"Climate Dynamics" - The 4 Driving Forces of Our Worsening Climates

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Climate Dynamics

not so long ago

now

Right now, as I write this, on the 6th of May 2002, Spring is a month late here, there is a heavy snowfall in Vancouver - which hasn't happened since the last ice age - Calgary received a foot of snow with more on the way, and Toronto is basking in and has had record high temperatures (28 to 30 C.) for the last couple of weeks or so, which is also unheard of. And while Toronto's unheard of and untimely heat wave may well be the harbinger of what the "greenhouse effect" will bring, the western province's record low temperatures, late Spring, and snow in May do not fit in with the "greenhouse effect" at all.

This anomaly is highly significant since the last snow of the season - if any at all, hereabouts - normally occurs in January.

Obviously then, and besides the "greenhouse effect", there are one or more other very powerful factors at work which also profoundly affect and alter our climates. Actually, and while the "greenhouse effect" has been become as familar as rain, there are three additional factors at work - the "Desert Effect", the "Albedo Effect" and the "UVB Effect", all with their own distinctive and specific effects.

Unfortunately, and although it's all as simple and straitforward as highschool physics, our scientists haven't discovered these additional forces as yet - with the sole exeption of the occasional mention of "desertification". We will now look at these 4 driving forces of our climates.

1] The Greenhouse Effect

Even though now long known, it is still far from understood. And while all the attention has been focused on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, it is also well established and understood, at least by some, that we could end the greenhouse effect once and for all - if we wanted to - just by doubling the forest areas of the world.

Like dozens of similar studies, the following diagram shows that "afforestation" would be 100% effective in absorbing all the excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, at no cost, and in perpetuity - once the forests are established. And "afforestation" can be as easy as letting forests grow, and not cutting them down. [Source: "Energy from Fossil Fuels", Scientific American, September 1990)

CO2 reduction

And there is lots of room for this. As little as 4.000 years ago, the Sahara, for instance, was a rich, verdant land where water loving hyppopotmuses thrived, and where millet was grown in biblical times; the famous forest of the "Cedars of Lebanon" were cut down to build the Phoenician and Roman fleets; and much of California was covered until recent times by vast Sequoia forests. Indeed, today's forests amount to only 20% of the original forests of the Earth. And doubling the present forest areas would only amount to 40% of the original extent of the world's forests.

Also, and essentially, it does not matter where on Earth the forests are re-established. The atmosphere is thoroughly mixed within a few hours in the same hemisphere, and within a few days between the northern and southern hemispheres.

What is presently not understood is that the forests of the Earth - and NOT the oceans - have generated about 75% of the free oxygen of our atmosphere, and that the decimation the forests of the Earth has also decimated the carbon dioxide uptake of our biosphere. This is another lapse of thought, where old ignorance arising out of unfounded and unexamined assumptions - that the oceans generate most of the carbon dioxide/free oxygen cycle - is perpetuated as academic wisdom (see MURKY WATERS in these pages) .

Besides an overall heating up of the planet, some of the consequences of the greenhouse effect will be higher temperature everywhere (the tropics will become blistering hot, the subtropics will become tropics, the temperate zone will become subtropical, and the polar regions will become temperate), the melting of the polar ice caps and terrestrial glaciers - already well underway - and the consequent rise in sea level and inundiation of all low lying islands and coastal lands. This will result, within our time, in the loss of much arable land and the displacement of an estimated 2 billion people. The Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu has already applied to the UN for relocation, as the Islands will be submerged in a storm surge (see RISING OCEAN THREATENS TUVALU).

2] The Desert Effect

In the treeless tropical deserts, daily temperatures range from near freezing at night to 130 degrees F. in the shade during the day - for a daily temperature swing of almost 100 degrees F. Under the dense vegetation of the tropical rain forests though, daily temperature swings go from a low of 75 degrees F. at night to 95 degrees F. during the day - for a mere 20 degree F. diurnal difference. And over the whole year, rain forest temperature fluctuates only by a miniscule 3 degrees F. This minimal fluctuation is entirely due to the thermal stability of the vast amounts of waters stored by and in forests, or similar dense vegetation.

Besides the many other direct effects of desertification - chief among them the progressive loss of free oxygen (see OXYGEN DECLINE in these pages), the disappearance of water from the continents, and the loss of agriculture - the large temperature swings of desert climates are due to the lack of the tempering effects of the large amounts of water stored in forests. It does not matter where the water is - whether in oceans or in forests - the thermal inertia of water is exactly the same.

The massive decimation of the Earth's forests - and the attendant loss of the tempering factor of continental climates - is one of the two causative factors of the record low temperatures we are experiencing now.