P.D. Allen's Blog, page 32

The Sky is Falling

The Sky is Falling

Chemtrails  and HAARP

by PD Allen

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Introduction

Something was wrong with the forests.

I spent a good part of my youth in these woodlands, hiking and foraging, hunting and fishing, sleeping under the stars and cooking over an open fire. It had been more than a decade since I had visited these lands, and they had changed.

The trees and vegetation were stressed, the wildlife was sickly. Something was unwholesome about the very land. The enchanted forests of my youth had been corrupted, transformed into a mirkwood.

And the blue sky above was overcast, not with cirrus and cumulous clouds, but with persistent jet contrails that hung in the sky for hours, spreading to block out the sun. Was there some link between what was happening in the sky and what was happening in the forests?

Chemtrails

Anyone who researches chemtrails on the internet will become mired in numerous conspiracy sites making the wildest claims of a worldwide conspiracy to alter the chemistry of our atmosphere. Chemtrails are blamed for everything from climate change, drought and soil depletion, the epidemic of alzheimers and other aluminum-related diseases, a plot to make us all dependent on genetically-modified crops and mind control.

The most interesting theory is that chemtrails are part of a geoengineering effort to control global warming. Geoengineers first proposed in the 1990s  to inject reflective substances into the upper atmosphere to deflect sunlight before it becomes trapped in the lower atmosphere by the greenhouse effect. Atomized aluminum is the preferred reflectant, followed by other atomized metals, and some other elements, notably barium.

Many sites claim to have scientific proof of chemtrails. Unfortunately, none of this proof was obtained in carefully designed experiments structured to eliminate other possibilities. At most this scientific proof is only suggestive.

Yet, as you sift through volumes of chemtrail pictures, witness accounts and other data, it is difficult to shake off the idea that something is happening up there. And there is reason to suspect that chemtrails are related to elevated aluminum, barium and strontium levels reported around the world.

Geoengineering Watch

Science Daily: Geoengineering for Global Warming

NASA admits persistent contrails are geoengineering

Geoengineering Projects: Global Warming Solution or Climate Disruption

Scientists Warn Geoengineering may Disrupt Rainfall

Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Facts

The Chemtrail Smoking Gun – Proof of Global Geoengineering Projects

Atmospheric Geoengineering: Weather manipulation, contrails and Chemtrails

Global Skywatch

Carnicom Geo-Engineering Page

Chemtrail Hoax?

I became aware of the chemtrail controversy in 2001, following 9-11. Over the next year, I noted elevated numbers of persistent contrails over the skies of Southeastern Michigan. Almost every day, the skies were covered with a grid of persistent contrails that would then spread out to create a dirty, hazy sky. I learned that elevated chemtrail activity was being reported around the globe in the year after the destruction of the twin towers.

I continued following the chemtrail controversy over the next couple of years, until I was researching global dimming for a series of articles on climate change. In my research, I was able to talk with atmospheric scientists about chemtrails. They assured me that it was a hoax. I was even shown satellite photos from the 1970s that featured persistent contrails.

The reason why this activity in the sky is now so notable is because air traffic has increased so much in the past couple of decades. It is notable now because people have noticed it. But persistent contrails have been with us at least since the 1970s. I seem to remember seeing them in my youth, though in nowhere near the number you can see nowadays.

As for the elevated levels of aluminum, barium and strontium, they could all be explained as products of local industry, and in some cases as being within the normal levels in the soil of specific regions. Not that we shouldn’t be alarmed by them, but without a well-designed scientific study, it is difficult to say what the cause is.

Contrail Science

New Mexicans for Science and Reason – chemtrails debunked

Chemtrails Analyzed with Land-based Spectrometer

The Need for Answers

My interest in persistent contrails was renewed recently as I was preparing the Under Shattered Skies trilogy for publication. After sifting through websites once again, and viewing some of the documentaries now available on the subject, I am left wondering what is going on in our skies.

There are now a number of sites claiming to debunk chemtrails. The information they provide is also very compelling. But the so-called scientific studies they refer to are no better designed than the studies of the chemtrail theorists. Nor have the debunking sites managed to explain all of the phenomena observed.

I must note here that at present, chemtrail activity is a a minimum. I have not seen a single chemtrail since I resumed studying the sky over a week ago. This is very odd, after the extreme persistent contrail activity in the years following 9-11.

What is needed is a global scientific study designed to eliminate other potential explanations. Short of that, there is no way to prove or disprove chemtrails. And here is the catch 22: for such a study to take place, a number of governments and scientific academies must take the subject seriously enough to pursue it. Yet, if there is a global geoengineering conspiracy, the governments and industry scientists behind it would hardly want it brought to light.

HAARP

Chemtrails are often linked to HAARP.

HAARP stands for the High Frequency Active Aural Research Program. It consists of a large antenna array located near Gekona, Alaska. Intended to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance, the HAARP array directs high frequency radio waves into the upper atmosphere to excite a portion of the ionosphere.

HAARP has potential for global communication, especially with submarines. It could also be used for communication disruption. Ideas similar to HAARP were first proposed by Nikola Tesla a century ago. The apparatus as it exists today bears a striking resemblance to the patents of inventor Bernard Eastlund, filed in the mid-1980s. While BAE Advanced Systems, the company that built HAARP, insists it is not the same device covered in the Eastlund patent, it is interesting that this company now owns the patent.

Dr. Eastlund proposed his system as a land-based space weapons defense, using it to create a shield in the ionosphere against incoming space-based weapons. He also foresaw the use of his system in manipulating weather. The operators of HAARP maintain that their array broadcasts nowhere near the magnitude of radio waves necessary for Eastlund’s applications. Yet, there is evidence that HAARP rays are concentrated and boosted into the neighborhood of the required magnitude. And this says nothing about the capability of more recently built HAARP stations elsewhere around the globe.

Conspiracy theorists have connected HAARP to weather manipulation, earthquake propagation, and mind control. On the web, you can find sites and videos claiming that HAARP was behind the Japanese tsunami, as well as earthquakes in China and elsewhere. While much of this speculation is interesting, it is denied by those within the HAARP program, and numerous sites on the net debunk the HAARP conspiracy.

HAARP is linked to chemtrails through barium, one of the elements which it is claimed are being dispersed throughout the atmosphere via chemtrails. The original Eastlund patent proposes the production of barium clouds to help propagate HAARP waves around the world.

Once again, I have to say that while the information about HAARP is suggestive, and not a little alarming, without open admissions from government, scientists or industry, there is no way to determine whether the allegations about HAARP can be substantiated. A carefully controlled global scientific study could put an end to all of this speculation, but the same catch 22 applies here as related above to chemtrails.

Wikipedia’s HAARP entry

The Official HAARP page

Tesla’s True Wireless and HAARP

Arco, Eastlund and the Roots of HAARP

The Eastlund Patent reproduced at the Barium Blues site

HAARP.net

 

HAARP Conspiracy Theory Debunked

Debunked: Bernard Eastlund and HAARP

Quick Debunking of HAARP

HAARP Conspiracy Debunked by Preeminent Pakistani Nuclear Scientist

Conclusion

What is to be done about all of this?

Either there is nothing to the growing mountain of testimony concerning chemtrails and HAARP, or the detractors a perpetrating a disinformation campaign. Like most conspiracy theories, whichever side of the coin you prefer precludes the other. So you are left relying on your gut instinct.

For myself, my gut instinct tells me there is something behind all of the speculation about chemtrails and HAARP, though of what it is, I am uncertain.

There is one thing I am certain of, however. The earth is a complex, nonlinear biogeological system. Without exhaustive study, it is difficult to predict the ultimate effects of any small change in the chemistry of the atmosphere or the electromagnetic fluctuations of the ionosphere. And without such an exhaustive study, it is downright criminally ignorant to make changes in either the atmosphere or the ionosphere.

Chaos theory has advanced a great deal since the construction of HAARP, and since the widespread propagation of persistent contrails. We know now that in a complex, nonlinear system, small changes can be magnified by reiteration and positive feedback until they produce system-wide turbulence. And this is precisely the fear that lies behind the chemtrail and HAARP controversy.

 

In closing, I am presenting links to several documentary videos about chemtrails and HAARP. They are well worth watching.

What in the World Are They Spraying

Chemtrails and HAARP Technology 101 for Dummies

HAARP CBC Broadcast Part One ~ Part Two

“HAARP”- Chilling Information You Really Need To See! History Channel

Holes In Heaven: H.A.A.R.P. and Advances in Telsa Technology

Beyond Flesh

Quantum Meditation #1575

Collapse or Sustainability ~ Radio Interview

An hour long radio broadcast.

Under Current’s Kevin Patrick interviews Dale Allen Pfeiffer.

