text:
UPDATE: Read our editorial, "Why Manny Pacquiao Deserves Our Support"

BACKGROUND:

Manny Pacquiao is getting pummelled by the anti-family mainstream media, and by the same LGBT-activist buillies who preach "tolerance," but apparently cannot a tolerate a viewpoint that is different than their own.

The reason? This week, in response to a question from a reporter, Pacquiao rightly pointed out that male and female complement each other biologically, and that it's simply "common sense" that men were not meant to mate with men, or women with women.

“It’s common sense,” the boxer replied to the reporter’s query. “Will you see any animals where male is to male and female is to female? The animals are better. They know how to distinguish male from female. If we approve male on male, female on female then man is worse than animals.”

The remarks caused a firestorm of controversy, stoked by Western media and LGBT activists.

The media misquoted Pacquiao as having said that homosexuals were “worse than animals,” whereas what he really said was that “man,” as in “humanity,” is “worse than animals” for not realizing, as the animals do, that men and women complement each other.

The indisputable fact is that homosexual sexual acts come with a host of physical and psychological harms that stem from the misuse of the human body - from astronomically higher rates of STDs like HIV/AIDS and gonorrhea, to anal cancer, breast cancer, drug and alcohol abuse, depression and suicide. It is certainly not "hateful" or "homophobic" to point this out, and there is no evidence that Pacquiao expressed this viewpoint out of hate. On the contrary, it is loving to speak the truth in charity, and to warn people away from a harmful lifestyle.

Pacquiao has since responded with a muted but sincere apology for any hurt his statement had unintentionally caused, but did not retract his position.

“I'm sorry for hurting people by comparing homosexuals to animals. Please forgive me for those I've hurt. I still stand on my belief that I'm against same-sex marriage because of what the Bible says, but I'm not condemning LGBT. I love you all with the love of the Lord. God Bless you all and I'm praying for you,” he posted on Instagram on Tuesday.

But the damage done by western media was already accomplished. Yesterday Nike terminated it’s relationship with the boxer, stating, “We find Manny Pacquiao's comments abhorrent.” And, to kick the man while he is down, Pacquiao's longtime promoter Bob Arum told reporters that he agrees with Nike's decision to sack the boxer, stating "Manny's remarks were offensive to many people ... Nike acted appropriately."

Christians and other people of good will need to stand with Pacquiao in support of natural marriage. Help us send him a message encouraging him to stay strong in his pro-family beliefs!

question: What is the post about?

answer: This post is a request for Christians to support Manny Pacquiao and his support of natural marriage.

question: What is one statement of opinion from the article?

answer: Manny Pacquiao is getting pummelled by the anti-family mainstream media, and by the same LGBT-activist buillies who preach "tolerance," but apparently cannot a tolerate a viewpoint that is different than their own.

question: Who is Manny Pacquiao?

answer: It seems that Manny Pacquiao is a boxer who told a reporter that it's simply "common sense" that men weren't meant to mate with men, or women with women.

question: What consequences did Manny Pacquiao face after his statements went public?

answer: Nike terminated their sponsorship of him. His longtime promoter, Bob Arum, told reports that he agree with Nike's decision.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: This post is a request for Christians to support Manny Pacquiao and his support of natural marriage. Manny Pacquiao is a boxer who told a reporter that it's simply "common sense" that men weren't meant to mate with men, or women with women.


split: train

text:
Like many others, I’ve been intrigued by the misadventures of the Ship of Fools. Dozens of tourist vessels visit the Antarctic without becoming trapped by ice. So it’s entirely valid to inquire into why the one tourist vessel led by a “climate scientist” became trapped by ice.

The leader of the expedition, Chris Turney (also a secondary Climategate correspondent and co-signer of Lewandowsky’s multisignatory letter in the Conversation), claimed that the incident could not have been predicted. He said that they were trapped by a sudden “breakout” of multi-year ice (“fast ice”) that had previously been part of the ice shelf and that there was no way that they could have anticipated this. Turney’s claim has been uncritically accepted by the climate community e.g. Turner of the British Antarctica Survey here.

However, like other recent claims by Turney, this claim is bogus. In fact, Turney was trapped by sea ice that had been mobile throughout December 2013. This can be easily seen by examining readily available MODIS imagery (see MODIS here) leading up to the incident, as I’ll do in today’s post.

DECEMBER 3, 2013
In this first image, I’ve shown the (very clear) MODIS image for December 3, 2013 with annotations. The image has been oriented to be vertical north at 144E. The location of the Mawson Huts on Commonwealth Bay is in cyan; the Mertz Glacier (cyan label) is to its east.

The two tones of grey at the bottom show a land mask, with glaciers being shown in slightly less dense grey. The black shows open water. The “permanent” multi-year ice shelf is a relatively solid white. Although Mawson was able to navigate into Commonwealth Bay in 1911-12, it is now completely filled with permanent ice. This is relatively recent – dating from only 2010. The permanent ice shelf continues to the east of Mertz Glacier, a location that will subsequently be important to analysis of Turney’s assertions.

White in the polynya shows both mobile ice floes and clouds – the textures are somewhat different. It is evident that there is a lot of mobile sea ice in the polynya on December 3 – a point that becomes important as we move through the month.

I’ve also plotted the location of subsequent events on this map for orientation. The red dot to the northwest shows the location of the December 19 landing for the Argo expedition over the ice shelf to the Mawson Huts.

The red plus-signs show the location where the Akademik Shokalskiy subsequently landed on December 23 and where it got stuck (slightly to the north). The magenta plus sign shows where the Xue Long got stuck and the cyan plus signs the locations of the Aurora Australis from Dec 30 to Jan 2 (evacuation date).

The yellow arrow shows where Turney placed the origin of the “multi-year” ice that later pinned the vessel. It is obvious that there isn’t any as of the beginning of December. This image, by itself, refutes Turney’s explanation of events, as will be seen below.

[20131203 annotated]
Figure 1. MODIS December 3, 2013. Latitude and longitude are approximate (but close). For the purposes of this graphic, I haven’t shown curvature.

DECEMBER 7
After a few stormy days, there was another (fairly) clear day on December 7. You can see that there is still lots of mobile sea ice in the polynya and that there is no fast ice in the location to the northeast of the Mertz Glacier. Note that the mobile sea ice and ice floes have blown many kilometers in only a few days, with many more ice floes on the southwest coast of the polynya where the Akademik Shokalskiy will later land.

[20131207 rotated]
Figure 2. December 7, 2013.

DECEMBER 15
Bewtween December 7 and December 15, there was another stormy week with the clear image of December 15 showing massive rearrangement of the mobile sea ice, which is now mostly packed against southwest shores of the polyna in two main packs. One pack abuts the extended Commonwealth Bay fast ice, including the locations where Akademik Shokalskiy, Xue Long and even Aurora Australis would be later in the month. There was also a major accumulation perched to the northeast of the Mertz Glacier – see yellow arrow which is in the same location as the December 3 image. Visually this accumulation appears to be relatively unstable in that it could be readily blown to a new location by winds from a different direction.

[20131215 annotated]
Figure 3. Polynya as at December 15, 2013.

