Posts tagged cause
BEETLE KILL LIKELY TO WORSEN HIGH RUNOFF
Jun 8th
ACCUMULATION AND MELT, SAYS CU-BOULDER STUDY
A new University of Colorado Boulder study indicates the infestation of trees by mountain pine beetles in the high country across the West could potentially trigger earlier snowmelt and increase water yields from snowpack that accumulates beneath affected trees.
Led by CU-Boulder geological sciences department doctoral student Evan Pugh, the study was undertaken near Grand Lake, Colo., adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park, an area that has been devastated by mountain pine beetle attacks in recent years. Mountain pine beetles have killed more than 4 million acres of lodgepole pine trees in Colorado and southern Wyoming since 1996, the most severe outbreak on record.
Pugh and his team monitored eight pairs of tree stands, each pair consisting of one live stand and one dead stand roughly an acre each in size and located adjacent to each other, sharing the same topography, elevation and slope. The team monitored the two distinct phases of pine beetle tree death during the three-year study — the “red phase” in which dead trees still retained red needles, and the “gray phase” in which all of the tree needles and some small branches had been shed, said Pugh.
The study showed that there was roughly 15 percent more snow accumulation under the gray phase stands than under living stands or red phase stands, likely due in large part to a lack of “snow interception” by needled tree branches that can cause snowflakes to “sublimate” into gas and return to the atmosphere, he said. Gray phase trees also allow more solar radiation through their canopies than live trees and red phase trees, increasing the potential for earlier melt, said Pugh, lead study author.
Snowmelt rates were highest under red phase trees, with snow disappearing up to a week earlier than snow in adjacent, healthy stands even though both received the same amount of snowfall at their bases. Pugh showed the earlier snowmelt in red phase tree stands is due in large part to the amount of litter — needles and branches — that drops or is blown from the trees onto on the snow surface, decreasing its solar reflecting power, or albedo, and causing it to absorb more of the sun’s radiation and heat up slightly.
“This is the first study to look at the potential effects that different stages of mountain pine beetle tree death may have on snowmelt,” Pugh said. “What we are seeing is earlier snowmelt and more snow accumulation in dead forests.”
A paper on the subject was published online today in the peer-reviewed journal, Ecohydrology. The paper was co-authored by CU-Boulder geological sciences Professor Eric Small and funded in part by a CU-Boulder Innovative Seed Grant. Four undergraduates — Leslie Baehr, Tevis Blom, Bryant Kealey and Jon Hammond — received internship credit for helping to conduct the research.
The study took place at the headwaters of the Colorado River in north-central Colorado. Six of the eight healthy tree stands in the study were made up primarily of lodgepole pines, while two were made up of mixed conifer trees. “One of the hardest parts of this study was to find stands of healthy trees in this area,” said Pugh.
The red phase that occurs following tree death usually lasts about 18 months, and the onset of the gray phase occurs about three or four years after tree death, said Pugh.
“One of the big surprises to me was that changes in snowpack depth and snowmelt timing as a result of the pine beetle outbreak were not larger,” said Small. But the continuing effects could become more significant in the coming decades, he said.
The CU-Boulder team used a wide variety of instruments during the study. In addition to avalanche poles used to periodically measure the snow depth at the 16 study stands, the team also inserted tiny thermometers at various snow depths to help them predict when the snow would likely melt. They also dug snow pits in each of the tree stands and weighed known volumes of snow to calculate density and water content.
Pugh’s team also used devices known as pyranometers to measure the snow surface albedo and the transmission of sunlight through forest canopies. Fisheye camera images taken from the snow surface helped the researchers to calculate the size and structure of the various tree stand canopies, he said.
“The students really got something out of working on this project,” said Small. “Not only did they get internship credit, they had a chance to conduct meaningful research.”
A massive fire in the study area in the late 1800s resulted in most of the succeeding lodgepole pines to be about the same size and age, making them easier targets for pine beetles. While mountain pine beetle infestations are natural events, climate change probably has played a role in the most recent outbreak. Drought conditions in the West in recent years have caused living pines to absorb less water, decreasing their ability to produce enough sap to “pitch out” beetles that are attacking them, Pugh said.
