reverses, zonality is disturbed and the Indian monsoon tends to be drier than 

 usual. Under these conditions, the circumpolar flow becomes persistently 

 meridional as a result of a predisposition to blocking and splitting of the 

 jet. (Authors) . 



282 RAMANATHAN, V. 1988. "The Greenhouse Theory of Climate Change: A 

 Test by an Inadvertent Global Experiment," Science . Vol 240, pp 293-299. 



Since the dawn of the industrial era, the atmospheric concentrations of 

 several radiatively active gases have been increasing as a result of human 

 activities. The radiative heating from this inadvertent experiment has driven 

 the climate system out of equilibrium with the incoming solar energy. 

 According to the greenhouse theory of climate change, the climate system will 

 be restored to equilibrium by a warming of the surface troposphere system and 

 a cooling of the stratosphere. The predicted changes, during the next few 

 decades, could far exceed natural climate variations in historical times. 

 Hence, the greenhouse theory of climate change has reached the crucial stage 

 of verification. Surface warming as large as that predicted by models would 

 be unprecedented during an interglacial period such as the present. The 

 theory, its scope for verification, and the emerging complexities of the 

 climate feedback mechanisms are discussed. (Author). 



283 RAMPINO, M. R. , and SANDERS, J. E. 1980. "Holocene Transgression in 

 South-Central Long Island, New York," Journal of Sedimentary Petrology . 



Vol 50, No. 4, pp 1063-1080. 



The Holocene history of south-central Long Island and the adjacent inner 

 continental shelf, as recorded in the stratigraphy of transgressive deposits, 

 was studied, using information obtained from more than 400 boreholes, cores 

 and marsh probings in the barrier and backbarrier areas and vibracores and 

 numerous seismic-reflections and bathymetric profiles on the inner shelf. 



A sequence of deposits which records the Flandrian transgression is preserved 

 in the backbarrier areas of south-central Long Island. The vertical sequence 

 of these transgressive deposits was produced by the movement of successive 

 environments of coastal deposition landward and upward with the rising sea. 

 The vertical sequence is as follows reading from bottom to top: the buried 

 Pleistocene surface, brackish to salt-marsh peat, open-lagoonal silty clays, 

 backbarrier sands, backbarrier-fringe salt-marsh peat, and barrier island 

 sands. The entire transgressive sequence forms a lens -shaped deposit. In 

 going seaward from the mainland shore to the barriers, the sequence thickens 

 from to 10 m; seaward of the barriers the sequence becomes thin again. In 

 places beneath the barrier islands, the transgressive sequence has been 

 completely reworked by the lateral migration of tidal inlets. 



Radiocarbon dating of basal peat and organic silty clays has provided a 

 chronology of relative sea-level rise on the southern Long Island coast for 

 the past 8000 years. Relative sea- level on the Long Island coast is inter- 

 preted to have been rising at about 2.5 mm-year' between 7,000 and 3,000 year 

 B.P. and slowed markedly to about 1 mm-year'' during their last 3,000 years. 

 Prior to 7,000 year B.P. the rate of submergence may have been as high as 

 5 mm-year'. 



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