Caveat Emptor! Beware! Hot Topic!
--- Anyone who is allergic or has a strong aversion to reality and factual evidence should stop now and read no further. Bush Administration officials and apologists for the Administration Environmental and Energy policies should proceed with extreme caution.
The scientific evidence continues to mount in support of the increasing momentum of the earth toward the ecological tipping point resulting from global warming. The recent consensus report of the entire scientific community has taken us past the point of argument whether global warming is in progress and that the activities of humans on the planet is significantly contributing to the deterioration of environmental balance. The topics of serious discussion [apologies to the nattering nabobs of the George W. Bush Anti-science Society] has turned to questions of how quickly the deterioration is progressing and what steps can be taken to slow down or reverse the trend. Recent scientific reports of Earth temperature measurements do not provide much comfort or cause for celebration.
According to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., the world’s land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than a normal January. That increase broke the old record set in 2002 by 0.81 degrees, which meteorologists said is a lot. Land temperature records often are broken by only hundredths of a degree at a time. The scientists issuing the report went beyond their normal double-checking and took the unusual step of running computer climate models “just to make sure that what we’re seeing was real,” Data Center Official Easterling said.
The temperature of the world’s land and water combined — the most effective measurement of global temperature for comparative purposes — was 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal. This increase broke the old record by more than one-quarter of a degree. Ocean temperatures alone didn’t set a record.
These developments are of concern because they represent dramatic departures from the expected rate of change based upon older and traditional models. Some scientists have expressed concern that the global warming phenomenon is more like a stone rolling down a hill than a gradual linear process. As change occurs, these changes stimulate other changes exponentially or at least logarithmically as the process picks up momentum. One such discovery was the hydraulic collapse of ice shelves in Antarctica. Rather than the expected erosion of the ice from the edges of the sea, water melting on the surface of the shelf drills down to bedrock and creates a layer of water that allows large chunks of the ice shelf to slide off into the sea. This process results in a much quicker loss of ice mass than was previously predicted.
The cumulative effect of many such “anomalies” could be creating the global increase in temperature that has yielded four of the highest annual temperatures ever recorded [measurements began in the 1880’s] in the past five years. One does not need to be an environmental scientist [with rocket design competence] to recognize that this information points to a dangerous trend. While it may not be clear what all the alternatives and corrective measures are, it seems quite obvious that sitting around denying that the problem exists is not an intelligent strategy. More than likely, as with most environmental and energy related issues, the response will have to be comprised of a combination of measures adopted on a global basis. After all, that is how the problem was created.
American leadership seems intent upon allowing the situation to continue to degrade until the planet becomes a living hell. While we may politely invite them to go to that address, we can act more rationally. No individual effort will resolve the coming crisis, it will take a true grass roots effort. We can start to combine our efforts and modify our behaviors to keep from making the situation worse.
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