SfranJeThinÔsHappenir§ in therrozen Arctic o . r, , , , ? . . _^^ra*j«afe^|^HH*aaaBBBBaBBaâaa*aa.^ Se»'8 Leave Their Old Feeding Grounds Science Puzzled by Surprising ^«»·??8 BBssBsB-^ Because the W»fW I« Too ALASKA Science Puzzled, by Surprising News from the Far North Which Indicates That the Polar Sea Is Warming Up and the Great Ice Cap Is Slowly Melting Away Which May Soon Reveal the Hidden Secrets of the Unknown Polar Continent ^p ·. t¦ ;< ?* / y-^'-?.?? ».'.'.; f KULT. DU M// f ·» ? =ÍM ^ \ JI ?" w .í'-i'/uTIM V /* bay ·/;· ARCTIC OCEAN ,?at ? i/jFiKENLAIiD > ..Kl / "> ..... lVvA VN' Seals Leave Their Old Feeding Grounds Because the Water Is Too Warm and Vast Schools of Smelts Arrive Further North Than Ever Before* While Land Begins to Appear Which Has Always Been Covered by Ice ilnwan «»owl»« I«. I asiil ?«a I Sera Risa ef ^er Irr.IlM« l.r I ¦¦¦¦.llarn ^ ««(»G at Prese·« hi the Kn.i.rn Arile Oramai. ?.Tur I «nal «.oatarra rCS«. of (be %re«1e lee ?·?. ?.The Preaeat ries. Bla* .f Ibe Arn Ir. IS the North Pole going to melt? Are the Arctic regions warming up, with prospect of a great climatic change in that part of the world? Science is asking these questions. Re¬ ports from fishermen, seal hunters and ex¬ plorers who sail the seas about Spitz¬ bergen and the eastern Arctic all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, with hitherto unheard-of high tempera¬ tures on that part of the earth's surface. Observations to that effect have covered the hist five years during which th* warmth has been steadily increasing. In August of this year the Norwegian De¬ partment of Commerce sent an expedition to Spitzbergen and Bear Island under the leadership of Dr. Adolf Hoel, professor of geology in the University of Christiania, the object in view being to survey and chart areas productive of coal and other minerals. The expedition sailed aA far north as 81 deg. 29 min. ?. latitude in ice free water. Such a thing, hitherto, would have been deemed impossible. The United Mitée Consul at Bergen. Norway, Mr. UT;, hai sent · report to our own Department of Commerce which .peaks of the recent extraordinary warmth in the Arctic. He quotes incidentally the statements of Cni<t:iin Martin Injrehrigt- een, a mariner who 1 us sailed those aal·, flfty-f<>ur year·. Th« raeWa*a a..- ? liât he first noted an unusual warmth in 1018; and since then temperatures have risen steadily higher. To-day the eastern Arctic is "hardly recognizable as the same region of 18.Î8 to I!»I 7." Many of the old landmarks are greatly altered, or no longer exist. Where for¬ merly there were great masses of Ice, these have melted away, leaving behind them accumulations of earth and, stones such as geologists call "moraines." At many points where glaciers extended far into the sea half a dozen years ago they have now entirely.disappeared. The change in temperature has brought great changes in the plant life and animal li.e of the Arctic. Formerly vast shoals of whitefish were fourni in the waters about Spitzbergen, but last Summer the fishermen sought them in * ????. Seals, which used to he plentiful in those seas, liHvn almost entirely disappeared. II woeld seem as if the ocean must have In¬ come uncomfortably warm for some of it« denizen« which formerly frequented those latitudes, causing them to flock northward toward the Pole. On th« other hand, other kinds of fishea, hitherto unknown so fat-north, have made their appearance. Shoals of smelt have arrived, and immense schools of herring are reported by fishermen along the west coast of Spitzbergen Formerly the waters about Spitsbergen have held an even Summer temperature in the neighborhood of 6 degrees above freezing. This year it roee aa high aa 28 degrees. Ijurt. winter the ocean did not freeze over even on the north Const of Spitzbergen. This is on the »uthorlty of Dr. H».'1. This átate of affairs is a reuse of much surprise and even astonishment to scientists, who wonder whether the change is merely