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| Visual proofs of climate change/global warming | |||||||||
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Fact: glaciers store 80 percent of the world's freshwater in their ice. Climate change 101 |
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Understanding albedo | ||||||||
| < Switzerland Matterhorn glacier | |||||||||
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| ^ Himalayan glacier almost gone | |||||||||
| Earth is Having a Fever | |||||||||
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Fact: according to researchers at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska may be losing anywhere from 15 to 31 cubic miles
of ice a year |
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Life cycle of a glacier | ||||||||
| < Proof of Greenland disappearing ice sheet | |||||||||
| Ice reflects solar radiation back into space and therefore helps to prevent the Earth heating up. | |||||||||
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Fact: Peru, which boasts three-quarters of the planet's
tropical glaciers |
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< Tanzania Mount Kilimanjaro's ice cap has shriveled by more than 80 percent since 1912. | ||||||||
| 95% of the glaciers in the world are retreating or shrinking, and that's outside of Antarctica. | |||||||||
| The Arctic is especially sensitive to global warming | |||||||||
| The melting of permafrost puts additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further accelerating global warming | |||||||||
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Fact: glaciers in the Andes have dwindled by as much as
25 percent in recent decades |
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< Himalayan glacier almost totally gone | ||||||||
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Recent global temperatures demonstrate
human-induced warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures
have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade, in very good agreement with
predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten
years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one
of warming. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but
there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend. |
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Fact: Glacier National Park in Montana has gone from
150 glaciers a century ago to 35 today |
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< Greenland ice sheet melting fast, thinning, shrinking, disappearing, not recovering. The ice in the current ice sheet is as old as 110,000 years, we cannot just sit there and watch it melt... | ||||||||
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Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers
and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now
demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets
are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in
other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990. |
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Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline:
Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the
expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009
was about 40% greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate
models. |
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| Fact: 90 to 95 percent of scientists believe climate change is real and it has a human influence. | |||||||||
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< Earth's Albedo in Decline | ||||||||
| Arctic sea ice reflects sunlight, keeping the polar regions cool and moderating global climate. According to scientific measurements, Arctic sea ice has declined dramatically over at least the past thirty years, with the most extreme decline seen in the summer melt season. | |||||||||
| The melting of glaciers will raise sea levels dramatically by 2050 | |||||||||
| The shrinking of the ice caps speeds up global warming | |||||||||
| Fact: The Polar Regions are amongst the fastest warming places on Earth and predictions suggest that in the future we'll see warming sea surface temperatures, rising ocean acidification and decreasing winter sea ice -- all of which have a direct effect on marine life. | |||||||||
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< ↓ Alaska McCall Glacier Shrinking Fast | ||||||||
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| Fact: The ice lost since 1998 from Antarctica Wilkins Ice Shelf alone totals more than 4,000 square kilometers, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. | |||||||||
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| ^ Alaska Heney Glacier 1930 | ^ Alaska Heney Glacier TODAY | ||||||||
| Fact: Antarctica has been losing each year since 2002 an average of 24 cubic miles of ice. That is equivalent to losing an area 4% bigger than the size of Manhattan with ice 1 mile high each year. | |||||||||
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| ^ Alaska Goyot Glacier 1930 | ^ Alaska Goyot Glacier TODAY | ||||||||
| Fact: A large majority of the marine glaciers of the Antarctic Peninsula are retreating and their retreat is speeding up. | |||||||||
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| ^ Alaska Mendenhall Glacier 1930 | ^ Alaska Mendenhall Glacier TODAY | ||||||||
| Fact: British group found that Antarctica Pine Island Glacier rate of retreat had quadrupled between 1995 and 2006. | |||||||||
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| ^ Argentina Upsala Glacier Disappearing Fast | ^ Switzerland Rhone Glacier Disappearing Fast | ||||||||
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Fact: 2002 the 12,000-year old Rhode Island-sized
Larsen B ice shelf at the Eastern edge of the Antarctic Peninsula took
just three weeks to crumble. |
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| ^ Oregon Mount Hood Glaciers Disappearing Fast | ^ Canadian Glaciers Disappearing Fast | ||||||||
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It is estimated that it will take 100 years before
any substantial CO2 reduction. Reflection of sunlight can not only STOP
climate change, it can do it OVERNIGHT. It can get the global temperature
back to the level it was at before. Since the industrial revolution, the
heat started by human activity doesn’t even amount to 30,700 sq. km, or
less than 1/10,000 of the heat that the earth receives from the sun. The
earth receives an amount of energy from the sun equivalent to the global
oil reserves every 36 hours. REFLECTING just a few percent more of
this energy will have OVERNIGHT effect. The albedo of an object
is the extent to which it diffusely reflects light from the sun. This
solution is not going to be remotely as expensive as what the politicians
are suggesting we do. Now imagine our world with REFLECTION in
mind? Every buildings, houses, structures, cars, trucks, SUV's,
etc...white and turning into reflective "units"! The latest scientific
estimates say that 60,000 sq. km (an area just slightly bigger than
Denmark) of REFLECTIVE materials is all it would take to STOP CLIMATE
CHANGE! More and more scientists agree that we will pass the tipping point
