Polar Clouds

This image is entrancing - every time I look at I see more swirls in its murky mists. Its almost hypnotic appeal required a posting.

Quick excerpt from NASA's Earth Observatory:

Click here to view full image (292 kb)

In the summertime in the far northern or southern latitudes, high in the Earth’s atmosphere at the edge of space, thin, silvery clouds sometimes become visible just after sunset. These high clouds, occurring at altitudes of about 80 kilometers (50 miles), are called polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs). They are also called noctilucent (“night-shining”) clouds. In recent years, polar mesospheric clouds seem to be occurring more frequently and at lower latitudes than they have in the past, and studies are underway to determine whether their occurrence is related to global climate change.

Full Story at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17737

Featured astronaut photograph STS117-E-6998 was acquired by the STS-117 crew on June 10, 2007, with a Kodak 760C digital camera using an 180 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory at Johnson Space Center. The image in this article has been enhanced to improve contrast. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.

I "Thaw" what You Did This Summer

This summer thaw in Eastern Greenland is a gorgeous yet frightening image the nature of global climate change and glacial retreat.

Quick excerpt from NASA's Earth Observatory site (link to full story below):

Summer thaw was underway on the fringe of eastern Greenland when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and captured this image on July 13, 2007. Inland (left), snow and ice make a white blanket, while closer to sea (center and right) the annual snow has retreated from much of the rocky coastline and from the surface of some glaciers, which appear slightly gray. In the fjords, melt water carrying finely ground sediment, crushed by the movement of glaciers over rock, colors the water turquoise. Sea ice (lower right) has fractured into geometric blocks, and small chunks of ice are scattered in some fjords like confetti. At far right, ice has disintegrated or been crushed into such small pieces that it looks like froth or foam swirling in the waters of the Greenland Sea.

Full story at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17711

World Perspective - Global Carbon Issue

Taken from NASA's photo collection, with an animated link to the time-flow display of high levels of carbon monoxide on a global scale
Click here to view animation (9840 kb) - yet another reminder everything has it impact.

Short Excerpt (taken from story - full link below):

The streak of red, orange, and yellow across South America, Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean in this image points to high levels of carbon monoxide on September 30, 2005, as measured by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The carbon monoxide primarily comes from fires burning in the Amazon basin, with some additional contribution from fires in southern Africa. The fires blanketed much of South America with smoke, as shown in a photo-like image captured by the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite on September 20. The animation (available by clicking on the image) shows carbon monoxide, one component of the smoke, sweeping east throughout August and September 2005. Fires in Africa probably contributed to the high concentrations of carbon monoxide over Africa and the Indian Ocean.
Released when carbon is burned, carbon monoxide is a harmful pollutant that reduces the amount of oxygen that can reach tissue and organs in the body. Additionally, carbon monoxide is a precursor to ground-level ozone and smog, so a global measurement of the gas provides a good indicator of the overall health of the atmosphere. On a global basis, nearly 50 percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from man-made sources, and the rest come from biomass burning, as shown here, or natural sources, says Dr. Wallace McMillan from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology.

Full Story at:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17724

Interesting side reading:

New NASA AIRS Data to Aid Weather, Climate Research, on the NASA news page.
Smoke gets in your eyes: NASA study shows global impacts of pollution, on the AIRS web site.
Image courtesy NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Amazon vs. Nile

For now, Amazon leading by a source tributary.

Quick excerpt:
Geographers long agreed that, while the Amazon might be the world’s largest river by volume, the longest was likely the Nile. In 2007, however, the BBC reported that a team of Brazilian researchers challenged that long-held belief. After an expedition to Peru to locate the Amazon’s precise source, the team described a different starting point. The team claimed that the river originated not in northern Peru, where it had been thought to begin, but in southern Peru, somewhere on snowcapped Mount Mismi (or Nevado Mismi). The team narrowed down the starting point to one of two places, but concluded that either one would nudge the Amazon’s length past that of the Nile.

Full story:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17693

Nature's Blue & Grey

Interesting contract between the "blue" glacier and the Grey Lake.

Brief excerpt: The Southern Patagonian Ice field of Chile and Argentina hosts several spectacular glaciers—including Grey Glacier located in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. This glacier, which in 1996 had a measured total area of 270 square kilometers and a length of 28 kilometers (104 square miles in area, 17 miles long), begins in the Patagonian Andes Mountains to the west and terminates in three distinct lobes into Grey Lake (upper image). The upper image is a photograph taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, and it captures a striking blue coloration of the glacier. The coloring is due to the ice’s absorption of red wavelengths of light and scattering of blue wavelengths of light as it is transmitted through the ice.


