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Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 19:58:53 -0700
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: The Hamaker Hypothesis (3 of 7)
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"New Ice Age by 1995?"
in
The New York Times
July 25, 1988
To the Editor:
Some climatologists are beginning to see a significant rise in
global temperature in the 1980's, and attribute it to a
greenhouse effect from carbon dioxide and other gases ("Global
Warming Has begun, Expert Tells Senate," front page, June 24).
In looking at global temperature averages, however, most
climatologists ignore dramatic increases in regional and seasonal
differences. While lower latitudes and midlatitude summers are
becoming hotter and drier, the higher latitudes of the Northern
Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere winters have been getting
colder and wetter -- with record cold winters -- during this
decade of record global warmth. What could be going on?
Since the greenhouse effect magnifies heat radiated back by the
earth from the sun's warmth, it will be much more pronounced in
the tropics than at the poles, which get little sunlight to
magnify. Thus, the temperature differences between the poles and
the tropics is increased by the greenhouse effect, magnifying
global pressure differences (warm air rises, cold air sinks) and
creating higher winds. Indeed, hurricanes and tornadoes have
been increasing dramatically in the last 50 years.
As the tropical oceans heat up, more of their moisture is
evaporated to form clouds. The increasing pole-tropic wind
systems move some of these additional clouds toward the poles,
resulting in increased winter rainfall, longer and colder winters
and the gradual buildup of the polar ice sheets. This phenomenon
has come to be widely recognized by climatologists in recent
years.
What most of them do not recognize is that this process may be
the engine that drives the 100,000-year cycle of major ice ages,
for which there is no other plausible explanation. Before our
species came along, to dig up and burn fossil fuels and create a
climate-altering greenhouse effect, nature may have been doing it
periodically on its own: as soil minerals are eroded or leached
away, the earth's vegetation loses these essential nutrients and
dies back significantly. Carbon is meanwhile returned to the
atmosphere where it becomes carbon dioxide, creating a greenhouse
effect, with all its climatic consequences.
The final piece of the puzzle is this: As the glaciers slowly
cover large sections of the earth over tens of thousands of
years, they grind the rocks in their path into a fine dust. This
rock dust is then carried by wind and water over many widespread
areas of the globe. Because rocks are composed of minerals, this
mixture of dust from many types of rocks remineralizes many of
the earth's forests, rejuvenating them. As they thrive and
spread, they consume the excess carbon dioxide, and nature's
greenhouse effect subsides, shutting off the wind and evaporation
engine that built up the glaciers. Though this scenario has been
accepted by only a few scientists so far, every element of it is
fully supported by the scientific literature.
In 1979, Genevieve Woillard, a pollen specialist in France,
concluded from detailed studies that the shift from a warm,
interglacial climate to ice age conditions at the beginning of
the last ice age, some 100,000 years ago, took "less than 20
years." Her observations of the decline of European forests led
her to conclude we may be in a similar period of rapid climatic
change and only a few years from the start of the next major ice
age. By her reckoning, and that of John Hamaker, who developed
the theory I've outlined, we may be less than seven years away,
and our climate may continue to deteriorate rapidly until life on
earth becomes all but unsupportable.
We know how to reverse the greenhouse effect: stop clear-cutting
the earth's remaining forests, reduce fossil-fuel burning
dramatically in favor of non-polluting energy sources, plant
billions of acres of new fast-growing trees and remineralize much
of the earth's forests with rock dust. There may be time to stop
the cycle, if we recognize the problem right away and act
quickly.
Berkeley, California
July 15, 1988
The writer is director of People for a Future.
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Paul Andrew Mitchell : Counselor at Law, federal witness
B.A., Political Science, UCLA; M.S., Public Administration, U.C. Irvine
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not leave, until our mission is accomplished and justice reigns eternal.
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