no matter how many CO2 reductions we make. Population is rising 220,000
people per day (optimumpopulation.org)…we cannot sustain such a
demographic increase, we have to level off. The tipping point is too close
to rely on slow narrow minded political solutions. Keep reducing CO2
emissions and START REFLECTING! Yes, please do
raise your voice, but also change climate change by raising your
consciousness as well. Know that 10 sq. meter of mirror/mat white paint
will offset 1 ton of CO2 (Berkeley National Laboratory). |
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< Patagonia O'Higgins Glacier Melting Away, 100 years ago, this was a glacier... | ||||||||
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| Fact: 95% of the glaciers in the world are retreating or shrinking (That's outside of Antarctica) | |||||||||
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< ^ The Antarctic ice sheet was formed over thousands of years by snow accumulation. As the snow compacts to ice and moves to the coast, it floats out on the ocean, forming massive ledges known as ice shelves. Seven ice shelves have disintegrated in the past 20 years in Antarctica. | ||||||||
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| Fact: Investigations completed in 2010 on Himalayan glacial retreat were estimated for 1,317 glaciers in 10 sub-basins from 1962. This has shown an overall reduction in glacial area from 5,866 square kilometers to 4,921 square kilometers...or a 16% loss of ice area. These figures do not account for the deflating effect or vertical ice loss. | |||||||||
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We humans have experienced an unusually temperate climate. But we have to be very careful, otherwise, our comfortable environment could come to an end in a matter of years. | ||||||||
| Fact: The Greenland ice sheet is especially vulnerable to global warming and has experienced record melting in recent years of no less than 150 cubic kilometers of mass loss per year. | |||||||||
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| ^ Alaska Shoup glacier decades ago | |||||||||
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| ^ Alaska Shoup glacier recent years | |||||||||
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Fact: the world continues to dump 90 million tons of
CO2 per 24 hrs into the atmosphere as if it was an open sewer! |
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| ^ Himalayan glacier in 1978 | ^ Himalayan glacier in 2004 | ||||||||
| Fact: NASA, In total, average global temperatures have increased by about 0.8°C (1.5°F) since 1880. | |||||||||
| Fact: THREE decades of continuous satellite measurements show a rapid decline of about 11.6 percent per decade. Arctic sea ice has declined about 34 percent since measurements were first made in the late 1970s. | |||||||||
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Fact: Glacier Park average days per year when temp dip below freezing: 1900-1979 181 days 1980-2005 152 days. |
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| Fact: If the entire 2.85 million km³ of ice were to melt, global sea levels would rise 7.2 m (23.6 ft.) | |||||||||
| Fact: Antarctica Western Side of Peninsula: 87% of the 244 glaciers studied have shown retreat since the earliest records, which on average were 1953, some of which very dramatic. | |||||||||
| Fact: Energy makes no difference if you don't have water...and glaciers are water. | |||||||||
| Fact: Indonesia Papuan glaciers have lost about 80 percent of their ice since 1936 — two-thirds of which has disappeared since Thompson’s last scientific expedition in the early 1970s. | |||||||||
| Fact: When you look at the leading scientists who have made any sort of statement about anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change, you find 97 percent of those Stanford team determined top 100 surveyed scientists explicitly agreeing with or endorsing the IPCC's assessment and that result has been borne out by several other published studies that used different methodology. | |||||||||
| Fact: Antarctica Dome C record shows that we’ve got more CO2 in our atmosphere now than at any time in 800,000 yrs | |||||||||
| Fact: Even though the 2010 Arctic sea ice minimum was technically 40,000 sq-km above that of 2008, given the 40,000 margin of error of the SSM/I (model used for that calculation) we therefore are essentially tied with 2008 which puts 2010 tied for second lowest ever Arctic sea ice minimum in the observational record. | |||||||||
| Fact: Several studies have shown that the amount of heat stored in the ocean has increased substantially since the 1950s. Ocean heat content not only determines sea surface temperature, but also affects sea level and currents. | |||||||||
| Fact: Black Carbon induced Arctic Warming Propels Us Towards Two Major Tipping Points, sea level rise and changes in ocean currents. | |||||||||
| Fact: Tibet ice is now melting 10 times faster than in the previous three hundred years. | |||||||||
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Fact: If you look back over the eight
glacial/interglacial cycles, you essentially see that CO2 never rises
above 300 parts per million and we’re at about 389 now. Methane never
rises above about 800 parts per billion, and I think we’re at about 1,700
parts per billion. So we’re clearly outside the range of natural
variability. |
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| Fact: Ice sheets cover about 3.45% of the Earth's surface and we lost .3% in the past 30 years. Time to act is NOW! | |||||||||
| Fact: Quelccaya ice cap, Peru, was retreating at a yearly rate of 4.7 meters (15.4 feet) in 1963. Recently, as much as 205 meters (672 feet) annually more than 40 times as fast! | |||||||||
| Fact: Black Carbon Causes Devastating Impacts to the Arctic. | |||||||||
| Fact: Sebastian Copeland about his North pole expedition "The ice is changing so rapidly, it's melting so quickly." | |||||||||
| Fact: Canada Gulf of Saint Lawrence sea ice so thin resulting in 100% death of harp seal pup population in some areas during the harp seal season, and they only need 12 days of solid ice to nurse but cannot even get it. | |||||||||
| Fact: Lord Stern author of the 2006 Stern Report we risk 6 degrees of global temperature rise by the end of the century, which we haven't seen as a planet for 30 million years if we don't change our ways now... | |||||||||
| Fact: Greenland ice sheet has thinned by more than a meter a year on its southern and eastern edges since 1993 | |||||||||
| Fact: Tien Shan mountains, central Asia: 22% of glacial ice volume has disappeared in the last 40 years. | |||||||||
| Fact: Black Carbon Plays a Major Role in Warming. | |||||||||
| Fact: Sea ice West of the Antarctic peninsula shrank by about 20% between 1973 and 1993 & the decline continues | |||||||||
| During May 2010, Arctic sea ice melted 50% faster than the average May melting rate, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. | |||||||||
| Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during May 2010 was a record low at 4.3 million square kilometers below the long-term average. North America and Eurasia both had record-low snow extents for the month. | |||||||||
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