Too little, too late
Something different and certainly topical this week. During the first week of August a report was released warning that we face going into a period of “hot house earth.” The planet’s temperature has already risen one degree with the Paris Agreement calling for no more than two degrees, a fourand-a-half-degree rise would, scientists think push into a scenario where large areas of the planet would become uninhabitable with sea levels rising 60m.
Something different and certainly topical this week. During the first week of August a report was released warning that we face going into a period of “hot house earth.”The planet’s temperature has already risen one degree with the Paris Agreement calling for no more than two degrees, a four-and-a-half-degree rise would, scientists think push into a scenario where large areas of the planet would become uninhabitable with sea levels rising 60m.
In 1999, my husband Ian researched and wrote an article for the UK tabloid The Planet on Sunday. The front-page article for the first issue, published again below he called “Too little, too late.” It was well received among the scientific community then and Ian received a lot of positive feedback. The paper sold around 110,000 copies but was never published again. Judge for yourself how well the human race has done since it was published. Here it is, as published Dec. 19, 1999.
Too little too late. For years, scientists have been warning us about global warming and showing us what could happen. Governments and industrialists have blown hot and cold on the subject, there have been numerous meetings and conferences, but as for actually achieving anything, that is debatable. Scientific evidence is now there for all to see that the global conveyer belt is changing.
What the future holds for us is not pleasant but certainly needs to be planned for. We can expect: increased rainfall, severe storms, flooding, rising sea levels, coastal erosion, massive cost of protecting coastal communities and farmland, loss of time at sea by the fishing fleet, changes in distribution of the fish population, fishing and oil rig disasters, toxic algae blooms, increased incidence of disease in aquaculture, loss of estuary wildlife habitats and a severe decline in the wild salmon population. People take comfort in the belief that none of this will be happening in their lifetime, this is not true, these are all predicted short-term effects, in terms of a decade, or so, indeed, some of them have already started to happen.
Recent events concerning ASP poisoning, the decline of wild salmon, cutting of fish quotas and repeated tragic flooding, all point to the fact that something is very wrong. What is worse, it is too late to do anything to stop it, slow it down, yes, as for the rest we are going to have to adapt to survive.
The summary of the 1998 Scottish Ocean Climate Status Report makes disturbing reading. There has been up to a 4C increase in Scottish winter seawater temperatures since 1970. Overall, sea temperatures in the region have increased between 1c and 1.5c since 1995. The trend has been for a smaller range between summer and winter sea temperatures. Salinity of Scottish coastal waters is falling, leading some scientists to belief that this may be a contributory factor to the occurrence of toxic algae blooms around the west coast of Scotland.
The warming of coastal waters around Scotland is in direct contrast to the cooling waters in the Nordic seas. This is not good for the wild salmon, as their natural habitat will be narrowed considerably. There have been severe fishing quota cuts in the North Sea. Is this because there are less fish or that the fish have moved elsewhere?
We have seen squabbles arising already between salmon farmers, shellfish farmers and those that depend on the wild salmon. Whilst their points about each others operations could well be valid, it is time that the government commissioned more research to look at the big picture. Simply stating that there is no evidence is no good to anyone. Doug MacLeod for the Association of Scottish Shellfish Growers agreed, stating: “Our shellfish depend on the food in the water, in particular phytoplankton( the grass of these a) anything that affects this, we need to be aware of.”Chris Poupard for the Salmon and Trout Association said:“There is no doubt that climate change is a major problem. We need a coordinated international research programme to find out what is happening to salmon at sea.” Alan Scott speaking for Marine Harvest McConnell, a major fish farming operation stated: “We have been providing data to the marine lab in Aberdeen for sometime, and welcome the prospect of more climate research .” Therefore, research needs to be increased and correlated and soon. Are these repeated flooding incidents simply isolated occurrences, or are these areas in need of extra vital protection?
Equally disturbing is the fact that only the marine lab in Aberdeen is producing such reports. The author, Dr. W R Turrell of the Ocean Climate Group from the marine laboratory in Aberdeen is extremely anxious to see more research and funding allocated to this area and said: “We are going into a decade of climate change, almost climate chaos. It is urgent that we understand what is going on.” Incredibly, there is no equivalent report for English and Welsh waters. On The 17th of December, the Inter Agency Committee of Marine Science and Technology is meeting to discuss this in conjunction with the Global Ocean Observing System. Trevor Guymer, head of Ocean Circulation and Climate at Southampton Oceanography Centre said: “Following the excellent example of Aberdeen Marine Laboratory, we want to create a similar product for the rest of the UK waters.”
Further out on the continental shelf it has been reported that the temperature of the water is at its highest in nearly 100 years of measurements. The salinity of the oceanic water too has shown a marked increase since 1994, scientists believe that this is due to the arrival of warm, salty water from the Southern Atlantic. This in itself is not normal. The culprit for these changes is thought to be the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation).
Much has been made of the famous El Nio effect. It is about time we paid more attention to the one that affects the North Atlantic, the NAO. Scientists think that the changes in the sea water temperatures are connected to the fact that that the NAO index is at its highest since records began during the 1880’s.
The NAO is defined as a large-scale mode of climate variability and is centred on the North Atlantic Ocean basin where atmospheric pressure drives the wind in summertime and storms from east to west during the winter. The fluctuation between sea pressure stations in Iceland and the Azores is known as the NAO, this was first noticed in 1942. Scientists are still investigating its influence on global climate but a high NAO index does not bode well for Western Europe.
It has been noted that a high NAO index resulted in wet winters from Iceland through to Scandi- navia with a marked increase in severe storms. Because of these storms, there has been a noticeable increase in wave height. Studies by Bacon and Carter in 1991 and Kushnir et al. 1997 have linked wave heights to wind speed and storms in the North Atlantic. Wind speeds have increased by up to 2 knots since 1960 and the average wave in the North Sea is getting bigger by 20cm per decade, caused by the stronger winds.
In the alpine regions of Europe, a high NAO index means higher levels of winter snowfall dramatically increasing the risk of tragedy as avalanches strike from unexpected directions.
For Southern Europe the high NAO index meant severe droughts which have badly affected Spain and Portugal, severely depleting the olive crop. Further studies have shown that the NAO has a pronounced effect on the marine eco-system and the timing of plant growth in Scandinavia. Scientists do not know yet what is causing the changes to the NAO index, but the suspicion is that it is because of global warming caused partly by man carelessly releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It looks as if the chickens are coming home to roost.