WEATHER y
(Continued)
past 100 years. Tremendous consumption of coal and oil have
put enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in that time
to cover those regions with an invisible but effective "soot
shield." Like a greenhouse, this keeps the sun's heat from
radiating away at its usual speed and thus gradually raises
temperatures.
Recent U.S. studies in the arctic indicate that a variation of
this phenomenon takes place in nature. When temperatures in
the land of the ice caps fall below 22 degrees subzero, a fog of
ice crystals develops. This "fog" effectively lessens the forma
tion of cold air at the surface by reducing radiation of solar
energy from both ice and atmosphere. Trapped near the
ground, that heat raises air temperatures not only on the spot
but in whatever regions the warmed air is blown to.
Dr. Wexler told a University of Chicago audience last
Spring that our Weather Bureau's polar researchers are work
ing on a way to produce this ice fog artificially over the entire
arctic during the Winter months. He estimated that it would
raise the mean temperature of the arctic as much as 20 degrees .
and warm the icy blasts that sweep down on the United States.
Our northern Winter-ridden cities would in this way enjoy a
comparable improvement in weather from November to March.
To form such an enormous fog six to twelve miles deep over
the top of the world would call for vast quantities of water
vapor. But the arctic ice pack and the frigid oceans are
practically inexhaustible sources of that. All we'd have to do
is to vaporize them. How? Use atom bombs, said Wexler.
A less drastic method of warming the arctic for farming
was advanced several years ago by the late mathematical
genius and Atomic Energy Commissioner, Dr. John E. von
Neumann. He proposed that we use aircraft to "dust" the ice
fields with a fine coal dust. By preventing radiation of solar
energy, this cheap refinement of the "greenhouse effect" would
reclaim thousands of square miles of subarctic farmland and
at the same time warm up the Winter winds for our ultimate
stateside benefit.
By warming the arctic air, both atom bombs and coal dust
pose prqblems that we must cope with. Warmer arctic air
would speed disintegration of the polar ice cap by preventing
normal Winter replenishment of ice lost to Summer melt and
evaporation. This could have disastrous consequences of
global dimensions.
There are 350 million cubic miles of water on earth. Put
another way, if all land and water were evened out, everything
would be 8,000 feet below sea level. Of these 350 million cubic
miles of water, not quite 1 percent is tied up in ice and snow,
and a lot less is suspended in the atmosphere.
This ice and snow concentration is unevenly divided among
the arctic ice cap and the world's glaciers, which cover 10
percent of all land areas, or six million square miles. The
antarctic continent alone is covered by 86 percent of those
glaciers to a depth of 10,000 feet more than one and a third
times larger than the United States and its territories. Green
land has 10 percent, and the remaining 4 percent is in the
mountains of the temperate zones.
AIhat has all this to do with weather control? Plenty. If we
warm up the arctic and in the process melt the polar
ice cap, global circulation of warmer air will in turn
melt the world's glaciers. To project this risk to its worst
conclusion, if all the glaciers melted they would raise the
world's oceans 65 to 200 feet, inundating every coastal region
for great distances inland. And there would be intermediate
stages of disaster, too.
If weather control is that menacing, why not skip the whole
thing? Isn't it better to do a little shivering around Spokane
than to drown in warm salt water? Or wiser to go on wearing
woolies in Minneapolis, Buffalo, and Boston than to have to
head for the hills in a bathing suit? Yes, but it needn't be as
bad as all that.
If we eventually build atomic heating stations on Hudson
Bay to modify arctic weather, studies now under way show
(Continued on page 22)
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