Scientists recently announced that within 10 years the ice at the Pole has melted by 1.8 meters. The residents of the area feel it and have even begun to sunbathe
A compilation of news from various sources that appeared in the years 1999-2001 Voila - Science and Environment While scientists and environmentalists from all over the world are busy examining the effects of global warming, and the changes caused by it, the inhabitants of the Arctic Circle, (the Arctic Circle) report changes due to the warming of the region. According to them, the differences are evident in all areas of life. They are not sure that this is a positive change, mainly a cause for concern. Recently they even started tanning. Steven Konlisi, a resident of Newnaut, a city close to the North Pole, which contains 27 thousand people over two million square kilometers, is a hunter, who spends most of the year in search of various sea animals. Konlisi doesn't need the scientists to know what's going on, he feels. "In the past, when I went hunting, I had to wrap myself up in warm clothing, today one coat is enough for me." According to him, even his snowmobile is directly affected by the situation and sometimes it stops working because it "overheats". Connolly proves in practice what the scientists in the area are testing. This month, a group of American and Canadian scientists announced that during the last 10 years the ice sheet at the North Pole has melted by 1.8 meters, as a result of global warming. The environmental effects as a result of the changes in the global temperature are also evident in the migratory habits of animals in the region. Konlisi, "We started seeing animals here that we had not seen before. Last year I even saw a swan. Everything indicates that the sun is very hot. Too hot." The heat of the sun has created a new problem for the local residents, recently they started tanning and some even 'burn'. Adds the director of development in Nunavut, Peter Kilabok, "People are noticing animals and species that were not able to live at the pole until recently. Species of bears, wolves and birds that began to appear in the environment. The snow is also different. Until recently he would not stop until at least July. But in recent years already in May the snow stops and the ice softens. The weather changes here are prominent, for us it is a cause for concern." Research reveals that Greenland's ice sheet is shrinking Greenland is melting and Holland is worried "Haaretz" and Washington service. The large Greenland ice sheet, which contains about 10% of the frozen water in the world, is melting at a rate of about 19 square kilometers per year, and is therefore responsible for 7% of the rise in sea level worldwide. This is according to a new study carried out by scientists from the Goddard Space Flight Center at NASA. This is the most accurate assessment made so far using a laser altimeter that was flown around Greenland and measured the change in the height of the ice surface. The beginning of the research was a series of measurements carried out with the help of the airborne system in 93 and 94. In 98 and 99 the measurements were repeated a second time. The new study is based on a comparison between the data of the two measurements and tries for the first time to calculate the loss of ice while taking into account the increase in temperatures measured over time in several villages located near the beaches. But at the same time it should be noted that "it is a very short time in geological terms - a kind of photography", admits William Krabill who published the findings with his colleagues at the end of last week. Krabil said that at an altitude of 1,980 meters above sea level the ice surface is "incredibly stable, but around the edge the ice is getting thinner and thinner." He added that every year the ice melts by at least a meter in those areas where it flows into the ocean. A second study on the same subject - published by another group of "Goddard" - confirms the findings of Krabill's group. However, the research of the second group based its conclusions on a global measurement system, which shows that in recent decades the upper parts of the ice surface have not been damaged. The exact reason for the loss of mass in the ice surface is unknown, although scientists currently suspect that what geologists call the "creep rate" - the speed at which the ice surface moves - is responsible for the phenomenon. "If the ice melts in the upper layer, the water drips through the cracks along the layers and eventually clogs the bottom at the junction between the ice and the bedrock," explains Krabil. Theoretically, the shield is probably the one that facilitates the displacement of the entire ice surface on top of the island. Another thing that is not clear to scientists is whether the melting process has increased in recent years due to global warming. This question worries climate scientists and city planners because more than 50% of the world's population lives near the coasts. A rise in sea level affects countries such as the Netherlands and Bangladesh that may lose large parts of their lands, as well as the future of many projects around the world located along the coasts. But the data collected by the scientists provides very little information about the geological and hydrological reasons underlying the changes in the ice surface. There are other factors that may affect the height of the ice surface. For example, the annual change in the amount of snow falling above the ice surface; as well as the change in the amount of precipitation in the coastal areas. It is possible that the planned launch of a NASA satellite - whose purpose is to