Glaciers and ice sheets (rather than sea ice as such) melting is one of the major concerns about global warming and its consequences. Whereas Arctic sea ice cannot contribute to sea level rise, water locked up in the world’s glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica contain enough water to raise sea levels by… Read More »Glaciers and Ice Sheets
Heatwaves are the most intuitive consequence of global warming. But when discussing heatwaves, it is important to distinguish the meteorological data from data relating to impacts. As is shown in other sections, data relating to the social and economic consequences of extreme weather do not show society becoming more vulnerable to extreme temperatures, whether or… Read More »Heatwaves
According to meteorology, warmer air is capable of holding more moisture, therefore global warming will likely cause a more saturated atmosphere to make more water available to weather fronts, increasing the volume of precipitation (rain). This proposition is uncontroversial, leading to little debate, perhaps because its consequences are not clearly significant. For example, a 2022… Read More »Precipitation
For many years, each northern hemisphere summer has brought fresh concern about the survival of the Arctic ice sheet. Chiefly for its supposed role as habitat for the polar bear, the ‘green’ view holds that the disappearance of summer sea ice would at least symbolically represent a radical transformation – degradation – of the natural… Read More »Sea Ice
A video to promote the 2009 COP15 meeting in Copenhagen published by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs depicted a young girl being chased across a desolate landscape by a violent storm – a nightmare depicting the future ahead of the world’s children if climate change is not stopped. The idea of storms becoming more… Read More »Storms