Climate Change: The Big Thaw | Jhanellah Basinal

Sydney professor warns of the hidden threat contained in Antarctica if climate change persists.Source:Supplied

All the changes have an enormous impact on the people’s lives and ecosystems. This change is what we call climate change that even an average global temperature that has been raised by 1 degree in the last 30 years can affect us all. It is a very important issue of concern in the twenty first century. Climate, if it changes at all, evolves so slowly that the difference cannot be seen in a human lifetime (Wearth, 2014). There are many reasons of climate change including natural cycles of earth however the major contributors of the climate change is global warming. According to the National Climate Assessment, human influences are the number one cause of global warming, especially the carbon pollution we cause by burning fossil fuels and the pollution-capturing we prevent by destroying forests. The increasing emissions of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere called greenhouse gases causes increase rate in global temperature. In a paper presented in 1895, Arrhenius figured out that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide could trap heat close to the Earth's surface — and that small changes in the amount of those gases could make a big difference in how much heat was trapped that causes our global temperature to become warmer. Here are the bare numbers about the change in temperature, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): Average surface temperatures rose a total of 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit (0.95 degrees Celsius) between 1880 and 2016. The pace of change has been an additional 0.13 degrees F (0.07 degrees C) per decade, with the land surface warming faster than the ocean surface — 0.18 degrees F (0.10 degrees C) versus 0.11 degrees F (0.06 degrees C) per decade, respectively. Also, it has been reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that average global temperature can be raised by 2 to 8.6 degrees F by 2100. Increase in atmospheric temperature causes many climate changes like increase in sea level, flood, drought, weather changes, increase summer season, decrease winter season, melting glaciers, increase death rate, increase number of disease, declining ozone layer and other so many climate changes and the most affected area is the Arctic. It’s average temperature rise twice as fast as elsewhere in the world (nrdc.org). The Arctic is global warming’s canary in the coal mine and is a highly sensitive area which is profoundly affected by the changing climate. The change in the average temperature cause ice caps to melt and are having a dramatic effect on the polar regions of the earth. This not only has grave consequences for the region's people, wildlife, and plants; its most serious impact may be on rising sea levels. Glaciers are one of the most fundamental phenomenon on the planet, and much of their purpose and impact on earth has been well documented and published. Ice cap melting has a serious consequences to every organism in this world it also helps in regulating sea level and global temperatures. If you imagine putting a big ice in a bowl of water you can see how it melts that led the water go higher. The same thing happens when polar ice caps melt. They melt directly into the ocean, increasing the volume of water and forcing seas higher onto land. It also causes oceans to become less saline because ice caps are fresh water. That can highly affect species that are well adapted to the very salty ocean waters. Moreover, as what have said a while ago that ice caps also helps in regulating global temperature because it keeps Earth to have a nice temperature because the slowly melting glaciers covers them and reduces their albedo (ability to reflect light), thus making them absorb the heat at an even faster rate(O’Connor 287). Moreover, it is also because ice caps are frozen and the snow that they are covered with reflects a large amount of light back into space that might cause an increase overall temperature. Ice cap melting is only one of the few cause of climate change and we all know that we can’t undo the damage we caused to our environment but we can help decelerate the rate of change - and long-term, change the fate of the planet altogether and one of the ways to help us is through research studies or papers, it helps our people to be knowledgeable and aware with ultimate goal of healing our world. This leads some of our people to go out and let other people to open their eyes, to be aware, to start changing for the benefit of all. People raise awareness. Awareness that helps one of us to become a better version of ourselves that can lead to a brighter future for our Mother Earth.