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Date: June 10, 2022 at 21:17:40
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Microplastics found in freshly fallen Antarctic snow for the first tim |
URL: https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Microplastics-found-in-fresh-Antarctic-snow-17230761.php |
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Microplastics found in freshly fallen Antarctic snow for the first time
Andrew Chamings
June 9, 2022
It's official: Man has polluted the farthest reaches of the planet.
Scientists working in the Ross Island region of Antarctica have found airborne microplastics in freshly fallen snow in one of the most remote places on Earth for the first time.
A peer-reviewed research paper published in The Cryosphere journal this week by scientists from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand shared the alarming news. Snow samples collected across 19 remote sites all showed the presence of the tiny, man-made polymers. Further analysis revealed that the plastics, which come from synthetic processes including the manufacture of cosmetics, clothing and food packaging, may have travelled from 4,000 miles away into the fragile ecosystem.
On average, the fresh snow there contained 29 particles per liter, 79% of which was the type found in plastic bottles and clothing.
"While the human footprint has increased over the last century, Antarctica is still a place of peace and science and is thought of
as the last remaining true wilderness on earth," researcher Alex Aves wrote in the paper.
Toxic microplastics have been found in the guts of shellfish.
Toxic microplastics have been found in the guts of shellfish.
Carmen MartÃnez Torrón/Getty Images
Microplastics are small but dangerous. Around the size of a grain of rice, and sometimes smaller than the width of a human hair, the toxic particles are polymer fragments created through the erosion of plastic waste. They have been found in a range of far-flung environments, from the floor of the Mariana Trench to the summit of Mount Everest, but never in fresh Antarctic snow before now. Their size and weight enables them to travel easily through the air.
The pollutant has also been found in the guts of shellfish and fish, and therefore in humans, through seafood consumption. In 2017, scientists in Belgium, where mussels are a favorite dish, said that seafood eaters may consume up to 11,000 microplastic particles a year.
A Hull University study recently found microplastics inside the lungs of surgical patients and in the blood of donors.
Made from a complex combination of sometimes toxic chemicals, microplastics' harmfulness in humans has been hard to study due to their sheer ubiquitous and the number of other chemicals humans are exposed to in our daily lives. A study published in Science Direct reported that they can cause damage to human cells, including allergic reactions and cell death.
National Geographic reports that in 2020, 367 million tons of plastics were manufactured across the Earth, a quantity expected to triple by 2050.
“It is alarming because we are far into this problem and we still don’t understand the consequences," Alice Horton, a marine scientist at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, told the outlet. "And it is going to be very difficult to back out of it if we have to.”
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Date: June 11, 2022 at 14:44:31
From: pamela, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Microplastics found in freshly fallen Antarctic snow for the... |
URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaff_(countermeasure) |
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could also be known as chaff, see wikipedia.
Surprized they are now just finding plastics in the
Antarctic though, unless no one was looking for it til
now, but yes, plastics, aluminum, polluting everywhere
from various sources. Man could have been using hemp
products instead of plastics all along, but the
gov'ment along with corporations, big oil/tech/ would
not allow it.
Chaff (countermeasure)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
Modern US Navy RR-144 (top) and RR-129 (bottom) chaff
countermeasures and containers. Note how the strips of
the RR-129 chaff (bottom) are of different widths,
while those of the RR-144 (top) are all the same width.
The RR-144 is designed to prevent interference with
civil ATC radar systems.
Chaff, originally called Window[1] by the British and
Düppel by the Second World War era German Luftwaffe
(from the Berlin suburb where it was first developed),
is a radar countermeasure in which aircraft or other
targets spread a cloud of small, thin pieces of
aluminium, metallized glass fibre or plastic, which
either appears as a cluster of primary targets on radar
screens or swamps the screen with multiple returns, in
order to confuse and distract.
Modern armed forces use chaff (in naval applications,
for instance, using short-range SRBOC rockets) to
distract radar-guided missiles from their targets. Most
military aircraft and warships have chaff dispensing
systems for self-defense. An intercontinental ballistic
missile may release in its midcourse phase several
independent warheads as well as penetration aids such
as decoy balloons and chaff.
Modern radar systems can distinguish chaff from target
objects by measuring the Doppler shift; chaff quickly
loses speed compared to an aircraft and thus shows a
characteristic change in frequency that allows it to be
filtered out. This has led to new techniques where the
chaff is further illuminated by an additional signal
from the target vehicle with the proper Doppler
frequency. This is known as JAFF (jammer plus chaff) or
CHILL (chaff-illuminated).
Contents
1 Second World War
2 Falklands War
3 JAFF and CHILL
4 Modern chaff
5 See also
6 References
7 Sources
8 External links
Also here for Chaff and geo-engineering
https://climateviewer.com/2019/01/17/nexrad-doppler-
radar-and-chaff-mystery/#comments
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