Stable Climates

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Stable Climates

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Beautifully Stable Climates

If we want to, we can have very stable, even pleasant climates, and a vibrant, rich and thriving biosphere. As we shall see, we can have this in a few years. This is not asking for the impossible.

Our biosphere used to be climatically stable, vibrantly healthy, and immensely rich, until fairly recently. Such well documented recent historical accounts as herds of bison which "stretched from horizon to horizon"; of flocks of birds so vast and so dense that they "darkened the noonday sun"; of fish in the sea in such multitudes that "it seemed that one could walk across the bay on their backs" - are testimony of a rich abundance of Life which was mind-boggling in its magnitude.

All of this was based upon a very stable climates. Plants and animals alike need long-term climatic stability in order to survive and thrive. This is an inviolable evolutionary imperative. Except for the most primitive forms of Life, such as viruses and bacteria, the natural forces of evolution and adaptation among complex organisms operate over millennia and tens of thousands of years. Rapidly increasing climatic instability is disastrous, and eventually deadly, to all plant and animal life alike. Plant life is the generating medium of the free oxygen (our breath of life) in our atmosphere, as well as the base of the food chain for all animals - either directly via grains, fruit and greens, or indirectly via meat. If plant life cannot thrive, the survival of all animal life - including our kind and selves - becomes progressively more difficult and, very quickly, impossible. It is that simple; period.

Within the last decade, we have witnessed and experienced the sudden advent of rapidly escalating extremes of climates all over the world. New record-high and record-low temperatures have been recorded every year everywhere, violent floods and blistering droughts somewhere in the world are documented on the news almost weekly, and abnormal weather - such as snow in the midst of summer, or snow in Florida and California - now punctures our global climate with increasing frequency.

This is inevitable - given what we are doing. It is entirely and purely our own fault.
It is very, very simple. We only have to look at two familiar features of our biosphere - the tropical rain forests, and the tropical deserts - to make this abundantly clear.

Both lie in the tropical latitudes, yet on the one hand we have an abundance of water, and the rich, teeming cornucopia of life of the tropical rain forests - and on the other, we find the parched, barren, forbidding and all but lifeless wastes of the deserts. Moreover, the rain forests are characterized by a very stable climate where the temperatures vary only by about 20 degrees F. - from 75 to 95 degrees F. between night and day the year round. In the deserts though, daily temperatures climb from near freezing at night, to 130 degrees F. in the shade during the day. This comes to a daily temperature swing of about 100 degrees F.

It is is that simple. With the massive eradication of continental forest cover we are forcing the continents into the extreme temperature swings of desert climates. And for very good reasons.

Water is unique among all the fluids in that it absorbs and releases heat very slowly. This is known as the "thermal stability" of water. While daily temperatures on the continents vary by about 10 to 15 degrees F. between day and night in the mid-latitudes, the temperature of the oceans remains practically the same - even year-round.

It is well known that forests - any kind of forests anywhere on this Earth, and similar dense plant cover - are vast living 'sponges' of water. All forests anywhere hold vast amounts of water in the soil they shade, in their trunks, branches and leaves - and via transpiration - in the air around and above them. And the thermal stability of water is exactly the same - no matter whether the water is contained in the oceans - or in the forests of the continents.

The vast amounts of water stored by the forests of the continents tempers continental climates just as effectively as the water of the oceans temper marine climates. For all intents and purposes, continental forests are huge, superabsorbent sponges saturated with water, and act exactly like diffuse oceans.

Take away the forests of the continents, and instead of the very stable temperatures and climates of forested regions we get the extreme temperature fluctuations typical of the waterless deserts. (Ancient records show that millet was once grown in what is now the Sahara desert, and that the Libian desert was once a vast, rich and thriving forest - "the Cedars of Lebanon"). It is pure and simple physics.

The thermal stability of the water of the oceans is the fundamental stability factor of the global climate of the Earth. Without the oceans, the difference between night and day temperatures on the Earth would be about 300 degrees F. In exactly the same way, the thermal stability of water stored in the forests of the continents is the fundamental stability factor of continental climates. Take away the forests - and the vast amounts water they store - and the day-night temperature differential will be about 100 degrees F. The desert regions of the Earth are ample proof.

