The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), part of the Department of Defense, has denied operating surveillance drones in two different states, issuing statements that have been proven to be completely false.
Headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, USSOCOM is the Unified Combatant Command charged with overseeing the various Special Operations Commands of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Following our publication last week of a*map of current and proposed Department of Defense drone activities within the U.S., several journalists with local publications around the country wrote articles regarding drone activities that were listed in their area.* David Brooks of the Nashua Telegraph*wrote about the listing of New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington as the site of a USSOCOM drone activity*involving small unmanned aerial vehicles including the Raven and Wasp.* Corey Pein of the Willamette Week*wrote about a planned USSOCOM drone activity in Portland*that was listed as utilizing the same types of drones.
If they lie about spying on their own citizens and only admitting it when they get caught can we believe anything they say?
Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show
Twenty-year-old models which have suggested serious ice loss in the eastern Antarctic have been compared with reality for the first time – and found to be wrong, so much so that it now appears that no ice is being lost at all.
“Previous ocean models … have predicted temperatures and melt rates that are too high, suggesting a significant mass loss in this region that is actually not taking place,” says Tore Hattermann of the Norwegian Polar Institute, member of a team which has obtained two years’ worth of direct measurements below the massive Fimbul Ice Shelf in eastern Antarctica – the first ever to be taken.
According to a statement from the American Geophysical Union, announcing the new research:
It turns out that past studies, which were based on computer models without any direct data for comparison or guidance, overestimate the water temperatures and extent of melting beneath the Fimbul Ice Shelf. This has led to the misconception, Hattermann said, that the ice shelf is losing mass at a faster rate than it is gaining mass, leading to an overall loss of mass.
The team’s results show that water temperatures are far lower than computer models predicted …
Hatterman and his colleagues, using 12 tons of hot-water drilling equipment, bored three holes more than 200m deep through the Fimbul Shelf, which spans an area roughly twice the size of New Jersey. The location of each hole was cunningly chosen so that the various pathways by which water moves beneath the ice shelf could be observed, and instruments were lowered down.
Typically, at high pool, that tire reef is under 30 feet of water, [or] 35 feet of water," says Rowe.
But the water level is now more than 40 vertical feet below normal.
The drought is not solely responsible for that dramatic drop: Problems with the dam forced the water level down about 25 feet in 2005. The drought is responsible for the remainder.
That receding water level has also revealed at least eight sunken, and forgotten, boats.
"All of the boats we're finding," Rowe says, are "well over 12 years old," and they likely went unreported at the time of sinking.
California's long-term drought has significantly dropped the water level at Lake Perris in Southern California. According to local fishermen, all of this sand used to be covered in water.
The U.S. Drought Monitor reports that more than 67 percent of California is experiencing "extreme drought." Only the tiniest sliver of the state has escaped the ongoing drought conditions.
I hope those polar ice caps melt very quickly, California needs it.
Reply With Quote