TURNEY’S DECEMBER 15 MAP
On December 16, Turney wrote a blog post about the process of selecting a route to the Mawson Huts. In this blogpost, Turney showed an image that is clearly derived from the December 15 MODIS image (though Turney’s image contains some erroneous labels). Note that both longitudes and latitudes are incorrectly labelled in Turney’s map: 140E is right, but 146E should be 144E. Similarly 67S is right, but 65S and 63S should be 66S and 65S respectively.

In Turney’s later efforts to attribute the vessel entrapment to a sudden breakout of multi-year, he changed to a different (and in my opinion, far less informative) satellite imagery, but this example shows that he had consulted MODIS imagery (which is very conveniently available online.)

[mawson 20131215 wide]
Figure 4. Turney map from http://www.spiritofmawson.com/southward-ho-16-dec/.

In Turney’s December 15 blogpost, Turney, who, to my knowledge, had no previous maritime experience in the Antarctic, was fascinated by the experience of picking a route through the sea ice, observing:

  It is a fascinating experience going through the same decision making process as the expedition of 100 years ago. What Mawson’s captain Davis achieved with so little is extraordinary. Using just observations from their vessel the Aurora, the original AAE explored thousands of kilometres of ocean, much of it by working their way through the pack, probing for gaps and hoping they did not close up behind them. It takes incredible courage to do this. One mistake and the ship could be trapped in the ice – with no one in the outside world really knowing where they were. It’s hard to imagine this scenario today. We have all the advantages of modern technology. Daily satellite reports provide images of what lies ahead, the Australian Antarctic Division are kindly sending us daily weather reports for the region from Casey station (thanks Jane!) our location is publicly available, and if we get into serious trouble we can pick up the phone for help (albeit a last resort). That’s not to say we can be complacent. Even today, it is all too clear this is an unforgiving environment and conditions can change very quickly.

THE MAWSON HUT TRIPS
On December 17, Turney moored the vessel in the polynya to the northwest of the Mawson Huts. On December 19 and 20, two excursions were made from the vessel to Mawson’s Huts.

On December 19, Turney and 5 others traveled to the Huts. Turney and Ben Fisk (a rural medicine specialist) worked on the AWS station; Ian [MacRae ?] and Jon [?] of the Mawson’s Huts Foundation worked on maintenance of the huts themselves; while Chris Fogwill and Eleanor Rainsley “looked for geological samples to reconstruct former shape and extent of the ice sheet”. Turney and Fisk both later described the trip with considerable exhilaration.

The next day (December 20), a second crew visited Mawson’s Huts. This crew included Alok Jha of the Guardian, three biologists (Kerry-Jayne Wilson of the Blue Penguin Trust, Ziggy [Marzinelli] and Graeme [Clark] and passenger Estelle Blair. Wilson inspected the penguin rookery. Like the earlier trip, this expedition returned after midnight.
MOVE TO THE MERTZ GLACIER POLYNYA
Following these two trips, Turney directed the vessel to go to the Mertz Glacier polynya about 80-100 km to the east. To do so, they had to travel around the B9B iceberg and attached ice. Two of the passengers reported on December 22:

  The journey today is to move east around the large B9B iceberg. This will take all day and into tomorrow, hopefully placing us at the shore edge of the Mertz glacier and Stillwell Island area, and providing the opportunity to step onto the Antarctic continent.

On December 22 (21:37 NZT; 3:37 North American twitter time), Turney tweeted that they were passing some “fantastic ice bergs!”.

MODIS images for December 21 and 22 are not very clear, so I’ve shown December 20 below. The vessel presumably traveled north from the first landing and around the Commonwealth Bay fast ice into the Mertz Glacier polynya, eventually mooring at 144.30736E 66.92648S, about 5-8 km from land. Note that in the few days between December 15 and December 20, the pack ice in the area of the second landing was noticeably notched out, thereby permitting the vessel to penetrate somewhat deeper into the pack ice. The MODIS image has a considerable amount of cloud, but the pack ice (formed a week or so earlier) to the northeast of Mertz Glacier is clearly visible (yellow arrow).

[20131220 annotated]
Figure 5. Mertz Glacier Polynya, December 20, 2013.

DECEMBER 23
December 23 was the critical day. The Akademik Shokalskiy had moored in the Mertz Glacier polynya on the east face of the Commonwealth Bay “permanent” ice about 8 km from the Antarctic coast. Watt Bay is to the southwest.

Sources include several contemporary or near-contemporary blog posts: Turney here; Kerry-Jayne Wilson of the Blue Penguin Trust here; Green politician Janet Rice here and Robbie Turney here. The normally active twitter accounts from Turney, Guardian Antarctica and Alok Jha of the Guardian are surprisingly silent on events of December 23 ( Guardian posts from December 23-24 instead document the December 19-20 expedition to Mawson’s Huts.) Shub Niggurath also did a chronology of events on this day, which is consistent on overlapping points.

A blizzard on December 23 had been forecast (Janet Rice here). Conditions in the morning of December 23 were already very bad. Turney posted a tweet in the morning of December 23 (estimated 9:48 New Zealand time) [North America twitter time December 22 15:48]. Turney reported that they were in a “Blizzard. -4degC, -15degC wind chill”, a description that is inconsistent Turney’s subsequent claim that they had set out under “good conditions”. Kerry-Jayne Wilson also reported that they had set out in “blowing snow and near gale winds” and that it subsequently got worse.

  Our week of calm sunny weather came to an end 36 hours ago. Yesterday we visited a small island only 8 km from the fast ice edge to assess penguin condition there, the birds were much more healthy but we had to beat a fast retreat back to the ship as the weather deteriorated further. We set out in blowing snow and near gale winds; it got worse.

Despite these very poor conditions, Turney authorized passengers to leave the vessel for an excursion to the mainland, where three science “projects” were carried out.

The offloading of the Argo vehicles was problematic: one of the vehicles got into the water and could not be used. Both the botched offloading and lack of a third vehicle further delayed the day’s activities (see Janet Rice’s facebook entry, cited in several discussions)

A couple of days later, Turney described the day’s events in a self-serving report that made no mention of the morning’s impending blizzard. Instead, Turney claimed that there had been “good conditions” on December 23 and that these “good conditions” permitted Kerry-Jayne Wilson to inspect a penguin rookery, Tracey Rogers to sample seal blubber and Eleanor Rainsley to collect geological samples. Turney said that conditions closed in during the day and that they “quickly” loaded the vehicles onto the vessel, but were unfortunately trapped:

  Good conditions allowed the team to reach the Hodgeman Islets to continue our science programme and make comparisons to our findings around Mawson’s Hut. We managed to collect a range of samples for three of the science teams on these rarely visited islands; a fantastic result. The distance from the land to the sea ice edge is only 5 kilometres, providing an excellent test of the impact of the large sea ice extent around Cape Denison. Supported by volunteers on board, our teams investigated marine mammals, ornithology, glaciology while oceanographic work continued on board. Kerry-Jayne Wilson of the Blue Penguin Trust found the penguin colony on the Hodgeman Islets is thriving, demonstrating the distance the Mawson Hut Adelie penguins have to travel is a major factor in the fall of numbers. Tracey Rogers of UNSW also obtained the largest number of seal blubber samples on the expedition while Eleanor Rainsley collected geological samples that will provide an invaluable insight into the history of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Returning to the Shokalskiy, conditions started to close in and we quickly loaded the vehicles on to the vessel.

