceland. Roads in South Iceland are icy, particularly in Mosfellsheiði and on highway no.1 between Selfoss and Hvolsvöllur. 21 October 2017 An earthquake at a magnitude of 3.4 (click here) was felt in the town of Selfoss last night. Locals reported cupboards shaking and crockery breaking. An ongoing swarm of earthquakes has continued into the morning. The earthquake swarm started at around 4 pm last night and the second largest quake was measured at 2.9 on the Richter scale. According to the Iceland Met Office the earthquakes are occurring on a well-known fissure area. The Met Office will be observing developments closely over the next few days. They do not rule out larger earthquakes occurring in the area but it's just as likely that the swarm will just subside.
October 28, 2017 0130.19z UNISYS Water Vapor of the north and west hemisphere
October 28, 2017 0730.19z UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite of the north and west hemisphere To be noted Tropical Depression 18 has developed in the Caribbean Sea while the water vapor was moving from the Greenland-Iceland icesheets and glaciers. The formation of 18 began before the water vapor movement. While it was a formation, it lacked the water vapor content to build to a tropical storm.
