Freshwater from the Sea

STRANGELOVE, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964) 

The movie Dr. Strangelove (released in 1964) is a comedy about cold-war paranoia. This film raises questions that are still relevant, including the debate about water fluoridation that lies at the heart of it. In the film. General Jack D. Ripper sends one wing of the Strategic Air Command to bomb their targets in the Soviet Union. Government and military authorities try to stop the bombers and, in anticipation of failure, plan for the next step. 

In one clip. Group Captain Lionel Mandrake has been locked in General Ripper s office. While engaging Ripper in conversation. Mandrake learns that Ripper will only drink distilled or rain water. For Ripper, the idea that there is fluoride in the water supply is proof of a Communist plot. 

Since 1956, the public water fluoridation program has been considered the greatest success of any public health program. The benefits are significant (60% fewer cavities regardless of age, gender, or economics), the risks are almost nonexistent, and the cost is very low. 

The link between fluoride in drinking water and reduction of tooth decay began its 30-year journey in 1901 in Colorado Springs. A young dentist named Frederick McKay noticed that people born in the area 1) had brown teeth and 2) were virtually free of tooth decay. McKay visited many other communities to study the brown tooth problem. He couldn t find the causative agent but he did find that it was related to 

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The Black Sea is the world s largest semienclosed marginal sea with permanent anoxic zone (about 85% of the total water volume). Its physical and chemical structure is determined by its hydrophysical balance [1]. The narrow (0.76-3.60 km) and shallow (< 93 m) Bosporus Strait provides the only pathway of water exchange between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The sill depths of the Bosporus are 32-34 m at the southern end and 60 m at the northern end [2,3]. The seawater that flows out of the Bosporus Strait is the only source of salty water to the basin. Deep-water salinity values increase to S = 22.33 psu. Freshwater inflow from several European rivers (especially the Danube, Dniester, and Dnieper) and brackish water inflow from the Sea of Azov keep the salinity low in the surface layer (S 18.0-18.5 psu in the central region). As a result, the water column is strongly stratified with respect to salinity, and thus density. 

These changes may be related to the two warm winters that occurred in 1998 and 1999, which could affect the balance between input of freshwater from the rivers and saline water from the Bosporus and the winter formation of the oxygen-rich CIL. These years are remarkable for the increase of the Sea surface temperature (Fig. 8), increase of temperature in the core of the CIL [82,85-87], and shoaling of the CIL in the density field [48]. All these events can be connected with the weather condition oscillations, as follows from North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) index behavior (Fig. 8). 

Generally, waters around the Changjiang River Estuary can be classified as three principal water masses (1) freshwater from the Changjiang River (2) seawater (continental shelf waters) entering the ECS, either with the Yellow Sea along shore current from the north or with the Taiwan Warm Current and its branches from the south (3) the transition zone between freshwater and seawater, resulting in estuarine mixed water. 

The vast majority of freshwater in the world is providedby precipitation resulting from the evaporation of seawater. This transfer of moisture from the sea to land and back to the sea is referred to as the Itydrologic cycle. Figure 1 presents a depiction of the hydrologic cycle. 

Still another kind of subsurface water contamination is that produced by salt, either by the incursion of salt water from the sea when freshwater is pumped too intensively from wells in coastal areas or by the dissolution of salt in water that is in contact underground with deposits of rock salt. Salt can also become troublesome in the subsurface water of arid regions, where repeated use of irrigation water leads to slow concentration by evaporation during each use. 

Fig. 1.15 Diagram of an osmotic salination energy converter to extract power from the natural flow of freshwater into the sea...

Ciliates are diffused everywhere in the world and have colonized almost all aquatic environments from freshwaters to salt marshes, from the sea to lagoons and other hypersahne or saltish ponds. They can even be found in soil. Their contribution to the ecology of the planet is fundamental for instance, being natural predators of flagellated algae and bacteria, they are often able to stop the exponential growth of these organisms. 

There are corrosive environments and those which are considered benign. The combination of high humidity and high temperature favors corrosion, but above all the presence of chloride ions is detrimental to almost all metals and interferes with many methods of corrosion protection. Chloride is not the only ion that enhances corrosion, but it is the one most commonly found all around us, in seawater and even in freshwater, in the ground and in the human body. Salt spray carried by the wind from the sea is a major cause of corrosion, and it is easy to see how the importance of this factor diminishes with increasing distance inland. 

Nonreplenishable (fossil) groundwater can be tapped, but such extraction depletes reserves in much the same way as extractions from oil wells do. The terrestrial renewable freshwater supply, RFITTj, equals precipitation on land, which then subdivides into two major segments evapotranspiration from the land, and mnoff to the sea, T. Because groundwater and surface water are often hydrauhcaHy coimected, soil infiltration and groundwater... 

The oceans hold about 97% of the earth s water. More than 2% of the total water and over 75% of the freshwater of the world is locked up as ice ia the polar caps. Of the remaining 1% of total water that is both Hquid and fresh, some is groundwater at depths of > 300 m and therefore impractical to obtain, and only the very small difference, possibly 0.06% of the total water of this planet, is available for human use as it cycles from sea to atmosphere to land to sea. Only recently have humans been able to regulate that cycle to their advantage, and even now (ca 1997), only infinitesimally, ia some few isolated places. 

Ocean prevents eutrophication. Much more water flows into the Mediterranean Sea than is required to replace evaporation from it. The excess, high salinity water exits Gibraltar below the water flowing in af fhe surface. Nufrients that enter the Mediterranean Sea from pollution sources are utilized by marine phytoplankton that sinks and exits with the outflow. Another example is that estuaries often have lower salinity or even freshwater at the surface with a denser saline layer at the bottom. An estuarine circulation occurs with nutrients being trapped in the saline bottom water. 

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