Re: David J. Ameling's Oct. 31 commentary, "Particulate pollution likely culprit behind warming":
His interpretation of the fascinating NOVA documentary "Dimming the Sun" verges on the bizarre. I would invite everyone to watch it, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun, and see whether they arrive at the same conclusions he does.
The inadvertent post-9/11 "experiment" he refers to conclusively demonstrated that particulate emissions do form a protective shield that prevents some solar energy from reaching the surface, thereby masking the full extent of the warming that would otherwise occur. A similar "experiment," on an even more massive scale, followed the eruption of the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa in 1883. The resulting particulate barrier lowered global temperature by 1.2 degrees Celsius the following year, resulting in widespread crop failures.
1884 was referred to as "the year without a summer," and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888. So you can see that, without particulates, we would be in even more serious trouble from warming than we are now. Some have even suggested deliberately injecting sulphate particles into the atmosphere in order to slow down warming.
I believe Ameling is correct, though, in suggesting that carbon dioxide is not the climate forcer that we most have to worry about. As the arctic permafrost melts, it is liberating vast amounts of methane that had been sequestered in the methane clathrates there. Methane is more than 20 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. The last time the permafrost melted was 251 million years ago because of volcanic activity in Siberia. The ultimate effect was a warming of more than 10 degrees Celsius, which resulted in the extinction of 90 percent of species alive at that time. Scientists call that event the fourth great extinction.
We are now well along in the midst of the sixth great extinction. For more on this, I recommend reading Peter Ward's great book "Under a Green Sky." If we are not already past the climate-tipping point, we are so close to it that it hardly matters what we do at this point as it seems quite clear that the warming deniers are going to prevent any substantive action from taking place until it is far too late to stop the trajectory of climate change.
Get used to broiling summers, fires and drought. It's only going to get worse. In a word, we are toast.
— George Vye lives in Ventura.
Need Help? Call us at 1-877-710-6182.
Monday-Friday: 6am-3pm / Saturday: 6:30am-10:30am / Sunday: 7am-11am