OUR WARMING WORLD
TABEL OF CONTENT Our Warming World
43% 6 1.53°C 95%
Increase in Co2 within the Last 50 Years
Global Warming and Climate Changing
6
How Much Has the Global Temperature Risen since 1880 ?
Humans and Global Warming
82.4% 25% -13.4%
4
8
10
Global Warming Heats Up the Ocean
12
Earth Will Have Lost 25% of Its Present Number of Species by 2050
2-4 150,000
Arctic Sea Ice Change
Sea Levels Will Rise by 2100
16
18
Islands Losing a Way of Life to Global Warming
20
14
43
%
Increase in Co2 within the Last 50 Years Global warming is caused by the emission of greenhouse gases. 72% of the totally emitted greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide (Co2), 18% Methane and 9% Nitrous oxide (Nox). Carbon dioxide emissions therefore are the most important cause of global warming.
Carbon dioxide is inevitably created by burning fuels like e.g. oil, natural gas, diesel, organic-diesel, petrol, organic-petrol, ethanol. The emissions of carbon dioxide have been dramatically increased within the last 50 years and are still increasing by almost 43%. The carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere where it remains for 100 to 200 years. This leads to an increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (see above on
the right hand side), which in turn causes the average temperature on Earth to raise (see graph below). As a result of the above mentioned findings, there seems to be a consensus among the leading developed countries that the temperature increase caused by global warming must not exceed 2° C (3.6° F). For example the European Union (EU) has committed itself to this threshold already in 2005.
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6 No.06
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main g reenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, plus three fluorinated industrial gases: hydrofluorocarbons, per fluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride. Water vapor is also considered a greenhouse gas.
Global Warming and Climate Change The climate is changing. The earth is warming up, and there is now overwhelming scientific consensus that it is happening, and human-induced. With global warming on the increase and species and their habitats on the decrease, chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally are diminishing. Many are agreed that climate change may be one of the greatest threats facing the planet. Recent years show increasing temperatures in various regions, and/or increasing extremities in weather patterns. This section looks at what causes climate change, what the impacts are and where scientific consensus currently is. Global warming and climate change refer to an increase in average global temperatures. Natural events and human activities are believed to be contributing to an increase in average global temperatures. This is caused primarily by increases in “greenhouse” gases such as Carbon Dioxide. A warming planet thus leads to a change in climate which can affect weather in various ways, as discussed further below.
As explained by the US agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there are 7 indicators that would be expected to increase in a warming world (and they are), and 3 indicators would be expected to decrease. The term greenhouse is used in conjunction with the phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect.Energy from the sun drives the earth’s weather and climate, and heats the earth’s surface. In turn, the earth radiates energy back into space. Some atmospheric gases (water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases) trap some of the outgoing energy, retaining heat somewhat like the glass panels of a greenhouse. These gases are therefore known as greenhouse gases. The greenhouse effect is the rise in temperature on Earth as certain gases in the atmosphere trap energy.
Greenhouse Gases
Top: Climate change the layer of ice mountain.
Burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas releases greenhouses gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These gases trap heat in the atmosphere that was on its way out to space, causing Earth’s greenhouse effect to grow more intense, warming the climate. The global surface temperature is based on air temperature data over land and sea-surface temperatures observed from ships, buoys and satellites. Global average temperature is one of the most-cited indicators of global climate change.
The gases that help capture the heat, called “greenhouse gases,” include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and a variety of manufactured chemicals. Some are emitted from natural sources; others are anthropogenic, resulting from human activities. Many greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and nitrous oxide, while others are synthetic. Those that are man-made include the chlorofluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons and Perfluorocarbons.
HOW MUCH HAS THE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE RISEN SINCE 1880?
1.53
°C
The
time series below shows the five-year average variation of global surface temperatures from 1884 to 2015. Dark blue indicates areas cooler than average. Dark red indicates areas warmer than average. Averaged over all land and ocean surfaces, temperatures warmed roughly 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit (0.85 degrees Celsius) from 1880 to 2012, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (see page 3 of the 2013 summary report). Because oceans tend to warm and cool more slowly than land areas, continents have warmed the most. In the Northern Hemisphere, where most of Earth’s land mass is located, the three decades from 1983 to 2012 were likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1,400 years, according to the IPCC.
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scientific certainty that humans are to blame for global warming
95%
Scientists have concluded that most of the observed warming is very likely due to the burning of coal, oil, and gas. This conclusion is based on a detailed understanding of the atmospheric greenhouse effect and how human activities have been tweaking it.
