Mars ice map reveals past climate change

Using laser technology from the Italian Space Agency, a map constructed from data gathered by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed the remnants of a formerly vast ice sheet located between the Martian equator and its North Pole.

What remains of the ice is now scattered below rocky debris on the planet’s surface, with portions that extend to a kilometer in depth.

Scientists estimate that the intact ice sheet existed some tens to hundreds of millions of years ago, and Dr. Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory stated, “It's definitely a record of a different climate period.”

While land contours have indicated for decades that Mars contained water and ice, this first-ever confirmation through laser technology also supports the likelihood of previous periods of climate change.

Our appreciation, Dr. Plaut and scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Italian Space Agency for sharing these intriguing findings. May such valuable information continue to expand our understanding of our planetary neighbor and indeed our Earth.

Speaking during an August 2009 videoconference in Thailand, Supreme Master Ching Hai reminded that past events on Mars are an opportunity for us to act in protecting our own fragile climate.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: We only need to look at our own neighboring planets, Mars and Venus, to see that the vision is bleak, is disastrous, if we don’t make the right choice,the right change now.

Any planetary scientist knows that Mars and Venus went through dramatic atmospheric changes in the past, similar to what we have begun to experience right now.

Long ago, Mars and Venus were once a lot like our planet - they had water, life, and people similar to us. But the inhabitants of Mars and Venus destroyed their respective planetary homes because they raised too much livestock, and the gases released triggered an irreversible greenhouse gas effect, plus poisonous hydrogen sulfide in the case of Mars.

So let’s not end up like either Mars or Venus, our neighboring planets. Humanity must uphold a gentler, higher standard for the Earth to continue supporting life.

http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-ice-sheet-map-climate.html

NASA confirms accelerated ice melt in Antarctica

Using a combination of gravity and laser satellite data, scientists at the US National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) studying Antarctic glaciers have confirmed the region’s warming and consequent loss of ice mass.

Measuring the ice loss has required special techniques because many of the glaciers are underwater and do not rest on land. Nonetheless, a major review published in 2009 found that especially those on the Western Peninsula are retreating at an ever accelerating rate.

The recent NASA satellite data confirms those findings, signaling dangerous changes that could result in massive sea level rise. The retreat of the Western Antarctic’s Pine Island Glacier has quadrupled between 1995 and 2006.

Moreover, melting beneath the large ice shelves is speeding their collapse and leading to losses such as the one in 2002, where the vast, 12,000-year-old Larsen B took only three weeks to disintegrate entirely.

National Aeronautics and Space Agency scientists, we appreciate these factual observations of the rapidly changing Antarctic, disturbing as they are. At this urgent time of planetary crisis, let us join in caring and sustainable lifestyles to preserve our planetary home. Supreme Master Ching Hai has often emphasized the critical need to act in reversing global warming and its adverse effects, as during an August 2009 videoconference in Thailand.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: Everything is heating up so quickly, as we can see from the scientists’ reports on such alarming upheaval, such as rising sea levels and glaciers melting. This, along with the effect of melting glaciers, are now causing excessive floods but eventually will cause drought and vastly diminished water supplies as well.

So we must work quickly to avoid such unwanted outcomes. And the most effective way, as I have mentioned, is the organic vegan diet, organic vegetable farming. This is also the fastest way to reverse the increased warming climate to prevent further damage and disaster.

The more people who understand and change, the more chance our world will be saved in time.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20100108_Is_Antarctica_Melting.html
http://history.nasa.gov/50thannnasaconf/history_50th_bio.html#jump4

Evidence of life on Mars grows stronger

US-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists have looked again at a meteorite that struck Antarctica 13,000 years ago. They believe the rock, which was found in Antarctica in 1984, formed part of Mars’ crust during a time that the planet contained water and theorize that it left the Martian surface due to an asteroid or comet blast and reached Earth only after floating through space for millions of years.

Thanks to refined electron microscope imaging, more recent findings in the rock of elongated shapes resembling certain bacterial microbes reveal what researchers are calling “strong evidence” that life once existed on Mars.

Further evidence was also suggested when another team of US scientists reported that new, more detailed maps of Mars indicated the planet long ago contained a large ocean in the northern hemisphere, expansive valleys around the equator, and a climate similar to drier regions of planet Earth.

We are most appreciative, all scientists and agencies for sharing these detailed discoveries about Mars’ past characteristics and similarities with Earth. We look forward to learning even more about our neighboring planet and the understanding it offers of our own precious home.

