The term 'Ice Age Cycle Hypothesis' make it sound like a natural process of geological events. But man has accelerated the beginning of the next cycle. If we continue at our current rate of carbon emissions, we will accelerate the now unnatural-natural warming trend even further. The average earth temperature will rise more quickly, the Arctic tundra permafrost will melt and huge amounts of Methane will be released into the atmosphere. As warming accelerates, the Arctic Ice Pack will disappear completely and the Arctic Ocean will be an open body of water year round. Since the ice will not be present to reflect the sunlight, the water will warm even more. Hence the Arctic Ocean will soon become a large source of moisture year round, creating ideal conditions for huge increases in snowfall in the northern latitudes.
As the snow accumulates, the glaciers will reverse their trend to melt away and will begin to advance. Eventually, the glaciers will meld into an ice sheet and the ice sheet will continue to thicken and advance just as it did during the last cycle. As the ice sheet thickens to 4000 or 5000 feet, the level of the moisture source will drop since an enormous amount of water has been transferred to the ice. The lower ocean levels will cause natural barriers such as the shallow North Bering Sea and North Atlantic to cut back the warming currents from the south, eventually turning them away. The Arctic Ocean will cool and once again freeze completely over. The source of moisture for the great ice sheet to the south will be blocked! About 20,000 years from now, the Ice sheet will retreat again and the 'Ice Age' will end as the cycles continue.
Cycle implies repetition. These cycles probably have been occurring for as long as several hundred thousand years. Possibly for as long as the continents have assumed their present configuration (due to continental drift) forming that beautiful 'bowl' of water at the North Pole. So perhaps rising sea level is eventually unavoidable. But we have messed with 'Mother Nature' and have accelerated the coming of the next cycle. We may have given ourselves too short a time to deal with the decreasing available arable and livable land surfaces, the increasing population, and the demand of developing countries for 'conspicuous consumption' and materialistic equality. Former Vice President Gore has pointed out in his work that the "Inconvenient Truth" of the matter is that we will experience in very near future a very significant rise in sea level. The 'Island Nations' who spoke out so eloquently in Copenhagen, will disappear.
A short time ago geologically speaking, about 12000 to 15000 years, the great ice sheets receded from Europe, Asia, and North America. Imagine yourself standing about 12000 years ago, on a ten foot high dune with that perfect storm beach shape (similar to those you have seen on Long Island, Long Beach Island, Rehobeth, or the Outer Banks). You are located just east of the Hudson River south of the current location of Albany and well up on the plateau above the river and adjacent to the foothills of the Taconic Mountains just to the east. A northwesterly wind is causing waves, forming down the long fetch of Lake Albany, to wash sand up on the storm beach where you stand. Your view to the north is blocked by a wall of ice rising several thousand feet above the lake. The ice wall stretches to the west as far as you can see. Looking south westerly you note the waves eroding the Roundout Waterlime bed well up on what is now called the Helderberg Escarpment. If you could watch for another 500 to 1000 years, you would see the ice wall retreat to the north, and as its massive weight is removed from the northern edge of Lake Albany, the earth's crust slowly rebounds, spilling the water from the lake in a slow, hardly noticeable process. Coming back to present times, geologists have measured the altitude of the storm beach over a north-south line reaching from the Greenbush area south of Troy to the region north and east of Saratoga. They found the level of the storm beach to rise about one foot per mile, higher to the north, lower in the south. This is strong evidence for the existence of the lake and for the depression of the crust due to the weight of the ice sheet.
Currently, the ice continues to recede. Glaciers, the last remnants of the great ice sheet, are melting back at accelerating rates in the Alps, in our Northwest, and in Alaska. In Denali Park, whole valleys have opened up in just the last ten years. Geologists studying the glaciers in Glacier National Park have concluded that the current age of glaciation began about 20,000 years ago and is now ending. Ski resorts in the Alps fear that they will soon lose their excellent glacier skiing. Nothing else remains from that recent great ice sheet. Or, is the Arctic Ice Pack the last remnant? Actually, no! The geological evidence is strong that the Arctic Ocean was an open body of water during the recent advance and retreat of the ice sheet! Sounds contradictory does it not? But, lets look at some more evidence...
The Arctic ocean is warming. The NW passage is open for longer periods during the short Arctic summer, the Arctic ice pack is thinning having been measured extensively. The passage of submarines under the ice and their ability to break up through the ice in the vicinity of the Pole attests to the thin ice. Fl aura and fauna are changing measurably. Polar bears are declining in weight and number, and their main source of food, seals, are also declining in number. The permafrost is beginning to melt. At the other pole, the Antarctic continental ice shelves are detaching and melting. The resulting rise in sea level will enhance circulation of warm currents such as the Japanese Current and Gulf current, bringing warmer water into the Arctic ocean. In the not too far distant future the Arctic Ocean will become an open body of water year round, just as it was about 20,000 years ago!
This coming summer we plan to visit the Lake Albany Storm Beach with our children and grandchildren. Perhaps we can get them to envision the marvelous mechanisms which regulate the ice age cycles. Perhaps they will devise the technology to return those geologic processes to their 'normal' condition. Meanwhile we live near the shore in North Carolina and our elevation above sea level is Eleven feet. What's yours?
Shop Fisher Price Workbench Belkin N52te Drivers Compare Discount Clarisonic Decide Now
No comments:
Post a Comment