  Unfortunately proceeding north we found our path blocked by ice pushed in by an increasingly strong southeasterly wind. On Christmas Eve we realised we could not get through, in spite of being just 2 nautical miles from open water.

Obviously; Turney’s retrospective claim of “good conditions” in the morning of December 23 is inconsistent with Wilson’s report and Turney’s own contemporary tweet.

At least six passengers accompanied the three scientists on this outing, including Green politician Janet Rice, Turney’s 12-year old son Robbie, Mary [Regan], two “skiers” Peter [Stevenson?] and Steve [Lambert?] and Ben [Hines, Fisk or Maddison].

The impending gale did not deter 12-year old Robbie Turney, who described the day’s events as the “most fun that I’ve ever had outdoors before”:

  Today was absolutely stunning. This was the day we got a full on drive in the Argos, along the fast ice and straight to the continent. It was very enjoyable, possibly the most fun I’ve ever had outdoors before. The ride was really bumpy and we were going up and down getting some jumps when at full speed. … Once we got to the continent we saw a massive towering rock that was home to a colony of Adelie Penguins which were all laying on their eggs. This made great photos but they were pretty aggressive because of it. But that pretty much wraps it up for the day.

Meanwhile, according to Janet Rice, the Captain became very concerned about the closing weather, but was unable to immediately recall the passengers. The vessel appears to have left at least several hours after the captain’s already risky target.

  The third drama of the day is the one which is still unfolding. Because of the Argo mishap we got off late, and had one less vehicle to ferry people to and fro. I’m told the Captain was becoming rather definite late in the afternoon that we needed to get everyone back on board ASAP because of the coming weather and the ice closing in… I’m sure the Captain would have been much happier if we had got away a few hours earlier. Maybe we would have made it through the worst before it consolidated as much as it has with the very cold south- easterly winds blowing the ice away from the coast, around and behind us as well as ahead.

The precise time of departure is not presently reported. The vessel managed to move several kilometers north, but by 1 a.m. December 24 (~NZT), the vessel had become stuck in the ice. At first, the vessel was pinned by a kilometer or so of pack ice, but within a few days, it had increased to over 20 kilometers.

The reaction of the passengers was quite varied.

Guardian photojournalist Laurence Topham became despondent, mourning the narrowness of his bed and, in particular, the unavailability of peanut butter and banana milkshakes, a circumstance which, in an uncanny, almost eerie, coincidence, replicated the circumstances of the original Mawson expedition, which also lacked peanut butter and banana milkshakes.

Others partied raucously:
[party]

Blizzard conditions continued and within a week, there was another major remobilization of sea ice, with virtually all the sea ice in the polynya being blown against the western shores of the polynya. Over 20 km of pack ice accumulated in the area where the Akademik Shokalskiy had been pinned. The Xue Long icebreaker (magenta +) managed to get within approximately 20 km of the Akademik Shokalskiy, before it too got pinned.

By January 2, the Aurora Australis icebreaker (cyan +) had broken through enough pack ice to get close to the Xue Long. On January 2, the helicopter from the Xue Long evacuated passengers from the Ship of Fools to an ice floe near the Aurora Australis, from which they boarded the Aurora Australis. The Aurora Australis then proceeded to open waters, leaving the Xue Long and Akademik Shokalskiy still pinned. The polyna’s ice floes were now packed against the west shore of the polyna.

[20140103 annotated]
Figure 6. January 3, 2014. The Akademik Shokalskiy is now well within the pack ice.

THE VESSELS ESCAPE
Five days after the passengers were evacuated, the sea ice underwent another re-arrangement. On January 7, a large north-south crack in the sea ice developed (see January 8 image below) and the Akademik Shokalskiy and Xue Long both picked their way out of the pack ice into the polynya (stuck positions shown below). Ironically, the passengers would have arrived back in New Zealand sooner, had they stayed on the vessel rather than evacuating, though there was, of course, no way that this could have been predicted at the time of evacuation.

[20140108 annotated]
Figure 7. Polyna as of January 8, 2014.

TURNEY’S EXCUSES
By this time, many questions were being asked about the Turney expedition. While gradual increase of Antarctic sea ice (in contrast to the Arctic) had been widely discussed by skeptic blogs over the past few years, Turney’s plight drew attention to the remarkable fact (not previously known to skeptic blogs) that Mawson had sailed directly into Commonwealth Bay, which was now blocked for 60 km by permanent ice, with Mawson’s entry to Commonwealth Bay even being recorded in an early movie. While the expansion of Antarctic sea ice in this area was well known, the irony of a vessel of warmists being trapped by Antarctic sea ice attracted attention far beyond skeptic blogs.

This unwelcome attention did not and has not amused the academic climate community, which, for the most part, tried to dismiss the expedition as a tourist, rather than science venture, a framing that Turney has stoutly resisted.

Even usual supporters began to ask questions. For example, Andy Revkin wondered about the wisdom of landing the Akademik Shokalskiy in the polynya when “any satellite image could show you was surrounded by sea ice that could move.”

Turney defended himself against such questions, by arguing that the pinning sea ice did not come from mobile sea ice, but from a sudden “breakout” of multiyear ice, an untrue excuse that has been too readily accepted by specialists (e.g. John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey in a BBC interview here ^).

Turney’s defence was first set out in a December 30 blogpost as a commentary on the following graphic purporting to show events that could not possibly have been anticipated or mitigated. Turney’s satellite imagery is said to have been provided by the Australian Antarctic Division (“AAD/ACE CRC Sea Ice Group in Hobart, Tasmania”). It is obviously related to the MODIS imagery that Turney had used on December 16, but also has important differences, which I will discuss below. I have been unable to locate any online provenance of Turney’s images: they appear related to Bremen satellite imagery style, but differs in detail from the online Bremen images.

It seems evident to me that this particular imagery conflates data that is distinguished in the MODIS image, a conflation that Turney used to derive incorrect and unwarranted conclusions. The image on the left is from December 20 (before getting pinned) and on the right is from December 27 (after). The left graphic is oriented approximately 36 degrees counterclockwise from the right graphic, confusing the comparison – a comparison further confused by different scales. The grey area shows the land mask, which bizarrely is incorrect in the red box area of greatest interest. (I’ll show this shortly.)

[blogpost 20131230]
Figure 8. Illustration from Turney, Dec 30, 2013 ( see http://www.spiritofmawson.com/one-week-on/ )

The next figure compares Turney’s map for December 20 with the MODIS image of the same date (previously discussed above) cropped to closely match the Turney map. Turney’s land mask obviously has major differences with the accurate MODIS land mask: in particular, Turney’s land mask continues to show the 2009 dimension of the Mertz Glacier tongue, even though this was knocked out to sea in March 2010 (an event widely reported at the time.) The false tongue conceals open polynya that is clearly visible in the MODIS image. In this image, solid purple can denote both multi-year “permanent” shelf ice and thick pack ice. For example, within the red box, the more southerly purple unit shows multi-year “permanent” shelf ice, but the more northerly purple unit shows pack ice that was blown onto the southeast shores of the polynya the previous week (see discussion of December 20 above.) The MODIS tones of pack ice tend to be slightly different than “permanent” ice, a distinction lost in the satellite imagery shown by Turney.

