Scientists Reveal Consequences of Rising Global Temperature
A new study says the world is not showing any sign of getting colder. Instead it says it is getting hotter as years go by. One important fact not said in such studies is that past temperature history has been manipulated. Using that manipulated data, studies revealed global temperature is likely to rise more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit at the end of the century.
This new finding was based by two different studies using entirely different methods published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Monday.
Through the use of statistical data, one study asserted that there is a 95% chance Earth will warm more than 2 degrees at century’s end, and a 1% chance that it is below 1.5 C. In other words, it is unlikely that the world will able to stay below the 2-degree threshold. Climate experts say the predicted global temperature is considered above pre-industrial levels which is the tipping point beyond which the consequences of climate change become catastrophic.
This rise in global temperature was confirmed by Adrian Raftery, author of the first study and Thorsten Mauritsen, author of the second study.
Raftery said, “The likely range of global temperature increase is 2.0-4.9 [degrees Celsius] and our median forecast is 3.2 C. Our model is based on data which already show the effect of existing emission mitigation policies. Achieving the goal of less than 1.5 C warming will require carbon intensity to decline much faster than in the recent past.”
Mauritsen said, “Even if we would stop burning fossil fuels today, then the Earth would continue to warm slowly. It is this committed warming that we estimate.”
The Grim Future
If the world surpasses the 2-degree threshold, scientists warn about drastic consequences. They say life would never be the same for humanity.
Scientists predicted these things are imminent – rising seas, mass extinctions, super droughts, increased wildfires, intense hurricanes, decreased crops and fresh water and the melting of the Arctic are expected.
Warmer climate and erratic weather conditions would have a negative effect on human health due to poor air quality, food and water contamination, more infections carried by mosquitoes and ticks and stress on mental health.
One environmentalist compared the worse situation to hell.
Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben said, “If not hell, then a place with a similar temperature. We have in the Earth’s geological record some sense of what happens when you run carbon levels up to the levels we’re running them now – it gets a lot hotter.”
Mckibben warned, “Huge swaths of the world will be living in places that by the end of the century will have heat waves so deep that people won’t be able to deal with them, you have sea level rising dramatically, to the point that most of the world’s cities are drowning, the ocean turning into a hot, sour, breathless soup as it acidifies and warms.”
Energy Policy a Possible Solution To Climate Change?
Climate change has entailed the rise of global temperature. The projected catastrophic effects of climate change made world leaders convene and create plans to mitigate it.
The previous US administration believed energy policy was one effective tool to cut CO2 emissions and hopefully slow the impact of climate change.
In fact former US Secretary John Kerry said the solution to climate change was not waiting to be discovered, but energy policy.
In his remarks at the Caring for Climate Business Forum in Paris in 2015, Secretary Kerry said the solution to climate change was not some pie-in-the-sky thing that has yet to be defined.
He said clean energy job growth was double the rate of the economy, and the solar industry grew at 10 times that rate.
He noted that over the next 15 years, $17 trillion was expected to be invested in energy, and the vast majority of that in clean energy.
NASA Data
NASA data often does not show entire history. In fact NASA’s polar ice measurements only go back to 1979. Note that in 1922, scientists were worried that the arctic ice cap may disappear entirely. This was reported in newspapers at the time, including The Pittsburgh Press.
Likewise, in 1947, newspapers reported that disaster was imminent, with rising sea levels. What this shows is that air and water temperatures are constantly in flux. Taking small slices of time easily allows manipulation of data and statistics can show anything desired.
