What is the cause of global climate change?

Following the abnormally warm weather (May 2, Moscow’s air temperature warmed to 25.6 degrees), there was the same anomalous cooling. For several days, since May 8, the air does not warm above 10 degrees Celsius. Is such weather a consequence of global warming, why does the Earth’s temperature rise, who can stand behind climate change and what kind of weather anomalies should we expect this year?

Global warming as the engine of progress

Contrary to the popular belief that global warming is a fairly new phenomenon, scientists argue that the temperature on Earth began to rise already in the 19th century. And the reason for this lies in the increasingly active economic activity of man.

For example, three centuries ago, no one could be surprised that the Thames froze: judging by the engravings of that period, fairs and ice skating were organized on the river. Now it is so rare that it is considered an anomaly that causes panic among local residents. The ice cap of the Arctic began to decline as early as the beginning of the 20th century. However, this is what made the northern sea route possible.

But its climax, scientists believe, has reached warming in 1920-1930 – it was at this time that a number of climatic changes took place that significantly influenced the entire ecosystem of the planet. So, the temperature on Spitsbergen (this is part of the polar archipelago located in the Arctic Ocean) increased by an average of 5 degrees on average – because of this it became possible to conduct economic activities there. In the Greenland Sea, the thickness of the ice cover has decreased by half, and in the Barents Sea by 30 percent. These phenomena led to the fact that both seas became available for navigation.

At the same time, the boundary of permafrost began to recede everywhere, and the temperature of frozen soils rose by 1.5-2 degrees. Warming led to the fact that droughts became common in the territories of the Soviet Union and “got” to America. Flora and fauna changed in whole districts.

However, as early as the 1940s, climatic trends began to change, and cooling began. A warming, observed only a couple of decades ago, experts called just an anomaly that has no global prospects. During this period, the glaciers in the mountains of the Caucasus almost ceased to melt, the boundary of the ice in the Arctic began to shift to the south, and on Spitsbergen it became noticeably colder.

The sea worries once

The World Ocean is to blame for what happens to the atmosphere. The fact is that the water in the ocean warms up unevenly – in shallow water, the temperature can reach 36 degrees, but at the deepest depth it does not exceed zero degrees. In order to heat all this mass of water, it is necessary to try very hard. For example, if the atmosphere of the Earth is heated by 1 degree due to people’s activity, the ocean temperature will increase by a miserable value – only 0.001 degrees. Therefore, even with the very active emission of carbon dioxide and dust into the atmosphere (this is what causes the temperature to rise), the ocean will be heated very slowly – it will prevent the melting of glaciers and very large depth, which generates ice streams of water.

To the cold weather that occurred in the 1940s-1950s, led, oddly enough, to warming. Because of the heated atmosphere, air masses over the ocean began to move actively. The wind drove a warm surface layer in a certain place, and instead of it, ice streams rose from the ocean floor, which then were mixed with warm ones. Actually, this mixing of water and led to a decrease in temperature on the surface of the ocean and, as a consequence, a decrease in the temperature of the atmosphere. It is curious, but even if the temperature is lowered, the ocean continues to warm up, albeit on scanty values.

Emissions of cold water from the depths of the ocean, which began to occur due to the mixing of flows, led to a number of weather anomalies. This phenomenon seriously affected the climate of a number of regions: in some parts of the world there was a severe drought, which resulted in the death of thousands of people, and in others – heavy rains. Especially in this regard, distinguished in 1972, which became a record for weather anomalies.

Carbon dioxide

The main reason why the atmosphere is heated, and then begins to “worry” the World Ocean, is the greenhouse effect. It, in turn, is created because of the release of carbon dioxide, which is just related to human activities. During the industrial era, the content of this gas in the atmosphere increased more than a third.

Scientists predict that in the next 100-200 years the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere risks exceeding the Triassic period that was on Earth 200 million years ago. Then the planet was inhabited by dinosaurs, and the sun shone very dimly.

Normally, the Earth’s atmosphere should contain carbon dioxide from 200-400 parts per million in cold periods and up to 3000 – in warm periods. Currently, the cold period on the planet, and just one and a half centuries ago, this figure was about 250 parts per million. But over the past decades, the carbon dioxide content has grown more than 1.5 times and in the past year it has made 405 parts per million. Of great importance is the fact that changes occur very quickly: if in the time of dinosaurs, climatic metamorphosis took millions of years, now they occur in the eyes of 2-3 generations of people.

Another factor that influences the heating of the atmosphere is the so-called thermal caps over the cities – the larger the settlement, the warmer it is. And the most beautiful flickering on the surface of the Earth, which we see when viewing images from space, is the most real sign of a climatic threat.

But, whatever it is (if you do not take into account the apocalyptic predictions of some experts), even if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases so much that it will lead to a warming of 5-10 degrees, wait until it really affects the weather outside the window, Will not be one decade.

