Global warming to Ice Age: Kal ho na ho…

CALL IT fiction paving the way for fact, or the vice-versa…it turns out to be the same. The likely future shape of things, as depicted on celluloid by the acclaimed Hollywood filmmaker Roland Emmerich in his movie The Day After Tomorrow, sent shivers down my spine. It has the potential to kick up a global debate on whether the mankind would actually witness the natural catastrophe that the movie talks about — the Ice Age, a fall-out of man-made environmental pollution.

With the Green House fast turning into a “red” phenomenon for the concerned lot, the movie has virtually stirred the hornet’s nest: will the Ice Age be a reality one day? Well, the filmmaker asserts that the depiction of the catastrophe is more than mere fiction, and so do the scientists. An Ice Age occurs when the Conveyor — the massive system of water flow from North to South — shuts down.

Besides, it’s is also said to be a fallout of a complicated interaction between various natural elements/celestial events such as a solar output, Earth’s distance from the Sun, position and height of the continents, oceanic circulations and the composition of the atmosphere. And when this happens, the Earth experiences extremely cold climatic conditions. There is a large difference between the temperature at the equator and at the poles, and continent-size glaciers cover enormous regions of the Earth.

Tracing back the Ice Age event history, it is said to have taken place about 70,000 years back and ended about 10,000 years ago. As for the Conveyor, it last shut down 8,200 years ago and prior to that, it was 4,500 years before that. That is, we are overdue for another shutdown!

Researches also show that another Ice Age is not as unlikely as previously thought. However, to the query, “Can the whole planet's weather system change overnight, as it does in the film?” the experts reply in negative. “Despite this being an ongoing phenomenon," David Helfand, professor of Astronomy at Columbia University, says, "it just can’t happen overnight." But, there could be as little as two to three years' beforehand warning.

"The Day After Tomorrow" goes on to show how the Green House gases will bring a new Ice Age, and this has left the White House jittery. If the sources are to be believed, the US government has asked NASA officials not to discuss the issue, especially since it makes some digs at the Bush administration’s utter disregard for the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

In short, if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland, flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and north-eastern America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last Ice Age and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the "little Ice Age" of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns, leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures and wars around the world.

In the Asian context, the scenario is indeed bleak: it’s on boil, virtually. While India has experienced a warming rate of 0.6 degree Celsius per century, the average air temperature measured at 49 stations in Nepal since the 1970s has risen by 1.08 degree Celsius — twice as fast as the 0.6 degree Celsius warming rate for the mid-latitudinal northern hemisphere. Then, rising ocean levels have flooded about 18,500 acres of mangrove forest at the Sundarbans during the last three decades.

Besides, Andhra Pradesh is a case in point, where temperatures have already touched 49 degree Celsius-level in the recent past, and in May 2002, it resulted in the highest-ever one-week death toll. Also, ice core data from the Dasuopu Glacier in Tibet indicates that the last 50 years have been the warmest in the 1,000, while the Khumbu Glacier, the popular climbing route to the summit of Mt. Everest, has retreated over 3 miles since 1953. Also, the Himalayan region has warmed by about 1.08 degree Celsius since the early ’70s.

The figures are a bad augury and an indicator of the shape of the things to come. While the world is agog with the talks of a new Ice Age — still wrapped in mystery cover, the unabated emission of the Green House gases is sure to spell doom for the humanity.

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