Lessons From The Arctic

From the desk of Editor Michael Knight June 29 08

In this issue:

An Arctic volcano.

No more summer Arctic sea ice?

Greenland meltdown.

“Thermohaline” explained.

UFOs Over China - It's Official

This week’s Mainstream Media headlines have coincidentally included three very interesting references to the Arctic.

What these discoveries and projections suggest can be seen a number of ways. Earth Changes may – according to one school of thought – be happening only very gradually.

Earth Change Report has never agreed with that completely. We like to use the word ‘abrupt’ while at the same time we never say the sky is falling or use the word “wolf” out of context.

Examples of abrupt changes are things like the unexpected eruption of the Chaiten volcano in Chile, or the enormous earthquake in China recently. The day before either of these events occurred, one might have said the chances of such a thing happening – based on historical data – were extremely remote.

And then along comes Nature, which has never read that data, and does the unexpected. Abruptly.

So let’s get into it.

A scientist with Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research participated in a recent expedition to the Gakkel Ridge (85N 85E in the Arctic), led by the American Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

Reporting in the current issue of the journal Nature geophysicist Dr Vera Schlindwein says the association between the earthquakes and explosive volcanism was considered very slight at the time because it was assumed that extreme water pressure at that depth would prevent such violent activity.

This one happened on the Gakkei Ridge which is covered with year-round sea ice on which scientists have now deployed seismometers to monitor ongoing earthquake activity.

Till now, it has been assumed that underwater volcanic activity is both slow and ongoing, but Dr Schlindwein now “presumes that explosive eruptions are far more common in the scarcely explored ultra slow-spreading ridges than presumed so far.”

Speaking of assumptions – it’s not so long ago that it was assumed that the Arctic sea ice would take decades (if ever) to disappear. Wrong.

In reality, remote though the Arctic is, if we think melting ice won't have an effect on us, then we too are...wrong. (Keep reading).

For the already endangered Polar Bear (pic courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service), this will be yet another disastrous year because they rely on ice floes to hunt for seals. No ice – no seals – no bears.

Are we paying attention yet?

At least one Norwegian scientist has certainly been paying attention. Dr Olav Orheim, head of the Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat, told China’s Xinhua news agency last February that “the polar cap in the Arctic may well disappear this summer due to the global warming.”

He said the shrinking of the Arctic ice cap has been astonishing – which is indeed well illustrated in this Youtube animation.

The ice sheet covered an average of 7.5 million square kilometers before the year 2000. In just seven years it was down to 3 million square km last summer – a decrease of about 60 or 70 per cent in area if my numbers are any good.

"If Norway's average temperature this year equals that in 2007, the ice cap in the Arctic will all melt away, which is highly possible judging from current conditions," according to Dr Orheim.

On climate change in general, and rising sea levels in particular, Dr Orheim said Asia will be hardest hit with the rising sea level caused by global warming. "A meter higher of the sea level will bring impacts to nearly 100 million people on an area of 800,000 square km in Asia …" he said.

What we should be realizing right now is that such a sea level rise will affect every country - yours and mine - in many ways.

The Independent (a London newspaper) puts its spin on the story this way: “Arctic sea ice could break apart completely at the North Pole this year, allowing ships to sail over the normally frozen top of the world.

“Several studies in recent years have predicted that the North Pole could be ice-free within a few decades.

“Alarm has ratcheted up every summer as the ice gets thinner and thinner. In a study released June 10, scientists said the rapid melt off in the Arctic could threaten permafrost in continental soil elsewhere above the Arctic circle in a warm version of the snowball effect.”

The snowball effect they’re talking about would be better referred to as a ripple effect.

Melting arctic ice and rising temperatures in those latitudes contribute to widespread melting of the tundra. This in turn releases methane – a greenhouse gas – and also alters the traditional grazing lands for wildlife. Where food was once plentiful it becomes scarce. The animals must move or die. Competition for food increases. Migration happens. Competition increases.

Now put that into human terms, and we are facing exactly the same scenario. A world with more droughts in some areas, more storms in others, and unpredictable weather everywhere.

Are we prepared? Without for a moment thinking we must wait 100 years for the ice to melt, so we don’t need to do anything yet…are we seeing what’s coming and preparing a forward-looking strategy?

(Okay - did you catch that blatant attempt to entice you into buying the Basic Preparedness Home Study Course? I think it's perfect for these times. The full course includes three DVDs of valuable preparedness info, and the book - which you can buy separately - covers all the preparedness basics).

