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Saturday, December 29, 2018
Claim: Indonesian Mountain Ranges are Responsible for the Current Ice Age
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Government Shutdown’s Latest Victim: a Global Weather Conference
From Bloomberg By Brian K Sullivan December 28, 2018, 1:07 PM EST American Meteorological Society expected 700 U.S. scientists Annual meeting is a clearinghouse for weather research In January, more than 4,000 weather forecasters and researchers from around the world are scheduled to descend upon Phoenix for the American Meteorological Society's annual meeting. That is,…
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Thruway Authority sues maker of wind turbines that don’t work
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W.O.O.D. – 29 December 2018
Weekly Occasional Open Discussion page for 29 December 2018 Continue reading →
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Recently Dropping Global Temperatures Demonstrate IPCC Claims are Impossible
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Tips & Notices – January 2019
A couple of days early, but the December Tips is so full of video links it takes forever to load on my laptop (that swaps to an SD card so very slow). Besides, I don't want to be writing a … Continue reading →
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Weekend Unthreaded
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Trudeau’s carbon tax on gas won’t motivate Canadians to switch to fuel-efficient transportation: Ipsos poll
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Let’s Do Follow The Climate Money!
The climate crisis industry claims 24/7/365 that fossil fuel emissions are causing unprecedented temperature, climate and weather changes that pose existential threats to human civilization and our planet. The only solution, Climate Crisis, Inc. insists, is to eliminate the oil, coal and natural gas that provide 80% of the energy that makes US and global, possible.
Failing that, CCI demands steadily increasing taxes on carbon-based fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.
However, as France's Yellow Vest protests and the latest climate confab in Poland demonstrated, the world does not accept CCI's assertions. Countries worldwide are expanding their fossil fuel use, and families are refusing to reduce their living standards or their aspirations for better lives.
Moreover, climate computer model forecasts are completely out of touch with real-world observations. There is no evidence to support claims that the slight temperature, climate and weather changes we've experienced are dangerous, unprecedented or caused by humans, instead of by the powerful solar, oceanic and other natural forces that have driven similar or far more serious changes throughout history.
More importantly, the CCI "solutions" would cause unprecedented disruption of modern industrialized societies; permanent poverty and disease in poor countries; and serious ecological damage worldwide.
Nothing that is required to harness breezes and sunshine to power civilization is clean, green, renewable, climate-friendly or sustainable. Tens of billions of tons of rock would have to be removed, to extract billions of tons of ores, to create millions of tons of metals, concrete and other materials, to manufacture millions of wind turbines and solar panels, and install them on millions of acres of wildlife habitats - to generate expensive, intermittent energy that would still be grossly insufficient for humanity's needs. Every step in this process requires fossil fuels - and some of the mining involves child labor.
How do CCI alarmists respond to these points? They don't. They refuse to engage in or even permit civil discussion. They rant that anyone "who denies climate change science" is on the fossil fuel industry payroll, thus has a blatant conflict of interest and thus no credibility, and therefore should be ignored.
"Rebuttals" to my recent 'We are still IN" article cited Greenpeace and DeSmogBlog as their "reliable sources" and claimed: I'm "associated with" several "right-wing think tanks that are skeptical of man-made climate change." One of them "received $582,000 from ExxonMobil" over a 14-year period, another got "$5,716,325 from Koch foundations" over 18 years, and the Koch Brothers gave "at least $100,343,292 to 84 groups denying climate change science" in 20 years, my detractors claimed.
These multi-year contributions work out to $41,571 annually; $317,574 per year; and $59,728 per organization per year, respectively - to pay salaries and overhead at think tanks that are engaged in multiple social, tax, education, medical and other issues....not just energy and climate change.
But let's assume for a moment that money - especially funding from anyone with a "special interest" in the outcome of a research project - renders a researcher incapable of analyzing facts fairly and honestly.
Then apply those zero-tolerance, zero-credibility Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-CCI standards to those very same climate alarmists and their allies - who are determined to shut down debate and impose their wind, solar and biofuel policies on the world. Where do they get their money, and how much do they get?
Billionaire and potential presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg gave the Sierra Club $110 million in a six-year period to fund its campaign against coal-generated electricity. Chesapeake Energy gave the Club $26 million in three years to promote natural gas and attack coal. Ten wealthy liberal foundations gave another $51 million over eight years to the Club and other environmentalist groups to battle coal.
Over a 12-year period, the Environmental Protection Agency gave its 15 Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members $180.8 million in grants - and in exchange received quick rubberstamp approvals of various air quality rules. It paid the American Lung Association $20 million to support its regulations.
During the Obama years, the EPA, Interior Department and other federal agencies paid environmental pressure groups tens of millions in collusive, secretive sue-and-settle lawsuit payoffs on dozens of issues.
Then we get to the really big money: taxpayer funds that government agencies hand out to scientists, computer modelers and pressure groups - to promote global warming and climate change alarmism.
As Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore noted recently, citing government and other reports:
* Federal funding for climate change research, technology, international assistance, and adaptation has increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $11.6 billion in 2014, with an additional $26.1 billion for climate change programs and activities provided by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
* The Feds spent an estimated $150 billion on climate change and green energy subsidies during President Obama's first term.
* That didn't include the 30% tax credit/subsidies for wind and solar power: $8 billion to $10 billion a year - plus billions more from state programs that require utilities to buy expensive "green" energy.
* Worldwide, according to the "progressive" Climate Policy Initiative, climate change "investment" in 2013 totaled $359 billion but this "falls far short" of the $5 trillion per year that's actually needed.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change echoes those greedy demands. It says the world must spend $2.4 trillion per year for the next 17 years to subsidize the transition to renewable energy.
Bear in mind that $1.5 trillion per year was already being spent in 2014 on Climate Crisis, Inc. research, consulting, carbon trading and renewable projects, according to the Climate Change Business Journal. With 6-8% annual growth, we're easily looking at a $2-trillion-per-year climate industry by now.
The US Government Accountability Office puts United States taxpayer funding alone at $2.1 billion per year for climate change "science" ... $9.0 billion a year for technology R&D ... and $1.8 billion a year for international assistance. Total US Government spending on climate change totaled $179 billion (!) from 1993 through 2017, according to the GAO. That's $20 million per day!
At the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit, 29 far-left foundations pledged to give $4 billion over five years to their new Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming campaign. Sea Change Foundation co-founder Nat Simons made it clear that this "is only a down payment"!
And I get pilloried for working with organizations that received $41,571 to $59,728 per year from fossil fuel interests ...questioning claims that fossil fuels are causing climate chaos...and raising inconvenient facts about wind, solar and biofuel replacements for coal, oil and natural gas.
Just as outrageous, tens of millions of dollars are squandered every year to finance "studies" that supposedly show "surging greenhouse gases" and "manmade climate change" are creating dangerous hybrid puffer fish, causing salmon to lose their ability to detect danger, making sharks right-handed and unable to hunt, increasing the number of animal bites, and causing US cities to be overrun by rats.
Let's apply the Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-Climate Crisis, Inc. standard to them. Their massive multi-billion-dollar conflicts of interest clearly make them incapable of analyzing climate and energy matters fairly and honestly - and disqualify them from participating in any further discussions about America's and the world's energy and economic future.
At the very least, they and the institutions that have been getting rich and powerful off the catastrophic manmade global warming and climate hustle should be cut off from any future federal funding.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT.org). He has written numerous studies and articles on energy, climate change, human rights and other topics.
