"The Ozone Layer."

"THE OZONE LAYER."

The ozone layer is a layer of gas in the upper atmosphere which protects humans and other living things from the harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) rays of the sun. In the 1970´s scientists discovered that certain man-made chemicals could destroy ozone and deplete the ozone layer. Further research found that the growing production and use of chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in aerosol sprays, refrigeration, insulation and air conditioning was contributing to the accumulation of ozone-depleting substances (ODS) in the atmosphere. They also observed that an "ozone hole" was developing above the ANTARCTIC.

A thinning ozone layer leads to a number of serious health risks for humans. It causes greater incidences of skin cancer and eye cataracts, with children being particularly vulnerable. There are also serious impacts for biodiversity. Increased UV-B rays reduce levels of plankton in the oceans and subsequently diminish fish stocks. It can also have adverse effects on plant growth, thus reducing agricultural productivity. A direct negative economic impact is the reduced lifespan of certain materials like plastic.

Severe depletion of the Antarctic ozone layer was first observed in the early 1980´s. The international response embodied in the Montreal Protocol. Today 196 parties worldwide have signed the Montreal Protocol which is widely regarded as the most successful Multinational Environmental Agreement, and it is the first treaty achieving universal ratification. Furthermore, the phasing out of ozone depleting substances (ODS) has helped to fight climate change since many ODS are also powerful greenhouse gases.

Ozone is a gas that occurs naturally in our atmosphere. Most of it is concentrated in the ozone layer, a region located in the stratosphere several miles above the surface of the Earth. Although ozone represents only a small fraction of the gas present in the atmosphere, it plays a vital role by shielding humans and other life from harmful ultraviolet light from the Sun. Human activities in the last several decades have produced chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which have been released into atmosphere and have contributed to the depletion of this important protective layer. When scientists realized the destructive effect these chemicals could have on the ozone layer, international agreements were put in place to limit such emissions. As a result, it is expected that the ozone layer will recover in the coming decades.

Ozone is also a greenhouse gas in the upper atmosphere and, therefore, plays a role in Earth´s climate. The increases in primary greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, may effect how the ozone layer recovers in coming years. Understanding precisely how ozone abundances will change in a future with diminished chlorofluorocarbon emissions and increased emissions of greenhouse gases remains an important challenge for atmospheric scientists in NOAA and other research centers.

OZONE DEPLETION. ANTARCTICA.

Ozone depletion occurs in many places in the Earth´s ozone layer, most severely in the polar regions. NOAA scientists have traveled to Antarctica to study the ozone hole that has been occurring there since the late 1970s. In 1986, soon after the reported discovery of the ozone hole, Aeronomy Lab (now ESRL) scientist Dr. Susan Solomon led a team of 16 scientists, the National Ozone Expedition

(NOZE I) to Antarctica. The scientists took measurements of various trace gases and physical properties of the atmosphere. The data, along with additional findings from the NOZE II mission the following year, showed conclusively that human-produced trace gases that contain chlorine and bromine were causing the ozone hole. The Global Monitoring Division of ESRL has monitored the yearly Antarctic ozone hole since 1986 by using instruments located on the ground and by launching balloon-borne ozonesondes, onboard aircraft and satellites, from the South Pole station and measuring total column ozone from a ground based Dobson spectrophotometer since 1963. This unique record from the South Pole station clearly shows the annual development of the springtime Antarctic ozone hole over the past two decades.

THANK YOU FOR READING!!

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"Global Warming."

"Global Warming."

What is Global Warming?... We call the result global warming, but it is causing a set of changes to the Earth´s climate, or long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to place. As the Earth spins each day, the new heat swirls with it, picking up moisture over the oceans, rising here, settling there. It´s changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely upon. What will we do to slow this global warming?... How will we cope with the changes we´ve already set into motion? While we struggle to figure it out, the face of the Earth as we know it -coasts, forests, farms and snow-capped mountains- hangs in the balance.

The "greenhouse effect" is the warming that happens when certain gases in Earth´s atmosphere trap heat. These gases let in light but keep heat from escaping, like the glass walls of a greenhouse. First, sunlight shines onto the Earth´s surface, where it is absorbed and then radiates back into the atmosphere as heat. In the atmosphere, "greenhouse" gases trap some of this heat, and the rest escapes into space. The more greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere, the more heat gets trapped.

