Posted on 16 7-2004
Melting
Ice Greatest Threat Ever
by Paul Brown, July 14, 2004, The Guardian
Ed. Needless to say all New Zealand's major cities except Hamilton
are
next to the Pacific Ocean.
There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than for 55m
years, enough
to melt all the ice on the planet and submerge cities like London,
New
York and New Orleans, Sir David King, the government's chief
scientific
adviser has warned.
Speaking on his return from Moscow, where he has been acting
as the prime
minister's "unofficial envoy" to persuade the Russians
to ratify the Kyoto
protocol to fight climate change, Sir David said the most recent
science
bore out the worst predictions.
An ice core 3km deep from the Antarctic had a record of the
climate for
800,000 years and showed the direct relationship between the
amount of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and warm and cold periods for
the planet.
Critical in climate records is the quantity of ice at the poles
and in
glaciers. Records show that at the peak of the ice age 12,000
years ago,
the sea was 150 metres below where it is now. "You might
think it is not
wise, since we are currently melting ice so fast, to have built
our big
cities on the edge of the sea where it is now obvious they cannot
remain.
"On current trends, cities like London, New York and New
Orleans will be
among the first to go.
"Ice melting is a relatively slow process but is speeding
up. When the
Greenland ice cap goes, the sea level will rise six to seven
metres, when
Antarctica melts it will be another 110 metres," he said.
Records of the 3km deep Antarctic ice core showed that during
ice ages the
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was around 200 parts per million
(ppm),
and during warm periods reached around 270 ppm, before sinking
back down
again for another ice age. That pattern had been repeated many
times in
that period but had now been broken because of the intervention
of man.
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Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had reached 360 ppm in the
1990s and now
was up to 379 ppm and increasing at the rate of 3 ppm a year
- reaching a
level not seen for 55m years when there was no ice on the planet
because
the atmosphere was too warm.
"I am sure that climate change is the biggest problem that
civilisation
has had to face in 5,000 years," he concluded.
Sir David, who is also to visit China and Japan, was speaking
at the
launch of a scientific expedition to Cape Farewell in the Arctic,
which
aims to raise awareness of climate change in students. It will
also study
the oceans' currents with the help of Southampton University,
particularly
the fate of the gulf stream which warms northern Europe but
is slowing
down because of excess fresh water in the north Atlantic caused
by ice
melt.
Dr King described how the ice caps like those on Mount Kilimanjaro,
Tanzania, had been continuous for hundreds of thousands of years
and
survived through successive warm periods but were now expected
to
disappear in 30 to 40 years.
He said that the realisation of the scale of the crisis was
what prompted
him to say in January that climate change was a bigger threat
than global
terrorism. "We are moving from a warm period into the first
hot period
that man has ever experienced since he walked on the planet."
He said the heatwave of last summer in which 25,000 Europeans
died had
killed more people than terrorism, yet had not been given anything
like
the same level of attention.
The prime minister had charged him with talking to governments
ahead of
the G8 summit to convince them of the urgency of action on climate
change,
of research and development of renewables. He warned of the
slow response
of the climate system and said we were already doomed to 30
or 40 years of
climate heating because of the carbon dioxide already in the
atmosphere,
hence the need to multiply effective flood defences such as
the Thames
barrier.
Sir David said because there was no ice on the planet 55m years
ago, it
was impossible to tell how much carbon dioxide there was in
the atmosphere
but it was probably only slightly more than "we are currently
heading
towards".
Sir David was backed up last night by Margaret Beckett, the
environment
secretary, speaking at the Green Alliance about the value of
the EU's
campaign to fight climate change.
"Climate change is the predominant global environmental
issue where
European leadership is vital," she said.
"But, of course, we need to persuade others to come with
us, and we need
to inject new momentum into international discussions on climate
change.
"Above all, we also need to demonstrate that countries
do not have to
choose between their environmental and economic aspirations,
to forfeit
one or the other, but that these aspirations can not only be
compatible
but mutually reinforcing."
She said that the government had set ambitious targets for 2010
and beyond
for virtually every big environmental issue.
But there needed to be a greater emphasis on assessing progress
and
identifying action needed to deliver existing commitments.
There also needed to be more consistent implementation of EU
rules across
the union, she said.
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