Because I hear so much about global warming, and can already see its effects on our climate, I decided to investigate matters a little further.
1) The main cause of global warming is burning fossil fuels for energy.
2) Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide upward into Earth’s atmosphere where it floats around the earth.
3) This floating layer of CO2 allows radiant energy from the sun to pass through to our planet.
4) As it thickens, the CO2 layer does not allow enough of the sun’s radiant heat energy to escape.
5) In turn, too much heat is trapped that normally is reflected back out into space.
6) This trapped heat is now quickly melting the polar ice caps causing oceans to rise (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fourth Assessment Report).
This process, I now understand. Yet it seems logical that because the warming trend is happening so quickly that other factors might also be involved. From a bookshelf, I pulled down Path of the Pole that I read some time ago. In my thinking, I tried to integrate its findings with global warming. The ideas which follow were taken mostly from that book.
The magnetic axis, which runs through the earth from the Arctic to the Antarctic is constantly changing course. Scientists believe that over very long periods of time, the end points of this axis appear to move great distances over the earth. In addition, the idea that the continents are slowly drifting over our earth’s surface is accepted scientific dogma. In some locations, their movement has been measured in inches; in others, by feet.
Up until now, the explanation for this continental movement has been this: from deep within the earth’s molten center, enormous convection currents rise up underneath the continents and shove them along. I can demonstrate this by dropping a toothpick into a pan of water that is boiling very slowly. The toothpick will not remain in place. Instead, it gets shoved around as the heated water rises and carries the toothpick along its surface. The water then drops back down to the pan's bottom. The tiny stick will be moved again and again as it is pushed by other currents rising up from the pan’s bottom.
Article comments