China Becoming Biggest Contributor to Global Warming?

China Soon to Become Top Global Warming Contributor

The United States has always led the charts of top contributors of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, but it seems that soon China will be surpassing the U.S. within the year. This has occurred because of China's major economic growth as of recently and a lack of laws set in place to help curb this growth of emissions.

Picture source: www.globalsherpa.org

In 1992, a U.N. principle made it so that leading or wealthy nations were to lead the way in cutting greenhouse gas emissions because they burn more coal and use more oil and natural gas that other nations. But now, emerging nations are burning more fossil fuels and do not have to cut their emissions, in order to catch up to other nations and end poverty. But this is leading to an increase amount of emissions being pumped into our atmosphere and no laws or regulations to stop this increased output. China, India, and Brazil are leading this strain of increased emissions, but it is occurring all around the world.

This December, almost 200 nations are set to meet in Paris to decide a global deal to help combat the climate actions after year 2020. Until then, nations around the world are working out plans to combat these emission. China is among them and they are working on ways to reduce their impact.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/13/china-global-warming_n_7053496.html?utm_hp_ref=climate-change

Climate Deniers Vs. Pope Francis

Climate Deniers Try to Convince Pope Francis Climate Change Doesn't Exist

Picture source: www.livescience.com

Pope Francis is currently working on a historic document that would make climate change and other environmental issues a top concern for Catholics. But at the same time, climate deniers are trying to convince him of otherwise, that global warming is not happening. These climate deniers are from the Heartland Institute,a conservative group that is trying to prevent the regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. They belief that humans have no impact whatsoever on climate change and are trying to convince Pope Francis of the same.

Meanwhile, over the past several months, the Pope has been speaking out about such environmental issues. He is preparing to declare that climate change become a "moral imperative" to the Roman Catholic churches and Catholics around the world.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/50628-climate-deniers-pope-francis.html

Florida "Bans" Climate Change

Florida "Bans" Climate Change

Earlier in March of this year, it became known that Florida's governor verbally banned state environmental officials from using the phrase "climate change". It was a shock to hear this from a state that is one of the more susceptible areas to the effects of climate change and rising sea levels. But a recent investigation has revealed that Florida isn't the only state to do so. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Louisiana have done this as well in order to limit the influence of climate change on education and land policies.

Picture source: www.onearth.org

North Carolina denied the rising sea level predictions back in 2012 meanwhile Tennessee and Louisiana have passed laws to limit climate change education in schools. Experts and climate scientists worry that these state laws could have negative effects for the future, by preventing the state to prepare for future outcomes, like the rising sea levels.

Most recently, Wisconsin state officials has also banned state employees form discussing climate change or continuing any work on climate change. This happened earlier this month (April 2015). It appears that this ban by Wisconsin is more explicit than the verbal Florida ban, for state employees cannot use the phrase "climate change" or "global warming" in any context (reports, emails, ect.) In all states affected, this leaves state employees unable to speak of climate change and it's effects on the land they are responsible for.

Sources: http://www.livescience.com/50085-states-outlaw-climate-change.html

              http://www.newsweek.com/wisconsin-bans-state-workers-discussing-climate-change-and-trend-born-                   321008

Jason-3 Mission to be Launched Summer 2015

Jason-3 Mission to be Launched July 22

A mission called Jason-3 is scheduled to be launched July 22, 2015 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is the latest in the series of satellites that have been measuring the height of the ocean's surface over the last 23 years. These satellites have been tracking and measuring such information for data of rising sea levels connected to global climate change and how human actions have been adding to the problem. This data can also help improve hurricane forecasts, navigation, and helping fisheries and offshore industries.

