Science matters
‘Hothouse Earth’? Richard Harwood looks at the impact of rising temperatures across the globe This title is one that is more appropriate to spectacular disaster movies – of which there have been several linked to the subject of climate change (most notoriously, in 2004 the dramatically inaccurate ‘The Day After Tomorrow’) – but the term ‘Hothouse Earth’ has been used in several contexts just recently to apply to the overall phenomena we are beginning to see worldwide. There has been a series of recent major newspaper articles using the term. These articles are prompted by immediate observable phenomena such as the extensive range of significantly elevated temperatures recorded across a wide geographical range – a daytime temperature of 33.1C within
the Arctic Circle, for instance! A prolonged period of dry, hot weather has produced a proliferation of forest fires in different regions, from California (where two fires merged recently to produce the largest recorded conflagration in the state) to Canada, Greece and Portugal, for instance. Considerable concern has been expressed in recent months regarding measurements of the retreat of the Arctic icecap, with graphical representations indicating a progressive decline in the extent of the sea ice. The figures shown below illustrate the decline up to September 2012, but subsequent data only serves to reinforce concern that the ice is in retreat.
In 2013 the Rim Fire burned more than 250,000 acres (1,000 km2) of forest near Yosemite National Park (US Department of Agriculture) Autumn |
Spring
38
| 2018
