People have been using their planet for selfish purposes for thousands of years. They built cities and factories, mined tons of coal, gas, gold, oil and other materials. At the same time, man himself in a barbaric way destroyed and continues to destroy what nature has given us. Through the fault of people, thousands of innocent birds, insects, and fish are dying; the number is constantly increasing; etc. Soon, a person may experience the wrath of mother nature on his own skin. We will talk about global warming, which is gradually coming to our land. Man is already beginning to experience the consequences of this cataclysm. It will turn into a tragedy for both humans and all living things on our planet. Nature is able to live without man. It changes and evolves over the years, but a person cannot live without nature and it.
Photos of the Grinnell Glacier national park glaciers (Canada) in 1940 and 2006.
What is global warming?
Global warming is a gradual and slow increase in the average annual temperature. Scientists have identified many causes of this cataclysm. For example, this includes volcanic eruptions, increased solar Activity, hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis and of course human activities. The idea of human guilt is supported by most scientists.
Consequences of global warming
- First of all, this is an increase in the average temperature. Every year the average annual temperature rises. And every year, scientists observe that the numbers elevated temperature grow;
- Melting glaciers. Nobody is arguing here. The reason for the melting of glaciers is indeed global warming. Take, for example, the Upsala glacier in Argentina, which is 60 km long, up to 8 km wide, and 250 km2 in area. It was once considered one of the largest glaciers South America. Every year it melts two hundred meters away. And the Rhone Glacier in Switzerland has risen four hundred and fifty meters;
- An increase in the level of the world's oceans. Due to the melting of glaciers in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic and warming, the water level on our planet has risen by ten to twenty meters and is gradually increasing every year. What awaits our planet as a result of global warming? Warming will affect many species. For example, penguins and seals will be forced to look for a new place to live, as their habitat habitation will simply melt away. A lot of representatives will disappear due to the fact that they will not be able to quickly adapt to new environment a habitat. An increase in the frequency of natural disasters is also expected.
Supposed a large number of rains, while in many regions of the planet drought will prevail, the duration of very hot weather will also increase, the number of frosty days will decrease, the number of hurricanes and floods will increase. Due to drought, the number will drop water resources, productivity will drop Agriculture. It is very likely that the number of burnings in peatlands will increase. Soil instability will increase in some parts the globe, coastal erosion will intensify, and the area of ice will decrease.
The consequences are not pleasant, of course. But history knows many examples when life won. Think back to the Ice Age. Some scientists believe that global warming is not a global catastrophe, but just a period climate change on our planet that have been taking place on Earth throughout its history. People are already making efforts to somehow improve the condition of our land. And if we make the world better and cleaner, and not vice versa, as we did before, then there is every chance to survive global warming with the least losses.
Informative video about global warming
Examples of global warming on Earth in our time:
- Upsala Glacier in Patagonia (Argentina)
2. Mountains in Austria, 1875 and 2005
Factors accelerating global warming
Many people already know that today one of the significant problems is global warming. It is worth considering that there are factors that activate and accelerate this process. First of all Negative influence increases emissions into the atmosphere carbon dioxide, nitrogen, methane and other harmful gases. This happens as a result of the activities of industrial enterprises, the functioning Vehicle, but greatest influence on the environment occurs during: accidents at enterprises, fires, explosions and gas leaks.
The acceleration of global warming is facilitated by the release of steam due to high air temperatures. As a result, the waters of rivers, seas and oceans actively evaporate. If this process gains momentum, then within three hundred years the oceans may even dry up significantly.
Since glaciers are melting as a result of global warming, this contributes to rising water levels in the oceans. In the future, this floods the shores of the continents and islands, can lead to flooding and destruction settlements. During the melting of ice, methane gas is also released, which is significant.
Factors slowing down global warming
There are also factors natural phenomena and human activities that contribute to slowing down global warming. This is primarily supported ocean currents. For example, the Gulf Stream slows down. Besides, in recent times temperature drop in the Arctic. At various conferences, the problems of global warming are raised and programs are put forward that should coordinate actions various areas economy. This reduces the emission greenhouse gases and harmful compounds into the atmosphere. Therefore, decreases, recovers ozone layer and slow global warming.
