On certain days and at certain hours a meterologist at the United States base in Little America steps from his hut. He is wearing a heavy parka and carries a small steel vacuum flask in his hand. Holding the flask in a way to avoid any swirling snow, he turns a valve. There is a slight hissing sound as the cold Antarctic air rushes in to fill the empty flask. The valve is closed and the scientist returns to his hut where he labels the flask as to hour, date, and locale. It is then carefully packaged for shipment.
Destination: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California, U.S.A.
At the precise moment this man manipulates the flask valve at the South Pole, others are doing the same thing elsewhere. It happens at a weather station 7,000 feet up Mauna Loa in Hawaii, from aboard an Air Force plane passing over Dayton, Ohio, on a Coast and Geodetic Survey vessel bound from Bermuda to Boston. And so on. All these samples are labelled. All are sent off to the evaluation center at Scripps or to similar ones at Woods Hole, Lamont Observatory at the University of Washington, or Texas A. & M. College.
This procedure began in January, 1958, and it will continue for years. Even decades.
Why?
Because Weather Bureau scientists, in collaboration with the foregoing institutions, are trying to establish a “base index” for the carbon dioxide (C02) content of the atmosphere —an index which they intend to compare with known conditions of the past and against which they will measure the future rise or fall of atmospheric CO2 content. It is an index which will help prove whether the increasing amount of CO2 in the air is responsible for a dangerous warming of the world we live in. Hence the samples of air from all parts of the Western Hemisphere that are being continuously collected, labelled, measured for C02 content, and fitted into the giant jigsaw puzzle of our global temperature structure.
If you wonder what difference it makes, the answer lies in what is known as the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change. And the great problem it presents is this: Man's very productivity may be setting the stage for a natural disaster unprecedented in civilized times. For, as the earth’s temperature continues to rise, the suspicion is daily becoming stronger that a major cause is the penchant of modern man to make fossil fuels—wood, coal, oil, gasoline, etc.—do his work for him. In other words, fossil fuel consumption results in a tremendous outpouring of industrial and machine exhaust into the atmosphere. Some 6,000,000,000 tons of this exhaust per year is C02—which may be enough to upset the earth’s natural “carbon dioxide balance” and thereby raise global temperatures.
If this is so and if the trend continues unabated, then, in the words of Dr. Edward Teller, University of California physicist who pioneered the H-bomb, “the ice caps on the poles will begin to melt and the amount of water on the earth will increase. Such places as New York and Holland would be inundated.”
As Dr. Teller describes it, the earth is gradually getting hotter from the increase of CO2 in the air. Studies show, he says, that this is mainly due to heavy uses of fuel energy such as coal, oil, and their derivatives—and that when the total CO2 atmospheric content picks up by another eight per cent or so, the world will indeed be in trouble due to rising ocean levels.
Meaning for the Maritime World
It requires no great stretch of imagination to foresee the effect that even a moderate rise in ocean levels would have for the maritime world. A glance at a geographical globe or a relief map of the earth tells the story:
Coastlines, except where currently precipitous, would become almost unrecognizable. In some areas they might recede hundreds of miles, in others only a few feet.
Many major seaports would be flooded, at least partially. Naval, merchant, and passenger yards and docks would be wiped out or seriously impaired.
Up-river cities or sites would become main terminals of maritime transportation and communication.
Charts and other hydrographic data would have to be totally revised. Navigational aids and systems would have to be replaced, redefined and/or completely re-instituted.
To a considerable degree, the naval and maritime construction capacity of most sea- dependent nations would be—at least for a time—much curtailed.
These are a few of the more obvious changes which a rising sea level would induce. But there would also be scores of concomitant upheavals, physical, psychological, political, and social. For instance: the uprooting of families and institutions allied to sea-faring activities; the change in national morale resulting from serious topographical alterations; the harsh regulations which would have to be fostered to preserve order and reason; the shifts in world power which might occur due to the greater effect on water-bordered countries such as the United States, England, Japan, or Italy as against the relatively landlocked areas like Russia, China, Germany, and the Balkan States.
At the same time, the rising tides would inevitably put a tremendous new load and emphasis on the world’s maritime structure. This might occur from a transportation standpoint as overseas flights became more distant, more difficult, and less economical. From the standpoint of resources it would surely occur as heavy populations became crowded into smaller land areas with corresponding losses of productive land and fresh water. And from the standpoint of defense it could scarcely be avoided as greater ocean areas developed while land masses shrank; not only would intercontinental missile technology be made more difficult, but the advisability of more highly mobile sea-ranging forces would be patent.
