I hope to post periodic essays here on climate change. I feel this is THE biggest challenge humans face at this time.
I know some of you do not believe in climate change, or do not believe that humans are causing it. Overall, my goal is not to convince you (well, maybe) but to write about the Earth’s systems that affect weather, what scientists are observing and saying, what scientists are predicting based on what they are observing, and what regular folks are experiencing. I’m approaching this in some type of order that is cumulative in structure and expansive in scope—although I will toss in examples of climate effects caused by people and some human-caused tragedies unrelated to climate that will support a broader issue beyond climate change.
I’m not going to talk about how to fix climate change because:
- Fixing climate change is a debate among various economic portfolio theories.
- There exists no consensus on: how bad climate change is, how to fix it or the technology to fix it. There is currently no technology advanced and widespread enough to fix it.
I use the phrase “climate change” rather than “global warming”, although both are applicable. "Climate change" is experiential in any geographic region and is easier for people to perceive and relate to. For example, many Chicagoans have noticed that Spring flowers are sprouting earlier in the year. This is a result of consistently warmer temperatures in the spring. This is not a result of a change in the weather per se. It is a result of a change in the climate systems that cause the weather.
A majority of Americans believe, or are unsure, that climate change is real. The remaining number of Americans don’t believe in, and doubt, climate change. At the very least, many people doubt climate change is the result of human activity. The high percentage of doubters is most likely because the onset of climate change is slow and insidious rather than acute and catastrophic—although acute and catastrophic is becoming more common.
What undergirds this insidiousness is that climate change is:
1. Global. Data is collected world-wide to put together a picture of what climate “looks” like right now compared to what it “looked” like yesterday (and thousands, and millions of years ago). Climate change is driven by temperature—which, in turn, is driven by a number of situations and circumstances—and temperature goes up and down all over the world, all the time. To record changes in temperature, all you need is a thermometer—and, as you might expect, climate scientists have become very proficient in measuring temperature (and have been since the late 1800’s). You don't need to be a scientists to use a thermometer—you know where to insert it.
People don’t grasp that climate change results from a change in the AVERAGE global temperature. If the average global temperature consistently increases or decreases over the long term, the climate will change from what we are familiar with. Most Americans don’t know the effects of a changing climate beyond their own mortgaged plat of land. For example, an extreme heat event occurred in June of this year (2019), the hottest on record for Europe. A heat wave in 2003 is estimated to have killed 70,000 people across central and western Europe. Of course, most recently we've seen hurricanes develop in the Midwest and torrential rains that have swollen the Mississippi River that threatens flooding in New Orleans.
2. Slow. It takes a lot of time for changes in climate temperature to be definitively identified—the Earth is a lot bigger than most people realize. For example, the average global temperature for the 100 years between 1880 and 1980 rose about 0.001 degrees °F every year. Between 1980 and 2018, the average global temperature has risen about 0.05 °F a year; about 50-fold faster. That's a 2.1 °F change in 138 years (or 1.2 °C). Humans can detect immediate temperature differences as small as 0.1 °F. It is impossible for a human to physically detect a change of 0.043 degrees over the course of a year. Although temperature changes per year don’t seem like much, they add up. On average, the Earth is now the hottest it has been since 22,000 years ago—during the Pleistocene Epoch.
3. Noisy. During an average summer day in Chicago, the temperature changes 20 degrees from night to day (62 °F to 82 °F; your findings may vary). Over several days this last winter, the temperature in Chicago went from a high of -9 °F (on Jan 30) to a high of 51 °F (on Feb 3). That was a 60 degree change in temperature across a very large region in 5 days. However, climate scientists generally report average changes in global temperatures on a yearly basis. Average yearly global temperatures can vary as much as 0.5 °F from year to year (up or down from a moving average). These large temperature changes easily mask the small average temperature increases that occur year-to-year.
4. Deceptive. See #2 and #3 above. There’s nothing to worry about, right? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that a 1.5 °C change in average global temperature (based on the average global temperature between 1880 and 1900), if avoided, would limit most of the adverse impacts of climate change. This value was reduced from a 2 °C change given the apparent climate impacts currently being observed: coral bleaching; increasing sea levels; increased precipitation; deadly heat waves; melting polar regions; accelerated extinction of animal and plant species. Without any reduction in carbon emissions, average global temperatures are predicted to achieve a 1.5 °C change in about 30½ years (consistent with the 0.05 °C/year rate determined in #2 above). Anyone younger than 49 years—average US life span is 79 years—definitely has the opportunity to witness the climate effects of this change. With a modest reduction in atmospheric carbon over the next 11 years, this 1.5 °C change can be delayed for another 20 years. Temperature tipping points vary for different climate effects, ranging from 1.5°C–3°C. Tipping points are considered points of no return—it is unlikely that original conditions will be restored.
5. Hard to put into perspective. The average American lifespan is about 79 years; a lifetime. In a single lifetime (since 1940), the oceans have warmed an average of 0.29 °F and the atmosphere has warmed an average of 2.4 °F (those pesky scientists and their thermometers). But, the Earth has a lot of atmosphere and a lot of ocean. The absorbed energy represented by the average temperature increases in the air and water over this lifetime is equivalent to almost 600 times the US energy consumption in 2017 alone (58,100 to the 15th Btu’s versus 97.7 x 10 to the 15th Btu’s). Over their lifetimes, a majority of humans do not perceive the temperature changes that are occurring and do not understand how climate change is causing the effects we are seeing today. We are like the proverbial frogs in water that is slowly heating up.
And that is only some of the things I can come up with because I’m not a climate scientist. I suppose I could google up more, but then, so can you.