|
Even many of those who shook their heads when hearing about global warming years ago are now taking notice. No, the U.S. didn’t sign the Kyoto Treaty, but American officials in government and the private sector are getting more and more involved in looking at global climate change.
The global temperature has risen about half a degree Celsius in the last century. To some, that doesn’t seem like a problem (and many choose to ascribe it to a “natural cycle” rather than the enormous CO2 output of today’s human community), but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released findings that with this rise in temperature, the sea level of the world’s large bodies of water has risen 6 to 8 inches, and other government reports indicate we’re headed for a higher and higher sea level in the future as arctic and Antarctic ice continues to melt due to higher global temperatures.
One concern is that “icebergs”, or large floating chunks of ice in sub-zero regions, could be affected, thus causing even more water to dump into the oceans.
But according to some experts, it’s not the icebergs themselves that pose the biggest problem.
True icebergs or free-floating ice formations work on the principle of displacement, which means that their melting would be offset by their diminishing bulk and would not affect the water level. As far as the major polar ice caps, which would really raise the sea level (up to several feet by many projections), these larger ice formations are well below melting temperature and probably won’t be affected any time soon.
More danger lies in the area around places like Greenland, where ice portions closer to melting temperatures could be affected.
The Problem
Even a small rise in sea level can be devastating for the many seaside communities that have developed worldwide. The human tendency to live near water goes back to the earliest days of civilization, and adds vulnerability to more of the world’s urban areas. We’ve seen how low-lying communities can be dramatically affected by the failure of levies in storm situations. A rise in sea level could have wide-ranging consequences for homes and population centers in many coastal areas. That is why attention should be placed on working to mitigate climate change for a secure future.
|