What will happen next

In general, scientists agree that in the next few years we are facing not so much a sharp warming as a change in the structure of the climate as a whole. These changes are characterized by a large number of weather anomalies, which, in fact, we are seeing now.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), last year was the warmest in the history of meteorological observations: the average temperature was higher by 1.1 degrees. However, the temperature averaged one degree higher, since 2001. Even such insignificant (in the opinion of the philistine) changes have already led to serious consequences. Researchers believe that it was climate change that caused the fires in Canada, California rainstorms and earthquakes in Italy, which occurred in 2016.

As for the prospects for this year, the forecasts of scientists are disappointing. According to experts, climate change in the Arctic, active melting of glaciers will lead to a shift in the wider structures of oceanic and atmospheric circulation, which will seriously affect weather in different parts of the world.

In February of this year, NASA specialists recorded record-breaking for the whole history of observations (since 1979) the ice cover of Antarctica and the Arctic.

Such processes, scientists predict, by the end of the XXI century can lead to the fact that about five million Europeans will lose their homes because of floods.

Anomalies have already been fixed in the winter of 2017 and there will be more of them, experts warn. According to WMO, at least three times in the Arctic observed “polar equivalent of the heat wave.” This phenomenon was caused by the influx of warm moist air due to powerful Atlantic storms. Almost 12 thousand temperature records were recorded in February in America. From a prolonged and extreme heat in January-February, Australia suffered, and in some parts of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa there were unusually strong colds.

It is interesting that the temperature of the surface air layer in Russia is growing 2.5 times more than in the world as a whole. This conclusion follows from the report of Roshydrometcentre “On the peculiarities of climate on the territory of the Russian Federation for 2016”. Particularly warm in the Arctic: in Taimyr, the temperature rose by 0.8 degrees in 10 years.

The result of these processes was the abnormal weather, which we observed in December last year, when several temperature records were broken at once. In addition, the year 2016 was the absolute record for the number of hazardous meteorological phenomena, including those that caused damage. There were recorded 590 cases of heat, frost, strong winds and precipitation, as well as frost and snowstorms. A year earlier they were 570, and 10-15 years ago – 150-400. Data for this year, of course, not yet, but, apparently, the current anomalous weather – the continuation of last year’s trends.

It took only four days for the Slims River, 150 meters wide, to disappear from the face of the planet. This was a consequence of climate change on the Kaskawulsh glacier in Canada and the first case of such a large-scale river interception in the entire history of observations. The interception of the river, scientists say, is a geological process that usually lasts much longer than human life. Therefore, what happened to the Slims River was a real shock for the researchers, who began to observe the process on Monday, and finished – on Thursday.

However, one of the most serious consequences of global warming, which humanity will have to face in the foreseeable future, may be a slowdown in the warm current of the Gulf Stream. This can lead to the realization in life of scenarios of popular catastrophe films, which show how coastal areas of the USA are washed off by a huge wave, and Europe freezes due to abnormal colds.

Already now the areas of Northern Europe, which are warmed by the Gulf Stream, are becoming less comfortable as before, especially in the winter. This is due to the fact that the warm Gulf Stream stream usually began to be diluted with cold water from the Atlantic Ocean. The fresh water of the current has a lower density than the salt ocean, so it remains on the surface, disrupting the balance of the huge current. Scientists believe that it was the slowing down of the Gulf Stream that in its time led to the onset of the small ice age. It is not hard to guess what can happen if the scenario repeats.

Scientists from Malaysia are not encouraging either: specialists warn that because of global warming, it is necessary to wait for the increase in precipitation during the summer monsoon in the next 50-100 years. And all because of the fact that carbon dioxide keeps in the air a large amount of moisture that spills rain on already flooded areas.

Convenient truth

According to the conspiracy theory, behind global climate changes are quite specific forces. This is the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, an American research program on the study of the ionosphere and auroras, which was launched in 1997 in Alaska and closed in 2014. HAARP was accused of not only turning off satellites, controlling people’s minds and being used as weapons against terrorists, but also generating weather events on their own, causing earthquakes, droughts, hurricanes and floods. He is also considered the cause of the crash of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.

In fact, it is known that HAARP was studying the uppermost part of the atmosphere, called the ionosphere. The profile of the ionosphere is extremely difficult to study, because it is very thin and variable. This profile becomes especially difficult in the vicinity of the magnetic poles of the Earth. Research in this area is aimed at the development of anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems.

An attempt to “expose” the causes of global warming was made by Al Gore, former vice-president of the United States and rival of George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election. According to the theory of Gore (for which he received the Nobel Prize in 2007), which he laid out in the documentary “Inconvenient Truth”, the cause of global warming is not only scientific, but also political factors. The point of view of the policy is still contested by some scientists. Another part of the specialists generally considers Horus’s conclusions pseudoscientific and unfounded. Ignored the environmental agenda of Gore and most of the Americans who chose Bush as their president. However, he subsequently lost an impressive part of his electorate just because he did not pay due attention to the problem of global warming.

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