June 10, 2000

Pray for Global Warming to Produce More Rain

We got a smidgen of rain last week, breaking the record drought, but it was barely enough to keep little skeeter-eater lizards alive.

Homeowners watch helplessly as their lawns die because of severe water restrictions. Ranchers sell their calves early because mother cows do not get enough grass to nurse.

Vice-president Al Gore and environmental greenies can be forgiven a small I-told-you-so as global warming seems hard upon us. Glaciers are said to be melting. The seas are rising to drown coastal cities. Worriers are not sure the sky is well anchored.

There is evidence that the average, global temperature has increased a half-degree in the last 100 years. Many climatologists think the temperature will continue to rise.

Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria concurs but is cautious about effects. He was the lead author of two chapters in the second report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Writing in “Scientific American,” he says sophisticated climate models suggest the Earth will warm by about 2 degrees in the next hundred years. “This should cause a 20-inch rise in sea level.”

Beyond that, Weaver is skeptical – and not alone among scientists. The long-range problem, they say, is twofold:

* Too much rain and snow.

* Uneven distribution of same.

“In fact, says Weaver, “regions close to or downwind of major industrial areas that produce atmospheric aerosols might actually expect regional cooling.”

This apparent dichotomy hinges on characteristics of two kinds of “greenhouse” gases:

* Carbon dioxide from combustion of fossil fuels -- oil, coal, methane and propane. Also from our own breaths.

* Sulfate aerosols from “biomass” emissions -- wild fires, volcanoes, landfills and intestinal gas.

Both gases are essential to Earth health in some degree. Green plants and sea algae require carbon dioxide to grow and exhale oxygen. Aerosols reflect some of the Sun’s dangerous, high-energy radiation.

When Sun energy hits the Earth, much is absorbed beneficially by plants and oceans. Some infrared heat is trapped below the atmosphere gases layer. This process is similar to that of greenhouse glass, hence the term.

The balance between sunshine, carbon dioxide, oxygen and reflecting aerosols is critical to all life forms.

Fortunately, says James Lovelock, father of the environmental movement, the living Earth has an elaborate “feedback system” enabling it to correct threats to its existence. (See his book, “GAIA – A New Look at Life on Earth.”)

Too much carbon dioxide? More growth of forests to absorb it.

Too much oxygen? More lightning to start forest fires and use it up.

Unfortunately, the feedback systems have interconnections we do not fully understand. An overload of one of the systems apparently triggered epochal catastrophes in the distant past – ice ages, deserts, jungles, volcanoes, and species die-offs.

Environmentalists must be careful that we don’t inadvertently over-compensate one of Earth’s many feedback systems.

We need a carbon dioxide layer to hold some heat, lest glaciers envelop us. We need ozone aerosol to block Sun x-rays that would fry us. We need green plants that nourish all living things and provide oxygen in the right amount for air-breathers. A two-percent overload in the formula would be disastrous.

Thus, Gore et al are justified in being concerned. They are dangerous, though, in advocating practices not yet proved. Until we know for sure what we’re doing, it is best to let Mother Nature handle the problem -- and live with the consequences until we truly learn what’s what.

For example, glacier melting is not as widespread as touted. The World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich has determined that between 1926 and 1960, when the planet supposedly was cooler than it is today, 70 percent of 625 glaciers in the United States and Europe retreated. Since 1980, however, 55 of those same glaciers have advanced. Thus, net warming, if real, is not global.

The devastating Dust Bowl drought of the mid-1930s affected a particular region, not the whole world. The mild droughts here and in some western states, are reported to be caused by last year’s regular LaNina hot spot in the Pacific Ocean off Central America.

This, as usual, kicked the upper-atmosphere weather-driving jet stream north. Canadians loved the milder winter. It also it is dumping elsewhere the rain that Florida usually gets.

A permanent warming worldwide would accelerate ocean evaporation, which would produce more clouds, which would discharge heavier rains.

Perhaps we should pray for a little more global warming.

PARTING SHOTS

The Arkansas Supreme Court ethics committee recommends that Bill Clinton’s law license be revoked. Once again he wins -- by serving as a bad example for other lawyers.

* * *

An animal-rights activist threw a pie at Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman for recommending meat in school cafeterias. The thrower didn’t spill any of it on her nice leather shoes.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun-Herald columnist and can be reached at linwms@lindseywilliams.org