Figure 9. December 20, 2013 images. Left – Turney; right – MODIS.

As discussed above, between December 20 and 27, the pack ice perched to the northeast of the Mertz Glacier (blown there the previous week) – the northerly area colored purple in the red box – was blown onto the west shore of the polynya pinning the Akademik Shokalskiy, while the “permanent” shelf ice (the southerly area colored purple in the red box) remained where it was.

However, Turney reached a different interpretation, which, by strange coincidence, was far more self-serving. Turney wrote as follows:

  The wind is not unusual but what is unexpected is the major reconfiguration of thick multi-year sea ice to the east of the Mertz Glacier. In 2010, a large iceberg known as B09B, calved from the continent and collided spectacularly with the extended tongue of the Mertz Glacier. The knock-on effect has been that Commonwealth Bay has filled with sea ice (termed ‘fast ice’), preventing direct access from the sea to Mawson’s main hut at Cape Denison. Unfortunately for the AAE, it appears the region has just undergone a massive reconfiguration of sea ice, years after the loss of the Mertz Glacier tongue. This has been revealed by new satellite imagery which arrived today from the AAD/ACE CRC Sea Ice Group in Hobart, Tasmania. The satellite maps show the comparison before and after the event, with deep purple signifying 100% sea ice cover and dark blue, open water. (Note: the outline of the Mertz Glacier tongue is shown on the maps but disappeared following the collision with B09B). Crucially, these images show the extensive, thick multi-year sea ice along the eastern and southern edge of what was the Mertz Glacier Tongue (outlined by a red box) has been blown out in the last week and driven against our position by the persistent southeasterly winds. It is too early to identify the cause of this remobilisation of ice but we may be looking at the future long-term expansion of fast ice to the east of Commonwealth Bay.

  Crucially, these images show the extensive, thick multi-year sea ice along the eastern and southern edge of what was the Mertz Glacier Tongue (outlined by a red box) has been blown out in the last week and driven against our position by the persistent southeasterly winds. It is too early to identify the cause of this remobilisation of ice but we may be looking at the future long-term expansion of fast ice to the east of Commonwealth Bay.

Turney’s invocation of the B09B iceberg is totally irrelevant to the movements of the sea ice between December 20 and 27 and must be disregarded. (As too often with climate scientists, one has to watch the pea.) Most importantly, as discussed above, the Akademik Shokalskiy was pinned by non-permanent pack ice that had been blown by the blizzard against the southwest shore of the polynya and not by a rupture of “permanent” shelf ice. The distinction is important for Turney’s efforts to exonerate himself: one can hardly consider the remobilization of pack ice perched to the northeast of the Mertz Glacier by an easterly gale as unpredictable.

TURNEY IN THE GUARDIAN AND NATURE
Shortly after being evacuated to the Aurora Australis, Turney published highly self-serving accounts events in the Guardian and Nature.

In an article in the Guardian on January 4, 2014 (covered by Australian ABC here), Turney said that “no amount of preparation could have mitigated” the events and that there was “nothing” to suggest that re-arrangement of sea ice in the Mertz Glacier polynya was imminent:

  Unfortunately, events unfolded which no amount of preparation can mitigate. To provide a comparison with the samples we collected in the Mawson Hut area, we relocated the vessel to the Mertz Glacier area in the east, a major driver of ocean circulation and importantly an area where the continent is closer to the sea ice edge. Late on 23 December, we returned to the Shokalskiy. We had completed our work programme on the continent and were heading north into open water to continue the oceanographic work on the return home.

  Unluckily for us, there appears to have been a mass breakout of thick, multiyear sea ice on the other side of the Mertz Glacier; years after the loss of the Mertz Glacier tongue. There was nothing to suggest this event was imminent. We have had regular updates on the state of the sea ice in the area and had been monitoring the region for the last year.

  The forecasts were correct, but it was soon clear that the armadas of ice that started to appear were thick and old. Captain Igor tried to beat a path to open water but the size of the sea ice overwhelmed the Shokalskiy. In places the ice was three metres thick with little open water to push aside. With the southeasterly winds, the ice would not budge and we were caught just two to four miles from the sea-ice edge….

  Let’s be clear. Us becoming locked in ice was not caused by climate change. Instead it seems to have been an aftershock of the arrival of iceberg B09B which triggered a massive reconfiguration of sea ice in the area.

Again, one has to watch the pea. Iceberg B09B landed in Commonwealth Bay in 2010. It did not change location during Turney’s expedition and its invocation is simply irrelevant. Nor was there any “mass breakout” of ‘permanent’ ice shelf “years after the loss of the Mertz Glacier tongue”. More misdirection.

Nor is it right to say there was “NOTHING to suggest this event was imminent” with the development of an easterly gale. Any serious examination of the MODIS imagery of the area shows that the polynya sea ice is highly mobile. The “peninsula” of pack ice to the northeast of Mertz Glacier was highly exposed to change of wind and blowing of this pack ice onto the westerly shore ought to have not only been considered a possibility, but a virtual certainty.

TURNEY’S FANCIFUL NATURE ARTICLE
With escalating derision towards Turney’s expedition, Nature rushed another self-serving account of the events into print on January 6, apparently without the slightest peer review, quality control or due diligence.

In this article, Turney’s claims became even more fanciful and untrue.

Turney falsely stated that the Akademik Shokalskiy was an “ice breaker”, even though it was merely a passenger ship that had been ice strengthened.

Turney falsely claimed that the “science case” for the tour had been “approved by the New Zealand Department of Conservation, the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service and the Australian Antarctic Division”, an assertion that was quickly denied by the head of the Australian Antarctic Division, who accused Turney of misrepresentation and said that he had written to Turney asking him to cease such misrepresentations.

In respect to the entrapment incident, Turney re-iterated the false assertion that they had been trapped by a “mass breakout” of “multiyear ice”, whereas, as discussed above, they had been trapped by mobile pack ice within the polynya:

  Could this have been avoided? The satellite data leading up to our arrival in Antarctica’s Commonwealth Bay indicated open clear water, and the area seemed to have been that way for some time. As the Shokalskiy attempted to leave, however, we found ourselves surrounded by a mass breakout of multiyear ice. This was a major event, with the vessel surrounded by blocks of sea ice more than three metres thick, apparently arriving from the other side of the Mertz Glacier. Despite the best efforts of our captain, we could not find a route out. It was deeply frustrating. We had been caught just 2–4 nautical miles (3.7–7.4 kilometres) from the edge of the sea ice. And with pervasive southeasterly winds battering our location, this distance increased to 20 nautical miles within 48 hours.

John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey accepted Turney’s diagnosis:

  I think the problem with this expedition was there was a breakout of fast ice. Fast ice is multi-year ice that is quite thick – two, three, four metres, perhaps, held fast against the edge of the Antarctic continent. And a strong storm moved that out. And that’s almost impossible to predict. We can predict the weather several days ahead with some accuracy these days, in the Antarctic. These breakouts are very difficult, and so it was quite an extreme event.

