Evidence of Global Warming

1. Evidence of Global Warming H Graham BSc PGCE

2. INDEX OF SAD FACTS • Carbon DioxideIncreasing in Atmosphere • Methane Also Increasing • More Frequent Extreme Weather • Disappearing Glaciers • Melting Arctic Sea Ice • Greenland's Ice Sheet Melting • Tropical Diseases Spreading H Graham BSc PGCE

3. Carbon DioxideIncreasing in Atmosphere • The atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, have increased since pre-industrial times from 280 part per million (ppm) to 360 ppm, a 30% increase. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are the highest in 160,000 years. Carbon dioxide is a by-product of the burning of fossil fuels, such as gasoline in an automobile or coal in a power plant generating electricity. H Graham BSc PGCE

4. Methane Also Increasing • Levels of atmospheric methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, have risen 145% in the last 100 years. Methane is derived from sources such as rice paddies, bovine flatulence, bacteria in bogs and fossil fuel production H Graham BSc PGCE

5. More Frequent Extreme Weather The potential for floods and droughts is increasing."....... the heating from increased greenhouse gases enhances the hydrological cycle and increases the risk for stronger, longer-lasting or more intense droughts, and heavier rainfall events and flooding, even if these phenomena occur for natural reasons. Evidence, although circumstantial, is widespread across the United States H Graham BSc PGCE

6. Disappearing Glaciers • Ice is melting all over the planet. Glaciers are melting on six continents.  If present warming trends continue, all glaciers in Glacier National Park could be gone by 2030. The park's Grinnell Glacier is already 90% gone. Pictured here is the glacier prior to its meltdown. • Because of global warming, the glaciers of the Ruwenzori range in Uganda are in massive retreat.  The Bering Glacier, North America's largest glacier, has lost 7 miles of its length, while losing 20-25% of parts of the glacier.  Ice cores taken from the Dunde Ice Cap in the Qilian Mountains on the northeastern margin of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau indicate that the years since 1938 have been the warmest in the last 12,000 years.   The melting is accelerating. The Lewis Glacier on Mt. Kenya (In Kenya) has lost 40% of its mass during the period 1963-1987 or at a much faster clip than during 1899-1963. H Graham BSc PGCE

7. H Graham BSc PGCE

8. Melting Arctic Sea Ice • According to a report by Norwegian scientists, the arctic sea ice in about 50 years could disappear entirely each summer. Researchers at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center based their predictions on satellite pictures. These pictures showed that the Arctic winter icescapes decreased by 6% (a Texas-size area) during the last 20 years H Graham BSc PGCE

9. Greenland's Ice Sheet Melting • A NASA high-tech aerial survey shows that more than 11 cubic miles of ice is melting along Greenland's coasts yearly, accounting for 7% of the annual global sea level rise. H Graham BSc PGCE

10. Tropical Diseases Spreading • A recent study by New Zealand doctors, researchers at the Wellington School of Medicine's public health department said outbreaks of dengue fever in South Pacific islands are directly related to global warming. Global warming is projected to significantly increase the range conducive to the transmission of both dengue and yellow fevers H Graham BSc PGCE

11. Pacific Island Threat • Present research has suggested that there will be an 0.5 - 0.8 degrees C rise in regional surface temperatures during the 20th century with less warming in the northern hemisphere. As a consequence of this, Pacific Island countries are experiencing certain effects which are consistent with the anticipated impacts of global climate change such as adverse effects on human health, drought and the subsequent decline of agricultural productions. H Graham BSc PGCE

12. Pacific Island Threat • This will adversely affect many Pacific Islands, particularly those comprising low-lying coral atolls such as in Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu. Indeed, the effects of global warming are already becoming apparent in many of the outer islands of Papua New Guinea where the rising sea water level has spilled inland with a resultant detrimental effect on food gardens and crops. Indeed, when the tide subsides, pools of salt water remain causing the root crops such as banana, breadfruit trees and other foods to die from an excessive intake of salty water H Graham BSc PGCE

13. Pacific Island solution 1 • The two obvious options are firstly to construct sea walls around the low-lying atolls and secondary to progressively relocate the people on these atolls to higher safer ground. The first of these options appears not to be economically viable as the cost of constructing a sea wall for one Marshall Island atoll alone has been estimated at one hundred million US dollars. This is more than twice the wealth that the country produces each year. H Graham BSc PGCE

14. Pacific Island solution 2 • The option of resettling people who lose their island atolls as a result of global warming appears to be the only viable one. In some cases, this may eventually result in the resettlement of virtually all the population of many of our atoll island nations....they will simply disappear. In other cases, this may involve the relocation of people from an outer island to the main island. H Graham BSc PGCE