temporary or the beginning of a great alteration of climatic conditions In the Arctic, with consequent melting of the polar ice sheet. An evidence of how great the change la that haa come over the climate In the Arctic regions may be best understood by the struggle« of the early explorer· to discover the northwoat passage, or the open body of water existing around North America, leading eventually to India. This passage was first undi r- takrn by way of Spitzbergen, but the thick ice repeatedly neat back the ship* of the explorers. From exploit« to discover the north¬ west passane many of the trips for I! a rompiest of »he North Pole were -eventu¬ al· undertaken. Parry, the great British explorer, wu first to negotiate the open passage be¬ tween Greenland and Bering Sea, reach¬ ing half-way aerees the top of North A (»erica before he was hedged In by the ice, and with supplies becoming low, dared go no further. He mm first to discover the north mag¬ netic pole and to report the astonishing fact ili.it the needle of his compass turned and pointeii directly south. For these discoveries Parry was awarded about f 2fi,000 by the Briti: h Government and unquestionably his conquest· in the írosen Arctic led to th* actual penetrating of the northwest passage from th· Atlantic to the Pacific by McClure, Cellineon and aro'indsen later on. Interesting For..· i' of ¦ íi'npicr.I Fern Dug Up in Greenland, Showing That There Was One« a Warm Climate and Tropical Vegetation Where the Glaciers Are Now Melting Away. From the difficul¬ ties besotting thee«· groat Arctic adven¬ ture«, some ¡«lea of the t r e m e ? «I on* thickness of the Its may lie hail. Even at the very s|>ot north of Spitzber¬ gen where open water was seen this Summer, surh well- known explorer« as Hudson and Phipps limi great difficulties in penetrating on account of the thick¬ ness of the ice and, In spite of their equipment, one of tli· m could not go even ** far over the »ce as the spot where the open water showed a few month.« ago. Not only are t'^e seal.» and iiolar hears flndin;: the climate unplfiiKiinlly warm for them, bul it ÌM Maid thai the i»kiiiifM< in ««um· leralith« air» complaining and are finding their fur clothes too w/irm for tlll'lll. The Togion about the North l'ole is covered by mi lee cap which, toward HM east, extends ov«r ncailv the wneM of Greenlnnd in what Is practically ß single enormous glacier, Greenlnnd is ten times the six« of the State of Pennsyl¬ vania, and from its vast Ice «heet are de¬ rived the iceberg* which linai down from Baft*. Ha ? and Pa vi« Strait Into the North Atlantic·, threatening destruction to ships in the Spring of every year. To cro«s this great Greenland giaci· r hit« been the ? went of many adventurous spirits. On account of the it-verity of the winds that «weep over lb«· immenne slowly moiling rake of ice. it wan never succc««- fully accomplished until Nansen manspe«! to go from the east coast of Greenland across the top of the ice harrier to the wi-«t coast At about the sixty-fourth par¬ allel af latitude. Nansen and his five companion· reached s height of iLtSf feet nt the top of the barrier, showing how thick the Ice had nerume through «go« of freezing. Later on Penry and Astrup crossed the island· nuirK further north and nrvl to climb a loiid lull of ice about .V000 feel high. The reason why we have the··» iceberg.« sloughing off from the southeastern tTii of Greenland it evidently due to the north polar eurrent carrying the Ice mass front »est» f«»f»w«»» a >v./»w..». Photograph of Land Which Haa Appeared for the F¡r»t Tima in Greenland, and Which Ha· Al way· Heretofore Been Buried Under the Glacier« Which Are Now Melting Away. , the north polar region along the land and keeping it at a very low degree of temperature down to Cape Farewell, the southernmost tip of Greenland. Here, during the Summer, the oncoming of the warm weather disintegrate« some of the Ice, particularly between the fisnures, which are