March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Maine, the way life should be in the ice age

The weather is something we modern Americans take far too casually.

Satellites peer down at the Earth from geosynchronous orbits 22,300 miles in space. They provide visual warning of storm clouds gathering in the Pacific, the genesis of hurricanes in the South Atlantic, and the bank of thunderstorms that threatens our weekend golf games.

For sure, a few unlucky souls lose their homes to forest fires, mudslides, floods and an occasional tornado. Most of those damaged souls, though, are reimbursed by insurance companies.

These days, when the media use phrases like “ice age,” it’s generally in reference to the condition of Lambeau Field and the impact a winter freeze will have on the Green Bay Packers’ chances of making the Super Bowl.

David C. Smith, a retired University of Maine historian, thinks weather can play a much greater role in the affairs of man. Smith and his research partner, Dr. William R. Baron of the University of Northern Arizona, believe a prolonged cold snap played havoc with New England farmers in the late 18th century, and that those hard times helped provoke the American Revolution.

In 22 of the 30 years just before 1776, Smith and Baron concluded, killing frosts dramatically reduced crop harvests among New England colonists. That stirred food shortages and discontent, which resulted in the English garrison being increased to 60,000 soldiers. The result was the tinderbox that led to the Boston Tea Party, Boston Massacre and military confrontations at Concord Bridge and Bunker Hill.

Smith’s findings have generated some controversy among other historians, who cling to the belief that the birth of the American Republic was propelled by the ideals of freedom, liberty and justice for all — not empty stomachs.

Professor Paul R. Gross, an emeritus professor of life sciences at the University of Virginia, told The New York Times there is little evidence in the writings of Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to support the Smith-Baron “bad crops” thesis.

Smith and Baron aren’t the first academics to come up with theories linking dramatic climate changes to the affairs of man. Until fairly recently, it was thought the Earth was nearing the end of a warming period between glacial eras. The late astronomer Carl Sagan calculated that nuclear war might induce a prolonged winter that could cause the extinction of most human life. Former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell and Vice President Al Gore urged environmental curbs to forestall global warming.

Two weeks ago, The New York Times checked in with a new archaeological weather finding. Around 10,000 years ago, the Mediterranean Sea burst through the Bosporus and raised the level of the Black Sea by several hundred feet, perhaps in less than a year. Sixty-thousand square miles were flooded, according to geologists.

Dr. William B.F. Ryan and Dr. Walter C. Pittman, who head a team of Columbia University researchers, speculated that the torrent of sea water from the Mediterranean may be the event that sparked the biblical account of Noah’s Ark and earlier Babylonian epics about a Great Flood. One result of the ancient flood, the Columbia geologists said, was an exodus of farmers from the fertile Black Sea region into Europe, which advanced Western civilization.

Smith’s research lacks biblical content. He and Baron programmed 27,800 entries or data points into a computer categorizing notations about New England’s weather from 2,000 diaries. Most of the diaries were kept by the students of a Jonathan Winthrop, a distinguished 18th century Harvard University professor who correctly concluded that detailed weather journals would be useful to future scientists.

The notations are anecdotal. But when crunched by computers, the diary data points generated this portrait of New England’s 18th century weather:

Prolonged cold. Early frosts. Late frosts. Killing frosts that forced farmers to replant their crops over and over again.

“In the 37 years just before the American Revolution,” Smith said, “there were only seven years that produced above-average crops … most years were terrible, leaving farmers always on the edge.”

New England weather is famous for its changeability. One year you can have a 200-day growing season, the next year just half that number of plantable days, Smith said.

The only certainty is that “13,000 years ago the place I live was beneath a glacier,” said the retired UM historian. The withdrawal of the Labrador ice sheet left its signature on Maine’s rockbound coast and 5,000 lakes and streams.

Someday the glaciers will return. The most recent research, Smith said, suggests ice ages take just a few years to begin, not centuries.

When that happens, there will be a lot more to worry about than the footing at Lambeau Field. Sixty million Canadians will hotfoot it to Florida and Arizona. All real estate north of the Hudson River won’t be worth a dime. No technology is powerful enough to stop the glaciers, nor is there any government heating subsidy big enough to enable Mainers to ride out a new 140,000-year ice age.

Who knows?

Global warming may be all that stands between us, the Canadians and wooly mammoths. — WASHINGTON


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