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January 16, 2007
Melt The Glaciers Quickly!
Don't do it for me or my need for teetimes in January. No, do it for the Dolphins
Dolphins Stuck In Shallow Waters Of East Hampton(CBS) EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. About two dozen dolphins are struggling for survival in the unlikeliest of places, and thanks much in part to the unseasonable winter weather. Rescuers in East Hampton have been working to free the mammals from shallow waters, worried they will die from hunger.
Drive those SUVs! Drive , I say!
But cooler weather -- with temperatures expected to drop more than 20 degrees on Tuesday, according to CBS 2 Meteoroligist John Elliott -- could raise the water level enough to give rescuers another chance to save the dolphins from the cove.
What does Al Gore know? Cooler weather=higher oceans!
Posted by Mr. Bingley at January 16, 2007 08:45 AM
Comments
Ok, maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet this morning, but how does this whole cooler weather raises the water level thing work?
Posted by: Dave E. at January 16, 2007 10:09 AM
I guess in the same way ice floats? I dunno.
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at January 16, 2007 10:37 AM
That's a good guess, Mr. B - water is one of the few substances that expands as it cools. But not by that much.
I suspect it has to do with barometric pressure and how much Sound Water infiltrates the brackish waters of the creek's mouth.
Nothing is as simple as basic classes in Thermo-God-Damnics make it seem
Posted by: John at January 16, 2007 11:31 AM
Ocean currents play a part as well, John, not to mention a lot of other factors. Minor changes in the weather can have significant impacts on estuaries.
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at January 16, 2007 12:45 PM
I thought that the thermohaline current might have something to do with it, but I didn't know how much that impacted LIS.
Posted by: John at January 16, 2007 12:51 PM
From Wikipedia: A simple but environmentally important and unusual property of water is that its common solid form, ice, floats on its liquid form. This solid phase is not as dense as liquid water because of the geometry of the hydrogen bonds which are formed only at lower temperatures. For almost all other substances the solid form has a greater density than the liquid form. Fresh water at standard atmospheric pressure is most dense at 3.98 °C, and will sink by convection as it cools to that temperature, and if it becomes colder it will rise instead. This reversal will cause deep water to remain warmer than shallower freezing water, so that ice in a body of water will form first at the surface and progress downward, while the majority of the water underneath will hold a constant 4 °C. This effectively insulates a lake floor from the cold.
Posted by: Mike Rentner at January 16, 2007 12:57 PM
Geeks.
Posted by: tree hugging sister at January 16, 2007 01:26 PM
What about the dilithium crystals?
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at January 16, 2007 01:55 PM
Hard to say about thermohaline and LIS, John. All I can say is that estuaries are delicate areas (environmentally speaking) because water levels can change suddenly and dramatically with a small change. A shift in the wind, or (as you noted) a difference in barometric pressure will do that.
Dilithium crystals are a problem as well. Mostly because people seem to think they have fantastic magic properties, when in fact they are good only for controlling plasma generation from matter/anti-matter contact in star ship engines. This myth has not been dispelled by the discovery that dilithium crystals can be re-generated, and even synthesized.
(Don't believe me, Sis? Nyah nyah nyah!)
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at January 16, 2007 03:27 PM
News this afternoon said they are coaxing them out and have rescued some of them.
Posted by: Kcruella at January 16, 2007 11:14 PM