For evidence that the annual effects of global warming on the Arctic ice cap are becoming increasingly greater on an almost logarithmic scale one need only refer to the graph of Arctic Sea Ice Extent for 2007 compared with the record setting year of 2005 and the average for the period 1997-2000. The effects are drastic. They far exceed all expectation or projections put forward by scientists who study global warming.
The thickness of the ice cap measured at its center during the summer peak this year was only three feet. This is about fifty percent of that measured six years ago. For the first time ever, during this summer the fabled Northwest Passage was accessible as a shortcut for seafarers between Europe and Asia. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (US) September 2007 sea ice extent is nearly 50% lower than during the nineteen-fifties and sixties: "..we are seeing a bold exclamation point on a trend of ice loss that has been ongoing for at least the past fifty years." The extent of minimum ice cover this year stood at 4.1 million sq km (Sept 16), compared with 5.3 sq km in 2005. As at today the Northwest Passage is still open but is starting to refreeze.
Experts say that the North Pole is undergoing rapid change not seen for at least 6,000 years and possibly for 125,000 years. In the near future we may see ice-free summers inside the Arctic Circle.
Contributing to the rapid reduction of the ice cap in recent years is the fact that the large area of open ocean under this summer's unusually clear skies have allowed for the storage of heat in the waters which will moderate the winter freeze, meaning that the winter ice cap will be thinner than normal. This will result in even more rapid melting and a greater recession of the ice cap next summer. Furthermore, less ice cools less air around it which might make next summer's mean temperatures higher than normal, compounding the process.
I've said before that this whole global warming thing couldn't come soon enough for me -- I hate the cold. But I have to sympathize with the people living closer to the equator than I do. I'm in Canada.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Evidence that the Arctic polar ice cap is melting
Monday, January 21, 2008
Global warming irreversible no matter what - a rehash
It is an indisputable fact that the world is going through a phase of climate change but are we completely right in blaming only ourselves, and where the burden does lie on our shoulders, are we ever really going to do anything about it? Let's run through a list of the reasons that the world is getting warmer.
1. We are in the final stages of the last ice age - the ice is continuing its thawing phase. It is a fact that it takes longer for the world to cool than it does for it to warm up. The last ice age began after the eruption of the last great colossal super volcano, about 25,000 years ago. The commonly held belief is that the world thawed out about 10,000 years ago, but in fact the glaciers, while accumulating more snow over the winters, are thawing more than that accumulation over the summers, with the compounding effect of the loss of that ice removing an important contributor to the cooling of our atmosphere.
2. We are converting Oxygen into CO2 gases and thrusting them out of the exhausts of jet airplane engines into the upper atmosphere at a truly mind-boggling rate. That is a sensitive reality because people love to fly, airplane manufacturers love to earn huge contracts from airlines, and governments love to receive the huge chunks of tax revenues from those monstrous manufacturers, not to mention all those travel and accommodation companies and the billions they've invested in lucrative tourist destinations.
3. A phase of the cycle of precession (the wobble of the earth on its axis) is causing regions of both polar ice covers to thaw, removing an important thermal contributor from the effect of atmospheric cooling. That is a huge natural influence on global warming, another something over which we have no control.
4. The atmosphere is fast becoming the interior of an always-on microwave oven. Microwaves, which actually represent the frequency of heat, are constantly irradiating the air around us because they are the fundamental carrier waves of cellular communications. Another sticky wicket, politically speaking. Where would Finland be without Nokia? But for all we know, they might very well be the biggest single invisible influence on global warming.
5. CO2 and Methane emissions from automobiles, livestock, and decaying vegetable matter are further contributing to the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Ditto all those political and natural reasons that won't stop that anytime soon. Also, if we were really so conscious of Global warming then automobiles would be a rarer sight on the roads and highways and large sedans would be almost nonexistent. Most people would be pooling, taking public transit, biking and walking, or staying home. The fact is, nobody really cares about global warming, at least enough to do anything about it on their own.
6. Industrial smokestack emissions contribute greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. In all fairness, there is a certain cancellation effect on warming in that the particulates from those emissions are actually blocking sunlight, in effect providing the same kind of cooling influence that caused the last ice age after the eruption of that super volcano about 25,0000 years ago.
It is very apparent that China has been singled out as a prime culprit for no other reason than that the existing industrialized nations feel threatened by the awakening bear that their huge economic potential represents. It is already impacting on the value of the dollar, global industrial economic output, and runaway exports turned out by a hyperactive manufacturing sector producing quality goods cheaply. And they have only just begun! In my opinion, people are becoming too well informed to fall for the rhetoric much longer. I suggest we all just stop picking on China, park our cars, put the phone down, stay home, and enjoy the warm weather.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Let's talk about global warming
There was a time back in the sixties when the entire family would take a two weeks in July cottage vacation in Grand Bend. Most days would see us walking single file down a sandy path to the beach about a hundred yards away before nine a.m., especially on the weekends, when even a couple would be hard pressed to claim space, and we were ten. We would swim and sun and toss the frisbee around or play badminton all day. The water was crystal clear - you could see the symmetry of the sand ripples on the lake floor from an air mattress fifteen feet above it. We would usually spend the day there on our spot, eating and drinking out of the cooler. We had the freedom to wander off to play in the arcades on the boardwalk or to just idle about until five p.m. or so when the appetite for supper was sufficiently stoked.
You can't do that anymore. The sun burns uncomfortably hot nowadays. The water has been tainted by effluent from powerboats and other recreational watercraft. Lying around on the beach and playing all day under the sun is a thing of the past. It is harmful to the health.
Someday, probably in my lifetime, it will stop snowing in these parts (Southwestern Ontario). I foresee a time when Denmark becomes the next great world power for owning Greenland! But seriously, what is going on? Is global warming entirely our fault?
The answer to that is actually - yes and no. Yes, because we refuse to stop manufacturing jet aircraft and flying them. American Airlines alone flies over 3,400 domestic flights daily over American airspace. There are thousands more airlines and airliners. Imagine the staggering amount of air that gets sucked into jet engines the world over every second of every day. The oxygen in that air supports the combustion going on in those engines and is converted into CO2, which is spewed out the other end. That's where the CO2 in the upper atmosphere comes from. The CO2 in the lower atmosphere is for the most part consumed by plant life and reconverted into oxygen to be breathed in by animal life and breathed out again as CO2. But that's some kind of symbiosis. What ends up in the upper atmosphere is the result of man's intervention into nature.
We shouldn't blame fossil fuel burning power plants for global warming. As a matter of fact, particulates emitted from them actually block sunlight, in effect cooling the earth. In fact, the last ice age occurred as the result of years of blocked sunlight shielded by vast amounts of particulates spewed out by a super volcano about 25,000 years ago.
Nature is actually the irreversible root cause of global warming. We know, for example, that the north ice shield is receding quickly (25% over the last 40 years) while parts of Antarctica's ice shields are actually growing. The north pole is warming while the south pole is cooling. The reason for that is precession, the wobble of the world around its axis as it spins. We can't correct that.
Furthermore, we are still in the final stages of the last ice age. The rise in average temperatures will increase on a logarithmic scale because as the ice melts it is no longer a contributor to the cooling of the atmosphere. As the temperature rises, the ice melts faster, and so on. In the old days, the refrigerator consisted of nothing more than an insulated box with a door on it and a large ice cube inside. It was relatively efficient in spite of its simplicity. The atmosphere is our insulator. No ice, no cooling.
We have the power to slow down the inevitable, but the question is "do we want to?" Can we stop flying airplanes, legislate against private automobiles with engines larger than four cylinders, stop travelling needlessly, and generally reduce our energy consumption across the board? I don't think so. Nobody is going to come forward and tell Boeing and Airbus to stop manufacturing airplanes, or American Airlines to stop flying them.
In 2002 President Bush stood before the people of America to declare that there was a crisis. By 2012, America would be importing 72% of its fossil fuel. The very next year the hottest items in autmobile showrooms across the land were SUV's and pickup trucks, the bigger the better. And they still are, testament to our arrogance.
We will always just talk about the problem but we can't do anything about it if we don't first look to ourselves, and we don't care enough to do that, that is patently obvious.
