[ExI] how to tame hurricanes

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Mon Dec 16 00:15:56 UTC 2013


On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 11:51 PM, spike wrote:
> Regarding that garbage island, I had some ideas on how to deal with that,
> but I am having my doubts now.  Is it possible the whole thing is an urban
> legend?  Why can’t I find it on Google Earth?  If it really is 90 ft thick
> in places, why wouldn’t that be worth it to go out there with a dredge and
> haul it on board and recycle or incinerate the stuff?  And why is it that we
> hear so much about all that debris ending up on Yankee beaches from that big
> tsunami in Japan, but not the debris which was supposedly already out there?
> And why is it I never see pictures of it taken from airliners, and never
> hear of guys seeing it from aircraft over the Pacific?  I sometimes get a
> vague feeling that whole trash island notion is exaggerated.
>


Wikipedia -
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch>

Guess what - you can't actually see the pollution.
Quote:
The patch is characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of
pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris that have been
trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.[2] Despite its size
and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography,
since it consists primarily of suspended particulates in the upper
water column. Since plastics break down to even smaller polymers,
concentrations of submerged particles are not visible from space, nor
do they appear as a continuous debris field. Instead, the patch is
defined as an area in which the mass of plastic debris in the upper
water column is significantly higher than average.
-------------

The wall of rubbish from Japan is very visible, though.

BillK




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