Ancient Witness - To What?
Amazing, just amazing. The lengths - including absorbing the potential of danger to one's self - that committed scientists will go in their scholarly efforts to search out clues in their ongoing efforts to understand the world around us.
Like the sublime courage in the name of scientific enquiry exhibited by two researchers, American Dale Anderson from the Centre for the Study of Life in the Universe (now that's a sobering, highly ambitious study) and New Zealander Ian Hawes from the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere, undertaking a highly dangerous exploit in their search for answers.
Part of an international team, they undertook their mission at Ward Hunt Lake, in Canada's far northern reaches. The purpose of which was to document, find evidence and research and interpret their findings to understand an environmental transformation which will continue to have an impact on all of us. The lake is North America's most northerly, close to Ellesmere Island.
Imperviously frozen like the region it is located in, it has been in a slowly-evolving altering stage for the last several hundred years. A change so profound that scientists consider it to be unprecedented in over 8,000 geological years on earth. "It's one more warning light from the Arctic that has begun to flash, and it's something we should be taking very seriously" claimed polar scientist Warwick Vincent of Universite Laval.
"This is a lake that we would expect to really resist change", said Mr. Vincent. Surrounded as it is by glaciers and ice shelves; all blanketed in four metres of year-round ice. But now the lake has a 10- to 15- metre-wide area of water open around the shoreline, for a few weeks each summer. Imagine the severity of the glacial atmosphere, the bone-crackling sheer ice-white environment, the inviolability of the frozen aspect.
Yet Mr. Anderson and Mr. Hawes pulled on scuba outfits and submerged into that frigid inhospitality through a hole they cut into that 4-metre ice surface to reach bottom and drill a 18-centimetre-long core of sediments dating into the distant past 8,450 years. On examination, the deepest and most ancient layers indicate limited symptoms of aquatic life other than simple algae.
That portion equating to the past 200 years, the top two centrimetres of sediment demonstrate sudden alterations in the lake's algae production, with chlorophyll A increased by a factor of 500. The evidence as parsed by Dermot Antoiniades, another team member from Laval, appeared to suggest the low concentration in the older sediments to be indicative of the permanently frozen past.
And, they conclude, although they cannot prove it, the higher incidence of chlorophyll A and algae of a particular type coincide with human-induced climate change dating to the last several hundred years.
Which seems, to my untutored understanding, quite a stretch to reach a conclusion. Since the Industrial Revolution was in its infancy at that time, and it hardly seems feasible that the fall-out of the introduction of steam and coal and mechanization could have so immediately impacted on the far-flung environment as they suggest.
Rather, the global warming and climate change we see so indelibly in our environment, linked to carbon dioxide and heat-trapping gases rise could also be linked to normal, cyclical and evidence-explicable changes in the earth's natural environmental patterns of warming and cooling. Which have left us with little ice-ages in the past, and eventual warmings, on a revolving basis.
While the impact of humankind's disturbingly careless misuse of fossil fuels, and our over-reliance on non-renewable energy sources in our wasteful rush to experience more gratifying lifestyles and economic advances at the expense of our environment cannot be denied, it doesn't seem all that likely that man-made interference in nature's balance is the only game in town.
Our familiar, reliable ecosystems are altering. Alarmingly, in too many instances. With the dire threat of species extinction accelerating as habitats degrade. We most certainly do have an obligation to ourselves and to future generations, to instill in ourselves a more prudent attitude toward our resources, along with a more immediate sense of responsibility to the atmosphere.
The changes do not seem to bode well for the future of the planet. Cataclysmic upheavals, the cause/s of which are still being debated in academic/scientific circles have occurred in the past, and for all we know are destined to continue ad infinitum. The history of human presence on this globe is a relatively short one. Shorter still is the presence of written, documented observations of change.
The truth is, no one knows what the future holds in store for us, long term. Yet it's true that our short-term obligations are clear and clearly demanding of attention. So do we see collective agreement and eager co-operation on the world stage? Right.