Now we have another scientific report. This one is about the Greenland ice cap which is also melting.

But first some quick background to explain for newcomers the difference between ice and ice. Just as an ice cube can melt in a glass of water without raising the water level in the glass, seaborne ice - floating ice – can melt without raising sea levels.

But if you then add a couple of extra cubes of ice to the glass and they melt, the level will definitely rise by the amount of water contained in those added ice cubes.

Greenland is like an ice tray in your freezer containing those extra ice cubes. The frozen snow and ice there sits on land – not on water. That ice is melting faster than previous models have suggested and that is what will contribute to, in fact cause, sea levels to rise.

The same is true of a great deal of ice in the Antarctic. Also, we should factor in all the glaciers and mountain snow pack in the world. All of them are underpinned by terra firma. They have to melt, become streams and rivers and find their way to the sea. And despite record snowfall in some areas, serious blizzards (killer weather) in recent winters, that’s exactly what’s happening.

“The Greenland Ice Sheet is melting faster than previously calculated according to a scientific paper by University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Sebastian H. Mernild published recently in the journal Hydrological Processes.

“The study is based on the results of state-of-the-art modeling using data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as satellite images and observations from on the ground in Greenland.

Mernild is quoted as saying “The Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance is changing as a response to the altered climatic state. This is faster than expected. This affects freshwater runoff input to the North Atlantic Ocean, and plays an important role in determining the global sea level rise and global ocean thermohaline circulation.”

“Thermohaline” is one of those words that can skip right over (or through) your head. If you don’t bother to stop and get a definition when you see or hear such unfamiliar words your mind is distracted and it’s hard to concentrate or make any sense of whatever follows.

I use WordWeb software to help me out on these things. It took me to: "The adjective thermohaline derives from thermo- referring to temperature and -haline referring to salt content, factors which together determine the density of sea water."

If you’re still with me on this ripple effect journey from an underwater volcanic eruption at 85N 85E , across the melting arctic sea ice – past the starving bears - through the melting tundra and over the migrating animals to the place where ice cubes jingle in a glass of water – and now we’re hovering over a melting Greenland…then the next ripple in the big pond is thermohaline circulation.

I wrote that paragraph to illustrate a very important point. The brain actually ‘sees’ in pictures. Pictures are therefore, as they say, worth a thousand words.

Unfortunately, I can’t clip and paste that here – but I seriously recommend that you take a couple of minutes to visit this web site to see a wonderful animation. Scroll down for versions in Deutsch, English, Francais.

Laymen know this whole concept by various names, such as the Gulf Stream and the Atlantic Current.

The theory is that hot water from the tropics flows north, contributes very nicely to the northern climate, sinks as it gets colder in the North Atlantic (near Greenland) and returns at depth to the tropics.

It is rightly likened to a conveyor belt.

You might also picture water circulating through your home plumbing. Cold water comes in from somewhere. Some of it goes to the water heater (the tropics). It can then be piped elsewhere, mixed with cold water as necessary, and drawn off for various uses, such as taking a shower. This is where you mix both hot and cold water to create a comfortable temperature or climate zone.

Now picture this. Have you ever been in the shower when some schmuck cold-bloodedly and deliberately turned on a faucet or a tap somewhere else in the house? Did it occur to you for a heartbeat that there was still plenty of water in the system?

I would say no way. Instead, you were suddenly feeling very cold, exposed, vulnerable, unprepared, and anxious to get out of there. Your nice warm climate had suddenly disappeared.

That is what will happen when the thermohaline circulation quits – which it will do when enough cold water has melted off Greenland and elsewhere.

Again, in Contact Has Begun, we animated a map of the northern hemisphere and showed a sudden ice- cold environment across much of Europe down to the Pyrenees. A lot of it had a Siberia-like climate.

There’s also an excellent New Scientist article here.It was written three years ago, yet it is even more relevant today because we are that much closer to the time when the Atlantic Current will stall.

The major advantage of being a totally independent writer is that one does not have to beat about the bush and try to “balance” many different points of view.

Such 'balance' in the MSM is in fact a myth. Every writer in some way influences what is written. This is often dictated by the bias of the owner of the media outlet, coupled with the reporter's own views on the matter.

It's only when you get to be an editor that you can openly express your own opinion. However, to be responsible that opinion should be supported in some way by reliable source material – even if your interpretation is at variance with such sources.