Peak oil, global climate change, resource depletion, mass extinction. What does the future hold for us. While we tried to focus on the positive in this interview, it is quite chilling.

Unfortunately, due to length restrictions, we had to upload this interview in 24 sections.

segment 1 ~ segment 2 ~ segment 3 ~ segment 4

segment 5 ~ segment 6 ~ segment 7 ~  segment 8

segment 9 ~ segment 10 ~  segment 11 ~   segment 12

segment 13 ~   segment 14 ~  segment 15 ~  segment 16

segment 17 ~  segment 18 ~  segment 19 ~  segment 20

segment 21 ~ segment 22 ~  segment 23 ~ segment 24

Or, if you prefer, you can download the interview in four parts, from File Factory.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Ask the Crow

Quantum Meditation #1574

Quantum Meditations Book Two Now on Kindle!

The second Quantum Meditations ebook is now available on kindle.

Check it out now.

Kindle Version $0.99

Quantum Meditations is a living work of literature capable of lighting a fire in the reader’s mind and transforming reality. The meditations had their genesis in a personal crisis and resulting transformation. As such, they are a record of a voyage through inner and outer universes, and a map for others to follow. The simple act of reading the meditations is sufficient to carry the reader along on this voyage. Along the way, the Meditations cross frontiers of physics, consciousness and the relationship between the individual and the universe. The Meditations bridge quantum physics, Taoism and hermetic alchemy, along with countless other subjects.

Includes My Love Composed, The Dance of Life, World Making Dreams, Response of the Grasshopper, Heliocentric, The Vibration Purple, the DIA series (meditations composed during a tour of the Detroit Institute of the Arts), Connecting the Dots, the Garden of Allowing series, Conscious Manifestation, Fractal, Awareness Flows, We Are the Frontier, Wave Forms, Diamond, The Cycle of Life, Take a Deep Breath, The Fallacy of Action, Walking on Hot Coals is Easy Compared to, The Nature of Thought, Dreamers of Worlds, Weaving a Thoughtform, Memes, The Secret of Affirmations, The Universe Speaks, Navigating Infinity, Escher Stairs, A Bellows Be, The Waters Where You Swim, The Invisible Man, The Anniversary series (for Elizabeth), and much more.

Footprints

Footprints

Satellite Images of the Earth at Night Reveal the Dark Side of Industrial Civilization

by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

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Introduction

Everything that moves on the surface of the Earth leaves a track, a record of its passage. An expert tracker, such as Tom Brown Jr. (www.trackerschool.com) can read these tracks so well that they become a record of the animal’s life, a sort of a biography through which a very intimate knowledge of the animal can be achieved. Among the easiest animals to track are human beings, because they leave an easily readable path. According to American Indian scouts, the goal is to leave the smallest footprints possible. In doing this, you honor the Earth by leaving it as unaltered as possible, and you render yourself invisible to any who might try tracking you.

In this, as in so much else, the American Indian philosophy is almost diametrically opposed to the European-derived American perspective. In the dominant culture of conspicuous consumption, the size of your footprint is a display of your wealth and power, rather like a peacock spreading its plumage. In American culture, status is achieved by the size of your McMansion, the mileage of your automobile (with Hummers being a pure statement of extravagance), and in the amount of trash you set out at the curb every week. The American indulgence is well symbolized in the folk legend of Paul Bunyan, the giant who could fell whole forests with one swing of his axe, and created the Great Lakes from his footprints.

Yet, for any who still hold the perspective of the ancients, conspicuous consumption is a gross display of ignorance and foolishness. That enormous footprint displays nothing so clearly as our Achilles Heel. Namely, that we are an easy target for environmental overshoot, and our own over-consumption will bring us down in the end. Even the great Paul Bunyan logged himself out of a job in the end, when he had felled all the large forests.

This is why scientists who have studied the closely linked problems of over-consumption, resource depletion, and pollution have reached the consensus that we need to set aside consumer capitalism and instead extol the virtues of sustainability. We need to reduce the size of our footprint before it engulfs the entire planet. A modern adaptation of the Paul Bunyan story has Paul realizing the error of his ways as he looks out upon the last stand of virgin forest. Paul converts to a spokesperson for the environment, planting trees and protecting the forests from harm.

Plotting Your Footprint

Given the number of people on this planet and the all-pervasive nature of the dominant culture, it is very difficult to step aside and reduce your consumption until you are self-sufficient. Sustainability is an elusive goal.

There is an interesting exercise you can undertake online to get an idea of how big your footprint is. You can find this exercise at the Global Footprint Network, http://www.footprintnetwork.org/. This is a nonprofit organization for the advancement of sustainability. At the bottom of their home page, you will find links under the heading, Ecological Footprint. The link you want is called “Your Footprint.” This link will take you to a program which will ask you a number of questions about your consumption and waste generation habits. Once you have answered all of these questions, the program will compute your footprint in acres. The results can be very eye opening.

For myself, I computed a total footprint of 12 acres. My wife computed 10 acres. She is a vegetarian, while I slipped off that wagon when my daughter came to live with us. In comparison, the average US citizen has a footprint of 24 acres. While we could pat ourselves on the back for halving our average national footprint, the program still cautions us that if everyone were to live like me, we would need 2.7 planets. If everyone were to live like my wife, we would need 2.2 planets.

We are planning to move someplace where we can lead a more self-sufficient lifestyle. The footprint program informs us that if we were to go totally vegan, grow most of our food, and live in a green-designed residence with energy conservation and efficiency, then we will be able to trim our total footprint down to 5 acres. This lifestyle, we are informed, would be almost sustainable. If everyone lived like this, we would only require 1.2 planets. There are a few other things we could do to bring that number down to 4.5 acres, which is considered to be fully sustainable. We could buy a hybrid car, or do without a private automobile entirely.

There is some disagreement about the accuracy of these numbers. For one thing, this program does not consider work related consumption. As a writer, my written word is printed in newsletters and books. But then, should this printed matter be considered a part of my consumption, or should it be accorded to whoever purchases it? When you start considering questions like this, you are drawn into public consumption patterns in which we all share a part.

Anyway, though there is some dispute about the actual numbers and the methodology, nobody disagrees about the trend. There are only 4.5 biologically productive acres per person on this planet (not considering all of the other inhabitants of the biota). Yet the figures are plain; as illustrated in the following graph, the developed world (where most of the readers of this essay reside) consumes the lion’s share of the world’s resources, far in excess of sustainability.

taken from The Global Footprint Network, http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=national_footprints

The US leads the world in conspicuous consumption (average footprint 24 acres per person). For comparison, Canada has an average footprint of 16 acres, Western Europe averages about 12 acres, Australia averages 19 acres, Israel averages 13 acres, China averages 4 acres, India averages 2 acres, and Afghanistan and Haiti average 1 acre per person. Though China averages only 4 acres per person, India only 2 acres, and Indonesia only 3 acres, they are rendered unsustainable by the sheer number of people, and their footprints per capita are growing. It is interesting that footprint heavyweight U.S. of A. has been pushing around the welterweights: Afghanistan, 1 acre; Iraq, 3 acres; Haiti, 1 acre; Iran, 5 acres; Venezuela, 6 acres.

This is why scientists who have studied sustainability have said that it is only achievable if the developing world limits population and the developed world limits consumption. Yet, so far the US and certain other countries have refused to consider this strategy. The reason given is that a constraint on consumption would hurt the economy. And so it is a choice between whether we will constrain ourselves and throw away the consumer capitalist, throwaway civilization, or whether we will have those constraints forced upon us by resource depletion and pollution.

Personally, I prefer a voluntary withdrawal from this system, a withdrawal to something more self-sufficient and satisfying. But there are many who are still unaware of the choice we face, and there are many who deny the facts of our predicament. These latter adopt a “show me” attitude. And yet the global footprint is not an abstraction; it can be viewed directly, thanks to satellite technology.

Global Footprint, Group Portrait



Earth at Night

Astronomy Picture of the Day, NASA, Nov. 27th, 2002.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html

It is in the dark of night that we can best see our footprint on this planet. Here we can see the developed world outlined by electric lights. While it is a spectacular view, it is also a map to the squandering of energy resources. It is astounding how much detail can be seen in this NASA composite satellite photo. This is a map of technological man. The extent of Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus is here clearly delineated. From this overview provided by NASA, we will now switch to more detailed shots taken from a map prepared by the National Geographic Society, titled “Earth at Night.” The full map can be ordered from the National Geographic Map Store.

North America

Here we can see the profile of conspicuous consumption, revealing the most gluttonous region on the planet. Note that all of the coasts are outlined in light, and – aside from the far north – the only portions which are not lit up are small patches in the west, Michigan’s upper peninsula, and the interior of Maine. The lit up areas represent where energy use is the greatest, which also tends to be where humanity is the most concentrated. These are among the areas which will suffer the most as we make the long and bumpy ride down the slope of energy depletion.