Theory Gets New Currency
The C02 theory is not new. It had considerable currency at the turn of the century, but it was more or less abandoned in later decades due to seemingly incompatible scientific observations. Now, on the basis of new findings, it has emerged with greater force— enough to convince some scientists entirely and start others off on a fresh search for proof that will settle the matter.
Scientists say that the temperature rise necessary to produce coastal flooding would not have to be very great in absolute terms. Two or three degrees centigrade over several centuries might raise ocean levels anywhere from fifty to a hundred feet. A higher temperature rise would do the same thing in less time.
Evidence of a “warming” trend seems to be accumulating. United States Weather Bureau observers report that readings taken in the Arctic section of the globe indicate a temperature rise of “several” degrees magnitude in the past forty years. Soviet weather scientists have confirmed this. Glaciers are retreating. Merchant skippers crossing the Atlantic in recent summers have logged the greatest incidence of shelf ice bergs within the memory of living seamen. During 1957 Hawaii was hit by the first hurricane in its recorded history. These storms are totally the result of tropical forces, warm weather climes. In the winter of 1957-58 the California Marine Research Committee noted that Pacific water temperatures had increased markedly over the 1949-56 average. The change was reported as oceanwide and in some places amounted to as much as 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit above the previous norm. Water temperatures along the West Coast were the highest in 26 years. Significantly, too, southern fish were caught far north of their usual haunts.
The Threat of Momentum
Scientists are not certain they know what all these things mean, and they are not being alarmists. There is as yet no indication of any concrete danger from rising ocean levels in the near future, and it is freely admitted that current warming trends may be primarily due to normal fluctuations and oscillations of climate. At the same time, it is recognized that the changed conditions of atmosphere being induced by our modern industrial society are accelerating in geometric progression. So if the released C02is a likely cause of serious climatic change, it behooves man to find out for sure. If the answer is affirmative, then obviously a concerted effort to cut C02 output will have to be made on a world wide scale—and soon!
Dr. Roger R. Revelle, director of the Scripps Institution, estimates about twelve percent of all the C02 present in the air today has been put there by fossil fuels consumed since the industrial revolution began in 1800. By far the greater part of this amount has accumulated in the past few decades. And our fuel-burning momentum is constantly accelerating; that is, the rate of increase is itself increasing so fast that we may be flirting with real trouble before the end of this century.
Another top scientist in the field, Dr. Harry Wexler, director of meteorological research for the United States Weather Bureau, says this: “The rapid burning of fossil fuels in the remainder of this century will release such large quantities of C02 to the atmosphere that, if burning continues at present rates and if the C02 is not absorbed by the oceans, the amount of C02 in the atmosphere . . . will nearly double.”
According to a third prominent climatologist, Dr. Gilbert N. Plass, formerly of Johns Hopkins and Michigan State universities, the C02 trend may be raising global temperatures at a present rate of one or two degrees centigrade per century.
Of course, we do not know how long a C02 warming effect may have been going on, nor how much the current rate of warming may speed up. But if we put all the evidence together and apply a little arithmetic, it is not hard to come up with some idea of a beginning date of danger—which conceivably could be in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s. Much too soon for comfort.
The Greenhouse Effect
The danger of C02 exhaust, if it exists in regard to global temperature, is based on a definite atmospheric phenomenon known as the “greenhouse effect.” This is what keeps the earth from boiling during the day and from freezing solid at night. It results from the presence of three minor gases in the atmosphere: CO-2, water vapor, and ozone. Sunlight filters easily through these gases to earth in short waves. Here it is absorbed or re-radiated as infra-red rays. The minor gases, however, tend to hold back radiations at the infrared end of the spectrum. Hence we get a global condition like that in a greenhouse or in a closed automobile left standing in the sun. The theory is that if any of the three minor gases in the atmosphere increases significantly, our atmospheric roof will become more opaque than ever and will tend to hold more heat close to the earth’s surface.
Actually, the theory is much more complicated than this and depends on many other factors, such as variations in photosynthesis, rock decay and formation processes, volcanic and hot spring characteristics, and the C02 interplay between the atmosphere and the world’s oceans.
The atmosphere-ocean relationship is particularly important because of the potent C02 absorption capacities of water. Scientific studies done in 1952 (and later) indicate the oceans may be less of a compensating factor than previously thought due to possible saturation of surface water and a slow water turnover rate. Radiocarbon measurements off Newfoundland, for example, now show that the deep waters there were on the surface 1,700 years ago—about the time the Roman emperors were tossing the early Christians to the lions. Scientists translate this fact to mean that complete top-to-bottom circulation cycles may require 10,000 years or more. In short, if the ocean absorption rate is as low as now believed, the “greenhouse effect” of increased C02 may be magnified many times in the years ahead.
