There is a micro layer layer of oil on the waters of the world. There is an increased atmospheric temperature. The soil of the Earth is drying, and vegetation is burning. The ice caps are melting and fish species zones are changing. I contend that the affects we are witnessing are due to an altered hydrology cycle of the Earth, precipitated by the extent of this micro layer of petroleum oil on the worlds waters. It is not due to greenhouse gases, IMO. The consequences of this made made event could be totally catastrophic. Please feel free to evaluate this theory as I consider our future is rather important. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I direct you to a discussion re Ice age probable consequences. http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/newposts/636/topic636702.shtm Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
There are many links re oil on the sea,,, however as far as I can find, not much re it's affect. I first became aware of it a long while back, it was reported in marine biology reference journals. Apparently the oil is ubiquitous, (found in all micro layer samples) from the equator to the poles. It has been analysed as petroleum based. I have tried to find more, but all accedemic establishments I have enquired to relate the same, no work has been done in this area re affects. The thickness is unknown, but certainly less in most instances than that required to form a sheen. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
This is science James, you would need to do tests. Oil has a remarkable capacity to flow into very thin layers, sometimes to only tens of molecules thick. The current crisis in Europe will continue all over the world, as the land slowly dehydrates. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Shame then, you really have no backgroung in wide basic science. The Earth's hydrology is easily tipped, ice ages occur with rapidity (fact) therefore as most natural phenomena are, it is fragile... oil on water inhibits evaporation (fact), This without even a slight doubt will upset the fine tuning of the hydrology cycles. Pass your doubts, and bring some science to this table, we all would appreciate it. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Zarkov: Ok, let's look at some solid facts. Please post a reference to a reputable source which supports the statement that all the oceans of the world are covered with a micro-layer of oil, as you claim.
There are amny figures available from "oil" sites quantifying the annual oil spillage estimates, and the sea is the ultimate destination for this oil. The marine biologists have reported the ubiquitious petroleum oil layer present in the microlayer on the surface of the sea. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
It's not necessarily from oil spills. It comes in all forms, and possibly from precipitated smoke from burnt oil. Very interesting theory. It gets me thinking on a whole new level about what could be behind global warming. Then again there are those scientists who are skeptical as to if there even is global warming occuring.
I am intrigued by the relative absence of study on the environmental effects of WW2. One aspect in particular relates to oil spillage from the thousands of ships sunk around the world. Even a mono-molecular layer of oil is effective in both reducing evaporation and reducing the exchange of CO2 and oxygen from atmosphere to water. Oil has been used industrially to insulate effluent treatment systems (aeration stabilization basins) in winter while plant processes are shutdown, thus allowing effective treatment efficiency to be re-established quickly upon plant startup. Even though the sizes of ships in the 40's were one-tenth the size of today's supertankers, the sheer numbers lost must have created a spike in the area of ocean covered by oil slicks. Many wrecks continue to dischage oil to this day. If evaporation is reduced, underlying ocean currents will remain warm as they move north, and the excess heat must contribute to greater glacial melting. At the same time the overlying atmosphere would remain dryer, and with the associated lower heat capacity, exhibit greater daily and seasonal swings in temperature. The dryer air would yield less cloud cover, and thus greater nightly heat loss. Perhaps it was the result of WW2 spillage that in the years following that war (50's and 60's) many northern areas were subject to abnormally cold winters. If so, it would be very wrong to use any part of the decades following WW2 as a baseline to quantify current global warming. We continue to discharge oil to the oceans, reportedly in the order of one to two million tonnes per year, apparently with 80% coming from routine processes, rather than spills. In any event, the effects warrant being quantified in case they are more significant than the popularized but increasingly marginalized effects of CO2 alone.
This idea can be falsified by pointing out that even a monomolecular layer of oil would prevent or drastically reduce evaporation and the effect on rainfall would be obvious.
What about the organisms living underwater? Does a micro thin layer of oil affect them? And would it be obvious?
A thin layer of oil would inhibit gas transfer in both directions. I know this because close packing of surfactants inhibits Ostwald Ripening in foam - the process whereby larger bubbles 'eat up' smaller bubbles. Perhaps a biologist can comment on reduced gas transfer. I am a chemist.
I doubt this is happening, due to the fact there there has been some record rains falls all over the world including record snow fall here in the states just this year. It is interesting theroy though, it might explain why we are setting some new rain and snow records maybe its became less dense.
The effect on precipitation was obvious, but has been ignored. Environmental science was virtually non-existant until the second half of the twentieth century, and so most studies use some date like 1970 or 1980 as their base case or starting point. Up to 1970, climatologists were predicting a mini-ice-age was forthcoming. Maybe they just picked up the after-effects of WW2. An oil slick need not cover the entire oceans to have an effect, nor does the effect have to be seen over the entire planet. Just pick on the North Atlantic and part of the Gulf Stream, and model what happens to the edges of northerly ice cover and the kind of cloud cover and temperature in the adjacent areas. The top ten feet of ocean has a reported twenty times more effect on heat content than the entire overlying atmosphere.