Over the past hundred years, the average temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth's surface has risen by about 0.7 degrees Celsius. By the end of this century, the situation, according to most forecasts, will only worsen - average temperatures will increase by one to three degrees. main reason Global climate change is considered to be an increase in the concentration of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere due to human activities - the burning of most energy resources is accompanied by the release of carbon dioxide. How will warming affect Russian Arctic, says "Lenta.ru".
The glaciers of Antarctica, the Arctic, and also Greenland are already melting. Only for 2011-2014 Greenland has about a trillion tons of ice. This corresponds to a sea level rise of 0.75 millimeters per year. The ice melted most intensively in 2012, when summer temperatures reached record highs.
In Antarctica, the situation is even worse. The melting of one of the largest glaciers in the world, Totten, will expose tens of kilometers of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and raise sea levels by 2.9 meters. Melting rates will reach critical values already in the next century, when the disappearance of the ice cover after the melt water circulating at its base will spread under the glacier deep into the continent for 100-150 kilometers will become irreversible.
Global warming will directly affect Russia, more than 60 percent of which falls on the zone permafrost. AT Western Siberia the depth of the layer without periodic thawing is on average about 20 meters, further, towards the North Arctic Ocean- even deeper, hundreds of meters. Record depth permafrost layer was recorded in the upper reaches of the Vilyui River in Yakutia - 1370 meters. And what will happen to all this in the next hundred years?
“According to forecasts, the area occupied by permafrost in Russia may be reduced by 20-25 percent by the middle of the 21st century, and by 31-56 percent by the end of the 21st century,” said at the conference “Problems of Forecasting emergencies» Konstantin Moskin, Acting Head of the All-Russian Center for Monitoring and Forecasting Emergency Situations "Antistikhiya".
Photo: press service of the Governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
The soil will thaw, sag and fill with water. Over time, it is likely that the determining role in these processes will shift from an increase in average annual temperatures to an increase in precipitation. In the worst scenario huge territories the current permafrost will turn into deep swamps. The degradation of these territories is already observed.
The objects of the oil and gas complex are under threat, industrial enterprises, as well as cities that can go underground. “At present, due to the degradation of permafrost, up to 60 percent of objects in Igarka, Dikson, Khatanga are deformed, up to 100 percent in the villages of the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug, 22 percent in Tiksi, 55 percent in Dudinka, 50 percent in Pevek and Amderma , about 40 percent - in Vorkuta,” Moskin said.
The permafrost in most of these territories has not thawed for tens and hundreds of thousands of years. In addition to the physical subsidence of land, global warming will lead to the reopening of the artifacts contained in them. Because of this, for example, in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region outbreak was reported in July 2016 anthrax, which has not been observed there since 1941. The fossil remains of animals that lived in ancient times on the territory of Siberia will also undergo degradation.
The landscapes of Siberia will change dramatically. The well-known Yamal sinkholes are one example negative forms terrain caused by global warming. More than such depressions with a diameter and a depth of several tens of meters have already formed. These are the so-called funnels of gas emission, arising from the destruction of gas hydrates - the release of gas contained in the upper layers of permafrost.
By the end of the 21st century, the average annual temperature increase in northern regions countries can reach five degrees Celsius. This is quite expected, since the rise in temperatures in Russia since the 1970s has exceeded the global average by 2.5 times. However, there are benefits to global warming. First of all, the shift of the border of lands suitable for agriculture to the north and the increase in navigation along the Northern Sea Route.
To slow down the pace of global warming, developed and developing countries adopted the Kyoto Protocol. Russia ratified it in 2005. The document provides for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Russia, which accounts for about 17.4 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, has exceeded its obligations under the protocol, reducing emissions by 37 percent over the past 20 years.
