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Health Tip: Brain Health
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Keep your mind sharp as you age
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| Maintaining a healthy brain is as important as maintaining a healthy body, especially as you age. |
| Here are some suggestions to help keep your mind sharp: |
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Don't drink excessive amounts of alcohol, smoke, or use illegal drugs. |
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Get regular exercise and enough sleep. |
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Learn how to reduce stress. |
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If you notice significant changes in your memory or brain function, speak to a doctor. |
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Prescription medications - especially when taken in combination - may affect your mental and physical performance, so when visiting a doctor it is essential to let him/her know about all medications that you take. |
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Stay physically and socially active, and avoid staying at home by yourself. Lack of interaction with other people has been found to deteriorate normal mental functioning levels. |
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Global Warming – The Ocean Effect
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 The oceans cover 70 percent of the Earth's surface, store 1,000 times more heat than the atmosphere, and is the planet's largest reservoir of water. The ocean's currents play a fundamental role in regulating the Earth's climate and circulating life-sustaining nutrients around the globe. The ocean distributes 25 to 50 percent of the energy received from the sun, and ocean's currents among other things distribute heat worldwide.
The oceans are a mix of salty and fresh water, and how they move and mix provide important clues to climate changes. At the equator, the sun warms surface waters and triggers evaporation. As water evaporates, the tropical waters get saltier. The warm, salty water is carried northward along the East Coast of the United States by the Gulf Stream, and then over towards Europe. As it travels, this current releases a huge amount of heat to the atmosphere in the North Atlantic. As this great volume of water becomes colder and denser, it plunges downward to the ocean depths (salty, cold water is denser than fresher, warm water). As cold, salty water sinks in the North Atlantic, it pulls warm, salty tropical waters northward to replace the sinking colder waters. This massive plunge of water drives the ocean's "conveyor belt," sending deep currents travelling along the ocean bottom to surface elsewhere around the world. Eventually these currents resurface in the Atlantic.
It takes centuries to complete a full cycle, unlike global wind and air circulation patterns, which take place over days or weeks. It's called the "thermohaline circulation". It also generally distributes heat more evenly around the planet, moderating extremes of both between cold northern latitudes and hot equatorial regions. The conveyor belt's critical points are where surface waters plunge into deep waters. This happens only in a few places, two of which are in the North Atlantic. Global warming is changing that key spot in the North Atlantic where the surface waters plunge. A mix of increased precipitation, river run-off and melting ice in the artic circle—all related to climate change and caused by global warming—is making surface waters in the north less salty and dense, weakening this major pump in the ocean's natural circulation. A change to the ocean's circulation patterns could plunge Europe into a colder era, even as the rest of world experiences warmer temperatures and especially the tropics get even warmer. |
Warm water (in red) is chilled in the far North Atlantic and sinks. The cold, salty current (in blue) flows south near the bottom. |
Warm ocean water fuels hurricanes and warmer tropics are already causing storms in general and hurricanes in particular to intensify. Hurricanes are storms that form near the equator and gain wind speeds of at least 74 mph (miles per hour). For a hurricane to occur, the surface of the ocean must be at least about 27 degrees celsius. This is why the North Atlantic hurricane season is from June to November, North Indian Ocean is May to November, South Indian Ocean is December to March, etc - when ocean waters are the warmest. As global warming continues, thanks to a build-up of pollution in the atmosphere, scientists project that the oceans will continue to get warmer.
Hurricane intensity has doubled over the past 30 years and is linked to rising sea surface temperatures (caused by global warming). The number of Category 4 (131 to 155 mph winds) and Category 5 (155 and more mph winds) hurricanes around the world has doubled over the past 35 years. Category 4 storms can produce 250 times more damage than Category 1 (74 to 95 mph winds) storms — a staggering increase that drastically increase the risk to people & cost of loss. Scientific analysis also indicates that the storms are getting stronger, not just in the Atlantic but all over the world. |
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