IN 1995, the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed a discernible human influence on global climate and estimates that a doubting ofcarbon dioxide CO2 concentrations are bound to occur before the year 2010 and would increase the average temperature of the atmosphere at the earth’s surface by 1.0 to 3.5 degrees Celsius.

This rate of warming faster than any during the last 10,000 years, would place the world in danger of awide rangeof potential dislocation. In the words of Thomas Karl, a senior scientist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, altering the very composition of the atmosphere is “a momentuous but rather unwanted acomplishment.”

THIS grim picture of the danger that stares the human environment in the face in a World Wtch series 138 of 1997 tagged: “Rising Sun, Gathering Wind: Policies to stabilise the climate and strengthen economiese is made more real than ever as a vast expanse of Western Siberia is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming.

A recent finding indicates that an area of permafrost spanning amillion square kilometers the size of France and Germany combined has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Sergei Kirpotin of Tomsk State University in Western Siberia and Judith Marquand of Oxford University in England both researchers, who reported their finding in the New Scientist journal claim that the area until recently, a barren expanse of frozen peat has started turning into abroken landscape of mud and lakes with some more than a kilometre in width.

The permafrost area spanning the entire sub Arctic region of Western Siberia, is the world’s largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greehouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

ACKNOWLEDGING Methane (CH is 20 times in the atmosphere approximately 12 years, compared with up to several hundred years for CO2 and its concentrations can be lowered relatively quickly.

MORE reports further reveal that the Arctic Sea ice covering an area roughly the size of the United States has lost an average of 34,000 square kilometer - an area larger than the Netherlands - each year since 1978. Between 1958 - 76 and the mid - 1990s, the average thickness dropped from 3.1 metres to 1.8 metres, a decline of some 40 per cent.

The implications are that the disapperance of earth’s ice cover would significantly alter the global climate, ice reflects large amounts of solar energy back into space and helps cool the planet. When ice melts, however this exposes land and water surfaces that retain heat leading to even more melt and creating afeedback loop that acelerates the overall warming.

VITAL signs 2000, another World Watch report however indicates that excessive ice melt in the Arctic could also cause cooling in parts of Europe and the Eastern United States, as the influx of resh water into the North Atlantic may disrupt the north-ward flow of the warming Gulf Stream.

DAVID viner, a senior scientist at the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia, expressing further fears asserts that “when you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it’s unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply.”

”THIS is a big deal because you can’t put the permafrost back once it’s gone and it will ramp up temperatures even more than our emissions are doing, he afirmed.

WHILE the fears remain, ever strong despite assurance, Director of Friends, of the Earth, Tony Juniper has said that the findings was a stark message to politicians to take concerted action on climate change.

“WE knew at some points w’d get these feedbacks happening that exacerbate global arming but this could lead to amassive injection of greenhouse gases.

“IF we don’t take action very soon, we could unleash runaway global warming that will be beyond our control and it will lead to social, economic and environmental degradation worldwide”, he warned.
INTERESTINGLY, Hadley Centre, Exeter has tried to allay fears over the thawing permafrost.

THE permafrost, he contends, is likely to take many decades to thaw, so that methane locked within it will not be released into the atmosphere in one burst.

THE expectation by Dr. Sitch and his colleagues to indicate that even if methane seeped from the permafrost over the next 100 years, it would add about 700 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year, which is roughly the same amount that is released annually from the world wetlands and agriculture.

THE threat to world climate has been adressed over the years but the third conference of the climate convention to Kyoto, Japan in December 1997 was amajor step forward. Though, twelve years have gone since the conference, there appears to be rising pessimism about any significant action being taken to seriously address the continuing problem of climate change and the threats posed to humanity. It is for this reason we call on governments of the world, Nigeria in particular to take drastic measures to begin to put things in place for the god humanity.

WE recommend adherence to the treaty signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 under the framework convention on climate change. The treaty called for stabilisation of teh atmosphere “at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.

The contention among climate experts however is that there should be a bargain struck between the industrial countries that contribute most heavily to today’s emissions and the developing nations who are expected to increasingly dominate emissions in the next century to forge a new alliance that would bring about ahealthy climate system.

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