3/6/16
Global warming. It rolls off the tongue with ease. But when we compute the mass of
the atmosphere and the oceans relative to the mass of the earth, even a computer would
take a moment counting zeros to find the decimal point. What we’re talking about is a
very brief snapshot of surface temperature.
Contemporary atmospheric warming has at least five major components. Particulate
absorption of direct and reflected solar gain, reflected infrared absorption above land by
greenhouse gasses (ocean and ice reflect very little in the infrared spectrum), convective
absorption above land and sea, the endothermic evaporation - exothermic condensation
cycle of water from the oceans, and direct heating from combustion, predominately of
hydrogen and carbon.
Contemporary oceanic warming is predominantly modulated by atmospheric
particulate content, greenhouse gas content, ozone layer thickness, percentage of cloud
cover, percentage of ice cover, and atmospheric dew point Changes in ocean temperature,
which increase or decrease the rate of evaporation of water into the atmosphere, are the
predominant cause of atmospheric temperature change. On one side of the dew point,
water vapor is, by a wide margin, the predominant greenhouse gas. On the other side of
the dewpoint clouds shade the surface and lower atmosphere and are the prime factor in
surface and consequently atmospheric cooling.
Because greenhouse gasses only operate over land, there is a substantial temperature
differential between air over land and ocean. As the trade winds carry hot or cold air from
land to ocean and warm, moist air from ocean to land, they swirl and gradually blend as
they transfer the solar energy stored as heat in the ocean into the atmosphere. Modulated
by a variety of factors such as season, dewpoint, topography, and color, the cycle spirals
into the future. In a complex interplay of ocean and air compositions and currents
determined by the irregularities of topography and color of the earth’s surface, a variety of
pulses with frequencies from days to decades modulate the basic weather cycles.
There are also more long range weather cycles and one of them is about to enter our
lives in a big way. The overlay of the ice ages is currently a roughly 100,000-year by
several million mile variation in the diameter of the earth’s orbit around the sun. Over
time, as the earth condenses, the cycles get colder. Within the cycles, the entry and exit
thresholds are determined by very abrupt color changes of major portions of the earth’s
surface at zero degrees centigrade, resulting in rapid changes in albido. The temperature
variation caused by this variation in proximity to the sun coincides with the liquid-solid
phase change temperature of water. On the northern polar regions of the earth’s surface
this results in rapid and sometimes opposing changes in color and hence albido of land and
ocean.
As the Arctic Ocean turns from white to blue, the new forth northern climate zone is
beginning to interact with current global atmospheric and oceanic warming. This is
currently manifesting as stronger, larger storms and increased snowfall in the mid latitudes
of the northern temperate zone, and is bringing an early winter to eastern Siberia and a
corresponding severe winter to eastern North America.
We are entering the earth’s largest and most abrupt changes in albedo since the last ice
age, with very rapid shifts in climate, and the human community has yet to see the need to
build the tools we need to survive coming changes. We’re entering an age of transition
from fire into ice. During this transition there will be a period of extreme temperature
contrasts that will substantially decrease the amount of land and sea conducive to
agriculture and aquaculture. We need to ascertain the timing and dimensions of this
transition and get to work, but it needs to be work chosen wisely.
We have the ability to slow the onset of the coming ice age if we pay attention and get
to work, but it just buys time to adapt. In the midst of our frenzied addiction to fossil fuels,
the vast majority of humanity won’t be distracted from their immediate material pursuits
long enough to look past next tuesday, so any major preparations will be made at the last
moment and mostly far too late, but the sooner more people gain awareness, the more
community effort will be available and the better our chances of maintaining a coherent
civilization.
In order to understand and deal with this and other challenges we face, we must, as a
global culture, gain a much more comprehensive view of this little ball we live on. To
accomplish this we need new research tools and new educational tools. While, as
individuals and organizations, we have gained a vast wealth of data, we are greatly
handicapped by the fragmentation of knowledge and perspective. While, intellectually, we
all know that the earth is round, with the exception of a few astronauts, we see it all our
lives as flat with little lumps and bumps and mountains, and we plan our lives accordingly.
We have, within the realm of our current technological expertise and cheap enough for
most of humanity to have, the ability to build a live video globe of the earth. Linked to the
internet, it will be capable of cohesively portraying the vast wealth of data that is currently
fragmented and will greatly expand our perspective of where and when and how and why
we are and what we can do to make it better. Time is short. Let’s get to it.
The exploration of space will soon be sidetracked by other priorities. While we still
have the energy, there’s something of great importance that we need to finish. As more
people and cameras go into orbit, our perspective changes and we learn more and more
about where we live. The next evolution of this endeavor can be a computer and internet
linked video globe capable of a vast array of data translation. A globe of the earth in live
video would be a major step toward the human community being aware of its condition.
Basic systems are already in place and a few choice carrots would attract the talent to put
together a spherical screen, a few more satellites, and the electronics to mesh the systems.
If we had a video globe of the earth upon which we could see the full spectrum of
energy absorption and reflection, we could watch the great winds of the earth swirl plumes
of moisture off the oceans and plumes of hot air and rivers of cold air off the land together
into the turbulent complexities of our weather. We could watch the ocean currents as the
sun warms the water and it rises and stratifies, carrying energy toward the poles, gradually
releasing it into the atmosphere. We could watch the arctic ice cap continue to recede from
the shoreline as the northern-most pulses of the Pacific El Nino currents flow thru the
Bering Straight until the last of the rotten ice disappears. We could watch the water that
evaporates from the world’s new ocean turn the northern temperate land masses into
pulsing bands of white that begin to grow the new glaciers of the next ice age. We could
see the human species as a complex organism flourishing on the decay of the
carboniferous age. We could see ourselves glow in the dark till the feeding frenzy runs its
course. We could begin to see ourselves from the perspective of the rest of the universe
and beyond.
The potential tangible, serendipitous, and synergistic benefits of a three-dimensional
perspective of the earth are widespread throughout the realm of human endeavor.
Civilization is a team sport. Time is short, and there’s a lot of work to be done. The higher
the percentage of humanity aware of the necessary changes in cultural endeavor that it will
take to mitigate our entry into the next age, the better our chances of pulling it off. It may
seem a subtle change in perspective, but the difference between seeing the bits and pieces
and far away pictures on a flat screen, and seeing the earth as a whole in all its complexity
and diversity is a fundamental change in consciousness.
In conversation, I find that, once people can visualize a live video globe of the earth
sitting on the coffee table, everybody wants one.