Time magazine, May 28, 1956
“One Big Greenhouse”
Since the start of the industrial revolution, mankind has been burning
fossil fuel (coal, oil, etc.) and adding its carbon to the atmosphere
as carbon dioxide. In 50 years or so this process, says Director Roger
Revelle of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, may have a violent
effect on the earth’s climate.
The temperature of the earth’s surface depends largely on two minor
constituents of the atmosphere: water vapor and carbon dioxide. They
are transparent to the short-wave energy (light and near infrared)
that comes from the sun, but opaque to most of the long-wave heat
radiation that tries to return to space. This “greenhouse effect”
traps heat and makes the earth’s surface considerably warmer than it
would be if the atmosphere had no water vapor or carbon dioxide in it.
An increase in either constituent would make it warmer still. Warm
eras in the geological past may have been caused by CO2 from
volcanoes.
At present the atmosphere contains 2.35 trillion tons of carbon
dioxide, existing in equilibrium with living plants and sea water
(which tends to dissolve it). Up to 1860, man’s fires added only about
500 million tons per year, and the atmosphere had no trouble in
getting rid of this small amount. But each year more furnaces and
engines poured CO2 into the atmosphere. In 1900, the amount was 3
billion tons. By 1950, it was 9 billion tons. By 2010, if present
trends continue, 47 billion tons of carbon dioxide will enter the air
each year. [actual @37 billion tons]
This will be only 2% of the total carbon dioxide, but if it is more
than can be dissolved by the oceans or absorbed by plants or minerals,
the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will tend to increase. The
greenhouse effect will be intensified. Some scientists believe that
this is the cause of recent warming of the earth’s climate. Dr.
Revelle has his doubts.
In the future, if the blanket of CO2 produces a temperature rise of
only one or two degrees, a chain of secondary effects may come into
play. As the air gets warmer, sea water will get warmer too, and CO2
dissolved in it will return to the atmosphere. More water will
evaporate from the warm ocean, and this will increase the greenhouse
effect of the CO2. Each effect will reinforce the other, possibly
raising the temperature enough to melt the icecaps of Antarctica and
Greenland, which would flood the earth’s coastal lands.
Dr. Revelle has not reached the stage of warning against this
catastrophe, but he and other geophysicists intend to keep watching
and recording. During the International Geophysical Year (1957-58),
teams of scientists will take inventory of the earth’s CO2 and observe
how it shifts between air and sea. They will try to find out whether
the CO2 blanket has been growing thicker, and what the effect has
been. When all their data have been studied, they may be able to
predict whether man’s factory chimneys and auto exhausts will
eventually cause salt water to flow in the streets of New York and
London.
germansingergirl
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
pixelskylines
jbbartram-illu
vaporwave
theartofmadeline
janainaart
jacobvanloon