The coming winter - a worry

[Hivemaker.]

Forget about the Gulf Stream: Britain is really kept warm in winter by the Rocky Moun

Seems the gulf stream does not make much difference....so does not matter if it stops flowing......so they can chuck some more chemicals and oil in the sea.

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...-in-winter-by-the-rocky-mountains-597214.html

 

[MuswellMetro]

Seems the gulf stream does not make much difference....so does not matter if it stops flowing......so they can chuck some more chemicals and oil in the sea.

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...-in-winter-by-the-rocky-mountains-597214.html

great post, i am away to google more about it

 

[rae]

Remember this is crude oil, a NATURAL product, that NATURALLY seeps from the earth all the time.

Not this lot. Small seepage was it?

In the context of the volume of the Atlantic Ocean, it was a minuscule spill, probably of the order of a trillionth of a percent of the volume. The idea that the oil and the Corexit could somehow change the viscosity of the water....to slow down the gulf stream.....is somewhat ludicrous. That site does seem a bit, er ,alternative, have a look at the bottom of the page "Surviving 2012 and Planet X"....

Anyway, it may or may not be a cold winter, but the bees (as long as they have stores and are healthy) will probably be fine.

 

[aseeryl]

Finman

Am I right in thinking that the Maya died out some time ago - long before their projected apocalypse? Don't worry about it.

The end of the world will come 21.12.2012. It is only 15 months.

 

[oliver90owner]

rae,

probably of the order of a trillionth of a percent of the volume

That may be the case but this is not the gulf stream only a feeder element to it - but of relatively warm water?

But if this is the result of human tampering one wonders how fragile the whole system may be and how a small change could affect the whole system of oceanic flows. Knock-on effects which we are not aware of.

Regards, RAB

 

[MuswellMetro]

well he is turning it into a conspiracy theory now as to why new data no longer fits his scenerio

http://yowusa.com/earth/2010/earth-0810-05a/1.shtml

 

[oliver90owner]

well he is turning it into a conspiracy theory now as to why new data no longer fits his scenerio

I looked a bit from the other angle; why did the data change, supposedly so radically, in a day?

Who knows. It will all come out in the wash, eventually. If we watch that space for long enough?

Regards, RAB

 

[jimbeekeeper]

Panic over! Mr Man-where-ing

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6wok7g7do&feature=related[/ame]

It will soon be Easter, the supermarkets where filling the selves with Chocolate Easter eggs yesterday

 

[rae]

That may be the case but this is not the gulf stream only a feeder element to it - but of relatively warm water?

Well, lets wrap some proper maths around it....

1) The volume of the oil spill was about 151 million gallons, which does sound a lot. 1.5x10^6 gallons.

2) The volume of the Gulf of Mexico is 643 Quadrillion gallons (6.4 x 10^17 gallons)

So 11 orders of magnitude difference, just for the GoM. My original "trillionth" was way out. An analogy would be saying "well, we're nearly all the way to the moon", when you've nipped down to the local shop for a loaf of bread.

 

[oliver90owner]

rae

I simply don't know. But we do know that only a tiny fraction of the Earth's water is moving like the gulf stream flow.

Turned on it's head one may ask, at the other end of the scale why should we should be concerned about a few parts in a billion of insecticides, which might affect our bees?

The magnitude (or minitude(?)) is not the important thing. The suggestion that it may happen (and proof of, or otherwise, of the outcome) is of more practical use in the long run. Some think Piers Corbyn's weather predictions are 'the bees knees', others don't.

I will await further corroboration, certainly. But at this point in time I have nothing else to go on to make a decision as to whether this guy is a crank or a whistle blower.

Nothing I might do do about it will make any difference, one way or the other.

Regards, RAB

 

[roymichaeldean]

when I were a lad

Hi

When I were young...I'm past 60 now...weather were just same......no doubt the bees would be telling you exact same story........over last 10,000 years..........aren't human beings stupid


roy

 

[oliver90owner]

the bees would be telling you exact same story........over last 10,000 years..........aren't human beings stupid


Yep, 10,000 years ago we were not so much of a problem to the ecosystems as we are now! The bees may be adding a few expletives to their opinions these days!! I would not blame them, if they were!

Regards, RAB

 

[madasafish]

10,000 years ago, where I write would have been covered in half a mile of glacial ice... or rather the remains of it.

