Wednesday, August 3, 2022

HEAT WAVES AND CLIMATE CHANGE

 


 

We are experiencing unprecedented heat waves throughout most of the northern hemisphere.  The ten hottest years ever recorded in Maine have occurred over the past twelve years.    Heat waves in Europe have caused massive deaths and infrastructure failures. 

 

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the world climate temperature has increased by two degrees.  

 

It is hard to understand how a two-degree increase in temperature can cause such climate extremes.  Even knowing that that two-degree increase is an average of temperatures across the globe, it is not until we realize that during the Ice Age when most of the northern hemisphere was covered by glaciers, the global temperature average was just eight degrees cooler than at the advent of the industrial revolution.    

 

Small changes in global average temperature can cause massive changes in the climate.  

 

Adding to the problem, arctic ice is melting at an unprecedented rate, uncovering tundra that has been buried for thousands of years.   This tundra is releasing carbon dioxide which further adds to global warming.   

 

Even decreasing carbon emissions now can only slow down the slide into a future climate that is unknowable in its relation to human habitability.

 

 


I often defer to Neil de Grasse Tyson when trying to understand difficult science concepts.




Stay cool

the Ol'Buzzard

2 comments:

  1. Will people wake up and take action in time? Not when they're being lied to by big corporations and the right wing, that's for sure.

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  2. Well, at least in the Desert we're used to extreme Heat and have Air Conditioning... but some places are so ill prepared for the extremes in temperatures rising. Unfortunately, too many won't Believe that Global Warming will be a Thing in their Lifetime and live on the Planet Denial.

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COMMENT: Ben Franklin said, "I imagine a man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false."