Scientists have known about the greenhouse effect since 1824, when Joseph Fourier calculated that the Earth would be much colder if it had no atmosphere. This greenhouse effect is what keeps the Earth´s climate livable. Without it, the Earth´s surface would be an average of about 60 degrees Farenheit cooler. In 1895, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius discovered that humans could enhance the greenhouse effect by making carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. He kicked off 100 years of climate research that has given us a sophisticated understanding of GLOBAL WARMING.

Levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have gone up and down over the Earth´s history, but they have been fairly constant for the past few thousand years. Global average temperatures have stayed fairly constant over that time as well, until recently. Through the burning of fossil fuels and other GHG emissions, humans are enhancing the greenhouse effect and warming Earth.

Scientists often use the term "climate change" instead of global warming. This is because as the Earth´s average temperature climbs, winds and ocean currents move heat around the globe in ways that can cool some areas, warm others, and change the amount of rain and snow falling. As a result, the climate changes differently in different areas.

Warming is expected to change the distribution and type of clouds. Seen from below, clouds emit infrared radiation back to the surface, and so exert a warming effect; seen from above, clouds reflect sunlight and emit infrared radiation to space, and so exert a cooling effect. Whether the net effect is warming or cooling depends on details such the type and altitude of the cloud. These details were poorly observed before the advent of satellite data and are difficult to represent in climate models.

The atmosphere´s temperature decreases with height in the troposphere. Since emission of infrared radiation varies with temperature, longwave radiation escaping to space from the relatively cold upper atmosphere is less than that emitted toward the ground from the lower atmosphere. Thus, the strength of the greenhouse effect depends on the atmosphere´s rate of temperature decrease with height.

When ice melts, land or open water takes its place. Both land and open water are on average less reflective than ice and thus absorb more solar radiation. This causes more warming, which in turn causes more melting, and this cycle continues. Warming is also the triggering variable for the release of methane in the Arctic. Methane released from thawing permafrost such as the frozen peat bogs in Siberia, and from methane clathrate on the sea floor, creates a positive feedback.

Ocen ecosystems´ability to sequester carbon is expected to decline as the oceans warm. This is because warming reduces the nutrient levels of the mesopelagic zone.

Release of gases of biological origin may be affected by global warming, but research into such effects is at an early stage.

Aren´t temperature changes natural?...

The average global temperature and concentrations of carbon dioxide (one of the major greenhouse gases) have fluctuated on a cycle of hundreds of thousands of years as the Earth´s position relative to the sun has varied. As a result, ice ages have come and gone.

However, for thousands of years now, emissions of GHGs to the atmosphere have been balanced out by GHGs that are naturally absorbed. As a result, GHG concentrations and temperature have been fairly stable. This stability has allowed human civilization to develop within a consistent climate.

Occasionally, other factors briefly influence global temperatures. Volcanic eruptions, for example, emit particles that temporarily cool the Earth´s surface. But these have no lasting effect beyond a few years. Other cycles, such as El Niño, also work on fairly short and predictable cycles.

Now, humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by more than a third since the industrial revolution. Changes this large have historically taken thousands of years, but are now happening over the course of decades.

THANK YOU FOR READING!!

STARRY DAWN.

If you want, you may visit all MY BLOGS at the following LINKS:

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"THE NEW GUINEA SINGING DOG."

"THE NEW GUINEA SINGING DOG."

WELCOME TO ANIMAL´S ADVOCATES WORLDWIDE!!

The New Guinea Singing Dog is a beautiful and intelligent primitive dog in a way to extinction.

I would love to help them!! Perhaps, the animal´s advocates worldwide could do something good to save them from extinction. Unfortunately, extinction is forever.

