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Friday, May 25, 2007

Study Finds Hurricanes Frequent in Some Cooler Periods

Ouch! even when the ocean has been warmer, in the past five thousand years, strings of hurricanes managed to ravage the Atlantic Caribbean... This is the conclusion of some analysis performed by some scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Here's their press release. Apparently, variation on the intensity of El NiƱo and monsoon intensity in West Africa influence the Caribbean hurricane season.
Should we trust them? Are we sure they are not some kind of fake research institute funded by republicans? As a matter of fact they're not, and they state their position on real warming quite clearly in the paper, saying that more than one mechanism may be at play in determining the weather patterns in the area - Global warming effect seems to be ascertained, and if it were to compound with one of these cold-pacific, rainy-Africa periods, effects might be even more devastating than expected. No Hurray for global warmers denialist, then. Quite the opposite. But then they will probably laugh at the idea that one can obtain reliable sampling of past hurricane intensity from the muddy bottom of lagoons. Their intelligence, unfortunately, can't grasp that much. In the mud, they simply live...

a funny news from their website: Vitamin B12 Is Also an Essential Vitamin for Marine Life
The vitamin has impacts on the marine food web and Earth’s climate - reading it like this, it looks like we should dissolve big-ass pills of vitamins in the oceans, to keep it healthy. But don't worry, those scientist haven't gone mad...

in the words of the authors: The presence or absence of B12 in the ocean plays a vital and previously overlooked role in determining where, how much, and what kinds of microscopic algae (called phytoplankton) will bloom in the sea, according to a study published in the May issue of the journal Limnology and Oceanography.

These photosynthesizing plants, in turn, have a critical impact on Earth’s climate: They draw huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the air, incorporating carbon into their bodies. When they die or are eaten, carbon is transferred to the ocean depths, where it cannot re-enter the atmosphere.


Many more news to discover in their website... go and check it out!

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