From mgs23@pacbell.net Mon Sep 13 21:03:55 1999 Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 09:44:37 -0700 From: Misha To: SANET-mg Subject: "Global warming" Howdy, all-- Just a quick reminder that when folks like Dennis Avery use the term "global warming" they're generally trying to convince people not to think about global climate change. Planetary warming has been observed and measured. But the issue is not as simple as Avery and others present it. It's not a matter of a linear increase in the amount of heat captured by the CO2 in the atmosphere and held. We live in an ecosystem, not a log-linear world. Warming is only one observed phenomenon. There are other observable changes in climate patterns, including greater diversity in weather patterns in a given season, increases in "hundred year events" (severe or extreme weather, wind, and wave patterns), and temperature gradients in the North Atlantic Ocean. As for changing temperature gradients--the difference between the deep-sea water temperature and the surface water temperature is an engine that causes mixing of seawater, which carries nutrients (like O2, N, S, C) between surface and deeps, feeding the ecosystems there, which basically support life on the planet. Does anyone need to be reminded that our planet's oxygen comes from the work of these sea microorganisms? NOAA oceanographers have been documenting a dramatic slowing in the mixing/churning activity in this system. I can post some Web resources on global climate change tomorrow or next week, if anyone's interested (Friday afternoon link search). Also, one more thing. About Dennis's view of 950-1300 as the Good Old Warm Days. It was in the 1300s that plague outbreaks killed 1/3 of the population of Europe--not to mention tens of millions more in China and elsewhere. Most folks tend to think about that in a very simple model. For example, people got the plague because rats with plague-infected fleas arrived on ships. Yep, that was the vector. But that doesn't explain the outbreak. Why were so many people so susceptible? After all, 2/3 of the population survived, and many were exposed to the /Yersinia pestis/ microbe, and fought it off. Is that only explicable by their genetic makeup? Or might it be that there was more to it than that--and if so, what? But let's look at it from the microbe's perspective. Plagues follow warming. Existing microbes live--and are controlled--within VERY SPECIFIC temperature ranges. Many global epidemiologists are deeply concerned that even a 1-degree rise in mean planetary temperature could give advantage to the spread of highly virulent forms of malaria, cholera, and even some of the hemorrhagic viruses (like Ebola, Crimean-Congo, Marburg). Not only that, increasing heat means increasing stress on human hosts. So the advantage to the microbes are at least twofold--more territory for them, and more hosts whose bodies are overwhelmed and can't fight them off. Microbes are everywhere--each of us carries, for example, pneumonia viruses, herpesviruses, viruses not yet named or recognized, viruses-in-mutation. But we've got this fabulous, anciently evolved, cellular communications system--the immune-neurological-endocrine system--which acts in dialogue with these other life forms. When our INE system is functioning well--when the stress on it isn't debilitating it as a whole or any part of it--our bodies can, by and large, react in ways that keep it functioning; humans are extraordinarily adaptive creatures. And part of what supports our INE system is ecological balance. Well, duh--we're part of the ecology, and when environmental systems are at balance, so we're likely to be. Unfortunately, it's easier for people to think in binary terms: bad = microbes (quick! get the Lysol!), good = no sneezing or snuffles EVER; bad = rain, good = unending sunny days; bad = soil ("dirt"), good = sparkling clean fabricated surfaces.... Most people I've ever met think that bad = cold, good = warm (well, when it's COLD out, you can't pour unidentified petrochemicals over charcoal briquets, incinerate them, and start producing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in which to steep your meat!). Avery sounds like one of them--a binary thinker to the core, he assumes that warmer is better. And look! He's got historical "proof"! But my guess is that, if cholera, malaria, and hemorrhagic virus outbreaks became commonplace in Swoope, Virginia.... He'd blame it on the "liberal press." :^) peace misha ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Michele Gale-Sinex Communications manager Center for Integrated Ag Systems, UW-Madison http://www.wisc.edu UW voice mail: 608-262-8018 Home office: 415-504-6474 (504-MISH) Home office fax: Same as above, phone first for enabling ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The man does not know enough to keep the beans out of chili. --Molly Ivins To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest". All messages to sanet-mg are archived at: http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail