What do you do when your Radiator Overheats?

Do you just keep driving,
and pretend there is no problem?


that course of action could end your "road trip"
rather abruptly, and leave you stranded far from home.


OR should you pull over and pop the Radiator Cap,
and just wait for the all that "reserve heat build up" to escape?

that choice, though the more annoying one,
is also the most rational one.
(how long you have to wait,
depends on the state of your coolant, is it new or worn out?
and just how Overheated your Radiator really is.
How long have you been driving anyways,
without any stops to let the engine cool off?)



Well now, What do you do when your Planet's Radiator Overheats?

Do you just keep driving forward, turning up the Radio
and cranking the AC, casually pretending there really is No Problem?


If you do that is a recipe for "massive system failure"!
The ultimate result for that decision is a "mechanical breakout",
which will abruptly change your plans, and could ruin your whole day.


The only problem is, whereas you can always
call a tow truck or mechanic to fix your car's Radiator system,
there's NO ONE to call, who can fix your planet's system.


The Planet's Raditor is Heating up:
Latest Sea Surface Temperature (SST) monthly anomaly.


The Engine's Temperature Guage is approaching Red-line:
ENSO the most important coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon to cause global climate variability...


The Heat Build Up runs Deep:
in some places the waters can peak at more than 10°F higher than normal (up from the low 70s Fahrenheit, to the high 80s...


The planetary Ecological, Oceanographic, and Climate Systems
have taken EONS to reach a stable balance.
They interact with a finely-tuned equilibrium, each
keeps the other in check.
These systems keep the Planet running and habitable,
and even comfortable most of the time.


Yet over the course of a few centuries,
the activities of human progress, combined with
the reckless disregard for these Planetary Systems,
which make life possible, has led modern society
to the very verge of a catastrophic Radiator break down.

That progress may grind to an abrupt halt,
in the event these interwoven Systems start falling,
like dominoes.


And our response?
just turn up the Radio and crank up the AC
and just keep trucking...
Oh that dashboard warning light? it doesn’t mean anything.
(It always does that, I just ignore it,
and it usually goes away by itself.)


Afterall, it's not MY problem is it,
if the Planet's Cooling System breaks down?
Someone else will call a mechanic and try to fix it, won’t they?
And WHAT IF it's NOT fixable, afterall is said and done???
Well, when all else fails, we can always run down to the showroom
and just buy a new Vehicle, can't we? ... (What, a new planet?)

I hear Mars will be ready soon, in about a century or two!


We may be running out of Coolant:
going ...
going ...
GONE !!!

the largest break-up of an ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic in 30 years ... the sea ice that normally presses along the north coast of Ellesmere Island, even in summer, was replaced by an open water ...


As far as future stability of our global cooling system
is concerned, when the gauges are "starting to redline"
the rational course action is to PULL OVER!
take a time out … stop for lunch and conversation …
and STOP over-taxing that cooling system.

Otherwise the ultimate result is,
it WILL reach its "boiling point".
(It’s only Physics afterall--which always demands
“an equal reaction for every action”)


Most mechanical systems require "routine maintenance" of some sort, on a regular basis in order to keep running smoothly
(maintenance like "tune ups" and "oil changes").

Isn’t is about time this "Vehicle" called Planet Earth
finally gets scheduled for its "Tune up"?

Seems like that "10-Point Inspect" IS long overdue !


============= some Links on El Nino =============

• climate experts are warning, World faces hottest year ever in 2007, as El Nino combines with global warming



• A three dimensional look at the El Nino of 1997/1998



• A three dimensional look at the El Nino of September 1997,
  stretching a quarter of the way around the planet



• NASA Reference: What is El Nino?



• NOAA: Earth System Research Laboratory: ENSO Index



• The Basics of ENSO (plus some historical animations)



• Climate variability and El Niño, including risks to Agriculture



• Wikipedia: ENSO and global warming--More recent results (e.g. Collins et al) tend to suggest that the projected tropical warming may follow a somewhat El-Niño like spatial pattern



• El Nino, Global Warming, and Anomalous U.S. Winter Warmth



• the Walker circulation should form an intrinsic part of thinking about how global warming will affect El Nino



• Scientific Study: theories suggest that global warming will reduce the strength of the mean tropical atmospheric circulation, known as the Walker circulation



• Wikipedia: the Walker circulation, is responsible for creating ocean upwelling off the coasts of Peru and Ecuador, which keeps the Pacific cool. A weakening of this circulation, could lead to ... Overheating. (Indeed some think this is already happening!)
  


• Surface Temperature Analysis, Global Temperature Trends, from NRDC


• Geophysical Research Letters: Arctic Ocean could be ice-free as early as 2040



• Arctic Sea Ice Shrinking, Greenland Ice Sheet Melting, According to Study



• Greenland Melt Extent, 2005 -- from (CIRES) Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences



• NASA: Watches the Arctic Sea Ice (with Animation and Satellite Photos)



• Scripps Institute: The Oceans and Global Change



• In 2002, the Larsen B ice shelf broke away from the Antarctic Peninsula. 500B tons of ice floated off into the sea, breaking up into thousands of vast icebergs. This collapse dumped more ice into the Southern Ocean than all the icebergs over the previous 50 years put together ...

(Stronger El Nino's, may end up being the Symptom, NOT the cause of Global Warming ... so the latest studies seem to be saying ... can we afford to wait for the ultimate outcome here? )

Please check my other blog: CO2 Offsets
Please check my other blog: The 25 Million Dollar Idea