4 ms·
So what? The risk of climate change isn't that individuals will die from acute heat events, but that a few degrees' change of average, global temperatures will
by rexpop 3y ago
So what? The risk of climate change isn't that individuals will die from acute heat events, but that a few degrees' change of average, global temperatures will destabilize climate systems and ecological niches.
Let's catch you up[0] on some of the impacts:
> between 1971 and 2020, around 380 zettajoules of energy has been trapped by global warming. The oceans have absorbed around 89% of the energy (338.2 zettajoules), land has absorbed 6% (22.8 zettajoules), 4% (15.2 zettajoules) has melted parts of the cryosphere — the part of Earth's climate system that includes snow, sea ice, freshwater ice, icebergs, glaciers and ice caps, ice sheets, ice shelves and permafrost — and just 1% (3.8 zettajoules) has remained in the atmosphere.
> The majority of the heat absorbed by the seas is trapped in the upper 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) of the oceans. This has spared humanity from the brunt of climate change so far, but it has also caused massive increases in sea surface temperatures, which has accelerated polar melting, damaged marine ecosystems, increased the severity of tropical storms and begun to disrupt ocean currents.
All of this is to say nothing of the added effects of CO2 itself, such as ocean acidification disrupting marine ontogeny[1] or even CO2 concentrations causing cognitive impairment[2] in humans!
0. https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/energy-of-25-billion-atomic-bombs-trapped-on-earth-in-just-50-years-all-because-of-global-warming https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/ener...
1. https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification's+impact+on+oysters+and+other+shellfish https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification's+im...
2. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200421/Atmospheric-CO2-levels-can-cause-cognitive-impairment.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200421/Atmospheric-CO2-l...