Question
Hello Gramps,
A few weeks ago I read that 1/3 of the ice at north pole had disappeared since the seventies (1970’s). This year we have experienced very warm weather, so far with no snow at all here in Denmark. This is very unusual. Could this be one of the signs of the times? If I remember it correctly the Lord says somewhere in Doctrine and Covenants that he would change the weather as well. Do you have any information on this issue? Regards
John
Answer
Dear John,
You are probably referring to the scripture found in Doctrine & Covenants 88:89-91
For after your testimony cometh the testimony of earthquakes, that shall cause groanings in the midst of her, and men shall fall upon the ground and shall not be able to stand.
And also cometh the testimony of the voice of thunderings, and the voice of lightnings, and the voice of tempests, and the voice of the waves of the sea heaving themselves beyond their bounds.
And all things shall be in commotion; and surely, men’s hearts shall fail them; for fear shall come upon all people. There is no doubt that we are living in the period called “the fullness of times,” in which the judgements spoken of above are coming to pass.
President Gordon B. Hinckley, in “Living in the Fulness of Times,” Ensign, November 2001, p.4, said,
“The era in which we live is the fulness of times spoken of in the scriptures, when God has brought together all of the elements of previous dispensations. From the day that He and His Beloved Son manifested themselves to the boy Joseph, there has been a tremendous cascade of enlightenment poured out upon the world. The hearts of men have turned to their fathers in fulfillment of the words of Malachi. The vision of Joel has been fulfilled wherein he declared:
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call (Joel 2:28-32).
“There has been more of scientific discovery during these years than during all of the previous history of mankind. Transportation, communication, medicine, public hygiene, the unlocking of the atom, the miracle of the computer, with all of its ramifications, have blossomed forth, particularly in our own era. During my own lifetime, I have witnessed miracle after wondrous miracle come to pass.”
We have seen in our day record-breaking extremes of weather and disastrous natural phenomena, including the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that spawned tsunamis that killed 229,866 people. The hurricane Katrina that nearly destroyed New Orleans on August 29, 2005, has been called one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history.
The Krakatau volcano that erupted in 1883, was one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recent times. Since that disaster happened shortly before some of the older ones of us were born, here are some highlights of the effects of that disaster—:
1. The explosions were heard on Rodriguez Island, 4653 km distant across the Indian Ocean, and over 1/13th of the earth’s surface.
2. Ash fell on Singapore 840 km to the N, Cocos (Keeling) Island 1155 km to the SW, and ships as far as 6076 km WNW. Darkness covered the Sunda Straits from 11 a.m. on the 27th until dawn the next day.
3. Giant waves reached heights of 40 m above sea level, devastating everything in their path and hurling ashore coral blocks weighing as much as 600 tons.
4. At least 36,417 people were killed, most by the giant sea waves, and 165 coastal villages were destroyed.
5. When the eruption ended only 1/3 of Krakatau, formerly 5×9 km, remained above sea level, and new islands of steaming pumice and ash lay to the north where the sea had been 36 m deep.
6. Every recording barograph in the world documented the passage of the airwave, some as many as 7 times as the wave bounced back and forth between the eruption site and its antipodes for 5 days after the explosion.
7. Tide gauges also recorded the sea wave’s passage far from Krakatau. The wave reached Aden in 12 hours, a distance of 3800 nautical miles, usually traversed by a good steamer in 12 days.
8. Blue and green suns were observed as fine ash and aerosol, erupted perhaps 50 km into the stratosphere, circled the equator in 13 days.
9. Three months after the eruption these products had spread to higher latitudes causing such vivid red sunset afterglows that fire engines were called out in New York, Poughkeepsie, and New Haven to quench the apparent conflagration. Unusual sunsets continued for 3 years.
10. Rafts of floating pumice-locally thick enough to support men, trees, and no doubt other biological passengers-crossed the Indian Ocean in 10 months. Others reached Melanesia, and were still afloat two years after the eruption.
11. The volcanic dust veil that created such spectacular atmospheric effects also acted as a solar radiation filter, lowering global temperatures as much as 1.2 degree C in the year after the eruption. Temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.
The effects of the global warming that you refer to will undoubtedly have major and long-lasting effects on world climate. However, let me interject here a note of caution about the purported reason for this current global warming effect. Global warming is attributed to the increase in the atmosphere of the emission gas, CO2–carbon dioxide. CO2 is a product of all combustion, and the finger of the cause of the current warming trend is pointed specifically at industrial and automotive emissions. The CO2 in the upper layers of the atmosphere is said to reflect back to the surface of the earth the heat radiated away from it. Radiant heat from the earth is in the infrared portion of the optical spectrum. Here is the point– the irradiance from the sun toward the earth is many times greater in the same wavelength range than the radiation from the earth that is reflected back by the CO2 layer. Therefore, the reflection of heat from the sun back into space by that layer should be many times greater than the reflection of heat radiated from the earth back to the earth’s surface. Thus, the greenhouse gasses should produce a cooling effect rather than a warming effect on the earth’s surface. The fact is that we are having a global warming effect, but it has some other cause than an increase in the “greenhouse” gasses.
So I believe, since we are in the period of the fulness of times, that the extraordinary weather events and climatic changes are indeed signs of the times. The have been foretold by prophets and they are occurring.
Gramps
