Donald E Davison wrote:Once this starts
> happening temperatures will rise faster.
> Try to have a nice day,
> Donald Davison
Oh sure, no prollem...
a different problem...what's to say that rising temps caused by fossil
fuel burning(or is this just tied in w/ sunspot cycle- who's to say)
...cause the ice sheets to melt( it's happening presently)
.....warmer air can hold more moisture.... This would offset rising sea
levels
ie. No sealevel flooding as predicted
heck that's no fun, no catastrophe,
or rising CO2 levels cause a greening of the earth like none
seen in recent history. THis "greening" ,so to speak,
could take up some of this excess CO2, the excess moisture in the
atmosphere
due to heat and moisture released by plants
causing relatively more clouds>>>blocking more light from reaching the
ground
> more reflected light back out to space... less heat stored in the atmosphere
drama's over...
bill e
who's not sayin' it couldnt happen any otherway,
just that there's other scenarios
Greetings,
This letter may be off topic, but the subject should be considered,
otherwise you and Organic Gardening may become moot.
Donald Davison
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 04/24/00
The Venus Fly Trap Effect:
We have been receiving a number of letters concerning World Warming
due to the Greenhouse Effect.
I welcome these letters because I am most interested in this warming.
I feel that it is real and that more people need to be serious about it.
The first thing we should do is to stop calling it the Greenhouse Effect.
Greenhouse is a Feel Good word. People like greenhouses. Flowers and
all kinds of great plants are raised in greenhouses. It would be nice if
the entire world became one large greenhouse - right?
Wrong! Planet Venus is one big greenhouse at over 700 degrees - Ouch!
That is too hot for me. It would be better to call the effect The Venus Fly
Trap Effect, or something that sounds like it should be avoided.
The message must be that this planet Earth could become the same as
the current Venus.
One letter I received said: "The January through March [2000] average
temperature in the nation was 47.1 degrees. That is one degree warmer than
the previous record set in 1990."
That is an one degree increase in the records in only a ten year space
of time. It is bad enough if this increase is linear, but no one has the
right to assume it is linear. The next record increase of one degree may
happen in eight or six or four or two years. Wouldn't that be a shocker if
the next record increase of one degree occurs in the year 2002. We would
all be in deep doo doo. We would be on our way towards giving our planet
Earth a makeover - a Venus type makeover.
Forget about the more violent weather, forget about the oceans rising,
forget about carbon taking the oxygen out of the air, those problems will
be minor compared to our biggest worry.
We are all going to end up in a pressure cooker and there will be no
place on Earth where anyone can hide.
I think I'll write a book. The story will take place on our sister
planet Venus. The time will be 100,000 years ago. There is life on Venus
including people who are at the same point in their history as we are now
on our planet Earth.
These people of Venus know about the greenhouse effect and they welcome
it. Longer growing seasons and longer summers are a good thing - right?
A one degree rise is Mickey Mouse, they want a ten to twenty degree
rise and they do what they can to make it happen.
The story will take us quickly through the years so that we can see
everything that happens on our sister planet Venus. The changing weather
patterns. The rising of the oceans. The reduction of oxygen in the air. The
realization in the people that danger is upon them. The rising of
temperatures to the point of no return. The failed efforts to halt the
slide to doom. The fighting between nations for the cooler parts of the
planet. The space flights from Venus attempting to reach Earth. The end for
life on Venus when temperatures are too high. And the final end when acid
and weather erode all signs that life ever existed on Venus.
It is important that the story take place on the planet Venus. While
the start of the story is fiction the ending is very much the truth - total
reality. This should make the message believable.
If this story is placed on Earth, readers may be amused but most would
not believe it could happen, because they don't want it to happen.
The message of my story would be that it did happen on another planet
and therefore we can believe that it can happen here on our planet Earth.
By the way, can anyone give me a guess as to what temperature would be
the point of no return? My thinking is that there is a temperature less
than 212F at which plants cannot live even if they have water. This takes
us back to greenhouses, which need to open vents on warm days. What
temperature are they trying to stay below? In other words, what daytime
temperature will kill off plants around the world? Once this starts
happening temperatures will rise faster.