The escalating climatic extremes we have experienced make it abundantly clear that we have already gone below the the global critical minimum amount of forests to maintain the stability of our continental climates.

conceptual diagram - just plug in the figures

The remaining forests of the Earth are now insufficient to maintain the stability of continental climates. And as we well know, we continue to eradicate the forests of the Earth on a massive scale. In 1990, the remaining forests covered about 1/4 of the Earth's continents, and since then, we have cut down 338 million acres of forests, an area equivalent to the total land area of Spain, France and Germany combined ("Global Forest Cover"; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Nov. 1996). Only India and China have slightly increased their forest areas due to recent reforestation programs.

With our massive eradication of continental forests and green cover, we are driving continental climates into the extreme temperature fluctuations of the deserts. And we have no one but ourselves to blame.

The consequences are devastating. The higher day-time temperatures of de-forested continents cause greater temperature differentials between the day- and night-sides of the planet.

climate graph

This larger temperature differential causes far more forceful movement of the air in our global atmosphere. This causes more frequent and more violent storms, higher high-pressure and lower low-pressure areas, along with the associated extremes of weather. The higher summer and day-time temperatures also loft greater amounts of water, via evaporation, into the atmosphere. This results in greater amounts and frequency of rain and snow, more extreme floods, extended droughts, and unseasonable weather anomalies such as snow in Florida and California. And 'El Ninos' - and 'El Ninas' - will become progressively more frequent, and more violent. We have now unleashed a powerful and vicious feed-back cycle where the inevitable 'forces of nature' have now kicked in to further eradicate the continent's green cover.

All this severely affects the ability of the remaining green cover of the continents to grow and survive, and reinforces and accelerates the denuding of the continents. The loss of massive amounts of water that was once stored by now eradicated forests has been followed by a sharp decline of available water on the continents in summer, and affects the remaining pockets of forests. This increases the frequency, severity and extent of forest fires, and further reduces the green cover of the continents. In the near future, we will see vast forest fire conflagrations. We now have a vicious feed-back cycle which sharply accelerates the escalating spiral towards continental desert climates. The bottom line is this:
The the climatic extremes we have already experienced are not rare anomalies! Instead, they will increase in frequency and severity year after year, and on a rapidly escalating scale.

As the direct result, the ability of our food crops to grow and survive has already begun to be adversely affected. This will get worse rapidly. For example: In 1996, the sowing of grain in Canada's Western Provinces - which supply much of the world's wheat - was delayed 3 to 4 weeks by an unusually late and wet spring. And much of the meager fall harvest was destroyed by an unusually early snow. Crop losses by Western grain farmers range between 30% to 60% of the 1996 grain crop. Many other crops in other areas have been similarly affected. Here in B.C., Canada, the 70-year record snowfall of the '96/'97 winter has caved-in hundreds of acres of commercial greenhouses, and destroyed all of their crops. And a recent news item (April 12. 1997) tells us that the extreme weather - record floods combined with a very late blizzard - of the '97 Spring in the U.S. Midwest has severely jeopardized the survival of the apple and strawberry plantations.

More than anything else, plants need climatic stability in order to grow and thrive. If climatic stability is lost, none of our crops will come to fruition. If seeding or blooming is delayed by a late spring, and/or if ripening is cut short by early cold weather in the fall, and/or if summer growth is arrested by droughts, we won't have any harvests to speak of. In many places, all three natural consequences have come one after the other already - and as in the U.S. Midwest - at the same time. Crops in short-season areas, and 'tender' crops will be affected first, and worst. The food supply of the world has begun to be in jeopardy - and it will get worse every year.

Yet, and if we want to, we can have a very stable, even balmy, and very pleasant global climate in a few years.

A recent study published in the prestigious science journal "Nature" shows that the extensive high- and mid-latitude deciduous forest vegetation of the late Cretaceous period (66 million years ago) substantially raised mid-continental temperatures, and raised the average global temperature of the Earth by a very balmy 2.2 degrees C. The authors attribute the higher temperatures of the high- and mid-latitude continents to the low albedo (reflectivity) of these forests - which results in higher absorption of heat from sunlight. These substantially warmer forests warmed the land areas which then transferred this warmth to adjacent oceans. This delayed the formation of sea-ice and the consequent cooling of the continents in winter. The authors conclude that these forests made an important and substantial contribution to continental climate regulation during periods of global warmth. ("Vegetation-induced warming of high-latitude regions during the late Cretaceous period"; B. B. Otto-Bliesner & B. R. Upchurch R.; NATURE, Fe. 27. 1997 - Nature 385, 804 1997).

