• Question: if global warming doesnt slow what will happen ?

    Asked by bellalai to David, Luna, Mark, Melanie, Probash on 22 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Luna Munoz

      Luna Munoz answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      I don’t think we know the answer to that. There are a lot of speculations, and the prevailing theory is that the ice caps will melt. Hopefully, science can help to limit the effects that global warming has. It’s interesting that scientists are now saying that ‘global warming’ is a misnomer and should be called ‘climate change’ because climate change may make summers warmer and winters colder.

    • Photo: David Pyle

      David Pyle answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      If warming continues, due to the continued increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, then we could start to see some more dramatic changes in sea level, and weather patterns:
      – once the Greeland icesheet has melted, sea level will rise by another 7 metres, flooding completely a number of low-lying island nations in the Indian and Pacific oceans; and flooding vast areas of low-lying coastlands around the world.
      – once the Antarctic ice sheet has melted, sea level will rise by another 70 metres..

      Even without too much more global warming, the sorts of things we might see include: the loss of ice from the Arctic ocean during the summer, changing the marine circulation patterns of the Arctic and North Atlantic; further increases in the variability of weather patterns (e.g. changes in timing and amounts of rain and snow-fall; and changes in number and intensity of wind storms, hurricanes and typhoons). Some of these effects will start to affect global food production, with major economic and political consequences.

Comments