Indicators Are not a Hoax
Simply look, feel and listen to what’s occurring all around and you can’t help but notice the obvious monumental indicators of climate change. Let’s quickly identify climate factors that impact all or certain regions of our globe.
Worldwide drought, or aridity, are more frequent and intense. Hotter temperatures are real and drinkable water availability is most concerning. If I was in charge of global climate action, fresh water resiliency would be my highest priority. Right now, and for a few more decades, we’re doing okay with air, food and shelter, but consumable water for humans and agriculture is more of a question mark. Learn all you can about Lakes Powell and Mead which are on again, off again in terms of being described as approaching “inactive pools'' and “dead pools.” Good news: Should atmospheric rivers and sudden stratospheric warming events continue on an annual basis, these lakes, and the Colorado River, will have a decent chance of being rescued.
Our next indicator deals with our cryosphere: snow and ice. For the past thirty years, the Arctic sea ice, Greenland’s ice sheet, and glaciers around the world have been melting steadily at an accelerated rate. Remember, the Arctic ice reflects 90% of the North Pole’s sunlight and at the current rate of melting, the Arctic’s floating ice will vanish by the 2050s leaving added sunlight intensity to further warm our planet.
Then we come to the ocean and its slowly rising sea level indicator - about an inch every six years, providing the global ice melt doesn’t become more rapid. Impossible for you to watch, right? Please know it is happening! Should climate action remain at a snail pace, the Greenland and Antarctic ice melt will increase sea levels by 15 to 24 inches into the next century. And as our decades fly by, you will be learning more and more about displaced coastal community migration. Approximately 40% of our nation’s population lives in coastal areas.
The ocean basins have increased their record heat level on an annual basis since 1998, while ocean acidification is at its highest measurement in the past 26,000 years. Carbon dissolves in the salwater to produce carbonic acid which lowers the ph level, thereby raising acidity. The more CO2, the more damage to all marine life. For example, a warming sea bleaches coral reefs, increases bird/fish death rates and alters weather patterns. To get a handle on this, one has to know that about 25% of dirty energy’s CO2 is being absorbed by our warming seas; while 90% of the heat generated by all CO2 is captured in the saltwater. Why so much? Oceans constitute 70% of Earth's surface.
In my opinion, the most fascinating alert signal about our climate emergency is the melting of the thousands of years old permafrost, part of the cryosphere. Permafrost is soil which has stayed frozen for a minimum of two years, is frozen up to 3300’ depths, and is present in about 15% of the Northern Hemisphere. It contains organisms made up of plants, trees and animals that, if defrosted, would release about twice as much CO2 and methane than the 1.5 trillion tons of CO2 that’s already existing in our air space.
The remaining red flags are the extreme weather we often see in person or in the news, namely: exceptional heatwaves, expanding higher humidity, warming and shorter winters, as well as more intense, widespread and frequent tornadoes, hurricanes and flooding. All resulting in ecosystem degradation around the world.
“Earth we have a problem.”