Note the red light in the lower portion of the picture, off the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. This represents natural gas flaring at the Mexican oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Red in these images therefore represents where oil is being extracted. Also note the lack of red lights in the US and Canada. This does not mean that the US and Canada are bereft of hydrocarbon resources. In these countries, there are regulations on the flaring of natural gas. There is also a strong demand for natural gas as a fuel in its own right. Fifty years ago, you would have seen red lights across Texas and elsewhere. And without the latest technology, today you would see red lights pinpointing US platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and also in Canada and Alaska. Note the splotch of white light on the northern coast of Alaska. This represents the Alaskan oil operations.

South America

Here we see much less evidence of Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus, mostly confined to the coast. The use of technology falls off drastically toward the interior. Note the oil production off the coast of Brazil, not too far from Rio de Janeiro, and also on Cape Horn, in Argentina. Other notable oil operations can be identified in Ecuador and Colombia. The oil operations in Venezuela stand out very clearly. This is the region from which the US receives a good portion of its oil imports, and this is the main reason why the US is trying to overthrow the government of Presidente Hugo Chavez.

Note the tendrils of light spreading into the interior from Rio de Janeiro, and from Buenos Aires and Montevideo. These represent the roads which are taking civilization to the interior. Look at the interior of the continent, particularly in Brazil, Bolivia, and to the south of Colombia and Venezuela. The yellow lights represent slash and burn agriculture. This is where the Amazon rainforests are burning, clearly distinguishable from the sky at night.

Australia , New Zealand , and Indonesia

The most notable feature of Australia at night is the wildfires in the outback, some caused by humans, but many the result of lightning storms during the dry Australian summer. New Zealand, in the lower right corner, is almost devoid of lights. This is why some people believe New Zealand is the spot to ride out the end of the oil age.

Now look to Indonesia in the upper portion of the map. Indonesia is the third most populous nation on the planet, with over 228.4 million people. As can be seen on this map, most of those people are concentrated on the island of Java. Indonesia is an OPEC member, though there has been speculation that it may soon lose its membership as its oil production slowly diminishes. The red lights on Sumatra represent the bulk of Indonesia’s oil production.

Asia

Here we have the most densely populated region of the world; the majority of the human population can be seen in this group portrait. Note the total lack of natural gas flares in India. The population there is almost entirely dependent on imports for their hydrocarbon needs. This does not bode well for the people of the Indian subcontinent, and this is why they have formed a pact with long-time rival, China, for access to oil imports. The lack of gas flares in China, on the other hand, is the result of sophisticated extraction technology. The natural gas is either being reinjected to keep up pressure in the reserves, or it is being utilized to produce energy. Once again, this was not the case just a few decades ago.

Take a look at Japan and South Korea, brightly lit up. Contrast the latter to North Korea, the border between the two being clearly demarked where the light stops at the 38th parallel. Do you see the light blue in the waters surrounding Japan and South Korea? This represents large floodlights employed by the fishing fleet at night, to draw squid and other sea creatures to the surface where they can easily be caught. This is the sign of fisheries on the brink of collapse. Similar lights can be seen off the coast of China and in a few other spots in the other images.

Finally, this image also shows Vietnam’s offshore oil operations, off the southeast coast of that country. Malaysia also shows evidence of oil production, both offshore and on the east coast of the Malaysian Peninsula.

Africa

The yellow lights which symbolize slash and burn agriculture can be seen all across Sub-Saharan and Southern Africa. Indeed, much of Africa appears to be ablaze. Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus appears to be largely confined to the fringes of the continent, with the largest concentrations in South Africa, and along the Barbary Coast and the Mediterranean, in the countries of Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Egypt. Note the concentration of population along that cradle of civilization, the Nile.

Oil production is clearly visible, scattered across Algeria and Libya, and to a lesser extent in Egypt and along both shores of the Gulf of Suez. By far the largest reserves of oil are found off the west coast of Africa, from Angola north to the mother lode on and off the coast of Nigeria. It is of prime interest that Africa’s oil bearing regions have been areas of conflict and political tension for many years (see FTW’s “Beginning of the Oil Endgame“), from the Algerian struggles for liberation from French control, to the US led embargo against Libya as a terrorist nation (and now the increasingly friendly relations and easing of restrictions), to numerous interventions in Angola and Nigeria and neighboring countries. This includes Shell Oil’s involvement in the execution of environmental activists in Nigeria and the recent revelation of Halliburton bribing Nigerian officials, and the attempted Equatorial Guinea overthrow plot which snagged Sir Mark Thatcher (son of Former Prime Minister Lady Margaret Thatcher), and likely involved elements of US and British intelligence along with various parties that have a vested interest in the oil business.

We will have a better look at the Middle East in our next image.

Europe , Russia , Central Asia , & the Middle East

Our final image comprises multiple theatres. And in this one image, we take in the majority of the planet’s remaining energy resources.

Let us first look at Europe, with its marked presence of Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus. Note the dense populations, and the lack of observable oil production. The only large oil deposits in this region are denoted by the natural gas flares in the North Sea. Aside from these declining fields, Europe is virtually dependent upon oil imports.

In the upper right section of the image, we see the oil fields of Siberia, which are of so much interest to Europe, China, Japan and the US. South of Russia, we see some oil activity in Georgia, and in the Central Asian countries surrounding the Caspian Sea. This region, which until very recently was where many hopes of future hydrocarbon riches were pinned, obviously boasts only modest hydrocarbon production.

Allowing our gaze to drop below Central Asia, we arrive at the Middle East, where the bulk of the world’s hydrocarbon resources are located, and where the entire world has increasingly focused its attention. First let us observe how patchy are the lights of Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus in this region. The population is concentrated in Riyadh (in the middle of Saudi Arabia, around Abu Dhabi and Dubai on the eastern Musandam Peninsula, in Qatar and Bahrain, heavily in Kuwait, and extending from the Red Sea port of Jedda, inland to Mecca and southward. The highest concentration of Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus is to be found in Israel and Lebanon, areas which are virtually bereft of hydrocarbon resources. Also compare the scattered population centers of Iraq (where the US is slowly losing hold in its efforts to occupy that country), with more widely populated Iran (which some in the US are hoping to target next).

Finally, we cannot keep our eyes away from the oil fields. In this image, we can plainly see how most of the oil reserves are concentrated in the Persian Gulf and extending inland along the Tigris and Euphrates River Basin, in Iraq and Iran. The large fields of Saudi Arabia are seen to cover only a small eastern portion of that country, extending slightly inland from the gulf. This is the Arabian Oil Triangle. Outside of this region, there are some smaller deposits in northern Iraq, around Jedda and north of there on the Red Sea, and in the countries of Oman and Yemen, on the southern and western portions of the Arabian Peninsula. But it is in the Arabian Oil Triangle where the majority of the world’s remaining hydrocarbon wealth is concentrated, and around which the final days of the Oil Age are destined to be played out.

Conclusion

We have learned how to gage our own personal footprints, and in so doing received some clues as to how we can shrink our footprints and so move toward self-sufficiency and sustainability. And we have seen the footprint of humanity in its entirety written out across the surface of the planet. Certainly, there are many aspects of this footprint which are missing here: air, land & water pollution, the amount of natural habitat fallen and falling to agriculture and other development, the mass extinction currently taking place on this planet, and the depletion of resources-to name a few. But we can see that there are few places remaining on this planet which have been spared from our footprint.

The images of the Earth at night show us how great our reach is. They also show us how overextended we are, and how vulnerable we are to the collapse which inevitably follows upon the overextension of any species beyond the carrying capacity of its environment. The abundance of resource wealth – particularly energy wealth, which the technological revolution of the last two centuries brought into our grasp, has been largely squandered. Our population has climbed exponentially following the curve of energy production. But the subspecies which has evolved over the last couple centuries, Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus, could quite possibly be the most short-lived lifeform on the planet. The world we face will not be able to support Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus for much longer. And we have all but forgotten how to exist without hydrocarbons. It is time for Homo sapiens to evolve a new subspecies, and hopefully this subspecies will be wiser than hydrocarbonus. We must make it our hope and our goal that the next subspecies will be more egalitarian in nature, possessing a better understanding of her place in the scheme of things and born of a vision of sustainability and harmony.

 

The Voice of the Fiddle

Quantum Meditation #1573

 

 

 

 

 

Runaway Climate Change

Runaway Climate Change

Passing the Point of No Return

by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

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[So far in our study of global climate change, we have examined the evidence that global climate change is taking place, and that it is induced by industry. And we looked at the scientific consensus based upon this evidence. Then we explained abrupt climate change, revealing why global warming could result in a little ice age in the North Atlantic region even as the planet overall continued to warm. We closed with a look at evidence suggesting that the global ocean conveyer, whose reversal would trigger abrupt climate change, is indeed slowing down. Now we will examine the possibility that climate change might spin out of control, threatening to extinguish the human race altogether, along with much of the life on this planet.]