The climate crisis industry claims 24/7/365 that fossil fuel emissions are causing unprecedented temperature, climate and weather changes that pose existential threats to human civilization and our planet. The only solution, Climate Crisis, Inc. insists, is to eliminate the oil, coal and natural gas that provide 80% of the energy that makes US and global, possible.
Failing that, CCI demands steadily increasing taxes on carbon-based fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.
However, as France's Yellow Vest protests and the latest climate confab in Poland demonstrated, the world does not accept CCI's assertions. Countries worldwide are expanding their fossil fuel use, and families are refusing to reduce their living standards or their aspirations for better lives.
Moreover, climate computer model forecasts are completely out of touch with real-world observations. There is no evidence to support claims that the slight temperature, climate and weather changes we've experienced are dangerous, unprecedented or caused by humans, instead of by the powerful solar, oceanic and other natural forces that have driven similar or far more serious changes throughout history.
More importantly, the CCI "solutions" would cause unprecedented disruption of modern industrialized societies; permanent poverty and disease in poor countries; and serious ecological damage worldwide.
Nothing that is required to harness breezes and sunshine to power civilization is clean, green, renewable, climate-friendly or sustainable. Tens of billions of tons of rock would have to be removed, to extract billions of tons of ores, to create millions of tons of metals, concrete and other materials, to manufacture millions of wind turbines and solar panels, and install them on millions of acres of wildlife habitats - to generate expensive, intermittent energy that would still be grossly insufficient for humanity's needs. Every step in this process requires fossil fuels - and some of the mining involves child labor.
How do CCI alarmists respond to these points? They don't. They refuse to engage in or even permit civil discussion. They rant that anyone "who denies climate change science" is on the fossil fuel industry payroll, thus has a blatant conflict of interest and thus no credibility, and therefore should be ignored.
"Rebuttals" to my recent 'We are still IN" article cited Greenpeace and DeSmogBlog as their "reliable sources" and claimed: I'm "associated with" several "right-wing think tanks that are skeptical of man-made climate change." One of them "received $582,000 from ExxonMobil" over a 14-year period, another got "$5,716,325 from Koch foundations" over 18 years, and the Koch Brothers gave "at least $100,343,292 to 84 groups denying climate change science" in 20 years, my detractors claimed.
These multi-year contributions work out to $41,571 annually; $317,574 per year; and $59,728 per organization per year, respectively - to pay salaries and overhead at think tanks that are engaged in multiple social, tax, education, medical and other issues....not just energy and climate change.
But let's assume for a moment that money - especially funding from anyone with a "special interest" in the outcome of a research project - renders a researcher incapable of analyzing facts fairly and honestly.
Then apply those zero-tolerance, zero-credibility Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-CCI standards to those very same climate alarmists and their allies - who are determined to shut down debate and impose their wind, solar and biofuel policies on the world. Where do they get their money, and how much do they get?
Billionaire and potential presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg gave the Sierra Club $110 million in a six-year period to fund its campaign against coal-generated electricity. Chesapeake Energy gave the Club $26 million in three years to promote natural gas and attack coal. Ten wealthy liberal foundations gave another $51 million over eight years to the Club and other environmentalist groups to battle coal.
Over a 12-year period, the Environmental Protection Agency gave its 15 Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members $180.8 million in grants - and in exchange received quick rubberstamp approvals of various air quality rules. It paid the American Lung Association $20 million to support its regulations.
During the Obama years, the EPA, Interior Department and other federal agencies paid environmental pressure groups tens of millions in collusive, secretive sue-and-settle lawsuit payoffs on dozens of issues.
Then we get to the really big money: taxpayer funds that government agencies hand out to scientists, computer modelers and pressure groups - to promote global warming and climate change alarmism.
As Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore noted recently, citing government and other reports:
* Federal funding for climate change research, technology, international assistance, and adaptation has increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $11.6 billion in 2014, with an additional $26.1 billion for climate change programs and activities provided by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
* The Feds spent an estimated $150 billion on climate change and green energy subsidies during President Obama's first term.
* That didn't include the 30% tax credit/subsidies for wind and solar power: $8 billion to $10 billion a year - plus billions more from state programs that require utilities to buy expensive "green" energy.
* Worldwide, according to the "progressive" Climate Policy Initiative, climate change "investment" in 2013 totaled $359 billion but this "falls far short" of the $5 trillion per year that's actually needed.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change echoes those greedy demands. It says the world must spend $2.4 trillion per year for the next 17 years to subsidize the transition to renewable energy.
Bear in mind that $1.5 trillion per year was already being spent in 2014 on Climate Crisis, Inc. research, consulting, carbon trading and renewable projects, according to the Climate Change Business Journal. With 6-8% annual growth, we're easily looking at a $2-trillion-per-year climate industry by now.
The US Government Accountability Office puts United States taxpayer funding alone at $2.1 billion per year for climate change "science" ... $9.0 billion a year for technology R&D ... and $1.8 billion a year for international assistance. Total US Government spending on climate change totaled $179 billion (!) from 1993 through 2017, according to the GAO. That's $20 million per day!
At the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit, 29 far-left foundations pledged to give $4 billion over five years to their new Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming campaign. Sea Change Foundation co-founder Nat Simons made it clear that this "is only a down payment"!
And I get pilloried for working with organizations that received $41,571 to $59,728 per year from fossil fuel interests ...questioning claims that fossil fuels are causing climate chaos...and raising inconvenient facts about wind, solar and biofuel replacements for coal, oil and natural gas.
Just as outrageous, tens of millions of dollars are squandered every year to finance "studies" that supposedly show "surging greenhouse gases" and "manmade climate change" are creating dangerous hybrid puffer fish, causing salmon to lose their ability to detect danger, making sharks right-handed and unable to hunt, increasing the number of animal bites, and causing US cities to be overrun by rats.
Let's apply the Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-Climate Crisis, Inc. standard to them. Their massive multi-billion-dollar conflicts of interest clearly make them incapable of analyzing climate and energy matters fairly and honestly - and disqualify them from participating in any further discussions about America's and the world's energy and economic future.
At the very least, they and the institutions that have been getting rich and powerful off the catastrophic manmade global warming and climate hustle should be cut off from any future federal funding.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT.org). He has written numerous studies and articles on energy, climate change, human rights and other topics.
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Bering Ice is Back!
Remarkable growth of ice in Bering Sea has been observed over the last three weeks as shown above. The extent went from 57k km2 to 424k km2 during that period, and is presently 94% of the maximum Bering ice extent in March 2018. To put this event in context, note that Bering 2018 maximum was low and pulled down the overall Arctic extent in March. For example, 2017 Bering maximum was 725k km2 compared to 2018 max of 451k km2, or a difference of 48%. We will be watching to see how much will be added in the coming 3 months.
Note also that Chukchi north of Bering completed freezing over on day 352, December 18, 2018. We can also see that Okhotsk on the left was freezing at the same rate as Bering, but added no new ice in the last week.
The Bering ice recovery coincides with the demise of the North Pacific "Cold Blob" as reported by Cliff Mass on Dec. 24 Sad News: No More BLOB Excerpts in italics with my bolds.
Starting the autumn, the BLOB was relatively weak. To illustrate, here is the sea surface temperature anomaly (difference from normal) for the end of October–as much as 2-3C warmer than normal! This was associated with an area of persistent high pressure over the northeast Pacific.
But compare that situation to two days ago. The BLOB is essentially gone, with an area of cooler than normal water developing. Only immediately along the coast is the water temperature slightly above normal.
