Allow me to add my personal study and experience to this controversy. I think that experts in high-altitude physiology will back me up.

1. Visiting a 5,000 foot high city ("Denver--The Mile High City") is just barely enough to induce altitude sickness. And only if you engage in heavy physical exercise. Most people don't notice serious symptoms until they reach 7,000 feet, and some people aren't affected until 8,000 or 9,000 feet. Standard references in High Altitude Medicine list 4,900 feet/1,500 meters at the lowest limit of "High Altitude", as normally understood, for healthy individuals.

2. HOWEVER, there is a process widely recognized in Mountain/High Altitude Medicine called "High Altitude Acclimitization", which causes automatic physiological adaptations by the body. Generally, it takes about 11 days for FULL adaptation for each kilometer (~3,000 ft) in vertical ascent, but partial adaptation will occur in just a couple of days even if the person started at sea level. Thus, the symptoms will be minimal to almost unnoticeable with just a modest amount of high altitude living. Hardly anyone in normal condition will be noticeably impaired at an altitude of 1 kilometer/3,000 feet, even if they decide to take a short hike or bike ride on their first day at that altitude (marathons and full-court basketball may not be comfortable though).

3. Modern airliner passenger compartments are typically pressurized to a virtual/equivalent altitude of ~8,000 feet even when the plane is flying at 40,000 feet. This means that a typical commercial airliner flight will serve as some of the high altitude time that signals the body to start acclimatizing. This "time at altitude" is somewhat cumulative in nature, so you would not need to start over, each time you take an airliner trip. Nor do you lose all acclimation in just a day or a few days. So the more "frequent flier miles" you rack up, the more your acclimatizaion improves. The same effect is apparent when you visit high altitude locations for skiing or hiking on a regular basis (when I was skiing or hiking once or twice a month year round, I never lost much of my acclimatization, which meant that I did not suffer much from high altitude sickness and its accompanying detrimental symptoms each time I travelled to "higher-than-Gore" altitudes, such as 8-10,000 feet).

4. The overall outcome of all these factors is that Pres. Obama, who apparently takes an Air Force One flight about every 3 days over a 4 year period, should have an acquired and residual acclimatization at an altitude of 7,000 to 8,000 feet.

5. Which means (for anyone smarter than Al Gore), the Obama trip to Denver was in effect, a DESCENT to a lower altitude than that to which he has become acclimatized! Ergo, Pres. O would not have been "suffering from altitude sickness symptoms".

Q.E.D.--There is no excuse in Gore's misrepresentation.

---

Randy

"I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact." -- Sir Winston Churchill, "The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War" (1898), Chapter III

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On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 4:26 PM, Beowulf <beowulf@westerndefense.net> wrote:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/04/gore-blames-denver-altitude-for-obama-debate-performance/

Gore blames Denver altitude for Obama's debate performance

Published October 04, 2012

FoxNews.com

Sept. 28, 2012: Former Vice President Al Gore speaks at an event in Toronto. (AP)

It was the altitude. Yeah, that's it.

As liberal pundits cringed Wednesday night over President Obama's debate performance, Al Gore leapt to his defense with a curious explanation.

If Obama seemed like he had his head in the clouds, the former VP reasoned, perhaps it was because he was having trouble adjusting to the Mile-High City.

"I'm going to say something controversial here," Gore said on Current TV

, the channel he helped found. "Obama arrived in Denver at 2 p.m. today, just a few hours before the debate started. Romney did his debate prep in Denver. When you go to 5,000 feet, and you only have a few hours to adjust, I don't know ..."

Gore trailed off with a chuckle, but his fellow co-hosts chimed in with agreement.

"Exactly," one of them said off-screen.

Co-host Cenk Uygur noted how when he came from Los Angeles, "You know what I did? I drank two cups of coffee before coming out here."

Another guest added: "It's really different. The first time I ever did stand up in Denver I had the same exact effect. I flew in that day and when your lungs aren't acclimated to that kind of air, yeah it makes you drawn. It makes you off. The president had an off-night."

Other Obama supporters weren't quite so willing to give the president a pass.

"I can't believe i'm saying this, but Obama looks like he DOES need a teleprompter," comedian and Obama supporter Bill Maher tweeted.

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