NOAA scientist Sidney Levitas presents findings from five million ocean temperature profiles showing the world's oceans have warmed as deep as ten thousand feet, confirming computer model predictions about global warming's reach. The data reveals the North Atlantic experienced unprecedented warming in 1998, challenging assumptions that the deep ocean was a static body unaffected by surface temperature changes.
NASA's Dr. Drew Shindell explains how global warming paradoxically cools the stratosphere, strengthening westerly winds and potentially disrupting the North Atlantic ocean circulation that keeps Europe warm. Art and Linda also discuss Pentagon denials about alien technology, the crop circle debunking controversy, and breaking news of Tropical Cyclone Rosita threatening Australia with 161 mile-per-hour winds.
Key Moments
60% of Arctic ozone destroyed in winter 2000: Linda Moulton Howe reports the European Commission and NASA's Goddard finding that more than 60 percent of Arctic ozone at 11 miles altitude was destroyed this winter, the largest chemical loss observed in a decade and a sudden Arctic equivalent of the Antarctic hole.
Falklands girl gets full second-degree burns in five minutes: NASA's Dr. Paul Newman tells Linda that when the edge of the Antarctic ozone hole drifted over the Falkland Islands a young woman went out sunbathing and within five minutes had second-degree burns over every exposed part of her body.
Art's father is dying of melanoma: a personal sun warning: Art breaks from the science to tell listeners his father is dying of melanoma metastasized to his lungs from a lifetime of sun exposure as a young surfer, and is using his last days to warn Art and the audience to take sun protection seriously.
Shutting off the Atlantic conveyor could plunge Europe into deep cold: NASA's Dr. Drew Shindell explains that 40% of Arctic sea ice has already been lost and warns that fresh meltwater pouring into the North Atlantic could shut down the ocean circulation that keeps Europe warm, dropping regional temperatures 20 degrees and dwarfing global average warming.
Russian Area 51 photos and the giveaway: only buses, no roads: Reacting to newly released Russian satellite photos of Area 51 mocked in the press for showing no little green men, Linda points out the most telling detail is that the only visible transport is buses with no roads, evidence that everything of consequence at the base is underground.