Waterworld
Imagine a world that's more water -- currently it's about three-quarters of the Earth's surface -- than what we currently see. Not too bad for hopeless farmers dwelling in areas frequented by drought as well as those lacking access to potable water.
But imagine if icebergs in the North and South poles start to melt their way into the mainstream currents of the world's oceans and elevate water levels that even a few inches can be disastrous. Without the influence of melting icebergs in the mix, December 2004's tsunami across Indian Ocean wrecked the vulnerable seaside villages, much worse than tropical storm and the effect is intercontinental. Maldives had to redraw its map as a few of the low lying ones disappeared as if devoured by the giant waves.
I have been reading journals about global warming since I was in my grade school. All the stereotype I have been getting about global warming has me worried for the past years. Yet people around me don't seem to get bothered; was the press release only meant to serve another personal purpose? To use the non-CFC products and discredit refrigerators and household sprays as nuisance contributors to the chronic health condition of Mother Earth. I was hardly moved of my fears. I know this is for real. Inspired by my sixth grade book that illustrates how tiny Earth is with respect to Milky Way Galaxy, let alone the vast unexplored universe and that it did not matter at all, for it's the only place that accomodate us humans.
Wanton destruction of forests, rapid industrialization in Wester Europe, fuels that emit black smoke that contribute acid rain and America's defiant insistence on not signing the Kyoto Protocol contributed to the change in climatic conditions that monsoon rains in India are not properly following its annual cycle nor salmon circulating Canada's Newfoundland seas confused by the extended period of warm climate, thick snows across the Southern states of the USA as well as the Baltic states in Easter Europe.
It is estimated that an increase 1.4C to 5.8C in average temperature increase from 1990 to 2100, a dramatic change whose deviation is based on the uncertainty of future carbon dioxide emissions. The effect is more than just the submerging of the atolls of the Maldives and the romantic Venice.
Curiously the Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991 was thought by many as pure destruction: crops, villages, churches, towns all buried in its wake and its emissions reached as far as the Indian Ocean coasts of the Malayan peninsula. Little did people know that it somehow helped ease the ozone layer destruction as its pyroclastic ashes helped reduce the global temperature by 0.5C.
A clear sky could mean danger to humans as the previously shielded atmosphere has now become a perforated fortress enabling deadly ultraviolet and cosmic rays to pass through without much trouble. The same UV rays that were thought by the Soviets as fatal and was the reason they never sent man to the moon.
Greenhouse gases derive their name from the fact that they trap energy from the sun that would otherwise bounce back off to space. But this fact is more beneficial than the harm they are projected to be. Without this effect there would be a drastic drop in temperature. It's just that their presence is more than what is prescribed.
And so the increase in temperature melts the glaciers in such a way that certain spots open up gaping holes that form as lakes. Underneath the lakes are the gradual melting of ice up to 3 miles deep. And once water reacher the bottom, water then moves the glaciers as they float over a mass of water. Melting of massive icebergs is gradual but catastrophic that it would raise water levels to unprecendented heights.
By then high tides would become low tides and very high tides become high tides. Coastal areas would diminish and people would be moving up the hills. Land area would shrink and problem of crowding, lower crop yields, diseases and land conflicts take place.
By then that 90s movie of Kevin Costner is more likely to happen than The Day After Tomorrow.
But imagine if icebergs in the North and South poles start to melt their way into the mainstream currents of the world's oceans and elevate water levels that even a few inches can be disastrous. Without the influence of melting icebergs in the mix, December 2004's tsunami across Indian Ocean wrecked the vulnerable seaside villages, much worse than tropical storm and the effect is intercontinental. Maldives had to redraw its map as a few of the low lying ones disappeared as if devoured by the giant waves.
I have been reading journals about global warming since I was in my grade school. All the stereotype I have been getting about global warming has me worried for the past years. Yet people around me don't seem to get bothered; was the press release only meant to serve another personal purpose? To use the non-CFC products and discredit refrigerators and household sprays as nuisance contributors to the chronic health condition of Mother Earth. I was hardly moved of my fears. I know this is for real. Inspired by my sixth grade book that illustrates how tiny Earth is with respect to Milky Way Galaxy, let alone the vast unexplored universe and that it did not matter at all, for it's the only place that accomodate us humans.
Wanton destruction of forests, rapid industrialization in Wester Europe, fuels that emit black smoke that contribute acid rain and America's defiant insistence on not signing the Kyoto Protocol contributed to the change in climatic conditions that monsoon rains in India are not properly following its annual cycle nor salmon circulating Canada's Newfoundland seas confused by the extended period of warm climate, thick snows across the Southern states of the USA as well as the Baltic states in Easter Europe.
It is estimated that an increase 1.4C to 5.8C in average temperature increase from 1990 to 2100, a dramatic change whose deviation is based on the uncertainty of future carbon dioxide emissions. The effect is more than just the submerging of the atolls of the Maldives and the romantic Venice.
Curiously the Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991 was thought by many as pure destruction: crops, villages, churches, towns all buried in its wake and its emissions reached as far as the Indian Ocean coasts of the Malayan peninsula. Little did people know that it somehow helped ease the ozone layer destruction as its pyroclastic ashes helped reduce the global temperature by 0.5C.
A clear sky could mean danger to humans as the previously shielded atmosphere has now become a perforated fortress enabling deadly ultraviolet and cosmic rays to pass through without much trouble. The same UV rays that were thought by the Soviets as fatal and was the reason they never sent man to the moon.
Greenhouse gases derive their name from the fact that they trap energy from the sun that would otherwise bounce back off to space. But this fact is more beneficial than the harm they are projected to be. Without this effect there would be a drastic drop in temperature. It's just that their presence is more than what is prescribed.
And so the increase in temperature melts the glaciers in such a way that certain spots open up gaping holes that form as lakes. Underneath the lakes are the gradual melting of ice up to 3 miles deep. And once water reacher the bottom, water then moves the glaciers as they float over a mass of water. Melting of massive icebergs is gradual but catastrophic that it would raise water levels to unprecendented heights.
By then high tides would become low tides and very high tides become high tides. Coastal areas would diminish and people would be moving up the hills. Land area would shrink and problem of crowding, lower crop yields, diseases and land conflicts take place.
By then that 90s movie of Kevin Costner is more likely to happen than The Day After Tomorrow.
posted by Unknown at
1:00 PM
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