Save Bangladesh, save humanity

Dr A. M. Choudhury

Star

Historically, we have always been at war with something or the other and it depended on the collective wisdom of world leadership to avert its worst consequences. Currently, we are at war with global warming and an appeasement policy in this respect will lead to consequences more devastating than the Second World War.

The present article will analyse why the successive COPs are failing, the latest one numbering 15. The sponsors should also think deeply why there is so much wastage of resources and money in this process and what should be done to remedy the situation.

Various proposals that are put forward come from the findings of an organisation named

IPCC- the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC does not carry out its own original research nor does it do the monitoring of climate according to its own document.

IPCC bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific literature. It is not that everybody agrees with its findings though it tries to report in an unbiased way.

For example, Fredrick Seitz, Persident Emeritus of Rockfeller University and past

President of the National Academy of Sciences denounced the IPCC report, writing “ I have never witnessed more disturbing corruption of the peer review process than the events that led to this IPCC report.” But there are comments hailing the report also. I am assuming that the report is made in an unbiased way. I will only point out some drawbacks in the report itself.

The fourth assessment report of the IPCC published in 2007 predicts that the global average surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.4- 5.8 degree centigrade. That's a large range for implementing any agreement. The global temperature rose by about 0.6 degree centigrade up to 1990 from the pre-industrial value, say during the last hundred years. The IPCC was predicting that temperature would rise by 0.3 degree centigrade per decade, but by 2009 the temperature has risen to 0 .74 degree Centigrade according to an estimate made by WMO. Thus the temperature is rising at a rate much lower than IPCC estimate. We have every liberty to take the lowest value of 1.4 degree. That means that in this century, the temperature will not rise by more than 1.4 degree. However, the COP-15 agreement allows carbon dioxide emission to the extent that it does not cause temperature rise beyond two degree centigrade. In that case the carbon emitting countries can go on emitting carbon dioxide throughout the century when all the fossil fuel will be exhausted.

It is true that global temperature is rising because of carbon dioxide emissions. There is increase in floods and cyclones and the glaciers are melting. These are all indicative of global warming. But the Antarctic glaciers are not melting like the glaciers in the northern hemisphere.

We have been witnessing extreme cold in Europe and America during the last few years. Is there a backlash? Is mother nature retaliating for warming it ?A famous Meteorologist Dr S.C.Scorer who was the President of Royal Meteorological Society, when I invited him in a conference in Dhaka in 1986 and asked him about global warming he replied that nature has a way to compensate. But it does not mean that warming and cooling will cancel each other.

There is a possibility that the warm gulf stream which flows along the coasts of America and Europe and keeps it warm may slow down or even stop completely because of global warming. In that case whole of Europe and America will freeze and this will happen to other similar streams in other parts of the globe and the whole civilization will collapse. This is because global warming affects what is known as thermohaline or the ocean coveyor belt circulation.Just like air circulates on the surface of the globe, the ocean currents also circulate three dimensionally in the whole ocean. During normal times currents like the gulf stream go into the northern ocean, cool and go into the bottom of the sea, because cold water is heavier , then it goes south, completes a cycle and then emerges as warm water. But when global warming occurs, the northern ocean water becomes warm and it cannot sink and so the thermohaline circulation can not be completed. Deprived of the warmth of the ocean currents like the gulf stream , the continents will freeze and that will be the end of our current world. This is an extreme situation, but a partial shut down of the gulf stream can cause havoc and this needs a thorough investigation.

Fig. 1: A summary of the path of the thermohaline circulation/ Great Ocean Conveyor. Blue paths represent deep-water currents, while red paths represent surface currents

I therefore urge upon President Obama of United States to form a commission consisting of the most brilliant climatologists of US and other countries to look into the problem of global warming and thermohaline circulation to save mankind. The world's renowned climatologists live in US, but other renowned climatologists from other countries may be invited to join. It could be similar to the Manhattan Project where not only scientists from US joined but renowned scientists from other countries also participated.

The difference is that Manhattan project produced atom bomb, but this project will be used for peace to save mankind. The Director of the Manhattan Project Robert Oppenheimer recruited brightest nuclear scientists from all over the world. They include Edward Teller from Hungary (who later became father of Hydrogen bomb), Enrico Fermi from Italy, Hans Bethe from Germany. Both Fermi and Bethe received Nobel Prize. If these scientists were working in an isolated way without any target they would possibly never have produced the atom bomb.

Yasuhide Fumoto

I am not undermining the reporters of the IPCC who are doing a tremendous job, but we want to hear direct from the horses' mouth. The reports from individual scientists without any target will not produce the desired result. Hence a targeted effort is necessary. Many people sat beneath the apple tree, but it was Newton who discovered the gravitation theory. There were 45,000 delegates in COP-15 conference, but it was one Obama who broke the impasse by giving a solution which has become the Conference agreement. So I shall request the President of the United States to form a high level Commission to look into the problem of global warming with a definite target. The outstanding scientists who contributed initially to climate change modelling are Barry Salzman of Yale University and Syukuro Manabe of Princeton University. If they are still alive their services could be requisitioned.

The climate centres from where experts may be drawn could be Woods hole Oceanographic Institution, Scipps Institutute of Oceanography in USA, Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany,Hadley Climate Centre at British Met office and many others. The fact is that the climate models that are in use are far from satisfactory. Hence the models need improvement. We need some great minds for this task. You can't base your judgment on inadequate findings. What I suggest is that since we have time for a binding agreement , we spend this time in validating our technical findings. Let us start from pre industrial stage to a rise of temperature of 0.6 degree and see if the model can predict the observed changes that have occurred since we have the observation for this and validate the model. Then gradually increase the temperature by say 0.1 degree and gradually up -to say 2.0 degree and see whether the earth can withstand the changes thus incurred. How much flood or drought will be there and how much crop and other resources will be lost. How much of the Greenland ice will melt? It may be mentioned that melting of all the Greenland ice would raise the sea level by seven meters.

Will the earth still be a place to live in? It may be mentioned that if the global temperature rises by 2.0 degree, in the polar region it could rise by some 10.0 degree which could bring a shutdown of the gulf stream and bring the great freeze. A new study from Canadian researchers suggests that collapse of a large portion of the Antarctic ice would shift the earth's axis. As a result of the collapse of the ice sheet massive amount of water would move from one place to another and tsunami like phenomenon would be created. So before we decide to limit the global rise of temperature up to two degrees, we should know the consequences for sure. Otherwise a Kyoto protocol like agreement should be reached to reduce the carbon emission before 1990 level or even what President Obama proposed that by 2020 we should reduce the carbon level at 2005 level. We must realise that we are at the crossroad of civilisation. A wise decision could save the civilisation and a bad one could lead to mass extinction as happened with mighty dinosaurs.

In the case of dinosaurs it happened because of a meteor impact, but this time it will be due to man's own action. It needs to be noted that both Mesopotamian and Indus valley civilizations collapsed because of climate change. Let me end with the lyrics of a song called “4 degrees”:

Take it up higher.
4 degrees warmer.
Give in now
and let me in.
You'll like this in
Don't pull it out.
It brings us closer than
dying and cancer and crying.

The author, a climatologist, is former head of SPARSO.

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