Update – Jan 22. Turney has now returned to Tasmania, where he purported to link the incident to climate soft-porn talk of extremes, proclaiming that the blizzard was an “extreme event”

  Professor Turney said the expedition had not taken unnecessary risks.
  “It was an extreme event and it caught us,” he said.

DISCUSSION
Back to the original questions.

First, while Turney has repeatedly described his expedition as a “scientific” expedition, its technology was that of adventure tourism and was not what, for example, would have been used by the Australian Antarctic Division. The Akademik Shokalskiy is an ice strengthened vessel used in adventure tourism, whereas the AAD uses ice breakers. In addition, the AAD does not try to carry out scientific missions by a couple of hit-and-run day trips with an eye on the clock. They maintain permanent Antarctic bases equipped with helicopters. Alternatively, scientists (such as Turney’s own prior work) will travel by air from Puntas Arenas to an airfield in Antarctica, with onward transportation to their site by helicopter, with logistics being handled by professional logistics companies.

Some scientists have blamed the events on tourism, but while Turney used the technology of adventure tourism, he did a number of things that seem unlikely to have been done in a responsible adventure tour. (On this point, I note that co-leader Greg Mortimer, a distinguished mountaineer, was a highly experienced operator of adventure tourism in the Antarctic. None of us knows the precise allocation of decisions between Turney and Mortimer.) Most Antarctic adventure tours go to the Antarctic peninsula and do not venture into more problematic polynya, especially ones in a region known for gale winds (Commonwealth Bay has among the world’s highest winds and was named by Mawson as the “Home of the Blizzard”). The Scott Polar Research Institute’s Robert Headland said that such areas require ice breakers, rather than ice strengthened passenger vesselss, and even then, are risky. Further, Turney clearly had no maritime experience with such polynya. His prior Antarctica experience appears to have been via airlift and helicopter, experience which may not be much more relevant than having stayed in a Holiday Inn (note – this is an allusion to a North American advertisement). Nor is it certain that co-leader Mortimer, a distinguished mountaineer and experienced adventure tourism leader, had maritime experience with polyna either.

Even if an adventure tour ventured into a polyna, it is doubtful that a tour leader would decide to moor the vessel on the exposed shore of the polyna with an impending easterly gale. Or if such a decision were made, to allow passengers to disembark. But the most startling aspect of the affair is surely Turney’s decision to authorize passengers to go well out of immediate contact with the vessel so that they were not immediately recallable in a matter of minutes. As discussed above, it seems beyond dispute that Turney was pinned by pack ice that was unstably perched to the northeast of Mertz Glacier and not by a sudden break of more or less ‘permanent’ shelf ice; that this “peninsula” of pack ice was highly exposed to the easterly gale that had already developed; and that heavy blowing of this (and other mobile ice) onto the southwest shore of the Mertz Glacier polynya was not only a possibility, but a probability, if not, near certainty.

One can see why Turney wants to characterize the movement of sea ice as something that could not have been predicted or mitigated, but there is no reason why anyone else should accept Turney’s characterization and many reasons to reject it.

question: What is the Ship of Fools?

answer: The ship is Akademik Shokalskiy. The "ship of fools" is reference to the mishap that happened in the Antarctic in December 2013.

question: When did the incident occur?

answer: December 2013

question: What is the main topic of the article?

answer: The article is a very detailed description of the mistakes made by Chris Turney, the leader of the expedition aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy.

question: What is polynya?

answer: The article references it often, but doesn't give a definition. [It is open water surrounded by sea ice]

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The article is a very detailed description of the mistakes made by Chris Turney, the leader of the expedition aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy. The adventure tourism expedition has been dubbed, "the Ship of Fools". Because of the mistakes made, the ship became stuck in the ice of the Antarctic; the passengers were evacuated by helicopter to another ship.


text:
SENTENCING DISPARITY is defined as “a form of unequal treatment [in criminal punishment] that is often of unexplained cause and is at least incongruous, unfair and disadvantaging in consequence”.[1]

Terminology

Colloquially, situations wherein some criminals receive lighter criminal sentences or are held to a lesser standard of personal accountability is referred to as a _SLAP ON THE WRIST_. The verbified form of such unequal treatment may be termed _wrist slap_, and alternative forms such as _wristslap_ and _wrist-slap_.[2] As an adjective, such a justice system may be described as being _two-tiered_[3] or _hybrid_, both usually with negative connotations.[4] Lawyers who uphold such unfair principles within the legal system are sometimes designated with pejorative terms such as _double standardist_.[5]

Instances wherein women or cases have been perceived as upholding a gender disparity in sentencing have at times been labelled with derogatory terms such as _pussy pass_.[6]

Overview

It is important to distinguish disparity from differences that arise due to legitimate use of discretion in the application of the law and those differences that arise due to discrimination or other, unexplained, causes unrelated to the issues found in the specific criminal case. There is evidence that some U.S. federal judges give much longer prison sentences for similar offenses than other judges do.[7]

This is a major problem because two judges could be faced with a similar case and one could order a very harsh sentence while another would give a much lesser sentence. A 2006 study by Crow and Bales gives evidence of sentencing disparity. The Florida Department of Corrections gave statistics of those prisoners who received probation or community control in the period 1990–1999. Prisoners were categorized as _Blacks and Hispanics_ or _Whites/Non-Hispanics_. The study found that the _Blacks and Hispanics_ received more intense and harsher penalties than the _White/Non-Hispanic_ group.

History

A 2001 University of Georgia study found substantial disparity in criminal sentencing men and women received “after controlling for extensive criminological, demographic, and socioeconomic variables”. The study found that in US federal courts, “blacks and males are... less likely to get no prison term when that option is available; less likely to receive downward departures [from the guidelines]; and more likely to receive upward adjustments and, conditioned on having a downward departure, receive smaller reductions than whites and females”.[8]

In 2012 Sonja B. Starr from University of Michigan Law School found that “men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do,” and “[w]omen are…twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted”, also based on data from US federal court cases.[9][10]

In 2006, Ann Martin Stacey and Cassia Spohn found that women receive more lenient sentences than men after controlling for presumptive sentence, family responsibilities, offender characteristics, and other legally relevant variables, based on examination of three US district courts.Ann Martin Stacey and Cassia Spohn, Gender and the Social Costs of Sentencing: An Analysis of Sentences Imposed on Male and Female Offenders in Three U.S. District Courts, 11 Berkeley J. Crim. L. 43 (2006).(DOI)https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38F32G

https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=bjcl

Racism and sexism

Some prison reform and prison abolition supporters have argued that race and gender are both valid reasons for disparity in sentencing. In 2016, Mirko Bagaric argued that African-Americans and Indigenous Australians should receive a sentencing discount in all but the most serious of crimes, in part to offset unacknowledged biases to the opposite effect, while women should “be treated more leniently when they commit the same crime as a man” - in this case, he did not make any exception for serious offending.[11] In the United Kingdom, Jean Corston's 2007 report planned as a “review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system” is described as making the case “that prisons should be scrapped for all but a tiny number of women”,[12] which Corston justified on the basis “equality does not mean treating everyone the same”. She proposed “Custodial sentences for women must be reserved for serious and violent offenders who pose a threat to the public” and that overt separate sentencing for men and women could be considered after then-pending equality legislation.[13] Some feminists argue that giving women lighter sentences is infantilizing, based on stereotyping, and incompatible with gender equality.[14][15]

[1] Alfred Blumstein, et al. _Research on Sentencing: The Search for Reform_, Volume II (1983), p.9

[2] Bandes, Susan. “Fear factor: The role of media in covering and shaping the death penalty.” Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 1 (2003): 585.

