Effects of the Warming Planet

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Positive feed back mechanisms are things that enhance the initial change like the warming making for extra dry summers that are helping create the epidemic of forest fires every summer. That ash and smoke from the forest fires then further clogs up the atmosphere and large amounts of CO2 are released from the burning vegetation raising the CO2 level even higher. Another example is the melting of the sea ice. Certain surfaces of the earth absorb and release radiation and some surfaces just reflect radiation. Ice and fresh snow are very reflective surfaces and the ocean that is currently where there used to be ice, does not reflect the radiation near as well. This radiation is being absorbed when it used to be reflected and this is another positive feed back mechanism to the warming.

Negative feed back mechanisms are ones that produce results that are opposite to the initial change and therefore offset the initial change. An example of a negative feed back mechanism is the warming is creating a greater amount of precipitation in the atmosphere increasing the amount of clouds. Clouds are very reflective and stop the radiation from even entering the atmosphere and becoming part of the greenhouse effect. So the extra precipitation as a result of the warming creates more clouds which lessons the amount of radiation entering the lower parts of the atmosphere and reduces the warming effect.

More cloud cover is also a positive feed back mechanism though because water vapour is an even more effective greenhouse gas than CO2 so the extra clouds not only stop radiation from getting in, but from getting out as well.

That being said, trying to illustrate how hard it is to predict the future changes, these are the things that we can assume without making fools of our selves. Let's first off say that it is the general impression to many people in the climate, weather, geological, biological, evolutionary, and more fields, that there is no doubt that the world is changing in the next 100 years in to a state that we are not familiar with at all in any part of human history. We can also say that these changes have never happened this fast or drastically, from our knowledge of past temperature, going back up to 400,000 years and more.

Current geological effects

Changes can be seen on a geological level in many areas. From rising sea levels to changing sea temperatures, from melting glaciers to melting permafrost, changes can be seen from the Arctic's to the equator all over the planet.

One thing to remember when speaking of Geology is that geological time is vastly different then we normally think. Where we think daily, yearly, even lifetime and multi-generational, geological time is easily decades and hundreds of years and more commonly thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of years. This is why these points below seem more serious to some than others because some of these changes that are happening in decades and centuries should take, and research of the past says usually takes, centuries and millennia or maybe would not have happened at all.

The following points are taken from National Geographic September 2004 - Global Warming:

• Glacier National Park had approximately 150 glaciers in 1910 and now in 2004 has around 30 and they are two-thirds smaller.
• Sperry glacier has shrunk from more than 800 acres to 250 acres between 1901 and 2004.
• The snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80 percent since 1912
• Glaciers in the Garwal Himalayas in India are retreating so fast that researchers believe that most central and Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2035.
• Average global sea level has risen between 4 and eight inches in the past 100 years according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• More than 100 million people live within 3 feet of mean sea level
• If the west Antarctic ice sheet were to break up, which scientist consider very unlikely in the next century, it alone contains enough ice to raise sea level by nearly 20 feet
• Thawing permafrost has caused the ground to subside more than 15 feet in parts of Alaska. (This makes for very bumpy roads and paths as the earth is uneven without the ice beneath the surface)
• Spring freshwater ice break-up in the Northern Hemisphere happens 9 days earlier than it did 150 years ago, and the autumn freeze-up 10 days later.
• Peru's Quelccaya ice cap is contracting over 600 feet a year in some area's putting people who rely on the water to live without water by the year 2100.
• An Inupiat island village in Western Alaska is planning to relocate because of rising sea levels and erosion.
• Since 1978 the area of the perennial Artic sea ice has decreased by 9 percent a decade.
• Every inch of sea level rise could result in 8 feet of horizontal retreat of sandy beach shorelines due to erosion.
• The arctic is warming several times faster than the rest of the planet.
• In three decades the average temperature in the Northern Alaska city of Barrow has risen 4.16 F and 2.26 in Anchorage.
• Computers models predict tat CO2 induced warming could eventually raise the incidence of fires by more than half.
• An estimated 23 cubic miles of water now runs off the Buckskin Glacier in Alaska each year, which is the largest glacial contribution to sea level rise on earth.
• The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in a 2001 report said that sea level could rise anywhere between 4 and 35 inches by the end of the century.
• Something known little about is the ocean conveyor belt - a worldwide ocean stream that transfers hot water to cold water area's and vice versa. This exchange helps contributes to global weather. The changes in ocean temperature are bigger and deeper than expected and can contribute significantly to changing weather in a short time span.