Introduction

The possibility of runaway global warming is not as distant a threat as we may wish. It is a threat which worries some of the greatest minds living among us today. Stephen Hawking, physicist, best selling author of A Brief History of Time, and claimant of the Cambridge University post once occupied by Sir Isaac Newton (the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics), has been quoted as saying, “I am afraid the atmosphere might get hotter and hotter until it will be like Venus with boiling sulfuric acid.”1 The renowned physicist was joined by other notables such as former President Jimmy Carter, former news anchor Walter Cronkite, and former astronaut and Senator John Glenn in drafting a letter to urge President Bush to develop a plan to reduce US emissions of greenhouse gases.2 Former British Environmental Minister Michael Meacher is also worried about the survival of the human race due to global warming.3

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) released a position paper in the fall of 2003 stating that industry-induced emissions were causing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to climb faster than at any other point in Earth’s history.4 The AGU has previously been very cautious about taking any position with regard to global warming. The AGU reticence has been used by oil companies and other global warming skeptics to support their own position that global warming is some sort of environmental hoax. Among the signers of the AGU statement was John Christy, director of the University of Alabama’s Earth Systems Science Center. Dr. Christy has previously been very skeptical of global warming studies, and has often been cited to support the argument that scientific understanding of global warming is flawed and uncertain. In a National Public Radio interview about the AGU consensus statement, Dr. Christy said, “It is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the atmosphere and sending quantities of greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate change hasn’t been increased [sic] in the past century.” 5

Why do so many prominent people worry about runaway global warming? The fear is that, once the atmosphere has warmed past some critical level, various feedback mechanisms will kick in and push the temperature beyond the point where the planet will become inhospitable for human life. Once these feedback mechanisms have kicked in, it is unlikely that we can do anything to intervene. And considering the current signs from the environment, accelerating industrial emissions, and the long life of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, some worry that it may already be too late to prevent this scenario.

Runaway Climate Change-Feedback Mechanisms

Many processes in the natural world have continuous consequences which either accelerate or retard the original process. Such consequences feed back into the process from which they arise, and so are called “feedback loops.” For example, a newly-introduced predator devours the population of its chosen prey, until the food supply is so diminished that the predator can’t feed its young and its own population contracts: that’s negative feedback. Balance is exceeded, and the overfeeding predators give rise to an effect that drives down their own numbers.

Feedback loops occur in the social world as well; for instance, under a regressive income tax, the working poor pay plenty of tax, which tends to keep them increasingly poor and working longer hours, while the wealthy pay little or no tax, which tends to make them wealthier. That’s a positive feedback loop, because the original process is exacerbated by its own effects.

Our climate system is largely a system of feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative. It is the crux of the climate change skeptics’ argument that negative feedback systems will cancel out industry- induced global climate change. They suggest that excess carbon in the atmosphere will be absorbed by the oceans and will stimulate photosynthesis in land-based plants, both of which will serve to remove the excess carbon from the atmosphere and lock it safely away.

Currently, photosynthesis in forests is accelerating, leading to greener, lusher forests and a higher absorption rate for carbon dioxide. However, decomposition rates in dead wood and soils are also beginning to accelerate. And as the climate warms, eventually this outgassing of decomposed carbon will overtake the accelerated photosynthesis. Worse, the Amazonian rainforests are expected to fail about mid-century. The dying rainforests would then release their store of carbon into the atmosphere. According to studies undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction in Great Britain, if industrial carbon emissions go unmitigated then the forests will become net contributors of carbon to the atmosphere by 2070. Stabilization of industrial emissions could possibly delay this forest dieback for another century.6

Global vegetation biomass in the 1990s (top), in the 2080s due to global climate change from unmitigated emissions (middle), and in the 2080s with emissions stabilizing CO2 at 750 ppm (bottom).

Taken from The Impacts of Climate Change on Natural Vegetation, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research

Climate change skeptics point to the oceans as an immense carbon sink, capable of absorbing all industrial carbon emissions. Indeed, the oceans hold a volume of carbon equivalent to more than 6,000 years of fossil fuel burning at current rates.7 Without the absorption of carbon by the oceans and the linked production of free oxygen by ocean phytoplankton, the Earth’s atmosphere would consist almost entirely of carbon dioxide, with a little bit of nitrogen. Temperatures would hover around 600º Celsius, and atmospheric pressure would be 60 times heavier than it is currently.8

Ocean waters absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, holding much of it in solution, but transforming some into carbolic acid. Phytoplankton in the upper ocean layers fix the carbon dioxide in their cells through the process of photosynthesis. These Phytoplankton form the basis of the ocean food chain. They are grazed by animal plankton and other organisms, which utilize most of the carbon as an energy source but return a small portion of it to the atmosphere through respiration. Some of this carbon ultimately settles through the ocean column in the form of cast-off tests and shells, and animal feces. During periods of global warming millions of years ago, this sediment of carbon wastes formed the source for the hydrocarbon deposits which have served to power our civilization through the past century, and which are now, ironically, resulting in industry-induced climate change.

Unfortunately, this oceanic carbon sink could very well break down in response to climate change. Warmer seawater is already saturated with carbon, so it absorbs less. Robust absorption of carbon requires a continuous cycling of colder, carbon-poor water upward from the ocean depths. If the global thermohaline conveyor were to fail (see Part II of this series), a dangerous drop in carbon absorption could result.

But the biggest threat to the oceanic carbon cycle lies in diminishing phytoplankton productivity. In the past 20 years, phytoplankton concentrations in northern oceans have decreased by as much as 30%. Scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suspect that warmer temperatures and low winds are depriving the phytoplankton of nitrogen and carbon dioxide.9 A Japanese researcher at Hokkaido University has noted a sharp drop in the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the northern Pacific Ocean over the past 15 years. Yutaka Watanabe has stated that the amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean has dropped by 10%. 10

Another feedback mechanism which is already beginning to work against us is the retreat of ice cover, particularly from the Arctic ice cap and from Greenland. The melting ice cover will trouble us in several ways. Freshwater runoff will help to disrupt thermohaline circulation in the oceans, as discussed in the second part of this series. Melting ice cover would also raise ocean levels. As mentioned in the first part of this series, satellite studies from NASA demonstrate that the Arctic ice cap is already retreating dramatically. A report released by the German Advisory Council on Global Change states that if the world’s average temperature increases by more than 2° C beyond what it was at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, it will likely trigger the melting of the Greenland ice cap and West Antarctic ice sheet. This would raise world sea levels by as much as 30 feet, submerging major cities such as New York, London, Tokyo, Miami, Bombay, Calcutta, Sydney, and Shanghai. 11 The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research has stated that there are already sufficient Greenhouse gases to raise Greenland’s average temperature by 3º C by the middle of the century.12

The retreating ice cover will decrease the Earth’s albedo, as discussed in the first part of this series, reflecting less of the sun’s energy and resulting in a further warming of the Earth’s surface. Evaporating melt waters could also increase the water vapor content in the lower atmosphere. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. The result of both of these effects would be a positive feedback cycle where melting ice results in a warmer climate, which in turn leads to the melting of yet more ice.

And then there is the thawing tundra. Globally, frozen peatlands hold an estimated 550 billion tons of stored carbon.13 Dead plant matter is frozen in permafrost, slowing and even stopping the decomposition process. The slow, anaerobic decomposition which currently takes place in these frozen lands has produced a stockpile of methane which is already showing signs of escaping into the atmosphere as the tundra thaws. Methane has a shorter lifetime in the atmosphere than does carbon dioxide, but is it up to ten times as effective at trapping heat in the lower atmosphere. However, as the soils warm and the permafrost thaws, bacteria could set to work with a vengeance, decomposing plant matter at a higher rate, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere instead of methane. 14

When Oceans Exhale

Each of these feedback mechanisms (and others not mentioned here) would have dire consequences for life on this planet. Taken together, they would reinforce each other and magnify the change in climate. But the gravest concern is that rising temperatures on this planet will lead to a venting of methane from the oceans. It is this possibility which is lamented in the above quotation from Stephen Hawking.

