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Runaway Climate Change and Extreme Weather
Since twenty-ten the average planetary temperature has risen 8.7˚C. Sea levels have risen 14m. Many had predicted such changes in 2010 but most futurologist would have called them pessimists. While many had understood the potential for what was known as ‘Runaway Climate Change’, none could foresee the numerous overlapping factors that would give rise to the phenomenon.
Obviously the single greatest source of climate change was the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Later increasingly desperate governments and corporations sought energy, any energy for consumption without concern for the long or short-term effects upon climate, the use of the oil sands energy by Canada, the former USA and Russia as well as the use of methane hydrates from the polar ocean floor all being excellent examples thereof.
The rising temperatures not only led to rising sea volumes, but also decreased capacity to passively absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, warming waters being unable to absorb as much of the gas.
Rising temperatures also led to the thawing of the permafrost in Sibera, northern Canada and Alaska, which in turned inverted their function from net carbon sinks to carbon emitters and caused the release of approximately 90 gigatons of methane and 40 gigatons of methane clathrates from tundra areas. These gases had effects up to ten times that of a similar mass of carbon-dioxide and once this process, along with the reduced buffering of the world’s oceans due to increased temperatures and the massive deforestations undertaken by much of the world’s population in the twenty-fifties and sixties desperate for energy began, a very rapid and obviously irreversible trend in accelerated climate change began. This was known as ‘Run-Away Climate Change’ and, together with the energy shortages of the century, was directly responsible for most of the economic and human suffering we have observed.
Rising temperatures ultimately led to an inversion of many of the world’s ocean currents, ultimately leading to the ‘great freeze’ that currently grips the British isles and much of Scandinavia and the extreme weather phenomena including hurricanes, cyclones and frequent tornadoes that continually harass much of the world’s population.
Run-away climate change has sunk innumerable small islands, including the entirety of the Malidves, the majority of the Netherlands and amongst other major cities, London and New Orleans.
Areas in purple are completely flooded and areas in blue suffer from seasoning and/or tidal oceanic flooding.
‘Run-Away Climate Change’ has also led to massive droughts, especially in western North America, north-eastern Brazil, the Mediterranean basin, Iberia, Southern Africa, and Oceana, often due to reduced mountain glacier spring run-off but just as often not. Drought in these areas has also, in turn, led to greatly reduced agricultural productivity and frequent wild-fires brought on by ever-increasingly numerous lightning storms.
High altitude areas retain less ice and as a consequence many delta regions have suffered due to reduced river flow and rising sea levels Indeed one-sixth of the world’s population, in 2100 was dependent upon meltwater from mountain glaciers and these over the course of the last century, have almost completely disappeared as they migrated to safer areas or succumbed to hunger or disease.
For much of the rest of the world, humidity has sky-rocketed, together with the heat, bringing vector-borne diseases to many regions that had never before felt the effects of dengue, malaria or typhoid fever. Rivers across Europe and parts of Asia have swelled from constant increased rainfall and a lot of once arable land has been overtaken by swamp.
Global climate changes has not only affected the map of the earth and the way humans live, it has also affected its flaura and fauna. By twenty-fifty, over 15% of the worlds plants and animals existing in 2010 had gone extinct or were committed to doing so. As man turned increasingly in the twenty-fifties and sixties to wood-based charcoal for energy, the extinctions accelerated as many habitats were burned. By twenty-one hundred extinction rates neared 50%. The massive loss of biodiversity, especially in the world’s oceans has greatly affected the ecosystems with the loss of one animal species leading to the loss of several others dependent upon that first species. Fisheries in particular have been hit hard and coral reefs are all but extinct. Species thought to have gone extinct include all species of gorillas, all species of hippopotamus, all species of tiger, Javan, black, and northern white rhinos, several sea turtle species, Asian elephants, Bactrian camels, Ethiopian wolves, Iberian lynx, axolotls, Philippine eagle, California condor, Chinese alligators, the blue whale, narwhals, Asian elephants, giant pandas, snow leopards, Bornean orangutan, Tasmanian devils, and many, many more.
Ultimately while the rate of acceleration of climate change has fallen dramatically in the last twenty years, presumably as a reflection of humanity’s greatly reduced fossil fuel usage, it does continue to rise and is expected to continue to do so, though at a reduced rate, for the foreseeable future.
more added... so sad...
Northen wolf will cry.
