The excuses my grandkids will make

Unfortunately the climate is still changing. Two reports out this week, one from the IPY (International Polar Year), a United Nations research program that has been examining the two polar regions since last March and the second from a group of Oceanologists who have been studying changes in the circulation of the Atlantic ocean.

Not unexpectedly their findings are that the ice and snow at both ends of the planet is declining faster than previously predicted and the resulting increase of salt water in the southern hemisphere when combined with expected increase of colder water in the northern hemisphere, will change the flow and effects of the Gulf Stream, which basically screws everyone.

The direst of predictions include sea levels rising from 1 meter to 1.5 meters, extremely large storms that might previously have occurred once a year, occurring weekly and the changes to the Gulf stream throwing Europe into a mini ice age.

Of course the worst of this is not supposed to occur until the end of this century, at which time my grandkids will be older than I am now and they will most likely be trying to make excuses for their grandparent’s generation.

You know they had this depression thing happening about 90 years ago and cutting down forests, to dig up tar ladened sand was all their government leader would focus on. I can’t remember his name, it was really the dark ages for America north.


JAWL


Cool photo by Bob Strong at Reuters. References from MSNBC here and Reuters via Yahoo here.