No: 17264 Friday, June 23, 2017

LA PAZ: Scientists studying global

warming recently climbed Bolivia’s tow-

ering Mount Illimani and extracted sam-

ples of glacier ice packed with thou-

sands of years of climate data.The inter-

national ICE Memory project team

braved low oxygen and bitter, ice-cold

wind that whipped them mercilessly at

an altitude of 6,300 meters to drill deep

into the glacier and pull out two cylin-

ders of ice.

The weather was too dangerous for

the team to extract a third sample as

originally planned. The ICE Memory

project members, which have complet-

ed a similar task at Mont Blanc in the

Alps, will take their samples to a

research station in Antarctica. One of

the samples will be studied, and the oth-

er one preserved. Their goal is to create

an “ice archive sanctuary in Antarctica ...

in an effort to preserve ice cores from

the world’s key endangered glaciers,”

according to the group’s website, which

is sponsored by the French and Italian

national commissions for UNESCO. That

way, future scientists “will still have

enough high-quality raw material to

investigate and make future discover-

ies,” says the site. “This second expedi-

tion has been a fantastic collective suc-

cess,” said Patrick Ginot, ICE Memory

expedition coordinator.

18,000 years of information 

The team of 15 scientists from

France, Russia, Brazil and Bolivia, sup-

ported by some 30 porters and guides,

faced extreme conditions in their May

22-June 18 quest for the ice samples.

One of the samples taken reached all

the way down to the bedrock at a depth

of 137 meters into the glacier, and the

second to 134 meters, ICE Memory said.

These long shafts of ice were then cut

into smaller lengths and taken away in

heatproof cylinders.

The samples were treated as precious

relics once they were returned to base

camp and carefully stored for trans-

portation. Scientists say that the glacier

at Mount Illimani has 18,000 years’

worth of weather and environmental

data for a broad region between the

Bolivian highlands and the country’s

Amazon rainforest region. Mount

Illimani, located in La Paz department, is

part of the Cordillera Real, one of

Bolivia’s two ice and snow covered

mountain ranges. The glaciers, however,

are threatened by global warming and

mining activity, something locals have

complained about this year. — AFP 

H e a l t h

FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2017

Why some airplanes 

don’t fly in high heat

WASHINGTON: When it comes to getting airplanes off

the ground in broiling weather, it’s not the heat or the

humidity. It’s the air density. Hotter air gets thin, making it

harder to take off and land safely, mostly for smaller jets.

That’s what has kept some planes grounded in Phoenix

this week where temperatures have been pushing 120

degrees. Airplanes take off and stay aloft because of lift,

the force from the movement of air underneath the

plane’s wings that push it upward. “As air warms up, it

expands and there’s fewer molecules to be under your

wing,” said Lou McNally, professor of applied meteorolo-

gy at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

With less lift, “you need more of everything. You need

more thrust to take off. You need more distance (on the

runway) to take off. You need more distance to land. You

need more speed to land. It gets to a point for some air-

craft that it gets just too much,” he said. High heat also

means a plane climbs at a lower rate, said pilot Patrick

Smith, author of the book “Cockpit Confidential .”

To compensate, planes have to generate more thrust

or power and have larger wings.  Smaller jets that gener-

ate less thrust, like Bombardier’s CRJ regional jets, which

have a 118-degree limit at Phoenix’s elevation, are more

likely to be stuck in the heat. At Dubai International

Airport and other Gulf airports, which are used to hot

weather, many flights - but not all - arrive at night and

early morning to get around the heat problem. Gulf carri-

ers also tend to operate longer flights using larger planes

that aren’t as limited by high heat.

In Phoenix, temperatures around 118 are infrequent

enough that airlines continue to use regional jets for

shorter trips. If a plane does try to take off beyond its tem-

perature threshold, it may keep racing down the runway

and not get up in time and have to abort. And if it tries to

land when the air is too thin and hot, that’s not good

either because it can run out of runway, McNally said.

Before they fly, pilots consult a sheet that tells them

about the temperature, elevation and even humidity -

factors that go into something called density altitude, a

key measurement of flight conditions. Airlines can take

other steps when the temperature climbs too high. — AP

Bolivian glacier samples 

set for global archives

WARSAW: Poland’s lower house of par-

liament, which is controlled by the con-

servatives, yesterday voted to make

medicinal marijuana legal under certain

circumstances. The EU member follows

in the steps of the Czech Republic,

Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal,

Spain, as well as 23 US states and

Uruguay, which in 2013 became the

first country to make cannabis entirely

legal.  Four hundred and forty lawmak-

ers voted in favor-with two against and

one abstention-of legislation to allow

prescription-only cannabis-based medi-

cine to be made at pharmacies using

imported ingredients. The law, which

still needs to be approved by the senate

and the Polish president to come into

force, excludes the recreational use of

cannabis. 

Lawmakers rejected the possibility

to cultivate marijuana for medicinal pur-

poses in Poland, which had been

included in the draft legislation. The bill

was tabled last year by Piotr Marzec-

Liroy, a rapper-turned-politician who at

the time belonged to the Kukiz’15 anti-

establishment movement and is now an

independent. An opinion survey con-

ducted in January found that 78 per-

cent of Poles believe access to marijua-

na should be legal.  Public debate of

medicinal pot usage in Poland intensi-

fied in 2015 after the controversial firing

of a doctor at a Warsaw children’s hos-

pital who had administered marijuana

to his young epileptic patients on an

experimental basis without notifying his

superiors. The debate was then revived

last year by the leftist lawmaker Tomasz

Kalita, who suffered from brain cancer

and later died in January 2017. —AFP 

Poland govt legalizes 

medicinal marijuana

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