Too Hot to Handle

            Bobby Stanford, like all his fellow freshmen at Stephen Decatur High School in Berlin, MD, could hardly wait until June 13, 2019, when he would be released from the drudgery of schoolwork and head for the beach and noon-to-dusk fun in the sun and on the waves of Ocean City.

The day after “serving his sentence” in the classroom he and his buddies hopped into the car driven by Joey Jasper, the newly-minted 17-year-old driver and automatic “leader of the pack,” and took off down Route 50 East from their Berlin, MD neighborhood.

After finding the ideal parking space, within easy jogging distance of the Inlet, they roared onto the beach and into the waves.

This crew didn’t waste their money or their time buying surfboards—bodysurfing was their sport of choice.

             They also realized a major part of any shore experience was basking in the sun so they could properly earn the badge of summer on the Eastern Shore—the fully-tanned body glow.

             So, they, like many of teenagers along both the eastern and western shores of the United States during the summer of 2019,  rolled out their blankets and beach towels and prepared to lather on the SPF and wait for nature to do its work. 

             Of course, a number of beach volleyball games also prevented lazy days in the sun from lapsing into boredom. All of this, accompanied by the full range of tunes blasting from I-pods and other high-tech devices, added to the action.

About noon Eastern Time, however, just as the sun rose to its ordinarily most enjoyable levels, an unusually bright and abnormal glow started coming from the sky.

           The Weather Channel forecast had predicted a temperature ranging from 80 to 85 on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and similar temperature ranges in the country’s other beach resorts. This was not unusually hot for mid-June in most shore areas on both the east and west coasts.              However, shortly after noon Eastern Time (and as early as 9 am Pacific Time) thermometers began to read 10, then 20, then 30 degrees or higher in every beach area across the United States..

          In fact, even in many normally cooler shore areas, beachgoers saw readings at least 20 degrees higher than “normal.”

          Beachcombers, who usually remained in the sun for three to five hours per day, suddenly were fleeing—hoping to find cooler—and safer places in which to spend their time.

         As merchants in every beach town tried to cope with the sudden decrease in peak lunchtime and early morning business, area hospitals began to report an unusual rise in the number of patients with critical sunburn cases coming into each to their emergency rooms.

        Television news bulletins across the country said the National Weather Service had proclaimed an emergency on all summer shore areas, and they warned everyone to spend no more than 30 minutes exposed to the unusually hot conditions.

       Scientists attributed the temperature rise to an unusual increase in heat emanating from the sun believed originating from “an extraordinary amount of particulate matter emanating from the earth due to a large ‘hole’ in the ozone layer caused by pollution generated by human endeavors.”

         The scientists predicted the danger would not subside for at least a week—and could possibly last for as much as a month.

        With the situation becoming more critical by the hour, officials looked for ways to remedy this danger to the health of shore populations and to the economic well-being of some of the most prosperous restaurants, hotels and amusement areas on both coasts.

         Scientists had never before seen such an incident arise without warning and without a sign of moderating for such a long stretch of time.

         They didn’t know, however, that some colleagues at a facility in Maryland not particularly noted for its climatology expertise might have the solution they sought.

         Researchers in NASA’s Goodard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD had been looking for a safe method of equipping future spacecraft for a possible launch to Mercury—the hottest planet in the solar system.

          They had developed a “super low temperature capsule,” which they possibly would launch into the atmosphere of Mercury prior to the launch of the Mercury probe. They hoped this would sufficiently cool the hottest planet in order to make space exploration there possible.

        Of course, the scientists didn’t believe this capsule had yet reached the point where they could use it to address the planet-wide problem on Mercury.

        However, when told about the crucial situation on the nation’s coasts, they decided to allow local and state officials to use the capsule to address the continuing danger in some of the top summer resorts around the nation.

        Besides, the emergency looked like the perfect testing ground for the Mercury concept.

        They launched a rocket from Goddard at 7 am Eastern Time on June 20, 2019. It ejected the low temperature capsule into the atmosphere, and this created sufficient cooling to reverse the super-heated effect of the sunspots.

        After about a week for businesses and beach facilities to adjust, things did return to normal.

        Back in Berlin, MD, Bobby, Joey and their “best buds” happily returned to the surf in Ocean City and wiled away the summer with swimming during the day and dancing to their favorite tunes until the wee hours of the morning every night.

        Fortunately, the Goddard scientists and their colleagues around the country permanently reversed the effect of the June, 2019 incident and it looked like the nation’s teenagers could enjoy their favorite water sports for many years to come.

      The teens from Decatur also decided they would major in science in college and devote their professional lives to both stemming the tide of manmade pollution which needlessly wrecked the summer of 2019 and to making the atmosphere of the galaxy safe for future generations.

      Of course, superheroes like the scientists at Goddard and the Maryland teens easily sprout in fiction, but miracles such as the one above only will take place in reality only when officials and scientists recognize the true causes of climate change and cooperate for the betterment of all.