Analysis chemical composition micrometeorites 2.7 billion years old showed that they passed through the atmosphere, . It goes against everything we were taught in school. It is known that at that time the Earth was dominated by anaerobic organisms, and they could not live in an oxygen atmosphere. Scientists have resolved this paradox: micrometeorites melt in the upper atmosphere. There, oxygen in that era could well be formed by the decay of carbon dioxide under the action of ultraviolet radiation. True, it is not clear why he did not then go down and poison the then bacteria. It turns out that the planet then had a "matryoshka atmosphere" with non-mixing layers. So far, something similar has been described only theoretical models for distant exoplanets, and the discovery of such oddities in the past of the Earth was not expected by anyone. Incidentally, it follows from the discovery that practical conclusion: An exoplanet could have a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere, even if there is no life at all.
2. The atmosphere 2.7 billion years ago was half as dense as it is today
Another group of researchers compared the size of air bubbles in 2.7 billion-year-old lava with modern ones and came to a surprising conclusion: the atmosphere of our planet at that time was than it is today. Approximately the same pressure acts on a person who has climbed above five kilometers. This means that on Earth 2.7 billion years ago there were conditions that scientists rightly refer to as "alien". Water had to boil at temperatures below 70 degrees, and no birds in that atmosphere could fly in principle, even despite the presence of oxygen in its upper layers. On this "alien" Earth, even sunrises and sunsets would look different: with twice as rarefied an atmosphere of red tones, there would be much less.
3 Young Earth Bacteria Nearly Eaten All The Air
New information about the density of the atmosphere at that time very sharply raised the question: where did half of the earth's atmosphere, where did she "hide" for so long and where did she come from again? An international team of scientists quickly responded to the challenge and calculated that the only conceivable reason all these oddities were . Bacteria did not have a brain, but they multiplied very actively, using nitrogen as construction material for your new copies. As it turned out, in just a couple of billion years of their activity, they had to absorb and "hide" in insoluble compounds more than half of the entire atmosphere - that is, as much as was found in the analysis of lava samples.
Such an unbridled race for food and reproduction should have led to a climatic and environmental disaster. Scooping nitrogen out of the air, bacteria dramatically reduced Greenhouse effect, and the Sun then shone almost 20 percent fainter than it does today. The planet was threatened by global freezing. Fortunately, a group of aerobes (bacteria that use oxygen) then succeeded in mass production of oxygen through photosynthesis and poisoned the anaerobes with this gas, driving them into secondary ecological niches. In the presence of such a strong oxidizing agent as oxygen, the bound nitrogen gradually returned to the atmosphere. Its compounds were chemically unstable in the presence of oxygen and oxidized to form nitrogen oxides and water vapor. Nitrogen oxides decomposed over time into nitrogen and oxygen. By doing this, he saved the Earth from freezing, and also made possible the subsequent prosperity. difficult life. By the way, calculations showed that if it were not for death from oxygen, nitrogen-fixing anaerobes would today would eat up almost the entire atmosphere of the planet.
4 Earth Was Warm 3 Billion Years Ago Despite A “Weak” Atmosphere
History with anomalous drastic changes The density of the Earth's gaseous envelope billions of years ago indicated that science does not yet understand why the planet did not freeze then. If now we weaken the Sun by 20 percent, then the Earth will quickly become covered with ice. However, three billion years ago there were no traces of ice on it. How was this possible when the atmosphere was depleted by greedy bacteria and was less able to retain heat?
It is assumed that the whole thing is in some powerful greenhouse gases, which were then present in it in abundance. However, so far all calculations show that there was no carbon dioxide in the required volumes. What specifically prevented the planet from freezing until 2.4 billion years ago (the time when the first glaciers appeared on it) is, alas, still unknown. In 2016, it was suggested that in the first billion years the planet was heated by asteroids. When falling, they evaporated a lot of frozen gases due to the energy of super-powerful explosions and thereby increased the greenhouse effect. However, this effect should have come to naught already in the second billion years. earth history, and what saved the planet from freezing further is not entirely clear.
5. Underground oceans turned out to be more full-flowing than terrestrial ones
One of the most common water-containing materials on Earth is brucite, which exists in the upper layers of its mantle. However, since scientists do not have access to hundreds of kilometers down, they estimated lower bound distribution of brucite based on its resistance to pressure. It was believed that starting from 400 kilometers and deeper, brucite decomposes. The released water quickly rises and returns to the seas of the Earth.
