HAS GLOBAL WARMING REACHED A TIPPING POINT?

In light of some recent scientific information related to the global

greenhouse effect, one may conclude that some of the irreversible
phenomena that the researchers discussed have already started to
happen in various parts of the planet. Recent measurements indicate
that the current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is around
385 ppm (parts per million by volume) – well above the critical
number of 350 ppm, below which things may remain under control.
When the measured value exceeds that number, the possibility
increases for a number of irreversible turning points (or tripping
points with no return) to be activated. Of these, the scientists think
that a number of items are already occurring in the real world. Some
examples are: massive sea level rise, the coral reef tragedy, the pine
tree catastrophe in Yellowstone National Park, the oyster bed
decimation, and the huge change in rainfall patterns around the
globe. We will be discussing some of these examples a little later.

In addition to the examples given above, an anomalously large rate of

melting of the arctic ice has also been measured last summer. This
may be the right opportunity to point out that the recent ice
measurements indicate a substantial rise in CO2 concentration. The
present rate of rise of the concentration of CO2 is about twice that of
only two decades ago, during the 1980’s. One also learns that the
atmospheric methane (CH4) density, quite unexpectedly is also
rising. It has been conjectured that the increase in CH4 density will
lead to anomalous melting of polar ice and permafrost, which in turn
will lead to the bubbling forth of trapped CH4 in the ground. In the
stage in which CO2 concentration is about 350 ppm or under, the
corresponding CH4 density seems to remain below a critical onset
level. We need to get down to 350 ppm of CO2 as soon as possible.

But that is not the way some countries look at global warming –
China is building more power plants and producing more energy-
intensive commodities, India is building more power plants and

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producing small cars that more of its people will be able to afford to
buy and use, American TV soon will become large enough to be able
to depict real life-size objects on the screen and which will consume
enormous amounts of power, etc.

Scientists warn that if we want to maintain a planet like the one we

are on we should act now, otherwise it will be too late. We have
billions of people that live on highly flood-prone shore lines, and we
have ever-more vulnerable forests. For example, beetles have been
recently found to kill 10 times more trees than only a decade ago, and
in northern Canada, more forest is being lost to the beetles as the
temperature there warms up. This will create more CO2 for the
atmosphere and may prevent Canada from conforming to the Kyoto
protocol. Alberta’s tar sands are also gearing up to provide oil for
U.S. consumption, thereby further reducing forested areas by a
significant amount and increasing atmospheric CO2 even more.

The Coral Reefs and Ocean Acidification

One example of irreversible phenomenon is the coral reef tragedy.

Without our realizing it, an ominous unfolding of events is occurring
underneath the ocean – the coral reefs around the world are
disappearing.

Previously, the scientists did not realize how close to an irreversible

state the world’s coral reefs are in. Computer modeling results
indicate that by the year 2050, the oceans will become too acidic for
coral reefs to grow. Too much acid results from atmospheric CO2
being absorbed by ocean water, preventing the corals from growing
their calciferous skeletons.

Recently the scientists have also come to realize that rising

temperature is maladaptive to the corals, but it is the acidification
that is a far more serious problem. The corrosive effect of
acidification is quite evident in the Great Barrier Reef (off Australia)
where massive amounts of corals have experienced a 20% drop in
growth within the last 15 years.

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The question arises why we should care whether the coral reefs grow
or not. They cover only about 0.1% of the earth’s surface. Compared
to the world’s rain forests, that is miniscule. But several very
significant considerations are involved in the survival of the corals:

1. Biodiversity – in this context, the coral reefs are the rain forests of
the ocean. Nobody knows for sure, but scientists conjecture that
there are about 1 million to 9 million species that reside in the coral.
If the reefs disappear, about half the species that live there may also
disappear.

2. Fisheries – coral reefs serve another important function, viz.

fisheries based on the coral reefs produce about 25% of the fish that
feed about a billion people.

3. Weather – coral reefs provide a critical protection mechanism

throughout earth’s tropical regions. Without the presence of reef
barriers, the coastal areas will become more vulnerable to the kind of
devastation caused by hurricanes like Katrina.

4. Tourism – additionally, many countries in the Caribbean depend

on tourism attracted by the corals as a part of their economy.