check the mass of snow in the continent of Antarctica and in the Arctic part of the Earth - may be able to answer some of the scientists' wishes in this regard. {Appeared in Haaretz newspaper, 24/7/2000{ For the first time in 50 million years, the ice that covers the Arctic Ocean is melting A one and a half kilometer hole opens in the North Pole by John Noble Wilford, New York Times A group of tourists who sailed this month to the North Pole got to see something that the human eye had never seen before: temporarily, at least, a one and a half kilometer wide hole had opened in the ice at the top of the world. The thick ice that has covered the Arctic Ocean in the region has turned into water. The last time it is known with certainty that the pole was flooded was more than fifty million years ago. This is evidence that the earth is indeed warming. The ship "Yamal", which made its way to the Pole from Spitsbergen in Norway, smashed miles of surprisingly thin ice. When she reached the pole, the water lashed the bow. Eventually the ship had to sail 10 kilometers to find ice thick enough for the passengers to say they were at the North Pole. They also saw ivory-billed gulls in flight - the first time, ornithologists say, that gulls have been seen at the Pole. "It was completely unexpected," said oceanographer Dr. James McCarthy, who guided the tour. On a similar cruise six years ago, he said, the ship hit an ice cap two to three meters thick at the North Pole. This time, the ice was so thin that sunlight could penetrate through it and feed the plankton concentrations that multiply beneath it. McCarthy is the director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University and co-leads a team of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which operates under the auspices of the United Nations. The panel investigates the possible environmental and economic consequences of a marked change in the Earth's climate. During the last century, the average temperature of the earth's surface increased by about half a degree Celsius, and the rate of warming increased in the last quarter of a century. This is a significant increase considering the fact that the Earth's temperature today is only two to three degrees Celsius higher than it was during the last ice age, 18,000 to 20,000 years ago. "Perhaps certain people who underestimate the theory of global warming will finally open their eyes, when it becomes clear that even the pole is beginning to melt, like in the Eocene era," said Dr. Malcolm McKenna, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History who also participated in the cruise. The Eocene was the geological era in which the Earth's climate warmed significantly. About 55 million years ago, according to the evidence of sediments and fossils, tropical vegetation began to spread within the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic Circle. Water and jungles weakened the polar environments, and in the warm world in general, the number of mammals increased for the first time, and there was a development in their sizes and types. An examination of satellite images has already shown that there is a warming trend in the Arctic region, and scientists have raised the possibility that the ice cap will melt. Scientists at the Goddard Institute for Space Sciences, a NASA research center in Manhattan, compared data obtained from submarines in the 50s and 60s with observations from the 90s. The results were unequivocal: the ice cover over the entire Arctic basin became thinner in -%.45 {appeared in Haaretz newspaper, 20/8/2000{ and adds and updates Dr. David Isshachari, director of the science community at IOL. The second usually under a cloud cover? And the word "looked" means twofold how this observation is carried out and what is its result. Well, the answers to these questions will be found in the satellite scanning technique, called "radar scanning". These were developed, to the absurdity, in order to develop a means of sensing of KDA precisely in the tropical areas that are frequently covered by clouds, and cannot be detected by satellites based on the reception of repeated solar energy (visible and infrared) or heat radiation (A.A. far away). Radar satellites, on the other hand, emit radar radiation, and pick up the reflected echo, and all this in millimeter wavelengths which are not affected by clouds and are therefore active day and night and under cloud cover. The satellite itself is called Radarsat and is a joint project of JPL (the Jet Propulsion Laboratory), the Alaska Research Authority, and the Canadian Space Agency. It was launched in 1995 and is operated by this agency. JPL is involved in a project to monitor the world's oceans and glaciers for NASA, with the aim of monitoring global changes in climate due to human activity. The Arctic Ocean itself is the smallest of the four oceans that cover the Earth, but it is of great importance for determining the global weather (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) and is also strongly affected by changes in it. It can be said that the polar region is the "freezer" of the most populated northern hemisphere. The trackers on the surface of Radarsat notice fragments and copies in the ice due to the different reflection angles in these areas, and they also excel in resolution (separation capacity) 100 times more than conventional satellites. This makes it possible to carry out detailed and comprehensive simulations of the thickness of the ice layer on the one hand, and this is how JPL scientists were able to determine that the ice cap has shrunk in the last 20 years. The thickness of the ice there is only 3 meters, says Ronald