Water managers in Salt Lake City have reported extra water in river basins that hydrologic models had not predicted, Pugh said, an indication beetle-killed trees are having an impact on meltwater.
With the exception of two studies in British Columbia looking at the effects of beetle- killed lodgepole pine trees on snow accumulation and melt on flat terrain at a single site, research regarding the hydrologic impacts of mountain pine beetles has largely been speculative, said Pugh.
“Our study is the first to analyze the multiple stages of tree death from mountain pine beetles and their different impacts on snow accumulation and snowmelt,” said Pugh. “There is no on/off switch here — only gradual changes.
“The effects of the beetle-killed tree stands in terms of snow accumulation are not going to affect ski resort seasons by any means,” he said. “What we can say is there likely will be additional water resources for water managers. Additional snowpack coupled with dead trees that are no longer sucking up water will likely lead to more runoff.”
Did the Harpe weapon cause the recent earth quakes????
Apr 24th
By Rosalie Bertell
The Women’s Press, London,
Review by Moyra Bremner. First published in Caduceus Magazine, issue 51,
ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED
Rosalie Bertell’s new book, “Planet Earth the Latest weapon of War”, reveals the unbelievable truth in the new generation of super-weapons.
Important books are rare – very rare. “Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of War” is one such rarity. Like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring it deserves to be read by everyone who cares a jot about their future. For it reveals that, behind carefully spin doctored names like ‘the Star Wars project’, the military is now testing radically new weapons which so profoundly imperil the earth, and all life on it, that to deploy them in the name of security is like suggesting that becoming a suicide-bomber increases life expectancy.
—– As a distinguished American scientist, world expert on radiation, and winner of major international awards for science, Dr Bertell is no scaremonger. Yet her cool, incisive, fact-packed, prose not only reveals weapons worthy of science fiction, but shows that testing them may be costing thousands of innocent civilian lives – in peacetime.
—– She exposes how the military have, for decades, been secretly conducting experiments, including high-level nuclear explosions, which may disrupt the vital layers of the atmosphere which protect us from the sun’s lethal radiation. She says these experiments are often conducted without even discussing with non-military experts the hazards of damaging these life-preserving earth-veils. And she believes that such experiments may already have accelerated global warming and contributed to earthquakes and freak weather conditions.
—– The story unfolds gently. She tells us that, for four years, a Russian thermonuclear bomb a thousand times more powerful than Hiroshima bomb circled above our heads. And that a single rocket launched by the US military merely carried enough plutonium to cause lung cancer in 20 million people – had it exploded like some of its non-loaded predecessors.
Radiation belt
—– In July 1962 NASA announced that high altitude nuclear tests had created a new radiation belt 750 miles deep, girdling the earth. This damage and pollution was compounded by ‘me too’ experiments by the USSR. Dr Bertell says it was 10 years before American scientists realised that it would be hundreds of years before the vital earth-shielding Van Allen belts of the earth’s atmosphere would recover from such onslaughts.
—– However, the repercussions may not be limited to the atmosphere itself. She says that, after one nuclear experiment, which created new electromagnetic belts in the atmosphere, the caribou mysteriously failed to migrate for the first time in 3000 years. A warning perhaps of how the migration of animals, fish and birds may be affected by disturbances to electromagnetic fields – and of the potential impact on man. For, without the caribou, many Inuit people starved to death. Moreover, the nuclear radiation was not confined to the upper atmosphere: caribou and people who survived were dangerously contaminated with caesium 137, and cancer, lung disease and infant mortality soared.
—– Despite opposition from the International Union of Astronomers, the US military even put 350,000,000 copper needles into orbit. An experiment which Dr Bertell says some scientist believed may have upset the balance of the planetary magnetic field, causing the massive 8.5 Alaskan earthquake and losing Chile part of its coast. Yet she shows that such experiments are small beer compared with what is being done today – and is to come.