A Returning Ice Age?
Curiously enough, there is another theory of climatic change which suggests that this same warming of world and ocean temperatures may eventually lead to another Ice Age —possibly within several centuries.
This paradoxical idea is put forward by two ranking geologists, Dr. Maurice Ewing of Columbia University and Dr. William L. Donn of Brooklyn College. In a nutshell, their belief is something like this. The great Ice Ages of our planet have occurred less through glacier “advance” than from the simple buildup of snowfall—a condition which comes about when more snow falls over prolonged periods than melts. The requisite for such a pattern of snowfall is moist air in the Arctic Circle. When the North Pole is frozen, the Arctic winds do not pick up enough moisture to produce the necessary amount of snow. But when the pole is thawed or relatively free of thick ice, then the cold winds spreading out from it carry enough moisture to start building up ice packs over large parts of the planet at lower latitudes. Thus we get a long-range weather design in the Northern Hemisphere which can produce a new glacier age—if the Arctic gets warm enough.
Here again, this is over-simplification. But the theory provides an illustration of how CO2 may actually pose a double-barrelled threat, first by flooding, then by freezing.
Atmospheric Pollution
There are other facets to the CO2 problem beside temperature rise. Air pollution, for instance, is beginning to run into great expense, inconvenience, and threats to health.
In 1948 in Donora, Pennsylvania, twenty persons died because of aggravated conditions of toxic atmosphere. In December, 1952, over 3,000 persons died in one week in London, England, for much the same reason. Damage resulting annually to crops, cattle, and vegetation can only be conjectured. The smog in Los Angeles is no longer a joke. In this petroleum-rich area which belches forth countless industrial exhausts, plus the unburned seven percent of gasoline used by 21 million automobiles, something like 2,000 tons of hydrocarbons pour into the California sky each day. Small wonder that when the wind dies down and “atmospheric inversion” occurs, Los Angeles residents are all but smothered. Nor is the condition limited to Los Angeles. Other critical regions include Pittsburgh, St. Louis, New York, Philadelphia, and Detroit. Even San Francisco has been having trouble.
The air pollution threat has at least three troublesome offshoots.
One of these lies in the establishment by psychologists that areas plagued by atmospheric blight are also plagued in direct ratio by a mentally depressed citizenry and labor force. Suicide rates are inclined to be higher; mental hospitals and sanitariums are over-burdened; work performance and efficiency may be off as much as fifteen or twenty percent depending on the intensity and duration of the blight. The longer it lasts without a substantial break, the higher the rate and severity of human depression. This is one reason why there is a lower per capita incidence of deep emotional disturbance in such “clean air” metropolitan regions as Miami, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, and Salt Lake City than in polluted centers.
A second bad effect is the probability that during dry weather cycles air pollution tends to make precipitation even more difficult. Reports to this end have been made in recent years by Weather Bureau researchers to the National Academy of Sciences. In one experiment presented to the Academy by Dr. Ross Gunn and B. B. Phillips, for example, it was held that air polluted by such things as finely- divided industrial and home ashes or dust from barren land areas can delay or perhaps forestall rain from clouds which otherwise would have yielded it. “Using ordinary air,” said Dr. Gunn, “we made thousands of clouds by first saturating the air with moisture and then cooling it by a refrigeration technique. But we could not get any clouds to produce rain until we made them with air cleared of pollution.” In certain types of clouds the experiments showed that precipitation depends on the size of cloud droplets formed high above the cloud base. But the dirtier the air in the cloud, the less chance the droplets have of reaching “rain size.”
A third trouble—and one directly related to the C02 riddle—is the possibility that air pollution may contribute additional C02 potential through atmospheric chemical reactions not yet clear. In other words, it is possible that the hydrocarbons which account for most industrial pollution may react with other elements in a way to increase the C02 content of the air. As one researcher says: “By the time chemists have trapped a sample of (polluted) air and transported it to the laboratory for analysis, chemical reactions have already changed the substances, so that what is examined in the laboratory is different from what is actually present in the air. This dynamic nature of the atmospheric pollution problem increases the difficulty of studying and controlling it.”
On the Brighter Side
But the primary concern with CO2 remains a matter of temperature. Assuming a positive relationship here is established, it does not necessarily follow that the outlook can only be gloomy. For the temperature rise may be offset by proper regulation and possibly controlled with a certain amount of precision.
If effective control is in the cards, then it may be that some temperature rise could prove beneficial to the world in general. Currently frigid land masses, for example, which include a very substantial part of the Northern Hemisphere, are relatively unattractive to human endeavor for this reason. Whether they could be warmed up sufficiently to become attractive without causing undesirable natural upheavals at the same time is debatable. But it is a possibility scheduled for investigation.
