Vocabulary of ice

I came across a link that provides some language for ice.

At first there is frazil ice, make up of crystals.   It can develop into slush flows, not unlike lava.

As there is more freezing, these can coalesce into pancake ice,

Border ice forms at the edge of the shore and grows toward the middle.  It is also known as  “fast” ice, because it is fastened to the shore.

If the fast ice breaks away from the shore, often from changes in the water level, it is plate ice.

With further cooling, there will be freeze up.

With more cooling, there will be sheet ice, covering the entire river.

Computer model for thermal plumes in New England

I was recently made aware of this post  (hat tip to Larry and Karl)

Horizontal cooling towers: riverine ecosystem services and the fate of thermoelectric heat in the contemporary Northeast US.

It describes the impact of heat upon the rivers and oceans.   I was struck by Figure 2:

The amount of energy that reaches the ocean from the Connecticut River, shown in dark blue, is comparable to the electrical output, although another graph said that the amount of heat lost to the river, light blue, could vary from 20% in the summer to 39% in the winter.

Figure 3 showed a map showing how extensive the thermal plume is:

I did not see any mention of the impact of freezing and ice on the model.   Snow on a frozen river reflects most of the solar heat.    Once the river has changed from ice to water at the reactor,  the reflectivity of the surface of the river changes from an albedo of around 60, ice and snow,  to that of water, about 6.  Once the river has melted, the sunlight is absorbed rather than reflected, and more heat is added to the river.  We note this in the spring, when the snow finally melts, and the earth can get warmer faster when the earth is finally brown.   As the there was more melting, there is more area to absorb the heat, creating a positive feedback loop.     This effect would extend further how far the river was open before it froze again.  

Light is reflected by fresh snow and absorbed by water.   Once the open water is formed, the sun will further warm the water.

 

US Navy knew that sailors on USS Reagan received dangerous radiation

The Navy knew that the sailors on the USS RONALD Reagan were exposed to significant radiation

nuclear-news

Documents Say Navy Knew Fukushima Dangerously Contaminated the USS Reagan http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/26/navy-knew-fukushima-contaminated-uss-reagan/Harvey Wasserman | February 26, 2014

A stunning new report indicates the U.S. Navy knew that sailors from the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan took major radiation hits from the Fukushima atomic power plant after its meltdowns and explosions nearly three years ago.

If true, the revelations cast new light on the $1 billion lawsuit filed by the sailors against Tokyo Electric Power. Many of the sailors are already suffering devastating health impacts, but are being stonewalled by Tepco and the Navy.

The Reagan had joined several other U.S. ships in Operation Tomodachi (“Friendship”) to aid victims of the March 11, 2011 quake and tsunami. Photographic evidence and first-person testimony confirms that on March 12, 2011 the ship was within two miles of Fukushima Dai’ichi as the reactors there began to melt and explode.

In the midst of a snow storm, deck hands were enveloped…

View original post 742 more words

Sea lion die off enters 3 year

There was a recent article about the die off of juvenile sea lions. This has been discussed here previously.

There is Ice on the Hudson River

There was a recent article in the New York Times about ice on the Hudson River.   The story was about the Coast Guard Ice breaker that cleared the ice.  The article discussed there is “fast” ice, that is fastened to the shore.     There is brash ice, made up of pieces of ice floating in the water. Brash Ice can be trapped  at check points to block the river.   There is plate ice, caused when the fast ice has broken from its fastener, the shore.   There is pancake ice, when the plate ice is shaped by running down the river and be ground by obstacles.  This will be a useful vocabulary for me in observing the river.

The article went on to say that there was ice across the river at Germantown, NY, about the same latitude as Springfield, MA, and across the river at West Point,  NY, about even with Middletown. The Captain of the boat reported  this is the worst that he has seen since 2004, suggesting that this has happened before.

The article suggests that the Hudson River regularly freezes as far south as places in Connecticut.

I have been blogging that there is much more freezing of the Connecticut River this year, and that in previous years the river has been largely open south of the reactor at Vernon.    My question for those who doubt  the impact of the reactor is: what has kept the Connecticut River open in past years, when there has been major freezing of the Hudson.    After all, the Hudson River is bigger and wider than the Connecticut.  It should be harder to freeze.

The NRC and God

I recently attended the NRC meeting in Brattleboro, VT.  I sat and listened.  I did not speak but this is what I would like to say.

I would like to start with a quote from Nietzsche.  God is Dead. Nietzsche warned that some people might make science and technology the new God.  It seems to me that you people, the NRC and the Entergy, do worship technology.  You seem to have  the same glazed faith that people used to have  about religion.   I hear all these power point presentations about the policies and procedures. There is this irrational faith that if one monitors all the sins of commission and omission everything will work out alright.

I am reminded of NFL.   There are all these rules and regulations that are supposed to make the game safe, and there are penalties for breaking the rules, and it is regulated, and everything is alright.   Deals are made.  Tax breaks are made for the teams    But it isn’t alright.   The players are destroyed with traumatic brain injury, and the culture of violence has an impact on them and their families.  The revenues promised never materialize.  But wait, We are all having a good time.    Let us not look at the mess that is being made.  After all, it is just a game,  You don’t have to watch.