However, in 2016, what with such high pressure brucite often simply forms a new, more stable phase, allowing it to exist at much greater depths. It consists of 30% water, which means that there is much more of it in the mantle than previously thought. Now geologists are trying to figure out exactly how much water could be tied up in brucite 400-600 kilometers below sea level.
If the Earth were evenly covered with water, all of its oceans would be enough to create a layer three kilometers deep. If even a few percent of the mantle at this depth is made of brucite (and a number of signs indicate this), there could be much more water there than in all the oceans of the planet.
6. The planet's magnetic field has shown its unreliability
Recent data from satellite observations of the Earth's magnetic field showed the unexpected: in just a couple of years, its strength in various densely populated areas planet by 2-3 percent, mostly downward. Prior to this, it was believed that noticeable changes in its strength occur quite rarely. The researchers note that their data may indicate much less field stability than previously thought. Perhaps his most drastic changes - including the actual "off" when inverted magnetic poles planets are also more common than is commonly believed.
During weakening magnetic field flow cosmic rays reaching the surface of the planet becomes stronger. It is not yet clear how this may affect the health of its inhabitants. It is known that 780,000 years ago the magnetic field weakened by at least 20 times. Presumably, something similar could have happened 40,000 years ago. In both cases, no extinctions were noted, although the level radiation background on Earth should have increased significantly for some time.
7. It became clear why the Earth is so cold and there is little oxygen
For most of its history, our planet was much warmer than it is today, and therefore free of permanent ice caps. It is clear from the geological data that this was achieved by more carbon dioxide in the air. But that is why it has fallen so sharply in the last million years that formerly flowering and wooded New Earth and other Arctic regions became a desert, remained unclear for a long time.
A group of American scientists explain the situation. Using simulations, the researchers showed that when one lithospheric plate slightly prying the edge of the other, it can bring up the oceanic crust and thus make it land. Such a crust has not been in contact with the air of the planet for a very long time and therefore has practically no carbon dioxide in its composition. Because of this, the former ocean floor can absorb this gas in large quantities.
In the last million years, Australia, moving north, has tampered with the oceanic crust near Java and is carrying it up. Due to the high rate of erosion (heavy rains, high temperatures) in the equatorial regions, the process of carbon dioxide fixation is going very well there. At the same time, the rest of the planet cools, which leads to oddities like ice ages, the appearance of tundras and the like.
By the way, another group of scientists is certain that for the last 800 thousand years, due to this cooling, the oxygen content in the atmosphere has been falling. The transformation of a large part of the land into arctic and tropical desert inevitably reduces the production of oxygen by plants. Therefore, even 800 thousand years ago, this gas in the atmosphere was 0.7 percent more. This difference doesn't seem like much. The amount of oxygen in the air of a poorly ventilated room is reduced by about the same amount. However, if the then living ancestors of man were transported to our time, then at first they would involuntarily yawn more often, trying to compensate for the lack of this gas in the air.
8 Global Warming Has Set A Series Of Records
In 2016, the temperature on the planet than in all 137 years of systematic observations. True, in our time such news, in principle, appear almost every year. Much more significant is the fact that the concentration of carbon dioxide over Antarctica for the first time in millions of years. Biological and industrial activity there is minimal, so the achievement of concentration over Antarctica greenhouse gas, which even in the 20th century was not over any continent of the Earth - a really significant result.
9. Russia has taken on heavy commitments to combat warming, but, fortunately, does not have to fulfill them yet
With a succession of temperature and carbon records, it has become quite difficult to ignore the reality of global warming. Even Russian astronomers, whom it deprived of the majority clear nights for stargazing. Therefore, in 2016 there were many signings of the Paris Agreement to combat global warming. Russia did not escape the common fate either.