Kwok, the responsible researcher on behalf of JPL, so it is very sensitive to weather changes. Now it is possible to determine exactly where the ice was formed and where it melted, according to him. The simulations themselves are performed every 3 days. You can see in them large fragments with a length of up to 2000 km. before irreversible climate change Growing concern over the melting of the ice in the North Pole for the first time - an open sea route north of Canada will shorten the way from Asia to Europe by Lester Brown, Herald Tribune If there were travelers who wanted to reach the North Pole on foot this summer - they would have to swim the last few kilometers. The report of the icebreaker - which discovered in the middle of August a hole full of water a kilometer and a half wide where there was supposed to be ice - surprised many in the scientific community. This finding, alongside recent studies, provides additional evidence not only of the melting of the Earth's ice sheet but also of the accelerated rate of melting. A study by Norwegian scientists predicts that within 50 years the Arctic Ocean may remain ice-free during the summer months. Its ice sheet has shrunk by almost half in the last 40 years. Another study, done by American scientists, reports the melting of the extensive Greenland ice sheet. The amount of water lost there every year is equal to the annual amount flowing in the Nile. The South Pole is also losing ice. Scientists attribute the accelerated melting of the ice to a regional increase of 2.5 degrees Celsius since 1940. These are not the only examples. The mass of ice and snow is also shrinking in the main mountain ranges of the world: the Rockies in the United States, the Andes in South America, the Alps in Europe and the Himalayas in Asia. Elf predicts that the glacier area will continue to shrink, which has been 1850-35% smaller since 40. These ancient glaciers may disappear for the most part in the next 50 years. The decrease in the mass of ice in the Himalayas has also accelerated alarmingly. The phenomenon should not have come as a surprise, because scientists have been warning about it for a long time. Almost a century ago, a Swedish scientist named Svante Arrhenius warned that burning coal, oil and natural gas could increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and create a greenhouse effect. At the same time as the concentration of carbon dioxide increased, the temperature of the earth also increased. From 1975 to 1999, the average temperature rose from 13.94 degrees Celsius to 14.35. The 23 hottest years since temperature records began in 1866 were all recorded after 1975. Researchers are now discovering that a modest increase in temperature by a degree or two in mountainous areas can dramatically increase the amount of precipitation that falls as rain and reduce its amount as snow. The result is more flooding in the rainy season and less melting snow feeding the rivers in the dry season. This phenomenon will affect the water supply to cities and irrigation in areas that depend on river water. The mass of ice and snow in the Himalayas is the third largest in the world after the ice mass of Greenland and the South Pole. If it continues to melt, it will affect water supplies in many parts of Asia. All the major rivers in the region originate in the Himalayas. At the same time the melting ice on the earth raises the sea level. Last century it increased by 30-20 cm. In this century, climate models indicate the possibility of an increase of up to a meter. Such an increase will affect the low Asian lowlands, which are permanently flooded by river floods and where a large part of the rice of the entire region is produced. According to a World Bank analysis, a one-meter rise in sea level would cost Bangladesh half of its rice-growing land. In many islands in the Pacific, Indian and Asian seas it will be necessary to evacuate the inhabitants. The result will be millions of refugees in countries like China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. We should not sit idly by in the face of these predictions. We may still have time to stabilize the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before continued carbon emissions cause a chain of climate changes that we can no longer control. We have the ability to mobilize solar energy, geothermal energy and energy produced from the wind more than we need. If we realize the damage caused by the disruption of the climate in the form of a tax that will be imposed as part of the price of the harmful fuel - investors will prefer to quickly switch from these types of fuel to energy sources that are not harmful to the climate. Leading car companies are already working on engines based on fuel cells. DaimlerChrysler plans to start marketing such a car in 2003. The fuel chosen for these engines is hydrogen. Even senior officials in the oil industry acknowledge that they will gradually have to move from a carbon-based energy economy to a hydrogen-based energy economy. The question is whether we can do this before the Earth's climate system changes irreversibly. The author of the article is the chairman of the Worldwatch Institute, which studies environmental issues {appeared in the Haaretz newspaper, 10/9/2000} and the news agencies add the next day that the road between Europe and East Asia has been shortened by about 8,000 kilometers. This became clear recently, among other things, thanks to a Canadian patrol ship. The ship recently discovered that glaciers are no longer an obstacle in the passage connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The passage, on the northwest route, passes between Canada and the