Climates Impact on Oceans and Ice because of Humans - Hayley Ouimette

Climate change is occurring now, ice caps are vanishing, coral reefs are converting to be dry and white, and storms are getting worse, making the result more devasting. The United Nations on September 25 formed its first complete update on how people's influence on climate change is altering Earth's cryosphere (frozen regions) and oceans. The main thing affecting how hazardous things will get is if countries decrease the amount of release of climate-warming greenhouse gases. The report explains two potential situations, the first being to decreasing greenhouse gases enough to restrict global warming 3.6F above preindustrial levels. The second one is that pollution continues at the same rate it's going now and the Earth warms 7.2F more. As of right now, glaciers and ice sheets are losing billions of tons of ice each year ranging from 155 to 278 billion tons getting smaller and smaller. In the winter sea ice expands and becomes thick and in the summer it thins out and becomes smaller, still reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. This keeps the Arctic temperatures regulated but due to the extreme thinning in the summer, it does not cover as much water. Now, the dark water is exposed and will absorb the sun making it hotter and increasing the temperature. This added warmth is affecting permafrost which is permanently frozen soil. Permafrost holds tons of carbon dioxide and methane (greenhouse gasses) that are released when it thaws. The oceans absorbing this heat are now resulting in burned coral reefs and toxic algal blooms and people caused almost 90% of this. Animals need to move into cooler environments since it is too hot affecting the local food webs. Not only are animals affected but the weather itself is impacted. Still affecting the environment, coastal areas are at risk because of rising sea levels at faster rates causing more floods. More common things like wind and rain are also affected by human-driven climate changes resulting in more extreme things like heavier rainfall and hurricanes. How often extreme El Nino and La Nina events around the globe will increase also becoming less predictable. This affects everyone's lives and is caused by what they are doing. If their current actions don't change, this will only get worse. The authors' intentions were to inform everyone about the consequences of their actions and that human-driven climate change is happening now. This will affect my life because I will be more conscious of what I do in my life that could be affecting the world, and everyone will do this too. Now that people are aware of what is happening, everyone can see how we play a major role on our planet. If every person modifies the way they live, improving the environment, can we save this world we continuously seem to destroy before its too late?



Link: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/report-sums-climates-already-dramatic-impact-oceans-and-ice