What killed the BLOB? Persistent storminess over the northeast Pacific, something that is no surprise to the storm-battered residents of the Pacific Northwest.
Outlook from Dr. Judah Cohen Dec. 24, 2018 at Arctic Oscillation and Polar Vortex Analysis and Forecasts
In conclusion there is still much uncertainty with the predicted PV disruption and the longer it takes for the PV disruption to unfold the longer it will take for any impacts to reach the surface. And I would argue it makes very important differences on the sensible weather whether the PV splits, and if it splits the duration and the location of the sister vortices. But a robust PV split increases the likelihood of severe winter weather in the near term and more so long term for both the Eastern US and Europe. Also expect ongoing model forecast volatility until the circulation anomalies associated with the PV disruption reaches the tropopause as we argue in my most recent paper Cohen et al. 2018.
One last thing that I feel may play an important role on the NH circulation are sea ice anomalies. For months I have been anticipating that the greatest sea ice anomalies this winter will be in the Barents-Kara Seas. That is quite apparent in today's Figure 15. Typically blocking is focused across Greenland following a PV disruption. But abundant sea ice near Greenland and the lack of sea ice in the Barents-Kara Seas may help focus future high latitude blocking closer to Europe this winter. Strong Scandinavian/Barents-Kara Seas blocking may favor an eastward shift of the cold air across Europe. Cold air may drain into Eastern Europe but be blocked from Western Europe.
Finally, today from nullschool we can see the North Pacific twin gyres at work:
Summary
Several Alaskan kids are in the group suing the US government over fears of Arctic warming. It's looking like they may get relief from nature before it can come from the courts.
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Miami’s affluent ‘climate refugees’ seek higher ground
All the climate propaganda is getting to some people it seems. In this case they're not taking any chances – the 'hills' they are heading for turn out to be in 'some parts as much as 11 feet (3.35 meters) above sea level'. At least they should have a commanding view of the coast. 
Climate change is prompting Miami's rich to abandon the oceanfront and head for the hills, says DW.com.
That's bad news for the people of Little Haiti, a ridge-top immigrant community suddenly sitting on hot property.
Climate refugees aren't usually spotted driving a Bentley through a low-income neighborhood, searching for a new place to call home. But in Miami, one of the most energetic real estate markets in the United States, property prices on the oceanfront are no longer the city's main draw.
Instead, the area attracting the most attention is on the ridge where the city's original settlers built the railroad — the most elevated land in Miami.
A recent Harvard University study tracked the property values of more than 100,000 single-family homes across Miami going back to the early 1970s. It showed that values of homes along Miami's coastline have been dropping, while those at higher elevations are increasing.
Flooding is becoming more and more frequent in Miami, with so-called king tides — a non-scientific term used to describe unusually high tides — affecting some of the city's most desirable locations.
Sea levels are predicted to rise by 13-34 inches (33-86 centimeters) over the next 40 years.
Heading for the hills
Some wealthy residents have reacted by looking to higher ground, in a trend that's being called "climate gentrification." And it's putting growing pressure on residents in neighborhoods like Little Haiti, where property developers are offering buyouts and landlords are raising rents.
"The neighborhoods that currently are being gentrified are in higher areas, occupied predominately by people of color," said Yoca Arditi-Rocha, executive director of the CLEO Institute, a non-profit dedicated to climate change education and advocacy for vulnerable communities.
Continued here.
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Wind farm turbines wear sooner than expected, says study
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Green Party Leader Tells National Audience: “Average German Emits 9 BILLION Tonnes Of CO2 Annually!
German Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock appeared on German talk show Maybritt Illner (30:59 mark ) on December 13, 2018, where she confidently told before a national audience that the average German citizen emitted "9 BILLION tonnes of CO2 annually".
German Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock claims average German citizen emits 9 billion tonnes of CO2 annually. Screenshot: Maybrit Illner, ZDF German public television.
Hat-tip: Die kalte Sonne.
That figure of course sounded quite scary. But there's only one problem: Baerbock was just a little off, by a factor of 1 billion! The average German citizen of course emits only 9 tonnes per year.
Just as scary is that no one from the "expert round" was well enough informed to call her out on her glaring exaggeration. Now if there had been someone included in the round who actually knew what he/she was talking about, like a real skeptic, she would have been promptly corrected. So now almost every person in Germany believes he/she emits 9 billion tonnes of CO2 annually, and that the citizens of Fergus Falls, Minnesota watch American Sniper everyday. German media has yet to reach a new low point.
Majored in political science, public administration
In the talk show, Baerbock tries to act like an expert on energy and as if she holds engineering qualifications to tell us what Germany needs in terms of energy supply and what works. Her qualifications: She studied political science and public law at the University of Hamburg and got a Masters degree in public international law.
No balance, alarmism gets a free pass
Like most talk shows concerning energy and climate in Germany, the spectrum of views presented is always unbalanced and restricted. The talk show in question above included "energy experts":
- Stefan Rahmstorf, alarmist climate scientist
- Annalena Baerbock, Green Party leader
- Philipp Schröder, Tesla manager
- Christian Lindner, leader of the Free Democrats
- Peter Altmaier, economics minister, CDU Party
- Matthias Dürbaum, trade union representative, Hambach Coal Min
That's right, a union coal miner was the best German public television could do to represent the skeptic side.
Half of the round are made up of strident climate activists, one third (Altmaier and Lindner) are non-fanatic green energy supporters, and only one, the union man is a supporter of coal. Real, articulate skeptics are never invited to these rounds. So it's little surprise that Germans are so ill-informed and believe such things such as 2 meters of sea level rise by 2100, that one person emits billions of tonnes into the atmosphere annually and rural Americans watch American Sniper every day.
No wonder Germany's Energiewende is such a mess, and risks getting a lot messier. One silly lot of boneheads has a free hand at running the country.
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Long Defunct US Climate Agency Scientist Bids for a Comeback
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How Many Geniuses Are There?
This post originally appeared 15 September 2008.
Here is a question I often give on exams:
What is the probability that the next child to be born will be a genius? Give me a number and fully explain your answer.
There is not, of course, a single correct answer. What I just said is an important point, so let's not skip lightly over it: there is no correct answer; at least, there is no way anybody can know the correct answer.
That nobody can know with certainty answers to questions of this type is under appreciated. I want people to learn this because we are, as I often say, too sure of ourselves.
What I want to see in the answer is acknowledgment of the ambiguities. First, what is a genius? Surely that word is overused to a remarkable extent. For example, this list says, with a straight face, authoress JK Rowling and movie maker Stephen Spielberg are geniuses. I often have the idea that to not call some eminence a genius is nowadays taken as a slight. However, a moments' thought suffices to show that people exaggerate—if you are willing to take that moment.
The next step is to think of some geniuses for the sake of comparison. It's best to think of dead ones so that you are not overly influenced by current events. After all, only history can truly judge genius. If you agree with even part of this, you will have made the next most important step: admitting that you can be biased.
How about some dead geniuses? Einstein pops into nearly everybody's head first. Then, for me, Mozart, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Newton, and the guy who invented beer. No, I'm not joking about that last name. The point is my historical knowledge is modest, and most of the names I pick are men from the last 500 years, and most are from Western culture. Humanity is older than 500, of course, and there are other cultures besides our own, so I know that my knowledge of who is a genius is limited. That's what got me to thinking about the brilliant soul who invented beer. He did so, probably in Sumer, before people wrote down incredible deeds of this sort.