The issue I have - and I suggest you should too - with the majority of reports on earth changes is that what you’ll find as a common thread in statements by scientists and the treatment they get from the Mainstream Media (MSM) is that these changes are far in the future.

The article on Greenland for example is modeled on possibilities as far ahead as 2070.

The New Scientist's report says while Europe as well as parts of Canada and the Northeast US will suffer colder climates when the current stalls “don’t get your snowmobile out just yet.”

Such statements help pad out the story, but they also offer the false impression that all is well. True, it's human nature to treat serious matters lightly - but do we have to insist on being stupid as well?

If you’re a discerning researcher or reader, you’ll also notice a couple of other threads that weave their way through these articles. In two words, they are Prevarication (Definition: Intentionally vague or ambiguous) and Uncertainty.

Both result in a sense that there is little or no urgency to any of this, or that such changes while they are accelerating are still moving so slowly that there are years and perhaps decades to prepare.

Prevarication may also be defined as refusing to tell the truth (whereas procrastination is the correct word for those who'd rather not accept the truth).

However, the third and most important factor is that climate modeling, earth changes modeling, sea level modeling – all types of modeling are being shown time and time again to be inaccurate.

You only have to watch or listen to a weather forecast or two to know that Nature does not follow the models.

Models and predictions of arctic sea ice melt have been overtaken by actual events much sooner than science expected. Volcanoes are erupting in places where science never thought it possible.

The models – many of them – are wrong.

That is not an indictment of those scientists who create such models. Without them, we would most certainly be caught totally unprepared for what’s ahead.

Scientists should in fact be honored for doing their sterling work in braving Arctic cold or volcanic heat or seasickness as they attempt to monitor the oceans. They have both the passion and the stomach for some hair raising research at times. Who knows how many brown bags have been used up by men and women flying into the eye of a hurricane? How many life-threatening hours have scientists spent in shark-infested waters or close to undersea volcanoes or out in extreme desert heat? They are doing their best and I for one applaud their work.

But again, knowing how the MSM habitually prevaricates, while also knowing from a lifetime of experience that there are real clues hidden in their reports, I can say the following with no ambiguity or uncertainty.

Nature is given to very abrupt change.

Humans prefer the slow far-distant-future scenario.

Nature will continue to change abruptly.

Some humans will get a clue.

Some humans will get it wrong.

Hi MichaelGreat newsletter. Interesting how every new revelation always exceeds current time line assumptions. I would use theories but I suspect that assumptions is much more correct.

Did you hear about the recent upwellings of carbonic acid on the pacific coast of California/Oregon? The acid destroys shellfish and calcium shells; for ex; diatoms.plankton,clams etc, all major food sources for ocean species.

THE PH OF THE CARBONIC ACID IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE AIR! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO DOUBLE IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS FROM CURRENT LEVELS.

Another point for you is that the Gulf stream has stopped at least twice in the past few years off the coast of Nova Scotia for about 7 - 10 days.

The Atlantic Conveyor is driven by 1-2 km wide cold water funnels that sink to the ocean bottom off the southern tip of Greenland. There were twelve of these funnels until a few years ago; now there is about, maybe 2-3 left.

Another huge problem with arctic melt down is the change in salinity that comes with ice melt including that from antarctica and Greenland. Huge effect on heating changes and over associated land masses.

Worse yet it effects the balance and loading of the earth and how it sits on it's axis. We are spinning, weight changes effect the balance quite remarkably. Try it on a spinning top.

Another thing. There was a report of a further tilt of earth axis in dec 06 of 23.5 degrees to something like 48-49 degrees from vertical. They had to do a complete 3 hour reset on all GPS systems.

This inclines the north pole towards the sun more for part of the year with increased heating and away for the rest of the year with much greater cold weather. Are we already experiencing this?I am sure that the sun has moved further around the house towards the west from past years from my view point in Nova Scotia, have you observed this?

It is also expected to change the locations of the tropics of cancer and Capricorn much further south and north.

I sincerely hope Gaia is a loving goddess, if not.....?

Sorry Mike, a lot of info but it all starts to fit into the current trends in our hard hurt world.

Bless us allEvan

China’s Xinhua news agency said today (June 29 08) that “An astronomy researcher reckons UFOs have been visiting Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu Province, every five to 10 years for the past three decades...

