Tag: global warming

Despite the global efforts on tackling the climate change and looking for innovative ways to head towards a sustainable future, a newly-launched report “10 new insights in climate science 2019” highlights that the world is not on the same track, the actions that have been taken are not as fruitful as they should have been and the global leaders are not yet committing to the necessary emissions cuts.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration advises that the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season which was marked by intensified tropical activity from mid-August through October, comes to an end on Saturday, November 30. 2019 marks the fourth consecutive above-normal Atlantic hurricane season. The only other period on record that produced four consecutive above-normal seasons was in 1998-2001.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report highlights the urgency to prioritize timely, ambitious and coordinated action to address unprecedented and enduring changes in the ocean and cryosphere. The report also reveals the benefits of ambitious and effective adaptation for sustainable development and the increasing costs and risks of delayed action.

With the ocean absorbing vast quantities of heat, increased concentrations of GHG are reported in the atmosphere, mainly from fossil fuel consumption. In fact, the Fifth Assessment Report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 indicated that the ocean had absorbed over 93% of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions since the 1970s. This is leading ocean temperatures to increase.

Terry Beech, the Canadian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport and Member of Parliament for Burnaby North - Seymour, on behalf of Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport, announced that the Government of Canada is investing more than $300,000 in two projects at the Port of Vancouver to strengthen its transportation system and better prepare for climate change and extreme weather events.

A new research discovered that a warming planet could change ocean waves in more than 50% of the world's coastlines. If this happens, it could lead to significant impacts to coastal flooding and erosion. The pattern that is discovered from this research is that changes in wave heights are expected in some areas, with increases in the Southern Ocean and the tropical eastern Pacific, but reductions in the North Atlantic Ocean and portions of the northern Pacific Ocean. 

The speed and extent of global warming is more than any similar event in the past 2,000 years, researchers say. As they explain, famous historic events like the 'Little Ice Age' do not compare with the scale of warming that is being experienced over the last century.

Boat traffic on Europe's Rhine river came to a halt for the first time ever last year, because of the fact that shrinking alpine glaciers and drought made the key transport artery impossible to sail through. These conditions could take place once again in a few weeks.

A newly-published study presented the idea of 'artificial snow' could prevent further ice melting and could stop the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from sliding into the ocean. The scientists launched an engineering project to blanket the ice sheet's surface. 

According to scientists, the Thwaites Glacier, which is as enormous as the size of Florida, is on the edge of melting so quickly that it could result to catastrophic global sea level rises. This glacier is one of five recently identified as unstable Antarctic glaciers, which have doubled their rate of ice loss in just six years.