Rapid Glacier Melting

Hello,

In this blog concerning the health of the Earth as a whole, I would like to discuss and point out the possible affects of constant heavy melting of the Arctic glaciers. 

Some of the most beautiful beaches, travel attractions and areas of heavy human civilization are either on islands or on lands mass very close to huge bodies of water. For instance, the island of Manhattan where over 13 trillion dollars circulate daily is an island. It is often referred to as the highest achievement of mankind. With the quick melting of Arctic glaciers, governments, scientists and humans around the globe are concerned with the global affects it could cause like earthquakes, tsunamis, drowning of islands (like the Maldives), temperature fluctuations etc.

The Arctic ice is melting on an unprecedented scale and pace. Scientists and researchers are working to figure out its global ramifications. Thirty-five Japanese organizations, such as the National Institute of Polar Research and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, embarked on a five-year project last fiscal year to monitor the Arctic. Around 300 researchers are to determine how the melting in the Arctic Ocean, Siberia, Alaska and elsewhere will affect the rapidly changing climate, and thus the Earth's environment.

For now, the only hope is that the theory of global warming is false and that this melting is natural and won't have any drastic affects globally.

Thank you,
Parth Patel

News Articles Used: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-arctic-ice-crisis-20120816

Tsunami 2004

The biggest and most destructive tsunami in 2004 and one of the biggest tsunami's in history was the one the originated due to an earthquake in the Indian Ocean. The epicenter of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake was under the Indian Ocean near the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The shifting of the earth’s plates in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004 caused a rupture more than 600 miles long, displacing the seafloor above the rupture by perhaps 10 yards horizontally and several yards vertically. That doesn't sound like much, but the trillions of tons of rock that were moved along hundreds of miles caused the planet to shudder with the largest magnitude earthquake in 40 years. The tectonic plates in this area had been pushing against each other, building pressure for thousands of years – they continue to do so and will likely cause underwater earthquakes and tsunamis in the future.

Within hours of the earthquake, killer waves radiating from the epicenter slammed into the coastline of 11 Indian Ocean countries, damaging countries from east Africa to Thailand.

By the end of the day of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, it had already killed 150,000 people. The final death toll was 283,000.  The Indian Ocean tsunami traveled as far as 3,000 miles to Africa and still arrived with sufficient force to kill people and destroy property. The risk of famine and epidemic diseases was extremely high immediately following the tsunami – bodies rotting in the tropical heat contaminated food and water sources.

-Parth Patel

Here is just another picture for everyone to get an idea of Central Park:

Courtesy: Google Images

Google Earth Mapping

                                                    Courtesy: Google Earth

Hello Everyone,

For the first blog, I just wanted to introduce my home city through a Google Earth map. The red line follows the usual bike route I take when I am biking around the city. Other symbols are pretty self explanatory.

I chose central park because of the high volume of visitors it gets during a year - 38 MILLION!! From a global health perspective, a disease originating in central park could easily spread throughout the world and start an epidemic. Also, I am concerned with high pollution levels of NYC and its correlation with Asthma.

Feel free to comment.

Thank you,
Parth Patel