Like the sublime courage in the name of scientific enquiry exhibited by two researchers, American Dale Anderson from the Centre for the Study of Life in the Universe (now that's a sobering, highly ambitious study) and New Zealander Ian Hawes from the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere, undertaking a highly dangerous exploit in their search for answers.
Part of an international team, they undertook their mission at Ward Hunt Lake, in Canada's far northern reaches. The purpose of which was to document, find evidence and research and interpret their findings to understand an environmental transformation which will continue to have an impact on all of us. The lake is North America's most northerly, close to Ellesmere Island.
Imperviously frozen like the region it is located in, it has been in a slowly-evolving altering stage for the last several hundred years. A change so profound that scientists consider it to be unprecedented in over 8,000 geological years on earth. "It's one more warning light from the Arctic that has begun to flash, and it's something we should be taking very seriously" claimed polar scientist Warwick Vincent of Universite Laval.
"This is a lake that we would expect to really resist change", said Mr. Vincent. Surrounded as it is by glaciers and ice shelves; all blanketed in four metres of year-round ice. But now the lake has a 10- to 15- metre-wide area of water open around the shoreline, for a few weeks each summer. Imagine the severity of the glacial atmosphere, the bone-crackling sheer ice-white environment, the inviolability of the frozen aspect.
Yet Mr. Anderson and Mr. Hawes pulled on scuba outfits and submerged into that frigid inhospitality through a hole they cut into that 4-metre ice surface to reach bottom and drill a 18-centimetre-long core of sediments dating into the distant past 8,450 years. On examination, the deepest and most ancient layers indicate limited symptoms of aquatic life other than simple algae.
That portion equating to the past 200 years, the top two centrimetres of sediment demonstrate sudden alterations in the lake's algae production, with chlorophyll A increased by a factor of 500. The evidence as parsed by Dermot Antoiniades, another team member from Laval, appeared to suggest the low concentration in the older sediments to be indicative of the permanently frozen past.
And, they conclude, although they cannot prove it, the higher incidence of chlorophyll A and algae of a particular type coincide with human-induced climate change dating to the last several hundred years.
Which seems, to my untutored understanding, quite a stretch to reach a conclusion. Since the Industrial Revolution was in its infancy at that time, and it hardly seems feasible that the fall-out of the introduction of steam and coal and mechanization could have so immediately impacted on the far-flung environment as they suggest.
Rather, the global warming and climate change we see so indelibly in our environment, linked to carbon dioxide and heat-trapping gases rise could also be linked to normal, cyclical and evidence-explicable changes in the earth's natural environmental patterns of warming and cooling. Which have left us with little ice-ages in the past, and eventual warmings, on a revolving basis.
While the impact of humankind's disturbingly careless misuse of fossil fuels, and our over-reliance on non-renewable energy sources in our wasteful rush to experience more gratifying lifestyles and economic advances at the expense of our environment cannot be denied, it doesn't seem all that likely that man-made interference in nature's balance is the only game in town.
Our familiar, reliable ecosystems are altering. Alarmingly, in too many instances. With the dire threat of species extinction accelerating as habitats degrade. We most certainly do have an obligation to ourselves and to future generations, to instill in ourselves a more prudent attitude toward our resources, along with a more immediate sense of responsibility to the atmosphere.
The changes do not seem to bode well for the future of the planet. Cataclysmic upheavals, the cause/s of which are still being debated in academic/scientific circles have occurred in the past, and for all we know are destined to continue ad infinitum. The history of human presence on this globe is a relatively short one. Shorter still is the presence of written, documented observations of change.
The truth is, no one knows what the future holds in store for us, long term. Yet it's true that our short-term obligations are clear and clearly demanding of attention. So do we see collective agreement and eager co-operation on the world stage? Right.
Labels: Crisis Politics, Environment, Inconvenient Politics
posted by Pieface | 6:08 PM
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