In article <jklgmvoa57ujtnjqfrh0dctsi5pdul2ii7@4ax.com>, David Patrick says...

On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 05:38:25 GMT, Sir Arthur C. B. E. Wholeflaffers
A.S.A. <nospam@newsranger.com> wrote:

Debunkers = Scientists? Nope!

You're certainly no scientist.

Patty, do not post unless you have something to add,
which you never do!! So quit posting now, or else
I will turn over the list of suspected Truth-Terrorists
to the General who is running OIDD - Operation
Infinite Destroy Debunkers!!


Climate Change And Environmental Surprises Ahead
By Cat Lazaroff


WASHINGTON, DC, January 19, 2000 (ENS) - Glaciers
are melting. Where once snow fell, now only rain
pounds down. Storm systems driven by tropical
heatwaves are getting stronger, and more deadly.
Increasing amounts of greenhouse gases are being
pumped into the atmosphere, and as a result,
temperatures around the globe are rising.

A blue ribbon panel confirmed it last week - global
warming is real.

Glaciers and ice packs are retreating around the
world (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

"The two big challenges in this new century are to
stabilize climate and population," said Brown at a
press conference Thursday. "If we cannot stabilize
both, there is not an ecosystem on Earth that we can
save. Everything will change. If we can stabilize
population and climate, other environmental problems
will be much more manageable."

"When the industrial revolution began more than two
centuries ago, the carbon dioxide (CO2)
concentration was estimated at 280 parts per million
(ppm)," writes Worldwatch Institute president Lester
Brown in the group,s latest roundup of environmental
problems, "State of the World 2000."

"By 1959, when detailed measurements began, using
modern instruments, the CO2 level was 316 ppm, a
rise of 13 percent over two centuries. By 1998, it
had reached 367 ppm, climbing 17 percent in just 39
years. This increase has become one of Earth,s most
predictable environmental trends," Brown wrote in
the the Worldwatch report.

But the steady rise of CO2 has had numerous
unpredictable side effects - some of which threaten
to become catastrophic. Over the last three decades,
global average temperature has risen by 0.44 degrees
Celsius (0.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

In the 21st century, temperature is projected to
rise even faster.

Chris Bright, coauthor of Worldwatch's "State of the
World 2000" report (Photo courtesy Worldwatch
Institute)

"Just because we think we know what the trend is
right now, that doesn,t mean it will stay on the
same curve," said Chris Bright, coauthor of the
Worldwatch report. "We,re not very good at
predicting the discontinuities."

Signs of melting are everywhere. In late 1991,
hikers in the southwestern Alps discovered an intact
human body protruding from a glacier. The man was
apparently trapped bya storm some 5,000 years ago,
and rapidly covered by ice and snow, remaining
remarkably well preserved. In 1999, another body was
found in a melting glacier in the Yukon Territory of
western Canada.

"Our ancestors are emerging from the ice with a
message for us," said Brown. "The Earth is getting
warmer."

Rising temperatures are shrinking glaciers from the
Peruvian Andes to the Swiss Alps. The two ice
shelves on either side of the Antarctic peninsula
are retreating. Over about a half century through
1997, the ice shelves lost 7,000 square kilometers
(2,700 square miles) of ice.

Then, within a single year, the ice shelves lost
another 3,000 square kilometers (1,160 square
miles). Scientists attribute the accelerated rate
melting to a regional temperature rise of about 2.5
degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1940.

"Environmental decline is often seen as gradual and
predictable, but if we assume this, we are
sleepwalking through history," said Bright in the
Worldwatch report. "As pressures on the Earth,s
natural systems build, there may be some
disconcerting surprises as trends interact,
reinforcing each other and triggering abrupt
changes."

Aerial view of the eye of Hurricane Mitch. (Photo
courtesy PAHO)

In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch slammed into
Central American and stalled there for more than a
week. Mudslides obliterated entire villages, killing
some 10,000 people. Half the population of Honduras
was displaced, and the country lost 95 percent of
its crops.

Bright says global warming and the more destructive
storms associated with it may explain why Mitch was
the fourth strongest hurricane to enter the
Caribbean in the 20th century. However, much of the
damage left by Mitch was triggered by deforestation.
If trees had been gripping the soil on those hills,
less mud would have slid precipitously down their
slopes.

Another large scale example of trends reinforcing
each other can be seen in the Amazon River Basin,
where the forests are being weakened by logging and
clearing for agriculture. Openings in the canopy let
in more sunlight, which dries the forest floor and
primes the area for fire. Fires sweep through the
forest, damaging trees but leave many standing.
These damaged trees drop more leaves and exhale less
water, inviting more fire in what Bright calls a
"fire feedback loop."

"A great deal of the damage is hidden beneath the
forest canopy," Bright said. "It,s kind of like a
cancer. In its initial stages, you really can,t see
it."

Ground fire in the Brazilian Amazon. (Photos and map
courtesy <http://www.whrc.orgWoods Hole Research
Center)

The fire feedback loop is also affected by forces
outside the region, such as higher temperatures and
harsher weather brought on by greenhouse gas
emissions. The worst burning, Bright points out,
occurs in El Nino years - which are happening more
frequently as temperatures rise. El Nino is a
warming of the Eastern Pacific Ocean that results in
climate changes around the world.

By burning large amounts of coal and oil, the U.S.,
China and other industrialized countries may, in
effect, be burning the Amazon, Worldwatch warns.

"We have no way to repair these systems," said
Bright. "Nature has no reset button."

Dr. Jane Lubchenco, a marine conservation biologist
specializing in the consequences of global changes,
spoke last month about the devastating changes
happening in ecosystems worldwide. "We,re changing
the planet in unprecedented ways," said Lubchenco.
"About one half to one third of the land,s surface
has been transformed. One third of commercial marine
species are depleted or fully exploited. The
functioning of these ecosystems in changing,
sometimes dramatically."

Coral reefs, for example, are showing dramatic and
unexpected impacts from both global warming and
human actions. While warmer waters has allowed some
corals to spread away from the equator, water that
is too hot seems to be killing off some of the
microscopic creatures on which corals feed, starving
them to death.

Coral bleaching is a sign of the worldwide decline
of corals (Photo courtesy Florida National Marine
Sanctuary)

In other areas, fungi that thrive in warmer waters
are gaining a foothold on corals and killing them.
Algae blooming in nutrient rich runoff can starve
corals for light. "Pollution enriched algae is the
likely reason Jamaica,s reefs never recovered from
Hurricane Allen in 1980," writes Bright in the
Worldwatch report. "Ninety percent of the reefs off
the island,s northwest coast are now just algae
covered lumps of limestone."

Worldwatch urges action now to stem the tide of
environmental catastrophe.

"We clearly need to step up the pace," Brown said.
"We are running out of time. The decisions we make
now will affect life on Earth for all time to come."

Environment News Service (ENS)