"Well, we haven't experienced any great heat yet," says Professor Rihards Kondratovičs, scientific supervisor of the Babīte Rhododendron Breeding and Trial Nursery. "It is more a case of shifts – autumn lasts until January, but then, when it should be heading towards spring, the intense cold begins." The fact that countless lush rhododendron bushes bloom in Babīte in summer is by no means a sign of global warming. In the wild, rhododendrons also grow in Siberia. As the breeder Vārna once proved, even apricots can be grown in Latvia – from seeds; he raised six generations, each subsequent one more hardy, until finally, one succeeded that no longer reacted to the temperature fluctuations characteristic of a Latvian winter and to which the local flora had adapted. Similarly, by self-seeding, the black locust has gradually taken root in Latvia. The adaptability of plants and the limited time available to observe them make them unreliable witnesses to climate change.
Paleobotanist Laimdota Kalniņa, who spends much of her time in Latvia's bogs studying plant pollen – which, like ice cores, provides good evidence of climate fluctuations – reasons similarly. The largest borehole drilled in Latvia is about 5 metres deep. Since the peat layer grows by 1 mm per year, the lower layers of such a borehole allow for conclusions to be drawn about the past 5,000 years. Accustomed to thinking in terms of millennia, Kalniņa is quite sceptical about claims that the industrialisation of the last 200 years has had devastating consequences on the climate. "Yes, there are temperature fluctuations in the Holocene, but these have happened before," Kalniņa says. "Of course, there is human influence – introduced plants arrive, forests disappear, but the Earth's system is so vast that humans are just tiny specks that cannot influence anything on a large scale. Global warming, too, is at least partially a natural process in my opinion. Well, if we look at how the flora reflects it – in the final stage of the last interglacial period one hundred thousand years ago, forest distribution also decreased and open areas increased. That was the Palaeolithic era – well, how many people could we have had here then? There could not have been any significant influence, yet forest areas still decreased."
She belongs to those scientists – a minority on a global scale, by all accounts – who believe that the warming of the climate is only a minor fluctuation, but in reality – based on both the experience of the last few millennia and astronomical calculations related to the peculiarities of the Earth's rotation – a new ice age is expected.
"Yes, theories that we are on the verge of a new ice age were taken very seriously for a long time," admits Professor of Hydrology and Meteorology Ansis Zīverts. "But even in my youth, the research of Soviet scientist Mikhail Budyko on the Earth's surface energy balance seemed more convincing to me. He was one of the first to claim that warming would occur, and moreover, as a result of human activity." Zīverts believes: "If we continue to use fossil fuels as heavily as we have until now, then the astronomically programmed change in axial rotation may count for nothing," – that is, it will not compensate for global warming. However, thinking specifically about the future of Latvia and the Baltic region, Zīverts expresses optimism. He says that at our latitudes, apart from rising air temperatures, one must also take into account changes in ocean currents – specifically the Gulf Stream – another result of global warming. "The Gulf Stream will move more towards Canada," says Zīverts. "It will get colder for us, but this will manifest most sharply in Norway, where a Siberian climate will set in." This forecast was made by Potsdam meteorologists more than ten years ago, and Zīverts admits that this winter could be one of the first confirmations of it: "Because the Atlantic Ocean had heated up abnormally in the summer – causing Katrina and other hurricanes (the more steam from the ocean, the more wind) – I expected intense cyclone activity, but it didn't happen. A front passed over us that separated an anticyclone over Russia and Ukraine from an anticyclone over the Atlantic – not, as usual, a cyclone from an anticyclone." That is why there was so little precipitation in the autumn and such intense cold in January – both here and in Western Europe.
Both Ansis Zīverts and his colleague, geologist and hydrologist Guntis Eberhards, who has spent many years studying the impact of the climate on the Latvian coastline, agree that the storm of 9 January 2005 was a kind of harbinger of the future. Storms, of course, have swept over Latvia before, but recently both their frequency and strength have been increasing. The volume of water being driven into the coastal zone is constantly rising. Eberhards agrees with those who claim that if the volume of emissions in the atmosphere does not decrease, a sharp climatic turn will begin in 20 years. He predicts that in the future, the number of days with snow cover, which has already decreased by half a month over the last 40-50 years, will drop sharply; the depth of the snow cover will also decrease. As summer and autumn shift towards winter, the growing season will extend. In his view, the air temperature in the Baltic region could rise by 3-4 degrees over the next hundred years, and within 50-70 years, the Baltic Sea will no longer freeze over at all. With the coastal zone not freezing, the natural barrier to waves will disappear; they will be larger and stronger due to the warmer sea, thus increasing the threat of devastating floods. "Well, yes, I don't recommend a house on the coast – in Kaltene, Roja, Saulkrasti. It is quite clear that the purchaser's grandchildren will not live in that house, because global warming is happening. I am not so much interested in the causes," admits Eberhards, "but the fact that it is happening is a fact."
The article was first published in the March 2006 issue of the magazine "Rīgas Laiks"