Climate Change, Global Warming & El Nino- Reality or a Hoax?

Climate Change, Global Warming & El Nino- Reality or a Hoax?

Climate change is being widely debated as the Paris 2015 summit nears. The record setting El Nino of 1997-1998 caused floods, fires, droughts and calamities. The 1918-1919 El Nino created a massive drought for Indian subcontinent and probably sparks off the largest international flu pandemic.

El Nino or ENSO is named after infant Jesus Christ. It is the warming of the Pacific in the equatorial region as a result of weakened trade winds pushing sun warmed waters toward the west.

Global warming refers to the rise in temperature as a result of rising GHG emissions. Global warming induced climate change is making the world a hotter and more difficult place to survive. But for some time now, a debate has ranged about just how real climate change is. Climate change sceptics have upheld their arguments in the face of stiff opposition from the supporters.

Let us examine both sides of the coin and see who wins the toss…

Yes, it is real!

1. Extreme weather and climate events - Climate change and El Nino have triggered Pacific typhoons and choked major Asian cities with smoke. EL Nino is causing different corners of the world to get a bad harvest and lowering milk production.

2. Strongest El Nino patterns observed - The current El Nino is shaping up as one of the strongest patterns since record keeping commenced in 1950. From the price of coffee in Colombia to the future survival of species of fish, everything is being impacted by one of the strongest El Nino patterns ever seen.

3. Temperature thresholds cross - Temperatures across a portion of the central Pacific by researchers has reached 2.4 degree celsius above normal. The El Nino phenomenon is observed from 0.8 degree celsius onwards.

4. Feast or famine climate pattern - While some regions will receive too much rain, others will remain hot and dry, scientists say, resulting in a holocaust like situation in some parts of the world.

5. Skeptics are wrong - Climate change believers have validated that global warming is a documented phenomenon. Scientists found that past climate change caused the largest extinction of life close to 250 million years ago.

6. Decreasing forest cover -All across the world, the tropical forest cover is falling at a drastic rate making climate change and global warming a very real phenomenon.

7. NASA data supports climate change argument - NASA data indicates that global arming has reached record highs and the atmosphere of the earth.

8. Global warming moving at unprecedented rate - Over the past 1,300 years, climate change is proceeding at an unprecedented rate. Heat trapping nature of gases such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide have added to the conundrum

9. Alarming rise in sea levels - In the last century, global sea levels rose by 6.7 inches. Rate in the previous decade is nearly double of the previous century.

10. Ocean temperatures on the rise - Oceans have absorbed increased heat at the height of 700m of ocean showing warming of 0.302 degree Farenheit since 1969.

11. Shrinking ice sheets - Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have fallen drastically in mass. Research from the NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment shows that Greenland lost 150 to 250 cubic kms between 2002 and 2006 while the latter ice sheet lost 152 cubic kilometres. Both extent and degree of thickness of Arctic sea ice has fallen over the previous 10 years

12. Glaciers are retreating - Almost everywhere in the world, glaciers such as those in the Andes, Rockies, Alaska, Africa, Himalayas and Alps is on the retreat.

13. Ocean acidification - Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, ocean waters acidity has risen by 30 percent. In another alarming statistics, CO2 absorbed by upper layers of oceans has risen to 2 billion tonnes per year.

14. Decreasing snow cover - Satellite observations show that snow cover in the North Hemisphere has fallen over the past 50 years at a steep rate.

No, it is not real

1. Arctic ice is following natural cycles, not climate change - Researchers have found the outer edge of Arctic ice expands and contracts over regular periods across 6 to 8 decades. Recent changes in Arctic sea ice are the result of standard cyclical movements and not associated with any major climate change.

2. Computer simulation models are mere extrapolation - Climate changes moves time and within natural variability. Simulation models are mere extrapolation. Climate change and global warming are more of a concept.

3. Temperature rise and fall follows a natural pattern - Earth’s average temperature has risen over more than 0.8 degree C over the last 100 years. However, past records show there is a natural variability in the temperature and there is nothing to worry about.

4. Record ice - There has been record sea ice in Antarctica in 2014. Arctic sea ice has made a comeback in 2014. This is in contrast to contentions that global warming has caused 2014 to become the hottest year on record. There has also been record snowfall in 2014.

5. Extreme Cold - In 2014, the various kinds of cold records were set indicating it is not the hottest year of all times

6. Fauna are thriving - From moose to polar bears, various species of animals thought to be at the brink of extinction are actually thriving.

7. Majority does not believe in global warming - A vast section of people have stopped believing in global warming a long time ago. This is because the facts speak for themselves.

8. Nature produces carbon dioxide - NASA launched a satellite measuring CO2 levels across the globe and it is coming from rainforests in South America, China and Africa, not human activity.

9. Politics of climate change - The real issue is that climate change is being used to gain political mileage

10. Science of climate change faulty - Science underlying climate change makes assumptions which are faulty in their assertion and biased in favour of theoretical assumptions without practical implications

Conclusion

Climate change has a massive role to play in how the future of the earth shapes itself. What has now become important is not whether climate change is real, but what can be done to counter it. In fact, in a recent debate in the US Senate, even Republicans voiced their support for combating climate change. With the lines between the believers and the sceptics continue to blur, climate change becomes less of an hoax and more of a reality.