Picture source: "Artist's rendering of Jason-3. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech" from http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2274/

Jason-3 and the other satellites are helping scientists to understand the natural cycles of earth. Jason-3 is now the fifth satellite to be used for measuring the sea height. Scientists need these continued observations because the climate is continuing to change and human influence continues to effect it. And there has been results- in the 23 years that the series has been running, they have observed about 2.4 inches of global sea level rise. They have also observed more coastal erosion and more frequent flooding. This series' observations could prove very useful in upcoming years to help determine the true nature of human influence on Earth's global climate change.

Source: http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2274/

Antarctica's Thinning Ice Sheets

Antarctica's Thinning Ice Sheets

Picture source: livescience.com

A study published on March 26, 2015 shows quickly disappearing ice shelves in the western region of Antarctica. Some ice shelves in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas (two melting hotspots in western Antarctica) have shown an 18% loss in thickness in the past decade. Researchers believe this rate of loss could result in the disappearance of the entire ice shelf within a century.

The study shows that West Antarctica's ice sheets have been gradually thinning, which has increased in loss, while East Antarctica has stopped gaining ice mass. These ice sheets help retain the glacier mass by holding back streaming ice of the glacier, but when the ice sheets are gone, the glaciers drop more ice into the ocean, which then causes a gradual sea level increase.

Past records that were used in the study show that there was a 70% increase in ice volume in West Antarctica between 2003 and 2012. This was a loss of 74 cubic miles of ice every year. One of the researchers says this is largely because of the warm ocean currents that have been advancing on West Antarctica's ice shelves. Previous studies match with the results of this one and continue to show a gradual decline in our glacial ice sheets.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/50282-antarctica-ice-shelves-rapidly-thinning.html

2011 Japan Tsunami Released Harmful Ozone Chemicals

Research Shows Harmful Ozone Chemicals Released in 2011 Japan Tsunami

The tsunami that crippled Japan back in 2011 has been shown to have released extremely harmful chemicals that destroys the ozone layer. This study and its findings were released on March 12 of this year and show that this event released thousands of tons of chemicals and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Picture source: www.nydailynews.com

When the thousands of homes in Japan were destroyed by the tsunami, so were thousands of appliances that contained harmful CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons). These appliances were things like refrigerators, air conditioners, electrical equipment, and also insulation. According to the study, this released 7,275 tons of halocarbons and that over the following year after the earthquake, halocarbon emissions rose by 91%. These halocarbons are chemicals that attack and destroy the ozone layer on our planet and in turn contribute to climate change effects. These are also gases that have been largely outlawed thanks to the Montreal Protocol that helped banned these CFC's.

The study noticed that although this event is small, no countries account for greenhouse gases released in natural disasters. Just this one event would account for 4% or less of the total global halocarbons, according to the study results. This new study shows that in future years, it may be necessary to account for the halocarbons released during such natural disasters in global emissions estimates.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/50371-japan-tsunami-released-ozone-destroyers.html

Megadroughts Threaten The U.S.

U.S. Threatened by Megadroughts

A new study released February 12, 2015 found that by the end of this century, the Southwest and Central Plains states of the United States could likely face the worst megadrought seen in the last 1,000 years. From studying tree rings, scientists can relate devastating droughts to times in our history where cities were abandoned in the 1100's and 1200's. Now, scientists are using these tree ring records to determine the future drought spells in the U.S. They have determined that before 2100, it is very likely we will be seeing even worse droughts than what have occurred in the past.

Picture source: io9.com

We have seen these droughts progressing, especially in the last few years. And we know of the terrible droughts crippling California and other Southwestern states- these problems are likely to continue to digress. The researchers connect this problem to the greenhouse gas emissions continuing to be leaked into the atmosphere at substantial speed. This increase of temperature would speed the loss of water from the soil, a process called evapotranspiration. According to several groups, 2014 has been the hottest year since the 1850's in global temperature. It is fairly certain this trend will continue with each passing year.

In previous droughts, the planet has usually bounced back after long drought periods to ones of wetter climate, but it seems like this may not be possible at this rate because of greenhouse gases. We may bounce back, but not to what we had.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/49794-megadrought-prediction-southwest-plains.html