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Colorado exports carbon emissions to Kansas

Recently there have been articles and reviews on the melting Arctic ice and the warming temperatures. While we may blame humans for "global warming," Nature itself has provide a much greater source of greenhouse gases in the form of "Burning Ice" (Methane Hydrates) that in the geological past have outgassed in massive amounts periodically into the atmosphere. I will review the megatons of burning ice later on, but first there is a technical scientific issue to resolve.The issue of "global warming" brings up the need for good mathematics in analyzing the various data sources to determine the true causes-and-effects ("inputs" and "outputs") and to filter out those causes that either do not affect the output, or in minor ways, or in combined effects that do not show up until certain conditions are correct. As I have spent time in R&D and also getting my series of degrees, I have found that very few scientists and researchers know how to use statistics properly to be able to filter and view data for the actual, true cause-and-effects. Too many times statistical regression methods are used that assume a direct relationship between the causes and effect, which may not be real. Although there are several books on the market, one of the best books I know of that can help researchers, analysts, and scientists is a book entitled, "Statistics for Experimenters," by Box, Hunter, and Hunter.When it comes to global warming, there are more causes than most scientists have considered. For example, the increase in the number and intensity of solar eruptions has a much higher statistical correlation than the other causes/inputs. There are not many web pages that show these in good ways, but here are two articles for present the correlations rather easily.http://www.qualitydigest.com/mar98/html/spctool.htmlhttp://www.qualitydigest.com/april98/html/spctool.htmlAlthough these graphs are from the late 1990s, the use of this type of statistical tool, SPC charting, has hardly ever been used by scientific researchers and investigators. Most of them have used other mathematical methods that assume a direct correlation between greenhouse gases and Global warming, as directed and determined by the process modeler. This traditional "assumption" may not be correct, and in some cases may potentially mislead scientists and modelers. These other tools can allow a scientist to purposely minimize the effects from natural causes and to maximize the effects of human sources.Mars also has Global Warming (and from the Solar Sun, NOT human-causes) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ne... Univ. of California technical staff member Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA, now living in Kansas

November 17, 2008 at 8:41 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Mining's legacy: A scar on Kansas

Cancers from natural metals? This is a response to the research done by Dartmouth College on arsenic (and on the lack of cancers in the residents of Armagosa Valley, CA, that has very high arsenic content in its drinking waters):
http://www.wateronline.com/content/ne...

Just what is the concentration of the arsenic used in the experiment? Was this equivalent to the concentration found in normal human blood after drinking water with groundwater arsenic? Too often experimenters in the past have made the As ionic concentrations way too high for what is found in humans (blood and urine and other types of samples), after they drank groundwater with high arsenic content.

Was the CHEMISTRY of the experiment truly equivalent to the chemistry found in human blood after groundwater ingestion AND the resulting biochemical interactions that take place in the digestive tract, blood, arteries, etc.?

We have seen many other experimenters use arsenic tests that did NOT have the same blood chemistry and did NOT have concentrations found in human blood after ingesting.

They used "tissue samples". But are these conditions truly equivalent to what humans have in terms of the tissues that receive their ions from blood and plasma through the arteries and other biochemical processes within the human bodies?

See also the problems with biological models
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/...

September 30, 2007 at 4:26 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Mining's legacy: A scar on Kansas

Why do volcanoes put out massive metal contaminations and destroy streams?
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/v-prin...

Nature's own groundwater contaminations -- In the past I have worked with and talked to many researchers about their methods of designing their research and experiments on arsenic, mercury and lead toxicity. There are some major problems with the basic methods and scientific "assumptions" that these people have made.

If those who want tighter arsenic standards in drinking water had true geologic knowledge, they would know that both arsenic and mercury are some of the many elements that Nature put in the earth and that the groundwater has picked up over the thousands of years. Often, arsenic (As) is associated with gold deposits, even low grade, and other sulfide ore deposits. In many places in the USA, there are geological deposits of the mineral cinnabar (mercury sulfide) and pure mercury, such as the Big Bend area of Texas near the Rio Grande river. Over geological time, the groundwater has picked up mercury in many places over thousands of years. There are also geological formations that contain trace amounts of mercury in their sediments that for eons have been washing into the rivers, groundwater, and soils.

There are several hundred naturally-occurring lead deposits (lead sulfide and lead carbonate) in the USA that were in existence long before any Europeans explorers came around in the 1500s and 1600s. In many drinking water sources, there are a number of other elements in natural drinking water, such as uranium, lead, molybdenum, nickel, sulfur, etc. that originated from natural mineral deposits.

Natural arsenic and heavy metals in Alaskan waters from geological deposits:
http://water.usgs.gov/pubs/fs/fs-083-01/
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/v-prin...

and then sulfur also:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/leads.as...

Shame on Nature for doing that......

September 30, 2007 at 4:24 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )