A Word About Climate Change. Yes, it’s True, but…
I was watching the travel channel this week. It was a special about the Grand Canyon.
A scientist was lowering himself over the edge and down the side of the canyon walls. He stopped and explained how the walls of the canyon were a great timeable. From the top to the bottom you could see from just a few thousand years to over a billion years back into the earth’s history. The place he stopped was called the “Red Rock.” He explained this part of the rock face represented about 250 million years ago. The thickness of the sediment area told him how most of North America was covered in water during this warming period.
Wait a minute, did he say, this warming period? Do you mean this has happened before?
Researchers from New Zealand examined the east Antarctic ice sheet. They concluded this sheet is the last ice to respond to the effects of global warming and shows no sign of any increased sea levels because of it. They found that sometime between 7,000 and 13,000 years ago, this sheet melted from 1910 feet to 1,150 feet and rose sea levels as much as 330 feet.
Do you mean the ice in Antarctic has melted before and then re-froze? Reference - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070627/ap_on_sc/antarctica_ice_sheet
Researchers led by Kenneth L. Smith Jr., of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research, said Icebergs that break off Antarctica and drift away turn out to be hotspots of life. The melting ice also dumps particles scraped off Antarctica into the ocean, providing a pool of nutrients that feed plankton. The abundance extended nearly 2 1/2 miles away from the drifting ice. By promoting life surrounding them, the icebergs also may have an impact on reducing the excess carbon in the atmosphere — at least somewhat countering the greenhouse warming that helped make them break free in the first place. “One important consequence of the increased biological productivity is that free-floating icebergs can serve as a route for carbon dioxide drawdown and sequestration of particulate carbon as it sinks into the deep sea,” Smith said. This additional role of removing carbon from the atmosphere may have implications for global climate models that need to be further studied.
Do you mean nature has a way to conteract the things it doesn’t like? Reference - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070621/ap_on_sc/iceberg_hotspots
Who would have thought, and I didn’t even have to make it up.
July 12th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
When I was in high school, we were taught that there was an air current pattern where the hot air at the Equator rose into the upper atmosphere, travelled North to the Tropic of Capricorn (or Cancer) where it cooled enough to fall to earth and move at low altitude back to the Equator where the rain forrests by photosynthesis converted the carbon/oxygen compounds into chlorophyl and other carbon compunds, releasing clean, pure oxygen back into the atmosphere to continue another cycle.
Now that the rain forrests have almost been devastated for “progress” and monetary gain, what is going to replace the photosynthesis cycle in the atmosphere. Isn’t this more a likely cause of “global warming” than a few smokestacks and auto exhausts? I would be interested to hear your thoughts. KD9ART
July 18th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Recent reports indicate that the residual level of CO2 is rising and that this has historically been associated with a period of global warming. Scientists have confirmed this with core samples of polar ice.
Half a century ago, when I was in high school, we were taught that there is an air current between each of the tropics (Capricorn and Cancer) and the Equator. This is caused by warm air rising at the Equator, moving to the tropics in the upper atmosphere, falling at the tropics as it cools, and moving back to the Equator along the ground. As the air moves from the tropics towards the Equator, the CO2 levels rise from a variety of natural and man-made causes. At the equator, photosynthesis in the rain forrests converts the CO2 to pure oxygen, which rises in the warm air and is transported back to the tropics.
I submit that the primary factor in the present global warming trend is that CO2 levels are rising due to the destruction of the rain forests, primarily in Brazil and the Pacific Rim countries. This is happening due to pressures in those areas for usable land for development of business and housing. This is also fed by the hunger in the USA and other developed countries for timber and wood products. As the rain forrest dissapears, there is less conversion of CO2, resulting in a rise of CO2 levels and a decrease in available pure oxygen. The rise in CO2 affects heat retention in the atmosphere and results in a rise in the ambient temperature.
I would be interested in hearing your comments on this observation. I am not arguing against the proven fact that periods of global warming have happened naturally and repeatedly throughout history. I am merely making the point that the destruction of the rain forrests may be accelerating the natural cycle.