Full story:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17685

Den Helder, Mud flats and tullips

I knew an archer named Den Helder, without the mud flats and tulips.
Nice image.
Enjoy.

Quick excerpt: The city and harbor of Den Helder in the northern Netherlands has been the home port of the Dutch Royal Navy for over 175 years. The location provides access to the North Sea, which has made it an important commercial and strategic port. Bright red agricultural fields to the south of Den Helder indicate another noteworthy aspect of the region—commercial farming of tulips and hyacinth. This astronaut photograph is an oblique view (an angled, not a “straight down”view) of the Den Helder region taken from the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS was located to the southeast, near Dülmen, Germany, when the image was acquired, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) away in terms of ground distance

Full story:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17665

How to Dissect a Hurricane

This image outlay and explanation is phenomenal.

3-dimensional perspective on the storm conditional that harvest a hurricane event.


A Brief excerpt:
June 1 marks the beginning of hurricane season. Every year, meteorologists strive to predict hurricane behavior to reduce risk to lives and property while also minimizing the costs associated with storm preparations and evacuations. Perfect predictions of hurricane behavior are still a thing of the future, but NASA scientists are combining observations from field campaigns and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite with supercomputing modeling power to shed light on the internal workings of hurricanes and how the eye of the storm itself feeds towering thunderstorm clouds known as hot towers, which cause storms to intensify.

Full story at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17662

Re-freezing in Antarctica

Fascinating concept of glocal warming - the refreezing of the polar caps and a new type of winter season.


A brief excerpt:

In contrast to the Antarctic Peninsula, where evidence of climate warming has been evident in rising temperatures, retreating glaciers, and collapsing ice shelves, the interior of Antarctica has generally appeared to be staying well below freezing. In May 2007, however, a team of researches from NASA and the University of Colorado found evidence of warming and melting as much as 900 kilometers (500 miles) inland. Just 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the South Pole, and more than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) above sea level, portions of Antarctica’s interior experienced temperatures above freezing for about a week in January 2005.

Full article at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17661

Why I Want Hurricane Shutters

Another image from NASA's Earth Observatory Project:
This nicely highlights a potential collision of fire and water; a sub-tropical strom hitting fires from the Florida drought. Unfortunately, it missed.

The full description can be read at:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17640

Aral Sea Recovery

Another image from NASA's Earth Observatory Project.

What I like about this is a postivie plug for the World Bank's environmental lending projects.

From http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17634

"... The North Aral Sea owes its rebirth to the Kok-Aral Dam, an $85.8 million project bolstered by a loan from the World Bank. The dam separates the North Aral Sea from its saltier and more polluted southern half. In early 2006, the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan announced that the Aral Sea had shown dramatic recovery in just months, rather than the five to ten years originally predicted...."

Map of Online Communities

Map on Online Communities from www.XKCD.com - buy this poster here: http://xkcd.com/c256.html

Intriguing fantasy geography of online communtities.

Subglacial Lakes

Check this image and description out.

From NASA's Earth Observatory:
"To the untrained eye, Antarctica may look like a giant piece of solid ice that rarely changes, but scientists studying the continent have long known better. The icy surface is dynamic, with glaciers and “streams” of ice flowing toward the ocean. Underneath the ice, the picture is equally complex. Thick masses of ice may appear to rest on solid land, but they actually float on water, with scattered islands bumping into their underbellies. Well inland from these ice shelves, the terrain includes mountain ranges and watery basins buried in ice....."

Full story at:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17626

Old Archives of Sample Work

Letters from Liberia

Below is a forwarded letter from my Uncle Ron.
All my relatives are admirable, but Uncle Ron comes in at the top as "definitively unique".
Below is a letter detailing his return trip to Liberia after 46 years....

22 November 2006
Ganta, Liberia

Who would have thunk it!!!

44 years ago, we had just finished our first week of marriage, that ceremony having taken place right here in Ganta, Liberia and 46 years ago, I had put in my first stint of surgical/medical practice as a med student, again right here in Liberia, and obviously if it hadn't been for the first visit there wouldn't have been the second!!

And now that time comes, of course, to comment on whatwe find in our most recent wandering abroad activity. This time it happens on a keyboard, and an internet computer, instead of mail.

The latter has pretty much taken a nose dive here in Liberia, with no dependable mail at this time. Yet there it is a computer sitting in an air-conditioned room at the hospital central office .. and I hear that there is an internet café somewhere on the campus---having not yet found it.

Some things don't change. Intermittent electricity, so we take advantage of it when we have it. For some reason it is on this afternoon, so a good time to run this computer. Mostly it is on several hours in the late morning, so as to run surgery, and then in the evening for several hours, so we can see to eat our rice. And the type of surgery seems to remain the same---hernias, hernias, hernias, or C-sections, and occasional obstructed labor and a ruptured uterus.

