Greenland Ice Cores reveal Fluoride from Coal Burning and Volcanoes
Donald Trump wants Greenland for its Nuclear Waste Dump, Nuclear Weapons Launch convenience as well as a source of Water. Let's dive into the Ice as a record of Temperature, Acidity and Fluoride.
Trump on Greenland
Trump has also suggested that Canada could be absorbed into USA, but surprisingly is not interested in absorbing Mexico.
Greenland Nuclear Waste Remobilization
Trump wants control of the US-Danish Nuclear waste, which is in danger of Remobilization according to a sophisticated study. He might also want the leaking Diesel Fuel.1
Powered by a portable nuclear generator Camp Century was built to host up to 200 soldiers, provide year round accommodation, and upon expansion would be capable of storing up to 600 ballistic missiles. The plans for the base were short lived. Built in 1959 Camp Century was abandoned in 1967 after 8 short years. When the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) abandoned the base little was done to dispose of waste materials. The ACE believed that accumulating snowfall and frigid temperatures would preserve the base and the waste left along with it. Upon its abandonment only the reaction chamber of the nuclear generator was taken. 9,200 tons of physical waste (building infrastructure), 200,000 liters of diesel fuel, 24,000,000 liters of biological waste, and 1,200,000,000 Bq (unit of radioactivity) of radioactive material were left at Camp Century. Aside from diesel fuel that was stored in rigid containers, which have most likely been compromised, liquid waste was stored in unlined sumps. Experts believe that the continued degradation of ice sheets will create conditions where this liquid waste will be able to permeate deeper into the ice, possibly into aquifers within the ice sheet, and even the sea.
Greenland Hydrogen Fluoride Gas measurements
Previously I wrote about the reluctance of mainstream media to write about Hydrogen Fluoride (HF) and other Fluorine emissions from Volcanoes.2
Mount Etna in Sicily was estimated to be emitting 30 tonnes of HF per day3 in 1977. Twenty years later Etna HF emission of 2.2 kg per second was found using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy amounting to 70,000 tonnes per year.4
Also in 1977 analysis of Greenland Ice Cores5 allowed estimation of 5,000,000 tonnes of HF emitted in the devasating Laki Iceland eruption of 1783.
Fluoride was measured to a depth of 2,000 metres in Greenland Ice Cores and the authors found Fluoride from sea salt spray was negligible, but suggested Fluoride deposited from refrigerants chlorofluorocarbons might add to that from coal burning. They discarded samples where Fluoride was due to biomass burning and volcanic eruptions to look at other sources.6
Fluoride depth profile over the last 26,600 years which spans the end of the last glacial age, the last great climatic change including the Young Dryas and the Holocene stage (continuous δ o18 profile from Johnsen et al. 1992).
Fluoride values are averages for the discontinuous depth intervals.
The solid line joins fluoride mean values obtained after having discarded samples exhibiting biomass burning and volcanic inputs, vertical bars show the standard deviation observed at each depth level.
Cooling Effects of Volcanic Eruptions
Volcanic Silicate particles (ash) provide initial warming, Sulfur Dioxide and Sulfates are cooling. Here is a nice summary.7 Much Fluoride attaches to the falling ash.
Acidification of Oceans, Lakes and Ice
Sulfur Dioxide eventually washes out as Sulfuric Acid, which together with Carbon Dioxide leads to measurable Acidification of the Oceans and Lakes.
The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP)8 states:
the pH of the tropical Pacific Ocean has decreased by 30% (0.11 pH units) since the early 19th century, now decreasing by ~0.02 units per decade. A further decline of 0.3 units (150% drop) is expected by the end of this century. Thus, the decrease seen over the last >200 years could now occur every 20 to 50 years.
Greenland Ice Core Acidity has been measured and correlated with northern hemisphere volcanic eruptions.9 HF is a neutral week acid that does not contribute much to measured acidity.
Another Ice Core in South Greenland found a surge around 540 AD, likely due to the Yukon eruption of 70 million tonnes.
More to add later.
William Colgan, Horst Machguth, Mike MacFerrin, Jeff D. Colgan, Dirk van As, Joseph A. MacGregor. 2016. The Abandoned Ice Sheet Base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a Warming Climate. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/2016GL069688
Fluoride Deaths in Whakaari = White Island New Zealand
New Zealand and other countries would prefer you not to know that Fluoride, in the form of the neutral gas molecule HF, is the major killer in volcanic gases.
Garrec, J.P., Lounowski, A. and Plebin, R., 1977. The influence of volcanic fluoride emissions on the surrounding vegetation. Fluoride, 10: 152-156
Peter Francis, Mike R. Burton and Clive Oppenheimer. 1997. Remote measurements of volcanic gas compositions by solar occultation spectroscopy. Nature 10 December 1998 396:567-570
Hammer CU. 1977. Past volcanism revealed by Greenland ice sheet impurities. Nature 270:482-486.
M. De Angelis and M. Legrand. 1994. Origins and variations of fluoride in Greenland precipitation. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH 99(D1):1157-1172
Robock, A., Volcanic eruptions and climate. 2000. Reviews of Geophysics, 38:191-219.
Ocean acidification: a tide of challenges for Pacific Islanders. https://www.spc.int/updates/blog/2022/08/ocean-acidification-a-tide-of-challenges-for-pacific-islanders
Hammer, C.U., H.B. Clausen, and W. Dansgaard. 1980. Greenland ice sheet evidence of post-glacial volcanism and its climate impact. Nature 288:230-235
Iceland has much tectonic activity due to diverging plates running through it. Would HF be emitted by such action If yes, has it been affecting the population?