characteristic of each year's ice growth. Here they are spilt and carried away hy the polar current« into the North Atlantic where sometime« they become very dangerous to ocean shipping. It le a Mfigular fact, and true of only this apnt in the world, that the cold polar current that sweeps down the Kastern coast of Greenland is paralleled not very far outside by a warmer current, which i* largely responsible for a considerable amount of precipitation that in turn has It effect ift wearing down some of the glncHil ir· ;Ai.l bringing about the eventual . orrriiitioi, of Iri'berirs. But there was not always nn ice cap. In time long gon« hy the region about the Norih P.il.> bad a wann chinate and nil of CreenlWnd was covered with a luxuriant tropical vegetation. This is positively known i· thus* fossil remains of palms, fttSilfrultTtTSS». and other plants properly belonging ¡to wsrm latitudes have been dug up there in quantities. ICI IMI. tw ?.u.c. ?,, M nal». The present Polar ice cap is hut a remnant of what it formerly waa. Thirty thousand year« ago it extended over all of the northern half of the United State«, in places thousand« of feet thick and reaching a a far south aa Philadel¬ phia and St. l.ouis. It was a product of the Glacial Kpoch .an age of cold, during which polar bears and reindeer were numerous in New York State, and w a 1 r u s and herds of the dwarf Arctic cattle called musk ? ? e ? fre¬ quented the coast of New I'lnglaiul. Since that time the great ice sheet has been slowly melting at the edges, so to speak, and withdrawing north¬ ward toward the Pole. It retreated nast Stockholm Isa ? the geologist«) not more than 9,000 years ago. If the process continues, the day may be expected to arrive when all the Ice will be gone from about the Pole, and the Arctic regions will then become fruitful and habitable by man. It seems at least possible that the ex¬ traordinary warmth in the Arctic during die last few years marks a step in this direction. Such a change as that sug¬ gested cannot be suddenly or Iren rapidly accomplished; but. If ? Ihm e shall come a time when the North Polar ice can is entirely melted, and Greenland Incident¬ ally freed of the ice sheet which covers it, the latitude« in which we now dwell will experience a wonderful climatic altera¬ tion. The northern part of the United State« will become sub-tropical. From what has been said it will be understood that we aiv really still living in the (linciai Kpoch. It seems, however, to be drawing gradually toward a close; and it is easily possible to imagine that eventually all parts of the earth will be- cum» warm again, just as Was the case at th* period above referred to, BBea Green¬ land wa* covered wtih a luxuriant vegeta¬ tion Nobody knows what causes produced the age of ice. It must have been that r ie..' amain Hi.hi H...r»..| Remarkable Photograph of an Ice-Capped Island, Showing How th· Warmer Polar Sea I· Malting the lea. the sun, for eome reason, delivered leea heat upon the earth. Though hard for ua to realize, it ia a fact that if the average temperature of the northern half of th* United States were lowered only ten .logrees, the ice sheet would creep south¬ ward again and cover all that part of the country, sweeping it« citie« off the map and giving it a likeness to the Green¬ land of to-day. This would happen be¬ cause the difference of ten degree« would make the Winters «o much longer that the snow« would not have time to melt in Summer, and so the ice sheet would thicken year by year until it became one vast glacier. So it is juat as well that we find our¬ selves approaching the end of an age of ice, instead of being menaced by its on¬ coming. It is fairly to be expected that from thie time on.judging from observa¬ tions of the retreat of the great ice sheet .climates all over the world will become steadily and gradually warmer. No long¬ er iiKo than ¿00,000 yenrs the climate ol Greenland was still temperate, and Alaska had temperatures