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.
More Frequent Extreme Weather
The year 1999 was the fifth-warmest year on record since the mid-1800's; 1998 being the warmest year. According to Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center (NOAA), the current pace of temperature rise is "consistent with a rate of 5.4 to 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit per century." By comparison, the world has warmed by 5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit since the depths of the last ice age, 18,000 to 20,000 years ago.
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. Examples include the intense drought in the central southern U.S in 1996, Midwest flooding in spring of 1995 and extensive flooding throughout the Mississippi Basin in 1993 even as drought occurred in the Carolinas, extreme flood events in winters of 1992-93 and 1994-95 in California but droughts in other years (e.g, 1986-87 and 1987-88 winters)," says Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
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| 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.
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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.
See Gary Braasch's Pictures of Receding Glaciers
See More Images of Receding Glaciers
Ohio State University researcher Lonnie Thompson on global warming and retreating glaciers
In southern Peru the rate of melting of the Qori Kalis glacier during the 8 year period 1983 to 1991 was 3 times the pace of the previous 20 years, 1963 to 1983. "By the time we probably know what they are doing, it will be far too late to worry about it because they are going to be like galloping glaciers," says Ellen Mosley Thompson, climate expert at Ohio State University. The Qori Kalis is receding at about two feet per day. Sitting beside the glacier, one could witness the melting hour by hour.
In a study that appeared in the journal, Science, September 15, 2000, a team led by Lonnie G. Thompson, including Ellen Mosley-Thompson, both of Ohio State, analyzed ice cores that came from deep within a glacier more than 20,000 feet high in the Himalayas. The results of their research showed that the past 100 years have been the hottest period in 1,000 years high in the Himalayas. Also their research supports other studies that demonstrated a dramatic decline in water levels of glacier-fed rivers, and that the high elevations are warming much more than the global average (one degree F). Mosley-Thompson says, "For these rivers to continue to flow year-round, they have to be fed by ice in the high mountains. The question then is where will the river flow come from during the dry season?"
Greenland's glaciers are moving more rapidly to the sea, caused, perhaps, by melt water lubricating the base of the glaciers. See below for another look at dwindling ice mass in Greenland.
The Tasman Glacier in New Zealand has thinned by more than 100 meters in the past century. Glaciers in New Zealand have shrunk about 26% between 1890 and 1998.
The melting of the Gangotri Glacier in India is accelerating with an average rate of retreat of 30 meters annually. The rate between 1935 and 1990 was 18 meters per year and 7 meters annually between 1842 and 1935.
A glacier from which Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay set out to conquer Mount Everest nearly 50 years ago has retreated three miles up the mountain due to global warming. The head of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, Tashi Jangbu Sherpa, says " that Hillary and Tenzing would now have to walk two hours to find the edge of the glacier which was close to their original base camp."
Portage Glacier in the Chugach National Forest, south of Anchorage, is another casualty of climate change, say scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. These researchers found that melting glaciers are responsible for at least 9 percent of the global sea-level rise over the past century.
Melting Arctic Sea Ice
The Arctic, with an area about the size of the United States, is seeing average temperatures similar to the Antarctic, almost 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the planet as a whole
Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 250 million acres -- an area the size of California, Maryland and Texas combined.
In a N.Y Times article (Nov. 17, 1999) it was reported that scientists have discovered that from 1993 through 1997 average Arctic sea ice thickness was six feet. This represents a significant reduction in Arctic sea ice from 1958 through 1976 when average thickness measured 10 feet. This means that in less than 30 years, there has been a 40% loss of arctic sea ice. In a Washington Post article (Dec. 3, 1999) it was noted that in the Arctic, sea ice is shrinking at a rate of 14,000 square miles annually, an area larger than Maryland and Delaware combined.
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.
Melting Antarctic Sea Ice
The Antarctic Peninsula has seen an increase in average temperatures of almost 5 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years. Heavy sea ice has been the norm in the Antarctic, but in the 1990's sea ice disintegration has begun, notes Robin Ross, a biological oceanographer with the University of California at Santa Barbara. During the year 1998, the Antarctic displayed a record low in winter sea ice.
Greenland's Ice Sheet Melting
In a recent study by researchers from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows that Greenland's ice sheet, about 8% of the Earth's grounded ice (Antarctica possessing 91% of land ice), is losing ice mass. 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. Measurements over the last century suggest that sea level has risen 9 inches, enough to cause flooding in low-lying areas, when a storm occurs. Sea level increase could worsen, if the present trend continues, says William Krabill, lead author of the NASA study.
