Global Warming

Reptiles Enjoyed Warm Arctic

(Global Warming)

An article written by ABC News writer Kenneth Chang discusses the change in climate of the arctic from ninety million years ago. Seven hundred miles from the North Pole, lies an island called Axel Heiberg, a barren land that scientists have dug up fossil bones of a cold-blooded reptile known as a champsosaur.

How does this happen in an arctic, freezing land? How does a reptile that needs the warmth of the sun to survive, live in a frigid climate? Well, we know they lived on Axel Heiberg, so at one point in time the island was obviously somewhat tropical. It was probably something like Florida or Georgia currently is, except some ninety million years ago. Temperatures were likely to average almost sixty degrees Fahrenheit, with summer temperatures getting into the eighties and even nineties. The same cannot be said about the current Axel Heiberg climate. Nowadays, summer sees snowfall, and winter temperatures routinely hit minus sixty degrees Fahrenheit.

Granted, it's been millions of years, but what causes this kind of climate change? Gigantic lava flows could be the answer. In 1996, 30-foot-thick layers of rock were discovered on Axel Heiberg Island. These layers were caused by one single volcanic eruption. Similar eruptions in Iceland and Hawaii caused 3-foot layers. This is a very big difference in the lava flows. Similar flows have been discovered in the Caribbean, Pacific Ocean, South Africa, and even Southwest United States. These eruptions could distribute Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. Magma rose from the earth's center, shooting "heat-trapping" Carbon Dioxide molecules into the air, which raises the temperatures. This is the same CO2 problem that is occurring right now in our world. We see this in the Greenhouse Effect, which eventually leads into Global Warming.

The Greenhouse Effect, which is defined as " the warming of an atmosphere by its absorbing and reemitting infrared radiation while allowing short-wave radiation to pass through. The gases that are responsible for the Earth's atmospheric Greenhouse Effect are Water Vapor and Carbon Dioxide." The same Carbon Dioxide that was being emitted millions of years ago from the volcanic eruptions. Carbon Dioxide is an infrared radiation absorber, which makes it such an important aspect of Global Warming.

This is one of the main reasons for the current Global Warming we are experiencing. The CO2 is steadily increasing in the atmosphere, due to the burning of fossil fuels. Deforestation is also adding to this increase in Carbon Dioxide, due to tropical rain forests being cut down, and being replaced by less effective CO2-removing plants. Numerical climate models predict that by the year 2100 the greenhouse gases will warm the surface air of the earth by two to six degrees Fahrenheit. Knowing this, one might realize how the island of Axel Heiberg was once part of tropic climate.

Don Brinkman, curator of vertebrae paleontology at the Royal Tyrell Museum, says that the average temperature of Axel Heiberg was at least fifty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. "This is giving a minimum estimate," says Bunkman, "It may have been warmer!" These estimates are being measured by the living needs of the organisms' bones that were discovered