like those of Alabama nowadays. Not long ago two government geolo¬ gists, David White and Charles Schuchert, Íiaid a visit of exploration to west Grecn- and, where, far north of the Arctic Circle, they studied a fossil flora of palms, tree ferns, breadfruit trees, cinnamon trees, etc., belonging properly to the neighborhood of the Equator. Where now an ico sheet over a mile thick covers mountain an«: valley and mighty glaciers make their way to the eea and hatch ice¬ bergs, there waa anciently a wilderness of tropical verdure. · There were trees related to the giant sequoias of our own wert coast. Climb¬ ing vines festooned the trunks of .these moiiarchs of an ancient forest with drapVrles of foliage, while close to the ground grew curious dwarf trees called "cycads" resembling palms in miniature, in the midst of a tangled undergrowth. Of stich a character was the vegetation of Greenland 5,000,000 year« or so ago. White and Schuchert found the tropical plant beds overlaid bv later deposits in which were masse« of fossil remain« of trees, including poplars, willows, euca¬ lyptus and magnolias. Much of thie ma- terial had been converted into "brown coal," or liirniti·. This latter formation was relatively recent, doting hack only to the Tertiary F.poch when the climate of Greenland was much like that of our Gulf ¿Utes to-day. At the far more ancient period when Greenland wa« a tropical country the climate seems to have "been much the same all over the world, and the same plants grew contemporaneously In Greenland and California, In Spitsbergen and Virginia. Nobody can say with certainty why this was. One theory is that in that epoch the atmosphere was so heavily charged with water-vapor that warmth was readily dis¬ tributed through it, and the sun's rays did not have a chance to strike the earth uninterrupted, making differences in climate by the degree of their slant. As time went on, the atmosphere thinned gradually, and so there came to be climatic variations marking a series of sones around the world. Of the fact that the Polar regions were anciently warm and verdure-clad an in¬ teresting proof was afforded by a dis¬ covery which Greely, the explorer, chanced to make. Within eight degrees (latitude) of the North Pole he found a fossil forest with stomps of trees still standing. Greenland is the largest island in the world. It is mainly a granite formation, hut nome of the leap elevated portion.- of it weic evidently at one time below the level of the sea.as is proved by sedimentary deposits. In these deposits White anil Schuchert found plentiful remains of marine animals, including fishes and ex¬ tinct species of crustaceans. At the period when Greenland was a tropical country there grew in waters along the New England coast species of corals which to-day are found only in latitudes not far from the Equator. They afford another proof that anciently climatic conditions were altogether dif¬ ferent from what they are at the present time. It is worth mentioning, by the way, that Dr. Adolf Hoel reports, as one profit¬ able result of the recent Norwegian ex¬ pedition, the discovery of hitherto un¬ known coal deposits, of great extent and superior quality, near the eastern shore of Advent Bay, in Greenland. Theee de¬ posits, of course, represent a profuse Íilant life which existed through a great ength of time in a former epoch. Scientists declare that there have been in the past several glacial epochs. Ap- fiarently, owing to causes unexplained, ong periods of cold have alternated with long periods of warmth. The prospect seems to be that one of these periods of warmth, which may last tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, in approaching; and in the phenomena now exciting ao much atten¬ tion in the Arctic may perhaps he seen a promise of changes that will beneficially affect the entire population of the world, incidentally rendering available for human occupation vast land areas which are now uninhabitable.
