What does it mean?
The Global Warming issue that is so prominent in today's media, and for people like us making earthSOS, is not just the definition which is self explanatory, our atmosphere is warming, but the rate at which this is happening.
Different reports have different numbers but in the ten-year period from 1990 to 2000 the global temperature is said to have warmed between .1 degree Celsius and .4 of a degree. Let us choose a number in the middle of the two, .25 of a degree Celsius, for a simple calculation. Now since we are a consciously evolving species we are gaining the ability to care for our world and earth outside of our life span for future generations, right? So let us look at a simple 100 years in to the future, which is not very multi-generational considering our grandchildren in theory will easily still be alive. So 100 divided by ten equals ten, multiplied by .25 equals a 2.5 degree Celsius change by the year 2100. Now that in Fahrenheit is around 5 degrees Fahrenheit. So imagine your annual overall temperature being 2.5 Celsius and 5 Fahrenheit hotter at any given time of the year. Now to us at earthSOS that sounds like a lot but to others it might not. The fact is though that the temperature that water evaporates at is not going to change and the temperature at which local vegetation is just trying to stay alive because of more heat than it is used to, having to burning water to survive and not growing, will not change. Up in Canada some might say fantastic I hate all the snow anyways while others on the equator might say please no we can't handle it any hotter. The 3-5 days of rain we've had in Vancouver Canada in June and July and now August of 2004 have not made it easy on gardens. It is also very apparent that there is no growth on very hot days even though the plants have water and sun, because it is just too hot. As well, to assume that the temperature will change equally everywhere is a wrong assumption. Global temperature is an average temperature taken from hundreds if not thousands of weather reading stations worldwide. Some areas might not change that much while others are changing drastically resulting in the average global temperature increase. The greatest change is in the arctic areas of the world where a winter average temperature in one area of Antarctica has risen nearly 9 F in the last 50 years. The Atmosphere, ninth edition by Lutgens and Tarbuck, a geography textbook used in university classes, states that the projected globally averaged surface temperature will increase by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. has it ever happened before? |
