Word: chich
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...Hospital has installed a photovoltaic system that nils 4% of its electrical and 40% of its hot-water needs. But such systems are expensive and generate electricity only in daylight hours. Even the sun has not cooperated this year: thanks partly to dust clouds from Mexico's El Chichón volcano, Hawaii has had the lowest level of direct solar radiation in 52 years...
When Mexico's El Chichón volcano came abruptly to life in late March and early April after more than a century, it killed 187 people, forced thousands from their homes and created havoc over a wide area of Mexico. Since then, 3,721-ft. El Chichón (The Lump) has simmered down, giving off only occasional blasts of steamy vapor. But the mountain continues to be an object of intense scientific concern. Though the initial blowup was relatively small. El Chichón pumped so much dust and debris into the upper atmosphere-perhaps more than...
...responsible researcher foresees such catastrophic consequences from El Chichón. But there are troubling signs. A huge smoglike cloud from the volcano has been spotted at scattered locations around the globe. At the Kitt Peak National Observatory, near Tucson, astronomers say the brightness of stars has been reduced by 40%, and volcanic dust has created garish sunsets over wide areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Says Atmospheric Physicist James Pollack, of NASA's Ames Research Center, which has used U-2 aircraft to collect samples of El Chichón's dust: "This is the biggest volcanic cloud...
When you screen out that much sunlight, that's an important event." El Chichón's importance caught scientists by surprise. Located in an impoverished area of southeastern Mexico, where the Zoque Indians scratch out a living by farming the volcano's slopes, it erupted with much less fury than Mount St. Helens and gave off only a fourth to a sixth as much debris as its Yankee rival. But as Volcanologist Wendell Duffield of the U.S. Geological Survey notes, "At Mount St. Helens the barrel of the cannon was pointed laterally. At El Chich...
...Chichón's cloud covers more than one-quarter of the earth's surface and is constantly changing. Between the equator and 30° north, the debris has blocked out as much as 10% of the sun's total radiation. "That's very large," says Atmospheric Physicist John DeLuisi of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "That's very significant...