Re: When London is submerged and New York is awash...

From: John Larkin (jjSNIPlarkin_at_highTHISlandPLEASEtechnology.XXX)
Date: 01/15/05 

Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 13:34:23 -0800

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 20:17:17 +0000, Guy Macon
<_see.web.page_@_www.guymacon.com_> wrote:

>
>John Larkin wrote:
>>
>>Winfield Hill wrote:
>>
>>> "When London is submerged and New York awash, we may look back on 2004
>>> as the year when the water started rising. Observations collected from
>>> both North and South Poles show that the world's ice sheets and glaciers
>>> are disintegrating faster than anyone thought possible."
>>
>>It has occurred to me that the proponents of catastrophic global
>>warming are natural pessimists; in other times, they would be
>>predicting the Apocalypse, the End of Days, great pestilences, and the
>>other classic (and mythical) catastrophes.
>
>They *did*.
>
>Take a look at the following. It's all there; the Ominous
>signs, the Evidence Accumulating Massively, the Unanimous
>Meteorologists citing NOAA Data, the small changes in
>temperature being highly misleading to the layman, the
>Pessimistic Climatologists...
>
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>
>Newsweek
>April 28, 1975
>
>The Cooling World
>
>There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns
>have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may
>portend a drastic decline in food production-- with serious
>political implications for just about every nation on Earth.
>The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only
>10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact
>are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the
>U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally
>self-sufficient tropical areas -- parts of India, Pakistan,
>Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia -- where the growing
>season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
>
>The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun
>to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are
>hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have
>seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since
>1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production
>estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same
>time, the average temperature around the equator has risen
>by a fraction of a degree -- a fraction that in some areas
>can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most
>devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148
>twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a
>billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
>
>To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent
>the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's
>weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent
>of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local
>weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the
>view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity
>for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as
>profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting
>famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change
>would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide
>scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of
>Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production
>and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on
>the climate of the present century."
>
>A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the
>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a
>drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the
>Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to
>George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos
>indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere
>snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released
>last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of
>sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S.
>diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
>
>To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature
>and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the
>University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth's average
>temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven
>degrees lower than during its warmest eras -- and that the
>present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the
>way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as
>a reversion to the "little ice age" conditions that brought
>bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America
>between 1600 and 1900 -- years when the Thames used to freeze
>so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when
>iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New
>York City.
>
>Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages
>remains a mystery. "Our knowledge of the mechanisms of
>climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,"
>concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. "Not only
>are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but
>in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key
>questions."
>
>Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term
>results of the return to the norm of the last century. They
>begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that
>produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper
>atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds
>over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way
>causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as
>droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed
>monsoons and even local temperature increases -- all of which
>have a direct impact on food supplies.
>
>"The world's food-producing system," warns Dr. James D.
>McQuigg of NOAA's Center for Climatic and Environmental
>Assessment, "is much more sensitive to the weather variable
>than it was even five years ago." Furthermore, the growth of
>world population and creation of new national boundaries
>make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from
>their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.
>
>Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will
>take any positive action to compensate for the climatic
>change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some
>of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting
>the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or
>diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater
>than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that
>government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the
>simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the
>variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections
>of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the
>more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic
>change once the results become grim reality.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>
>Sound familiar?
>
>(Where *was* Winfield Hill in 1975?) :)
>
>
>
>

But their modeling is so much better now; the relationship between
climate change and research funding is now firmly established.

John