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Sunday, November 8, 2015

A Paper From Hansen et al. Is Now Open For Discussion - 3

Dr. James Hansen: Arrested for Protesting Ecocide
I. Introduction

This series is about a scientific paper published by Hansen, et alia, which among other things, hypothesized that stronger storms were in our future (A Paper From Hansen et al. Is Now Open For Discussion).

From the time their paper was published, it was in the neighborhood of only 90 days until hurricane Patricia (with highest wind speed and lowest millibars ever recorded) and tropical cyclone Chapala ("the strongest tropical cyclone on record so far south in the Arabian Sea") appeared on radar screens.

Hansen, et alia, also hypothesized an accelerating sea level rise (SLR).

Within that same 90 day time frame, NOAA warned about increasing sea level rise in the near future:
Nuisance on the Ritz
"NOAA water level gauges document an increasing frequency of tidal flooding around much of the U.S., which is driven primarily by local relative sea level rise." - PDF
(NOAA). The other issues in the paper, such as acceleration of the intensity of these phenomena at exponential rates, rather than linear rates, are presently on the way (The Extinction of Charleston, The Extinction of Philadelphia, The Extinction of Washington, D.C., The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports, The Extinction of Boston, The Extinction of Miami, The Extinction of Manzanillo, The Extinction of Houston, The Extinction of Providence).

II. Nuisance?

Evidently, to some folks at NOAA it is macho to call these events a 'nuisance'  as a way of poo pooing the constant impact of flooding (ibid).

But, those who are paying $27,000 a year for flood insurance (more than their mortgage) do not consider that to be a 'nuisance' ... it is more like a financial catastrophe (You Are Here - 5).

NOAA people must be paid a very high salary if a $27,000 insurance premium (if you can even get flood insurance any more in those areas) is merely a 'nuisance' in the U.S.eh?

Or, if the land under your home is sinking into the depths, for the second time on the second island, both the first and the second 'nuisance' in your lifetime is more like a catastrophe than a mere 'nuisance' (The Extinction of Chesapeake Bay Islands).

III. Nuisance!! (Eating Jellyfish to Remember Cod Almighty)

The waters of Maine have been warming for decades, warming out a warning, that no-one in fishy officialdom heeded, except to acknowledge that losing the once-vast cod fishery was a 'nuisance':
"The Atlantic cod, a fish that came to symbolize bounty to America’s colonial settlers, is on the brink of disappearing, despite years of fishing limits aimed at rebuilding stocks. A new study reveals why: Cod spawning and survival has been hampered by rapid, extraordinary ocean warming in the Gulf of Maine, where sea surface temperatures rose faster than anywhere else on the planet between 2003 and 2014.

Over this same 10-year period, fishery managers set quotas that they felt were informed by high-quality science, and the stock just kept going down, down, down,” says study leader Andrew Pershing, the chief scientist for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, Maine. When his team looked closely at factors behind the trends, he says, “We found the fingerprints of temperature throughout the data.”

The scientists used satellite data to track the daily sea surface temperature trend in the Gulf of Maine. From 1982 until 2004, they found, temperatures rose by 0.03°C per year, or three times the global mean rate. That warming accelerated sevenfold beginning in 2004, peaking in 2012 with a large “ocean heat wave” that persisted for 18 months, according to the study."
(Science, emphasis added). "Gosh, you expect us managers to know that heated water causes species migration or extinction?"

IV. Prevagen – The Jellyfish-Brain Supplement

Scientists are not sure if the cod management folk have brains or not, but they are "sure" that jellyfish do not have brains.

I think the cod management folk are composed of brainlessness on steroids, and that synthetic jellyfish stuff will not cure them of it:
Through more than 18 years of research, Quincy Bioscience developed Prevagen, a brain health supplement made from the same protein found in the Aequorea victoria jellyfish. The protein from the jellyfish is able to be produced in a scientifically controlled way through the process of fermentation. Jellyfish are not actually used in the manufacturing process of this unique [jellyfish] brain health supplement.