This line of thought eventually leads to other cultures (Confucius, maybe Lao Tzu) and other times where writing was non-existent (was there just one person responsible for the wheel and agriculture?). There must be a lot of geniuses I don't know, and some that nobody can ever know.
Next step is to count, and to acknowledge that exact counting is an impossibility. Still, we can count to the nearest order of magnitude. This means "power of 10", and it represents an enormously popular method of approximation. If you can get your answer to within "an order of magnitude" (a power of 10), you are doing good. The first power of 10, or 101, is just 10. The second power is 102=100, and so on.
So how many geniuses? Certainly more than 10, definitely less than 10,000, or the 5th order of magnitude. Could there have been a 100 geniuses? Given my above list, I say yes. 1000? I'm less likely to believe this number, but since I have said that there were lots of geniuses who went unsung, I can't exclude it. Still, an order of magnitude more than this seems too large.
We have done a lot so far, but we still haven't answered the question "What is the probability that the next child to be born will be a genius?" The answer will look something like # of geniuses who have ever lived / # of people who ever lived. Coming to this equation is crucial. This is because the question implies—I emphasize, it does not explicitly state—we are asking a question about all humanity. And all humanity certainly means all humans who have ever lived.
Thus far, we have nailed down the numerator in this equation to the nearest order of magnitude or so (102 to 103). How about the denominator?
What evidence do we have? Well, there about about, to an order of magnitude, 1010 or 10 billion people alive today. 100 years from now, nearly of these people will be dead and a new set, probably the same order of magnitude will take its place. Anyway, 100 billion people alive 100 years from now feels way too large to me, and 1 billion way too small, especially given recent population trends.
100 years ago, there were about an order of magnitude less people alive (nearly all of them different from the set we have today), or about 109 or 1 billion. How many 100s of years can we go back? About 2000, since the best guess is humanity arose about 200,000 years ago. That's close enough; it's within an order of magnitude. Without doing any math—just going by gut—we can guess that adding today's 1010 to last century's 109 (11 billion so far), and to the previous 199 centurys' diminishing contributions (each previous century had fewer people), we arrive at about 1011, or 100 billion.
Was that larger than you had first guessed? This number usually surprises most people. But having a guess gives us our denominator as that we can finally solve our equation, which is
102
—— = 10-9
1011
of, if there were 103 geniuses, 10-8. In words, it's anywhere from 1 in a billion to 1 in 100 million.
Not very good odds, right?
This was a lot of thinking for such a simple question, wasn't it? If you would have written down, as student's often do, an answer "1 in a 100" or "1 in 1000" you would have got the answer wrong. Both answers imply that we should be flooded with geniuses, an answer which no observation supports.
Of oft-heard complaint among professors is that students don't think about the answers they give. I agree with this, but I think it's more than just students. It holds for professors and ordinary civilians, too.
"1 in a 100" is absurd, and far too certain. Just a few moment's thought shows this. How many answers that we give in life are just as absurd?
Some kids will write, "I don't know." I usually give them 1 point for this because, after all, it is the strictly correct answer. But that answer is too certain itself. We do know something about the answer and we can answer it partially. We should always quantify uncertainty in any question and not seek the easy way out by given answers that are too certain.
Here, for fun, is another question I give:
How many umbrellas are there in New York City?
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Alan Carlin: The staggering costs of decreasing CO2 emissions
People are being sold an unachievable, impossible fantasy of fuel-free energy with massive and ever-rising costs, that can never work anyway.
Climate extremists, like other hucksters, usually emphasize how their favored policies (decarbonization in this case) will avoid various alleged disasters, which never seem to happen except in the distant future, says Alan Carlin.
Rarely do they explain what these efforts will cost.
Rather, the true believers always claim that the costs are small, even though they actually are not.
The costs include (1) higher prices for usable energy, (2) lower reliability of energy supply, and (3) reduced plant growth compared to what there otherwise would be.
Higher energy prices are the most easily measured and understood of these costs, and were the basis for the recent Yellow Vest riots in France.
Continued here.
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Atypical Asphysia
http://www.jfsmonline.com/article.asp?issn=2349-5014;year=2018;volume=4;issue=4;spage=233;epage=237;aulast=Cao
Death caused by compression of the neck, such as from hanging, strangling, or throttling, is termed "mechanical asphyxia" and usually has obvious physical findings. However, asphyxias that result from no direct pressure on the neck vessels or trachea, lack typical morphological changes, or result in minimal damage are called "subtle asphyxias"[1] or "atypical mechanical asphyxias," used in this article. Atypical mechanical asphyxias include smothering, choking, environmental hypoxia, traumatic asphyxia, and positional asphyxia, among others.
Smothering is a form of asphyxia death caused by obstructing the mouth and nose with hands, airtight papers, soft textiles, or the weight of one's own head.[2]
Smothering can be seen in homicidal or suicidal cases. Homicidal smothering is common in infants, older adults, and people who are unconscious or have restricted motion due to fabric bundling, disease, poisoning, or intoxication. Homicidal smothering can also result when there are significant physical power differences between a perpetrator and victim.[3],[4],[5] Suicidal smothering is common in psychiatric patients; an example includes wrapping tape around one's mouth, nose, or the entire face.[6] Smothering can also occur accidentally. For example, adults who are unconscious or paralyzed because of drunkenness, epilepsy, drug overdose, or having another disease might accidentally asphyxiate themselves. Similarly, for an infant lying face down on an airtight mattress or pillow, the weight of the infant's head might obstruct, distort, and occlude his or her mouth and nose, leading to suffocation. In a third example, sleeping infants with clothes or bedding covering their faces are at an increased risk of suffocation.[1],[2]
In general, it is difficult to identify a case of smothering during forensic scene examination because physical findings are nonspecific.[7],[8] If smothering is suspected, there may be local signs of pressure on the face.[2],[3] In adults, with even slight resistance, signs include skin exfoliation from fingernails; contusions on the nose, cheeks, or chin from fingers; bleeding and skin tears corresponding to the teeth in the oral mucosa; and intramuscular bleeding at the mandibular margin. Nasal deformation is also considered a sign of smothering, but can be caused by emergency tracheal intubation.[3],[5],[7] In infants and adults who are unable to physically resist during asphyxiation, physical damage is difficult to detect.[3] Of note, a body in the prone position concentrates pressure on the face, preventing accumulation of blood into the compressed skin around the mouth and nose, leading to the formation of distinct pale areas caused by the absence of pooled blood. It is, therefore, important not to assume that pale areas such as these have resulted from indentation by smothering.[2]
Without positive physical findings in smothering cases, scene investigation plays a decisive role. Pillows and bedding should be examined for blood or lipstick.[5],[9] For suspected cases of smothering, even if postmortem changes are obvious, suspicious skin lesions should be biopsied for histological examination.[5] In cases of smothering by textiles, the mouth, nasal cavity, and airways should be examined for inhaled fabric fibers. Fibers in the trachea indicate that a patient may have been alive during smothering.[8]
