Dutch 'Hot Spot'

[justjohn]

2006 warmest year in Netherlands in 300 years
Tue Dec 12 2006 10:15:19 ET

This year is on track to be the warmest in the Netherlands since temperatures were first measured in 1706, the Dutch meteorological institute KNMI said on Tuesday, linking the record with global warming.

REUTERS reports: The average temperature in 2006 is likely to exceed 11 degrees Celsius in the Netherlands, beating a previous record of 10.9 degrees in 2000, Rob van Dorland of the KNMI atmospheric research department told Reuters in an interview.

"So far December is warmer than normal unless we get a very cold spell in the last two weeks of the month. According to our predictions, we will have average temperatures of above 11 degrees for the year," van Dorland said.

Dutch temperature records are among the oldest in the world. Methodical thermometer-based records began on a more global basis around 1850.

Developing...


Allright pieter,

You have been hiding this secret from us for too long now. It is obvious you want to have the bikinis all to yourself.

The folks here in the New England states are not know as 'snow geese' for nothing. Our flight path could very well be in the easterly direction instead of southerly.

Hope the water temperatures match.

[Jaga]

Here in Idaho is unusually warm. We have rains instead of snowstorms! What is going on with the nature?!?

[pieter]

just John,

Ofcourse this has to do with the Global heating, because the Netherlands lay in one of the most polluted corners of the world, the Industrial, densly populated, North-West of Western Europe, in the triangle of France-Germany, Great-Brittain and Scandinavia. The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, the Benelux countries lay inbetween these larger countries and are part of the infrastructural connections. Holland has huge traffic jams, a large transport sector (Holland lives from Import- and export business, trade and so delivering goods by large trucks all over Europe. A large part of our companies are commercial suppliers, and transport firms), tourist streams (millions of tourists a year), chemical-, metal- and Food industries. Oil refinery is one of these things. Our neigbour Belgium is also a heavy Industrialised and Moder economy, with a lot of polluting chemical industry, car industry and etc. (The Harbours of Antwerp and Zeebrugge).
So our corner of Europe is comparable with the East-coasts of the USA and China.
And that was my explenation for the warmest year since 1706.

The CIA factbook states on the Netherlands in current environment issues that; there is water pollution in the form of heavy metals, organic compounds, and nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates; air pollution from vehicles and refining activities; acid rain in the Netherlands.

And the Agriculture is also very polluting, because the ammonia which comes out of the manure of the factory farming, eventhough the sector has become relatively small.
The Farm companies are very large in European perspective.

Pieter

P.S.- Some links: www.rivm.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/630400002.html
www.grist.org/news/maindish/2002/05/10/ness-nitrogen/

[pieter]

Soil pollution in the Netherlands

Old landfill sites, gasworks, polluted terrain. The soil in the Netherlands is polluted in many ways. Pollution is primarily the result of carelessness in handling raw materials, waste and the like. Barely any thought was given to what the repercussions might be. Some cases of soil pollution have hit the headlines: Lekkerkerk, Volgermeerpolder, Griftpark and Kralingen. But they are only the tip of the iceberg.

Soil pollution also occurs in old city centres. Frequently, houses have been erected on metres of urban waste dumped over the centuries. Household waste, remains of demolished buildings, but also the waste from small-scale industries like tanneries and paint factories. Outside the old city centres the sites of former gasworks are seriously contaminated. Once cleaned up, they become ideal locations for homes or recreational amenities.

More recently we have had cases of whole residential districts being levelled off and made ready for building using contaminated dredging sludge. Relatively small cases of pollution occur in the case of petrol stations and leaks from underground oil tanks. Rural areas, too, are often affected by soil pollution, deliberate or otherwise. Nationwide, the polluted aquatic sediment of waterways creates both an environmental problem as well as hampering dredging work and posing a threat to transport and water discharges.

[bescheid]

Well, global warming has apparantly forgot us...Following a very nice summer. Fall has been a bear: coldest cold wave and snow. Most rainfall recored {Novmber} Dec. one storm following the next and the next with high winds and heavy rain.

If a person hates sunshine, this is the place to go...

Charles

[kaima]

Stepping off to the pollution topic, there is also natural pollution that we encounter in this world. Around highly mineralized areas, encountering natural waters with disolved arsenic is not unusual, and on one part of the subway tunnels being dug in Frankfurt, Germany, they encountered polluted earthhundreds of meters below the surface, well below where man-made pollution would have caused the problem. There have also been frozen fish found in the arctic that were many thousands of years old with far more mercury in the fesh than allowed by modern health standards.

[bescheid]

pieter

The Netherlands has only just begun to deal with heavy soil pollution. Remember so many years past with the after math of reunification of East Germany? Remember before the end of the war, East Germany was a very highly industrialized area? Then the move in of the Soviets?

Well, those years of heavy industry, disregard use of these industries and after math of the war years. East Germany was one giant garbage dump of every thing toxic. Included with this, were the war time emergency fuel/explosive bunkers that were buried over and forgotten. Not to mention also of the Chemical storage bunkers of all things unmentionable.

