Authorities to announce climate culprit
Glacier Bay, Alaska photo courtesy of Tostie14.
Global warming: is it us?
This Friday, February 2 – in Paris – scientists from around the world will release a report that assesses signs of global warming and takes a stand on whether it’s man or nature who holds the smoking gun.
Early talk of the report indicates that there’s little doubt left. Earth is getting warmer. We humans are the chief culprit.
Over 800 scientists from more than 130 different countries are working together on this up–to–date picture of scientific understanding of climate change. They are working under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) headed by the United Nations. The IPCC calls its report a “comprehensive and rigorous picture” of the climate change situation.
Scientists and experts working on the report are divided into three groups, each looking separately at the causes, the impacts, and the mitigation of climate change.
Results will be announced on Friday from Working Group I of the IPCC, which looked at the causes of climate change. This group examined evidence of Earth’s changing climate in the atmosphere, the oceans, the polar regions and the tropics. There’s prior evidence for change in all of these places. For example, in 2005, scientists reported that the Arctic might be ice–free during the summer within 100 years, a condition it hasn’t reached in over a million years. Glaciers have retreated all over the world, and scientists just last week announced that ice and snow in the Swiss Alps will all but disappear by 2050.
The melting of terrestrial ice contributes to rising sea level. According to preliminary information, the IPCC is expected to report on Friday that sea level will rise from five to 23 inches – while the average global temperatures rises some 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit – by 2100. In contrast, a study announced earlier this month in the journal Science put the sea level rise number much higher, between 20 to 55 inches by 2100. A dramatic rise in sea level has the potential to radically alter coastlines and inundate thousands of islands.
The mechanism causing the change has become familiar. Earth’s atmosphere acts like a greenhouse, trapping heat from the sun and providing a warm place for life as we know it to thrive. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, come naturally from volcanoes and plant decomposition. Humans add to these greenhouse gases mainly through the burning of fossil fuels and through land use.
Meanwhile, the effects of global warming – the extent to which it will or will not place a burden on our human culture – are still being debated. The reality is that no one knows what will happen.
Scientists at the IPCC meeting remain tight–lipped to the media about the exact contents of the report until it is released on February 2. Earth & Sky will keep you posted as more news is released.
Socialist balderdash.
I am a great believer that global warming is the cause of our human ignorance. I talk to so many people about this issue who actually believe that this condition is not being caused by us.
I have been to Alaska seven times and I have witnessed the glaciers as they receed to water due to increasing temperatures. Third world countries continue to do harm since they hold no restrictions and their industry standards are the same as they were twenty-five years ago.
Government continues to deny and ignor the issue!
We all have to stop and reflect before it is too late!!
Dear Benjamin Napier and Jacks,
The pollution of spaceship Earth has been occurring intensively since the onset of Industrial Revolution. It seems not quite right to blame this gigantic problem on the last 25 years of business activity in “third world countries”.
Does it not appear obvious that the United States has been the leading industrialized country in the developed world since the beginning of the mechanization of production capabilities many years ago; the foremost environmental polluter in human history; and the most voracious consumer of Earth’s limited resources currently?
Is it not yet evident that if 6.5 billion people ate for in single day an amount of food comparable to what you, Benjamin Napier and I consume daily, the Earth would soon come to look like Easter Island after its resources were devoured and the island denuded….....because the Earth’s resource base and frangible ecosystem services would be dissipated more quickly than the natural resources and services of global ecosystems could be restored by the Earth for human benefit.
Jacks, I certainly agree with you that the US “government continues to deny and ignore” the receding glaciers, the increasing temperatures, et cetera and that “all have to stop and reflect before it is too late”.
Thanks to both of you for participating in these discussions.
Sincerely,
Steve
The Earth has cycles. Scientific evidence has proven that the poles weren’t always cold. Who says that they are to remain so? All we can do as human beings is to be good stewards to our planet while we are in control. All good things must come to an end sometime, whether it be by volcanic eruption, meteor, asteroid, etc. The planet has probably been through this cycle of heatin and cooling more times than Orval Reddinboker’s personal popcorn popper. We’re just along for the ride, be it good or bad. We can do things that we know will help the problem, but eventually the inevitable will occur. It’s the circle of life.