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
![Page 1: The Washington Times.(Washington D.C.) 1922-12-03 [p 2]. · Ijurt. winter the ocean did not freeze over even on the north Const of ... New York State, ... the age of ice.](https://reader031.cupdf.com/reader031/viewer/2022030623/5ae9ada47f8b9a36698bfbc5/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
SfranJeThinÔsHappenir§ in therrozenArctico . r, , , , ? . ._^^ra*j«afe^|^HH*aaaBBBBaBBaâaa*aa.^ Se»'8 Leave Their Old Feeding GroundsScience Puzzled by Surprising^«»·??8 BBssBsB-^Because the W»fW I« Too
ALASKA
Science Puzzled,by SurprisingNews from the Far NorthWhich Indicates That
the Polar Sea IsWarming Up andthe Great IceCap Is SlowlyMelting AwayWhich MaySoon Revealthe Hidden
Secrets of theUnknown Polar
Continent
^p ·. t¦ ;< ?* /
y-^'-?.?? ».'.'.; fKULT. DUM//
f ·»
?=ÍM ^
\ JI ?" w .í'-i'/uTIM V/* bay ·/;·
ARCTIC OCEAN
,?at
? i/jFiKENLAIiD >
..Kl /
"> ..... lVvAVN'
Seals Leave Their Old Feeding GroundsBecause the Water Is Too
Warm and Vast Schoolsof Smelts ArriveFurther NorthThan Ever
Before* WhileLand Beginsto AppearWhich HasAlwaysBeen
Coveredby Ice
ilnwan «»owl»« I«.I asiil ?«a I Sera Risa ef
^er Irr.IlM« l.r I ¦¦¦¦.llarn^ ««(»G at Prese·« hi the
Kn.i.rn Arile Oramai.?.Tur I «nal «.oatarra rCS«.
of (be %re«1e lee ?·?.?.The Preaeat ries. Bla*
.f Ibe Arn Ir.
IS the North Pole going to melt? Arethe Arctic regions warming up, withprospect of a great climatic change in
that part of the world?Science is asking these questions. Re¬
ports from fishermen, seal hunters and ex¬
plorers who sail the seas about Spitz¬bergen and the eastern Arctic all pointto a radical change in climatic conditions,with hitherto unheard-of high tempera¬tures on that part of the earth's surface.
Observations to that effect have coveredthe hist five years during which th*warmth has been steadily increasing. InAugust of this year the Norwegian De¬partment of Commerce sent an expeditionto Spitzbergen and Bear Island under theleadership of Dr. Adolf Hoel, professor ofgeology in the University of Christiania,the object in view being to survey andchart areas productive of coal and otherminerals. The expedition sailed aA farnorth as 81 deg. 29 min. ?. latitude inice free water. Such a thing, hitherto,would have been deemed impossible.The United Mitée Consul at Bergen.
Norway, Mr. UT;, hai sent · report toour own Department of Commerce which.peaks of the recent extraordinary warmthin the Arctic. He quotes incidentally thestatements of Cni<t:iin Martin Injrehrigt-een, a mariner who 1 us sailed those aal·,flfty-f<>ur year·. Th« raeWa*a a..- ? liât hefirst noted an unusual warmth in 1018;and since then temperatures have risensteadily higher. To-day the easternArctic is "hardly recognizable as the same
region of 18.Î8 to I!»I 7."Many of the old landmarks are greatly
altered, or no longer exist. Where for¬merly there were great masses of Ice,these have melted away, leaving behindthem accumulations of earth and, stonessuch as geologists call "moraines." Atmany points where glaciers extended farinto the sea half a dozen years ago theyhave now entirely.disappeared.
The change in temperature has broughtgreat changes in the plant life and animalli.e of the Arctic. Formerly vast shoalsof whitefish were fourni in the watersabout Spitzbergen, but last Summer thefishermen sought them in * ????. Seals,which used to he plentiful in those seas,liHvn almost entirely disappeared. IIwoeld seem as if the ocean must have In¬come uncomfortably warm for some ofit« denizen« which formerly frequentedthose latitudes, causing them to flocknorthward toward the Pole.On th« other hand, other kinds of fishea,
hitherto unknown so fat-north, have madetheir appearance. Shoals of smelt havearrived, and immense schools of herringare reported by fishermen along the westcoast of Spitzbergen
Formerly the waters about Spitsbergenhave held an even Summer temperature inthe neighborhood of 6 degrees abovefreezing. This year it roee aa high aa 28degrees. Ijurt. winter the ocean did notfreeze over even on the north Const ofSpitzbergen. This is on the »uthorlty ofDr. H».'1.