“Wang Sichao, a researcher at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing has been studying UFOs for more than 30 years and says there are explanations for many of them especially those shaped like shooting stars, bright spots, stars and rods.

“These are usually natural phenomena or man-made objects, Wang said.

But he said another seven shapes including spirals, fans, circles, spindles and V-shaped objects remain inexplicable, he said.

“ These UFOs may well hail from outer space,” Wang said.

“On January 14, 1999, a rod-shaped UFO appeared for nearly four hours in the skies of Nanjing - the longest UFO sighting on record for the city.

"Witnesses said the shining red item, which was about 10 kilometers high and three kilometers long, moved slowly across the sky and its lights gradually faded as it passed over the city.

This weekend Wang also released an audio recording of a pilot who saw an unidentified flying object 17 years ago in Shanghai.

Believe it or not, Chinese people have the same response to UFO photos as westerners – doubt is the number one response. A HEATED debate has developed after a man claimed he had taken a photograph of an unidentified flying object on Saturday in Chongqing, Xinhuanet.com reported yesterday.

“He Zhongyuan claimed that a huge, oval-shaped UFO was flying in the sky that night… The UFO was green and yellow (and) bigger than half a football field and had many holes like doors and windows, according to the report.

“Wu Zhilun, chairman of the Chongqing Astronomy Association, examined the UFO pictures and said it was probably an illusion.”

(Now how is it that those who head these UFO study groups can be among the first to claim that what others have seen is an "illusion"? Simple answer. If they were accepted as being the real deal - especially by these "investigators" - their role as investigators would be over).

Interesting how those who were not present at an event can help us understand what it was they didn’t see.

That’s one reason why we used so much of James Gilliland’s personal video footage of UFOs in Contact Has Begun. He filmed them. (We saw similar craft, but our camera did not pick them up). As far as I am concerned, James’ footage is genuine. And it fits so well with his experiences with ETs, his Near Death Experience, and his spiritual journey.

James will be hosting his annual conference at his Trout Lake sanctuary this coming weekend. You can see a list of speakers (includes moi) etc here.

Michael - To quote Carl Sagan: "I don't want to believe, I want to know".

This is where I stand on the subject of flying saucers. Granted, I would have a problem "believing” that such things exist if I hadn't seen "something" once but never anything like it again. Of course the answer to my never ever having seen another one is that I rarely look up.

I saw the one and only one while laying on my back at the beach so I was looking up. It was real and stayed in position for at least 45 minutes and hundreds of people saw it but since it wasn't doing anything it became less important than volley ball, girls in bathing suits, etc. and was ignored. Fascinating I thought to myself.

I've never seen anything like whatever it was I saw again until I saw videos of the Mexico City flap. (Ed: Featured in “Contact Has Begun.”) Those videos were of the same object configurations of the whatever it was that I saw many years before.

I know what I saw. For instance there is a reference to the 1942 air raid over Los Angeles having been caused by a UFO. I was witness to that event and the very first klieg light that illuminated caught 3 aircraft followed by a triangulation of lights followed by all hell breaking loose as every gun in town went off for the next 6 hours. I know what I saw...it was real.

The newspapers reported (next day) that nothing was there which obviously explained why all the shooting. My personal feeling is that this occurred the month after Pearl Harbor and the Government wanted to introduce Angelino's to what war sounds like. The demonstration did little good...we all forgot about it shortly there after.

This, of course, explains sightings of all kinds and even disasters of all kinds...it's our nature to forget unless it's a traumatic experience and even then we are apt to forget Take Auschwitz for instance.

What do you suppose will happen if an alien force invades our turf? Do you think it would be like the Vikings having invaded Ireland and soon became assimilated through drink and song? It's possible and may have happened before. God help the aliens if they land in Ireland. – Skip.…………………….

Michael - What is the name of the best water filter? I can't remember how to spell it. (Ed: Berkey).

Interestingly, just two days ago my husband and I drove up to Greenville, NC to visit their stores. When we got there the young woman in Barnes& Noble told us the city's water was contaminated with e-coli and all restaurants were closed. We couldn't wash our hands in the rest room.

I haven't heard any explanation for the contamination, which is now fixed, but it could be something like old sewer lines breaking. So, even if it isn't dramatic like the poor people along the Miss. River, it can happen anytime, anywhere.

Thanks, Mary.

I'm at James conference next weekend where I'll get a chance to interview some of the other speakers.

Sincerely.

Michael Knight

Editor

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