Methane is stored in the deep ocean along the continental margins, in the form of clathrates. These are massive deposits of carbonated slush, where the methane is trapped under pressure in the crystal lattices of frozen water (i.e., ice). Though the oceans hold much more methane than does the tundra, taken together they contain an estimated 2 trillion tons of methane in the form of clathrates.15

Occurrences of Natural Methane Hydrate (Clathrates) Deposits Worldwide

The release of the entire balance of these pent up gases into the atmosphere is possible, but highly improbable. Dr. Hawking’s scenario of an Earth superheated to match its sister planet, Venus, is unlikely. If the seas started venting methane into the atmosphere, the chances are that the process would halt before all of the sequestered methane escaped. However, just a portion of this enormous reserve of carbon, if released into the atmosphere, could render the planet uninhabitable. And while many scientists consider the possibility very remote, every day more investigators assess this scenario, shake their heads and wonder: could we already have set such an event into motion?

It is believed that a release of methane hydrates from the oceans has happened before in the Earth’s history, and it is suspected to be a factor in most of the mass extinction events of the past. The last time was 55 million years ago (fairly recent in geological terms), in an event known as the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM). It lasted for about 150,000 years, and raised average global temperatures by 5 to 7º C (9 to 13º F).16 Recent studies of sea floor sediment indicate that the oceans warmed in higher latitudes by 8 to 10º C, and by 4 to 5º C in tropical latitudes.17 The LPTM was probably initiated by movements of the continental plates, such as the collision of the Indian subcontinent with Eurasia which created the Himalayas. Uplifting decreased water pressure on the ocean floors, which in turn allowed a massive methane release. This release warmed the oceans sufficiently to allow further methane release and other feedback mechanisms to kick in. The polar ice caps disappeared and life on this planet experienced a mass extinction event.18

When Life Almost Disappeared-The Permian Extinction

251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian Era, life almost entirely vanished from this planet. It is the single worst mass extinction in the history of the Earth. Fully 95% of the species extant on this planet at that time were wiped out. Only a few species of plants, animals, and likely even protozoa, survived to evolve (until the next major extinction-ecologically trivial by comparison-wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago).

The cause of the horrendous Permian extinction has long been a mystery, and geologists have suggested a number of possibilities, none of which quite explains the evidence. But in the last fifteen years or so, a compelling picture has emerged. Developed in response to a wealth of new paleogeological evidence from that period-evidence from petrology, geochemistry, oceanography, paleoclimatology and various other disciplines-the scenario is quickly being accepted by the scientific community. The culprit that wiped out 95% of all species and very nearly put an end to life on this planet was runaway global warming.

The event began in a very spectacular fashion, with a massive volcanic eruption in Siberia that spewed out a volume of 2 million cubic kilometers of basalt, which covered an area of eastern Russia 1.6 million square kilometers in extent (roughly the size of Europe).19 Volcanic activity also vented a great deal of carbon dioxide and fine ash into the atmosphere. Gases were vented in such quantity that the average global temperature increased by approximately 6º C.20 Some 161 species became extinct as a direct result of these volcanic eruptions. The extinction rate was as high as 33%. But this was just the beginning.

The temperature rise was high enough to trigger a number of positive feedback mechanisms. Most notably, there was a massive release of methane from hydrates locked into clathrates. The warming caused by the Siberian eruption was sufficient to melt the frozen gas hydrates, allowing bodies of methane to bubble up to the surface of the oceans and belch into the atmosphere. This introduction of methane then led to further warming, which in turn melted deeper methane hydrate deposits. The outgassing of methane was far in excess of the natural mechanisms which normally reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The planet’s climate system broke down and runaway global warming continued until it reached some unknown threshold.

It is not yet known what prevented the planet from becoming a sterile twin to Venus. Scientists are just beginning to explore the question of how the atmosphere returned to a more hospitable climate. Life on this planet came so close to complete annihilation that it took 100 million years for global biodiversity to return to pre-extinction levels.21

The Permian Extinction should be widely understood as an ominous lesson in the danger of global warming. We need to pay particular attention to the temperature rise which caused these runaway feedback mechanisms to kick in: 6º C. Back in the first installment of this series on global climate change, we looked at a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which stated that the average global surface temperature will increase by between 1.4º and 5.8º C during the next century. This would compound the increase of 0.6º C that has already occurred during the past century. So, according to this report, the temperature could rise by as much as 6.4º C by the year 2100.22 And that this estimate is on the conservative side; it is possible that temperatures could increase by much more than 6.4º C.

The warning lights should be going off all over. A temperature increase of 6.4º C would put us well beyond the threshold for runaway global warming. Could mankind be gearing up to perpetrate the greatest extinction on this planet since the end of the Permian Era?

Enter the End of the Hydrocarbon Era

The first reaction of most environmental activists to the news of peak oil is to say, “Good, we need to stop using fossil fuels anyway.” It seems logical that a decline in hydrocarbon production will lead to a decline in carbon dioxide emissions. And it is likely that somewhere down the line, carbon emissions will abate simply due to the scarcity of fuel. But we will not go gently into that good night.

When you learn that heating costs are going to continue increasing, and that shortages of natural gas are likely in our near future, what alternatives come to your mind for home heating? Passive solar heating? Sure, but that alone will not keep you warm on a cold winter night. Most people immediately think of wood. As heating costs go up, and as shortages put a chill on our homes, most of us are going to start burning wood (or will burn more wood, as the case may be). We will turn to biomass.

Burning biomass is undoubtedly the dirtiest source of energy. As we burn wood, corn husks or cow chips to heat our homes, we will be pumping tremendous volumes of carbon into the atmosphere. And, in all probability, it is unavoidable. There are some things we can do to reduce the amount of wood we burn and so limit our contribution to global warming. Better insulation can increase efficiency. And consider the sort of wood furnace you will be using. Traditional brick fireplaces are the least efficient way to warm a house. Metal wood stoves are better, but soapstone is the best at holding heat and radiating it outward. A small load of wood is a soapstone stove can generate heat for hours. And when you are harvesting your wood, take care not to strip the forests bare. Be selective in choosing your wood. Practice coppicing (do a Google search to find out more about this ancient method of harvesting wood).

Burning biomass will likely add to our global warming problem, but it is probable that coal burning will be far more harmful.

As oil and natural gas production go into decline in North America, the alternative we will ultimately turn to is coal-whether we like it or not. Coal is considered to be abundant in North America, and it is cheap. Despite all the talk of a hydrogen economy, the real investment will go into stepping up coal production. In fact, the production of coal-fired power plants has already been stepped up. As of February 2004, at least 100 new coal-fired electric power plants were planned to go up in more than 36 states.23 This new growth market is currently flying below radar, because once plans for a coal-burning plant are made public, they are liable to be halted by the legislative efforts of environmentalists and neighborhood coalitions.

If even half of these plants are completed, they will increase exhaust gas emissions by 120 million cubic feet per minute. All the new coal plants being proposed would add one-tenth of one percent to the world’s annual carbon dioxide emissions.24 That may not seem like much, but it is certainly a move in the wrong direction. And it is only the beginning.

As the production of oil and natural gas continues to slide, we will open up our coal reserves for electricity production, heating, industrial use, and to process coal into liquid transportation fuel. In the process, we will increase our exhaust emissions, rip up vast areas of land, create immense slag dumps, and pollute our waterways and groundwater. And we will require a major upgrade in our coal transportation network-that is, trucks and trains. You can expect strong efforts from industry and politicians to turn back environmental laws regulating coal production and coal burning. It will be argued that these regulations are damaging the economy. They will point to an economy choking from a constricting energy base, and they will insist that they cannot provide the energy we so desperately need with all these legal restrictions. Power outages will act to blunt the environmental sensibilities of the public.

Perhaps the only salvation here lies in recent research (reported in FTW), that coal is likely to peak sometime around 2032, if not sooner.25 This will leave us a little less than 20 years of stepped up production before coal joins the list of has-beens. Then our carbon emissions really may begin to decrease.

But the US is not the only country likely to turn to coal. China is also eying its large reserves of coal, as is India. If the world’s two most populous countries step up their coal consumption along with the US, then the decline in petroleum and natural gas production will actually be greeted with a pronounced increase in carbon emissions.

Peak oil will not be a blessing in disguise with regard to global warming. The models of global climate change developed by the IPCC and others have not taken into account the impacts of Peak Oil and the North American Natural Gas Cliff. These models are based on faulty economic projections produced by neo-classical economics-a warped discipline which is blind to resource depletion.26 If we turn to coal and biomass to make up for the decrease in oil and natural gas production, then it is likely that our actions will push the average global temperature well beyond the 6º C threshold mentioned above. The end of the oil age could very well push us into an age of runaway global warming.

Coal will not be able to support the kind of energy-intensive economy which we have built on oil and natural gas. It will be a faltering effort from a civilization in denial, intent on clinging to unsustainable ways. It will fail in the end, but in this last mad burn-off of energy resources, we may very well incur the demise of life on this planet.