HAARP – Ionosphere modification
—– For example, she describes HAARP (America’s High-frequency Active Auroral Research Programme) a multimillion pound ‘civilian’ installation, hidden away in Alaska, ostensibly intended to ‘alter the performance of communications and surveillance systems’. Seemingly innocent enough, until she explains that this grid of 180 transmission towers is funded by the military and is part of the ‘Star Wars’ defence network. HAARP, and its linked brother projects are, she says, known to the military as ‘ionosphere modification facilities’. For, according to the proposal for its installation, HAARP is intended to trigger and control natural processes in the ionosphere in ways ‘that could be potentially exploited for department of Defence Purposes’. In other words the ionosphere, which shelters the earth, will be used as the barrel of the gun.
—–Dr Bertell suggests that so great is the power of such transmitters that even living near them could be dangerous. She quotes a US federal Environmental Impact statement which says that HAARP can ‘raise the internal body temperature of nearby people …(and) detonate aerial munitions, scramble aircraft communications and flight controls’. Even slight increases in body temperature can alter functioning of brain and body and, as she points out, even a small rise in electromagnetic radiation may cause an increase in cataracts and leukaemia and alter brain and body chemistry, blood pressure and heart rates. But such direct harm is the mere tip of the iceberg.
—– In one type of experiment these transmission towers will, Dr Bertell reveals, combine to emit a giant beam, of such power that, ‘in a burst lasting more than a few minutes – it will slice through the ionosphere like a microwave knife’ producing a long incision in this vital layer of the atmosphere. However, the main aim of HAARP is, she explains, to heat sections of the ionosphere until they bulge to form a curved ‘lens’ which will ‘reflect’ HAARP’s massive energy beams back to earth to destroy selected targets – presumably without leaving even a trace of what caused the devastation.
—– The layers of our atmosphere are so little understood that no one can possibly know the impact of cutting the ionosphere open, or of making it bulge like a lens. Moreover, she points out that scientists have warned that the energy from HAARP may combine with a natural wave frequency with results which are ‘quite disproportionate to the level of input’ – including disrupting the harmony between ‘earth life forms….and….earth’s life support systems’.
—– The rings round Saturn are thought to have been caused by a comparable interaction between energy waves. So, the possibility that HAARP, and its confreres, might trigger catastrophic changes to this planet cannot be ruled out. As Dr Bertell explains, everything is connected, ‘everything in our universe is in dynamic equilibrium and this interference (from HAARP) may destabilise a system that has established and maintained its own cycle for millions of years’ – protecting life on earth.
ELF pulsed into the earth
—– Nor is that all. Dr Bertell says that both HAARP and installations in Russia – on which America has, remarkably, collaborated – can also create pulsed, extremely low frequency (ELF) waves which have been directed deep into the earth itself, potentially disrupting delicately poised tectonic plates of the earth’s crust, such as those of California’s San Andreas fault. Given the little understood interplay between tectonic plates, volcano’s and the earth’s molten core, to call this playing with fire would be an absurd understatement.
—– Nor, it seems are these the only military installations threatening earth’s viability. Dr Bertell tells us that HAARP is just one of a growing chain of astonishingly powerful, and potentially interactive, military installations, using varied types of electromagnetic fields or wavelengths, each with a different ability to affect the earth or its atmosphere. For example, an installation in Alaska will have a magnetic field more than 60,000 times greater than the earth itself.
—– To anyone who knows the impact of magnetic fields on the human body the potential risks of such an installation are obvious. Equally, as Dr Bertell points out, the earth’s magnetic field is both produced by electric currents in the earth’s liquid core and interacts with the Van Allen belts of the earth’s atmosphere in ways not yet understood.
—– With typical restraint, she chooses not to guesstimate the effect that a magnetic field 60,000 times greater than the earth’s will have on the earth’s core or the atmosphere. Yet she believes that military tests may already have disturbed earth equilibrium. In addition to showing how earlier military tests have massively contributed to ozone depletion and global warming Dr Bertell suggests that some freak weather conditions and ‘natural’ disasters may have been directly caused by testing installations such as HAARP.
