Contact:	Bob Nelson						For immediate release
		(212) 854-5573					May 29, 1997
		rjn2@columbia.edu



Human Activity Could Cause Dramatic
 Climate Change, Columbia Scientist Tells Global
 Warming Conference

Will  New York Become a "Baked Apple"?

	"We are playing Russian roulette with our climate," one scientist told the
 opening session of GW8, the Eighth International Global Warming Conference
 and Exposition held May 27-29 in Altschul Auditorium and adjoining rooms in 
Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.
	Annual precipitation shown in ice cores and pollen distribution from 
seafloor sediments show that Earth's climate is subject to extremely abrupt and 
dramatic changes, said Wallace Broecker, Newberry Professor of Earth and 
Environmental Sciences at Columbia and a well-known paleoclimatologist at 
Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.  Patterns of 
ocean currents can change, and climate temperatures can rise or drop by 15 
degrees Fahrenheit or more over as few as 30 years.
	Human activity - such as our dumping six billion tons of carbon dioxide 
into the atmosphere annually -  could precipitate such a dramatic change, 
Professor Broecker said, and the fact that our climate is currently between major 
periods of glaciation means the climate could as easily turn colder as warmer.  
	"The Earth's climate system is an angry beast subject to unpredictable 
responses, and by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere we may be provoking 
the beast," he said.
	Energy added by greenhouse gases can warm the atmosphere, but it can 
also increase atmospheric turbulence, said Sinyan Shen, director of the Global 
Warming International Center, a sponsor of the conference.  Dr. Shen pointed out 
that in the past 30 years, while global population has doubled, economic losses
from extreme events such as droughts, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes has 
increased by 60 times.  "We need to look at where the heat is coming from and 
where it is going," he concluded.
	Panels at the GW8 conference reported on both the magnitude of warming
 and how we should prepare for it.  More than 50 scientists from two dozen 
nations presented results of their research in climatology, agriculture, 
epidemiology, government policy and other areas.  The conference was co-
sponsored by the Global Warming International Center, an independent 
environmental research institute in Woodridge, Ill., and by Columbia's Earth 
Engineering Center, an institute to reconfigure industrial activities that is 
directed by Nickolas Themelis, Stanley Thompson Professor of Materials Science 
at Columbia.
	Among the strategies advocated for coping with global warming are 
adopting more energy-efficient technologies, finding new energy sources that do 
not produce excess carbon dioxide, a so-called greenhouse gas, and permanent 
disposal of excess carbon dioxide in, for example, cement.  Other topics will 
include the expected health effects of global warming and surveillance methods 
- examining tree rings or lichens, for example - that can alert us to global 
warming's progress.
	Professional engineer Douglas Hill of Huntington, N.Y., reported on the 
local effects of global warming in a paper titled "Baked Apple?  Metropolitan New 
York in the Greenhouse."  According to Mr. Hill, "New York could expect serious 
consequences from global warming:  killing hot spells, worsened ozone pollution, 
uncertain water supply and inundation of its waterfront from higher sea level 
and violent storms."
	He concluded that the region should adopt measures to address both 
existing problems and a potential local warming, and suggested energy and 
water conservation, flood control, a reduction in traffic congestion, and passive 
measures such as planting trees and painting rooftops white.

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