Glaciers retreat, hurricanes more intense, coral reefs bleach

WASHINGTON — You don’t just feel the heat of global warming, you can see it in action all around.

Some examples of where climate change’s effects have been measured: • Glaciers across the globe are melting and retreating, with 279 billion tons of ice lost since 2002, according to NASA’s GRACE satellite. Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland is flowing faster than any other glacier on Earth. In 2012, it hit a record pace of about 1.9 metres per hour. In 2017, it slowed down to one metre per hour. The Portage Glacier in Alaska has retreated so much it cannot be seen from the visitor centre that opened in 1986. • In the Rocky Mountains, the first robins of spring are arriving 10.5 days earlier than 30 years ago. The first larkspur wildflower is showing up eight days earlier and the marmots are coming out of hibernation five days earlier, according to data gathered by the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab. • On average, during the past 30 years there have been more major hurricanes (those with winds of more than 175 km/h), they have lasted longer and they produced more energy than the previous 30 years, according to an Associated Press analysis of storm data. Other studies have shown that the first named storm in the Atlantic forms nearly a month earlier than 30 years ago and storms are moving slower, allowing more rain to fall. • Across the globe, seas have risen about 76 millimetres since 1993. • The number of polar bears in parts of Alaska dropped 40 per cent since the late 1990s. When scientists have weighed polar bears recently in certain locations they were losing 1.3 to 2.5 kilograms per day at a time of year when they were supposed to be putting on weight. • Warmer water is repeatedly causing mass global bleaching events to Earth’s fragile coral reefs. Before 1998 there had been no global mass bleaching events — which turn the living coral white and often lead to death. But there have been three in the past two decades. U.S. government coral reef specialist Mark Eakin said for multiple reasons, including global warming, “most of the reefs that were in great shape in the 1980s in Florida are just barely hanging on now.”