haze and smoke

has been very bad this year. I live in Madison, WI (US) BTW.

Starting on about sept 3/4 another huge plume of dust & ****
could be seen blowing of the east coast of Africa
between about 10-30 north. During the course of the next
week it has been slowly wafting east towards the us, and
appears to have reached us. Thick tendrils of smoke from
fires in Montana (?) were also noted a few days ago. Not
certain what's going on in Africa. Been some terrible plumes
of dust and pollution blowing off Africa this year.

For weeks (months really) large parts of south America have
been burning, at about 10 south (Brazil and company). Likely
more unsustainable slashing and burning to feed an increasingly
bloated H. Sapiens population. SE Asia, China, Malyasia have
been under an incredible pall this Summer. Combination of
forest fires and pollution. It looks very bad judging from
satellite imagery. Parts of Mexico have been very bad too.

Here in the US, in the wake of hurricane Katrina, emissions
standards have been lowered for gas. Already the global production
of 'light sweet' oil has peaked. Most of the remaining crude
is 'heavy' This stuff has more sulpher, heavy metals, and other
impurities which need to be refined out. So now we can now look
forward to more sulpher dioxide hazes. I fear that as we
hit the hydrocarbon dregs and the global population continues
to swell air quality will keep getting worse. More coal
being burned, gas with more crud in it, more people burning
wood to stay warm, especially in the US where the cost of
nat. gas is skyrocketing.

If you google 'global dimming' you'll see that, especially in
the northern hemisphere, there's been a measurable decrease
in the intensity of sunlight reaching the ground, especially
since the 1950s - up to 20-30%. I imagine this can't be helping
us amatuer astronomers as far as the clarity and transparency
of the sky. Basically just pollution.

It seems to me that, overall, the number of good clear
days has been declining in my neck of the woods. And the
clear days that do come aren't as clear as they used to be.

Lately I've been feeling the need to retreat to the southern
hemisphere. Perhaps the sky still occasionally looks blue there.

-Eric B

You know, it's funny that you should mention this.

When I fly from here to there I take the opportunity to look at the
atmosphere in cross section.

Yes, and it seems that what it is, is what is not what is was, say in
the 70's. (blueness that is)

How true that the sky is not so blue,
and when I take my data from the scope it tells me so.

OK then and righty O, I know about the seasonal variation due to the
Sahara desert plumes and this and that effect in limiting magnitude from
a ground based observer point of view.
Still, something is not as it was and therefor is degrading. (INMHO)


So I ask what are you going to do about it ?

Not you Eric B, as you wrote about it, but the rest (saa dom)?

What you see in star light and sun light if you so look,
is the result of GLOBAL change.( I do so reserve the upper case)

It's also of note that my critics who talk of the evil in building
telescopes on sacred mountain tops also agree with frustration, the view
and hence the atmosphere is degrading. So we have one thing in common.

It takes the growing consensus to start a change or is it to late ? (no
never) Unless you think we don't live in a democracy (U.S. readers take
note)

looking through an ever dimming atmosphere with total frustration

Dan










wrote:
has been very bad this year. I live in Madison, WI (US) BTW.

Starting on about sept 3/4 another huge plume of dust & ****
could be seen blowing of the east coast of Africa
between about 10-30 north. During the course of the next
week it has been slowly wafting east towards the us, and
appears to have reached us. Thick tendrils of smoke from
fires in Montana (?) were also noted a few days ago. Not
certain what's going on in Africa. Been some terrible plumes
of dust and pollution blowing off Africa this year.

For weeks (months really) large parts of south America have
been burning, at about 10 south (Brazil and company). Likely
more unsustainable slashing and burning to feed an increasingly
bloated H. Sapiens population. SE Asia, China, Malyasia have
been under an incredible pall this Summer. Combination of
forest fires and pollution. It looks very bad judging from
satellite imagery. Parts of Mexico have been very bad too.

Here in the US, in the wake of hurricane Katrina, emissions
standards have been lowered for gas. Already the global production
of 'light sweet' oil has peaked. Most of the remaining crude
is 'heavy' This stuff has more sulpher, heavy metals, and other
impurities which need to be refined out. So now we can now look
forward to more sulpher dioxide hazes. I fear that as we
hit the hydrocarbon dregs and the global population continues
to swell air quality will keep getting worse. More coal
being burned, gas with more crud in it, more people burning
wood to stay warm, especially in the US where the cost of
nat. gas is skyrocketing.