Links to earthquakes and freak weather
—– For example, in 1977 a freak storm which devastated a small town in Wisconsin and destroyed 350 hectares of forest, followed hot on the heels of a government ELF wave experiment. While The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist reported that an ELF wave transmitter lay right in the middle of another storm which brought down 150 – 200 times more rain than normal. These links are more than purely circumstantial, for she says that weather modification is on the US air force agenda, and in 1992 the Russians told the Wall Street Journal they could already achieve it. And the Wisconsin storm offers what looks very much like direct evidence.
—– The question is, does anyone have the wisdom to control weather wisely, and unselfishly? And do they even begin to understand the potential for unexpected side-affects from all these experiments. As she points out, it is since the inception of Star Wars experiments that El Nino has changed its cycle and become far more severe with devastating effects.
—– Equally, a Soviet experiment with the ionosphere directly preceded an earthquake in China which killed 650,000 people. While in America ELF – type waves were detected immediately before a San Francisco earthquake in 1989, and unnatural and unexplained low frequency waves were detected before earthquakes in Japan and California in 1989, and before an earthquake in Los Angeles in 1994. We can only wonder whether such ELF waves preceded the recent earthquakes in El Salvador and India this year, and whether the carnage has been caused by ‘security experiments’ by one of the ‘great powers’.
—– What is certain, as Dr Bertell shows, is that, globally, the number of earthquakes a year has more than doubled since the inception of military experiments which affect the earth and its atmosphere. Even this could, of course, be mere coincidence but another fact suggests something unusual is going on. Inexplicably, an earthquake in Bolivia in 1994 originated 600km below the earth’s surface – 24 times deeper than normal.
—– However, even if no such disasters can be laid at the door of the world’s military, weapons which interfere with the atmosphere violate the 1976 Environment Modification Convention. Yet, she tells us that in January 1991, despite America having signed that convention, the White House waived the requirement for actions by the Pentagon to be assessed for environmental impact. However, America and Russia are not alone in possessing such weapons. Her revelations of 30 years of military innovations show that Britain, Germany and NATO have all been involved in military developments which show a cavalier disregard for life on earth.
—– Dr Bertell is perhaps one of the few people in the world who could write this book. As leader of medical commissions to both Bhopal and Chernobyl she is skilled in unearthing facts from beneath mountains of dis-information – accurately scooping the world’s media, on the truth about depleted uranium weapons, by more than a year. As a nun dedicated to serving in the world she does not shrink from the unpopularity accorded a messenger. And her standing as a scientist, personal integrity, and evidence of meticulous research, challenge any yearning to disbelieve her.
—– A long-standing opponent of nuclear weapons, she sees today’s military research as a ‘cancer of the body politic’ consuming human, financial, and natural resources which are desperately needed elsewhere. ‘I would liken society’s dependence on the military to a family in which one partner is addicted to something and claims a large proportion of money for feeding the addiction’. As she points out, the billions annexed by defence projects create the very deprivation which eventually fosters war. Moreover, she says military research sequesters many top scientists, ‘This “brain drain” from the civilian economy may be depriving us of those who could resolve the most serious survival problems now facing the biosphere’.
—– This is not a comfortable, or easy, book and needs to be chewed slowly, in small helpings. Yet it is well worth chewing and her overall message is one of hope. She says we need to redefine the militaristic word ‘security’ to mean ‘the protection and responsible stewardship of the Earth’ – and redirect former military expenditure towards conflict resolution, social justice and sustainable living. A change which, she believes, can be achieved through active citizenship, global co-operation, information exchange between caring people and organisations, and the kind of peaceful pressure which, in 1996, led to the International Court of Justice declaring the use of nuclear weapons unlawful.
—– She concludes:
—– ‘I hope this book has given readers some inspiration as to how the might become involved in helping this peaceful planet evolve to its full potential. Despite years of abuse, it is still an amazing and beautiful creation. It deserves our best efforts. Enjoy it, love it, and save it’.
—– There she is wrong. It is not the planet which may die: it is us. It is ourselves we must love enough to cherish the miraculous web of life which radiates from the earth’s core to the farthest limits of our universe.
* * * * *
Bertell Reveals Many New Weapons of Mass Destruction
by Larry Ross, February 28, 2005
The book is: “Planet Earth the Latest Weapons of War” by Rosalie Bertell, a distinguished and world-famous scientist. She is a winner of major international awards for science. As a Catholic Nun she has dedicated her life to her continuous work for humanity.
