On Sept. 2, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a 900-page report on the damage that climate change has done to the Earth's oceans and ice sheets from the highest mountain to the shallowest bottom of the sea. The report also covered the compilation of thousands of scientific studies and the forecasts for the crucial parts of the climate system's future.
While climate change has been the topic for several decades now, it may seem that this was considered merely as a phenomenon or a theory that coincides with human existence. According to the IPCC report, however, the problem of climate change is not just theoretical. The impact of climate change does not only affect nature per se, but it is becoming tangible for every human being all over the globe.
Scientific researches and studies show that global warming has given too much heat for polar ice caps, high mountain glaciers, and oceanic ice sheets to absorb. This system of absorption is the leaning ground for human existence and it is becoming more fragile every day. In fact, it is starting to become a threat to human life.
Threats of climate change have tolled since it was first reported in the 1970s. Previous reports said that since then, oceans have been absorbing more than 90% of the extra heat that greenhouse gases emit and got trapped in the Earth's atmosphere.
In the same report, 20–30% of the greenhouse gases were carbon dioxide. This means that over the years, oceans have been providing a shield against climate change to land-dwellers. And without this shield, the atmospheric temperature would have heated up to more than one degree of what we are currently experiencing.
According to Nathan Bindoff, an oceanographer at the University of Tasmania, the rate of global warming has doubled and the rate of climate change has constantly gone up since 1993. Not only that, the marine heatwaves have doubled in temperature which highly affected and stressed anything within its stretch.
Of course, ice sheets of the Earth are not exempted. Ice all over the planet is changing, and it is changing fast!
Nearby communities greatly feel melting glaciers in high mountains. The Andes and the Himalayan glaciers are beginning to melt and retreat unprecedentedly at over 30% in rate compared to decades of years back. While melted glaciers provide fresh, clean water to high mountain dwellers and downstream communities, the accelerated retreat of glaciers impact the timing, amount, and quality of meltwater.
When the glaciers in the Himalayas melt, they are coursed into the lakes. These lakes are perched precariously above villages and towns in most scenarios. This, in turn, means that it can be a threat for flood to settlements below them.
According to Twila Moon, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, although drinking water, energy production, and agricultural produce are not problematic at the moment, they will soon be. Glaciers are critical contributors to all types of water resources, and with its rapid retreat, problems will now start to come down the line.
Issues and news on the changes in the Earth's ice may not seem to impact us, but as these glaciers retreat fast, the forecast is projected to go way up.
According to Heidi Steltzer, a mountain scientist at Fort Lewis College, the future depends on what every people can contribute and collectively do together. The time has come to help collaborate on solutions to minimize the rapid ice retreats and ocean brunts.
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