If you google 'global dimming' you'll see that, especially in
the northern hemisphere, there's been a measurable decrease
in the intensity of sunlight reaching the ground, especially
since the 1950s - up to 20-30%. I imagine this can't be helping
us amatuer astronomers as far as the clarity and transparency
of the sky. Basically just pollution.

It seems to me that, overall, the number of good clear
days has been declining in my neck of the woods. And the
clear days that do come aren't as clear as they used to be.

Lately I've been feeling the need to retreat to the southern
hemisphere. Perhaps the sky still occasionally looks blue there.

-Eric B

Dan Mckenna wrote:
Unless you think we don't live in a democracy (U.S. readers take
note)

It is a popular misconception that the U.S. government is a democracy.
It isn't, nor was it intended to be by the founding fathers.

--
St. John

Sahara desert plumes have been coming at regular intervals since
history began. I guess this is the next left-wing rant -- "global
dust."

democracy ends on the day after the elections.

Yes, we could see the Sahara Dust plumes in Hawaii both in atmospheric
optical transparency and IIRC the Mauna Loa CN count (condensation nuclei)

All deserts have plumes and so does every thing else from sea salt to
industrial emissions. Of concern is the increased loading of these
systems, their interaction, and global change accelerating these
processes. Not so much as a left wing rant but the accumulation of data
and the effort to understand what it means. If only one wing flaps we go
in circles and get no where.

Not to say that I am always balanced

dan

Dah_Rainbow_Mob wrote:
Sahara desert plumes have been coming at regular intervals since
history began. I guess this is the next left-wing rant -- "global
dust."

Dah_Rainbow_Mob wrote:
Sahara desert plumes have been coming at regular intervals since
history began. I guess this is the next left-wing rant -- "global
dust."

Yes, and the sahara plumes have been unusually bad
and extensive this year. I've been keeping an eye on
global satellite imagery for about a decade, and there's
nothing subtle about the haze and smoke this year. It's
been bad.

Perhaps because there are now more people than ever before
packed onto this globe, burning more stuff than ever
before? nah.... Not to mention the large amounts of
marginal land now being farmed, like sub-saharan regions,
or the burning the Amazon river basin (land that has no
business being farmed in the first place) - these all
contribute to dust and plumes.

Using the term 'left-wing' - like 'right-wing', 'liberal',
'conservative' or 'nazi' in an argument almost guarantees
you've lost it as you haven't said ****.

-Eric B

Camel races maybe. Liberal camels.

Dan Mckenna wrote:
You know, it's funny that you should mention this.

When I fly from here to there I take the opportunity to look at the
atmosphere in cross section.

Yes, and it seems that what it is, is what is not what is was, say in
the 70's. (blueness that is)

(...)
So I ask what are you going to do about it ?

Not you Eric B, as you wrote about it, but the rest (saa dom)?


shrugs

Well I just had to bitch. I doubt most people notice or care.

Interesing that Mauna Loa - normally a pristine environment -
has noted the increased CN count. Not that I need them to tell
me this. You wouldn't happen to have a link on that? Something
to feed the pedants with.

As to what can be done - unfortunately nothing. Things will take
their course and likely continue get worse, at least short term.
Get used to it or move. It's just that, as you noted, it's now
global in scope and hard to escape from

-Eric B (where the sky has been a featureless white for days)

I don't have a link for the CN data
as it was mentioned to be over a beer in the 80s during
a TGIF at the Hawaiian Institute for Geophysics by a atmospheric
chem person that I built a CN counter for.

Now that I think of it as far as I know, which isn't much about this,
the Sahara plume can be detected in south Florida and so Hawaii might be
a bit of a stretch. My guess is that it is the Gobi plume that Hawaii sees.

Dan

boo wrote:
Dan Mckenna wrote:

You know, it's funny that you should mention this.

When I fly from here to there I take the opportunity to look at the
atmosphere in cross section.

Yes, and it seems that what it is, is what is not what is was, say in
the 70's. (blueness that is)


(...)

So I ask what are you going to do about it ?

Not you Eric B, as you wrote about it, but the rest (saa dom)?



shrugs

Well I just had to bitch. I doubt most people notice or care.

Interesing that Mauna Loa - normally a pristine environment -
has noted the increased CN count. Not that I need them to tell
me this. You wouldn't happen to have a link on that? Something
to feed the pedants with.

As to what can be done - unfortunately nothing. Things will take
their course and likely continue get worse, at least short term.
Get used to it or move. It's just that, as you noted, it's now
global in scope and hard to escape from

-Eric B (where the sky has been a featureless white for days)