December 12, 2010
Snapshots of global Warming
The Sahel:
By 2025, a warmer, drier climate will decrease
agricultural production by 5 to 20 percent.
Peanuts, beans, maize, rice and sorghum will
be the crops most affected. The rainy season
will be shorter, and storms more intense.
Australia:
The Great Barrier Reef, the largest tropical
coral reef system in the world, whose rate
of calcification increased by 0.1 percent per year,
1900-1970, is dying, its calcification having
decreased by 1.0 percent per year, 1990-2005.
The Arctic:
In 1985, Arctic sea ice covered about 3 million
square miles at its lowest point, in September.
If the present trend in emissions of greenhouse
gases continues, the Arctic Ocean will be
either nearly or completely ice-free by 2045.
Greenland:
From 2003 to 2008, Greenland lost about
200 billion tons of water per year from its Ice
Sheet – the equivalent of half of Lake Erie draining
into the ocean every year. Computer models of
ice sheets are unable to simulate such a rapid shift.
India:
The Himalayan glaciers are receding faster than
glaciers in any other part of the world, on course
to disappear by around 2035. The Ganges and
Brahmaputra will run dry during the summer.
India is likely to be water-stressed before 2025.
Bangladesh:
Heat and decreased rain will bring drought. Rapid
snowmelt and stronger monsoons will mean
increasingly frequent major floods. The rising sea
will cause salt water to seep into agricultural land.
More intense cyclones will batter coastal regions.
United States:
There is a 60 percent chance that before 2060, either
a flood or an earthquake will convert the Sacramento-
San Joaquin Delta, in California’s Central Valley, into
a saline estuary. Even now, the rising sea level is
causing salt water contamination of fresh water aquifers.
By 2025, the average temperature in New York City
will be 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 Celsius) higher than
today’s. Rain instead of snow will lower water reservoir
levels in the spring. Low reservoir levels protect against
floods, but also make shortages of water more likely.
. . .
These are but a few of the highlights
of the now-developing catastrophe.
The suffering behind the
numbers defies description.
Such is our legacy to our children.
References
Principal Reference:
Cullen, Heidi, 2010. The weather of the future – heat waves, extreme storms, and other scenes from a climate-changed planet. New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins/Harper.
The Sahel: pp. 63, 65, 74 and 80.
Australia: pp. 89-90 and 102.
The calcification of the Great Barrier Reef increased by 5.4 percent, 1900-1970, and decreased by 14.2 percent, 1990-2005.
The Arctic: pp. 149, 167 and 171.
Greenland: pp. 180-181, 182 and 184.
India: p. 209.
Bangladesh: pp. 196, 208, 211-212.
United States:
California: pp. 115, 124-126 and 128-129.
New York City: pp. 227, 235 and 243.
Other References:
Answers.com, undated.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_population_of_Sahel. Accessed December 12, 2010.
“The Sahel’s population was 19 million in 1961, 30 million in 1980, and 50 million in 2000.”
Economist, 2010. “Survival in the Sahel – It’s getting harder all the Time: Climatic Extremes, from Drought to Flood, threaten Survival.” (Author not specified). Kagara. December 2.
http://www.economist.com/node/17628093. Accessed December 12, 2010.
“The Sahel’s population is growing at 2.6 percent a year, more than twice the global rate.”
“The Sahel’s inhabitants are increasingly facing a cycle of extreme dry and wet spells, raising doubts as to whether the region is really habitable at all.”
Wikipedia, 2010. “Sahel.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki. Accessed December 12, 2010.
The Sahel is the eco-climatic and bio-geographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and savannas in the South.
The Sahel stretches across the north of the African continent between he Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea, covering parts of the countries of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Somalia , Ethiopia and Eritrea.
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