This átate of affairs is a reuse of muchsurprise and even astonishment toscientists, who wonder whether the changeis merely temporary or the beginning of a
great alteration of climatic conditions Inthe Arctic, with consequent melting of thepolar ice sheet.An evidence of how great the change la
that haa come over the climate In theArctic regions may be best understood bythe struggle« of the early explorer· todiscover the northwoat passage, or theopen body of water existing aroundNorth America, leading eventually toIndia. This passage was first undi r-
takrn by way of Spitzbergen, but thethick ice repeatedly neat back the ship*of the explorers.
From exploit« to discover the north¬west passane many of the trips for I! a
rompiest of »he North Pole were -eventu¬al· undertaken.
Parry, the great British explorer, wufirst to negotiate the open passage be¬tween Greenland and Bering Sea, reach¬ing half-way aerees the top of NorthA (»erica before he was hedged In by theice, and with supplies becoming low, daredgo no further.He mm first to discover the north mag¬
netic pole and to report the astonishingfact ili.it the needle of his compass turnedand pointeii directly south. For thesediscoveries Parry was awarded aboutf2fi,000 by the Briti: h Government andunquestionably his conquest· in the írosenArctic led to th* actual penetrating ofthe northwest passage from th· Atlanticto the Pacific by McClure, Cellineon andaro'indsen later on.
Interesting For..· i' of ¦ íi'npicr.IFern Dug Up in Greenland,Showing That There Was One«a Warm Climate and TropicalVegetation Where the GlaciersAre Now Melting Away.From the difficul¬
ties besotting thee«·groat Arctic adven¬ture«, some ¡«lea ofthe t r e m e ? «I on*thickness of the Itsmay lie hail. Evenat the very s|>otnorth of Spitzber¬gen where openwater was seen thisSummer, surh well-known explorer« as
Hudson and Phippslimi great difficultiesin penetrating on
account of the thick¬ness of the ice and,In spite of theirequipment, one oftli· m could not goeven ** far over the»ce as the spotwhere the openwater showed a fewmonth.« ago.Not only are t'^e
seal.» and iiolar hearsflndin;: the climateunplfiiKiinlly warmfor them, bul it ÌMMaid thai the i»kiiiifM<in ««um· leralith«air» complaining andare finding their furclothes too w/irm fortlll'lll.
The Togion aboutthe North l'ole iscovered by mi leecap which, towardHM east, extends ov«r ncailv thewneM of Greenlnnd in what Is practicallyß single enormous glacier, Greenlnnd isten times the six« of the State of Pennsyl¬vania, and from its vast Ice «heet are de¬rived the iceberg* which linai down fromBaft*. Ha ? and Pa vi« Strait Into the NorthAtlantic·, threatening destruction to shipsin the Spring of every year.To cro«s this great Greenland giaci· rhit« been the ? went of many adventurousspirits. On account of the it-verity of thewinds that «weep over lb«· immenne slowlymoiling rake of ice. it wan never succc««-fully accomplished until Nansen manspe«!to go from the east coast of Greenlandacross the top of the ice harrier to thewi-«t coast At about the sixty-fourth par¬allel af latitude.Nansen and his five companion· reached
s height of iLtSf feet nt the top of thebarrier, showing how thick the Ice hadnerume through «go« of freezing.
Later on Penry and Astrup crossed theisland· nuirK further north and nrvl toclimb a loiid lull of ice about .V000 feelhigh.The reason why we have the··» iceberg.«
sloughing off from the southeastern tTiiof Greenland it evidently due to the northpolar eurrent carrying the Ice mass front
»est» f«»f»w«»» a >v./»w..».