Current ecological effects

Many signs can already be seen as a result of global warming ecologically as well. These ecological changes support the fact that the geological changes are not supposed to happen this fast.

One of the main foods for polar bears are seals, which hang around before the ice break up in certain areas. With the ice breaking up earlier there is not the same amount of time for the bears to eat and get fat for the harsher winter and hibernation. There is also less time for the small new born bears to stock up giving them less to live off of during the winter period. It has also been recorded that fewer pups period are being born. (Is lesser pups being born directly associated to the mothers smaller bodies?)

There are always fluctuations of weather over time as well as species come and go and we as a species with science are getting better at seeing how this happens as well as how it has happened before. This knowledge shows us that these changes usually take time on a geological scale and nothing near the rate some of these changes are taking place today.

If geological changes caused changes in ecology this fast on a regular basis or as the norm in the past, we would not see life as it is today. Geology and evolutionary biology show that these changes do not regularly happen anywhere near this fast. The changes happening to the polar bears whole system/way of life are changing so fast that it appears likely they will go instinct. Unfortunately this is an area we know a lot about, extinction.

Other ecological changes that have been studied and recorded are:

• Frog population and variety is changing drastically in the Cost Rica area causing concern for amphibians worldwide.
• Certain species of Penguin are dwindling, possibly due to an average winter temperature being 9 degrees fairenheit different from what it was 50 years ago. 20% of the sea ice they use as a feeding platform is also gone since the mid 70's.
• When one species changes its habitat it affects the animals that feed on it. Most animals feed on multiple things and will not follow just one change but try to adapt.
• 4 million acres of Alaska spruce died victims of the spruce bark beetle. The beetle was killed by the cold winter where it lived in the past. With global warming the beetle was not killed off and then spread south, devastating forests.
• Warm ocean water causes coral to shed the algae that nourish it - a bleaching that leaves the coral white. In 1998 the worlds coral suffered it's worst year on record, which left 16 percent bleached or dead. (Many forms of sea life depend on coral reefs)
• Summer sea ice break up where polar bears and sea lions feed now occurs 2 to 3 weeks earlier than in the mid 20th century.
• The few "cloud tropical rainforests" remaining are experiencing less clouds every year. They are forming higher now because of rising temperatures near the surface. Many forms of life rely on the misty environment and are being forced to follow the clouds up where there is less room and more compettion.
• Caribou numbers have fallen by over 20% and scientists suspect it is because of the green vegetation starting and ending earlier, not giving the calves enough time to fatten for winter.

Some hypothesized effects of global warming are outlined below.

• Hotter summers and warmer winters.
• Greater changes in temperature in the cold regions of the earth.
• Rising sea levels, so much so that all coastal cities have some serious thinking to do in the next 50 years.
• Longer droughts and possible reversal of wet to dry areas and dry to wet areas.
• Stronger storms, intense hurricanes, heat waves, and weather patterns we are not familiar with.
• 50% greater chance of forest fires
• 2 to 5 degree Celsius warming over the next 100 years with the greater warming over land.
• Fewer cold and frost days.
• Changing migration patterns of animals trying to stay alive by finding a climate they are used to.
• Greater extinction of species than usual

These are only the major factors and most of them mean many more changes that will affect us on multiple levels. For example the rising ocean level will not only hamper cities but damage land with erosion. The intense heat and cold spells will increase fatalities caused by these factors already. Flooding and droughts will hamper agriculture everywhere, and so on.