LETTERS: MORE EVIDENCEOF GLOBAL WARMING

To the editor:

Although science cannot prove with absolute certainty that any hypothesis is correct, the results of research can provide strong indications about trends and relationships.

We are well aware that a dwindling number of individuals, including the editorial board of the Southeast Missourian, clings to the belief that there is no global-warming trend and that all the evidence thus far provided is a hoax perpetrated to serve some left-wing or socialist end that they fear. As a result, when evidence is reported, it fails to earn a place in the newspaper.

Recent scientific reports, however, should be brought to the attention of Southeast Missourian readers. Two research reports appearing in the respected journal Science have provided evidence consistent with the global warming models as they suggest convincingly that there is a trend towards decreasing ice in the northern hemisphere. After reviewing records of ice cores since 1953, researchers estimated that the probability of the pattern appearing by chance alone (i.e., being non-existent) is less than 0.1 percent (meaning less than 1 in 1000). Another study, meanwhile, reported that interior Arctic ice has eroded some 14 percent sine 1978.

The fear is that a loss of ice will trigger an escalating warming and melting trend since ice reflects solar radiation. As ice is reduced, the oceans themselves will potentially warm faster and induce further ice melt.

While this is but one line of evidence regarding a trend that is consistent with climate change models, it is one more in the increasing catalogue of trends. The severe drought suffered in many regions of the country this year may not have been caused by climate change, but the existence of such droughts should give farmers cause to pause and ponder what will be their future should the climate change predictions come to pass.

Any short-term economic setbacks that might result from a concerted national and international program to diffuse climate change would be nothing compared to the catastrophe that will befall the entire agricultural community and, indeed, the global economy, should global warming occur as is predicted.

ALAN R.P. JOURNET

Cape Girardeau