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5 Signs that Climate Change Needs to Become a Priority for Everyone
Rising temperatures, wild weather, and rising sea levels are only a few of the signs that climate change is a reality that needs to be addressed.
From my column at the Washington Times Communities:
WASHINGTON DC, December 11, 2012- Even though certain researchers and commentators suggest that there is little scientific evidence of climate change or the threat posed by greenhouse gasses, a large part of the scientific community, as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have agreed that certain facts about climate change are not in dispute. Some estimates found that since 1991, less that .17% of peer reviewed scientific articles reject global warming.
Climate change is becoming increasingly difficult to deny for even the staunchest of disbelievers, in part because of the definitive signs that are all around us:
1. Rising temperatures
Global Temperature Graph by Global Warming Art
According to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, since 1880 average temperatures around the globe have increased by 1.4°F (.8°C). What’s worse, the rate of warming has increased since the 1970s with 20 of the warmest years occurring since 1981, and 10 since 2000.
The evidence of rising surface temperatures has never been more evident. As of September of this year, ClimateCentral.org reported that “28,000 daily high-temperature records broken or tied” around the US. This was before the unseasonably mild temperatures that many of us have experienced in the past few weeks. NOAA has a page that tallies recent record totals and is updated daily.
At the same time, since 1950, the number of record low temperatures has been decreasing in the U.S. since 1950, according to NOAA.
2. Rising Sea Levels
Source: NASA Earth Observatory
According to NASA, the global seal level has risen 6.7 inches (17 centimeters) in the past 100 years. However, in the last decade, the rate of sea level rise has nearly doubled. Several studies estimate that 10% of the world’s population (around 630 million people) live in low- lying areas less than 30 feet above sea level, and could be threatened if sea levels continue to rise.
According to Cynthia Rosenzweig and William Solecki, co-chairmen of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, “Over the past 100 years, data from the tide gauge at the Battery in Lower Manhattan reveal that the region has already experienced close to a foot (9 to 10 inches) of sea level rise.” Even a few inches of sea level rise can have catastrophic effects for cities that were not built with the possibility of monster storms and coastal flooding in mind, as was all too obvious for millions of us in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
3. Melting Ice
Source: NSIDC
Ice is melting everywhere, from shrinking ice sheets to declining Arctic sea ice to retreating glaciers. Ice sheets from Greenland to Antarctica have been shrinking dramatically. NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment found that between 2002 and 2005, Antarctica lost about 36 cubic miles (152 cubic kilometers) of ice per year. Similarly between 2002 and 2006, Greenland lost 36 to 60 cubic miles (150 to 250 cubic kilometers) per year.
During the last few decades, Arctic sea ice has shrunk both in size and thickness. Based on satellite data, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) found that Arctic sea ice has declined at a rate of 3 to 4% every decade since 1979. There is also evidence that glaciers are retreating around the globe in Africa, Alaska, the Andes, the Himalayas, the Alps, and the Rockies.
4. Changing Oceans
Source: NASA GISS
Climate change threatens the world’s oceans in two major ways: warming ocean temperatures and increased acidity of surface ocean waters. Since 1969, according to NASA, the top 2,300 feet of ocean has warmed by 0.302°F. According to marine researchers at Southampton and Plymouth Universities in the UK, even a small change in the ocean’s temperature can threaten marine life and accelerate climate change.
Ocean acidification is a product of CO2 being absorbed into seawater, and has a strong negative impact on calcifying species like coral, oysters, clams, sea urchins, and plankton, which in turn are a vital link in the delicate balance of the oceans’ food chain. According to NOAA, the world’s oceans have experienced a 30% increase in acidity since the Industrial Revolution.
5. CO2 Concentration
Source: NOAA
CO2 is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas. Even though natural processes like breathing and volcanic eruptions produce CO2, human processes like deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels also release CO2 into the atmosphere. Even though a certain level of CO2 in the atmosphere is inevitable, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased dramatically over the past 60 years. From measurements obtained from ice cores, NASA and NOAA have determined that in the last 400,000 years, the highest historical levels of CO2 in the atmosphere never went above 300 ppm—before 1950. Since the 1950, the record 300 ppm was surpassed and CO2 levels in the atmosphere have risen steadily to the most recent measurement of 395.01 ppm in November of 2012.
Related articles
- The Threat to Small Island States (robertkyriakides.wordpress.com)
- IPCC Predictions: Then Versus Now (climatecentral.org)
- Why sea level is rising faster than predicted (earthsky.org)
- Oceans rising 60 percent faster than predicted (climateandcapitalism.com)
lasesana 
There are so many one sided and chosen false hoods here it beggars belief.
Cutting down trees in carbon neutral, in that the carbon units locked away during their growth, plant more trees and the cycle evens itself out once again. What is lost is the life which exists upon the trees themselves.
The oceans are being damaged by a plethora of pollutants, other than Co2, plastics and their contents by the billions of tons which float en-mass in the gyres, blocking out the life giving sunlight in the upper layers, the list of the nasties belches out from every artery.
Here in the North East UK we have been taking daily weather temp recordings manually via a correctly sited Stevenson Screen for over 30 years, and the result is a cooling model, for the last ten years more so, last night gave a minus 10 in Scotland, and central Europe are already witnessing record colder weather patterns.
For anyone who cares to resrarch, one will eee that it is water vapour and cloud cover that regulates surface temps, during the time the planes were grounded after 911, the mean temp in the downtime in the recording areas rose by almost a degree. Plane trails are creating more cloud cover every day compared to when the global AGW con began.
Do some homework please.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. While I agree that cutting down trees does not produce more CO2, I disagree with your assertion that planting more trees will “even the cycle.” Cutting down trees does not produce CO2, but it does reduce the amount of CO2 that gets converted into O2 through photosynthesis. When you plant a sapling or seed to replace a tree that you have cut down, that sapling or seed will take years and even decades to be able to photosynthesize the same amount of CO2 that the tree that was cut down did.
I also agree that the oceans are being polluted by a plethora of pollutants, but it is a scientific fact that CO2, when swallowed by the oceans’ surface acidifies said water. It is also a fact that a higher level of acid in the ocean kills calcifying species. At no point did I deny that the oceans are being threatened by other pollutants, but since this article is about climate change and not pollution, I kept the threat to the oceans to what is a result of more CO2 in the atmosphere.
Even though I do not doubt the accuracy of your manual temperature readings, I’m going to stick with NASA and NOAA’s digital and satellite measurements- and they state that global surface temperatures are rising. Take a look: http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators/. The second graph in the page shows readings from the 1880s to today.
I
On the point about cutting down trees, if the timber is coverted into furniture, the carbon sync is locked away for and in many cases, several hundreds of years.
The greater levels of Co2 coming from rotting vedgitation is the key factor here not mankind. As he diminishes the major producets of cyclical seasonal greenery, he also lowers the greater levels of Co2.
Study the Japanese reforedtation model of late, theynow have well over 70% replanted.
most of thecontrolling factors needless pollution could be averted if we simply stopped globalism and voted back in a self pelf model of manufacture, this alone would reset esrth time and in time a more sustsinable and peaceful paradigm for our whole.
Trouble is man, is evolving far quivker than the mother of all, the pockets and the pelf imortal is nowshowing signs, that the fat controllers are loosing overall control outside of nature, but will try to halt this model by destroying slave like, half of the energy doing so.
And doing it this way the majority will always fail to watch ovrr yhe remaining slaves in what will once again prove fruitless in the fullness of time.