A Nature Photographer's view on Climate Change
08th September 2011
For the past few years we have been told that the climate of our world is changing, that it’s getting warmer and that we are the cause. Scientists however have warned for decades that the CO2 we produce has a warming effect on the climate, which causes extreme weather events like violent storms, increased rainfall and floods in some places and extreme drought in others. At some stage this inconvenient truth became popular with politicians and now we are told to use more alternative energies and less fossil fuels and most importantly pay an eco tax.
What we haven’t been told however is this: Our planet rarely has been colder than it is today. By the standards of our geological past we are still in an ice age.
What is called an ice epoch nowadays can last several million years and comes as a combination of proper ice ages, the last one which ended about 10.000 years ago, and short interglacial periods one of which we experience at the moment. And if we look at the lifetime of our planet we will also realize that even ice epochs are relatively short-lived events. For most of its 4 billion years of existence the Earth has been much warmer than it is today. Polar ice caps for example are rare and having two at the same time might be unique.
So the climate is getting warmer. Nobody doubts that. Glaciers are melting and the polar ice caps are disappearing. The latter however has some interesting effects. Ocean currents are an important part, probably even the most important part, of the global climate system. These currents are transporting warm and cold water around the globe in a complicated and ingenious system, which we still don’t understand completely. The Gulf Stream is probably the best known and for us here in Northern Europe the most important ocean current. It brings warm water from the equator area to the North Atlantic and passes it by the British Islands and Ireland. If we would like to see how our seasons would be like without the Gulf Stream we only have to look across the Atlantic Ocean to Newfoundland, which lies at the same latitude as Ireland. Anybody who ever experienced a Canadian winter should be in little doubt that we are still in an ice epoch.
One of the first effects of global warming is that the ocean currents are changing. The melting ice caps add freshwater to the ocean, which changes the salinity of the sea. This again influences the flow of the currents. A 2005 study already showed that the Gulf Stream had slowed by 30% in 50 years. That was in 2005, I wonder how it is today.
Should the Gulf Stream disappear completely, Northern Europe would experience longer and colder winters and shorter and cooler summers. The prolonged snow and ice cover during the winter months would then provoke a further drop in temperature because sunlight is being reflected back to space, the opposite of what is happening right now at the polar ice caps. This again means that the polar ice caps could return and we would be back in a proper ice age.
Winter 2010: Snow on the Loop Head for the first time since...?
In addition to that new studies tell us that the sun is entering a phase of less activity and less heat output, which would explain the cold and icy winters we recently had here in Ireland. The overall problem is that we still don’t understand all the factors that make up our climate and how these factors interact.
I believe our climate is getting warmer, I doubt it will stay that way and I even more doubt that we as a species have single handedly caused this warming. And even if we did an eco tax won’t reduce CO2 emissions. A complete stop of the use of fossil fuels and a stop to the clear cutting of rain- and other forests (which absorb CO2 and turn it into O2) would. But this would probably also stop the world economy in its tracks.
The climate will change further, if to another ice age or to generally warmer conditions doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we won’t be able to stop this change or even slow it down. Mankind managed to destroy and damage a lot in a very short time, but on a geological scale we are not that important at all.
Should we seek alternative energies? Yes, but not for the reasons given by governments. Fossil fuels will run out eventually and if we don’t want to go back to the caves (which probably wouldn’t be the worst for our planet…) we have to find and use alternative energies, preferably energies that will last a long time, maybe forever. And maybe it would be nice to find the means to live in harmony with our environment for a change.
What we haven’t been told however is this: Our planet rarely has been colder than it is today. By the standards of our geological past we are still in an ice age.
What is called an ice epoch nowadays can last several million years and comes as a combination of proper ice ages, the last one which ended about 10.000 years ago, and short interglacial periods one of which we experience at the moment. And if we look at the lifetime of our planet we will also realize that even ice epochs are relatively short-lived events. For most of its 4 billion years of existence the Earth has been much warmer than it is today. Polar ice caps for example are rare and having two at the same time might be unique.
So the climate is getting warmer. Nobody doubts that. Glaciers are melting and the polar ice caps are disappearing. The latter however has some interesting effects. Ocean currents are an important part, probably even the most important part, of the global climate system. These currents are transporting warm and cold water around the globe in a complicated and ingenious system, which we still don’t understand completely. The Gulf Stream is probably the best known and for us here in Northern Europe the most important ocean current. It brings warm water from the equator area to the North Atlantic and passes it by the British Islands and Ireland. If we would like to see how our seasons would be like without the Gulf Stream we only have to look across the Atlantic Ocean to Newfoundland, which lies at the same latitude as Ireland. Anybody who ever experienced a Canadian winter should be in little doubt that we are still in an ice epoch.
One of the first effects of global warming is that the ocean currents are changing. The melting ice caps add freshwater to the ocean, which changes the salinity of the sea. This again influences the flow of the currents. A 2005 study already showed that the Gulf Stream had slowed by 30% in 50 years. That was in 2005, I wonder how it is today.
Should the Gulf Stream disappear completely, Northern Europe would experience longer and colder winters and shorter and cooler summers. The prolonged snow and ice cover during the winter months would then provoke a further drop in temperature because sunlight is being reflected back to space, the opposite of what is happening right now at the polar ice caps. This again means that the polar ice caps could return and we would be back in a proper ice age.
Winter 2010: Snow on the Loop Head for the first time since...?
In addition to that new studies tell us that the sun is entering a phase of less activity and less heat output, which would explain the cold and icy winters we recently had here in Ireland. The overall problem is that we still don’t understand all the factors that make up our climate and how these factors interact.
I believe our climate is getting warmer, I doubt it will stay that way and I even more doubt that we as a species have single handedly caused this warming. And even if we did an eco tax won’t reduce CO2 emissions. A complete stop of the use of fossil fuels and a stop to the clear cutting of rain- and other forests (which absorb CO2 and turn it into O2) would. But this would probably also stop the world economy in its tracks.
The climate will change further, if to another ice age or to generally warmer conditions doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we won’t be able to stop this change or even slow it down. Mankind managed to destroy and damage a lot in a very short time, but on a geological scale we are not that important at all.
Should we seek alternative energies? Yes, but not for the reasons given by governments. Fossil fuels will run out eventually and if we don’t want to go back to the caves (which probably wouldn’t be the worst for our planet…) we have to find and use alternative energies, preferably energies that will last a long time, maybe forever. And maybe it would be nice to find the means to live in harmony with our environment for a change.
