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Hurricane Season is Keeping Marinas Busy
September 24 , 2008
Gustav, Hanna, Ike, and others yet to form are keeping this years Atlantic hurricane season and meteorologists busy! But the storms are also keeping marinas along the entire eastern and southern coasts busy too!
Many marina owners along the
Gulf
Coast
are still cleaning up from Hurricane Gustav. While no levees burst, some marinas outside of the levees, such as those in
Shell
Beach
, Reggio, Hopedale and Delacroix, were invaded by up to 10 feet of flood water as a result of Gustav. Marinas on the west side of the Mississippi River from Venice to Lafitte received mostly minor damage and should be able to reopen within the week, the newspaper suggested.
Along the Carolina Coasts, marinas are flooded with requests for temporary boat storage, so much so that many docks are now turning down requests. With marinas full, and their own coastlines often in danger, they can’t afford to harbor any more boats.
This years’ active season should serve as a reminder to everyone who owns a vessel- whether a simple jet-ski or high dollar beauty, to make sure they have plans that are secure for storm storage. As many boat owners are now finding out, not having those plans arranged can make the difference between a minor inconvenience of having to get your boat to a marina, and the severe nausea of trying to explain to your insurance company of WHY your boat wasn’t in a marina or secured properly!
Do you have amazing video footage of the recent hurricanes that have landed? Upload your video to SplashVision today!
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- The SplashVision Team (Help us grow and share this with friends)
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Melting Away...
September 24 , 2008
Glacier Melting
No one has ever accused me of being a tree hugging environmentalist. And I doubt they ever will. Yes, I recycle (not as much as I could), yes I (occasionally) buy the ‘green’ cleaners for around the home, so on and so on. But, as you know, my passion lies with the ocean- and conserving that, is an issue for me.
One of the issues that has been discussed recently (and not so recently) is the melting of glaciers. To some degree, this is normal, and a part of the earth’s life cycle. But the amount that has been melting is disturbing, to say the least.
Greenland (that big country up ‘near’ the North Pole) holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 23 feet. Factor in the ice sheets of
Antarctica and the ocean depths would increase over 200 feet! Satellite measurements from space and speed measurements on land confirm that
Greenland 's glaciers are melting and on the move. Because
Antarctica is ‘further’ away from populated industrial centers, the impact there is not as large, but still occurring.
Past history show that glaciers can disappear in a hurry, however, and raise sea levels by more than half an inch a year. No, this doesn’t sound like a lot, but factor in the today’s global warming, and industrialization, and that number can be raised significantly.
Scientists admit ice sheets that melted in the past had an easier path to the sea than the glaciers in Greenland or
Antarctica . "The analogies between those past climates and today aren't strong enough to say anything specific about the rate of sea level rise in the next century," scientists state.
So what does that mean? It means sea levels will rise much more previous predictions, based on both current understanding of glacial melts as well as historical evidence. Scientists admit their predictions are merely guesses. And that should really concern all of us!
Do you have video or photo footage of glaciers or other fantastic sights? Upload them to SplashVision today!
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- The SplashVision Team (help us grow and share this with friends)
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Mysterious Lights
September 24 , 2008
Sailors on the sea have long told stories of oceans that glow bright as day during the dead of night. For many years, such stories were counted as mere folk lore, along the lines of mermaids and sea dragons. Even Jules Verne recounted the sight in the classic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."
But now, the sight has been captured by scientists, even tough they really can’t explain what’s happening. Satellites have provided the first pictures of a milky sea and given scientists hope in learning more about the phenomenon.
The images from the Indian Ocean encompass an area about the size of
Connecticut , glowing three nights in a row. The glow was also spotted from a ship in the area.
"The circumstances under which milky seas form is almost entirely unknown," says Steven Miller, a Naval Research Laboratory scientist who led the space-based discovery. "Even the source for the light emission is under debate."
Scientists suspect bioluminescent bacteria are behind the glow. Such creatures produce a continuous glow, rather than the brief, bright flashes of light produced by "dinoflagellate" organims that are seen more commonly lighting up ship wakes and breaking waves.
"The problem with the bacteria hypothesis is that an extremely high concentration of bacteria must exist before they begin to produce light," Miller told LiveScience. "But what could possibly support the occurrence of such a large population?"
One idea, put forward by the lone research vessel to ever encounter a milky sea, is that the bacteria are not free-living, but instead are living off some local supporting "substrate."
The event occurred in 1995 and was finally analyzed and reported last week in the Proceedings of the
National
Academy of Sciences.
The mystery highlights how little scientists know about the ocean. Milky seas appear to be most prevalent in the Indian Ocean, where there are many trade routes, and near .
Do you have amazing video of mysterious lights at sea? Upload your videos or photos to SplashVision today!
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- The SplashVision Team (help us grow and share this with friends)
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