Just 7 of the many consequences of climate change in 2020…
The globe is heating up… And if 10 years ago we could find a lot of skepticism on this subject, nowadays the level of skepticism is falling down as the number on the thermometer is going up.
Earth’s surface, oceans, and atmosphere are gradually getting warmer since record-keeping began, in 1880.
And it’s happening as a result of increased human emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, which trap heat near the surface of Earth.
Maybe people didn’t know how to measure? Were those records taken 100 years ago very accurate, and as reliable as those taken today?
More than reliable…
Weather Bureau thermometers in the early 1900s were accurate to 0.1 degree and dew point temperatures were hand-calculated using ventilated wet-bulb readings.
Our electronic temperature sensors are considered accurate, but with a tolerance of plus or minus two degrees and automated dew points — plus or minus four degrees.
Today’s precipitation measuring automated systems use a tipping bucket rain gauge that is likely to give faulty readings when the wind is high or in time of heavy frozen precipitation. It doesn’t stand comparison with accurate 8-inch rain gauges which were in use in the 1900s.
Averaged as a whole, the global land and ocean surface temperature for March 2020 was 1.16°C above the 20th century average of 12.7°C and the second-highest in the 141-year record.
So numbers don’t lie…and our body sensors either…
As NASA put it “Claims that global warming is not occurring that are derived from a cooling observed over short time periods ignore natural variability and are misleading.”
Global warming becomes apparent from observations of both our atmosphere and ocean, which are closely linked pieces of the climate puzzle and it will have far-reaching, lasting, and devastating consequences for many places on our planet.
And what is so bad about the temperature being a little bit warmer? Not that many people enjoy freezing winters.
First of all, our planet is truly unique in its affluence of water.
We know well, that our body can’t go on without water too. It uses water in all its cells, organs, and tissues to help regulate temperature and maintain many other functions of the body.
Any deficit in normal body water and we feel thirsty and fatigued, may develop a mild headache, soon followed by grumpiness, mental and physical decline… As dehydration progresses muscle cramping gets worse and ongoing dehydration decreases kidney function. A human only lasts three to four days without water.
However, drinking too much water is not an option too, and leads to water intoxication. It means that the amount of salt and other electrolytes in our bodies become too diluted causing confusion, disorientation, nausea, and vomiting.
In rare cases, water intoxication can cause swelling in the brain and it might be fatal.
The human body is a complex system, but Earth, probably, even more, diversified.
Water is crucial to sustaining life on Earth and helps link together the lands, oceans, and atmosphere into a unified system.
The global water cycle — is a continuous movement of water within the Earth and atmosphere. It is a very complicated order that includes many different processes…
In that best scenario — the one that was planned by Mother Nature and before we decided to intervene — the mass of water on Earth remains quite constant over time but the segregated parts such as — water into the major reservoirs of ice, fresh water, saline water, and atmospheric water is fluctuating and depends on a wide range of climatic variables.
And with a warmer Earth, we experience how this water cycle speeds up making the exchange of water between the oceans, atmosphere, and land faster and faster. The higher the temperature the more evaporation, and as a result soils dry out faster. More water in the atmosphere — more rain or snow somewhere else.
We experience flooding, soil erosion and increased evaporation has led to drought in some areas whereas the heavy rains fell elsewhere.
The ecosystems are also reacting to warming and greening in spring and summer starts up to eight days earlier, and vegetation continues to photosynthesize an estimated four days longer.
What else?
1) The researchers believe that if emissions continue on the current path then the world’s seas could rise as much as 238cm by 2100.
When sea levels rise as rapidly as they do now it causes devastating effects on coastal habitats, causes destructive erosion, wetland flooding, aquifer, and agricultural soil contamination with salt; fish, birds, and plants also die, losing their habitat.
“At the beginning of the last century, sea level was rising by less than 1 millimeter per year; in the mid-century it was 2 millimeters per year and now it’s 3 millimeters per year. This is directly caused by the increasing temperature of the planet,” explains Willis a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The sea level has risen 10 to 25 cm over the last 100 years, :
- water expands when heated,
- glaciers are melting worldwide.
Data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 286 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 127 billion tons of ice per year during the same time period. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade.
2) The ocean has been absorbing more than 80% of the heat added to the climate system, provoking seawater to expand and contribute to sea-level rise. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the upper layer of the oceans is increasing by about 2 billion tons per year and the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
3) Previously frozen soils (permafrost) in Alaska and Siberia are also melting thus causing damage to ecosystems and infrastructure. Average arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years.
Moreover, melting and tundra warming causes decay of organic matter and the release of trapped carbon and methane… And it’s a huge additional source of greenhouse gases…on top of what we are already contributing by our activities.
4) Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and that the snow is melting earlier.
5) Higher death rates.
6) Dirtier air.
7) Higher wildlife extinction rates.
And who knows what else we might discover in the coming years…
Josh Willis, explains “Big volcanic eruptions, for instance, can cause cooling that lasts for several years. When a volcano erupts, it blasts dust into the upper atmosphere where it reflects sunlight and cools the planet, a bit like a natural umbrella.”
Should we hope for more volcanic eruptions to cool the Earth down?…
And… if our greenhouse gas emissions continue at their present levels with little to no reduction our planet might get warmer by about 4° C by the end of the 21st century.
Scientists are advancing in understanding the nuances of Earth’s climate, but the link between carbon emissions, global warming, and sea-level rise over the past century is very clear to them.
Even if our global carbon emissions began to fall tomorrow and by very much, Earth would continue to warm up for some time because of the inertia of the climate system.
And as extreme heat makes landscapes dry, nature is more prone to fire. Research shows that rising heat due to climate change has caused an increase in fires around the globe…
The impacts of the heat threaten our health by affecting the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the weather we experience…
Impacts will differ based on where a person lives, sensitivity to health threats, how much a person is exposed to climate change impacts, and how well they and their community are able to adapt to change.
But this is another subject for discussion in the next article and video.
Sources:
-The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
-Weather Bureau
Written by Helena Maksyom 27.09.2020, lenkamaxem@gmail.com
