House of Paine

ice age fever

 heres a little piece
 i found 
on the global climate change 



==========================


 
  stockholm 
feb 18 2003 

 by long long ranger 
         your global  weather bird 



  industrial man’ s pollution  induced 
  global warming may be  our salvation  

sound off the program to you ?
out of the box
 maybe it isn’t 
 just  ask Dr  Finn Stendahl 
head of the world renowned  iceberg project 
  here at    Stockholm’s  Royal Polytechnic Institute 

 “ how about global warming  doc ?”
 
 “ i love that smokey music ”


 to the good doctor we have a 
“  happy  unintended consequence of 
   of  all our climate warming
activities   


“ they  have 
 postponement  the next ice age   ”

thats what the ice cap cycle theorist
told a gathering of media here  yesterday.
  
 why so happy a consequence?

 because according to Stendahl 
  “ nature had a hideous surprise waiting for us 
   out there 
 a cold clap  so abrupt 
and so deep   it would  likely kill off
  2/3 of  us humans ”  

the idea is fairly simple 
  the earth with its  present continental configuration 
produces and maintains 
two ice caps 
this in itself  is unusual for our planet 
most of earth’s  history there was  either
 no ice cap or one north or south cap 
but  recently do to the coincidence
 of  each continent’s drift pattern
  we’ve had a continent near or at  the south pole 
 and a league of continents converging in an ever tightening  ring 
     around the north pole 
 these two circumstances have prevented
 the usual trans-polar  circulation  of warm waters

   “ its very fragile with this configuration 
 as few as 10  cool summers in a row seems to be  enough 
     to kick off the glacier cycle ”
deep in the background of all this is a basic cycle  
  variation of orbital distances from the sun
 every  20,000 year one whole cycle is completed 
   
  “10k in  then 10 k out”
  says Stendahl 

 these  10,000 year cycles have pronounced effects on 
our present pair  of  ice caps

 they both pulse “out”
 and” in ‘
 on this cycle .
 
the last” in “pulse started  nearly 11,000 years ago 
accompanied by 
 a gradual atmospheric  warming trend 

but theres a problem:

 the gradualness
 has two abrupt “change” points 
both very sharp
at least  according
 to the doc’s theory

these change points kick in suddenly 
and with dramatic consequences to the atmosphere 
 cloud cover air moisture temperature water level 
sunshine 
its no coincidence
sez the good doctor
that  settled agriculture 
only arrived after the last warming trend kicked in 

 today we are a thousand years  into an out pulse
 
  time for the clang of the cold snap ?

well maybe worse
maybe 
we’er over due

maybe it didn’t happer yet
only  because we’ve turned on
 this artificial  heater just in time 

providential  sounding  isn’t it 

 “ there are signifigant lags
 between  on set of a orbital shift 
 and its effects on the earths atmospheric
 and hydrologic systems 
  according to our best calculations
 of these  lags 
 its time for the effects
 of 
the present out pulse to kick in ”
 Stendahl contends 

 “ just about everyone
 who’s anyone 
agrees with that point ”
adds 
 the happily self described 
“l tempest brewing”
                           iceberg-ologist 

“my fear is 
first of all
we may not be burning
 the fossil supplies fast enough 
and secondly  when th fossil fuel supply
 is all  gone
 we will  need tohave  other means
ready to hand
 to keep  heating  up the atmosphere ”

“ i’m afraid
its become 
 our job
 to maintain
 this human freindly outdoors
 or face arather Byronesque denoument “