What she reveals is unbelievably stunning – almost stupefying. Even I did not want to believe it at first, and I’ve been fighting against a global nuclear doomsday for over 50 years. But her credentials are impressive and impeccable.
She reveals how “the military is testing radically new weapons which imperil the earth and all life on it. Such as HAARP, which heats sections of the ionosphere until they bulge to form a curved ‘lens’ which will ‘reflect’ HAARP’s massive energy beams back to earth to destroy selected targets. She thinks ‘HAARP may destabilize a system that has established its own cycle for millions of years’ – protecting life on earth.
Or ELF, which ‘creates pulsed, extremely low frequency waves which have been directed deep into the earth itself, potentially disrupting delicately poised tectonic plates of the earths crust’ Off the Coast of Indonesia, tectonic plates in the Indian Ocean shifted to cause the Boxing Day Tsunami, killing over 250,000 people in 2004.
Dr Bertell tells us that HAARP and ELF are some of ‘growing chain of astonishingly powerful, and potentially interactive, military installations, using varied types of electromagnetic fields or wavelengths, each with a different ability to affect the earth or its atmosphere’.
Did the Pentagon test HAARP on tectonic plates off Indonesia, thereby causing the Boxing Day Tsunami? I don’t know, but I think there should be a scientific investigation of the causes, with a HARRP test as one of the possibilities. If the Pentagon has nothing to hide, they should welcome such an opportunity.
A few facts: A danger is: ‘A HAARP installation in Alaska will have a magnetic field more than 60,000 times greater than the earth itself’. A potential result of tests is: …’Globally, the number of earthquakes a year has more than doubled since the inception of military experiments which affect the earth or its atmosphere’
Conclusion; the amount of sheer power available to the Bush Administration, from their superpower nuclear arsenal, their other WMD, and now HAARP, ELF and other devices, is mind-boggling. Adding up all the risks, from nuclear weapons and their potential usage, to the new weapons, it is likely that due to “accident, miscalculation, act of madness, or faulty policy decision” a terminal global disaster will occur.
Everything has been put in place, including thousands of nuclear missiles on alert status, for a terminal disaster to occur. There are huge resources in terms of people, money, machines and corporate organizations – the biggest ever –devoted to increasing the preparations to unleash what can quickly become a global disaster.
The most important factor of all is the human factor. The Bush Administration is the most militaristic and dangerous in history – unleashing wars, such as that on Iraq, based on lies as justification, and creating pre-emptive war doctrines that sanction the use of nuclear weapons. They are hostile to advice, even from conservative sources, and proclaim the ‘truth’ as they decide it to be. They claim a vision of an American Empire dominating the world, and a vision of a God-proclaimed nuclear Armageddon in case things go wrong. They think the gamble is worth it.
What we see in America today is an insane system. It is a military/industrial juggernaut, in the grip of mad hubristic doctrines, run by a power-crazed psychopathic but a superficially sane Administration. They are dedicated, function effectively and sanely to accomplish their objectives. They are willing to take any risk, and then deny there is any risk.
They have committed many crimes so far. But like past war criminals, will always claim such crimes are not crimes, but justified steps to achieve their objectives. They are unlikely to turn back or learn any lessons. They define the truth as they decide it to be. They greatly increase both the danger of a nuclear catastrophe, and the system which makes it increasingly likely.
To Buy:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0704344289/infoline0f-21/026-0864107-0138030
City of Boulder News Briefs (for reals)
Apr 7th
The City of Boulder’s Parks and Recreation Department has begun a tree removal and replacement project on the 1300 block of the Pearl Street Mall.
The project will include removing declining linden trees and tree grates, realigning tree vaults, enlarging tree grates and planting new trees. This work may cause brief, minor access closures. The project is expected to be completed by April 15 (depending on weather and contactor scheduling). There are no anticipated business access impacts due to this work.
For construction updates, visit www.BoulderParkNews.org.
Boulder Municipal Court to close from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 8
Boulder Municipal Court will be closed from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, April 8, for a staff meeting.