Endnotes

1 World famous physicist Stephen Hawking says he’s worried runaway global warming could destroy human life on Earth. Nando Times, 9/30/2000. Archived at http://eces.org/archive/ec/globalwarming/runaway.shtml

2 Poll: global warming is a serious problem, AP. USA Today, 4/2/2001. http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2001-04-01-globalwarmingpoll.htm

3 Human Race is Killing the Planet, Says Meacher, Brown, Paul. The Guardian, February 14th, 2003.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,895067,00.html

End of the World Nigh-It’s Official, Meacher, Michael. The Guardian, February 14th, 2003. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,895217,00.html

4 US Science Body Warns on Climate. BBC News, December 16th, 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3325341.stm

5 Science Group Issues Climate Change Warming, Harris Richard. National Public Radio, Morning Edition, December 17th, 2003. http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1551355

6 The Impacts of Climate Change on Natural Vegetation. The Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction & Research, 1999. http://www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/pubs/brochures/B1999/imp_nat_veg.html#tgt

7 The Ocean Carbon Cycle. The Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction & Research, 1996. http://www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/pubs/brochures/B1996/ocncarb.html

8 The Rain of Ocean Particles and the Earth’s Carbon Cycle, Honjo, Susumu. Oceanus, December 1997. http://oceanusmag.whoi.edu/v40n2/honjo2.html

9 Phytoplankton in Northern Oceans have Declined from 1980s Levels, Chohan, Rani. Goddard Space Flight Center, August 8th, 2002. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020801plankton.html

Satellites See Big Changes since 1980s in Key Element of the Ocean’s Food Chain, Steitz, David, et al. Goddard Space Flight Center, August 8th, 2002. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020801plankton2.html

10 Global Warming could Disturb Ocean’s Ecosystem. ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News Online, September 3rd, 2001. http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/environment/2001/09/item20010903191131_1.htm

11 Climate Protection Strategies for the 21st Century, Kyoto and Beyond, Grabl, Hartmut, et al. German Advisory Council on Global Change, December 10th, 2003. http://www.wbgu.de/wbgu_sn2003_engl.pdf

12 Melting Greenland Ice Threatens Global Rise in Sea Levels. Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction & Research, April 7th, 2004. http://www.met-office.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2004/pr20040407a.html

13 Study: Siberian Bogs Big Player in Greenhouse Gas, Owen, James. National Geographic News, January 15th, 2004. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0115_040115_siberianpeatbog.html

14 Ibid.

Scientists Fear Cycle of Global Warming, Reuters. ABCNews.com, Febraury 7th, 2001. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/warming_permafrost010207.html

15 New Evidence of Global Warming in Earth’s Past supports Greenhouse Warming Theory, Stephens, Tim. Eurekalerts, October 23rd, 2003. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/uoc–neo102003.php

16 Methane Explosion Warmed the Prehistoric Earth, Possible Again, Tawney, Timothy R. NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Dec. 10th, 2001. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011212methane

17 A Transient Rise in Tropical Sea Surface Temperature During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, Zachos, James C., et al. Science 28 November 2003; 302: 1551-1554.

18 Methane Gas Research Could Help Scientists Understand Global Warming, Kanipe, Jeff. Space.com, October 29th, 1999. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/climate_globalwarming_991029.html

19 How to kill (almost) all life: the end-Permian extinction event, Benton, Michael J., and Twitchett, Richard J. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 18, No. 7, July 2003. http://palaeo/gly/bris/ac/ukpublsBenton2003TREEPTr.pdf

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Climate Change 2001, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/

23 Resurgence in Coal Forecast by R.W. Beck. PRNewswire, June 2nd, 2004. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040602/flw024_1.html

America’s New Coal Rush, Clayton, Mark. The Christian Science Monitor, February 26, 2004. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0226/p01s04-sten.html

24 Ibid.

25 The Peak in US Coal Production, Gregson Vaux. From the Wilderness, May 27th, 2004. http://www.fromthewilderness.com/members/052504_coal_peak.html

26 Bradford Jason, personal communication.

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Quantum Meditation #1572

Abrupt Climate Change

Abrupt Climate Change

Catastrophic Climate Change can Happen in an Instant

by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

Download a pdf version of this article (black type on a white background)

Abrupt Climate Change

Large bodies of water — particularly the oceans and seas — have a moderating effect upon the weather. As anyone living on an island or near the seashore is well aware, the summers in such an area tend to be cooler than farther inland, and the winters tend to be warmer. As a resident of the state of Michigan, I am well aware that an Alberta clipper which will freeze North Dakota and Minnesota down to -20º F, will be warmed sufficiently upon crossing over Lake Michigan so that this same weather system will only drop Michigan ‘s temperature down to 0º F. This is because bodies of water tend to have less seasonal variance in their temperature than does stone or soil, and they interact with overriding air masses to transfer heat from one to the other.

This process is much more complex in the oceans than in the Great Lakes. Ocean currents channel warm water from the equator and cold water from the polar regions, with considerable effect upon local weather. Warm waters flowing up from the South Pacific bring heat to the Pacific Northwest and the Alaska Panhandle through the winter, leading directly to the temperate rainforests which dominate the ecology of this area.

Meteorologists have traditionally ignored the oceans’ role in meteorological processes. And this would seem to make sense on the face of it: if you are studying the weather it is natural to focus on the atmosphere, not the oceans. But we are coming to understand that the oceans are an equal partner with the atmosphere in producing the weather, and the dominant partner with regard to long-range weather patterns.

The oceans play an important role in heat storage and transport, and are vital to the transportation of heat from the equator to the poles. They are essential to the hydrological cycle as well. Covering 70% of the Earth’s surface, the oceans have 1,100 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere. They contain 97% of the free water on the planet—90,000 times as much water as the atmosphere. And they receive 78% of global precipitation.2 Unfortunately, oceanic processes have not been studied nearly so well as atmospheric processes; even environmentally crucial properties such as salinity and heat transference at depth have been relatively neglected until recently. As we’ll see, abrupt climate change has everything to do with “thermohaline” dynamics in the ocean depths; that term is a compound of two ancient Greek roots meaning “heat” and “salt.”

But a series of global ship-based observations in the 1990s revealed that the ocean has warmed at depth since similar observations were last made in the 1950s. It turns out that this heat difference corresponds to about half of the greenhouse warming that had been projected by models but had been missing from actual measurements of the atmosphere. Meteorological models had not accounted for the capacity of the oceans to store large quantities of heat on short timescales.3 This capacity has been accounted for in more recent models, with the result that they are now much more accurate in their reproduction of long term heating and cooling trends.

The oceans could accurately be called the long-term memory of the Earth’s climate system. The atmosphere is as fickle as it is dynamic. It lacks the permanence to produce decadal patterns. The oceans, however, host a variety of long-term cycles which can and do affect the weather.

Everyone has heard of El Niño and La Niña. Caused by the movement of warm water in the tropical Pacific — particularly off the coast of equatorial South America — these periodic three to five year disruptions are fully monitored by a system of buoys, so that they can now be predicted up to a year in advance. Yet these two phenomena represent only a small fraction of the influence which periodic ocean cycles exert upon the temperature and rainfall over North America. The variability of winter weather is highly correlated to long-term ocean cycles known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The NAO, in particular, has a much stronger influence over the weather of the Eastern United States than does El Niño. Yet both of these long-term cycles are poorly monitored.

Likewise, it is the oceans which regulate the hydrological cycle. A diversion of only 1% of the rainfall currently falling on the Atlantic would double the discharge of the Mississippi River.4 At the other end of the spectrum, an increase of rainfall over the oceans, particularly over key areas such as the Labrador Sea and the North Atlantic, could disrupt the thermohaline circulation of the oceans, with a drastic and immediate effect upon the climate of North America and Europe.

The climate is a dynamic and sensitive energy exchange system held in a self-regulating equilibrium. The interactions of water and air have always been difficult to predict because they’re governed by the branch of physics called fluid dynamics, whose recent mathematical formalism is called chaos theory. It’s a description of the way that chaotic systems tend to magnify the effects of initially small changes. Depending on the stability of the system, proliferating changes can be compensated for by mechanisms that reestablish equilibrium, or they can overwhelm the system. In the latter case, the result is either a permanent disequilibrium, or a new equilibrium markedly different from the old. Any attempt at large-scale weather manipulation without a reliable model would be like driving down a mountain road with the windows blackened out using a roadmap whose reliability decreases progressively the farther you venture from your point of departure.

The problem with modeling weather patterns is that there are simply too many variables. Many of these variables, such as the NAO and the PDO, are not well understood and are poorly monitored. Even if computer power continues to increase by an order of magnitude every 6 years, it would take over 160 years before models would have sufficient capacity to simulate the smallest ocean mixing processes.

