How to ensure adequate protection from major sea level rise?

Climate change will completely change our way of life and future generations will have their hands full in dealing with different climate change threats. Among the most talked about climate change threats is also a major sea level rise.

Sea levels are already increasing very fast and in years to come several areas of the world might completely disappear from the global map of the world, being completely swollen by water. This is the reason why people need to adapt very quickly to these changes, and who knows, the way things are currently going, maybe in years to come, floating homes will become a common sight in many countries of the world.

Some countries are more vulnerable to sea level rise than other, and some countries are also technologically much more superior to tackle this threat as compared to some other, mostly developing countries.

However, the lives of people should be equally valued in both developing as well as developed world which means that developed countries should create massive funds so that poor countries could develop adequate flood engineering solutions to tackle the sea level threat.

Many densely populated areas could experience problems with huge sea level rise, even before the end of this century, and world leaders need to start thinking right away about the possible technologies that could protect these areas from massive flooding.

Failure to do so will not only create millions of refugees but also millions of deaths. We must avoid this scenario, no matter what.

Connection between glaciers and climate change

Glaciers, or to be more precise glaciers melting, is one of the most obvious indicators of climate change. The main reason behind the rapid melting of glaciers in many part of the world has been the significant increase in temperatures.

The warmer temperatures cause glaciers to retreat, and the only thing that can compensate for the rapid melting of glaciers is increase in snow precipitation. In many parts of the world snow wasn't enough to compensate for warmer temperatures which has resulted in massive shrinking of many glaciers on our planet.

Glaciers need to be observed for at least a decade before science can speak of retreat or expansion of certain glacier and this is usually done by observing satellite images in a longer period of time.

The special organization called the World Glacier Monitoring Service collects each year a different data on glacier retreat and glacier mass balance. According to their latest reports in period from 1980 till now there has been a trend of serious glacier retreating after a stable period from 1920-1970.

The majority of scientists also predicts that glaciers will continue their retreat unless world comes to a global climate change agreement that would significantly reduce carbon emissions on global level.

By the current looks of it world is still very far from reaching the legally obliging international climate deal which spells huge danger for glaciers on our planet. Rapid melting of the glaciers will in years to come not only cause big sea level rise but also a serious water shortage because glaciers are a key source of water for many areas around the world.

A decade long period of stability for Arctic's summer sea ice?

The large number of climate change scientists agree that the Arctic ice will eventually disappear completely during summer months if climate change continues at current pace. Some believe such scenario will very likely happen before the year 2050.

The several different studies have showed that in the last thirty years Arctic summer ice has shrunk by more than a third driven by unusual warm climate which cannot be only explained by natural causes.

One of the most interesting recent studies about the melting of Arctic ice comes from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). According to this study the Arctic ice may temporarily stabilize or even somewhat expand at times over the next few decades.

This was a rather interesting conclusion and the scientists were somewhat surprised by the results of computer simulations which showed a temporary stop to the loss of the Arctic ice.

The results of computer simulations showed that Arctic could well see a 10-year period of stable ice or even a slight increase in the expansion of the ice.

However, long-term speaking we are still in for a total loss of Arctic's summer sea ice. One of the leading NCAR scientist Jennifer Kay said that "when you start looking at longer-term trends, 50 or 60 years, there's no escaping the loss of Arctic's ice in the summer."

Which country is most vulnerable to climate change?

Climate change will affect whole planet but some countries will be more affected than others. For instance if sea levels are about to rise according to scientific predictions then Bangladesh could soon disappear under the sea, and the same destiny could await some richer countries, like for instance Netherlands. When we talk about world's most powerful countries then many scientists see China as the country most vulnerable to climate change.

China is currently world's biggest polluter heavily dependent upon fossil fuels, most notably coal to keep its economic growth up and running. Despite big investments in renewable energy sector like wind energy and hydropower China is likely to remain heavily dependent upon fossil fuels, for at least couple of decades. The Current situation that China is in is really a tricky one because Chinese are aware that they have to curb greenhouse gas emissions but they do not want to sacrifice their economic boom to do so.

What is the impact of methane to climate change and global warming?

