This just in. Unlike Las Vegas, what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. As you can see from the chart below, along about the year 2000, temps in the Arctic started going up much faster than the global average.
Notice that in just the past 18 years, Arctic temps have risen about 2.0 degrees C, while the global average temp has risen about 1/3 as much.
Why is this such a problem? It's because, with the albedo effect (a measure of how much of the sun's energy is reflected back into space), it's almost like a self-feeding monster. How does that work?
See chart below. The white, frozen tundra, reflects 85% of the sun's energy, whereas when that tundra melts, the dark blue ocean that replaces it absorbs 93% of that heat while reflecting only 7%.
That process then triggers "positive feedback loops" which means that the more the sea ice melts, the more heat the water absorbs, the warmer the air and the more the ice melts...and so forth. That process then leads to the out-of-control, exponential rise in the global average temperature that we are now beginning to see.
In the first chart above, the trend line shows the global average temperature rising 2 degrees C over pre-industrial levels by 2030--a full seventy years before that "end of the century" limit being promoted by the IPCC.
At the current rate of warming, we could realistically be looking at a global temperature rise of over 6 degrees C by 2100--and near certain disaster for much of life on this planet.
The Bottom Line. Climate change is happening now and we've almost certainly passed the tipping point. We must urgently work to raise the awareness of this terrifying phenomenon.
The above slides are included in my latest presentation below at the SW Florida VegFest on January 28, 2018