Gagging generally involves placing fabric in a victim's mouth to prevent yelling; the fabric gradually becomes soaked with saliva, and if airtight, will lead to suffocation. Another form of gagging involves placing tape over the mouth or nose, which results in trapped mucus production that eventually leads to suffocation. Obstruction of the nasopharynx by objects in the oral cavity may also lead to gagging and subsequent death.[2] Usually, suspected gagging is confirmed when blocking objects are found, not by any specific physical signs of asphyxia.[3]
Choking refers to upper respiratory tract blockage by a foreign body leading to suffocation. The foreign body is usually lodged between the larynx and trachea.[10],[11] Death may result from simple hypoxia; however, many deaths occur quickly before the onset of hypoxia. Studies have found that, even in cases in which the airway is not completely blocked, death often occurs, likely from neurogenic-induced cardiac arrest.[2],[9],[11],[12]
Choking is almost always accidental, with cases of homicide and suicide relatively rare.[1],[11] For infants, accidental choking most often occurs with foreign body ingestion; for adults, choking most often occurs with food.[1],[11] Victims in homicidal choking cases are most likely to be older adults, infants, young children, people who are unconscious, or persons debilitated by illness or intoxication. Suicidal choking most often occurs in patients with psychosis or prisoners in jail.[1]
Evidence of coughing helps eliminate choking as a cause of death because it signifies that the respiratory tract was open during upper respiratory blockage.[3] Computed tomography imaging can provide information before an autopsy on the location of a foreign body and can help inform an autopsy plan.[13] Few physical findings are generally seen in choking deaths, so the discovery of a foreign body in the airway, a detailed clinical history, descriptions of the death environment and any resuscitation attempts, and exclusion of other causes of death are critical when forming a conclusion.[1],[9],[11],[12] If the foreign body shifts during resuscitation or otherwise is moved, clinical history might be the only evidence.[3],[13]
Foreign bodies blocking the airway leading to choking generally belong to the following categories.[2]
Foreign objects
Attackers may put a towel or sock into the victim's mouth to prevent shouting; this can cause choking and gagging.[3] In another example, people may inhale sand, piles of gravel, or piles of soil when they fall on them, causing respiratory blockage and resulting in choking death. This scenario may occur accidentally at a construction site, during a traffic accident, or in children playing in or eating sand.[3],[14]
Acute obstruction
Acute allergy, steam stimulation, heat inhalation, and acute inflammation may cause swelling of the throat organs, including the epiglottis, tonsils, or glottis, leading to choking. Trauma in the anterior or lateral cervical neck structures can also result in severe swelling of the respiratory tract from bleeding and edema.[1],[2],[7] Tumors, polyps, or cysts can also block respiration, leading to choking.[1],[10],[11]
Foods
The most common foreign bodies causing choking death in adults are foods.[10] Susceptible factors include old age, neuromuscular disease, poor dentition leading to chewing problems, consumption of alcohol or other central nervous system depressants weakening the gag reflex, or other neurological or mental illness (of which poor dentition is an important risk factor).[1],[11],[12],[13] Of patients with mental illness, those with schizophrenia are most likely to choke on food, possibly from a propensity to swallow incompletely chewed food.[11] The majority of adult choking cases occur at patients' homes, nursing homes, or mental hospitals, and often take place suddenly during meals.[1]
When a sudden death occurs while eating or soon after, the possibility of choking must be considered. A search for a blocked airway should be initiated, but in addition, the investigator should also consider factors that could have aggravated the choking episode. Therefore, quality and number of teeth, food debris in the esophagus – which can cause tracheal obstruction from the external oppression – and exclusion of neurological diseases and intoxication are all important when evaluating sudden death during a meal.[1],[9],[11],[12]
It is typical for gastric contents to be present in the throat, trachea, and bronchi after death, caused by reflux or shifting of contents. This is a common postmortem phenomenon, found in 20%–25% of routine examinations. As a result, if a small amount of gastric content is found in the respiratory tract, this does not mean that choking had occurred; however, if the throat or airway is completely blocked by gastric contents, choking can be concluded.[2],[3],[13] The inhalation of gastric contents is more common in people who are unconscious.[1]Importantly, there is no reliable way to distinguish natural food reflux early in the dying process from true inhalation while alive, unless the inhalation occurred during a clinical procedure or another person witnessed the event. In most cases, in the absence of hard evidence, it is unreasonable for forensic officers to conclude that the inhalation of gastric contents is secondary to choking death.[2]
Environmental asphyxiation is usually caused by a lack of oxygen in the local environment,[1],[2],[3] and is almost always accidental. Oxygen deficiency can occur secondary to breathing exercises, microbial consumption, activities related to industrial work (such as welding), environmental chemical reactions (such as rust), absorption by chemical substances (such as activated carbon), and presence of toxic gases (such as propane, nitrogen, and methane).[1],[2],[3] An atmospheric oxygen concentration below 5%–10% will cause death in a few minutes, and a concentration of carbon dioxide higher than 10% is lethal.[1] In some cases, death occurs before the onset of hypoxia, and is secondary to overexcitement of the body's chemical sensing system, which causes parasympathetic nervous system-mediated cardiac arrest.[2]
In hypoxia-asphyxia deaths caused by low atmospheric oxygen levels, physical findings are usually absent,[2] making elucidation of the specific cause of death difficult. Investigators must carefully analyze the environment and exclude other causes of death to conclude environmental hypoxia-asphyxia.[3] Measurements of toxic gases and oxygen concentrations in the air, as well as postmortem analysis of blood and tissues, should be performed; in addition, scene simulations may be required.[1]
As a type of environmental hypoxia-asphyxia, plastic bag suffocation is often used as a suicide technique in Western countries. This method is common in young men and elderly women.[15] Some people even use the propane, ether, or helium gas along with the plastic bag. Plastic bag suffocation deaths can also occur accidentally or unexpectedly, such as during sexual asphyxia, children playing with plastic bags, and other occurrences.[1] It is very rare for the use of plastic bags to result in death; however, it is more likely in cases in which the victim is unconscious, or when there is a large difference in strength between the perpetrator and victim.[16]
Plastic bag suffocation often occurs rapidly with few physical signs;[1],[2] however, in a small number of cases, marks on the neck are present corresponding to the areas of bag bundling (such as from a rubber band), or there may be signs of prior injury, such as wrist cutting or abuse.[1],[2] It is a common misconception that the postmortem presence of moisture in the plastic bag confirms that the bag was placed on a breathing human; water droplets form as gas evaporates from the skin, nose, and mouth even if the person was previously deceased.[2]
Because there are usually no specific physical findings, it is difficult to identify cases of plastic bag suffocation unless the bag is over the head at the time of scene investigation or autopsy.[2] If the plastic bag is removed before forensic workers see the corpse, they will not be able to determine the cause of death through forensic examination, and may even conclude that a natural death occurred. Therefore, to identify such cases, forensic workers must pay careful attention during scene exploration and investigation.[1],[3],[9],[16] If necessary, forensic workers can conduct simulations under close monitoring in a protected environment, which can help to pinpoint a cause of death through analysis of time measurements.[4],[6],[17] Specimens collected from the blood, lungs, liver, or other organs for poison analysis should be extracted and stored in a sealed empty bottle along with a plastic bag,[2],[7],[16] frozen, and delivered promptly.[1]
Traumatic asphyxia refers to the compression of the chest or abdomen by massive mechanical forces resulting in thoracic fixation – expansion of thoracic and lower phrenic muscles – leading to respiratory disturbance and death by asphyxiation.[2]
