Comments
Engineer Shafi Ahmed, London, UK
I have read very carefully the article by Mahfuzur Rahman (13 July). It does not tell us anything new about this issue. However, it presents a fair summary of some experts' views. What is not clear is how the ice melts in the polar caps and high mountain glaciers due to global warming of only a couple of degrees! Any science student knows that ice melts at zero degree celsius whereas the ambient air temperature at the polar caps and mountain glacier areas is normally around minus 20 degrees which may have risen by say three degrees due to global warming to about minus 17 degrees.I have broached this question to many other scientists and climatolgists, but like politicians they have always failed to register the question, let alone attempt an answer. It therefore appears that the melting of ice is accomplished by extra radiance from the sun, it is radiation rather than convection or conduction mechanism of heat transfer which is the culprit. It is this same extra radiant heat which is causing the global warming, rather than the greenhouse effect of at most 5% of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; 95% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is water vapour, and its relative concentration is rising due to extra heat from the sun, causing further global warming much more quickly. If this extra water vapour can be coagulated to form rain clouds its percentage would decrease to reduce greenhouse effect much more effectively than carbon reduction, and the extra clouds would reflect the sunlight back to space to cool the earth. So the fundamental problem seems to be global drought as there has been no rain for many years in large parts of all the continents. A lack of cloud cover over Australia and its vicinity for the last seven years or more is melting the Antarctic ice caps. In the US a forest fire is now burning everything in its path as not a drop of rain has fallen in those areas in many years. All the deserts are expanding out of control due to lack of rain. In Chad and Darfur areas there has not been any rain for 15 years or more. Whatever rain is there, it is unpredictable, sudden and irregular causing flash floods and many other problems and not bringing any steady improvement in the drought situation. With reduction of carbon dioxide, side by side the production of rain clouds from water vapour should be studied to offset the radiance from the sun as the latter is so much more important. The Chinese preparing for the Olympics seems to have mastered the technique of precipitating rain out of rain clouds whenever they desire. They and others must now concentrate on how to produce rain clouds from excessive humidity in the atmosphere.
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