The New Guinea Singing Dog (Canis lupus hallstromi), known as NGSD, New Guinea Highland Dog, or Singer, is a type of wild dog that is native to New Guinea. Singers are classified as subspecies of Canis lupus and related to Australian Dingo. Singers have remained isolated from other dogs for almost 6,000 years, making them possibly the oldest of the pariah dogs. Today the dwindling wild populations still exist in the Highlands, all that remain of the breed which is thought to have once inhabited the whole of the Island of New Guinea. No confirmed sightings had been reported for years until recently. At least one animal was reportedly sighted by local guides at Lake Tawa. In 1995, the entire captive population was estimated at approximately 300, but today there are may be as few as 100 to 200 or even less numbers. They are exceptionally intelligent, but hard to keep because of wild behavioural traits. However, with proper training and socialization, they will live with humans in a "home" environment. Singers are recognized by Zoo´s worldwide of dogs with great health, for their lifespan is between 15 to 20 years long with no health issues. They are also recognized as a breed by the United Kennel Club, which places them in the Sighthound & Pariah Group. New Guinea Singing Dogs are unique in their ability to howl in a wolf-like manner, but unlike wolves, Singers can modulate the pitch, hence their name. Singers may sing many different songs all together in harmony.

It´s amazing!!... Thank you for reading my blogs!! If you wish to visit all MY BLOGS, I´ll include the LINKS where you may just CLICK:

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WELCOME TO ANIMAL´S ADVOCATES WORLDWIDE!!

WELCOME TO MY WORLD!!

STARRY DAWN.

HAPPY VALENTINE´S DAY!!

HAPPY VALENTINE´S DAY!!

I truly want to make the very best of my life. I appreciate and celebrate life. Love is the best feeling in our hearts, and the best way to show how much we care for others. Love God above all, love your family, love your parents and your grandparents, love your friends, love your wife or husband, love your children, your grandchildren, love yourself, love your sweetheart, your neighbors, love the world, love the wonder of God´s creations, love the animals, love our natural environment and so on. Become a true lover of the Universe and show with your actions how much you care!!... This is my message of love to all readers on Valentine´s Day.

Enjoy and celebrate life today,

and say "I love you" to all you truly love!!

God may bless you all!!

HAPPY VALENTINE´S DAY!!

Welcome to my world!!

Why don´t you come on in!!

You´ll see a smiling sun

Shining bright into my heart.

STARRY DAWN.

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"EXTINCT MAMMOTH." (Part 2)

"EXTINCT MAMMOTH." (Part 2)

The American Institute of Biological Sciences also notes that bones of dead elephants, left on the ground and subsequently trampled by other elephants, tend to bear marks resembling butchery marks, which have previously been misinterpreted as such by archaeologists.

The survival of the dwarf mammoths on Russia´s Wrangel Island was due to the island´s very remote location and lack of inhabitants in the early Holocene period. The European discovery of the island (by American whalers) did not occur until the 1820´s. A similar dwarfing occurred with the Pygmy Mammoth on the outer Channel Islands of California, but at an earlier period. Those animals were very likely killed by early Paleo-Native Americans, and habitat loss caused by a rising sea level that split Santa Rosae into the outer Channel Islands.

Recent research indicates that mammoths survived in the Americas until 10,000 years ago. This conclusion is from research, by James Haile and Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, of sentiments found in central Alaska, and reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fishermen in Siberia, Russia have discovered the complete skeleton of a mammoth -a find which Russian experts have described as very rare.

The mammoth´s backbone, skull, teeth and tusks all survived intact. It appears to have died aged about 50.

Mammoths lived in Africa, Europe, Asia and North America between about 1.6 million years ago and 10,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene epoch.

Siberia has historically been a rich source of prehistoric remains.

Some experts are now suggesting that climate change is leading to discoveries which might otherwise have remained hidden in frozen ground.

SOME INFORMATION ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING, OZONE LAYER, THE RAIN FOREST, EARTHQUAKE AND OTHER RELATED ISSUES WILL FOLLOW THE EXTINCT MAMMOTH.

You may visit all my BLOGS, if you want to. I´ll include all LINKS:

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THANK YOU FOR READING!!

STARRY DAWN.

"EXTINCT MAMMOTH." (Part 1)

"EXTINCT MAMMOTH." (Part 1)

Scientific Classification.

Kingdom: Animalia.

Phylum: Chordata.

Class: Mammalia.

Order: Proboscidea.

Family: Elephantidae.

Genus: Mammuthus.

Species: There were several species of extinct mammoths, such as M. africanavus (African mammoth), M. columbi (Columbian mammoth), M. subplanifrons (South African mammoth), M. primigenius (Woolly mammoth), M. sungari (Songhua River mammoth), etc.

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived the Pliocene epoch from around 4.8 million to 4,500 years ago.