All this is true. But the authors do not go far enough. Since all plant material consists of about 80% water, this extra heat was absorbed by and stored in the water these vast forests held - both above and in the ground - and just as the water of Earth's oceans store the heat from sunlight. Water is the only medium capable of effectively storing the additional heat. Rocks and stone absorb and release heat far more quickly than water.

As is abundantly clear from all of the above, all we need to do is to increase the amount of continental green cover to a level where the water it stores will effectively stabilize our continental climates. And along with this, we also get abundant water everywhere, and as a bonus, the termination of the greenhouse effect.

By storing vast amounts of water, the continental forests also manage the continental and regional water supply. To whit: The rain forests harbor a great abundance of water, and generate fully 70% of their own rain. Take away these forests, and we end up with deserts. Similarity, the large-scale deforestation of the mid- and upper latitudes has resulted in an increasing scarcity of water. Already a contentious issue in and among many countries of the world, this will become a far more explosive situation in the near future. Water will become far more precious than oil or gold, and eventually, nations will go to war over scarce water.

Lacking forests, or any kind of dense green cover, the deserts are incapable of holding any water. The little rain they do get, and without the vast 'sponge' of forested land, disappears far underground, and the remainder evaporates in minutes. And akin to the deserts, we are already in the ridiculous situation of having far too much water in the spring - vis. the recent and recurrent flood disasters - and far too little water in the summer. If the deserts were covered with dense green, they too would have abundant water year-round. To paraphrase a popular colloquialism, 'build the forests and the water will come'. California, for instance, could have a never ending abundance of water, just by reforesting its now almost barren areas.

And this can be done very simply, very effectively, very quickly, and very cheaply. Here is how.

Basically, we need to double the existing green cover of the continents (see "Energy from Fossil Fuels", Scientific American, Sept. 1990) and if we can triple it, so much the better. We need a safety margin for natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tsunamis, forest fires, even meteor impacts. There are two basic approaches.

The first, for areas with fertile ground, is the simplest. For every existing tree or shrub, all we need to do is plant one or two more. This can be easily done by individuals. Most lots can easily accommodate double the amount of their present green stock, and more. This has many, many benefits. Among them; more free oxygen (which results in more ozone), and less carbon dioxide in the air (reduces the greenhouse effect); the shade of trees and the thermal stability of retained water will result in cooler environments in the summer, and warmer environments in the winter - with substantial savings in cooling and heating costs; substantial reduction of watering frequency and costs; cleaner air - the average tree absorbs 7 tons of pollutants over its life-time; less ambient noise; more beautiful surroundings (higher value); sheer pleasure from blossoming and scented green stock; and so forth, and so forth. Just replacing fences with hedges is a simple and very attractive way of increasing the green cover of the continents (and hedges do not have to be painted every few years). Remember, if all of us do this, we will get a far more stable and equitable climate.

Our cities, far too many of which are barren concrete and asphalt deserts, need to be turned into 'urban forests' - with the same innumerable benefits. If every lane, street, road, highway, traffic divider, traffic island, parking lot, road and railway embankment - in short - every available inch in all of our cities is planted with trees and/or shrubs, this will make a substantial contribution to re-establish the continental green cover. And rather than waiting for the authorities, we can do this ourselves, at ridiculously minimal cost; we can get together and 'adopt' a block, a street, a lane, a traffic island, and so forth, and plant it with green. An additional bonus is that we get to live in a very pleasant park-like setting, with all the mental well being that comes with this. I also believe that desolate cities breed desolate people.

The same principles can be readily applied to the perimeter of farm fields - the multiple benefits of 'shelter belts' are well established - country lanes, roads, highways, interchanges, railway embankments, and so forth, and so forth. In this manner we can double the continent's green cover without giving up any space we are presently using. And we also get to live in a beautiful, park-like country as a bonus.

This method is an excellent and supremely effective long-term method. And while we have to do this anyhow, it is a bit too slow due to the rapidly escalating climatic extremes now well underway. We need to do much more, in a very short time, to arrest and reverse the escalating climatic extremes, while plant life is still able to survive and grow. This can also be done very quickly, very effectively, and very, very cheaply.

This is the second method, which is supremely suited to the semi-arid and arid regions of the continents. What we need is plant material which is very hardy, grows explosively, rapidly and massively. Fortunately, there are plenty of such plants; basically, these are the much maligned weeds. But they can save our bacon. For we do not have much time left. The escalating climatic extremes will make the survival and growth of plant life increasingly difficult, and in short order, impossible.

