By Chrys-Michel Esseau-Thomas
Sigh. So there are still some skeptics out there.
There are still people that are desperately trying to deny—well, the undeniable fact—that climate change is a real problem! The scientific evidence is indisputable. And after multiple articles and documentaries released to educate the mass, or the different global meetings to attempt solving the problem, this article still needs to be written.
So here it is, one more time, in case you’ve missed a decade of discussion.
The global temperature is rising, and it’s true! According to NASA, Earth has warmed since 1880 and the warmest years having occurred since 1980, 10 of them being in the past 12 years. And the trend is continuing to increase. This has led to warmer oceans, 0.3 Fahrenheit more than 1969. It may sound insignificant but when you look at how it impacts marine ecosystems, it is huge.
But it’s not all.
The unusual elevated temperature is causing the melting of ice caps and sheets in polar regions. Greenland and the Antarctic for instance, have seen their ice sheets decreased in mass. To get more technical and specific, Greenland lose about 50 cubic miles of ice per year between 2002 and 2006.
This is equivalent to 50 containers, 23 stories long and as wide as Manhattan.
Antarctica has lost about 36 cubic miles of ice around the same time period. And all the ice that has melted didn’t just vanish. Global sea level has risen about to 6.7 inches in the past century, with the rate of last decade being twice as much as that of the last century.
And this is not mentioning the fact that oceans have become more acidic due to excess of CO2, that the corals of the Great Barrier Reef have almost all died and that the United States have been subject to records of high temperature, correlating with increased numbers tornadoes.
So there, this is a small pebble I’m throwing into this ocean of denial (hopefully not rising) and hope the ripples will converge with others in the attempt to disturb this great myth that climate change is not real.