[3] Ainsworth, Janet E. “Youth justice in a unified court: Response to critics of juvenile court abolition.” BCL Rev. 36 (1994): 927.

[4] Hannah-Moffat, Kelly. “Moral agent or actuarial subject: Risk and Canadian women's imprisonment.” Theoretical Criminology 3.1 (1999): 71-94.

[5] Foschi, Martha. “Double standards for competence: Theory and research.” Annual Review of Sociology 26.1 (2000): 21-42.

[6] Gotell, Lise, and Emily Dutton. “Sexual Violence in the ‘Manosphere’: Antifeminist Men’s Rights Discourses on Rape.” International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 5.2 (2016): 65-80.

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14] Kelsey Mo. “Why feminists need to discuss gender disparity in the criminal justice system.” 10/16/16 10:48pm The State Press. https://www.statepress.com/article/2016/10/spopinion-gender-disparity-in-the-criminal-justice-system

[15] Clare Foges. “Women must face the same justice as men.” January 15 2018, 12:01am, The Times. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-must-face-the-same-justice-as-men-xcmcx7d5j.

title: Sentencing disparity

question: What does the article say about studies about sentencing disparity?

answer: A 2006 study by Crow and Bales found that the Blacks and Hispanics received more intense and harsher penalties than the White/Non-Hispanic group. A 2001 University of Georgia study, 2012 study by Sonja B. Starr from University of Michigan Law School, and 2006 study by Ann Martin Stacey and Cassia Spohn found a substantial disparity in criminal sentencing men and women: men received more intense and harsher penalties than women.

question: What does the article say in favor of race and gender being valid reasons for the disparity in sentencing?

answer: Mirko Bagaric argued that African-Americans and Indigenous Australians should receive a sentencing discount in all but the most serious of crimes. Jean Corston proposed that custodial sentences for women must be reserved for serious and violent offenders who pose a threat to the public. However, some feminists argue that giving women lighter sentences is incompatible with gender equality.

question: What does the article say about who is more likely to commit violent crimes, man or woman?


text:
           A young man is granted the accumulated knowledge of the human
      race, able to recall any piece of information available to him just by
      asking out loud. He loves it at first. he spends countless
      hours using his ability; he used it in his courses to get ahead,
      on his masters thesis, at his job interviews, and it got him exactly
      where he wanted to be in life. He has landed a job at a high tech
      agency designed to transport information around the globe. His job
      is simple; he goes in, then answers his own questions until it is
      time to punch out.

           Several pay raises and holiday bonuses later, he becomes tired
      with this idea. The man loses sense with the feelingof simply not knowing.
      He has lost the mystery of life, the aspect that wonders what a magician
      really does to pull that rabbit from the hat. He began to lose touch with
      his purpose on this planet.

           What is the point to a life without mystery? He yearns for it
      desperately, asking himself for it every day, but no one on earth
      seems to know his purpose in life.  Nobody has ever learned - in
      school, on the streets or anywhere for that matter - the purpose
      for this man's life. He is devastated. He yells at the top of his
      lungs, pleading for one person within the entire human race to know
      why he is here on Earth, but no one knows.

           He goes ballistic. He needs to get rid of this stupid gift. He
      starts screaming, demanding to know how to reverse what had been
      done to his mind, but he has no such luck. He knows everything in the world,
      except for the way to remove his curse; he knows everything in the world,
      except for who he is.

title: The Gift of Knowledge

question: What is this story about?

answer: A man who knows everything.

question: Where does the man work?

answer: For a high tech company.

question: What does the man want?

answer: To know himself.

question: What does he ultimately crave?

answer: The ability to have some mystery in his life.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This is a story about a man who knows everything in the world, but he ultimately goes crazy and wants to get rid of the ability, despite the good fortune it brings him.


text:
[Global Water Cycle[1]] [Diagram of the Water Cycle] [The natural water cycle] [Earth's water cycle] [[File:The Water Cycle.ogv|thumb|As the Earth's surface water evaporates, wind moves water in the air from the sea to the land, increasing the amount of freshwater on

land.]] [Water vapor is converted to clouds that bring fresh water to land in the form of rain snow and sleet] [Precipitation falls on the ground, but what happens to that water depends greatly on the geography of the land at any particular place.]

The WATER CYCLE, also known as the HYDROLOGIC CYCLE or the HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE, describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. The mass of water on Earth remains fairly constant over time but the partitioning of the water into the major reservoirs of ice, fresh water, saline water and atmospheric water is variable depending on a wide range of climatic variables. The water moves from one reservoir to another, such as from river to ocean, or from the ocean to the atmosphere, by the physical processes of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, surface runoff, and subsurface flow. In doing so, the water goes through different forms: liquid, solid (ice) and vapor.

The water cycle involves the exchange of energy, which leads to temperature changes. When water evaporates, it takes up energy from its surroundings and cools the environment. When it condenses, it releases energy and warms the environment. These heat exchanges influence climate.

The evaporative phase of the cycle purifies water which then replenishes the land with freshwater. The flow of liquid water and ice transports minerals across the globe. It is also involved in reshaping the geological features of the Earth, through processes including erosion and sedimentation. The water cycle is also essential for the maintenance of most life and ecosystems on the planet.

Description

The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats water in oceans and seas. Water evaporates as water vapor into the air. Some ice and snow sublimates directly into water vapor. Evapotranspiration is water transpired from plants and evaporated from the soil. The water molecule has smaller molecular mass than the major components of the atmosphere, nitrogen and oxygen, and , hence is less dense. Due to the significant difference in density, buoyancy drives humid air higher. As altitude increases, air pressure decreases and the temperature drops (see Gas laws). The lower temperature causes water vapor to condense into tiny liquid water droplets which are heavier than the air, and fall unless supported by an updraft. A huge concentration of these droplets over a large space up in the atmosphere become visible as cloud. Some condensation is near ground level, and called fog.

Atmospheric circulation moves water vapor around the globe; cloud particles collide, grow, and fall out of the upper atmospheric layers as precipitation. Some precipitation falls as snow or hail, sleet, and can accumulate as ice caps and glaciers, which can store frozen water for thousands of years. Most water falls back into the oceans or onto land as rain, where the water flows over the ground as surface runoff. A portion of runoff enters rivers in valleys in the landscape, with streamflow moving water towards the oceans. Runoff and water emerging from the ground (groundwater) may be stored as freshwater in lakes. Not all runoff flows into rivers; much of it soaks into the ground as infiltration. Some water infiltrates deep into the ground and replenishes aquifers, which can store freshwater for long periods of time. Some infiltration stays close to the land surface and can seep back into surface-water bodies (and the ocean) as groundwater discharge. Some groundwater finds openings in the land surface and comes out as freshwater springs. In river valleys and floodplains, there is often continuous water exchange between surface water and ground water in the hyporheic zone. Over time, the water returns to the ocean, to continue the water cycle.