And so, the NRC dance goes on, and experts fuss over policies and procedures.   And everyone says its ok.   But even after  the Marshall Islands, Mayak, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima we are being told that everything is alright.  The nuclear industry is not a game, and the stakes for getting it wrong are catastrophic.

There seems to be this stunning arrogance, that everything is under control.   Is there no understanding of hubris?

Where is your moral compass?   Cannot you tell right from wrong?   What will it take for you to decide that nuclear power is not the answer?   What are you willing to accept before you change your mind?

Riddles of a frozen Connecticut River | GazetteNet.com

Andrew Larkin: Riddles of a frozen Connecticut River | GazetteNet.com.

For an alternative link, click here

How cold was February 1-17 compared to other years?

I have reported that this winter is so cold that no conclusions can be drawn about the effects of the shutting down of the nuclear reactor at Vernon upon the freezing of the Connecticut River.

I took the time to graph out the data for the average mean temperature, according to the Weatherunderground, for the past 73 years, at Northampton, MA.   The data show that this February 1-17 has been the coldest in record by far at 13.    The average temperature is about 26, with the range of 20-34.  The information is shown below:

My brother Tim  asked if I had done a standard deviation calculation, so I found a program, and this is the result:                                                                                       

This years average mean temp of 13 for the period Feb 1-17 is more than 3 standard deviations from the norm!   This is certainly a very unusually cold  winter at this time.

Today these suspicions were confirmed by a blog on the weather underground that record cold weather is being found throughout the eastern US because of the Siberian express, coming directly over the North Pole to us.

The cold weather story was discussed in Slate:

The west coast is warmer than ever, and the east coast is colder than ever.   Much of the weather data is based on a few days.   What is interesting about this report is that it looks at a time span of over two weeks.   I will report at the end of the month.  It appears that more cold weather is on the way.

temp

The river is frozen; cold weather is cause.

Editorial 2:17:15                                                                                     

To the editor, Last fall I wrote that the Connecticut River might freeze this winter because of the closure of the nuclear reactor at Vernon and the loss of its thermal pollution of the river. This photo was taken in early Feb, 2015. The river is largely frozen at the Coolidge Bridge, with some open water on the east side, where the current is strongest. Coyote prints are clear along the river. I have also seen coyotes walking along the river and three deer cross the river from Hadley to Elwell Island. There has been no human activity on the river such as ice fishing. I have been looking for someone to walk across the river in front of me to test the ice, but I have found no takers. In past years the Connecticut River has been largely unfrozen at the Coolidge Bridge. In 2013 I found that the river was largely unfrozen downstream from Vernon. I looked as far south as Windsor Locks, and there was no ice across the river. This year, in comparison, the river is frozen at the Northfield Boat launch, at the dam at Turner’s falls, along the area at the Hadley dike, and as far south as Springfield, Hartford, and even Rocky Hill, Ct. This is a dramatic increase in the ice coverage of this winter. I had wondered whether the effects of global warming would trump the cooling effects of the closing of the reactor, and there might be little ice. After all, December 2014 was the warmest December on record. However, one of the lesser effects of global warming is that other areas might be colder than normal. This seems to have happened. According to the historical data on the weatherunderground, the average mean temperature in Northampton, Mass. for February is about 27 degrees. So far, the average mean temperature this year for Feb up to Feb 17, is about 13, the coldest by far.

In fact, there have only been two times since 1942, when the record began, that the average mean temperature has been below 20 during this time period of Feb 1-17. The river has frozen at the Coolidge Bridge, but the effect cannot be attributed to the closing of the reactor at Vernon but, ironically, the effects of global warming.

My brother, Tim, asked me for a statistical analysis, and I found that the average temp for this period is 26.9, +/-4.3 degrees.   This makes the temp of 13 degrees 3.2 times the standard deviation of the norm.   Three times the standard deviation apparently accounts for 99.7%   of the variability.

The river has frozen at the Coolidge Bridge, but the effect cannot be entirely attributed to the closing of the Vermont Yankee reactor at Vernon, even though the thermal effect there as profound. As I noted in an earlier guest column, the reactor produced 650 megawatts of electricity and steam turbines are one-third efficient, In that column, I calculated that the thermal output of the reactor was 1,300 megawatts per hour and wrote: “With this much heat, one could take the contents of an Olympic size swimming pool from room temperature to boiling to complete evaporation every 1.4 hours.”

 

Wait until next year. It might be warmer. Meanwhile, it may well be a dramatic spring melt.

More Radiation found in well at Vernon

There was a recent report  by Susan Smallheer in the Rutland Hearld that Strontium 90 was found in one of the wells at Vernon.   The experts say that the levels are “safe.”   I have two specific concerns.

The first is that the EPA has recently changed the standards of what is safe.   Much higher levels are now regarded as being “safe.”

The second concern is that they only measured the radioactivity of the strontium; the article does mention that other possible radioactive elements were found, such as cesium and cobalt.   Thus, listing a single element can vastly under report the total amount of radioactivity present.