Prevagen has been tested and proven safe. It has also been voted as the #1 memory supplement in the United States.
(Prevagen, "The Jellyfish Supplement not made from Jellyfish"). The problem of remembering the fabled cod will be solved, but where the cod went will not.

V. Sophomoronic Dangers

Those sophomoronic fishery officials who did not know how to keep themselves from causing their cod to become commercially extinct ("cod is dead") off the coast of New England, will now be taking over the Prevagen fishery.

So, they need to beware of the main danger now: siphonophores.

These are communities of small creatures that work together as a unit, who work for the common good, who look like, and maybe are, jellyfish:
"The fascinating jellyfish is a marine animal that is found all over in the oceans of the world. The 200 varieties of jellyfish, come in a stunning array of colors, sizes and shapes. In the northeastern region of the United States is the region of New England. Its coastline is bounded by the Atlantic ocean and is home to a diverse marine life. There a lot of jellyfish in these waters and main ones are the Lion's Mane and Portuguese man-of-war.

Technically the Portuguese man-of-war cannot be called a jellyfish as it is a siphonophore, which is an animal made up of colony of organisms working together. But it does look like a jellyfish and people also generally refer to it as a jellyfish.
" - (New England Jellyfish)

"Siphonophores are of special scientific interest because they are composed of medusoid and polypoid zooids that are morphologically and functionally specialized. Each zooid is an individual module, but their integration with each other is so strong that the colony attains the function of a large organism. Indeed, most of the zooids are so specialized, they lack the ability to survive on their own. This is somewhat analogous to the construction and function of multicellular organisms; because multicellular organisms have organs which, like zooids, are specialized and interdependent, siphonophores may provide clues regarding the evolution of more complex bodies." -(Wikipedia)

"Siphonophores differ from most other colonial animals in two fundamental respects. First, there is a high degree of specialization between the zooids. Zooids specialized for one function usually have well developed features to serve that function but lack the structures associated with other functions. For instance, the nectophores that propel the colony through the water (which are a type of medusa) can’t eat, and the feeding polyps can’t swim. Each is dependant on the other to do what it can’t do. Second, the specialized zooids of a siphonophore are arranged in an extremely precise pattern. This pattern is the same from colony to colony of the same species, but different between species. Siphonophores, then, have become extremely complicated organisms, just as we have, but in an entirely different way. Whereas we are made up of specialized cells that are arranged into tissues and organs, siphonophores are made up of specialized zooids precisely organized at the level of the colony. Understanding how evolution has shaped siphonophores into such complex colonial organisms may tell us quite a bit about how evolution was able to generate complex multicellular organisms, including ourselves." -(Siphonophores).
(emphasis added). If the New England Fishery managers (who oversaw the destruction of a successful, centuries-old cod fishery that was older than the U.S.eh?) mistake the siphonophores for jellyfish, or vice versa, and allow them to be made into Prevagen, or food products, then people who use or eat them could begin to cooperate, to care for one another, to work as a collective, and to even develop universal health care.

VI. Conclusion

Hell, the Patriots may even begin to play fair football if they are infected with the cooperation genetics within siphonophores.

In short ... danger, danger Will Smith.

Thus, special care must be taken to insure that such unAmerican siphonophoric development does not take place in the U.S.eh? ... because we only do sophomoronic here.

We urge those sophomoronic officials (who normalized big cod into no cod), to continue their 'nuisance' work, and to make sure that congress does not learn about Prevagen.

It could become a nuisance.

The previous post in this series is here.

The final, peer-reviewed version of the paper is here.

3 comments:

  1. Very good blog. I've been following your links from NBL. This is just a note of thanks from Mark Austin who reads often but forgets to comment with appreciation.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good one Dredd! Funny, snarky AND informative!

    Tom

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  3. The courts have been questioned on the issue now (link).

    ReplyDelete