So predictive climate modeling is constrained by two intractable problems: the limitations of our computational equipment, and the inherent uncertainty of the data we put into it. In a different discipline, small initial errors might be averaged out or otherwise corrected-for. But in a domain like the weather – where the behavior of turbulent fluids is influenced by myriad variables all mutually interacting – the smallest numerical error can become enormous as it propagates through the model. If I want to know my county’s surface temperature, pressure, rainfall and wind-speed a week in advance, I had better be rigorously correct about the numbers I put into my computer at the beginning.

This sensitivity afflicts long-term climate change modeling as well as short-term weather prediction, albeit in different ways. The chief difference is in the enormous disparity between the atmosphere and the oceans as reservoirs of thermal energy. Dr. Raymond Schmitt of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute describes climate modeling:

An abundance of evidence indicates that the key to long-term prediction is in the workings of the ocean, which has 99.9% of the heat capacity of Earth’s fluids. It is the heart of the climate ‘beast,’ the atmosphere its rapidly waving tail, with only 0.1% of the heat capacity.6

Thermohaline Circulation — the Oceans’ Heat Conveyer

Perhaps the most important role for the oceans in helping to regulate the climate is the absorption of heat from equatorial regions and the transportation of that heat into northern regions. This process helps to distribute heat more evenly around the globe, moderating the heat of equatorial regions as well as the cold of higher latitudes — particularly in the North Atlantic. These currents warm North Atlantic regions by an average of 5º Celsius, significantly tempering the winter season in North America and Europe.7

Taken from Abrupt Climate Change; should we be worried?

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 1/27/2003

 

This global current could be said to originate in the seas which ring the North Atlantic —the Labrador, Irminger and Greenland Seas, where the oceans release large amounts of heat into the cold atmosphere. Evaporation, which has been occurring throughout the North Atlantic, is here increased to the point that these northern waters constitute the saltiest waters in the oceans. The concentration of salts results in a denser solution, as does the loss of heat. And this denser water sinks to the ocean abyss, where it begins a slow migration back down the Atlantic and eastward into the Indian and Pacific Oceans. There it wells up, having lost much of its salinity. Displaced by colder waters moving under it and heated by contact with warmer flows from above, the formerly deep water rises toward the surface and picks up additional heat along the return journey into the Atlantic.

Unfortunately, the ocean conveyer does have an Achilles heel. And this Achilles heel lies in the Northern Atlantic region where the deep limb of the ocean conveyer originates, drawing warm equatorial waters to replace it. If the cold, salty, dense waters of the North Atlantic somehow failed to sink, then the global circulation could slacken and halt. Currents would weaken and/or be redirected, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the whole biosphere.

Were this to happen, the North Atlantic region would cool by an average of 5º Celsius. This would mean that winters in Eastern North America would be twice as cold as the coldest winter on record in the past century, and Europe would be even colder.8 The summer growing season in these areas would be shortened, and summer crops might fail altogether. Previous conveyer shutdowns have been linked to widespread droughts throughout the world, and the disruption of the Asian monsoons.9

The resultant mini-ice age in North America and Northern Europe — and droughts elsewhere in the world — could continue for decades or even centuries, until conditions change sufficiently for thermohaline circulation to resume. Further, this localized mini-ice age might occur even as the Earth, on average, continues to warm.10 As a result, once thermohaline circulation resumed, the Northern Atlantic region could be thrown from one extreme to the other — from an ice age to a hot house.

All that is necessary for this scenario to occur is an influx of fresh water into the surface of the North Atlantic . This buoyant, fresh water would virtually seal off and insulate the denser, saltier waters, preventing them from venting heat and moisture into the atmosphere. The fresh waters would also dilute the salinity of the North Atlantic, further reducing the density of these waters. The force driving the deep limb of the ocean conveyer would quickly weaken and halt. And the cessation of thermohaline circulation would quickly impact the world’s climates.

This scenario could take place in a decade or less from the time that fresh water influx in the Northern Atlantic reaches a critical threshold. Unfortunately, though scientists are certain that such a threshold exists, not enough research has been done thus far to determine where this threshold is. Oceanographers have complained that we do not have a system in place to monitor slowly developing ocean circulation changes. While we have thousands of meteorological stations recording temperature on land and in the atmosphere, we have only three sites with anything like a continuous deep record of the North Atlantic. And these sites only make observations once per month.11 Satellites can monitor ocean circulation globally, but only at the surface. For measurements at depth, we need a network of buoys and current-monitoring vessels.

Oceanographers reporting in Nature, in 2002, concluded that a dramatic influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic has taken place continuously within the past forty years, and has accelerated within the last decade.12 This is the largest and most dramatic change in the oceans in the era of modern instruments. So far, the influx has been dispersed throughout the water column. But it is noticeably diluting salinity.13 And, at some point, the continuing influx may begin to pile up at the surface of the North Atlantic. An earlier report in Nature observed that the flow of cold, dense water from the Greenland and Norwegian Seas has slowed by 20% since 1950.14 This indicates that a slowdown of the ocean conveyer may already be occurring. An observation system must be put into place before we can better assess the impact of these developments on thermohaline circulation, and the rate at which the ocean conveyer may be disrupted.

Taken from Abrupt Climate Change; should we be worried?

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 1/27/2003

A History of Abrupt Climate Change

Until very recently, scientists believed that major climate change could only occur gradually, over long periods of time. The study of ice cores drilled in Greenland, Antarctica and in alpine glaciers around the world has changed that thinking. These ice cores hold a wealth of information. Aside from a record of annual snowfall, the ice cores hold spores and pollens, and volcanic ash. Also found in tiny inclusions in the glacial ice are trapped remnants of the atmosphere from thousands of years past. These gas inclusions can be analyzed to give an accurate measure of the chemical makeup of the Earth’s atmosphere over the course of centuries. It is the study of carbon dioxide levels, as recorded in the air bubbles of these ice cores, which has established the ineluctable proof of industry-induced global climate change.

Thanks to these ice cores, we now have a detailed history of the Earth’s climate stretching back nearly twenty thousand years. Reading the ice cores is somewhat similar to reading the growth rings on a tree, but complicated because the yearly layers of ice have been contorted and folded by pressure and ice flow. However, with the help of some applied physics and structural geology, the layers can be unfolded and the record can be read accurately. This endeavor has already yielded remarkable scientific results, including the discovery that abrupt climate change has already occurred in previous eras. In the last fifteen thousand years, there have been several periods of abrupt climate change of varying severity and duration. Let’s review four of these abrupt climate change episodes.

Taken from The Two-Mile Time Machine, Richard B. Alley.

Princeton University Press, 2000 (reprint edition 2002)

The Younger Dryas— Named for a small subarctic flowering plant which extended its range far southward into North America and Eurasia during this period. The Younger Dryas began about 12,700 years ago when average temperatures in the North Atlantic region plummeted by about 5º C. This abrupt change took place within a decade, and is believed to have been caused by a shutdown of the ocean conveyer due to a sudden influx of fresh water from the deglaciation of North America. The climate remained colder by about 5º C for the next 1,300 years, before another abrupt change caused temperatures to rise by about 7º C in less than a decade.15

Study of the Younger Dryas in particular has led scientists to conclude that there are preferred states of balance in the atmosphere. Should one state be tipped sufficiently out of balance, the atmosphere will cross some critical but unknown threshold and will then transition quickly to another state of balance. This thinking has revolutionized our view of climate change, and holds important implications for industry-induced climate change.

The 8,200-Year Event— This event was not as severe as the Younger Dryas, and lasted only a century. Temperatures in the North Atlantic region dropped by an average of 3º C. This episode seems to be associated with widespread dry conditions. There are two possible explanations for the 8,200-Year Event. The most widely accepted explanation is a disturbance in thermohaline circulation due to freshwater input associated with the retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet. Other studies have indicated that a fresh water influx from large proglacial lakes could have produced the 8,200-Year Event, and would even account for a brief warming episode within the event.16

The Medieval Warming Period— This is considered to be a period of abrupt warming which began approximately 1,000 years ago, and then ended abruptly 700 years ago with the beginning of the Little Ice Age. This event was very mild compared to earlier events, and there is much contradictory evidence from this period. Evidence appears to support warming at the beginning of the 20th century in Scandinavia, Greenland, China , the Sierra Nevadas, the Canadian Rockies and Tasmania . However, evidence from the Eastern United States, Mediterranean Europe, and South America show no change in climate. Ice core data from Greenland supports the theory of a warming trend, but needs to be correlated with ice core data from other areas of the globe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that temperatures from the 11th century to the 14th century were only about 0.2º C warmer than temperatures from the 15th to the 19th centuries, and were below average temperatures in the 20th century.17 Though the specific changes in regional temperatures remain difficult to specify, the data clearly indicate that during the past millennium the Earth’s climate has varied on a decadal scale.18