Traumatic asphyxia is common in the following types of accidents: motor vehicle compression or extrusion during traffic accidents; pinning from building collapse, falling rocks, or other objects; trampling by a crowd; compression while standing in a crowded population from sudden external forces; compression by fallen tools or furniture; and compression of infants and children while sleeping with parents (overlaying asphyxia).[1],[2],[18] There are also reports of homicide resulting from a perpetrator kneeling or sitting on the chest of a victim.[19]
The pathological features of traumatic asphyxia are usually quite specific. These include prominent facial and nuchal hyperemia and swelling; numerous petechial hemorrhages on the face or conjunctiva; subconjunctival hemorrhage and edema; and nasal bleeding. In general, a person who dies from traumatic asphyxiation often appears strangled with features extending down to the neck, with no signs of local damage.[2],[20],[21]
However, physical features such as these are not always visible. Studies have shown that, in up to 10% of cases, no petechial hemorrhages are seen on the face or conjunctiva. The reason for this is unclear, but may be related to rapidness of death, lack of obvious chest compression or vagus nerve stimulation, lack of occlusion of the epiglottis, or concurrence of both left heart and right heart impairment at the time of chest compression.[1],[18],[20],[21] On gross examination, lungs may have a purplish red color, congestion, or subserous bleeding with or without obvious expansion of the right heart or superior vena cava; sometimes, there is no evidence of trauma despite severe direct external compression on the chest and abdomen.[1],[2],[3],[9]
Traumatic asphyxia is a diagnosis of exclusion. In addition to supporting evidence from a scene investigation, suffocation death should only be considered after excluding fatal injuries and poisoning.[1],[9],[21]
Overlaying asphyxia is a special form of traumatic asphyxia, often secondary to nasal compression. Physical examination findings are usually absent, so overlaying can be difficult to determine unless the same-bed sleeper admits to crushing the infant or child. Overlaying asphyxia is sometimes attributed to sudden infant death syndrome, so it is important to examine adults' and children's clothes and bedding carefully as well as the scene.[1],[3],[22]
Positional asphyxia refers occurrences in which respiration is compromised from splinting of the chest or diaphragm preventing normal respiration, or occlusion of the upper airway due to abnormal positioning of the body.[23] Positional asphyxia is almost always an accident, during which the victim cannot extract himself or herself from a specific position or small space. The victim may be further impaired by alcohol or drug intoxication, weakness, neurological disease, or fabric bundling. Common examples of positional asphyxia include limbs tied behind the back while in a prone position (may be performed for restraint by police or psychiatrists for suspects or patients); head-down position (inversion of the body, or head hanging down off the edge of a bathtub); jack-knife position (upper body significantly curved from the waist down); bundled thoracic or abdominal horizontal sling (e.g., a young girl wearing a belt hanging by the abdomen on a swing); excessive flexion or extension of the neck (e.g., during a motor vehicle accident); lack of chest wall expansion in a restricted space (wedging); and a person sandwiched between the wall and the mattress after falling off the bed.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[24] A typical case of postural asphyxia involves a drunken person who collapses into a narrow space, excessively distorting the neck and hindering breathing, leading to death.[9]
Cause of death from positional asphyxia often results from reverse suspension of the body such that the movement of the chest wall is restricted by intra-abdominal organs compressing the diaphragm. This prolongs inspiration, and eventually results in respiratory muscle fatigue, leading to slowed movement of the chest wall and subsequent hypoxia. Venous return is effectively limited, and blood flow to the brain is shifted, decreasing blood flow and further aggravating respiratory muscle fatigue; eventually, the heart stops.[1] Positional asphyxia does not require reversal of the entire body; fatal asphyxia may result from the reversal of torso position, excessive flexion of the neck, or pressure on one's face, such as in an intoxicated person whose face is pressed to the floor.[25] The difference between traumatic asphyxia and positional asphyxia is whether the chest and abdomen are compressed by external forces. If chest compression is from an external source, he or she should have been died from traumatic asphyxia. If a deceased person is found in a specific position or restricted space that limits chest activity, the person should have been died from positional asphyxia.[1],[23]
Positional asphyxia can be identified by the following criteria: The body position is consistent with restricted or disordered respiration; scene investigation or historical investigation identifies that an accident had occurred; the deceased person cannot change his or her position for some reason; and other obvious natural or violent causes of death are excluded. A diagnosis of accidental positional asphyxia mainly depends on the evidence obtained from the scene environment.[24],[25] Some forensic investigators believe that, if another disease is present, then either the cause of death is not associated with positional asphyxia, or the onset of the disease makes the deceased patient prone to positional asphyxia.[23] It should be noted that alcohol consumed by a patient with positional asphyxia may be metabolized. Thus, even if the concentration of alcohol in the blood or urine is very low or negative, the possibility of positional asphyxia cannot be ignored.[24]
Wedging is a special form of positional asphyxia, commonly seen in infants and young children whose body or head are compressed in a narrow space. The chest wall is fixed, resulting in airway obstruction that results in asphyxia. Wedging usually occurs between a mattress and wall or mattress and furniture or baby crib. It is most common in infants aged 3–6 months, intoxicated adults, or comatose patients who accidentally fall between a mattress and wall, leading to death. Physical findings of wedging are usually absent.[1],[22]
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the Open Project of Key Laboratory of Forensic Genetics, Ministry of Public Security (2017FGKFKT05), Program for Young Innovative Research Team from China University of Political Science and Law (2016CXTD05), and Project of Interdisciplinary Science Construction-Forensic Psychology from China University of Political Science and Law.
Forensic investigation of atypical asphysia
Zhe Cao1, Zhiyuan An2, Xiaoning Hou1, Dong Zhao3
1 Anshan Public Security Bureau, Anshan, China
2 Key Laboratory of Evidence Science (China University of Political Science and Law), Ministry of Education, China, Collaborative Innovation Center of Judicial Civilization, China
3 Key Laboratory of Evidence Science (China University of Political Science and Law), Ministry of Education, China, Collaborative Innovation Center of Judicial Civilization; Key Laboratory of Forensic Genetics of Ministry of Public Security, Institute of Forensic Science, Ministry of Public Security, Beijing, China
Correspondence Address:
Dr. Dong Zhao
25 Xitucheng Road, Haidian, Beijing 100088
China
| Abstract |
Smothering, choking, confined spaces, traumatic asphyxia, positional asphyxia, and other kinds of atypical mechanical asphyxia are not rare in forensic practice. However, these are not commonly well demonstrated in forensic monographs worldwide. The authors researched related works and literatures and summarized these with a view to contribute to the existing teaching resources and provide help to forensic practitioners who are involved in scene investigation and identification of such deaths.
Keywords: Asphyxia, forensic pathology, forensic medicine
| Introduction |  |
Death caused by compression of the neck, such as from hanging, strangling, or throttling, is termed "mechanical asphyxia" and usually has obvious physical findings. However, asphyxias that result from no direct pressure on the neck vessels or trachea, lack typical morphological changes, or result in minimal damage are called "subtle asphyxias"[1] or "atypical mechanical asphyxias," used in this article. Atypical mechanical asphyxias include smothering, choking, environmental hypoxia, traumatic asphyxia, and positional asphyxia, among others.
