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An inquiry into whether the dramatic weather changes in America's northern states mean that a new ice age is approaching.
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00:00In 1977, the worst winter in a century struck the United States.
00:14Arctic cold gripped the Midwest for weeks on end.
00:19Great blizzards paralyzed cities of the Northeast.
00:23One desperate night in Buffalo, eight people froze to death in marooned cars.
00:28Pat Bushnell was on the road that night.
00:31Traffic just absolutely stopped.
00:33I was afraid of being stuck in the car all night long with the cold and the wind running out of gas.
00:40And then what?
00:41I think that if we had to go through a real bad winter, just like we just went through,
00:48I think we'd have to think about moving someplace else.
00:52Move where?
00:54The brutal Buffalo winter might become common all over the United States.
00:59Climate experts believe the next ice age is on its way.
01:03According to recent evidence, it could come sooner than anyone had expected.
01:09The
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01:34At weather stations in the far north, temperatures have been dropping for 30 years.
01:45Seacoasts, long free of summer ice, are now blocked year-round.
01:51According to some climatologists, within a lifetime, we might be living in the next ice age.
02:04This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.
02:11The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations,
02:15but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine.
02:22Of the nine planets in our solar system, only Earth has conditions favorable to human life.
02:34Our existence depends on a delicate balance of climate.
02:43Despite our modern technology, we are vulnerable to the whims of weather and environment.
02:50Blanketing large areas of the Earth's surface, great storms are among nature's most frightening events.
03:04Uncontrollable tempests make us aware how fragile life on our planet really is.
03:18The comfortable cycle of spring sowing, summer growth, and fall harvest is, in terms of long history, abnormal.
03:26Only in the last 10,000 years has Earth enjoyed continuing warmth.
03:31Because of this, our population has exploded to five billion people.
03:44For most of the last million years, however, whole continents were buried by ice.
03:49As recently as 18,000 years ago, a mile-thick sheet stretched down from the Arctic Circle and covered what is now Seattle, Chicago, and Boston.
04:03New York Harbor was choked with ice flows.
04:07Winters were cold and snowy down to the Gulf of Mexico.
04:11All that remains of the great glaciers that once covered North America are the ice camps of the Canadian Arctic.
04:20If the ice spreads over the continent again, it is here on Baffin Island in northern Canada that the mysterious process will begin.
04:29We look to this lonely outpost for warnings of a new ice age.
04:38Straddling the Arctic Circle, Baffin Island is a harshly beautiful wilderness.
04:44It is larger than California, but not one tree grows on the entire island.
04:48The only vegetation is the stunted plant life of the tundra.
04:53Most of the inhabitants are Inuit Eskimos, whose ancestors migrated west from Greenland a thousand years ago.
05:06Today, the island is poised on the brink of ice age conditions, a critical signal post for changes in the Earth's climate.
05:13According to geologists, the last major ice age began on Baffin Island 115,000 years ago.
05:23Perpetual snow spread southward over the continents.
05:32The weight of many years of snow compressed into ice.
05:35The ice grew thicker until it covered Canada, the northern United States and Europe to a depth of two miles.
05:45For 100,000 years, the ice remained over large areas of the continents.
05:50Then, it retreated to the Arctic.
05:53And for the last 10,000 years, we have flourished in a warm interglacial period.
05:57Our planet is crowded.
06:05What will we do when the fragile balance of climate shifts from today's abnormal warmth and the next ice age begins?
06:14One of the questions that I'm frequently asked is Swinwell's present warm interval end.
06:20And the best answer to that, probably, is that it has, in fact, already ended.
06:27And it ended 3,000 years ago, right here on Baffin Island.
06:31Dr. Gifford Miller is a glaciologist from the University of Colorado.
06:36He's been studying the climate and glaciers of Baffin Island for the past six years.
06:40For the last 3,000 years, the summer temperatures have been getting colder and the amount of precipitation and rainfall and snowfall has decreased so that the conditions have been drier and colder.
06:53And at the same time, the glaciers have expanded.
06:57And the most recent expansion, which occurred between 300 years ago and the turn of the present century, the glaciers attained their most extensive positions that they had during the last 8,000 years.
07:07The summer of 1972 was one of the most severe summers on record, and the ice never melted that summer.
07:15And when I returned to Broughton Island, one of the local settlements here, talking to the Inuit people, and they could only tell me that their fathers had told them of a time when the ice hadn't gone out.
07:28This once-in-a-lifetime summer ice has surprised old-time Arctic residents.
07:33Ernie Sieber is superintendent of Baffin Island National Park and has lived in the Arctic for over 20 years.