Photograph of Land Which Haa Appeared for the F¡r»t Tima inGreenland, and Which Ha· Alway· Heretofore Been Buried
Under the Glacier« Which Are Now Melting Away. ,
the north polar region along the land andkeeping it at a very low degree oftemperature down to Cape Farewell, thesouthernmost tip of Greenland. Here,during the Summer, the oncoming ofthe warm weather disintegrate« some ofthe Ice, particularly between the fisnures,which are characteristic of each year's icegrowth. Here they are spilt and carriedaway hy the polar current« into the NorthAtlantic where sometime« they becomevery dangerous to ocean shipping.It le a Mfigular fact, and true of onlythis apnt in the world, that the cold polarcurrent that sweeps down the Kasterncoast of Greenland is paralleled not veryfar outside by a warmer current, whichi* largely responsible for a considerableamount of precipitation that in turn hasIt effect ift wearing down some of theglncHil ir· ;Ai.l bringing about the eventual. orrriiitioi, of Iri'berirs.
But there was not always nn ice cap.In time long gon« hy the region about theNorih P.il.> bad a wann chinate and nilof CreenlWnd was covered with a luxurianttropical vegetation. This is positivelyknown i· thus* fossil remains of palms,fttSilfrultTtTSS». and other plants properlybelonging ¡to wsrm latitudes have beendug up there in quantities.
ICI IMI. tw ?.u.c. ?,, M nal».
The present Polarice cap is hut a
remnant of what itformerly waa. Thirtythousand year« agoit extended over allof the northern halfof the United State«,in places thousand«of feet thick andreaching a a farsouth aa Philadel¬phia and St. l.ouis.
It was a productof the Glacial Kpoch.an age of cold,during which polarbears and reindeerwere numerous inNew York State,and w a 1 r u s andherds of the dwarfArctic cattle calledmusk ? ? e ? fre¬quented the coast ofNew I'lnglaiul.
Since that timethe great ice sheethas been slowlymelting at the edges,so to speak, andwithdrawing north¬ward toward thePole. It retreatednast Stockholm Isa?
the geologist«) not more than 9,000years ago. If the process continues, theday may be expected to arrive when allthe Ice will be gone from about the Pole,and the Arctic regions will then becomefruitful and habitable by man.
It seems at least possible that the ex¬traordinary warmth in the Arctic duringdie last few years marks a step in thisdirection. Such a change as that sug¬gested cannot be suddenly or Iren rapidlyaccomplished; but. If ? Ihm e shall come atime when the North Polar ice can isentirely melted, and Greenland Incident¬ally freed of the ice sheet which covers it,the latitude« in which we now dwell willexperience a wonderful climatic altera¬tion. The northern part of the UnitedState« will become sub-tropical.From what has been said it will be
understood that we aiv really still livingin the (linciai Kpoch. It seems, however,to be drawing gradually toward a close;and it is easily possible to imagine thateventually all parts of the earth will be-cum» warm again, just as Was the case atth* period above referred to, BBea Green¬land wa* covered wtih a luxuriant vegeta¬tion
Nobody knows what causes producedthe age of ice. It must have been that
r ie..' amain Hi.hi H...r»..|
Remarkable Photograph of an Ice-Capped Island, Showing How th·Warmer Polar Sea I· Malting the lea.
the sun, for eome reason, delivered leeaheat upon the earth. Though hard for uato realize, it ia a fact that if the averagetemperature of the northern half of th*United States were lowered only ten.logrees, the ice sheet would creep south¬ward again and cover all that part ofthe country, sweeping it« citie« off themap and giving it a likeness to the Green¬land of to-day. This would happen be¬cause the difference of ten degree« wouldmake the Winters «o much longer thatthe snow« would not have time to melt inSummer, and so the ice sheet wouldthicken year by year until it became onevast glacier.So it is juat as well that we find our¬
selves approaching the end of an age ofice, instead of being menaced by its on¬
coming. It is fairly to be expected thatfrom thie time on.judging from observa¬tions of the retreat of the great ice sheet.climates all over the world will becomesteadily and gradually warmer. No long¬er iiKo than ¿00,000 yenrs the climate olGreenland was still temperate, and Alaskahad temperatures like those of Alabamanowadays.