Try to have a nice day,
Donald Davison
Donald E Davison wrote:
Hi Donald
Your letter speculating on a possible future for the world does indeed
merit our serious consideration, However, I must first make a plea on
behalf of the poor innocent Venus Fly Trap, a plant which my children
when young grew, teased (with a pencil) and occasionally fed (with small
insects) to the great entertainment of us all. "Venus effect" or "Venus
Trap" by all means, but for my part I cannot stomach "Venus Fly Trap" in
such a pejorative use
Now to come back to the serious import of your thesis. As we normally
use the Centigrade scale here I am lucky that I have a very convenient
set of conversion tables so we can converse in the same language and of
course your 212F becomes our 100C - the boiling point of water at sea
level.
There is, as far as I know absolutely no chance of any life surviving
this temperature indefinitely, though there are a few highly-adapted
organisms which do in fact live successfully in very hot springs only a
little below boiling point.
For the highest temperatures at which organisms in general can actually
live and flourish, I guess we already have some indication from the
countries bordering on the major deserts, particularly the Arabian one.
Some of our list members who have personal experience of the Gulf States
and similar places are much better placed than I am to comment, but at a
guess somewhere between 55 and 60C (roughly 130-140F) must surely be
about the upper limit for this (and only for a few plants or animals
with special adaptations anyway).
As such temperatures do in fact already exist, even if only momentarily
or seasonally, in a few parts of the globe, it is not too difficult to
envisage the effect spreading gradually, just as the rainless area of
the Sahara has steadily spread for at least the last two millenia.
Perhaps that spread may not seem so rapid when placed in the context of
two million years, but the disquieting thing is that, as I gather, the
spreading has greatly accelerated even in my lifetime of just over 70
years and, if the last few years of drought in the sub-Sahara, such as
the current crisis in Ethiopia and Somalia, are any indication, may get
faster still in the next few years, until in effect more than half the
great African continent is denied to the use of living things in general
and certainly to the occupation of man.
You may be interested to know, by the way, that a comparable rise in
mean temperature, such as you mention for the USA, has also been noted
recently in NZ, which suggests the phenomenon is widespread and probably
global. Another thing we here are much aware of, because of our relative
proximity, is the very early signs of heating of Antarctia, with the
partial breakup of the previously apparently permanent Ross ice sheet.
This is of more than academic interest to the southern Pacific, because
any rise in sea level, which will almost certainly result if this
continues, will threaten the very existence of many of the numerous
small island nations which dot its waters. A lot of these are no more
than a series of coral atolls and it would take no more than a rise of
two or three metres to annihilate many of them.
Of course, while the greenhouse effect may well be speeding up the
action, major fluctuations of climate (both warmer and colder) are well
documented throughout the world's history and have doubtless led in the
past to great re-arrangements (often accompanied by extinctions) of the
populations of both plants and animals.
Your "worst scenario" is however a timely warning of how such a
fluctuation could get totally our of hand due to mankind's continued
tecnological tampering with forces they could well be unable to control.
Moira
Tony & Moira Ryan
Wainuiomata, New Zealand. (on the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
Lat. 41:16S Long. 174:58E. Climate: Mediterranean/Temperate
For an interesting read, try "The Coming Global Superstorm" by Art
Bell and Whitley Schreiber. A compilation of current research and theories.
The thrust is not that the surface temperature will rise to extinguish life,
but that there will be a 'cascade effect' of the extremely cold air on top
with the overheated air underneath. The possibility is that there will be a
sudden (within a matter of days!) cascade of supercold causing a global
Superstorm.
The evidence is that this occurs every 11000 years or so anyway (ice
age), but we have accellerated it by about 3000 years. This explains the
frozen mammoths in Siberia still standing with undigested grass in their
stomachs.
Walker Bennett
e-mail:
Work
Home
Both
___________________________________________________________
Improved State Mottos - New Jersey:
You Want a ##$%##! Motto? I Got Yer ##$%##! Motto Right Here!
___________________________________________________________
Behalf Of Tony & Moira Ryan
Sent: Monday, April 24, 2000 6:15 PM
To: OGL@LSV.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: The Venus Fly Trap Effect
Donald E Davison wrote:
> Greetings,
.