07:41We had, in 1973, we had ice all over at the East Coast.
07:48The fjords, some of the ice in the fjords didn't even leave.
07:52And almost every year since, we had ice moving out of the fjords.
07:57So it looks like the climate has changed. It looks like it turned colder.
08:02Since concern for our weather has increased, the park wardens now take daily records of temperatures, wind, and solar radiation.
08:12Weather data from stations all over the Arctic is collected and fed into central computers.
08:17Balloons are launched every day to monitor the winds and temperatures at high altitudes.
08:29The data shows that average temperatures in the Arctic have fallen dramatically over the last 30 years.
08:35In most locations, the drop has been about 2 degrees centigrade.
08:41At that rate, the descent to ice-age temperatures could take less than 200 years.
08:47It is not only the lonely Arctic that has cooled. The whole northern hemisphere is growing steadily colder.
08:56There is little doubt that someday the ice will return.
09:02At least eight times in the past million years, it has advanced and retreated with clockwork regularity.
09:08If we are unprepared for the next advance, the result could be hunger and death on a scale unprecedented in all of history.
09:16What scientists are telling us now is that the threat of an ice age is not as remote as they once thought.
09:22During the lifetime of our grandchildren, Arctic cold and perpetual snow could turn most of the inhabitable portions of our planet into a polar desert.
09:34In Greenland, the snows of centuries have piled up on the largest ice cap in the northern hemisphere.
09:41Scientists have recently discovered evidence of a climatic catastrophe.
09:46Drilling down over 1,400 meters, geologists have collected precious samples of ancient ice.
09:57Some of it fell as snow over 100,000 years ago.
10:02The ice is shipped south, where it is kept frozen at minus 35 degrees and carefully divided up for study.
10:15By separating out the two forms of oxygen in the ice, scientists have been able to chart the temperatures when it fell as snow.
10:25Near the bottom of the ice cap, they found traces of widespread freezing occurring with dramatic suddenness.
10:40Dr. Chester Langway is chairman of the geology department at the State University of New York, Buffalo.
10:46We have evidence from the ice core studies that approximately 89,000 years ago, the global climate changed from one of greater warmth than today into one of glacial severity.
11:01It is possible that a tremendous volcanic events occurred, shielding the sun, cooling the Earth's temperatures, and thereby providing the explanation of the advancing glaciers.
11:16The significance of this catastrophic event is that within a hundred year period of time, that the glaciers could have re-advanced over the surface of the Earth.
11:26It is possible that we may enter into such a cold climate almost instantaneously in the very near future.
11:37If the climate does suddenly cool, will we survive the change?
11:4718,000 years ago, Manhattan Island was buried under a mile of ice.
11:52Where the Hudson River flows today, there was a huge glacier.
11:58Pack ice filled the ocean off Long Island.
12:02We are only beginning to understand the cyclic history of the ice, but evidence is mounting that another ice age is due.
12:10The most persuasive data comes from beneath the sea.
12:14The research ship, Vima, sails the world's oceans, taking samples of sediments deposited long ago.
12:29A crew of scientists rig a long cylinder and drop it vertically to the ocean floor.
12:34The cylinder dredges up mud from the seabed in the form of long cores.
12:47The types of tiny fossils found at different levels in the core shows the sea temperatures of the past.
12:58Geologists have collected enough sea cores to form a detailed history of climate during the last million years.
13:05The cores are analyzed at the Lamont Doherty Geological Laboratory of Columbia University.
13:12Dr. James Hayes leads the research.
13:15The climatic record in these deep sea cores tells us that there have been eight ice ages in the last 700,000 years.
13:23It also tells us when they have occurred.
13:25This provides us with a test of various theories of the ice ages.
13:31We now have a theory that tells us that changes in the shape of the Earth's orbit act as a pacemaker for the ice age succession.
13:40Since this theory can precisely predict when ice ages occurred in the past, which can be tested against these deep sea cores,
13:48it also can predict when ice ages will occur in the future.
13:51From this theory, we can say with confidence that we are currently heading toward another ice age.
14:00In the winter of 1976-77, one storm after another buried the Northeast under record amounts of snow.
14:12Months of brutal cold made much of the nation seem like the Arctic.
14:17In Chicago, temperatures hovered at 19 degrees below zero.
14:25Dayton, 21 degrees below zero.
14:28Cincinnati, 25 degrees below zero.
14:34Of all the hard-hit places, Buffalo, New York provides the best lesson.
14:38That unfortunate city had 44 consecutive days of snow.
14:45The first sudden blizzard paralyzed traffic.
14:48Thousands were forced to abandon their cars and seek refuge from the storm.
