Global Warming at -19 degrees Wind Chill
It must be tough for the delegates at the Climate Change Conference here in Montreal to deal with the realities of Global Warming as they walk around on a bright, cold morning where the wind chill is currently -19 degrees Celsius. However there are some alarming reports coming out of that conference. I picked up two on the radio this morning and found them described more fully on a blog called Circumpolar Musings - Circumpolar Studies Online.. This is pulled together by Amanda Graham. She is the instructor for the University of the Arctic’s online BCS 100 and Coordinator of University of the Arctic @ Yukon College. Here are her accounts of those two items:
Glaciers retreating faster due to global warming
(AP via The Toronto Star, 8 December 2005) — SAN FRANCISCO
Related posts:
The first thing we should all agree to is to stop calling it “global warming.” A more accurate description is “climate change,” because there is far more to the phenomenon than simply warming.
Overall warming will cause huge disruptions all over the earth, including some places becoming warmer and some places becoming colder. (E.g., the British Isles will likely get colder, because overall warming is causing the strength of the Gulf Stream to decline — by 30% in the past 12 years.)
It will (or should I say, IS) also creating a more volatile climate, such as warmer summers and colder winters, plus more hurricanes, and odd unseasonable extremes such as sudden thaws in winter and cold snaps in summer.
So yeah, “global warming” describes the overall effect, but it doesn’t really encompass what we are actually experiencing.
You’re right, Blork, but I think it may be a question of packaging to get everyone on side. It’s that old, Think Globally, Act Locally, phrase again. On average, the globe seems to be heating up and that’s the overall effect we should worry about. Then against that in any local area you’ve got to prepare for what effect that may have on the people who live there. For some it may be colder or hotter: for others it may be more rainfall or less rainfall: for others again it could be flood conditions. However the first thing to try to delay is the global warming.