+ La glaciacion que nos viene

Para romper la monotonia, y aprovechando que la morisma anda tranquila, ahi va un post sobre curiosidades y cambio climatico:

Rebuscando en los archivos de Time -magazine tradicionalmente comprometido con el medio ambiente-, he encontrado este curioso articulo sobre la inminencia de la proxima glaciacion, escrito en unos tiempos -1974- en los que la moda no era el "global warming" sino el "global cooling":

Another ice age?

As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. [las temperaturas alrededor del globo, se ha descubierto que la atmosfera se ha ido haciendo mas fria durante las pasadas tres decadas] The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive [las Casandras del Clima es estan volviendo mas y mas aprensivas], for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age. [ ya que las aberraciones climaticas que estan analizando pueden ser el presagio de otra glaciacion]

Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland [La inesperada duracion y grosor de bloques de hielo en las aguas alrededor de Islandia] to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. [Desde 1940 la temperatura media global ha bajado 1.5 C] Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. [Soportada por datos convincentes] When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.

Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. [Cientificos han encontrado otras indicios del enfriamiento global]

Seguro que los argumentos les suenan conocidos, verdad?

Aunque un poco cambiados. En aquella epoca, los ciclos de Milankovitch -aunque descubiertos mucho antes- se acababan de popularizar, 1974 era el ultimo año de una serie de 20 donde las temperaturas del planeta experimentaron un descenso continuo, y se nos recordaba que segun la cronologia paleoclimatologica la siguiente glaciacion se nos viene encima... y que estamos en tiempo de descuento.

Cuan voluble es la naturaleza humana!


Por Lawrence de Eurabia