Processes

[Many different processes lead to movements and phase changes in water]

Precipitation: Condensed water vapor that falls to the Earth's surface. Most precipitation occurs as rain, but also includes snow, hail, fog drip, graupel, and sleet.[2] Approximately  of water falls as precipitation each year,  of it over the oceans.[3] The rain on land contains  of water per year and a snowing only .[4] 78% of global precipitation occurs over the ocean.[5]
Canopy interception: The precipitation that is intercepted by plant foliage eventually evaporates back to the atmosphere rather than falling to the ground.
Snowmelt: The runoff produced by melting snow.
Runoff: The variety of ways by which water moves across the land. This includes both surface runoff and channel runoff. As it flows, the water may seep into the ground, evaporate into the air, become stored in lakes or reservoirs, or be extracted for agricultural or other human uses.
Infiltration: The flow of water from the ground surface into the ground. Once infiltrated, the water becomes soil moisture or groundwater.[6] A recent global study using water stable isotopes, however, shows that not all soil moisture is equally available for groundwater recharge or for plant transpiration.[7]
Subsurface flow: The flow of water underground, in the vadose zone and aquifers. Subsurface water may return to the surface (e.g. as a spring or by being pumped) or eventually seep into the oceans. Water returns to the land surface at lower elevation than where it infiltrated, under the force of gravity or gravity induced pressures. Groundwater tends to move slowly and is replenished slowly, so it can remain in aquifers for thousands of years.
Evaporation: The transformation of water from liquid to gas phases as it moves from the ground or bodies of water into the overlying atmosphere.[8] The source of energy for evaporation is primarily solar radiation. Evaporation often implicitly includes transpiration from plants, though together they are specifically referred to as evapotranspiration. Total annual evapotranspiration amounts to approximately  of water,  of which evaporates from the oceans.[9] 86% of global evaporation occurs over the ocean.[10]
Sublimation: The state change directly from solid water (snow or ice) to water vapor by passing the liquid state.[11]
Deposition: This refers to changing of water vapor directly to ice.
Advection: The movement of water through the atmosphere.[12] Without advection, water that evaporated over the oceans could not precipitate over land.
Condensation: The transformation of water vapor to liquid water droplets in the air, creating clouds and fog.[13]
Transpiration: The release of water vapor from plants and soil into the air.
Percolation: Water flows vertically through the soil and rocks under the influence of gravity.
Plate tectonics: Water enters the mantle via subduction of oceanic crust. Water returns to the surface via volcanism.

The water cycle involves many of these processes.

Residence times

  Reservoir                         Average residence time
  --------------------------------- ------------------------
  Antarctica                        20,000 years
  Oceans                            3,200 years
  Glaciers                          20 to 100 years
  Seasonal snow cover               2 to 6 months
  Soil moisture                     1 to 2 months
  Groundwater: shallow              100 to 200 years
  Groundwater: deep                 10,000 years
  Lakes (see lake retention time)   50 to 100 years
  Rivers                            2 to 6 months
  Atmosphere                        9 days

  : AVERAGE RESERVOIR RESIDENCE TIMES[14]

The _residence time_ of a reservoir within the hydrologic cycle is the average time a water molecule will spend in that reservoir (_see adjacent table_). It is a measure of the average age of the water in that reservoir.

Groundwater can spend over 10,000 years beneath Earth's surface before leaving. Particularly old groundwater is called fossil water. Water stored in the soil remains there very briefly, because it is spread thinly across the Earth, and is readily lost by evaporation, transpiration, stream flow, or groundwater recharge. After evaporating, the residence time in the atmosphere is about 9 days before condensing and falling to the Earth as precipitation.

The major ice sheets – Antarctica and Greenland – store ice for very long periods. Ice from Antarctica has been reliably dated to 800,000 years before present, though the average residence time is shorter.[15]

In hydrology, residence times can be estimated in two ways. The more common method relies on the principle of conservation of mass and assumes the amount of water in a given reservoir is roughly constant. With this method, residence times are estimated by dividing the volume of the reservoir by the rate by which water either enters or exits the reservoir. Conceptually, this is equivalent to timing how long it would take the reservoir to become filled from empty if no water were to leave (or how long it would take the reservoir to empty from full if no water were to enter).

An alternative method to estimate residence times, which is gaining in popularity for dating groundwater, is the use of isotopic techniques. This is done in the subfield of isotope hydrology.

Changes over time

[Time-mean precipitation and evaporation as a function of latitude as simulated by an aqua-planet version of an atmospheric GCM (GFDL's AM2.1) with a homogeneous “slab-ocean” lower boundary (saturated surface with small heat capacity), forced by annual mean insolation.] [Global map of annual mean evaporation minus precipitation by latitude-longitude] The water cycle describes the processes that drive the movement of water throughout the hydrosphere. However, much more water is “in storage” for long periods of time than is actually moving through the cycle. The storehouses for the vast majority of all water on Earth are the oceans. It is estimated that of the 332,500,000 mi³ (1,386,000,000 km³) of the world's water supply, about 321,000,000 mi³ (1,338,000,000 km³) is stored in oceans, or about 97%. It is also estimated that the oceans supply about 90% of the evaporated water that goes into the water cycle.[16]

During colder climatic periods, more ice caps and glaciers form, and enough of the global water supply accumulates as ice to lessen the amounts in other parts of the water cycle. The reverse is true during warm periods. During the last ice age, glaciers covered almost one-third of Earth's land mass with the result being that the oceans were about 122 m (400 ft) lower than today. During the last global “warm spell,” about 125,000 years ago, the seas were about 5.5 m (18 ft) higher than they are now. About three million years ago the oceans could have been up to 50 m (165 ft) higher.[17]

The scientific consensus expressed in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Summary for Policymakers is for the water cycle to continue to intensify throughout the 21st century, though this does not mean that precipitation will increase in all regions.[18] In subtropical land areasplaces that are already relatively dryprecipitation is projected to decrease during the 21st century, increasing the probability of drought. The drying is projected to be strongest near the poleward margins of the subtropics (for example, the Mediterranean Basin, South Africa, southern Australia, and the Southwestern United States). Annual precipitation amounts are expected to increase in near-equatorial regions that tend to be wet in the present climate, and also at high latitudes. These large-scale patterns are present in nearly all of the climate model simulations conducted at several international research centers as part of the 4th Assessment of the IPCC. There is now ample evidence that increased hydrologic variability and change in climate has and will continue to have a profound impact on the water sector through the hydrologic cycle, water availability, water demand, and water allocation at the global, regional, basin, and local levels.[19] Research published in 2012 in _Science_ based on surface ocean salinity over the period 1950 to 2000 confirm this projection of an intensified global water cycle with salty areas becoming more saline and fresher areas becoming more fresh over the period:[20]

