Humor4u

The IPCC has issued another special report: The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. How much carbon is there in the Arctic? [ click on images to enlarge ] How much carbon is present in the northern circumpolar permafrost region (map)? According to the report, there is 1460 to 1600 billions of tons of carbon (GtC¹) present in the soil on land. The report also mentions that there is additional carbon present on shallow Arctic sea shelves, but the report doesn't add figures. Natalia Shakhova et al. once estimated the accumulated methane potential for the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf alone to be about 500 Gt of organic carbon, with an additional amount in hydrates of about 1000 Gt and a further amount of methane in free gas of about 700 Gt. Back in 2008, Natalia Shakhova et al. considered release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt release at any time. Note ¹: 1 billion ton of carbon = 1 GtC = 1.33 Gt of CH₄ (methane) and 1 GtC =...

Greta Thunberg is a 16 year-old girl who has become worldwide famous for her campaings to raise awareness against climate change and other environmental issues. She is very articulate in English and an excellent communicator. Above, you can watch the emotional speech that she gave at the Climate Summit at the UN, which she reads slowly and clearly, but has no subtitles (C1) and below, you can see an interview on the Daily Show where her discourse becomes more natural and colloquial, even humorous at times, which can be accessible to B2 students.

Gender violence is a growing concern all around the world.  This NPR story reports on the state of affairs in Turkey, where feminist groups are leading the protests in the streets against male violence, they are fighting for women's rights in the courts and they are volunteering to create more women's shelters to protect the victims of domestic violence. This report could be classified as C1for its extension and vocabulary.

In July 2019, a critical tipping point was crossed. July sea surface temperatures on the Northern Hemisphere were 1.07°C above what they were during the 20th century, as illustrated by above image which has a trend added that points at 5°C above the 20th century by 2033. Why is 1°C above 20th century's temperature such a critical tipping point for the sea surface on the Northern Hemisphere? Let's first take a look at where global heating is going. Oceans are absorbing over 90% of global heating, as illustrated by above image. Due to the high greenhouse gas levels resulting from people's emissions, oceans keep on getting hotter, and given oceans' huge heat-absorbing capacity, it has taken many years before this tipping point was crossed. In July 2016, the tipping point was touched at 0.99°C. In July 2017, the July temperature anomaly was on the tipping point, at exactly 1°C. In July 2018, the sea surface was a bit cooler, and the tipping point was crossed in July 2019 wh...

The Arctic Ocean is overheating, as illustrated by above image. [ from  earlier post  ] Heating of the water in the Arctic Ocean is accelerating, as illustrated by above map that uses 4-year smoothing and that shows temperatures in the Arctic that are up to 4.41°C hotter than the average global temperature during 1880-1920. The NOAA image on the right shows the sea surface temperature difference from 1961-1990 in the Arctic at latitudes 60°N - 90°N on September 7, 2019. Where Arctic sea ice disappears, hot water emerges on the image, indicating that the temperature of the ocean underneath the sea ice is several degrees above freezing point. The nullschool.net image on the right shows sea surface temperature differences from 1981-2011 on the Northern Hemisphere on September 8, 2019, with anomalies reaching as high as 15.2°C or 27.4°F (near Svalbard, at the green circle). Accelerating heating of the Arctic Ocean could make global temperatures skyrocket in a matter of years. Decl...

Blueprints of future climate trends Extreme GHG and temperature rise rates question linear climate projections Andrew Glikson Earth and climate scientist Australian National University geospec@iinet.net.au Abstract The extreme greenhouse gas (GHG) and temperature rise rates since the mid-1970th raise questions over linear climate projections for the 21st century and beyond. Under a rise of CO₂-equivalent reaching +500 ppm and 3.0 W/m⁻² relative to 1750, the current rise rates of CO₂ by 2.86 ppm per and recent global temperature rise rate ( 0.15-0.20°C per decade ) since 1975 are leading to an abrupt shift in state of the terrestrial climate and the biosphere. By mid-21st century at >750 ppm CO₂-e climate tipping points indicated by Lenton et al. 2008 and Schellnhuber 2009 are likely to be crossed. Melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has increased by a factor of more than 5 since 1979–1990. As the ice sheets and sea ice melt, the albedo flip between reflecti...