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1 Oct, 2009 11:02

ROAR: Ozone holes blamed for typhoons in Asia and viruses in Africa

ROAR: Ozone holes blamed for typhoons in Asia and viruses in Africa

Scientists believe there is a link between climate change and the recent typhoons and earthquakes.

The Russian media have reported on natural disasters happening currently in Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Samoa and other places in Asia. Earthquakes followed by tsunamis, typhoons and floods have killed many and destroyed houses in dozens of countries.

Typhoon Morakot, which hit Taiwan in August, was the country’s worst storm in half a century. “The magnitude 8 quake close to the island of Samoa was followed by the analogous earthquake off Sumatra, Indonesia,” channel Center TV said. “Seismologists believe this may be only the beginning of a series of new catastrophic quakes.”

Every year new earthquakes occur in Indonesia, the channel said, but the real news is that “neither Indonesia nor other countries suffering new disasters have been ready for them,” Center TV added.

Russian observers say typhoons and earthquakes are usual for particular regions, but it is still difficult to predict all of them.

“The climate on the Earth is changing constantly,” Vladimir Byshev, head of a laboratory at the Institute of Oceanology, said. The activities of typhoons are linked to these disturbances of climate, he added.

Typhoons on the Western border of the Pacific Ocean are “normal,” Byshev told Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily. However, when they disappear, it creates problems for the Russian Far East, leading to a lack of drinking water and poor harvest. This is explained by the fact that typhoons bring with them a great deal of heat and moisture, he added.

“Taking into account that in recent years oceans have been becoming warm again, some scientists believe this causes global warming,” Byshev said. But he stressed that scientists in the Institute of Oceanology doubt this hypothesis.

“The increase of temperatures or atmospheric pressure at one geographical point is accompanied by a decrease in other parts of the Earth,” Byshev said. He added that the climate now is entering a new stage where “oceans will accumulate heat.”

Russian scientists have found the cause of global catastrophes, including typhoons, hurricanes and tornadoes, Dni.ru website reported. They believe all these disasters are related to ozone holes and the process of hydrogen emission from the Earth’s core.

Vladimir Syvorotkin, senior lecturer at Moscow State University, believes that two flows of solar radiation meet the Earth’s surface through holes in the ozone layer. One of the flows causes local anomalous warming, while the second affects the mutation of viruses through ultraviolet rays, the scientist says.

Syvorotkin noted that Equatorial Africa receives the maximum quantity of ultraviolet rays. Such diseases as AIDS, Ebola and others have formed there, he said. This region “is a kind of genetic laboratory of the planet,” Syvorotkin was quoted by Russia.ru online TV channel as saying. “It is a place where viruses mutate constantly,” he added. Southeastern Asia is another region where several viruses of flu form, the scientist says.

He believes that flows of solar radiation interact with geological anomalies related to degassing hydrogen and form typhoons. “For the typhoon to be created the water should be heated to 20 degrees Celsius on the territory of dozens of thousands of square kilometers,” Syvorotkin added.

“I have noted that serial typhoons exist,” Syvorotkin said. “They form at one place as bubbles every two or three days,” he said. “But according to physics it is impossible because the process of forming typhoons cools water,” he added. “That means that something is heating the water.”

Tectonic maps showed that serial typhoons form in the zones of underwater mountain ridges where hydrogen is emitted. This hydrogen gets oxidized and heats up temperatures in higher layers of the ocean, Syvorotkin said. Also, water is heated by magma, he added.

Global warming has become one of the most pressing problems. Humanity has less than ten years to prevent irreversible climate change, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told a special conference on global warming that took place recently in New York. “We will soon reach critical thresholds [of greenhouse gas emissions],” he said.

However, there are different opinions of the problem of global warming. Syvorotkin of Moscow State University believes that this warming “is not global.” When the Arctic Ocean “was thawing in 2000, there were unprecedented frosts in Siberia,” he said.

The sharp change of climatic processes is explained “by the development of local ozone anomalies,” he told Russia.ru. The significant warming that has been observed in Europe in recent years is caused by local ozone holes which make atmospheric pressure fall. This zone attracts anticyclones from Africa “that contain a significant amount of heated air,” the scientist said.

Human activity is not the main factor that affects greenhouse gas emissions, Syvorotkin added. “More than 80% of these emissions is water,” he explained. The emissions caused by industries come to only one percent, the scientist added.

Even if humanity really fights greenhouse gas emissions, the warming will still continue for several decades because the Earth’s climatic system is sluggish, Sergey Gulev of the Institute of Oceanology, said. “At the same time, the next decade may be colder than the present one,” he told the scientific newspaper Poisk.

The ocean is changing and its level is increasing three millimeters a year, Gulev said, but half of the world’s population lives near the ocean, he added. “Many countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are conquering territories from the sea and are literally building islands there,” he said.

However, millimeters and centimeters of increasing sea levels “may turn into dozens and hundreds of meters of earth flooded by sea,” the scientist added.

Serious climatic changes have been happening over the last 30 years, Gulev said. They lead to fluctuations in temperature, more rains in high and medium latitudes and increased moisture. Considerable changes have been observed on the European continent. The winter climate in Europe, including Moscow, is becoming less continental, the scientist said.

It is still difficult to analyze how all these changes are linked to global warning, Gulev said.

“But this problem may be solved because in Russia and abroad scientists are developing complex physical and mathematical models, which may help in studying mechanisms of influence of the ocean on climate,” Guzev said.

Sergey Borisov, RT

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