Monday, 25 April 2022 | Vir Singh
The famous physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) warned a few months before his death that our Earth will become a fireball in 600 years. We have been burning the fossil fuels of the earth to such an extent that now the earth itself started burning with flame reaching the Antarctica. On March 18 this year, the temperature in Antarctica soared to 40 degree Celsius above average. The icy region of the Arctic at the North Pole also started heating up and the temperature there rose by 30 degrees Celsius above average. The temperature recorded at Concordia station at an altitude of 3,234 meters in Antarctica was -12.2 °C on March 18, which in the past was about – 42 °C. Antarctica’s Vostok station, which is at an even higher altitude, recorded a temperature of -17.7 degrees Celsius, which was 15 degrees above average. And at the coastal Terra Nova base, the temperature jumped 7 degrees Celsius above the ice melting point.
As soon as the information about the Earth’s South Pole being so hot reached the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, all the scientists there were astonished, because they got the information while they were paying attention to the North Pole where at some places the temperature in the region had reached the melting point, that too before the arrival of summer.
On March 18, 2022, the Antarctic continent was about 4.8 degrees Celsius warmer than baseline temperatures between 1979 and 2000, according to University of Maine analysis based on US National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Weather Models. On the same day, the Arctic region as a whole was found to be 3.3 °C warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average. The entire world has warmed by 0.6 °C from the 1979 to 2000 average. Globally, the average temperature over the span of these years is about 0.3 °C higher than the 20th century average.
Global warming at both poles is opening the way for the destruction of life on Earth. A path of destruction is also opening from the Himalayan ranges. The highest and ecologically sensitive and fragile Himalayan mountains are the largest ice reservoir on the earth after both the poles, and hence the Himalayas are also called the third pole of the earth. The Himalayan ranges are the pulse of our living planet, where destructive changes are the first to begin and have the most widespread impact.
With the arrival of the summer season, there was a flood of news of the rapid melting of the snow of the Himalayas. The snow from the mountain peaks is rapidly descending as water and increasing the amount and flow of water in the rivers. But this is temporary and the very existence of rivers will be threatened once all the ice melts. The high peaks of the Himalayas in the Yamunotri region of Uttarkashi have become bare without snow. The Bandarpunch mountain of Yamunotri’s origin area is standing stripped of snow and ice. From Trishul mountain to Nanda Devi, the whole sheet of snow is converting into water and coming down from the peaks of the mountains. Where the snow is left, it is also expected to disappear by May-June. The panoramic image of the mountains has faded away. The heat wave on the Himalayas is a serious threat not only to the people of Himalayas, but to the whole world.
Earth is a water planet and water is the source and constituent of life and also the controller of thermodynamics of the biosphere. The solid component of water, i.e. ice, has a great contribution in cooling down the climate. Snowy regions are the first victims of climate change. Water is a great magician of the universe! Where there is water, there is life. Where there is water, there are possibilities of life. But life plays in the lap of favourable climate. The unfavourable climate begins to play with life. Water has a hand in climate regulation, but in the face of deteriorating climate, water ceases to retain its magical dimension—the solid ice form.
What will happen when water retires from its solid state in the era of climate change? Both the poles of the earth will melt and merge into the oceans. The evergreen rivers originating from the Himalayas and other snow-capped mountains will dry up. If there are no rivers coming out of the mountains that go on irrigating the fields far and wide in the plains, quenching the thirst of villages, cities, animals and birds and creating the story of human development, then death will slowly creep on the earth in the form of a desert. The melted ice on the poles and mountains will raise the water level of the oceans and seas so high that dozens of countries and hundreds of cities of the world will assume water mausoleum. This story of disconnection between water and climate does not end here. This is an eclipse on the life systems of a living planet!
Experiencing the ever-increasing climate crisis on Earth, we can conclude that this living planet of ours is slowly moving towards lifelessness. Stephen Hawking in his video message had suggested the world to search out a planet to inhabit and save humanity. He pointed to a life-friendly planet orbiting a star four billion light years away, Alpha Centauri. To complete the settlement process on another planet, Stephen suggested that scientists should work on a spacecraft that would travel at the speed of light and would take an hour to Mars, a day to Pluto, and less than 20 years to Alpha Centauri.
The NASA, China National Space Administration and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are engaged in the Earth-2 discovery mission. It is possible that like the ISRO’s discovery of water on the Moon and flawless landing on the Mars, India may gloriously earn the credit of discovering the Earth-2.
(The author is emeritus professor of Environmental Science, GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology. Views expressed are personal)
