Forum / another day, another page

• 
  strannikov

  Jul 18, 04:50pm

  While I do not think of myself as an environmental activist, in my role as a sometime-science satirist, I cannot help but come across scientific data in my searches for satiric compositions. (These are not satires, but do see "ice becomes a new marvel" from 2019, "A Most Uncertain Fiction" and "A Measure of How Far Behind We Are . . ." from 2021 posted here at Fictionaut for samples of my passing environmental commentary and reflections, some of which already bear revision.)

  As vast Canadian forest conflagrations help shroud the skies of many an American northern-tier state of late, and as intense heat waves afflict Americans across the southern tier, things occur elsewhere in our hemispheres (that is, our Western Hemisphere and our Northern Hemisphere).

  This is today's view from the NHC/NOAA satellite:

  https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/5424x5424.jpg

  When I glanced at the image, my eye was drawn to the purplish magenta coloration in northern South America. My first thought was: "Wow, looks like a big drought underway in northern Brazil and French Guiana."

  Using the magnification tool available, I then saw much more clearly that the coloration is all in the water, the equatorial Atlantic off the northern tip of Brazil and in at least some of the waters off French Guiana. The magnified image shows quite clearly that the effluence or discharge is coming from at least two Brazilian rivers, the one threading into the interior for what must be hundreds of kilometers or hundreds of miles.

  I have no social media accounts. I have queried two well-placed and reasonably well-informed academics, but they had no information to share on what this satellite documentation might signify. I remain curious enough to post here in one of the few available public forums I can post in.

  Anyone out there with any contacts or information sources that could inform this curious mind about what is transpiring in northern Brazil? (Ye Olde Google search revealed nothing, also.)

• 
  strannikov

  Jul 18, 11:22pm

  Whoops! As South and North America slip into nighttime skies, the posted image link I see eight hours later has kept pace with the changing circumstance.

  The full hemispheric hi-res daylight image will be available again tomorrow, weather permitting. I suspect the murkiness in the river and along the Atlantic coast there will persist at least for a few days.

  I called a Natl. Weather Svc. office for clues, but they had nothing to report. Could be dead fish, could be mineral sludge, could be chemical spillage, could be timber waste, no idea, but whatever it is or was, there was plenty of it.

• 
  strannikov

  Jul 20, 01:14pm

  As of Thursday, 20 July in the a. m., the cited discoloration remains visible, still clearly visible in two rivers and spreading across the western Atlantic creeping up the coast to wrap around the shores of French Guiana but also dispersing into deeper ocean waters.

  Perhaps possibly maybe because our dutiful media outlets report nothing about this occurrence, it is perfectly natural, maybe some seasonal phenomenon.

  Or . . .

• 
  strannikov

  Aug 22, 01:29pm

  One month later and the purplish/magenta colorization of Atlantic waters looks now to stretch almost halfway to African coasts. The shorelines of South American coasts (and the rivers feeding the material from inland Brazil) are still thick with whatever the stuff is.

  Odd not to have found or seen one single solitary media account about this in the past month since, again, this is something that can be seen with satellites' optical instruments (and, presumably, with naked eyes) from hundreds of miles up.

  Curious, curiouser, and more curiouser.

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