[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11319]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  WHAT IS THE OCEAN'S ROLE IN CLIMATE?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do to the Members 
assembled here tonight is to give a perspective on whether or not to 
some degree the climate on the planet is changing based on 
observational techniques by U.S. scientists.
  What I would like to do as far as this perspective is concerned is to 
say about 500 years ago people thought the world was flat until there 
was observations and exploration. And through those techniques, 
Columbus, for example, it was discovered that the Earth was round. 
Galileo, the scientist, said that the Earth revolved around the Sun. As 
a result of that, he was put in prison and his life was threatened 
because at the time the religious doctrine was that the Sun revolved 
around the Earth because it was not mentioned in the Bible that it was 
the other way around. But then through certain techniques and 
observation, scientific discoveries, more information being 
disseminated, we realized that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
  The other interesting perspective about 100 years after Galileo was a 
man named James Usher, a bishop in Ireland, said that the Earth was 
formed in 4004 B.C. but that was before we had the science of geology, 
geologic techniques. And through a series of information-gathering, it 
was discovered that the Earth was several billion years old. In fact, 
we did not realize how old it was in the extent of the universe until 
the Hubbell spacecraft.
  Now we have this thing called climate change. And there is a great 
deal of discussion on that, whether or not there is climate change or 
whether there is not climate change, can humans impact the Earth so 
that the actual climate will change.
  What I would like to go through very briefly are some observational 
discoveries about planet Earth. For example, the oceans cover 70 
percent of the surface. The oceans store 1,000 times more heat than the 
atmosphere. The ocean transports about 50 percent of the energy it 
receives from the Sun. It transports that. That means if you look at 
the heat that hits the equator, and the oceans have a current and they 
move that, that heat is moved to the northern latitudes and that 
moderates temperature so that it is not that cold. In the northern 
latitudes, the high latitudes, since the ocean currents move back the 
other way, some of that cold is moved down toward the equator, and it 
moderates the heat at the equator.
  As a result of those ocean currents, the Earth, as we know it now, 
21st century, has a heat balance that we are used to. But that heat 
balance throughout the geologic time has changed many, many, many 
times.
  So what are the observations of the ocean? There is increased 
salinity as a result of some of the warming trends that the Earth has 
experienced in the last 100 years, and there has been a warming trend. 
There might be some dispute about how that warming trend has impacted, 
but there has been a warming trend.
  We could look at some of the impact of the warming trend since in the 
last 50 years we have put more CO2 back into the atmosphere 
than what it took nature millions of years to lock up in the form of 
CO2 trapped in fossil fuel deep under the ground. If you 
looked at a map of the United States at night, you could see all the 
lights, you would see one long consistent trail, which actually is 
about 24 hours, from Florida to Maine of automobiles on Route 95. From 
Florida to Maine we would see this crease.
  You will see it in all the major cities, whether it is Miami, 
Chicago, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, et cetera, et cetera, and New York 
City certainly, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Houston, Dallas. 
We are spewing more CO2 into the atmosphere than the Earth's ability to 
absorb that and process that so we have that same balance.
  We have seen a change. This kind of change in the balance or the 
makeup of the atmosphere has not been seen on planet Earth based on 
scientific ice core analysis for 400,000 years. So we see a salinity 
change around the equator in the ocean currents. We see elevated 
evaporation rates around most of the oceans because of the warmth, 
warming trend. We see increasing freshening of the ocean water in the 
northern latitudes, consequently changing the direction of these 
currents. And through these observations, we find some interesting 
perspectives that need more research on climate change.

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