This ties right in with the Hollow Earth Theory, and the "soft
particles/orgone/prana" that Cater and Dean are talking about!
Cheri Anderson to fantasticreality wrote:
--Mike
Cheri wrote:
Environment Over the South Pole
http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/SPOLE.html
Another Antarctic Atmosphere Surprise: Scientists Find
Evidence of Highly Oxidizing Environment Over the
South Pole
Braving sub-zero temperatures at the U.S. flag that
marks the South Pole is the second group of ISCAT
researchers who collected samples from December 2000
to January 2001, the summer season in Antarctica.
Link to 300-dpi JPG file (673K)
More than 15 years after the discovery of an ozone
hole in the stratrosphere over the Antarctic, the
remote continent is yielding another atmospheric
surprise.
A team of researchers led by the Georgia Institute of
Technology has found a surprisingly high level of an
air-purifying chemical (or oxidizing agent) in the
near-surface atmosphere over the South Pole. The
finding has implications for interpreting historical
global climate records stored in Antarctic ice cores.
The summertime 24-hour average value of the primary
atmospheric oxidant -- known as the hydroxyl (OH)
radical -- at the South Pole is higher than that
estimated from OH measurements recorded at the
equator. The researchers will report their findings
this fall in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The OH radical is widely recognized as vital to
scrubbing pollution and naturally occurring chemicals
from the air throughout the globe; it prevents a
buildup of toxic levels of these substances.
Researchers gathered information indicating that a
highly oxidizing environment exists at the South Pole.
Shown is the South Pole research station operated by
the U.S.
Link to 300-dpi JPG file (416K)
"What we now know is that the near-surface atmospheric
zone called the mixed layer (from the surface upward
to between 20 to 200 meters) is a highly oxidizing
environment at the South Pole," says Doug Davis, one
of the lead researchers and a professor in the Georgia
Tech School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
"Equally exciting, we are beginning to see evidence
that a lot of this oxidizing chemistry is also
occurring down in the snowpack. Thus, once things get
buried in the snow, there continues to be active
chemistry -- including oxidation -- that could further
modify chemical species before they are trapped in the
ice in their final chemical forms."
This finding suggests that glacio-chemists -- who
study climate change based on an analysis of trace
chemicals trapped in polar ice -- have to be far more
careful in their interpretation of Antarctic ice
cores, says Davis, whose research team is funded by
the National Science Foundation. Changes in some
chemical species buried may continue for another five
to 10 years after they are trapped in the snowpack.
Davis expects that scientists will soon focus more
attention on this topic.
Georgia Tech researcher Doug Davis digs a snow pit in
front of the Atmospheric Research Laboratory to
measure nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone at
different depths below the snow's surface.
Link to 300-dpi JPG file (673K)
"Snow release of nitric oxide, which leads to the
formation of OH, can in principle occur anywhere
globally where there are accumulations of nitrate ions
in ice and there is also solar radiation," Davis says.
"Other researchers have found evidence of this
phenomenon in Summit, Greenland, and Alert, Canada.
What makes the South Pole unique is that the levels of
nitric oxide and other nitrogen oxides are nearly an
order of magnitude higher than anywhere else.
"But any significant elevation of nitric oxide at any
snow-covered location should result in an enhancement
of OH," Davis adds. "And, anytime you are producing
higher levels of OH, it means this chemistry is having
some local or regional impact. The final global impact
from this chemistry, however, is still unknown."
At the South Pole, researchers recorded OH radical
levels over a 24-hour period; the average measurement
was about 2 X 106 molecules per cubic centimeter of
air several days during their December 1998 to January
1999 expedition and again from December 2000 to
January 2001. These measurements are nearly an order
of magnitude higher than what they originally expected
to find based on their Antarctic coastal measurements
of nitric oxide, Davis says.
To measure OH, the scientists used the selected-ion
chemical-ionization mass spectrometer (SICIMS)
technique, which in the early 1990s became the first
sensitive method for measuring this radical. Georgia
Tech Adjunct Professor Fred Eisele, the other lead
researcher for this project, developed the SICIMS
technique at Tech. Eisele is also a senior research
associate at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research in Boulder, Colo.
To measure nitric oxide (NO), researchers used the
well-established chemiluminescence technique with
modifications to improve its sensitivity by an order
of magnitude. Nitric oxide, also a radical, is a
byproduct of internal combustion engines. But Davis
and his co-workers believe NO is formed at the South
Pole when ultraviolet radiation interacts with nitrate
ions. Scientists are not certain about the source of
the nitrate, but it could originate from stratospheric
denitrification processes and the long-range transport
of nitric acid formed at low latitudes during
electrical storms.