| Smothering | |
Smothering is a form of asphyxia death caused by obstructing the mouth and nose with hands, airtight papers, soft textiles, or the weight of one's own head.[2]
Smothering can be seen in homicidal or suicidal cases. Homicidal smothering is common in infants, older adults, and people who are unconscious or have restricted motion due to fabric bundling, disease, poisoning, or intoxication. Homicidal smothering can also result when there are significant physical power differences between a perpetrator and victim.[3],[4],[5] Suicidal smothering is common in psychiatric patients; an example includes wrapping tape around one's mouth, nose, or the entire face.[6] Smothering can also occur accidentally. For example, adults who are unconscious or paralyzed because of drunkenness, epilepsy, drug overdose, or having another disease might accidentally asphyxiate themselves. Similarly, for an infant lying face down on an airtight mattress or pillow, the weight of the infant's head might obstruct, distort, and occlude his or her mouth and nose, leading to suffocation. In a third example, sleeping infants with clothes or bedding covering their faces are at an increased risk of suffocation.[1],[2]
In general, it is difficult to identify a case of smothering during forensic scene examination because physical findings are nonspecific.[7],[8] If smothering is suspected, there may be local signs of pressure on the face.[2],[3] In adults, with even slight resistance, signs include skin exfoliation from fingernails; contusions on the nose, cheeks, or chin from fingers; bleeding and skin tears corresponding to the teeth in the oral mucosa; and intramuscular bleeding at the mandibular margin. Nasal deformation is also considered a sign of smothering, but can be caused by emergency tracheal intubation.[3],[5],[7] In infants and adults who are unable to physically resist during asphyxiation, physical damage is difficult to detect.[3] Of note, a body in the prone position concentrates pressure on the face, preventing accumulation of blood into the compressed skin around the mouth and nose, leading to the formation of distinct pale areas caused by the absence of pooled blood. It is, therefore, important not to assume that pale areas such as these have resulted from indentation by smothering.[2]
Without positive physical findings in smothering cases, scene investigation plays a decisive role. Pillows and bedding should be examined for blood or lipstick.[5],[9] For suspected cases of smothering, even if postmortem changes are obvious, suspicious skin lesions should be biopsied for histological examination.[5] In cases of smothering by textiles, the mouth, nasal cavity, and airways should be examined for inhaled fabric fibers. Fibers in the trachea indicate that a patient may have been alive during smothering.[8]
Gagging generally involves placing fabric in a victim's mouth to prevent yelling; the fabric gradually becomes soaked with saliva, and if airtight, will lead to suffocation. Another form of gagging involves placing tape over the mouth or nose, which results in trapped mucus production that eventually leads to suffocation. Obstruction of the nasopharynx by objects in the oral cavity may also lead to gagging and subsequent death.[2] Usually, suspected gagging is confirmed when blocking objects are found, not by any specific physical signs of asphyxia.[3]
| Choking | |
Choking refers to upper respiratory tract blockage by a foreign body leading to suffocation. The foreign body is usually lodged between the larynx and trachea.[10],[11] Death may result from simple hypoxia; however, many deaths occur quickly before the onset of hypoxia. Studies have found that, even in cases in which the airway is not completely blocked, death often occurs, likely from neurogenic-induced cardiac arrest.[2],[9],[11],[12]
Choking is almost always accidental, with cases of homicide and suicide relatively rare.[1],[11] For infants, accidental choking most often occurs with foreign body ingestion; for adults, choking most often occurs with food.[1],[11] Victims in homicidal choking cases are most likely to be older adults, infants, young children, people who are unconscious, or persons debilitated by illness or intoxication. Suicidal choking most often occurs in patients with psychosis or prisoners in jail.[1]
Evidence of coughing helps eliminate choking as a cause of death because it signifies that the respiratory tract was open during upper respiratory blockage.[3] Computed tomography imaging can provide information before an autopsy on the location of a foreign body and can help inform an autopsy plan.[13] Few physical findings are generally seen in choking deaths, so the discovery of a foreign body in the airway, a detailed clinical history, descriptions of the death environment and any resuscitation attempts, and exclusion of other causes of death are critical when forming a conclusion.[1],[9],[11],[12] If the foreign body shifts during resuscitation or otherwise is moved, clinical history might be the only evidence.[3],[13]
Foreign bodies blocking the airway leading to choking generally belong to the following categories.[2]
Foreign objects
Attackers may put a towel or sock into the victim's mouth to prevent shouting; this can cause choking and gagging.[3] In another example, people may inhale sand, piles of gravel, or piles of soil when they fall on them, causing respiratory blockage and resulting in choking death. This scenario may occur accidentally at a construction site, during a traffic accident, or in children playing in or eating sand.[3],[14]
Acute obstruction
Acute allergy, steam stimulation, heat inhalation, and acute inflammation may cause swelling of the throat organs, including the epiglottis, tonsils, or glottis, leading to choking. Trauma in the anterior or lateral cervical neck structures can also result in severe swelling of the respiratory tract from bleeding and edema.[1],[2],[7] Tumors, polyps, or cysts can also block respiration, leading to choking.[1],[10],[11]
Foods
The most common foreign bodies causing choking death in adults are foods.[10] Susceptible factors include old age, neuromuscular disease, poor dentition leading to chewing problems, consumption of alcohol or other central nervous system depressants weakening the gag reflex, or other neurological or mental illness (of which poor dentition is an important risk factor).[1],[11],[12],[13] Of patients with mental illness, those with schizophrenia are most likely to choke on food, possibly from a propensity to swallow incompletely chewed food.[11] The majority of adult choking cases occur at patients' homes, nursing homes, or mental hospitals, and often take place suddenly during meals.[1]
When a sudden death occurs while eating or soon after, the possibility of choking must be considered. A search for a blocked airway should be initiated, but in addition, the investigator should also consider factors that could have aggravated the choking episode. Therefore, quality and number of teeth, food debris in the esophagus – which can cause tracheal obstruction from the external oppression – and exclusion of neurological diseases and intoxication are all important when evaluating sudden death during a meal.[1],[9],[11],[12]
It is typical for gastric contents to be present in the throat, trachea, and bronchi after death, caused by reflux or shifting of contents. This is a common postmortem phenomenon, found in 20%–25% of routine examinations. As a result, if a small amount of gastric content is found in the respiratory tract, this does not mean that choking had occurred; however, if the throat or airway is completely blocked by gastric contents, choking can be concluded.[2],[3],[13] The inhalation of gastric contents is more common in people who are unconscious.[1]Importantly, there is no reliable way to distinguish natural food reflux early in the dying process from true inhalation while alive, unless the inhalation occurred during a clinical procedure or another person witnessed the event. In most cases, in the absence of hard evidence, it is unreasonable for forensic officers to conclude that the inhalation of gastric contents is secondary to choking death.[2]
| Environmental Hypoxia | |
Environmental asphyxiation is usually caused by a lack of oxygen in the local environment,[1],[2],[3] and is almost always accidental. Oxygen deficiency can occur secondary to breathing exercises, microbial consumption, activities related to industrial work (such as welding), environmental chemical reactions (such as rust), absorption by chemical substances (such as activated carbon), and presence of toxic gases (such as propane, nitrogen, and methane).[1],[2],[3] An atmospheric oxygen concentration below 5%–10% will cause death in a few minutes, and a concentration of carbon dioxide higher than 10% is lethal.[1] In some cases, death occurs before the onset of hypoxia, and is secondary to overexcitement of the body's chemical sensing system, which causes parasympathetic nervous system-mediated cardiac arrest.[2]
In hypoxia-asphyxia deaths caused by low atmospheric oxygen levels, physical findings are usually absent,[2] making elucidation of the specific cause of death difficult. Investigators must carefully analyze the environment and exclude other causes of death to conclude environmental hypoxia-asphyxia.[3] Measurements of toxic gases and oxygen concentrations in the air, as well as postmortem analysis of blood and tissues, should be performed; in addition, scene simulations may be required.[1]