I delivered twins via C-section last week- a boy and girl- I know one busy mother now!!

Medically, there remains still the problem of malaria---lots of that, and now of course also, comes the more modern adjustment to AIDS - lodes of that too, like everywhere. One local nurse is in the ward with aseptic meningitis superimposed on AIDS. No way out of that one, I am afraid.(P. S, : She died)

They have had a couple years to get the hospital backto running again, as of course, here too, there has been war and all the bad things that go with it, here in Africa - houses were burned, raided, plundered, hospital itself had been closed for a time, all the foreigners had left. We have 100 yards from where I sit now in one of the mission houses, a UN camp of Bangledeshies with AK-47' s on the ready, trying to do their part to hold the country together after 2 decades of mis-rule, and plundering by local war lordsand politicians.

What is new about that you say, weare always hanging around places like that... True enough, but this is Liberia, where way back when, we said that these folks would never follow the fate of Congo, etc..but they did.

We said that there would never be murder, mayhem, etc., here, but there was...on a big time scale. Recently there is an attempt to get the Ganta nursing school program going again. Jewell helped get that very program started here in Ganta, back in 1960. We lived with the student nurses after marriage, acting sort of as "house" parents to them, and we ate with them.

Getting it going again has not been without pain, as local church politics has it would appear gotten in the way of a smooth take-off. We are gifted with an over abundance of students, for the size of the hospital and the number of instructors---things look good on paper. In fact this afternoon there in a meeting underway with students and instructors, trying to iron some of the problems out.. sort of like goingto Iraq.

Easy to get into, hard to get out.

We have certain church officials dreaming grand thoughts, of a new hospital complex, and fancy names over the door. Their own preferably, but from our point of view, not enough thought of how to run it, once open. There is no question trouble ahead on this subject. Hospital, we have 3 doctors, all Liberian, one surgeon, one young generalist (who is taking onsurgery also), and an ophthalmologist doing his thingin a new building but taking call at the main unitwhen he has to.

This week the surgeon is taking sometime off, and that is what I am doing here---Covering anyone who wants to take off a bit. The surgical unit is the same as in 1962, one room is air-conditioned, the other about to be, when they ge tit installed- a gift from the Liberia president who came by to visit the other day. Lights are very tired, but mostly work, one has multiple bulbs burned out. Instruments are hand-me-downs, when the place was looted a couple years ago, even surgical things disappeared. I find myself once again looking in old boxes and dirty shelves for what I can find. I found a box today with some dental forceps in it, scattered around misc. medical junk. Misc. instruments mean that even a D and C, can be an experience in innovation. Gowns vary from good to bad, so I wear my usual plastic apron, sleeve guards, and orthopedic gloves, considering every patient a potential AIDS patient.

Anesthesia is mostly spinal, or if necessary ,general, using mostly IV drugs. Laboratory is of course marginal, but they are tryingto get a blood chemistry unit working---the unit is here, but there are no reagents. They do blood transfusions, as part of their routine, using mostly family as donors. They do cross-match and HIV testing.

28 Nov 2006
Days pass quickly it seems. 4 c sectionsyesterday, some things don't change in Liberia one for retained twin-dead one for CPD-live infantone for abruption placentae, with dead child of course one for arm presentation of 7 month old fetus. Instruments essentially not present, mostly of various vintages and quality, no Kochers, minimal number of hemostats, Some cast material, but no way to take a cast off, n ocast saw, of any sort including hand, or oelectric, hence no way to get a circular cast off. They do have a man here who has had some experience, he says with casting, etc., but doubt much interest onthe part of the doctors, and I shant be here long enough to make a difference. We did put on a splint yesterday.

1 December 2006
Fairly quiet day today, one c-section, wards are mostly quiet. It does get quiet here, tis a good thing, to give some time off for people. You probably know that Jewell got malaria a few days ago, but today seems to have gone fairly well. We hope for a better day tomorrow, and this weekend may turn out, no guarantees, to be quiet. I did get a note from Tanya today, and also a letter from Tatiana. Still not sure what is going on there, when I try to reply. We shall see how this month goes, and whether we are still useful, come January, ie might come home a couple weeks early. Our hosts have a bit of family coming and I don't know if that will be congested.

Will see on that, too. This is sort of an ongoing letter, so will get it off as it is, before this month passes too.

Cheers, Dad

PS- 4 December, I too contracted malaria over the weekend. It sure knocks the stuffing out of one!.
Anyway we are hanging in there.

Ronald A.Dierwechter, MD,FACS,FICSPOB
28 Storm Lake, Iowa, 50588, USA

Needless to say, Uncle Ron, now in his 70's, has always been, and in my mind will forever be, a true man.

More later -
sinam