Climate Changes
by Patrick Quanten MD
In order for anyone to truly understand natural phenomena it is essential to view the Earth as a living organism, a being possessed of intelligence. The word "organism" actually originates from Aristotle's concept of "Organon", meaning an instrument of reason. This throws a new light on everything we consider organic, in that all physical forms are seen to be the creation of mind or an ordering principle.
When the earth was first formed, supposedly from a molten mass of condensing gases, it is believed to have been totally covered by water before the dry land eventually came into being. Apart from volcanic emissions, in the main these vaporous exhalations are the water vapour present in the atmosphere. Due to the heating effect of the interaction between solar radiation and atmosphere, the water covering the earth's surface gradually evaporated and became dispersed through the atmosphere, ultimately charging the atmospheric envelope with water vapour, though mainly in the troposphere, which extends to an altitude of about 6km at the poles and 18km at the equator.
Water has the greatest specific heat known among liquids and also has the greatest thermal conductivity of all liquids. Its great specific heat means that, for a given rate of energy input, the temperature of a given mass of water will rise more slowly than the temperature of any other material. Conversely, as energy is released its temperature will drop more slowly.
Owing to its high specific heat and its capacity to retain heat, the water vapour gradually absorbed the heat of the sun, and in doing so raised the general level of temperature. Because it absorbs heat strongly in the infrared portion of the spectrum and is unaffected by ultraviolet light, during the night when there is no heat input, heat losses are kept to a minimum. Had water not this capacity, if this water buffer did not exist, then earth would have remained cold, lifeless and barren. Water, initially in its vaporous form, is therefore responsible for the emergence of all life.
When water vapour reaches extreme altitudes, however, it then becomes so rarefied that it is dissociated into its constituent atoms of oxygen and hydrogen through the action of strong ultraviolet radiation. Being the heavier element, the oxygen then sinks back to earth, while the lighter hydrogen atoms rise to join their peers in space. Now separated from the hydrogen, the oxygen is exposed to high levels of ionising radiation through which the now single oxygen atoms are made to combine with the molecular oxygen (O2) into an allotropic form of oxygen, O3 or ozone, which is responsible for the absorption of otherwise dangerous levels of ultraviolet radiation, a process vital to all life on earth. The result is a net loss of water.
What differentiates water from all other liquids is its so-called anomaly point. Water's volume does not decrease with increasing cold. Its behaviour is "anomalous". The point of reversal is reached when the water attains its greatest density and energy content at a temperature of +4C, below which it eventually crystallises as ice at zero degrees, a process greatly assisted if so-called impurities are present which form the nucleus around which the ice forms. The volume of ice is obviously greater than the volume of liquid water.
Another important factor is water's dielectric value. The dielectric value of pure water, the degree to which it separates opposing charges, is almost the highest dielectric value there is. It thus possesses a tremendous innate resistance to the transfer of charge.
Earth as an Accumulator of Energy
The portion of the atmosphere most important to us and which affects us the most is the troposphere. Curiously enough, we also find that the temperature neither decreases nor increases constantly, but fluctuates as we ascend through the various atmospheric layers. For instance, at an altitude of 29km the temperature is -60C, whereas at a height of 80km it is +10C. Somewhere between these two temperatures, therefore, there is a layer where the temperature is +4C. There are at least four such levels where the temperature equals +4C, at altitudes of about 3.5km, 77km, 85km and 175km. It is in these areas that the density of the water is the greatest.
Since there is water vapour in the atmosphere near these various altitudes in the form of clouds we have a situation where a thin stratum of pure water may exist at each of these levels, which has a high resistance to the transfer of an electric charge. In view of the presence of these various +4C strata and water's high dielectric value, it could be postulated that their combined effect would act to create a natural bio-condenser, a condenser being a device with which an electric charge can be accumulated and stored.
We can see that from the outside inwards, like an onion, each succeeding layer has a smaller surface area owing to their concentricity. In other words, these layers form a condenser with concentric spherical plates. It could therefore be construed that, on encountering each successive, concentric, spherical +4C dielectric stratum, the potential of the energy coming from the sun is gradually magnified. As the sun's energy passes from the outside towards the inside, it becomes increasingly concentrated as it approaches the earth's surface, due to these enveloping layers of +4C water.
