林中斌 部落格 / Blog Chong-Pin Lin

Weather Risk Explore Inc chief executive Peng Chi-ming said at a press conference last Friday that the global economic cost of natural disasters last year was approximately US$300 billion (NT$9 trillion), making the year the costliest ever. Lin said the end-of-days prophecies are nonsense, but admitted that natural and man-made disasters would become more and more intense in the years prior to 2020.

“Bundle up, it’s global warming” columnist Judah Cohen wrote in the New York Times on Dec. 26, 2010. That is also the first sentence in Lin’s new book. Last year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that 2010 was the warmest year since 1880, while the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced in 2010 that the past decade was the warmest in 131 years. Strangely, the warmest year also presented the coldest winter in Poland, the UK, Germany, the US and China. In other words, the term “global warming” is a simplification that is part of the increasingly extreme climate. It can only explain some of earth’s surface disasters, but it cannot sufficiently explain underground disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis, disasters in space, such as solar storms, or mass bird and fish deaths and other incidents of unknown cause. On Friday, Lin mentioned that after studying climate changes over the past 100,000 years, scientists have found that fluctuations in atmospheric carbon concentration lagged behind fluctuations in atmospheric temperatures by 200 to 1,000 years. Lin said this phenomenon, known as “CO2 lag,” meant that carbon dioxide levels could not have caused the fluctuations in temperatures. He said the fluctuation in atmospheric temperatures is primarily a result of solar activity and the number of sunspots.

Lin said the earth’s magnetic field is changing faster and faster, which could cause geomagnetic secular variations, geomagnetic excursions, or a geomagnetic reversal. Although there is no consensus among scientists about the relationship between sharp increases in earthquakes and volcanic activity and changes in earth’s magnetic field, a connection cannot be ruled out. Changes in the earth’s magnetic field can cause disruptions on a global magnitude and have an impact on living creatures, but scientists believe that since the earth is still protected by the atmosphere, living creatures will not be exterminated. Nevertheless, changes in earth’s magnetic field are undeniably a new challenge that humanity will have to deal with. Lin stressed that as global disasters are becoming more diverse, intense, frequent, and complex, we should lessen the impact of disaster by improving our own immune systems, finding green energy sources, and stopping the wrangling over whether global warming is man-made or natural.

(Lin Ya-ti, Taipei Times)

議論多時的二○一二年，已經到來。坊間充斥著以馬雅預言十二月二十一日為世界末日為背景的電影、書籍，以及各式的論述，已引起世界各地民眾的擔憂。儘管如此，前國防部副部長林中斌在上週五出版的新書《大災變：你必須面對的全球失序真相》中提出新觀點，與其對災變抱持「末日即將到來」或「否定末日說」，不如更務實做好防災準備，樂觀前瞻。

天氣風險管理開發公司總經理彭啟明上週五在記者會上表示，去年全球自然災害造成的經濟損失就有三千億美元（約新台幣九兆元），可謂史上最貴的災情年。林中斌表示，末日說是無稽之談，但在二○二○年前，天災人禍將愈趨激烈。

「因為全球暖化，請多穿衣服！」這不僅是朱達‧可恩二○一○年十二月二十六日在《紐約時報》上的一句話，也是《大災變》的開場白。去年美國航空暨太空總署宣布，二○一○年是自一八八○年以來最熱的一年；另外美國國家海洋暨大氣總署在二○一○年宣布，過去十年是一百三十一年以來最熱的，但最熱的紀錄當下，波蘭、英國、德國、美國、中國等地，卻出現酷寒現象。換句話說，「全球暖化」是個過於簡化的說法，它只是「氣候極端化」的一部分，只能解釋部分來自地面的災變，卻無法全面性地解釋來自地下的地震、火山爆發與海嘯、來自太空的太陽風暴，以及來源不明的意外事故與鳥、魚群猝死等。林中斌上週五表示，科學家們研究過去幾十萬年的氣候變化後發現，大氣二氧化碳濃度升降落後於大氣溫度升降約兩百年至一千年，此現象稱為「二氧化碳後至」，因此二氧化碳不可能導致溫度上升。林中斌說，大氣溫度升降主要受太陽活動「黑子數目」強弱影響。

林中斌表示，地球磁場正在加速變動，可能導致磁極跨世紀遊走、地磁飄移，或磁極翻轉。雖然科學界對地震和火山活動明顯升高與「全球磁變」的關係尚無一致解釋，但也不能排除。「全球磁變」能引起地球失序並衝擊地球生靈，但科學家認為，地球仍有大氣層保護，不至於發生物種絕滅，不過「全球磁變」將使人類面臨的新挑戰，是不可否認的。在全球災變多樣化、強烈化、頻繁化與複雜化之際，林中斌強調增強自身免疫力、找尋綠色能源、停止人為暖化與自然暖化的鬥爭等，都是降低災變衝擊的因應方法。

（台北時報記者林亞蒂）