The Little Ice Age— This event brought an abrupt end to the Medieval Warming Period. It extended from the 1300s to the mid 1800s. The Little Ice Age was once thought to be a global phenomenon, but now that assumption is less certain. Evidence for the Little Ice Age appears to be stronger than the evidence for the Medieval Warming Period. The IPCC defines this as a period of modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere by less than 1º C.19 It was certainly a period of bitterly cold winters in many parts of the world, and is most thoroughly attested in Europe and North America. It is documented that glaciers in the Swiss Alps advanced during this period — even threatening villages. Rivers which are not known to freeze over in recent history did freeze over in this period—the Thames , the Delaware, the Ohio. In the winter of 1780, the New York Harbor froze so thick that people could walk from Manhattan to Staten Island. And the sea ice surrounding Greenland closed that island nation’s harbors to shipping.20

Scientists believe there were two causes for this cold period. In the middle of the Little Ice Age, from 1645-1715, there was a marked decrease in sun spot activity. This period is known as the Maunder Minimum. The exact link between sunspot activity and climate is not known, but scientists find it highly suggestive that the Maunder Minimum coincides with the coldest years of the Little Ice Age. The other causal factor was increased volcanism throughout the Little Ice Age. Volcanic ash dispersed throughout the atmosphere blocked incoming solar radiation. Sulfuric acid particles derived from sulfuric oxide gases discharged by volcanoes served to reflect more of the sun’s rays, further reducing the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface.21

Abrupt Climate Change & Civilization

It seems that the climate conditions on this planet naturally undergo sudden shifts several times per thousand-year period. Clearly, anthropogenic changes like those responsible for global warming are likely to bring the next major shift closer. How will abrupt climate change affect our civilization? How has abrupt climate change affected past civilizations? The Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age took place in relatively recent times. During the Medieval Warming Period, the Vikings colonized Greenland and other areas of the far north, venturing so far as the Americas, where they came into contact with the Inuit peoples. When the climate reversed itself, plunging into the Little Ice Age, the Vikings abandoned their colonies in Greenland, and the population of Iceland fell by half. Famines were frequent and deaths from disease increased. The famine of 1315 claimed 1.5 million lives. The forests of Northern Europe were denuded as people chopped wood for heating. And the severe cold played a major role in spurring the European expansion into the New World and elsewhere.22

It is now thought that the Younger Dryas led the Natufian communities of southwest Asia to abandon their nomadic hunting and gathering and develop labor intensive agriculture. The cooling of the Younger Dryas caused harvests of wild resources to dwindle below the level necessary for subsistence. The Natufians abandoned their nomadic culture, and established permanent settlements in areas where they could cultivate previously wild cereals. The development of agriculture entails the permanently localized settlement that we call civilization (literally, the “culture of the city”). These early farming communities grew in population and socioeconomic complexity until they were hit by another abrupt climate shock around 6400 B.C. This was the last major climate event related to the melting of the continental ice sheets.23

In the Middle East, a 200-year drought is blamed for the abandonment of early agricultural settlements in the Levant and Mesopotamia. The return of a wetter climate in Mesopotamia led to the occupation and development of the Tigris-Euphrates river plain. The collapse of the Late Uruk urban society of southern Mesopotamia may be related to a severe drought which lasted less than 200 years. Such a drought is hinted at in the paleoclimatic record.24

The Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, the Old Kingdom civilization of Egypt, the Harappan 3B civilization of the Indus valley and the Early Bronze Age civilizations of Palestine, Greece and Crete were all abruptly terminated by 2200 B.C. due to catastrophic drought and cooling. Paleoclimatic evidence shows that rainfall was reduced by 30%, leading to failing agricultural production from the Aegean to the Indus.25

Abrupt climate change also correlates to societal collapses in the Americas. Prolonged drought and severe flooding coincide with the collapse of the Moche civilization in northern coastal Peru. Similarly, the collapse 400 years later of the Tiwanaku civilization of the Central Andes correlates with a period of prolonged drought. The collapse of the Classic Mayans in the 9 th century A.D. coincides with the most severe and lengthy drought of that millennium. And in North America, three decades of severe drought and colder temperatures spelled the downfall of the Anasazi culture in the 13th century.26

Modern civilization, with its technological ingenuity, may be more capable of withstanding an abrupt climate change event than were these ancient civilizations. However, if abrupt climate change happens at a time when modern civilization is already suffering from resource depletion — particularly the depletion of its hydrocarbon energy base — the effect of such a double impact upon our civilization could be very grave indeed. In the past, when abrupt climate change rendered one area uninhabitable, people could migrate to another area. In today’s world, that is no longer possible.

Weakening of the North Atlantic Current

As this article was being written, NASA issued a bulletin reporting that satellite records reveal that North Atlantic circulation system weakened considerably in the 1990s from what it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Considering how essential this area is to the ocean conveyer — and consequently to the climate — this evidence of weakening is extremely important. This current, known as the sub polar gyre, is tied in with the NAO as well as the ocean conveyer.27

The pathways associated with the transformation of warm subtropical waters into colder subpolar and polar waters in the northern North Atlantic . Along the subpolar gyre pathway the red to yellow transition indicates the cooling to Labrador Sea Water, which flows back to the subtropical gyre in the west as an intermediate depth current (yellow). In the Norwegian and Greenland Seas the red to blue/purple transitions indicate the transformation to a variety of colder waters that spill southwards across the shallow ridge system connecting northern Europe , Iceland , Green-land, and northern North America . These overflows form up into a deep current also flowing back to the subtropics (purple), but beneath the Labrador Sea Water. The green pathway also indicates cold waters—but so influenced by continental runnoff as to remain light and near the sea surface on the continental shelf.

—Map and caption taken from NASA press release

Satellites record weakening North Atlantic Current

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0415gyre.html

 

Researchers believe the cause of this slowing is a reduction in the temperature differential between water from the Labrador Sea and waters from the Atlantic. Labrador Sea waters in the core of the gyre appear to have warmed during the 1990s, reducing the contrast with waters from warmer southern latitudes.28 This temperature differential is a major part of the driving force for ocean circulation.

Researchers point out that this is a signal of large climate variability in higher latitudes. Sirpa Hakkinen, lead author of the report and a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, has said, “If the trend continues, it could indicate reorganization of the ocean climate system, perhaps with changes in the whole climate system, but we need another good 5 to 10 years to say something like that is happening.”29

 

To be Continued…

The final installment of this series will look at the possibility of runaway global warming, and the implications of Peak Oil and the North American Natural Gas Cliff.

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Endnotes

1) Climate Change 2001, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/

2) The Ocean’s Role in Climate, Schmitt, W. Raymond. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Testimony to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, 7/18/2000. http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/abruptclimate_schmitt_testim

3) Ibid.

4) Ibid.

5) Chaos: making a new science, Gleick, James. Viking Press, 1987.

6) Op. Cit. See note 2.

7) Abrupt Climate Change; should we be worried? Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Prepared for a panel on abrupt climate change at the World Economic Forum. 1/27/2003 . http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/hottopics_climatechange.html

Ibid.

9) Ibid.

10) Ibid.

11) Op. Cit. See note 2.

12) Rapid freshening of the deep North Atlantic Ocean over the past four decades, Dickson, Bob, et al. Nature, vol. 416; April 25th, 2002.

13) Ibid.

14) Decreasing overflow from the Nordic Seas into the Atlantic Ocean through the Faroe Bank Channel since 1950, Hansen, B, et al. Nature, vol. 411; June 21st, 2001.

15) The Two-Mile Time Machine, Richard B. Alley. Princeton University Press, 2000 (reprint edition 2002).

16) Structure of the 8200-year cold event revealed by a speleothem trace element record, Baldini, J.U.L., McDermott, F., Fairchild, I.J. Science 296: 2203-2206; 2002.

17) Climate Change 2001. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/

18) Was there a Medieval Warm Period? Hughes, M.K., & Diaz, H.F. Climatic Change, Vol. 26, p. 109-142, March 1994.

19) Op. Cit. See note 17.

20) The Little Ice Age: How Climate made History 1300-1850, Fagan, Brian. Basic Books, 2000.

21) Volcanic dust, sunspots, and temperature trends, Schneider, S. H., and C. Mass. Science, 190:741-746; 1975.

22) Op. Cit. See note 20.

23) What Drives Societal Collapse? Weiss, Harvey & Bradley, Raymond S. Science, 291: 609-610; 2001.

24) Ibid.

25) Ibid.

26) Ibid.

27) Satellites Record Weakening North Atlantic Current. NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center press release. April 15th, 2004. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0415gyre.html

28) Decline of Subpolar North Atlantic Circulation during the 1990s, Hakkinan, S. & Rhines, P. Science 2004 0: 10949171-0. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1094917

29) Op. Cit. See note 27.