Planetary Warming

If this current is disrupted and stopped, there could result profound atmospheric temperature changes as the cooling of the planet. In 1989 drilling samples were taken in the Greenland Ice Cap of layers of ice formed every year going back in time for thousands of years indicated by the depth that is drilled. These layers of ice contain what was in the air at the time, both as atmospheric composition and plant residue in which temperatures can be determined. They discovered that some nearly eleven thousand years ago, temperatures plummeted from very warm to ice age conditions in the space of only seventy years. This was caused by the melting of ice which is fresh water, flooding into the the North Atlantic. Fresh water being lighter than salt water when invading the Gulf Stream and diluting it, would cause it not to sink and would disrupt and perhaps stop the stream. It is then proposed that an Ice Age occurs, which can come about not so much by either super cold termpeatures or an increase in snow fall, but temperatures such that the snow that does fall, does not melt in summer, and thus an accumulation occurs which is glacier conditions. According to some theories, an ice age could possibly occur in as little time as three weeks.

The salinity of the North Atlantic Drift has been measured since the late eighteen hundreds and was absolutely stable until recently. Now there is evidence that it is becoming less saline. If the North Atlantic Drift becomes either to salty causing it sink prematurely, which could be caused by increased evaporation from increased atmospheric temperatures, or it becomes less salty from the melting of the ice caps, causing it to not sink, either of these conditions could cause catastrophic changes to the weather, and only in space of fifty to one hundred years. Since there is no evidence that the political and economic authorities plan or are capable of doing anything about the problem such as reducing consumption, like a drowning man who has to empty his pockets of the gold he carries to save himself but will not, a run-a-way Greenhouse Affect could warm temperatures to that similar of Venus and thus destroy all life on the planet forever, perhaps the best that can be hoped for would be an Ice Age, which may be a last escape valve for preventing such a catastrophe.

PLANETARY WARMING (4 of 4) DISSERTATIONS PAGE