After years of writing about how sudden climate change could
be triggered by a change in the Gulf Stream on this website,
and in
The Coming Global Superstorm?and being totally ignored by
the major media?the big news organizations are finally
starting to "get it." This week, Fortune Magazine and The
New York Times both wrote about upcoming weather
changes, due to global warming.
David Stipp wrote in Fortune Magazine on Monday that "?The
prospect [of global warming] has become so real that the
Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it. The
threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming,
rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may
be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence
suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the
world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less
than a decade?like a canoe that's gradually tilted until
suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the
system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change
may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the
need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies?
thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power.
"Though triggered by warming, such change would probably
cause cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, leading to longer,
harsher winters in much of the U.S. and Europe. Worse, it
would cause massive droughts, turning farmland to dust
bowls and forests to ashes. Picture last fall's California
wildfires as a regular thing. Or imagine similar disasters
destabilizing nuclear powers such as Pakistan or Russia?it's
easy to see why the Pentagon has become interested in
abrupt climate change."
Paul R. Epstein wrote in the Wednesday, New York Times
that "New Yorkers may be able to blame the city's current
cold spell?the most severe in nearly a decade?on global
warming. Global warming doesn't mean that every place on
the globe gets warmer. The weather history that can be read
in polar ice-core samples indicates that previous periods of
warming affected North America and Europe far differently
than they did the tropics?the Northern Hemisphere got a lot
colder. It's far too early to say for sure, but the same
processes may be at work today.
"?Normally, water circulates in the North Atlantic like this:
Cold, salty water at the top sinks; that sinking water acts as
a pump, pulling warm Gulf Stream water north and thus
moderating winter weather. But now, fresh water from the
thawing ice and heavier rain is accumulating near the ocean's
surface; it's not sinking as quickly. (The tropics are faced
with the opposite phenomenon. According to Dr. Ruth Curry
and her colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, the tropical Atlantic is becoming saltier; as
warming increases, so does evaporation, which leaves behind
salt.) The "freshening" in the North Atlantic may be
contributing to a high-pressure system that is accelerating
trans-Atlantic winds and deflecting the jet stream?changes
that may be driving frigid fronts down the Eastern Seaboard.
The ice-core records demonstrate that the North Atlantic can
freshen to a point where the deep-water pump fails, warm
water stops coming north, and the northern ocean suddenly
freezes, as it did in the last Ice Age. No one can say if that is
what will happen next. But since the 1950's, the best
documented deep-water pump, between Iceland and
Scotland, has slowed 20 percent.
"?We are entering uncharted waters. It's something for New
Yorkers to ponder as they bundle up.?
Now that the Big Guys are paying attention, the government
may be forced into taking action. But remember: You read it
here
(and here) first.
Art Bell and Whitley Strieber discuss the future of our
weather (among other things) on Coast to Coast am,
Saturday, Jan. 31 starting at 10 pm Pacific!
To read complete texts of Fortune and NYT articles,
click here and
here.