Humans and Global Warming
Top: The pollution of factory
T
he atmospheric greenhouse effect naturally keeps our planet warm enough to be livable. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere. Light-colored surfaces, such as clouds or ice caps, radiate some heat back into space. But most of the incoming heat warms the planet’s surface. The Earth then radiates some heat back into the atmosphere. Some of that heat is trapped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide. Human activity--such as burning fossil fuels--causes more greenhouse gases to build up in the atmosphere. As the atmosphere “thickens” with more greenhouse gases, more heat is held in. Fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas are high in carbon and, when burned, produce major amounts of carbon dioxide orcarbon dioxide. A single gallon of gasoline, when burned, puts 19 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The role of atmospheric carbon dioxide in warming the Earth’s surface was first demonstrated by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius more than 100 years ago. Scientific data have since established that, for hundreds of thousands of years, changes in temperature have closely tracked with atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Since the Industrial Revolution, the burning of coal, oil and natural gas has emitted roughly 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide, about half of which remains in the atmosphere. This carbon dioxide is the biggest factor responsible for recent warming trends.
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Temperature and Ocean Inspired by the elegant methods of Information is Beautiful, here is a data depiction of how much global warming is going into the various components of our climate system. 82.4 percent heat goes into the ocean and 2.3 percent heat goes into the atmosphere. It’s no surprise that climate change is raising summer temperatures in many parts of the globe, but what you might not know is where most of that extra heat is going. Scientists estimate that as much as 90% of it is hading straight into our oceans, and that has major consequences not only for marine wildlife but for the world’s economy.The average surface temperature around the world has increased by roughly 1.08
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degrees Fahrenheit over the last 40 years, but that number would be a lot larger if it weren’t for the oceans. “To date, the oceans have essentially been the planet’s refrigerator and carbon dioxide storage locker,” Hans-Otto Pörtner, who is a researcher at the Alref Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centra for Polar and Marine Research, told ScienceDaily. “For instance, since the 1970s they’ve absorbed roughly 93% of the additional heat produced by the greenhouse effect, greatly helping to slow the warming of our planet.”
82.4% The recent discussion on heat content got me thinking about an alternative way to communicate where all the heat content from global warming is going.
GLOBAL WARMING HEATS UP THE OCEAN
25 %
Earth will have lost 25% of its present number of species by 2050 Animals are going extinct due to a variety of human caused disturbances, including global warming. At the current rate of extinction, Earth will have lost 25% of its present number of species by 2050. Species with limited climatic ranges small populations are the most vulnerable to extinction.
Animal responses vary greatly between species, but climatic changes lead to disruption of biotic interactions, such as predator/prey interactions, and changes to ecosystem composition and functioning. Habitat fragmentation and loss, competition from invasive species, natural disturbances, pollution and other human induced issues have already been stressing animal populations and are expected to increase and compound with climate change factors. The projected increase in temperatures over the next centuries is expected to lead to mass extinctions and have drastic, irreversible effects on biodiversity and ecosystems. Climate change can affect individual organisms, populations, species distributions, and ecosystem function and composition both directly and indirectly.While the long term impacts and existing trends still need more research, and may not always link directly to climate change, climatic changes are affecting all of the physical and biological systems on the planet. Biodiversity is short for biological diversity, the term biodiversity describes the richness and complexity of life on Earth. Scientist refers to both the number of living species and the number of different genes in those species’ gene pools (Sierra Club, 2008). The composition of most ecosystems is likely to change as species migrate at different rates and are affected differently by climatic changes, and by changes in vegetation and ground cove. Species are unlikely to shift together, creating imbalanced ecosystems and allowing new, invasive species to move in. A loss of biodiversity has been, or is projected to occur as a result of climatic factors. For every degree Celsius increase that the globe undergoes, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has two scenarios that project a variety of large scale changes to ecosystems over the next centuries.
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Arctic Sea Ice Change Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum each September. September Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 13.4 percent per decade, relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. This graph shows the average monthly Arctic sea ice extent in September since 1979, derived from satellite observations. Arctic sea ice extent for February averaged 14.22 million square kilometers (5.48 million square miles), the lowest February extent in the satellite record. It is 1.16 million square kilometers (448,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 long-term average of 15.4 million square kilometers (5.94 million square miles) and is 200,000 square kilometers (77,000 square miles) below the previous record low for the month recorded in 2005. The first three weeks of February saw little ice growth, but extent rose during the last week of the month primarily due to growth in the Sea of Okhotsk (180,000 square kilometers or 70,000 square miles) and to a lesser extent in Baffin Bay (35,000 square kilometers or 13,500 square miles). Extent is presently below average in the Barents and Kara seas, as well as the Bering Sea and the East Greenland Sea. Extent decreased in the
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Barents and East Greenland seas during the month of February. In other regions, such as the Sea of Okhotsk, Baffin Bay, and the Labrador Sea, ice conditions are near average to slightly above average for this time of year. An exception is the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which remains largely ice free. In the Antarctic, sea ice reached its minimum extent for the year on February 19, averaging 2.6 million square kilometers (1 million square miles). It is the ninth lowest Antarctic sea ice minimum extent in the satellite record.