Enhanced ocean acidification due to the absorption of atmospheric

CO2 by ocean water is thus already having an observable effect on
coral reefs. The concentration of CO2 today is higher than 380 ppm,
higher than any paleoclimactic measurements that scientists have
carried out recently. Change in the atmospheric CO2 content is about
20 to 30 times higher than most of the changes seen during the past
400,000 years. The IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate
Change), which keeps tabs on global warming, predicts that the CO2
concentration will rise to about 450 ppm in this century unless we
lower our fossil fuel consumption promptly. This bodes a
catastrophe for the corals, the fish, and us.

Yellowstone Park and Cascading Effects

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The cascading effects of global warming on the natural world have
already been put into action. It has been found that global climate
change in Yellowstone National Park has affected the park’s animals
and plants in ways that raise questions about their survival. As an
example, consider the whitebark pine beetles. Before bears start their
hibernation phase, they attempt to fatten themselves up by
consuming the nuts or seeds from whitebark pines.

The whitebark pine grows primarily in relatively high altitudes

where the cooler temperatures protect them from their infamous
visitor, the pinebark beetle. Now, warmer temperatures have left the
pines vulnerable to attack by these aggressive beetles, which bore
into the trees. In colder weather, the beetles’ proliferation time is
about two years. Warmer temperatures enable the beetles to develop
in only one year. In Yellowstone, the beetles killed an estimated
30,000 acres of whitebark pine during the five years between 2000
and 2005. At this rate, the whitebark pines of the western Rocky
Mountains will become extinct in about a decade. Also, hotter
temperatures in the mountains will lead to smaller snowpack, which
leads to reduced water flow in streams and rivers. This will mean the
eventual death of the fish, and also the bugs that the fish eat will die,
and the phytoplankton that the bugs feed on will die as well. Finally,
the entire ecosystem dies.

This is not all. As the drought and the early snowpack melting create
abnormally hot summertime conditions, the chances of intense
megafires increase, along with its frequency of occurrence.

The Oyster Beds and Thermophilic Bacteria

Another warning from Mother Nature again comes from the sea.
There exists a mysterious oyster blight in which the young are dying
as the water along the Pacific Coast of the U.S. gets warmer.

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For decades, the hatcheries on the Pacific Coast have enjoyed a
tremendous crop of delicious oysters – such oysters resulting from
the genetic modification and selection by scientists. The oyster
bonanza that followed led it to be the number one aquaculture crop
in the world, 4.5 million tons a year valued at about 3 billion dollars.
With selective breeding and genetic ‘fingerprinting’, the scientists
were working hard to develop a super species of oysters resistant to
the summer mortality, trying to keep one step ahead of a warmer and
more polluted planet.

But suddenly, unruly batches of bacterial blooms appeared to go on a

killing spree on the West Coast, wiping out billions of oyster larvae.
The brood stock program in Oregon was then shut down. This was
during early 2005. Scientists eventually discovered who the culprit
was. It is a strain of bacteria called which is harmless to humans but
fatal to baby oysters. The blooms of the bacteria seem to be primarily
located in warmer estuaries and the anoxic (oxygen-starved) “dead
zones” that have showed up during the present decade off the coasts
of Oregon and Washington. These bacteria have the advantage over
other sea life in that it thrives in cold, anoxic dead zones, feasting on
decaying plant and animal matter littering the sea floor. When the
water wells up from the deep and brings the bacterium to the surface,
it can switch survival strategies to survive in warm, well-oxygenated
water. The dead larvae are telling us that there is something wrong
with the coastal waters. We know that the coastal average
temperature has gone up due to global warming, and this may have
caused the irreversible trigger of exponentiating bacterial bloom.

Presently, finding a disease-resistant variant of the bacteria by

manipulating its genetic code has moved to the top of the research
effort. Another effort is to find a virus naturally occurring in the
ocean water which would be an enemy of the bacteria. Finding such
a microbe of the right kind could avoid an ecological disaster of
monumental proportions to the oyster business. Saving the oysters
has other beneficial effects, e.g., maintaining healthy coastal waters as
the result of the oysters clearing the seawater of excess algae and

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nutrients. When oysters disappear, as they did in Chesapeake Bay,
an estuary’s water can turn murky and foul.

A few months ago, a mysterious ailment wiped out almost all of the
harvest for Europe’s biggest producer and consumer of oysters, the
French. Oysters generally live 2 to 3 years, which means that the
French will have oysters this winter and the next, but it will be a
different story in the year 2010.

French scientists have a number of suspects in this case: a virus or a

toxic algae or climate change that has made the waters unusually
warm and deadly to the planktons that oysters eat. It also could be a
combination of algae and warmer waters. It is also quite likely that
the strain of bacteria that was found in the U.S. west coast, especially
in the warmer water estuaries and the anoxic dead-zones that have
developed off the coast of Oregon and Washington, is the same
microbe that is responsible for the French oyster disaster.