It's those pesky humans and their cars 10,000 years ago who caused the climate to warm and melt it...

 

[freckledbeck]

Reading through the posts on this thread, Im not sure whether to be impressed by the inherent optimism, or despairing!
What happened in the Gulf of Mexico was an absolute disaster, the true effects of which we will not know for years.... regardless of the percentage of oil and corexit (which is in no way 'natural', and in the opinions of many will only exasperate the situation) in the gulf.
We should never be complacent, the more we pollute our planet, the less viable our future becomes. (and that of our bees!)

 

[rae]

But we do know that only a tiny fraction of the Earth's water is moving like the gulf stream flow.

The gulf stream moves 30 million cubic metres of water a second. That's 30 million tonnes, about 120 million gallons - so the entirety of the BP spill could be spat out in a single second. You cannot seriously argue that the crude split in the Gulf could materially alter the viscosity of the water in the Gulf stream? There may be all sorts of other ghastly outcomes of the spill (I think not, in the long term), but gluing up the gulf stream isn't one of them.

If you think it through:

1) You pour oil into a huge bucket, where the oil is measured in parts per billion billion (1 in 10^11 is oil).

2) That bucket has a small hole in it that drops water into a vast waterfall. So your part per billion billion is run out slowly into the huge waterfall. It isn't going to change the viscosity of anything.

 

[nelletap]

So what can we do to redress the possible balance? So - polystyrene inside the roof? The man from whom I bought my bees was saying he uses two brood chambers each with 8 frames and then uses two fat dummy boards to fill up each side. Would it be possible to have a sort of fat dummy board filled with either polystyrene or some sort of insulation? How about that silvered adhesive stuff you can buy to go behind radiators - would that help at all?
On the other hand, I am really concerned about protection from green woodpeckers over winter.
Tricia

 

[Rosti]

So what can we do to redress the possible balance? So - polystyrene inside the roof? Tricia

I have 'winter' crown boards. Solid, double skinned 6mm ply, with 38mm polysyrene sheets in them. Fondant above the original crown feeding hole and these go above the fondant eke below the roof (and spare space in fondant eke also filled with bubble wrap) if that helps you? Given I am on wind guarded OMFs I do not use top venting at all.

 

[jimbeekeeper]

Oil leakage is about 50:50 natural and man-man, and of the man-made most is simply from people poring oil/oil wastes into streams/rives (which eventually ends up at the sea) rather than the BP type events (I use the word BP, but as we all know it was nothing to do with BP!)

But back to winters, haven't we just been through the coldest /longest winter on record/30ish years?

I over wintered on singe national boxes with OMF's with zero losses, fOX at winter and fondant added but they did not really touch it.

so once again, DONT PANIC!

Also forgot to add, it is well known of sea life (animals and plants) that actually thrive living of these oil seeps. OK, full extent of the BP spill in one go it a bit much, but diluted (and as detailed above it is very much diluted) they can cope with it.

 

[oliver90owner]

You cannot seriously argue that the crude split in the Gulf could materially alter the viscosity of the water in the Gulf stream?

No! You are misquoting. The area under consideration is a very small part of the overall oceanic flows. Don't use larger examples to hide the much smaller example we have here. The gulf stream is the bit that comes near our shores but is not the whole answer to our weather patterns.

The suggestion is that we don't need to do so much damage before the system alters a small amount. We know (or in a lot of cases, don't know) that there can be ongoing changes caused by even small changes.

The simple effect of melting snow from an area and thus reducing the light reflected simply accelerates the temperature change (rise) because more solar energy is absorbed (the albedo effect - where fresh snow reflects away about 90% of the visible solar energy whereas bare soil absorbs around 80% of the incident radiation).

No worries, we will all likely be long gone before the results of our follies become apparent to our childrens' children's children in their old age.

Although it didn't take so long to destroy a large part of the protective ozone layer, did it? The Ausralians, in particular, are reaping that particular 'harvest'.

I never trivialise the acivities of humans - it is often for gain of wealth, not for the health of the planet. This particular event was of a similar ilk, but one that went horribly wrong, some are saying unecessarily. But that is another discussion.

Regards, RAB

 

[oliver90owner]

so once again, DONT PANIC!

I'm not. But some with small colonies may have some increased difficulty with over-wintering, especially if the weather only deteriorates from here onwards.

Maybe it won't, maybe there will be no further fall-out from these unusual activities, but there again........

RAB