Berry Islands. The Canadian patrol vessel completed the round in nine weeks, less than half the expected time. The shortcut opens up the possibility of commercial exploitation of the route. The reason for the disappearance of the glaciers probably lies in the warming of the earth. This is also according to the travelers along the coast of Alaska and Canada in the north of the Arctic Circle, as well as scientists. Environmentalists fear that commercial exploitation of the route discovered, especially by ships carrying oil, will irreversibly harm the environment, which no human foot has set foot on before. The search for a glacier-free route that would link the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean has been the goal of sailors for 400 years, and hundreds have died trying to find a shorter route between Europe and the Far East. Evidence in the ice: the last decade was the warmest in the last thousand years It is about removing an ice core from one of the peaks of the Himalayas recently so that indicates that the last decade was the warmest in a thousand years. The heart of the glacier is found in a borehole by scientists at an altitude of 8,014 meters on the southern peak of the Tibetan Plateau. The scientists, American and Chinese, discovered that the glacier layers tell the story of the climate year after year throughout the last millennium. "This is an amazing find that indicates the warming of the earth especially during the last century". said lead researcher Professor Lonnie Thompson. Another piece of evidence, also amazing that the glacier reveals, is the terrible dry season that hit East Asia at the end of the 18th century and lasted seven years and cost the lives of 600 people. The scientists discovered that the layers accumulated during the last century indicate considerable warming and a trend of worldwide drying. Prof. Thompson because it is immediately apparent where human activity begins on the surface of the glacier layers. "There is no doubt that most, if not all, of the causes of global warming are man-made," said Thompson. 16.9.2000 The ice sheet is shrinking by 1 meter a year according to a study that combined satellite photos and helicopter tours 17/09/2000 Researchers monitoring the melting of glaciers mainly in the Arctic (Northern) Circle found that the ice sheet in Greenland is shrinking at a rate of 1 meter per year. NASA's research on this matter is done using satellites and an aircraft equipped with special equipment. The researchers claim that the phenomenon does threaten the inhabitants of all coastal areas in the world. The ice sheet in Greenland is the second largest after the one in Antarctica (the South Pole continent). Its thickness is more than 3 km, and it covers 10 million square kilometers. NASA used an aircraft equipped with a laser altimeter - a device that measures the thickness of the ice layer (and provides a profile of it) using a laser beam. The plane flew at an altitude of 400 meters above the surface of the island, first performed such measurements five years ago, and last year the measurements were repeated to compare results. The findings of satellites from the GPS system and others were also examined. The researchers claim that between the two flights, the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet shrank by 5 meters. On the western side of the island, the layer increased and in the other areas - decreased, and thus the balance was actually maintained. But the thickness of the ice in the eastern regions decreased very significantly. The reason is still unclear. The assessment: global warming. But the result of this development could be devastating for different parts of the world. This will have an effect on the amount of rain that will fall in the future in Europe and in fact on the world climate in general. UN scientists: Earth is warming more than expected; Global warming has a drastic effect on the rain in Israel. The forecast for the coming years: less rain, more heavy. More than expected. The summary of the report was distributed this week to government officials around the world, and a meeting of government representatives early next year will discuss its findings in depth. In fact, the report is the first complete review, anchoring the conclusions of the panel that met in 1995 and concluded that there is a "significant human influence" on the "greenhouse effect". The greenhouse effect is caused by the increase in the amount of heat-trapping chemicals in the atmosphere. Although there are still uncertainties, research from recent years and computer models show that there is now solid evidence that human activity affects the climate, and that man-made greenhouse gases have contributed significantly to the observed warming of the last 50 years. "The report clearly shows that global warming is a real problem, and we are causing it. Therefore, we must take this into account in our future plans", said Kevin Turnbreth from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colo. "If the greenhouse effect is not reduced, the average temperatures on Earth will rise at a higher rate than expected." Man is the main culprit in the warming The greenhouse effect is a well-known physical phenomenon caused by the conversion of some of the sunlight hitting the earth into heat radiation (infrared). As the concentration of certain gases in the atmosphere increases, so does the portion of the radiation that is not returned to space but is "trapped" in the atmosphere and heats it up. The most important greenhouse gas is water vapor which constitutes up to 2% of the mass of the atmosphere. But the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere is constant and does not usually change. On the other hand, since the beginning of the century, the concentration of another greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, has been gradually increasing. According to researchers, the increase in the concentration of this gas is due to human activity, mainly from the burning of fuels such as oil and coal. Scientists estimate that the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide is one of the main causes of warming. Another important greenhouse gas is methane used as cooking gas. Other gases that contribute to the heating of the atmosphere are the various aerosols, mainly those based on chlorine components. The greenhouse effect is also evident in Israel The coming years will be rainier than usual or hotter than usual. In any case, the average amount of rain that will fall in Israel will gradually decrease. These are the outstanding findings in the research of Prof. Pinchas Alpert from the Department of Geophysics at Tel Aviv University, who examined the effect of global warming on climate change in the Land of Israel. The study, published in the latest issue of the "Water and Irrigation" magazine, also reveals that the north of Israel is drier than the south, and the climate there "tends more towards the desert". This is while the climate in the south of the country is becoming more comfortable, "and tends towards temperate". The "greenhouse effect" is a theoretical model that explains the phenomenon of global warming that has been felt in recent decades (according to scientists, the melting glaciers and warm nights are evidence of increasing global warming). Many climate studies have found that the temperature of the earth's atmosphere has increased in the last century by 2.5 degrees Celsius (the margin of statistical error is one degree). Such warming is a very fundamental change. When the earth came out of the ice age, which covered most of Europe and Asia until 20 thousand years ago, the temperature rose by about 8 degrees. The heavy rains that have fallen in recent days show the trend. Last Tuesday, 101 mm of rain fell in Tel Aviv, 80 mm of which within 12 hours, while the multi-year average rain in Tel Aviv in October is 36 mm. "The greenhouse effect in our region leads to extreme situations," says Prof. Alpert. "There are more days of heavy rain, but overall the amount of rain is decreasing." The research shows that these trends are not exclusive to the Land of Israel. Similar climatic changes have been reported by researchers in other Mediterranean countries such as Italy, Spain and Tunisia. In other parts of the world, however, the situation is different. In most regions of the temperate climate, Europe for example, it rains more. This trend is particularly noticeable in the more northern regions of the earth where the climate becomes, at the same time, warmer and rainier. Not only the recent rains in the region indicate climate change. According to the records of the Meteorological Service in the years 1998-1950, the month of August 1998 was the hottest month in Jerusalem - an average of 32 degrees Celsius was recorded then. For 15 years, in the 60s and 70s, the temperature exceeded the threshold of 35 degrees in only four days. In the 80s and 90s, on the other hand, such heat events occurred in Jerusalem almost every year, and in recent years the frequency of such heat events is only increasing. And not only in Jerusalem, of course: as part of Tahila Ben Guy's doctoral thesis on the changes in temperature in the Hazor region in the south of Israel in the years 96-65, it became clear that the average temperature in the region increased by 0.2 degrees every decade. One of the chapters in the study deals with changes in the intensity of the rains, their quantity and frequency in the Land of Israel in the second half of the last century, and the effect of global warming on them. The study shows that in the north of the country, the rainiest region in Israel, the extreme has taken place: on the one hand, the incidence of very rainy years, in which 900 mm or more fell, has increased, but at the same time, the incidence of dry years in which only 400-230 mm has fallen has increased. This fact is probably related to the fact that fewer and fewer barometric depressions, a necessary condition for rain in our region, visit us every year. In the last half of the century, the frequency of days in winter when it rained heavily (64-32 mm per day) also increased, but the frequency of days when it did not rain at all also increased. Another climatic finding - which according to Prof. Alpert may also be a product of the greenhouse effect - is the "escape" of the meteorological depressions to the north. Prof. Alpert came to this conclusion after data on rain events in Israel were run through the computer while introducing the expected changes in them, due to the influence of the greenhouse effect. From this test it became clear that the greenhouse effect will have an effect in the direction of "moving" the depressions (and the sediments) to the north. This means that there will be an increase in rain events in Turkey and Cyprus and a decrease in rain events in the Land of Israel. If this prediction comes true, then there will be an unfavorable change in the water balance of the Land of Israel. {Appeared in the Haaretz newspaper, 27/10/2000{ The weather in Europe in the 21st century: rainy and snowy in the north and hot in the south Climate change will also affect the old and important continent News agencies More than half of the mountain glaciers in Europe will disappear during the 21st century and parts of the southern continent will warm up to To