The greenhouse gas that mostly contributes to global warming and climate change is carbon dioxide (CO2). The second most harmful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming is methane(CH4). Methane is mostly emitted by agriculture(the most famous source comes from cows burping), though methane is also released from fossil fuels burning (coal and natural gas). Currently widely accepted conclusion is that methane is 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide, meaning it is 25 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2. However some latest studies imply that methane is much more potent than most scientists agree, up to 33 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2, at least this is what Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies said in its latest report.

How will climate change affect organisms on Earth?

Many scientists will agree that climate change is already happening, and that we cannot stop it. The only thing we can do is to make sure we do not give more impact to climate change, and this can be done by significantly decreasing global greenhouse gas emission levels. This is what most scientists agree upon but the one thing where there are still many different theories among scientists is how will climate change affect organisms on Earth. This is still in the sphere of theories and predictions, though most agree that climate change will have extremely negative impact on most organisms that live on our planet.

How much of carbon dioxide can oceans and forests absorb?

Brand new research from Bristol university team found rather surprising results that are in contradiction with similar researches done over the past years. According to this research the absorbed amount of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite the rise of emissions of carbon dioxide from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now. Does this mean that oceans and forests have much larger CO2 sinking ability than we previously thought they have?

Canada will fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

According to the Environment Canada, the country’s major environmental agency, Canada will fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve its 2020 targets because of emissions from tar sands. 

The rapid development of tar sands in Canada which injects steam into thick oil deposits to produce oil will account for 62 million metric tons of CO2 emissions from 2005 to 2020, almost dwarfing 31 million metric tons in planned CO2 reductions as Canada’s power plants switch from burning coal to natural gas. 

The recent study by Canada’s Pembina Institute estimates that by 2020 Alberta’s tar sands will account for 12 percent of Canada’s total CO2 emissions. 

Tar sands will be the main reason why Canada will likely exceed its 2020 CO2 emissions reductions target by gigantic 178 million metric tons. 

The Canadian fossil fuel industry, as expected, has denied these reports claiming they are far blown out of proportion because new technologies being employed in tar sands will help significantly reduce emissions in the upcoming years. 

One thing is sure though, Canada has a very difficult task in reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in years to come.

Russia's permafrost melting will add to global climate change impact

Russia's permafrost melting could further increase global climate change impact as according to the latest scientific estimates Russia could lose 15-30 percent of its permafrost by the year 2050.

Permafrost refers to the soil that has been permanently frozen and it currently covers around 63% of Russia's territory. Once permafrost melts it will release massive amounts of greenhouse gas methane currently stored in the frozen soil which will add more impact to climate change.

Not only that, thawing of permafrost will also give huge problems to transportation, building, and energy extraction infrastructure, accounting also for huge economic damage.

The temperatures in western Siberia territories will rise by up to two degrees Celsius to just three or four degrees below zero which will result in shifting of the boundary of the permafrost to the north-east by 150-200 kilometres.

This negative news have come from the Andrei Bolov, the head of the ministry's disaster monitoring department. He also added that "the negative impact of permafrost degradation on all above-ground transportation infrastructure is clear.

There are no easy solutions for climate change

The ideal solution to solve the climate change issue would be turning carbon dioxide (CO2) into something useful such as fuel and plastics but the current scientific reports claim that this solution is years off, mostly because of very high construction costs.

Some pilot projects showed great promise such as manufacture of concrete, plastics and oils from carbon dioxide but the main drawbacks of all these pilot projects were high construction and operational costs.

Carbon capture and storage solutions that aim to store and bury carbon dioxide underground are also connected with relatively high costs but are currently receiving more attention than technologies that aim to transform CO2 into some useful products. However, these technologies have so far been used only in some regional pilot projects, still lacking global character.

This means that at this moment the only possible solution to tackle climate change is to significantly reduce global level of greenhouse gas emissions and this sadly cannot be achieved without the international climate deal.

International climate deal also looks to be years off because there is still a huge difference in opinion between developed and the developing world. The world leaders continue with their talks and promises but there's nothing concrete coming out of it. Hope for new climate deal seems to be fading away with each new disappointing talk.

At this moment there doesn't seem to be some easy solution to tackle climate change. There's no magic trick that will return climate back to the normal, the only solution at this time is to make a drastic cut in greenhouse gas emissions.