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Summer in the city: Is climate change a hoax?
by
Can Erimtan*
by
Can Erimtan*
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a branch of the United States Department of Commerce, recently released a report detailing just how bad things have gotten. The NOAA report, titled “State of the Climate Global Analysis June 2010,” discloses that, in terms of worldwide land surface temperature averages, the past January-to-June period was the warmest ever recorded, with records starting in 1880. The American document does not mince words, noting that the “January–June 2010 map of temperature anomalies shows that for the first half of the year anomalous warm temperatures were present over much of the world,” meaning that, in effect, temperatures climbed 0.68 degrees Celsius “above the 20th century average.” Getting more specific, the report declares, “Arctic sea ice continued its annual decline, typically reaching a September minimum.”
And staying in Arctic climes, just over a week ago something unexpected happened as well: An ice chunk covering 100 square miles, about four times the size of Manhattan, broke off Greenland’s Petermann Glacier. This floating, oversized block of ice is now approaching Canada, where it might affect shipping and disrupt trade and commerce. The Associated Press reports that Professor Andreas Muenchow, an ocean scientist at the University of Delaware, has said the last time a large piece broke from the glacier was in 1991 and that it was only half the size of this newest piece. In 2001, a 34-square-mile block and, in 2008, another 10-square-mile one also broke off the glacier. Muenchow went on to say that the current break was likely caused by melting from higher water temperatures. He said that it is unclear how the glacier and water flow in the North Atlantic will be affected. But it seems reasonable to expect that something will happen and that disruptions will follow. In addition, Muenchow also argued that much remains unknown about the interaction between Arctic sea ice, sea levels and rising temperatures.
Staying in the Arctic circle, on Tuesday, Aug. 10, scientists told the US Congress, that the entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as two degrees, with more severe consequences for the rest of the world resulting from rising water levels and inundated inhabited zones.
All the while, forest fires in Russia threaten human health and are also opening up the possibility of another Chernobyl disaster. Pakistan and China, on the other hand, are now instead receiving rain in ample volume -- the former battling its deadliest floods in more than eight decades, and the latter facing fatal landslides.
Does the year 2010 mark the tipping point for climate change?Or am I just being alarmist and led astray by the global warming mafia?Is our continuing reliance on fossil fuels to blame for the current spate of extreme weather and do the resultant greenhouse gases really contribute to climate change by means of trapping the sun’s heat and energy inside the earth’s atmosphere?
* Dr. Can Erimtan is an independent scholar residing in İstanbul, with a wide interest in the politics, history and culture of the Balkans and the wider Middle East. His publications include the book “Ottomans Looking West?” as well as numerous scholarly articles.
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