The agreement calls for keeping the global average temperature from rising by 2.0 degrees Celsius and "making an effort" to limit the increase in temperature to no more than 1.5 degrees. This goal can be achieved only if carbon dioxide emissions become zero in the second half of the century. To do this, in theory, Russia will have to dramatically change technologies in almost all sectors of industry, transport, agriculture and construction. Fortunately, while this is a matter of the distant future. The agreement calls on countries to reduce their emissions from 1990 levels. Our country did this before signing it, because its industry is still weaker than in 1991. Therefore, we will not have to fulfill the agreement for the first years.
Where worse situation will be in 10–20 years, when its implementation will require either a reduction in industrial production or the closure of operating power plants (and, as a result, an increase in energy prices). However, this is still a long way off, so it's too early to worry. In addition, even before that, the Paris Agreement will lead to such a restriction on the consumption of Russian hydrocarbons abroad that new problems are unlikely to radically worsen the situation.
10. Global warming caused the planet to bloom and reduced the area of deserts.
Numerous temperature records have left their mark on the biosphere. As another 2016 paper showed, as the planet warms total rainfall will increase - especially in previously arid zones. In addition, due to the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide, plants can now grow even where they would not have had enough rain before.
In general, countries like Ethiopia because of this process: there will increase both the total amount of vegetation and crop yields. Moreover, experts in the study of the Sahara note that in the past 30 years, due to increased precipitation, the desert as a whole and in particular its southern outskirts - the Sahel - have gradually begun to turn green. However, the Paris Agreement (and others like it) is unlikely to allow this process to be completed, so the smooth greening of the earth's deserts is unlikely to become long-term.
A new study by French scientists has found that summer in Europe is now 10 days earlier than it was 40 years ago. And if current rates of carbon dioxide emissions continue, then by the end of the century, the hot season will begin already 20 days earlier than the due date, characteristic of the pre-industrial era.
Tomerto | Shutterstock.com
Earth's seasonal clock is out of whack, climate change is affecting everything from primroses to migratory birds. And this is noticeable not only in Europe. Throughout the Northern Hemisphere, trees bud prematurely, butterflies and birds arrive.
The annual transition from winter to summer in the early 1960s occurred around April 10, in 2010 it was recorded on March 30. And by 2100, according to scientists, summer in Europe will come on March 25th. The influence of the seasonal shift is found in earlier bud break in France, cherry blossoms in Switzerland, summer flowers in England, and other changes in the seasonal routine.
Aiaikawa | Shutterstock.com
“The accelerating arrival of summer has gone hand in hand with an increase in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the past 50 years. Atmospheric warming plays a significant role in the early onset of summer. This can be seen from the time of snowmelt in winter in Eastern Europe and reduce the circulation of cold air across the continent,” explained climatologist and co-author of the study, Julien Catew of National Center meteorological research in France.
At the same time, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, finds some weaknesses in the new study, including its simplistic two-season analysis and use of models that do not fully capture all of the complex weather processes. However, he notes that separate meteorological surveys conducted elsewhere have also revealed changes in the weather seasons.
Amit Erez | Shutterstock.com
According to a recent study published in " International magazine climatology", in the United States, spring and summer (not calendar, but determined by temperature thresholds and circulation patterns) each decade came earlier than the previous one, by about 1.5 days since 1948. Autumn and winter, respectively, later.
“The extent of the change depends on the location. The most significant indicators are observed along Atlantic gulfs and the coast of California. There, the start of summer has shifted by more than three days in a decade,” said study lead author Michael Allen, a climate scientist at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
In China, an earlier study of daily temperature data showed that the summer there "advanceed" by almost 6 days between 1951 and 2000, while the winter season shortened by 11 days.
The extra days of walking around in light dresses and T-shirts will probably sound like good news for people who don't enjoy shoveling snow or walking through the spring slush. But even minor changes in seasonal chronology can ricochet a lot of effects in nature. If a we are talking about food production, any shift in the seasons will, of course, affect the flowering cycles associated with pollinating insects and other interdependent natural processes regulated by the seasons.
