The Earth
is Warming Up?
By Dr. Syed Amir
Bethesda, MD
Is the planet earth heading
for a major climatic upheaval? While the answer,
based on all available evidence, seems to be yes,
no one knows for certain. The findings reported
recently by NASA’s National Aeronautical
and Space Administration Goddard Institute for
Space Research point to some disturbing trends
in the world climate.
The year 2005 has seen an inordinate number of
natural disasters, a tsunami, hurricanes, and
devastating earthquakes striking different parts
of the globe. Their frequency and ferocity have
intrigued and baffled many people. While earthquakes,
such as the one that ravaged Northern Pakistan,
and those that triggered the destructive tidal
waves in South East Asia are unlikely to be related
to any climatic changes, hurricanes may be a different
story. The generation of Katrina, Wilma and a
number of others that struck the southwestern
US this year has been blamed by meteorologists
on the progressively rising temperatures of the
waters of the Gulf of Mexico. According to the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
the summer water temperature of the Gulf was the
highest recorded during the last century. Even
more significant, 2005 has been the warmest year
since the climatologists started keeping record,
a finding consistent with the observed pattern
of rising temperatures seen in the past few years.
The increase in global temperature is small, only
1.36 degrees Fahrenheit above the average temperature
measured during the thirty years from 1950 to
1980. On the face of it, this small increment
seems negligible, hardly worth worrying about.
However, scientist are concerned that the earth’s
warming rate will accelerate with time and the
cumulative effect of an increasingly warmer climate
will have far reaching and profound consequences
for the inhabitants of our planet. There are indications
that this phenomenon is already having an effect.
In its issue of November 17, 2005, the British
journal Nature published data collected by the
World Health Organization that indicated that
global warming had contributed to an estimated
150,000 deaths and more than 5 million cases of
illness, caused by such diseases as malaria, diarrhea
and malnutrition. The authors of the Nature article,
speculate that the damaging effect of climatic
changes will double within the next 25 years.
The irony of the situation is that the poorer
countries of the world, which contribute very
little to the atmospheric pollution, suffer most
of the adverse consequences. According to the
WHO study, the United States and China are the
two premier environmental polluters, each emitting
1591 and 755 million metric tons, respectively,
of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However,
the countries exposed to the most harmful effects
are poorer countries of sub-Saharan African, South
American Pacific Coast (Peru) and South Asia,
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia. The
recent outbreak of dengue fever, a mosquito borne
tropical illness that killed an estimated 1000
people in some countries of South Asia, is attributed
to the accumulation of greenhouse gasses. In Peru
in South America the warming effect, brought on
by the Ocean current known as El Nino, is said
to have led to a sharply increased rate of hospitalization
among children. Apparently, as temperatures rise,
the parasites responsible for malaria and other
pathogens grow at an accelerated pace.
The global greenhouse effect, strangely, does
not impact the entire surface of the earth equally
or uniformly. Its influence on the northern hemisphere
is disproportionately large, compared to the southern
hemisphere. Normally, much of the sun’s
heat and light is reflected back into space by
the thick ice mass that covers the Arctic Ocean
the year round, but when a significant part of
it thaws and becomes water, it promotes a universal
warming effect. Unlike ice, water absorbs heat
rather than reflecting it. The North Pole is now
retaining so much solar radiation that its huge
arctic ice caps are progressively melting, and
the vast northern glaciers that had remained intact
for millennia are slowly retreating. It is estimated
that the total area normally covered with ice
at the North Pole shrunk in size last summer by
500,000 square miles; consequently the area that
remained under ice is the smallest ever recorded.
This major loss of ice mass is not without consequences.
For Arctic mammals, such as polar bears, the climate
change might spell disaster, while for many people
living within the Arctic Circle who survive mainly
by fishing and hunting, it might lead to a severe
disruption of their ancient way of life. Much
like the polar ice caps, glaciers in the mighty
Himalayan Mountains are melting, and both Nepal
and Tibet are being deluged with melting snows.
There is no unanimity of opinion about the causes
of earth’s rising temperatures. Indeed,
some climatologists believe that it is merely
a manifestation of earth’s normal warming
and cooling cycles which our planet periodically
undergoes and over which we have little control.
A majority, however, disagrees with this thesis
and blames the warming trend on human activities,
such as burning of fossil fuels, petroleum and
natural gas, which cause excessive emission of
carbon dioxide and other green-house gases. It
has been estimated that since the start of the
industrial revolution in late eighteenth century,
the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
has risen by more than 30 percent.
The international community has not been entirely
indifferent in the face of the growing threat
from global warming. In 1997, an agreement was
reached in Kyoto, Japan, now widely known as Kyoto
Treaty that obliged the industrial countries of
the world to reduce their emission of green house
gases, mostly carbon dioxide, during the next
ten years by 5.2 percent. The most recent studies
published in the Journal Science by several European
scientists indicate that the atmospheric levels
of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane,
are higher than anytime during the last 650,000
years of earth’s history. Now, 141 countries,
including Russia, which together are responsible
for some 55 percent of the atmospheric pollution,
have ratified the treaty. Unfortunately, the United
States which is responsible for the highest levels
of gas emissions, has declined to do so. Some
large countries, India, China and Brazil, are
also not abiding by the treaty at this time.
No everyone is unhappy with the warming phenomenon.
The retreating ice at the North Poles troubles
the environmentalists and climatologists; however,
it promises unprecedented money making opportunities
for entrepreneurs in the rich countries bordering
the Arctic Ocean. Prospects of exploration for
huge oil and gas and mineral deposits under the
ocean floor are alluring business people in America,
Russia, Canada and Scandinavia countries that
are already staking their claims on the various
segments of the ocean. They are betting that as
the ice retreats, it will become a lot cheaper
and easier to explore for and mine the petroleum
and gas reserves in this vast desolate land. Others
are eyeing different possibilities, such as dramatically
shorter sea routes via the North Pole for shipping,
that could save millions of dollars in transportation
costs for many industries. Whether the warming
trend is driven by human activities, as seems
most plausible, or is a reflection of earth’s
natural cycles, the long-term consequences for
mankind are likely to be profound and unpredictable.
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