All of this, had to be excavated, removed and decontaminated. The removed soil replaced with clean soil. It was not only a massive undertaking and dangerous, it was unbelievably expensive.

The Netherlands now faces a situation although not as dangerous, but, non-the-less not less expensive. It takes a combined effort of private business and Federal minds to be brought together for a common cause.

As an example of personal experience: Site of a removed gasworks firm {heavy fuel gasification site} to watch the ground move whilst heavy equipment is rolling over the surface. To then dig down 60 cm or so, and there it is, black thick viscous oil tar. Just as fresh as it was spilt so many years in the past. Then covered over with several layers of soil.

This stuff, never deteriorates, it just sits.The top soil must be removed, down to the contamination material. And then the sub-soil must be removed creating a very large excavated area. This would include that also of down stream of water run off contamination. For all of this will flow down hill into a water collection stream or river, then into the habours.

Nature cleans by covering over and or neutralize. The wash effect of the rivers cover over contamination with silt and gravel. The harbour action of the incoming/out going tidal wash completes the silting over and carry out of contamination into the sea. As exampled by off coastal islands that change constantly with their shore lines and gravel bars.

But, uncover what nature has covered, and that may lead to trouble. It is of a two headed snake. Uncover to remove and replace, or cover and leave as it is.

Charles

[sciwriter]

Same in Teaneck, NJ.

[pieter]

Charles,

I have to correct you, because before the German reunification of East- and West Germany in 1989 the polluted soil question was already known in the Netherlands, because in the early eightees people found out that in some new built area's a lot of people died from cancer and other deseases. They found out that the neigbourhoods were built on toxic waist, and that there had been illegal dumpings in the earias where the new subburbs were built.
A major event which instigated environmentalism and seeded the first ideas about soil management in the Netherlands was the discovery of severe soil pollution at Lekkerkerk in 1980. During a new housing development chemical waste was used as building material to level the soil. The dumping of the waste, containing substances such as xylene and toluene causing the area to be uninhabitable, resulted in an unprecedented scandal. This, however, was just a tip of the iceberg, as many cases of soil pollution followed. This increase in cases of soil pollution led in 1983 to the Soil Remediation (interim) Act, which later resulted in the Soil Remediation Guidelines (Dutch: Leidraad bodemsanering) (VROM, 1999), and these guidelines defined legal limits which were the foundation of soil remediation until the 1990s.

Clean-up of polluted locations

Soil pollution came high on the agenda in the late seventies. The worst cases had to be tackled fast. In some cases full scale clean-up was possible, in others the only solution was to isolate and control the pollution since it was neither technically nor financially feasible to eradicate all the contamination. In 1998 the government spent one billion guilders on soil clean-up. One third of that sum came from businesses and private individuals, one from the central government as part of a scheme under the Soil Protection Act, and a third from other authorities. Despite these serious efforts, it became clear that soil clean-up was not being tackled fast enough. As a result the government issued a statement on the review of soil clean-up policy in 1997.

[pieter]

Charles,

In the second world war the Dutch cities also suffered from bombardments from both the Germans
and allied bombers, who destroyed cities and industrial area's. That caused environmental pollution
too. And in this densly populated country we had and have a very large chemical industry, oil refinery
metal factories and bussy air-, water and land traffic. You can't emagine how much planes are flying
overm here. You hear planes and helicopters every day. Because there is not only traffic from our
national airport Schiphol but also air traffic between foreign airports (for instance between Düsseldorf
and London). There are to many cars and trucks for such a little country.
In America there is more space, more woods, so there must be more clean air production, because the
trees recycle the Nitrogen and small polluted dust which is produced by engines, and reduces the Smog.

Pieter

[bescheid]

pieter

You are very correct with correcting my post response. For I was using 2 dimensional thinking and was incorrect.

Yes, yours is a very small country with a very large industrial base, transportation system and international trade in shipping, both of see and land. A stunning amount of land shipping transports, use the Autobahn system in freighting to eastern Europe. And as so, are directly effected by the past recent toll systems for heavy road way carriers.

Pollution is a very difficult situation to control, once it has taken hold enough to be perceved it has reached a crises point.

I am not sure how it would be controlled in your country. Corrective measures would be first inplaced to stabilize the currant pollution causes. Then place into effect, neutralizing of contaminated substances of water and soil.
This would not take into effect, currant and future sanitation requirements of sewage treatment and disposal. For the sewage disposal would inself mitigate and make recontamination with reintroduction of heavy metals/chemicals that are common in treated sewage sludge. It is not suitable for crop fertilizers, even for non food stuff crops, because of the leaching effect into the water tables.

The comparison I had used of East Germany was not fair. I must admit, that my use of East Germany was out of prejudice and as such, not rational. Sorry.

Charles

[justjohn]

Ahemmmmmm !!!!

It was the later part of the statement that was of importance to the biological entity known as 'just John'.

All of the other problems are immediately obscured when a sunbathing beauty passes by in revue. Ahhhh, I love human nature!!!