It appears that on last Wednesday, the northern hemisphere even slipped above the milestone 2C average for the first time in recorded history. This is the arbitrary limit above which scientists believe global temperature rise will be “dangerous”. The Arctic in particular experienced terrific warmth throughout the winter. Temperatures at the north pole approached 0 C in late December – 30C to 35 C above average.
All this weirdness follows the record-smashing year of 2015, which was 0.9C above the 20th Century average. This beat the previous record warmth of 2014 by 0.16C. These tumbling temperature records are often accompanied in media reports by the caveat that we are experiencing a particularly strong El Niño – perhaps the largest in history.
Global surface temperature is the major yardstick used to track how we are changing climate. It is the average the UN Paris agreement refers to. But the atmosphere doesn’t stop at the surface. In fact 93 percent of the extra energy trapped by the greenhouse gases humans have emitted gets sunk into the oceans – just 1 percent ends up in the atmosphere where temperature is most often and most thoroughly measured. During El Niño, which occurs every three to six years, currents in the Pacific Ocean bring warm water to the surface and heat up the air.
All things being constant, record hot years should occur once in every 150 years. Yet 1998, 2005, 2010, 2014 and 2015 have all been record breakers. These are all clear and tangible signs that we have to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – and of course the developed economies must do that. However it is countries like China who are doing much more to combat greenhouse emissions by sharply accelerating their use of green energy alternatives like solar power and hydroelectricity, among others.
Half of all greenhouse gas emissions emitted by humans has occurred over the last forty years – mostly due to tremendous economic growth. Since the urban population is only going to grow in the coming years along with an increase in urban area – now is the right time to think of ways to lower our carbon footprint and reduce emissions. Otherwise for a significant percentage of the world, including Bangladesh, it will be too little too late as we will suffer from the increased emissions to cause more natural disasters like floods and cyclones.