Ecosystems Out of Balance

These are the leading edges of the impending catastrophe resulting in

ecosystem collapse that will propagate through western North
America and also the world for decades to come. This clearly reveals
the criticality of the interaction between temperature and water in a
system that is constantly trying to stay in some form of
thermodynamic equilibrium.

The climate is changing more rapidly than at any time during

recorded history. Global climate change is not a problem for the
future, it is happening right now, and every year we wait, we are
getting closer to the destiny that is being written by perhaps the most
significant phenomena ever in human history.

Interestingly enough, most climate changes so far seem to be rather

benign, even pleasant; e.g., an earlier spring, and a fall that comes
later. It is only occasionally that a disturbing reminder about global
warming comes through and affects the psyche of the average

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person; for example, last February about 150 square miles of
Antarctica’s Wilkens Ice Shelf disintegrated. In this context,
comments by NASA’s principal scientist James Hansen are highly
significant: “Our home planet is dangerously near a tipping point
where human-made greenhouse gases reach a level where major
climate changes can proceed mostly under their own momentum…
the upshot of the combination of inertia and feedbacks is that
additional climate change is already in the pipeline; even if we stop
increasing greenhouse gases today, more warming will occur.” The
present CO2 level in the atmosphere, about 385 ppm, may already
induce the atmosphere to cross into dangerous territory. The inertia
is primarily endemic to the system. However, if the feedback
parameters could be controlled via controlling the injection rate of
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, then it is perhaps likely that
one may be able to prevent the system from reaching the irreversible
tipping point.

The Future

As we warm up our atmosphere, the planet is starting to take over

the job for us. For instance, as the huge arctic ice melts, suddenly the
large white surface that used to reflect back the incoming solar
radiation into space has now turned to blue water which absorbs 80%
of such heat (positive feedback). The Indian scientist, who on behalf
of the IPCC accepted the 2008 Nobel Peace prize along with Al Gore,
has said “If there is no action in the next 2 or 3 years, that’s just too
late. What we do within the next 2 or 3 years will determine our
future. This is the defining moment.” If we do everything right, the
carbon emission is likely to fall quite rapidly and the oceans will start
to absorb more CO2. Before the century is over, we may be back to
the targeted goal of 350 ppm, and hopefully thereby avoid losing our
entire protective ice sheet. We may then be able to stop just before
going over the long vertical cliff, somewhat like that celebrated bird –
the Roadrunner of cartoon fame.

But let us not forget the pursuing Coyote! Powerful forces have to
come into play to turn the Coyote, the political juggernaut, around.

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Many experts have indicated a number of vital steps, which at the
very least are absolutely necessary in the short run. We mention
some of these essential steps:

1) Coal-fired power plants totally banned everywhere and the

presently operating ones shut down – such plants, in global warming
terminology, are as dangerous as nuclear meltdowns

2) Auto manufacturers making hybrids at a rapid rate – as if in

wartime footing, as was done by the U.S. with tanks during WWII

3) Technically advanced countries sharing their technology and

know-how with the poorest countries – giving the latter more
dignified and uncomplicated lives without using fossil fuel

4) Trains being developed and installed as one of the major

transportation modes in this country – already this trend is increasing
as gasoline prices are rising

All this is very possible. But in the U.S., with the highest per capita
consumption in the world, how much can we do, especially during a
time when the president of the country is urging more oil digging in
ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), where the word ‘sacrifice’
reminds one of ‘sucker’, where words like ‘gas-tax holiday’ have
entered the popular vocabulary, where power consumption is not
only high but getting higher every year (an average family of 4 in San
Diego today uses about 500 KWH of electricity per month!), and
where the sense of happiness is directly proportional to the diagonal
dimension of the TV screen. In such a situation, what can one do?
We can do a lot. But we have to have a collective movement – we
don’t have enough time to consider the “one bulb at a time”
approach. And there is no one magic solution that will cure all. On
the contrary, all solutions and approaches that can be meaningful
must be used.

It has been suggested by various prominent people that the WWW is

the proper kind of medium through which one may be able to

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develop a “collective consciousness”, a grass-roots universal effort.
Perhaps this is our best hope, but do you think there will be time for
such things, maybe between video games and watching porn on the
internet?

D. K. Bhadra
8/22/08