One of the truly outstanding candidates for rapidly greening the continents is the Kudzu vine. Since a single plant can grow 100 shoots, each 100 feet long, in one season, and is very difficult to eradicate, this explosively rampant vine is perhaps best described as biological dynamite, and is considered such by many. The Kudzu vine has overwhelmed abandoned cars, fences, tall trees and whole buildings in a veritable explosion of rampant growth.

But what makes the Kudzu vine such a dangerous and persistent pest in cultivated areas is exactly what we need to green the continents - and ideal for the semi-arid and arid regions of the continents, even the deserts - as rapidly as possible, to restore the water storing capacity of the continents, and to stabilize our continental climates.

A legume, the Kudzu vine is an extremely efficient nitrogen forager, and propagates itself by seeds, runners and stolons. The Kudzu vine is evergreen (which means that there is far less decay than typical of deciduous plants - and hence a substantial net free oxygen, and hence ozone, production) in all but the coldest regions of the earth; it can get along on 20 inches of rain in a season, generates a lush 4 foot high cover of green, and holds up to 90% of precipitation under its dense green cover. Its leaves make excellent high quality fodder for all manner of livestock even when green, and the typical 800 lb. root of one plant is similar to potatoes and supremely fit for human consumption.

Single handed, the Kudzu vine can green the continents in record time, and feed all manner of livestock and people at the same time. Even semi-arid and arid regions of the continents can be greened by the combination of organic wastes (sewerage) and the Kudzu vine. Because of its high density, the vine holds and stores most of its own water supply. Later on, once an adequate and safe level of continental green cover and water storing capacity is established, the Kudzu vine can be plowed under for 'green manure' and replaced by trees and other, more easily manageable vegetation.

In other words, it can be done. Hardy and explosively rampant plants - the Kudzu vine is just one example - are readily available. The 70% nitrogen in our atmosphere provides more than enough fertilizer for leguminous plants; we now have lots of carbon dioxide - the food of plants - in our atmosphere; and dense plants such as the Kudzu vine retain most of the moisture they need in the ground they shade. In a way, it is almost as easy as getting such hardy and rampant plants started, and then stand back and let them grow. And in a few years we will have a dense and adequate amount of continental green cover, and a rich, climatically stable, vibrant and rather balmy planetary biosphere.

But it will take a world-wide, and truly global effort of every man, woman and child, along with all local and regional authorities everywhere, to plant something, somewhere, and on every available inch of ground anywhere. And our biologists can advise us what kinds of plants will do best in specific climates, areas and soils. Still, it amounts to no more than an hour's work, at most, per individual. Nature takes care of the rest.

If another motivation is needed, consider that escalating climatic extremes are extremely expensive, and adversely affect everything from our health to all components of our civilizations which are exposed to the elements. This includes roads, highways, railroads, bridges, airports, machinery, buildings, houses, power and fuel transmission lines, generating stations, switch yards, harbors, ships, boats - and so forth, and so forth. Everything that is exposed to the elements will deteriorate faster and incur much higher maintenance costs - in the hundreds of billions of dollars - along with much higher insurance costs.

We have become a planetary species, and so numerous that our activities now affect the whole planet. As long as there were only a relatively small number of people, one billion and less, thinly scattered over a relatively large planet, whatever we did had no lasting impact upon our planetary biosphere. As long as we were relatively few, the natural forces and dynamics of our biosphere were of such comparative magnitude that any of our activities were readily compensated for by its natural forces and dynamics. Whatever we did, we could not hurt our biosphere.

This is not so anymore. But we still act as if we were few, and as if our biosphere were indestructible. If we persist in following only our own individual interests - multiplied by 6 billion - the catastrophic collapse of our biosphere is just around the corner (see "VIBRANT BIOSPHERE"). Since we have become a global species, our survival now depends upon thinking and acting globally. If we don't, we won't survive; it's that simple.

This is our choice now: Whether we will start fighting over progressively scarcer water and food in a rapidly worsening climatic crisis - while this still remains possible - or whether we will live and thrive in a rich, stable and vibrantly vital biosphere for all time to come - is now up to us.

Note: I had first predicted these things in 1985, but these predictions were then so "outrageous" that my submission went straight into the waste basket. In the meantime though, all of my predictions have come true - every one of them - right on schedule (see "ON RECORD" next).

� Peter H. Weis,