14:54Some who didn't were found frozen.
14:57As the storms continued, the resources of government were strained.
15:04Snow plows had to be flown in by the Air Force.
15:08Even the National Guard couldn't keep up with the unrelenting snow.
15:11Just how long can a modern city hold out when whole regions are cut off from food and fuel?
15:24When the weather turns on us again, how thin is the margin between life and death?
15:29When the snowfall finally stopped, downtown Buffalo lay quiet and deserted.
15:48Businesses remained closed for weeks.
15:50The airport was unusable.
15:54There was no way to reach or leave the city.
15:58The mail could not go through.
16:01Supplies of food and drugs ran perilously low.
16:05Ambulances could not reach the sick.
16:08For the old and infirm, it was a time of pain and misery.
16:12Suppliers of natural gas had to put emergency plans into effect, cutting off thousands of users.
16:18Electrical utilities ordered temporary blackouts.
16:23Fire engines froze in the sub-zero cold.
16:27In the suburbs, strong winds piled the snow in drifts as high as 30 feet.
16:33Many people had to enter their homes through second-story windows.
16:37No matter how much snow was cleared, fresh storms brought in more.
16:42Snowmobiles, the only viable form of transportation, were pressed into emergency service.
16:49Pat Bushnell remembers how the Buffalo storm began.
17:03It was terrible.
17:05It was the worst winter that we have ever, ever had around here.
17:09When I left work, knowing it was bad, but still thinking I could get home,
17:15gone maybe three miles from work and realized that the roads were closed at that point, you couldn't walk.
17:22The wind coming right off the lake at that point, it's right in downtown Buffalo, was so brutal that you just couldn't walk.
17:30So I sat for a while, just sat and waited in the car, and finally, you know, realized that it was hopeless.
17:38The thought of freezing to death, that's kind of frightening.
17:41My worst fear at that point was the children.
17:44I was worried sick about them.
17:46They were in the house alone.
17:47That was the biggest worry.
17:50To go through that every year just wouldn't be worth the fight.
17:53And it's a fight.
17:54It's a real fight.
17:57Half a million workers in the United States were laid off because of fuel shortages.
18:02Hundreds died of illness made worse by the cold.
18:06Had the storms continued much longer, millions would have been in jeopardy for lack of food and fuel.
18:13The experience of 1977 leads us to imagine the disaster the future might bring.
18:21In the descent to an ice age, one severe winter would follow another.
18:26Eventually, the snows of Buffalo would never melt.
18:30Increased demand for heating fuel would trigger an energy crisis beyond anything we can imagine.
18:42Winters in Dallas and Atlanta would grow cold and icy.
18:49Snows would blanket Southern California and Northern Florida.
18:52The people of Mississippi and Alabama would have to contend with old-fashioned New England winters.
19:02Icy winds would sweep the Kansas wheat fields.
19:09Colorado's summer grazing lands would resemble the Arctic tundra.
19:14In California, glaciers would advance from the Sierra Nevada toward the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
19:23Food production would plummet.
19:25Prices would soar out of sight.
19:29Every winter, the line of year-round snow would move further and further south.
19:33If the catastrophic event of 89,000 years ago repeats itself, the ice could return within a single lifetime.
19:42If an ice age is coming, what can we do to stop it?
19:48Nuclear energy might be used to loosen polar ice caps.
19:53Sea ice could be melted by covering it with black soot to increase the absorption of sunlight.
19:59Dr. Steven Schneider is a climatologist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
20:08Can we do these things? Yes.
20:11But will they make things better? I'm not sure.
20:14We can't predict with any certainty what's happening to our own climatic future.
20:19How can we come along and intervene then in that ignorance?
20:22You could melt the ice caps.
20:24What would that do to the coastal cities?
20:26The cure could be worse than disease.
20:27Would that be better or worse than the risk of an ice age?
20:32If the polar ice melted completely, sea level would rise 180 feet.
20:37New Orleans, San Francisco, and New York would be submerged.
20:44Clearly, one of the future's great problems will be to survive the next ice age.
20:49Earth, water, air, and ice comprise a delicate system in which everything is connected to everything else.
21:04It's the interaction between people and climate that worry me the most, because with everyone jammed in in countries, locked in in national boundaries, a change in climate means a redistribution of where the rain is, where the growing seasons are.
21:20My worst fear is that the climate could induce a change in some country that would be devastating to their local survivability, and that would lead them to desperate acts that could drag everybody else down.
21:33In the past, weather disasters have fostered a spirit of mutual concern.
21:41When drastic changes in our climate occur, hopefully, the same acts of courage and cooperation will prevail.
21:48Will prevail.
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