Although the factors that cause NO levels at the South
Pole to exceed 550 parts per trillion by volume of air
(pptv) are still under investigation, Davis believes
the most important factor is the atmospheric mixing
depth at the South Pole. This depth seems to be highly
variable at the pole and is sometimes no more than 25
meters above the surface. The Davis team's latest
results indicate large fluctuations in atmospheric
levels of NO without major changes in NO levels within
the snowpack.
Elevated levels of NO (20 to 550 pptv) in the
near-surface atmosphere react with the hydroperoxyl
radical -- a less reactive oxidizing agent than OH --
and are converted to OH and nitrogen dioxide. The
latter reacts with OH to produce nitric acid, which
can return to the snow, thus forming a closed cycle.
"It's not that this is new chemistry," Davis explains.
"Most of the time in the background remote atmosphere
where NO levels are typically less than 10 pptv, a
large fraction of the hydroperoxyl radical reacts with
itself and creates hydrogen peroxide, which is lost to
the surface. But at the South Pole, in the presence of
this large source of nitric oxide, the hydroperoxyl
radical predominantly reacts with NO to generate the
more reactive OH radical. Everybody tends to associate
nitric oxide levels with combustion, thus the South
Pole is one of the last places on earth that you might
expect to find nitric oxide in such large
concentrations."
Davis and his colleagues discovered the high NO and OH
radical levels in their funded research project to
study sulfur chemistry. The project, called ISCAT, for
the Investigation of Sulfur Chemistry in the Antarctic
Troposphere, began in 1994 with an expedition to
Palmer Station on the Antarctic Palmer Peninsula.
Specifically, the scientists are working to more fully
understand the oxidation of dimethyl sulfide (DMS)
under the cold conditions and high latitudes of
Antarctica. This information will also help
glacio-chemists better interpret sulfate and methane
sulfonate concentrations incorporated into the
continent's 400,000-year-old ice records, Davis says.
Sulfate is a chemical signature for both southern
hemispheric volcanic activity and major fluctuations
in phytoplankton populations in the Southern Ocean
that surrounds Antarctica. Phytoplankton lead to the
release of DMS from the ocean, part of which is
oxidized by OH to sulfate. Methane sulfonate is formed
only from DMS.
Antarctic ice cores have revealed clear evidence of
major volcanic activity in the Southern Hemisphere,
and together with methane sulfonate, evidence of
glacial and interglacial periods in the earth's
climate history. The level of DMS is a chemical
indicator of biomass production in the Southern Ocean,
which, in turn, reflects both water temperature and
solar radiation, Davis explains. So a more
comprehensive understanding of DMS chemistry around
and on the Antarctic should provide valuable
information in studying past climate changes, he adds.
Based on the results of the sulfur chemistry studies
led by Eisele and former Georgia Tech Research
Institute scientist Harald Berresheim at Palmer in
1994, Davis and his colleagues moved their ISCAT
research to the South Pole. They expected to record
significant atmospheric transport of sulfate and DMS
from the coast to the pole, which is 10,000 feet above
sea level.
"Well, our initial hypothesis was wrong, and we found
out why when went to the South Pole," Davis explains.
"There was very little unreacted DMS that reached the
South Pole because of the very high levels of OH in
the near-surface air at the South Pole -- and perhaps
more importantly -- over the entire polar plateau."
Elevated NO maintains a highly oxidizing environment
on the polar plateau 24 hours a day, Davis says. The
OH radical oxidizes most of the DMS before it reaches
the South Pole.
"The oxidizing environment at the South Pole is truly
astounding," Davis says. "We didn't expect it. And,
initially, it made no sense. Nobody had the foggiest
notion what was going on…. It was like finding some
distant planet's atmosphere plugged into Earth's
atmosphere, but having it limited to only the
Antarctic polar plateau."
The researchers hope to make more sense of their data
as they analyze measurements from their 2000-01 trip
during the next year. Already, Davis' colleague,
Associate Professor Greg Huey, may have identified a
new atmospheric nitrogen oxide species in the
Antarctic troposphere. The research team hopes to
return to Anarctica in 2003 to continue its study.
Other institutions represented in the ISCAT team are
the National Center for Atmospheric Research, New
Mexico State University, the University of California
at Irvine, Drexel University, the University of
Minnesota, the University of New Hampshire and Arizona
State University.