“Arctic sea ice was at a satellite-record low for the second month in a row. Arctic sea ice typically reaches its maximum extent for the year in mid to late March.�
-13.4% per decade
Global sea level has risen by about 8 inches since reliable record keeping began in 1880. It is projected to rise another 2 to 4 feet by 2100. This is the result of added water from melting land ice and the expansion of seawater as it warms.
2-4 FEET
Sea Levels Will Rise by 2100 In the next several decades, storm surges and high tides could combine with sea level rise and land subsidence to further increase flooding in many of these regions. Sea level rise will not stop in 2100 because the oceans take a very long time to respond to warmer conditions at tahe Earth’s surface. Ocean waters will therefore continue to warm and sea level will continue to rise for many centuries at rates equal to or higher than that of the current century. Sea level rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming: the added water from melting land ice and the expansion of sea water as it warms. The first chart tracks the change in sea level since 1993 as observed by satellites. When sea levels rise rapidly, as they have been doing, even a small increase can have devastating effects on coastal habitats. As seawater reaches farther
inland, it can cause destructive erosion, flooding of wetlands, contamination of aquifers and agricultural soils, and lost habitat for fish, birds, and plants. In addition, hundreds of millions of people live in areas that will become increasingly vulnerable to flooding. Higher sea levels would force them to abandon their homes and relocate. Low-lying islands could be submerged completely. Most predictions say the warming of the planet will continue and likely will accelerate. Oceans will likely continue to rise as well, but predicting the amount is an inexact science. A recent study says we can expect the oceans to rise between 2.5 and 6.5 feet (0.8 and 2 meters) by 2100, enough to swamp many of the cities along the U.S. East Coast. More dire estimates, including a complete meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet, push sea level rise to 23 feet (7 meters), enough to submerge London.
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Over 150,000 people living on the low-lying atolls of Kiribati and the Marshall Islands are threatened by rising sea levels and as flooding becomes more common, relocation is the only option left.
Islands Losing a Way of Life to Global Warming EBEYE, MARSHALL ISLANDS — Linber Anej waded out in low tide to haul concrete chunks and metal scraps to shore and rebuild the makeshift sea wall in front of his home. The temporary barrier is no match for the rising seas that regularly flood the shacks and muddy streets with saltwater and raw sewage, but every day except Sunday, Mr. Anej joins a group of men and boys to haul the flotsam back into place. “It’s insane, I know,” said Mr. Anej, 30, who lives with his family of 13, including his parents, siblings and children, in a four-room house. “But it’s the only option we’ve got.”Standing near his house at the edge of a densely packed slum of tin shacks, he said, “I feel like we’re living underwater.” Worlds away, in plush hotel conference rooms in Paris, London, New York and Washington, Tony A. deBrum, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, tells the stories of men like Mr. Anej to convey to more powerful policy makers the peril facing his island nation in the Pacific as sea levels rise — and to shape the legal and financial terms of a major United Nations climate change accord now being negotiated in Paris.
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150,000 PEOPLE
INDEX Our Warming World
A
B
C
D
E
Atmospher
Barents
Carbon Dioxide
Decades
4,7,9,13,16,19
17
4,5,7,9,11,16,20
8,10,11
7,18
Arctic
Biodiversity
Countries
Diesel
Ecosystem
5,6,8,12,14
3,15
10,13,14
5,7
11,13,16
Earth’s Surface
Arctic Sea
Celsius
Ethanol
9,13
8,11,16,19
6,7,8,9
Animals
Centuries
Earth
14,17,18
4,7,20
11
Climate Change
Extinction
6
10,14,17,18,19
F
H
I
G
K
February
Heats
Ice
Greenhouse
Kara
14,15,18
12
5,6,7,8,9,11,18
6,7,8
15
Fahrenheit
Hydro Fluorocarbons
Islands
Graph
Kiribati
4,8
4,16
19,20
5,7
12
Gas
Kilometers 5
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L
M
N
O
P
Labrador Sea
Maximum
Nitrous Oxide
Ocean
Planet
10,11
5,7,9,14,16
5,7,9,14,16
8,18,19
Lawrence
Methane
Natural Gas
Organic-diesel
Paris
4,5,6,7,8,9
8,10,11
8,10,11
12,15,16
11
Okhotsk 19
Per Fluorocarbons 6,9,11
Organisms
Panel
5
4,7,20
Oil 4,6,7,9,11,15
S
T
V
W
species
Temperature
Vapor
Water
14,15,18
5,6,7,11,20
11,12
4,6,7,8,13,15
Scenarios
Threatened
Vegetation
Wildlife
4,8
10
7
9,10,15
Storm 15,17 Seawater 18,20
Our Warming World
12,14,15