Not long ago two government geolo¬gists, David White and Charles Schuchert,
Íiaid a visit of exploration to west Grecn-and, where, far north of the ArcticCircle, they studied a fossil flora of palms,tree ferns, breadfruit trees, cinnamontrees, etc., belonging properly to theneighborhood of the Equator. Wherenow an ico sheet over a mile thick covers
mountain an«: valley and mighty glaciersmake their way to the eea and hatch ice¬bergs, there waa anciently a wilderness oftropical verdure. ·
There were trees related to the giantsequoias of our own wert coast. Climb¬ing vines festooned the trunks of .thesemoiiarchs of an ancient forest withdrapVrles of foliage, while close to theground grew curious dwarf trees called"cycads" resembling palms in miniature,in the midst of a tangled undergrowth.
Of stich a character was the vegetationof Greenland 5,000,000 year« or so ago.White and Schuchert found the tropicalplant beds overlaid bv later deposits inwhich were masse« of fossil remain« oftrees, including poplars, willows, euca¬
lyptus and magnolias. Much of thie ma-
terial had been converted into "browncoal," or liirniti·. This latter formationwas relatively recent, doting hack onlyto the Tertiary F.poch when the climateof Greenland was much like that of our
Gulf ¿Utes to-day.At the far more ancient period when
Greenland wa« a tropical country theclimate seems to have "been much the same
all over the world, and the same plants
grew contemporaneously In Greenland andCalifornia, In Spitsbergen and Virginia.Nobody can say with certainty why thiswas. One theory is that in that epoch theatmosphere was so heavily charged withwater-vapor that warmth was readily dis¬tributed through it, and the sun's raysdid not have a chance to strike the earthuninterrupted, making differences inclimate by the degree of their slant. Astime went on, the atmosphere thinnedgradually, and so there came to beclimatic variations marking a series ofsones around the world.Of the fact that the Polar regions were
anciently warm and verdure-clad an in¬teresting proof was afforded by a dis¬covery which Greely, the explorer,chanced to make. Within eight degrees(latitude) of the North Pole he found afossil forest with stomps of trees stillstanding.
Greenland is the largest island in theworld. It is mainly a granite formation,hut nome of the leap elevated portion.- of itweic evidently at one time below the levelof the sea.as is proved by sedimentarydeposits. In these deposits White anilSchuchert found plentiful remains ofmarine animals, including fishes and ex¬tinct species of crustaceans.
At the period when Greenland was atropical country there grew in watersalong the New England coast species ofcorals which to-day are found only inlatitudes not far from the Equator. Theyafford another proof that ancientlyclimatic conditions were altogether dif¬ferent from what they are at the presenttime.
It is worth mentioning, by the way,that Dr. Adolf Hoel reports, as one profit¬able result of the recent Norwegian ex¬
pedition, the discovery of hitherto un¬known coal deposits, of great extent andsuperior quality, near the eastern shoreof Advent Bay, in Greenland. Theee de¬posits, of course, represent a profuseÍilant life which existed through a greatength of time in a former epoch.Scientists declare that there have beenin the past several glacial epochs. Ap-fiarently, owing to causes unexplained,ong periods of cold have alternated withlong periods of warmth. The prospectseems to be that one of these periodsof warmth, which may last tens ofthousands or even hundreds of thousandsof years, in approaching; and in thephenomena now exciting ao much atten¬tion in the Arctic may perhaps heseen a promise of changes that willbeneficially affect the entire population ofthe world, incidentally rendering availablefor human occupation vast land areaswhich are now uninhabitable.
Related Documents
![Derecho const. y proc. const.[1] 11 10](https://static.cupdf.com/doc/110x72/54814827b4af9faa158b5f70/derecho-const-y-proc-const1-11-10.jpg)