Michael Allen
Birds are one of the harbingers of the change of seasons weather conditions. Last week, scientists reported that global warming over the past three decades has significantly affected the birds of Europe and North America. The biggest impacts of climate change have been on populations of wren, robin and a variety of other common species. A study on this issue has been published in Science.
The number of species that find themselves in a successful habitat, in harmony with changing conditions, is increasing. These include the royal tyrant Cassina, who lives in the southwestern United States. The range of these birds is expanding as it gets warmer in Colorado and Wyoming. The species whose natural environment shrinking, falling into decline. This, for example, is a Canadian warbler that is losing its moist forests, and the white-throated sparrow, which climate change is depriving the northern territories. However, the number of the American robin is declining in southern regions, such as Louisiana, but is increasing in the Dakotas.
The researchers compared annual reports containing data on the abundance of more than 500 species on two continents between 1980 and 2010 with climate data for the same period and identified those whose habitats were affected by global warming and those whose living conditions became more more favorable. According to scientists, it also had massive consequences for bees, butterflies and a host of other creatures around the globe.
Estonian scientist Peter Noges reports on how the disrupted seasonal cycle affects the lakes of his country. According to him, throughout last decade anomalously early heat prevents the “reversal” of lakes, an annual process that results in water mixing and oxygen transport to the depths. This has negatively affected the livelihoods of large fish, which is a bad sign for a region where fishing has importance for economy and recreation.
“People need to understand the cost of such a 'spring summer'. In fact, abnormal weather leads to irreparable natural losses,” warns Noges, a limnologist at the Estonian University of Life Sciences.
Climatologists from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recorded another increase in temperature: October 2016 was 1.2 degrees warmer compared to the usual averages.
Thanks to this, the outgoing year claims to be the hottest in the history of observations, which have been conducted since the 19th century.
According to UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq, 16 out of 17 record hot years have occurred in the current century. Also, the United Nations is concerned about the rate of melting of the Greenland ice sheets, which continues to grow.
Now the score is not in fractions of degrees, but in units, while a change in temperature even by half a rad can dramatically change the situation in the world.
"In many Arctic regions Temperatures in Russia exceeded the long-term averages by 6-7 degrees. Temperatures in many other arctic and subarctic regions - in Russia, Alaska and northwest Canada - were at least 3 degrees above normal. We are used to measuring climate change in fractions of a degree, but this is a completely different picture,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
After such statements, environmentalists again started talking about global warming. However, no one forgot about it: recent studies suggest that by 2060 more than a billion people will live in a zone of constant floods and floods, and Spain and Portugal will completely turn into a desert by the end of the century.
It is important that the measured values are close to critical point, which was designated by the countries participating in the climate summit in Paris. Recall that then the leaders of the states agreed to keep global warming within 1.5-2 degrees of the average temperature of the pre-industrial era.
However, the climate is changing faster than expected. A significant contribution to warming was made by the El Niño phenomenon, but experts still consider greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere to be the main cause. And since their volume does not decrease, the thermometer will also continue to creep up. According to forecasts, 2017 promises to be no less hot than the current one, although climatologists do not yet expect new “heat records”.
Temperatures in many arctic and subarctic regions - in Russia, Alaska and northwestern Canada - have been at least three degrees above normal this year. Photo: Global Look Press.
Much will become clear with the arrival of winter: according to some forecasts, it should become the most severe in the last hundred years, and in all countries of the planet. There are also reasons to believe that spring will be late with the arrival in Europe: the temperature will rise to the spring norm only in early April.
Such weather conditions experts associate with traffic violations air masses: snowfalls and storms, which are already raging in some regions of Russia, we owe to cyclones from the south. They are expected to be followed by the arrival of cold masses of Arctic air.
We add that this year the climate results were summed up earlier than usual due to the UN World Conference on Climate Change (COP-22), which started not so long ago in Morocco. In addition, on November 4, the Paris Agreement came into force to replace the Kyoto Protocol. And it is already becoming clear: in order to prevent ecological catastrophe need to act faster.
We also recall that the consequences of global warming continue to spread to animal world: warming in the Arctic harms African birds, and in Australia, due to climate change, it became extinct for the first time whole view mammals.