Tropical Diseases Spreading
A recent study by New Zealand doctors, researchers at the Wellington School of Medicine's public health department said outbreaks o f 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.
Oceans Warming With Coral Bleaching & Disintegration
Devastating loss of coral in the Caribbean - March, 2006
In March, 2006 researchers discovered devastating loss of coral in the Caribbean off Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. "It's an unprecedented die-off," said National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Miller, who last week checked 40 official monitoring stations in the Virgin Islands. "The mortality that we're seeing now is of the extremely slow-growing reef-building corals. These are corals that are the foundation of the reef ... We're talking colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months."...............Miller noted that some of the devastated coral can never be replaced because it only grows the width of one dime each year.
If coral reefs die "you lose the goose with golden eggs" that are key parts of small island economies, said Edwin Hernandez-Delgado, a University of Puerto Rico biology researcher. While investigating the widespread loss of Caribbean coral, Hernandez-Delgado found a colony of 800-year-old star coral — more than 13 feet high — that had just died in the waters off Puerto Rico.........."We did lose entire colonies," he said. "This is something we have never seen before."
"We haven't seen an event of this magnitude in the Caribbean before," said Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch.
Tom Goreau of the Global Coral Reef Alliance says that compared to coral areas in the Indian and Pacific ocean, where warming waters have brought about a 90% mortality rate, the Caribbean is healthier.
The Caribbean is actually better off than areas of the Indian and Pacific ocean where mortality rates — mostly from warming waters — have been in the 90 percent range in past years, said Tom Goreau of the Global Coral Reef Alliance. Goreau called what's happening worldwide "an underwater holocaust."
"The prognosis is not good," said biochemistry professor M. James Crabbe of the University of Luton near London. "If you want to see a coral reef, go now, because they just won't survive in their current state."
Read more in AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein's article in the San Francisco Chronicle ******************
A Doubling of Atmospheric CO2 will Stunt Coral Growth
The Earth is on a trajectory to double its atmospheric carbon dioxide (above 700 ppm) by the year 2065. Scientists say that this will result in a 30% drop in the amount of calcium that tropical oceans can retain, whereby coral growth would be stunted by the lack of calcium in these ocean waters. This would threaten the capability of coral to repair itself in the event of storm damage and from coral-chewing predators...............Robert W. Buddemeier, senior chemist with the Kansas Geological Survey says, "There is growing agreement that doubling CO2 in the atmosphere means a 15% decline in the coral population."
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Ninth International Coral Reef Symposium October 2000
In October, 2000 at the Ninth International Coral Reef Symposium, held on the island of Bali, researchers warned that more than 25% of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed by pollution and global warming. Scientists emphasized that most of the damage to coral is inflicted by global warming through coral bleaching, the result of higher water temperatures heating the coral. The warming waters stress the coral, which then expels the microscopic plants or algae that give the coral color and nourishes it. Most of the remaining coral could be dead in 20 years, if global warming and pollution continue. Coral reefs around the Maldives and Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean have taken the brunt of warming seas, as 90% of these corals have been killed over the past two years. Some of the coral reefs, long described as undersea rainforests, home to marine ecosystems that sustain thousands of species of fish and other marine life, have been alive for up to 2.5 million years.
At the Ninth International Coral Reef Symposium, oceanographers said that the El Nino weather pattern two years ago, that led to an increase in ocean water temperature by up to 6 degrees Fahrenheit, did heavy damage to coral reefs. Australian scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg warns that in 20 years coral will be sitting in a "hot soup" and will not survive. Millions of people depend on coral for income ($400 billion annually in fishing and tourism revenue) and food.
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World's Coral Reefs Will be Dead Within 50 Years
According to Rupert Ormond, a marine biologist from Glasgow University, the world's coral reefs will be dead within 50 years because of global warming, and there is nothing we can do to save them, a scientist warned on September 5, 2001. In a conference held by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he said, "It is hard to avoid the conclusion that most coral in most areas will be lost........We are looking at a loss which is equivalent to the tropical rain forests." He also mentioned that if humans were to stop pumping out greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, tomorrow in a bid to halt the process, it would still be too late to save the reefs. "I don't know what can be done, given that there's a 50-year time lag between trying to limit carbon dioxide levels and any effect on ocean temperature............"We are looking at a gradual running down of the whole system. Over time, the diversity of coral fish will die," Ormond said. He also said that the only cause for optimism was that new coral reefs could start to emerge in colder waters such as the north Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Humankind will also suffer directly as the dead reefs are eroded and shorelines that have been protected for the last 10,000 years are now vulnerable without their natural defenses.
Go directly to information source (September 6, 2001)
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