damage the tourism industry - so predicts a special report, which deals with the expected climate changes in Europe in the next century. The report, funded by the European Union, also claims that more floods are expected in the coming years in northern countries, such as Britain. The report also claims that annual temperatures in Europe will rise by 0.1-0.4 degrees Celsius every decade. Cold winters will become rarer by 2020 and will disappear almost completely by 2080. Each summer will be hotter than the previous one, and rains and snows will increase in Northern Europe by 1-2% every decade, while the amounts of rains and snows will decrease in Southern Europe. The report adds that "it is likely that the frequency of extreme climate events will increase, especially in winter," and that the fear of drought in central and southern Europe will increase. Cool the ball , by Bob Herbert So what can we do about global warming? First we must remember the goal - to control warming, which can cause catastrophe, by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases - and especially carbon dioxide - that are released into the atmosphere. Ordinary people can immediately help by using energy more efficiently. Replace the regular light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs, which last longer and only need a quarter of the energy consumed by conventional bulbs. Fluorescent bulbs are indeed more expensive, but because of their longevity and low electricity consumption they are ultimately cheaper. When buying an electrical device, choose the one that has the highest rate of energy utilization. The device has a sticker indicating the amount of energy it consumes. The differences in the amount of energy consumed by devices with similar characteristics may reach 30-40%. Choosing a vehicle is even more important. Vehicles are responsible for about a third of the carbon dioxide emitted in the US. Those with the highest energy utilization emit the least amount of carbon dioxide (there is an inverse relationship between fuel savings and carbon dioxide emissions. If you double the fuel savings, you cut the carbon dioxide emissions in half. According to the people of the "Environmental Protection Fund", a new car that drives an extra 16 km per gallon - compared to your old car - will reduce the carbon dioxide emitted in one year by about 2,500 liters (1,132 kg). The companies Honda and Toyota introduce to the American market the cars that combine an internal combustion engine and an electric motor powered by batteries. These are mid-sized cars that save twice as much fuel as conventional cars. According to Dr. Paul Epstein, deputy director of the Center for Global Health and Environment at Harvard Medical School, "The problem is not what we do, but how we fuel what we do. This is the first step." In the long term the demands are more ambitious. According to the ideal scenario, a huge change will take place in the next hundred years, and most of the energy will no longer be produced using coal and fuel, but will be obtained from clean sources such as the sun, the wind, hydrogen and non-polluting fuel cells. "To achieve this at an affordable price will require considerable scientific development," says Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund. To move from the pollution-choked present in which we live to a future in which climate change will not be an existential threat will require more than the first step, which is very important indeed, of enlightened citizens buying cleaner cars and appliances with higher energy utilization. Tough action by Congress and the President is needed, and fast. And international cooperation, and enforceable agreements that also apply to the industrialized world and eventually to the developing countries as well - will be necessary. The federal government can also offer subsidies and incentives to encourage the use of existing clean energy technology and the development of new technologies. And the government can - and must - develop more sophisticated strategies and stricter requirements for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Global warming is the most serious problem of the 21st century. Last week, a study conducted by a prominent geologist at Texas I&M University said what most scientists are already saying: that human activity, not natural factors, is the number one cause of warming. We created the problem, and we have a variety of potential solutions at our fingertips. Ignoring them is not only destructive - it means suicide. © Published in "Haaretz" on 07/18/2000 back to "Who wants to be a millionaire on Earth in crisis; Not Doing Enough Before It's Too Late by Bob Herbert One day, probably after some disaster where hundreds of people are killed, we'll start taking global warming seriously. Every few months we get a frightening update on the phenomenon and the feeling arises that "well, we really need to do something about it". But the interest soon fades and we turn our attention back to "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" or something similar. There is always something more urgent than global warming. Last week's update was the scariest yet. The latest assessment by the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" states not only that human activity contributes significantly to global warming, but that the warming in the current century may be much more severe than previously estimated. A summary of the team's findings was shared with governments around the world last week. The team, established by the United Nations to assess the findings of the most recent research on global warming, believes that the average temperature