  Fundamental thermodynamics and climate models suggest that dry regions will become drier and wet regions will become wetter in response to warming. Efforts to detect this long-term response in sparse surface observations of rainfall and evaporation remain ambiguous. We show that ocean salinity patterns express an identifiable fingerprint of an intensifying water cycle. Our 50-year observed global surface salinity changes, combined with changes from global climate models, present robust evidence of an intensified global water cycle at a rate of 8 ± 5% per degree of surface warming. This rate is double the response projected by current-generation climate models and suggests that a substantial (16 to 24%) intensification of the global water cycle will occur in a future 2° to 3° warmer world.[21]

An instrument carried by the SAC-D satellite Aquarius, launched in June, 2011, measured global sea surface salinity.[22][23]

Glacial retreat is also an example of a changing water cycle, where the supply of water to glaciers from precipitation cannot keep up with the loss of water from melting and sublimation. Glacial retreat since 1850 has been extensive.[24]

[Relationship between impervious surfaces and surface runoff] Human activities that alter the water cycle include:

-   agriculture
-   industry
-   alteration of the chemical composition of the atmosphere
-   construction of dams
-   deforestation and afforestation
-   removal of groundwater from wells
-   water abstraction from rivers
-   urbanization - to counteract its impact, water-sensitive urban design can be practiced

Effects on climate

The water cycle is powered from solar energy. 86% of the global evaporation occurs from the oceans, reducing their temperature by evaporative cooling.[25] Without the cooling, the effect of evaporation on the greenhouse effect would lead to a much higher surface temperature of , and a warmer planet.

Aquifer drawdown or overdrafting and the pumping of fossil water increases the total amount of water in the hydrosphere, and has been postulated to be a contributor to sea-level rise.[26]

Effects on biogeochemical cycling

While the water cycle is itself a biogeochemical cycle, flow of water over and beneath the Earth is a key component of the cycling of other biogeochemicals.[27] Runoff is responsible for almost all of the transport of eroded sediment and phosphorus from land to waterbodies.[28] The salinity of the oceans is derived from erosion and transport of dissolved salts from the land. Cultural eutrophication of lakes is primarily due to phosphorus, applied in excess to agricultural fields in fertilizers, and then transported overland and down rivers. Both runoff and groundwater flow play significant roles in transporting nitrogen from the land to waterbodies.[29] The dead zone at the outlet of the Mississippi River is a consequence of nitrates from fertilizer being carried off agricultural fields and funnelled down the river system to the Gulf of Mexico. Runoff also plays a part in the carbon cycle, again through the transport of eroded rock and soil.[30]

Slow loss over geologic time

The hydrodynamic wind within the upper portion of a planet's atmosphere allows light chemical elements such as Hydrogen to move up to the exobase, the lower limit of the exosphere, where the gases can then reach escape velocity, entering outer space without impacting other particles of gas. This type of gas loss from a planet into space is known as planetary wind.[31] Planets with hot lower atmospheres could result in humid upper atmospheres that accelerate the loss of hydrogen.[32]

History of hydrologic cycle theory

Floating land mass

In ancient times, it was widely thought that the land mass floated on a body of water, and that most of the water in rivers has its origin under the earth. Examples of this belief can be found in the works of Homer (circa 800 BCE).

Hebrew Bible

In the ancient near east, Hebrew scholars observed that even though the rivers ran into the sea, the sea never became full. Some scholars conclude that the water cycle was described completely during this time in this passage: “The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to its circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again” Ecclesiastes 1:6-7.[33] Scholars are not in agreement as to the date of Ecclesiastes, though most scholars point to a date during the time of King Solomon, son of David and Bathsheba, "three thousand years ago,[34] there is some agreement that the time period is 962–922 BCE.[35] Furthermore, it was also observed that when the clouds were full, they emptied rain on the earth Ecclesiastes 11:3. In addition, during 793–740 BCE a Hebrew prophet, Amos, stated that water comes from the sea and is poured out on the earth Amos 5:8.[36]

In the Biblical Book of Job, dated between 7th and 2nd centuries BCE,[37] there is a description of precipitation in the hydrologic cycle,[38] “For he maketh small the drops of water: they pour down rain according to the vapour thereof; which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly” Job 36:27-28.

Precipitation and percolation

In the Adityahridayam (a devotional hymn to the Sun God) of Ramayana, a Hindu epic dated to the 4th century BCE, it is mentioned in the 22nd verse that the Sun heats up water and sends it down as rain. By roughly 500 BCE, Greek scholars were speculating that much of the water in rivers can be attributed to rain. The origin of rain was also known by then. These scholars maintained the belief, however, that water rising up through the earth contributed a great deal to rivers. Examples of this thinking included Anaximander (570 BCE) (who also speculated about the evolution of land animals from fish[39]) and Xenophanes of Colophon (530 BCE).[40] Chinese scholars such as Chi Ni Tzu (320 BCE) and Lu Shih Ch'un Ch'iu (239 BCE) had similar thoughts.[41] The idea that the water cycle is a closed cycle can be found in the works of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (460 BCE) and Diogenes of Apollonia (460 BCE). Both Plato (390 BCE) and Aristotle (350 BCE) speculated about percolation as part of the water cycle.

Precipitation alone

Up to the time of the Renaissance, it was thought that precipitation alone was insufficient to feed rivers, for a complete water cycle, and that underground water pushing upwards from the oceans were the main contributors to river water. Bartholomew of England held this view (1240 CE), as did Leonardo da Vinci (1500 CE) and Athanasius Kircher (1644 CE).

The first published thinker to assert that rainfall alone was sufficient for the maintenance of rivers was Bernard Palissy (1580 CE), who is often credited as the “discoverer” of the modern theory of the water cycle. Palissy's theories were not tested scientifically until 1674, in a study commonly attributed to Pierre Perrault. Even then, these beliefs were not accepted in mainstream science until the early nineteenth century.[42]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]  Science Mission Directorate|website=science.nasa.gov|language=en|access-date=2018-01-15 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180115065323/https://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/oceanography/physical-ocean/salinity |archivedate=2018-01-15}}

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]  Science Mission Directorate|website=science.nasa.gov|language=en|access-date=2018-01-15|url-status=live|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180115065559/https://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/oceanography/ocean-earth-system/ocean-water-cycle%7Carchivedate=2018-01-15}}

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36] Merrill, Eugene H.; Rooker, Mark F.; Grisanti, Michael A. (2011). The World and the Word. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic. p. 430. .

[37]

[38]

[39]

[40]

[41]

[42]

title: Water cycle

question: What are other names for the Water Cycle?

answer: The Water Cycle is also known as the Hydrologic Cycle or the Hydrological Cycle.

question: If the mass of water on Earth remains constant over time, why is the partitioning of water into major reservoirs of ice, freshwater, saline water, and atmospheric water variable?

answer: The partitioning of water is variable because it depends on a wide range of climatic variables.

question: Explain how the heat changes in the water cycle influence the climate.

answer: When water evaporates, it takes up energy from its surroundings and cools the environment. When it condenses, it releases energy and warms the environment. The exchange of energy leads to temperature changes.