During a January 2009 videoconference with Supreme Master Television staff in California, USA, Supreme Master Ching Hai shared further insights about a climate disaster in Mars’ distant past, as an aid for us in caring for our Earthly ecosphere.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: They have discovered that Mars is all barren and uninhabitable, but they also discovered that, long ago, there was water there. Water means life supporting. What has happened to all these bodies of water? That is a very, very important question for us. So from Mars, we can learn to prevent such disaster, that it might not ever happen to our planet.

Don’t forget that we have a very beautiful home here for us and for our children.

So we have to protect this beautiful place we call Earth, because this is the home of not just us, but many other species; and the environment, beautiful flora and fauna. All we do is just be vegan. Nothing else is really important anymore. Just being vegan, you can save the planet overnight, just like that!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6699886/Nasa-compelling-evidence-of-life-on-Mars.html
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Tech/Story/A1Story20091124-181805.htm
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/11/24/huge-ocean-found-on-mars-115875-21845313/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6637302/Mars-was-covered-by-huge-ocean-say-experts.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6637274/Huge-ocean-once-covered-much-of-northern-half-of-Mars.html

Greenhouse gases could interfere with ozone recovery.

Scientists at the US National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, USA have reported the finding that greenhouse gases limit the circulation of ozone in certain regions of the upper atmosphere. The effect of this is that the healing of the ozone layer, whose depletion was caused by previous use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other chemicals, may be much slower in tropical zones. The scientists note that although greenhouse gases actually cool the upper stratosphere, allowing the ozone layer to heal more quickly, these recently discovered circulation changes appear to offset that benefit in tropical areas, thus limiting or even delaying the healing effect indefinitely. Professor Feng Li of NASA stated, “Most studies of ozone and global change have focused on cooling in the upper stratosphere. But we find circulation is just as important. It's not one process or the other, but both."

Our sincere appreciation, Professor Feng Li , National Aeronautics and Space Agency and Johns Hopkins researchers, for helping us to understand the multiple challenges the planet faces from greenhouse gas emissions. We pray for rapid Earth-saving actions to preserve all life across the globe.

In December 2006, during a retreat with our Association members in Germany, Supreme Master Ching Hai shared her concern and insights about the possible consequences of a destabilized atmosphere.


Excerpt from Supreme Master Ching Hai’s lecture
Germany December 31, 2006

Supreme Master Ching Hai: If it’s warm you jump into the water, but if it’s too cold I don’t know if you have enough thing to keep you warm. It might get freezing even after the warming period. Do you understand me?

Because sometime the pollution, it damage the ozone layer. Yes and then all the heat maybe escape. After a while we don’t have any heat. And then maybe too much pollution cover the sun and everything and maybe too much changing. And then everything will go so bad and it might be freezing even, that’s even worse also.

So many things can happen, and it can happen soon. So right now it’s time for all the people of every country should get together and think of the solution quick.

Arctic ice getting thinner and thinner

Reporting at their 31st annual end-of-winter survey, US-based organizations National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), stated that over 90 percent of Arctic sea ice is now only one or two years old, with only 10 percent being older, thick ice. This is in contrast to the 1980s, when the thicker ice that lasts two years or longer made up 30 to 40 percent of the total ice cover. This year’s cover is thus not expected to last the summer season. Moreover, as less and less ocean is covered by the sunlight-reflecting ice, more heat is absorbed, leading to further changes in climate and ecosystems. Already, summer temperatures in the Arctic have increased as much as nine 9 degrees Fahrenheit more than predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). As stated by Dr. Walt Meier of the NSIDC: “We're in a very precarious situation.”

Our appreciation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Dr. Meier and colleagues for this vital information about the grave condition of our ecosphere. We pray that more leaders and individuals respond with actions of compassion to safeguard the existence we share with all beings on Earth.

Supreme Master Ching Hai has emphasized numerous times that we must first be veg to have enough time to save the planet. The following is an excerpt from Supreme Master Ching Hai’s July 2008 discussion via videoconference with Supreme Master Television staff in California, USA.

Videoconference with Supreme Master Ching Hai
Supreme Master Television staff California, USA July 31, 2008

Supreme Master Ching Hai: Right now, even if we already produce the new technology yesterday, we still don’t have enough time. That is the urgency of our planet. Even if technology is already available, we don’t have enough time. Because it’s not CO2 that is the most troublesome, it’s the methane from animal raising, and it is also the hydrogen sulfide.

And moreover, nature also produces CO2 in some form. And also from the Arctic seabed and from the permafrost. We can’t win. We can’t win if we wait for technology. I just hope they don’t wait for technology or anything else, except vegetarian diet. That’s all we have to rely on now, vegetarian diet, the compassionate lifestyle. Spare other’s lives, then you will beget life. Like attracts like. This law never fails.