This accumulation of energy naturally enhances the emergence of life because, without energy, without differences in charge, gender, potential or a suitable energy field any form of life impossible.
Increasing Loss of Water
As a result of the gradual accumulation of water vapour, the atmosphere becomes sufficiently saturated to permit the aggregation of individual water molecules into macromolecules, or raindrops. In the process of falling, these droplets of water generate a charge, and suddenly the phenomenon of electricity appears in the form of lightning. All at once a form of pure energy is made available for the planet's use.
In the course of an electrical discharge, ozone is created and, due to the often intense temperature- and ionisation-induced, high-velocity updrafts in thunderstorms, this ozone can be borne aloft to form or reinforce the ozone layer, which protects us all from excessive ultraviolet radiation. If thunderstorm activity should decline, however, then this contribution will also drop commensurately.
The amount of water evaporated annually from the oceans is 5.4 times larger than the contribution from lakes, rivers and land surfaces. Relative to the total area of rivers and lakes, the land surfaces covered by forest are far greater and therefore a major part of land evaporation is derived from the forest. As a percentage of the whole the contribution from the forest is therefore critical to the maintenance of stable climatic conditions.
Owing to man's massive deforestation activities, principly for agriculture and beef production, the area of natural forest has decreased enormously from its original state. This massive enlargement of hot, sun-exposed surfaces has resulted in an enormous increase in the evaporation rate, which has been greatly assisted by an increase in temperature caused by the effects and products of our technology. A 1C rise in temperature causes the retention, but not necessarily an even distribution, of an additional 1,000 million cubic metres of water vapour in the atmosphere.
In consequence the whole of the earth's water balance has been seriously disturbed, resulting in very disorderly agglomerations of atmospheric water; a fact we are daily made aware of. In some places there is an overload, causing repeated catastrophic rainfall and large-scale inundation, while in others there is little or none at all, i.e. severe drought conditions prevail. Due to the sheer volume of excess water vapour, instead of the traditional small water particles, much heavier drops are formed, which fall as deluging rain and generate considerably lower charges, thereby reducing the possibility of electrical discharges and lightning.
In many such rainstorms, cyclonic and monsoonal storms there is no thunder at all. While this additional water vapour will increase the general atmospheric temperatures, due to the movement of the upper air streams it graduates towards the poles, there to fall as snow, adding to the volume of water fixed almost permanently as ice. Moreover the cloud cover also increases owing to this abnormal water vapour content, which in turn amplifies the so-called albedo effect of the earth. The albedo effect is the term for the overall whiteness of the earth's atmosphere caused by the reflection of light off the white cloud areas. This obscures the sun's rays and prevents the water vapour below the clouds from being further warmed.
On the other hand, as most of the water vapour has been accumulated in the clouds, where there are no clouds relatively little vapour is present and so the sun, where it can shine through, no longer warms the atmosphere. Assisted by the increasing pressures in the lower atmosphere caused by the temperature-induced expansion of abnormal quantities of water into vapour, more and more water molecules are forced to higher altitudes, there to be subjected to the dissociative processes mentioned earlier and the irredeemable loss of water increases. In the long run all these effects - the higher rate of water evaporation from the earth's surface, the reduced amount of water vapour in the lower atmosphere and the increased loss of water in the upper atmosphere - act to reduce the general ambient temperatures and the presence of atmospheric water and while initially the temperature in parts of the earth will rise, in the end it will inevitably cool off dramatically as the precursor to a new ice age.
Conclusion
In order to reverse the climatic changes we are experiencing, reforestation is now required on a massive scale globally. Planting trees in arid conditions provide a viable solution in view of the vast areas of existing deserts and their rapid expansion and incipience in previously productive regions due to the near total removal of tree cover. These systems actually work, and there is no valid reason why any government threatened by desert and drought should not immediately implement them, if it is truly concerned for its economy and the well-being of its people.
If any climatically and agriculturally restorative measure is worthy of United Nations support this one qualifies par excellence!
September 2004
Based on the work of Viktor Schauberger (1885 - 1958)
