Health

CO can cause harmful health effects by reducing oxygen delivery to the body's organs (like the heart and brain) and tissues.  At extremely high levels, CO can cause death.

Exposure to CO can reduce the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.  People with several types of heart disease already have a reduced capacity for pumping oxygenated blood to the heart, which can cause them to experience myocardial ischemia (reduced oxygen to the heart), often accompanied by chest pain (angina), when exercising or under increased stress.  For these people, short-term CO exposure further affects their body’s already compromised ability to respond to the increased oxygen demands of exercise or exertion.

The acute effects produced by carbon monoxide in relation to ambient concentration in parts per million are listed below:^[15][16]

UPDATE MARCH 1, 2016  8:20 PM EASTERN US TIME --  The following "Important Notice" has been issued by NASA:

Just one problem: This Statement Makes No Sense

The statement issued by NASA makes no sense.  Even if the satellite was placed into "safe mode" to be relocated and even if the doors had been closed for that move then re-opened, by NASA's own admission, the doors were re-opened and the satellite put back in "science mode" on February 24. 

The readings which we published were effective THREE DAYS LATER, on February 27. 

Does NASA expect the world to believe that the instruments aboard their state-of-the-art satellite could not "stabilize" in three full days? 

Further, the readings dissipated smoothly across the continental United States and continue to do so since February 28th.  If NASA's claim that the instruments were not "stabilized" then how can they explain the completely smooth, natural dissipation of the CO gas, in accordance with prevailing wind patterns over the course of several more days?  It seems to us that if the satellite was unstable, that when it stabilized, there would be a sudden, discernable shift in its readings.  That is not the case.

Next, the contention that the reading for "Fire Radiative Power" seems to imply that wildfires burning on the west coast, may have impacted the satellite reading.  There are no massivewildfires on the west coast which would even come close to affecting the enormous area reflected by the CO emissions captured by the satellite.

SuperStation95 goes to great lengths to publish news that the mass-media does not, so as to inform readers in a responsible manner. 

In our story above, we repeatedly told the public "DO NOT PANIC" making clear "THERE IS NO REASON TO PANIC" yet this story has been smeared by quak-like "experts." 

For Instance, a MyNorthWest.com story quotes John Vidal, director of the University of Washington's Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, who actually told MYNorthwest.com that the reason for the CO detection is a high pressure system creating stagnant air loaded with CO and fires burning in various places like Canada.  Mr. Vidal went on to make a complete fool of himself, to the point of quackery, when he stated:

Back in the 1970s, when we were looking at all possible ways to predict earthquakes, there was an idea that the Earth cracks up in the area about to have an earthquake. And when that cracks, fluid and gases might come out of the ground," he said, noting that back then a theory emerged that watching for those gases could indicate where an earthquake was about to hit.

"But that was back in the '70s. Now we know the ground doesn't crack across the entire area and that idea just doesn't work," he said. "In the 40 years since, when we've been watching faults, we have tremendously improved measurements, and that kind of signaling just doesn't come before big earthquakes."

Apparently this "Director" never bothered to read the Scientific papers analyzing the release of Carbon Monoxide from the Gurjarat, India earthquake of 2001 . . . written by geophysicist Ramesh Singh, and published in the scientific journal:

Volume 25, Issue 4, April 2010, Pages 580–585

"Applications of fluid and gas geochemistry to geohazards investigation"

Had he bothered to expend _any_ professional effort before shooting his mouth off about our report, he would have found that this peer-reviewed, scientific paper established the following:

NOAA AVHRR images have clearly shown anomalous changes in land surface temperature associated with earthquakes in the past two decades. Soon after the Gujarat earthquake of January 26, 2001, an anomalous increase in land surface temperature was inferred from MODIS satellite data a few days prior to the main earthquake event. The cause of such an anomalous change in surface temperature prior to the earthquake is attributed to many probable phenomena, but no definite cause has been identified.In the present study, changes of a complementary nature were found of land surface temperature associated with the emission of CO from the epicentral region. The observed changes on land and atmosphere associated with the Gujarat earthquake of 26 January, 2001, show the existence of strong coupling between land, atmosphere and ionosphere.

But a lack of professionalism bordering on Quackery seems to be the norm on the west coast.  The media out there is another example. 

MyNorthwest "reporter" Richard D. Oxley who did this "story" never bothered to contact SuperStation95.  Despite our email and telephone numbers being prominently displayed on our CONTACT page, young Mr. Oxley failed to perform even the most rudimentary journalistic task of contacting the source.  And he has the gall to call himself a "reporter." 

SuperStation95 stands-by our story.  We published it solely to inform the public so they could decide for themselves if any action was required.  While we earnestly hope that no serious earthquake takes place on the west coast, we believe that alerting the public is what the media exists to do.

We will continue to report despite the fact that the mass-media seems grossly derelict in its duty.

Don’t forget the AIRS data

Remember that MOPITT isn’t the only satellite-based instrument being used to collect carbon monoxide concentration data. The AIRS instrument on Aqua was also collecting data during the same time period in question, and there were no reported issues with the instrument or satellite. See the loop below.

There is no huge gas plume. Note the color scale tops out at 140 ppb (parts per billion). Compare this to the 40,000 ppb levels seen on Nullschool.net’s Earth map during the heigh of the apparent gas eruption. After the GEOS-5 model combines the data, the magnitude of the bad MOPITT data is so large that it simply overwhelms the accurate data collected by AIRS.

You can view and interact with the AIRS data for yourself here.

(comment DJ: there must be a lot of CO-measurements in the effected region over the time-feb 25-march 1. If there was a very high CO level it must show up in measurements. )