Perhaps the first question that comes to your mind is: How? How could global warming threaten life on planet earth?
Global Warming Facts 1: Ice Melting at the North and South Poles
Global warming has a direct impact on the continued melting of ice at the north and south poles of the polar regions. The ice in Greenland has melted almost 19 million tons! And the volume of ice in the Arctic in the summer of 2007 was only half that of 4 years earlier!
The currently melting ice is running much faster than the forecast models ever invented by scientists. Some previously estimated early predictions have been made that the polar ice caps will disappear in the years 2040 to 2100. But annual ice data was recorded up to the year 2007 to reflect on previous predictive models.
By using the latest ice data and models, the prediction is more accurate, Dr. HJ Zwally, a NASA climate expert to make an amazing new prediction:
Almost all of the northern ice caps will be gone by the end of the summer of 2012!
Recently, a natural phenomenon again indicates how serious this condition is. On March 6, 2008, a chunk of ice covering 414 square kilometers (nearly 1.5 times the size of the city of Liverpool) collapsed in Antarctica.
According to the researchers; A large permanent slab ice floating about 1,000 miles south of South America, southwest of the Antarctic Peninsula. In fact, it is believed that there has been ice for 1500 years. “This is the result of global warming,” said lead researcher Ted Scambos (NSIDC). According to him, it is very rare for the ice block called the Wilkins Ice Shelf to collapse.
Now, after separation, the remaining ice only 1950 square kilometers, 5.6 kilometers plus the adjacent ice slab and connect the two islands. “A little longer, the last ice will drown and half of the total ice area would be gone in the next few years,” Scambos said.
“Some recent events are the trigger point for system change,” said Sarah Das, a researcher at the Woods Hole Marine Institute. The changes in Antarctica are more complicated and more isolated from the whole part of the world.
Antarctica at the South Pole is a continent with mountains and territorial ice-covered lakes that are surrounded by sea. This continent is much colder than the Arctic, very rarely does the ice melt there, there is still no layer that has melted in history. The average temperature is minus 49 degrees Celsius, but it never reached nearly minus 90 degrees Celsius in July 1983. Not surprisingly, the phenomenon of melting ice on the continent that contains nearly 90 percent of the world’s ice has serious attention from researchers.
Global Warming Facts 2: Rising Sea Surface Levels
The melting of ice at the north and south polar poles has a direct impact on sea level rise (the graph on the right shows the results of sea level measurements in recent years). Experts estimate that if all of Greenland melts, the sea level will rise up to 7 meters, enough to sink the entire world’s beach, harbor and lowlands.
Global Warming Facts 3: Climate Change/Increasingly Extreme Weather
NASA claims that the impact of global warming on the most extreme changes in climate or climate change on earth. Changes in rainfall patterns can be predicted without causing flooding in one place, but causing drought elsewhere. Typhoons and tropical storms will emerge with an increasingly strong trend.
Without strengthening NASA’s statement on the above, you can even see the effect on the environment around us. Do you realize how hot the temperature is around you lately? It can also be seen how the arrival of the rainy season or dry season cannot be predicted, which resulted in losses for farmers due to the planting season, which must be done in the dry but rainy season. You can also look at cases of extreme storms. In recent years, we have been affected more frequently by storms that disrupt transportation by sea or air.
Typhoons in Japan and the United States continue to break new records year after year. You can consult this information through the media and the Internet.
Global Warming Fact 4: Heat waves are getting more extreme
Global warming affects heat waves that become more frequent and more intense. The year 2007 is the year of the new temperature record reached by the usual heat wave that hits the United States.
St. George, Utah, held the highest record with the highest temperature reaching 48 degrees Celsius, Las-Vegas, Nevada reaching 47 degrees Celsius, and several other cities in the United States with an average temperature above 40 degrees Celsius, Death Valley in California, even reaching the record with a temperature of 53 degrees Celsius.
The heat wave attack even forced the government of several states to declare a state of emergency mode 1. This attack causes the death of some of the victims (due to the heat wave), the exit of hundreds of freshwater fish , damage to crops, triggering of a large forest fire and killing livestock.
In 2003, the region of southern Europe was also hit by a major heat wave that caused the death of no less than 35,000 people with the victims in most of France (14,802 inhabitants). France is the country with the highest number of fatalities due to the lack of preparation of residents and local governments for the phenomenon of heat wave attacks. Other casualties spread from England, Italy, Portugal, Spain and other European countries. This heat wave also caused severe droughts and crop failures that are prevalent in European regions.
Global Warming Fact 5: End of the Glacier: Source of Clean Water for the World
The melting of glaciers threatens the world’s water supply and in the long term will contribute to rising sea levels in the world, and sadly that is what has happened recently.
NASA notes that from 1960 to 2005, the number of glaciers in various parts of the world that lost no less than 8,000 cubic meters! NASA scientists have now realized that the melting of glaciers, the melting of ice at both poles of the earth, the global rise in land temperature, and the rise in sea water level are evidence that the planet Earth receives heat continuously and they assure that humans are responsible for all this. These are some facts about global warming, do you still have doubts that global warming is really happening?