in the world this century will rise by between 3 and 11 degrees. This is a huge increase. A warming of 3 degrees over a century would probably be the fastest warming in the history of civilizations. If it gets closer to 11 degrees - it's a waste of time. Scientists don't even have enough theoretical data to help humans begin to grasp the significance of change on such a scale. An average increase of 11 degrees will raise the temperature on Earth to the level it was at the time of the dinosaurs. Is anyone even listening? This is not a disaster that is about to happen. It is already underway. The decade of the 90s was probably the hottest in the last millennium, and it is estimated that 1998, which was even warmer due to the El Nino phenomenon, was the hottest year ever recorded. Oceans rise, mountain glaciers shrink, coastal areas drift and the seasons change. There could have been great benefit in raising the issue for a thorough discussion by the presidential candidates, to enlighten the public's eyes and arouse enthusiasm that would help search for potential solutions. But this did not happen. Vice President Al Gore already supports the aggressive treatment of global warming that was at the center of his book "Earth in the Balance" and recently he described warming as a "moral problem". Gore helped negotiate the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming. More than 150 countries have signed the protocol, but it has not yet been ratified by the US or any other industrialized country. Gore conducted several awareness campaigns on the subject and proposed establishing an environmental trust fund, which, among other things, would provide incentives for the development of new technologies with the aim of reducing the emission of dangerous gases. George W. Bush showed an ambiguous attitude to the issue of warming. He admitted it was a problem. But in the second televised confrontation with Gore he said: "I don't think we already know what the solution to global warming is and I don't think we've gathered all the facts so we can make decisions." Bush opposes the Kyoto Protocol, which he says is "not fair to the US". Nevertheless, he put forward a proposal that would require a reduction of all polluting substances emitted from power plants to produce electricity, a reduction that in the eyes of scientists and activists for the protection of the environment would be an important step in the fight against global warming. Whoever will be the candidate who will be elected president, he will have to deal with the issue in a real way and quickly. Global warming is not a fantasy. This is an accelerating crisis that threatens the young American generation and the people of the entire world. Climate change will be felt more in the poor countries than in the rich Research in the UK predicts that in Central Asia, between Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia, the temperature will rise by five degrees in the next century; On the other hand, in England and New Zealand it will only increase by three; The poles will warm by six degrees 9/11/00 Scientists in the UK claim that they can predict the impact of climate change in almost every country in the world this century. According to their forecast, some countries will warm twice as much as others. The study, conducted at the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, shows the change in weather in each country over the past century, and the changes expected to occur in the future. The study shows that in parts of Central Asia, in the area between Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia, the temperature will rise by five degrees. Countries in West Africa, which are already suffering from drought, will also be severely affected. Other countries where the temperature will rise by four to five degrees are India, Egypt, and the United States, while in the polar regions of Russia and Canada there will be an increase of 6 degrees Celsius. The countries where there will be the smallest increase in temperature, only 3 degrees, are Great Britain, Ireland, Argentina, Chile and New Zealand. According to the director of the center, Dr. Mark Hallam, the countries that will be most severely affected by global warming are precisely those that produce the smallest amount of gases that apparently cause the greenhouse effect. "The research shows the gap between rich and poor countries," says Hallem, and calls for a discussion of these gaps at the conference on climate change, which will open next week in The Hague in the Netherlands. Chinese scientists: Due to global warming, Mount Everest is losing height. Rising temperatures threaten to dry up Asia's major water bodies. Everest, the highest mountain in the world, has lost its height due to the warming of the weather, the Chinese New News Agency said. According to the report, researchers at the National Cartography Office determined that the thickness of the ice layer on the mountain has decreased in the last 30 years. The researchers believe that this process is related to the warming of the weather. The message did not say how much thickness the ice layer had lost. In their research, the Chinese scientists discovered that Mount Everest "moves" by 6-7 cm every year towards the northeast. This sliding originates from a tectonic rift that pushes the Indian subcontinent towards Nepal and China. This rift is also the reason for the formation of the Himalayan chain, and is a center for many earthquakes. A Chinese expert claims that the rise in temperature in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau exceeds the world average, thereby threatening to dry up Asia's major water bodies.