As a type of environmental hypoxia-asphyxia, plastic bag suffocation is often used as a suicide technique in Western countries. This method is common in young men and elderly women.[15] Some people even use the propane, ether, or helium gas along with the plastic bag. Plastic bag suffocation deaths can also occur accidentally or unexpectedly, such as during sexual asphyxia, children playing with plastic bags, and other occurrences.[1] It is very rare for the use of plastic bags to result in death; however, it is more likely in cases in which the victim is unconscious, or when there is a large difference in strength between the perpetrator and victim.[16]
Plastic bag suffocation often occurs rapidly with few physical signs;[1],[2] however, in a small number of cases, marks on the neck are present corresponding to the areas of bag bundling (such as from a rubber band), or there may be signs of prior injury, such as wrist cutting or abuse.[1],[2] It is a common misconception that the postmortem presence of moisture in the plastic bag confirms that the bag was placed on a breathing human; water droplets form as gas evaporates from the skin, nose, and mouth even if the person was previously deceased.[2]
Because there are usually no specific physical findings, it is difficult to identify cases of plastic bag suffocation unless the bag is over the head at the time of scene investigation or autopsy.[2] If the plastic bag is removed before forensic workers see the corpse, they will not be able to determine the cause of death through forensic examination, and may even conclude that a natural death occurred. Therefore, to identify such cases, forensic workers must pay careful attention during scene exploration and investigation.[1],[3],[9],[16] If necessary, forensic workers can conduct simulations under close monitoring in a protected environment, which can help to pinpoint a cause of death through analysis of time measurements.[4],[6],[17] Specimens collected from the blood, lungs, liver, or other organs for poison analysis should be extracted and stored in a sealed empty bottle along with a plastic bag,[2],[7],[16] frozen, and delivered promptly.[1]
| Traumatic Asphyxia | |
Traumatic asphyxia refers to the compression of the chest or abdomen by massive mechanical forces resulting in thoracic fixation – expansion of thoracic and lower phrenic muscles – leading to respiratory disturbance and death by asphyxiation.[2]
Traumatic asphyxia is common in the following types of accidents: motor vehicle compression or extrusion during traffic accidents; pinning from building collapse, falling rocks, or other objects; trampling by a crowd; compression while standing in a crowded population from sudden external forces; compression by fallen tools or furniture; and compression of infants and children while sleeping with parents (overlaying asphyxia).[1],[2],[18] There are also reports of homicide resulting from a perpetrator kneeling or sitting on the chest of a victim.[19]
The pathological features of traumatic asphyxia are usually quite specific. These include prominent facial and nuchal hyperemia and swelling; numerous petechial hemorrhages on the face or conjunctiva; subconjunctival hemorrhage and edema; and nasal bleeding. In general, a person who dies from traumatic asphyxiation often appears strangled with features extending down to the neck, with no signs of local damage.[2],[20],[21]
However, physical features such as these are not always visible. Studies have shown that, in up to 10% of cases, no petechial hemorrhages are seen on the face or conjunctiva. The reason for this is unclear, but may be related to rapidness of death, lack of obvious chest compression or vagus nerve stimulation, lack of occlusion of the epiglottis, or concurrence of both left heart and right heart impairment at the time of chest compression.[1],[18],[20],[21] On gross examination, lungs may have a purplish red color, congestion, or subserous bleeding with or without obvious expansion of the right heart or superior vena cava; sometimes, there is no evidence of trauma despite severe direct external compression on the chest and abdomen.[1],[2],[3],[9]
Traumatic asphyxia is a diagnosis of exclusion. In addition to supporting evidence from a scene investigation, suffocation death should only be considered after excluding fatal injuries and poisoning.[1],[9],[21]
Overlaying asphyxia is a special form of traumatic asphyxia, often secondary to nasal compression. Physical examination findings are usually absent, so overlaying can be difficult to determine unless the same-bed sleeper admits to crushing the infant or child. Overlaying asphyxia is sometimes attributed to sudden infant death syndrome, so it is important to examine adults' and children's clothes and bedding carefully as well as the scene.[1],[3],[22]
| Positional Asphyxia | |
Positional asphyxia refers occurrences in which respiration is compromised from splinting of the chest or diaphragm preventing normal respiration, or occlusion of the upper airway due to abnormal positioning of the body.[23] Positional asphyxia is almost always an accident, during which the victim cannot extract himself or herself from a specific position or small space. The victim may be further impaired by alcohol or drug intoxication, weakness, neurological disease, or fabric bundling. Common examples of positional asphyxia include limbs tied behind the back while in a prone position (may be performed for restraint by police or psychiatrists for suspects or patients); head-down position (inversion of the body, or head hanging down off the edge of a bathtub); jack-knife position (upper body significantly curved from the waist down); bundled thoracic or abdominal horizontal sling (e.g., a young girl wearing a belt hanging by the abdomen on a swing); excessive flexion or extension of the neck (e.g., during a motor vehicle accident); lack of chest wall expansion in a restricted space (wedging); and a person sandwiched between the wall and the mattress after falling off the bed.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[24] A typical case of postural asphyxia involves a drunken person who collapses into a narrow space, excessively distorting the neck and hindering breathing, leading to death.[9]
Cause of death from positional asphyxia often results from reverse suspension of the body such that the movement of the chest wall is restricted by intra-abdominal organs compressing the diaphragm. This prolongs inspiration, and eventually results in respiratory muscle fatigue, leading to slowed movement of the chest wall and subsequent hypoxia. Venous return is effectively limited, and blood flow to the brain is shifted, decreasing blood flow and further aggravating respiratory muscle fatigue; eventually, the heart stops.[1] Positional asphyxia does not require reversal of the entire body; fatal asphyxia may result from the reversal of torso position, excessive flexion of the neck, or pressure on one's face, such as in an intoxicated person whose face is pressed to the floor.[25] The difference between traumatic asphyxia and positional asphyxia is whether the chest and abdomen are compressed by external forces. If chest compression is from an external source, he or she should have been died from traumatic asphyxia. If a deceased person is found in a specific position or restricted space that limits chest activity, the person should have been died from positional asphyxia.[1],[23]
Positional asphyxia can be identified by the following criteria: The body position is consistent with restricted or disordered respiration; scene investigation or historical investigation identifies that an accident had occurred; the deceased person cannot change his or her position for some reason; and other obvious natural or violent causes of death are excluded. A diagnosis of accidental positional asphyxia mainly depends on the evidence obtained from the scene environment.[24],[25] Some forensic investigators believe that, if another disease is present, then either the cause of death is not associated with positional asphyxia, or the onset of the disease makes the deceased patient prone to positional asphyxia.[23] It should be noted that alcohol consumed by a patient with positional asphyxia may be metabolized. Thus, even if the concentration of alcohol in the blood or urine is very low or negative, the possibility of positional asphyxia cannot be ignored.[24]
Wedging is a special form of positional asphyxia, commonly seen in infants and young children whose body or head are compressed in a narrow space. The chest wall is fixed, resulting in airway obstruction that results in asphyxia. Wedging usually occurs between a mattress and wall or mattress and furniture or baby crib. It is most common in infants aged 3–6 months, intoxicated adults, or comatose patients who accidentally fall between a mattress and wall, leading to death. Physical findings of wedging are usually absent.[1],[22]
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the Open Project of Key Laboratory of Forensic Genetics, Ministry of Public Security (2017FGKFKT05), Program for Young Innovative Research Team from China University of Political Science and Law (2016CXTD05), and Project of Interdisciplinary Science Construction-Forensic Psychology from China University of Political Science and Law.
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