A more likely benefit to emerge from proof that CO2 is warming up the world is the tremendous impetus such proof would give to the development of new power sources. Initially this impact would be felt most in the field of atomic power. Later, other means of power such as solar, magnetic or gravitational systems may well come to the fore. While this would mean an almost unimaginable revolution in our economic and industrial pattern, in the long run it might advance civilization, technologically, hundreds of years in the space of a few decades. And one must surmise that this kind of advance would be accompanied by corresponding progress in agriculture, medicine, transportation, consumer production, and the like.
How to Regulate C02
If man-made C02 is established as a catalyst to perilous climate, what about stopping the trend?
It all depends, of course, on what the scientists learn, on how imminent the dangers are, on the alternatives available. But one thing seems certain: if a continued or accelerated rate of fossil fuel consumption means the eventual inundation of land in low-lying coastal regions, if it promises to turn fertile valleys to arid wastes or make temperate zones tropical—then stringent regulation is on the horizon for C02 producers. Even if no noticeable change were in sight for another 100 years, the control of CO2 exhaust would have to begin much earlier, possibly within a decade of the time the gas is positively identified as the villain of the piece.
In that event, we will see a type of control, regulation, law, interstate compact and international agreement which can scarcely help clashing with some of our free enterprise concepts.
Industry, which may blossom in some directions due to new engineering principles, will be hamstrung in others. Capital and capital equipment may be subjected to such sudden shifts and tremors, including obsolescence, as to require bolstering from government. The training, transformation, and replacing of the national labor-management force could cause widespread changes in our economic and living patterns, as well as other social values. Concepts of insurance, liability, agency, contractural integrity, etc., would possibly be exposed to such forceful and variable pressures as to demand a near total re-evaluation in the courts. Public restitution for outmoded private property might be demanded.
Since air pollution may also contribute to the C02 problem in ways not yet known, certain technical changes would possibly be dictated by ordinance. Automobiles might be required to carry after-burners to insure total eradication of unburned fuels. (Bills to require just such equipment have already been introduced in Congress.) Similar regulation might apply to some types of aircraft and shipping. Diesel engines in land vehicles might be entirely prohibited and the exhaust of stationary ones specially treated. Propane might be required as a fuel for certain types of internal combustion engines. In factories, centrifugal dust-settling processes might be required or, as alternatives, liquid gas solvents or high voltage electrostatic precipitators.
All of these devices are expensive ones which the economy might not be able to afford.
Furthermore—and most important from a political viewpoint—the global nature of the problem seems quite likely to make ordinary international agreements inadequate for effective regulation. If so, penalties for violation of the new controls, while not necessarily severe in regard to personal freedom or fines, conceivably might have to be geared to complaints and evidence produced in foreign lands by foreign officials. This would be a far- reaching politico-legal step and one sure to foster great heat and controversy. In a sense, it would be a step toward world law where international dictates could be brought forcefully to bear on individuals regardless of nationality.
An Alternative Fuel
Perhaps the most disturbing element in the picture lies less in the possibility of enforced worldwide industrial change than in the fact that a benign alternative power does not now exist. We have no real, efficient, and harmless substitute for fossil fuels yet; nor are we likely to have one in the near future.
Dr. Plass, in a special study of the problem done for the Office of Naval Research in 1956, takes pains to specify this dilemma. “Two of the most important methods available at present for generating large amounts of power,” he reports, “have serious disadvantages when used over long time intervals. The burning of fossil fuels increases the temperature of the earth from the CO2 effect. The use of nuclear reactors increases the radioactivity of the earth. It is difficult to say which of these effects would be the less objectionable after several centuries of operation.”
Thus the ultimate answer to the CO2 threat may turn out to be something even more esoteric than either the fission or the fusion of the atom. Solar energy, magnetic drive, ionic power—one of these may be the solution.
Or it may be something like the flat, circular flame developed by Johns Hopkins University scientists in research on jet temperatures for the Air Force. The “Hopkins Flame,” which is gas-fed and which pancakes on combustion and burns in mid-air free from contact with any outside surface, is still a mystery in many respects, even to its creators. But Dr. Harold E. Hoelscher, director of the Air Force project, says it is a near perfect flame with combustion so complete that no unburned gases can be detected.
Clearly, the final answer to CO2 is not yet in sight. Just as clearly, man is now capable of finding it if need be—even though it revolutionize his world. Whether the need really exists is something the scientists may be able to tell us in the next five to ten years.