Like their modern relative the elephant, mammoths were quite large; in English the noun "mammoth" has become an adjective meaning "huge" or "massive". The largest known species, Songhua River Mammoth (Mammuthus sungari), reached heights of at least 5 meters (16 feet) at the shoulder. Mammoths would probably normally weigh in the region of 6 to 8 tons, but exceptionally large males may have exceeded 12 tons. An 11-foot (3.4 m) long mammoth tusk was discovered north of Lincoln, Illinois in 2005. However, most species of mammoth were only about as large as a modern Asian Elephant. Fossils of species of dwarf mammoth have been found on the Californian Channel Islands (Mammuthus exilis) and the Mediterranean island of Sardinia (Mammuthus lamarmorae). There was also a race of dwarf woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island, north of Siberia, Russia, within the Arctic Circle.

Based on studies of their close relatives the modern elephants, mammoths probably had a gestation period of 22 months, resulting in a single calf being born. Their social structure was probably the same as that of African and Asian elephants, with females living in herds headed by a matriarch, whilst bulls lived solitary lives or formed loose groups after sexual maturity.

There is an estimate of 150 million mammoth remains in Russia´s Siberian permafrost, which covers a vast area sparsely inhabited areas. Some of the remains are frozen complete, others in pieces of bone, tusk, tissue and wool, in less a metre below ground to 1 km. below.

The woolly mammoth was the last species of the genus. Most populations of the woolly mammoth in North America and Eurasia, as well all the Columbian mammoths in North America, died around the time of the last glacial retreat, as part of a mass extinction of megafauna in northern Eurasia and the Americas. Until recently, it was generally assumed that the last woolly mammoths vanished from Europe and southern Siberia about 10,000 BC, but new findings show that some were still present there about 8,000 BC. Only slightly later, the woolly mammoths also disappeared from continental northern Siberia. A small population survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska, up until 3,750 BC., and the small mammoths of Wrangel Island survived until 1,650 BC.

A definite explanation for their mass extinction is yet to be agreed upon. The warming trend that occurred 12,000 years ago, accompanied by a glacial retreat and rising sea levels, has been suggested as a contributing factor. Forests replaced open woodlands and grasslands across the continent. The available habitat may have been reduced for some megafaunal species, such as the mammoth. However, such climate changes were nothing new; numerous very similar warming episodes had occurred previously within the ice age of the last several million years without producing comparable megafaunal extinctions, so climate alone is unlikely to have played a decisive role. The spread of advanced human hunters through northern Eurasia and the Americas around the time of the extinctions was a new development, and thus probably contributed significantly.

Whether the general mammoth population died out for climatic reasons or due to overhunting by humans is controversial. Another theory suggests that mammoths may have fallen victim to an infectious disease. A combination of climate change and hunting by humans has been suggested as the most likely explanation for their extinction.

Data derived from studies done on living elephants suggests human hunting was likely a strong contributing factor in the mammoth´s final extinction.

HOMO ERECTUS is known to have consumed mammoth meat as early as 1.8 million years ago.

INFORMATION ABOUT OZONE LAYER, GLOBAL WARMING, THE RAIN FOREST AND EARTHQUAKE WILL FOLLOW THE SUBJECT OF EXTINCT MAMMOTH.

Thank you for reading!!

Starry Dawn.

"A Frozen Baby Mammoth was Discovered."

"A FROZEN BABY MAMMOTH WAS DISCOVERED."

It is sad to see the image of an EXTINCT MAMMOTH...

A frozen baby mammoth was discovered in Siberia in 2007. The nearly complete body of the female calf, said to be one of the best-preserved specimens of frozen mammoth ever discovered, is estimated to have been less than one year old (maybe, 6 months old) before it was preserved in ice about 10,000 years ago. It died during the Ice Age, a long time ago...

Preparations are now being made to ship the baby mammoth to Japan´s Jikei University School of Medicine, where researchers will use advanced computed tomography (CT) scanners to obtain three-dimensional images of its internal organs.

"This is the first opportunity for anyone to perform an analysis on a complete mammoth body," says Jikei University Professor, Naoki Suzuki," and it should provide a more complete picture of its anatomy and how it lived."

BBC News announced that many frozen specimens have emerged from the Siberian permafrost in Russia.

I shall include more information about EXTINCT MAMMOTH in the next posts.

STARRY DAWN.

If you wish, you may visit all MY BLOGS at the following LINKS:

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