Cherry blossoms in January. Bone-dry lake beds in China. A snowless winter at Europe's ski resorts. Mount Kilimanjaro's dwindling ice cap. While some of these aberrations may be attributable to El Nino and other natural phenomona, taken together, they remind humanity of the general warming of our planet. This February, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that based on new research over the last six years, it is 90 percent certain that human-generated greenhouse gases account for most of the global rise in temperatures over the past half century. Using language that was intentionally blunt, the 21-page report by scientists from 113 countries declared that 'warming of the climate system is unequivocal,' and that even in the best-case scenario, temperatures are on track to cross a threshold to an unsustainable level. A rise of more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels could cause such massive effects as widespread species extinctions and melting of ice sheets, irreversible within a human lifetime. Under the most conservative scenario, the increase will be 4.5 degrees by 2100. So it's not just you--it is hot in here. Keep clicking for scenes from an ever-warmer planet.
Comments