.
.
.
.
Now to come back to the serious import of your thesis. As we normally
use the Centigrade scale here I am lucky that I have a very convenient
set of conversion tables so we can converse in the same language and of
course your 212F becomes our 100C - the boiling point of water at sea
level.
There is, as far as I know absolutely no chance of any life surviving
this temperature indefinitely, though there are a few highly-adapted
organisms which do in fact live successfully in very hot springs only a
little below boiling point.
For the highest temperatures at which organisms in general can actually
live and flourish, I guess we already have some indication from the
countries bordering on the major deserts, particularly the Arabian one.
Some of our list members who have personal experience of the Gulf States
and similar places are much better placed than I am to comment, but at a
guess somewhere between 55 and 60C (roughly 130-140F) must surely be
about the upper limit for this (and only for a few plants or animals
with special adaptations anyway).
As such temperatures do in fact already exist, even if only momentarily
or seasonally, in a few parts of the globe, it is not too difficult to
envisage the effect spreading gradually, just as the rainless area of
the Sahara has steadily spread for at least the last two millenia.
Perhaps that spread may not seem so rapid when placed in the context of
two million years, but the disquieting thing is that, as I gather, the
spreading has greatly accelerated even in my lifetime of just over 70
years and, if the last few years of drought in the sub-Sahara, such as
the current crisis in Ethiopia and Somalia, are any indication, may get
faster still in the next few years, until in effect more than half the
great African continent is denied to the use of living things in general
and certainly to the occupation of man.
.
.
.
.
Your "worst scenario" is however a timely warning of how such a
fluctuation could get totally our of hand due to mankind's continued
tecnological tampering with forces they could well be unable to control.
Moira
Tony & Moira Ryan
Wainuiomata, New Zealand. (on the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
Lat. 41:16S Long. 174:58E. Climate: Mediterranean/Temperate
Hi Walker,
I hadn't heard of that one ... it looks a little sensationalist from the
web material I checked out. Not to poo-poo the idea outright, I think it's
important we consider the nature of our environment and possible
consequences of our actions upon it.
It reminds me of another theory about the glaciation cycle I heard a few
years ago. In essence, the climatologist proposing it (I don't recall his
name right now, but will look it up if you're interested) outlined a soil
"demineralizaion" cycle which he declared precipitated an ice age. Imagine
a world with soil rich in minerals supporting verdant forest growth
world-wide, capturing and sequestering a great deal of atmospheric carbon.
Over time these minerals leach down beyond the reach of the forest and the
trees begin to suffer: more demanding deciduous stands give way to
coniferous ones and disease resistance decreases. This process continues,
with forests dying and decaying or being burned for wildfires, either way
releasing their carbon to the atmosphere and increasing the greenhouse
effect. As the tropics become increasingly hotter than the polar regions,
violent weather increases (something we can see happening these days) as
these differing air masses exchange and mix. Moisture-laden warm air
precipitates as snow in the polar areas and increased wildfires in the
south release yet more carbon from dying forests. At some point this
becomes a run-away process, with increasing amounts of snow and ice
reflecting light back to space and cooling the planet, leading to an ice
age. The glaciers grind up rock as they progress, remineralizing the earth
as they go. Eventually (through a mechanism I don't understand) the ice
begins to recede and verdant forests reclaim the remineralized land and
atmospheric carbon.
Now I don't prescribe to either theory outright - the fundemantal effects
of ocean currents upon the atmosphere and how ocean currents have changed
over the millenia with continental drift don't seem to be taken into
consideration - but there may be elements of truth in both of them. I've
seen dramatic pictures of forest lands that have had mineral powders
applied to them - they are very much healthier than neihbouring untreated
forests. I wouldn't be surprised that there is a limit to what the
atmosphere can take before some run-away process develops. Food for
thought to be sure.
Cheers, Bob
--
Bob Carter
Kootenay Bay, BC
Hardiness Zone 6b
> -----Original Message-----
> From Walker Bennett
> For an interesting read, try "The Coming Global Superstorm" by Art
> Bell and Whitley Schreiber. A compilation of current research and
theories.
[big snip]
