ENVIRONMENT - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
Global warming, in capsule form |
|
by David Roberts Grist Magazine Entered into the database on Friday, October 21st, 2005 @ 18:50:07 MST |
|
In the midst of a long post on Montana
Gov. Brian Schweitzer's coal-to-liquid-fuel plans, Oil Drummer Stuart
Staniford provides a handy one-paragraph-long roundup of evidence on global
warming. The next time someone you know asks about it, just cut and paste this
paragraph and send it to them. Warming cliff notes! [W]e are reaching the point where we can see that we are starting to make massive,
probably irreversible, changes to our climate. The glaciers
are in full retreat almost everywhere, the Arctic
is melting (with total melting of the summer sea ice possible, though not
certain, as
early as 2020), the permafrost
is melting, and releasing large amounts of methane, which is a very
powerful global warming gas, while in the last thirty years, droughts
have doubled due to warming, hurricanes are much
more intense all over the globe, and are showing up in places they never
did before in recorded history. Scientists have been projecting
changes in ocean circulation, and lo-and-behold, they
are starting to show up, including changes
to the North Atlantic Circulation, although major change here was previously
thought unlikely this century. There is some possibility of changes in deepwater
circulation destabilizing methane
hydrates in the ocean, particularly in South
East Asian deeps. Oh, and the Greenland ice sheet is now melting
much faster than climatologists expected, and the West Antarctic ice sheet
is starting to collapse,
though again, this
was previously thought unlikely. Also paleoclimatological studies have made
it clear that in the past the climate abruptly
flipped between modes, sometimes with dramatic change in as
little as three years. And we are making rapid
changes in carbon dioxide, known to be critically important in regulating
the temperature of this sensitive climatic system for a
century now. As he says, "maybe there's some scientific doubt still on any individual
piece of the picture, but the gestalt is starting to look extremely alarming."
Yes |