The undisputed evidence of climate change
RELATIVELY recently, I departed in the late evening from London’s Heathrow airport on a Malaysia Airlines flight bound for Kuching. Dressed in winter woollies at a departing temperature of minus 4 degrees Celsius, over a day later I arrived late evening in Kuching to be welcomed with a temperature of 28 degrees Celsius. Was this a shock to my metabolism? No, for I have become used to passing from one extreme of temperature to another in my annual visits here for nearly 25 years!
However, the same is happening all over our planet with temperatures, precipitation rates, violent storms, unseasonal rainfall, and increasing aridity all happening in different regions at unseasonal times.
Examples of such events from 2023 to date
The UK has been battered by 10 officially named storms since the autumn of 2023 to now winter there. These have been caused by unseasonal intrusions of tropical air being pushed northwards to encounter polar air masses. These cyclones have led to torrential rainfall lasting many weeks. The nation’s reservoirs are nigh full after a summer’s drought, but the intensity of these storms have caused numerous landslides, temporarily blocking rail and road communications, cliff falls, and serious flooding in the Midlands.
A few weeks later penetrating polar air descended from the north causing freezing fog, severe frosts, heavy falls of snow in Scotland, and bitterly cold winds with wind chill temperatures of minus 6 degrees Celsius to minus 12 degrees Celsius.
Last year saw long-lasting heatwaves baking large areas of our world with forest fires reducing hitherto healthy woodlands to ash and people’s homes likewise. With the global temperature reaching 1.48 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial revolution temperature, this same year saw the hottest year yet recorded, with average temperatures reaching 14.98 degrees Celsius, in fact 0.17 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous record set in 2016. Undoubtedly climate change is affecting us all as record levels were set in 2023 for the amount of heat generated by emissions from vehicles, aeroplanes, and power generating plants all tipping greenhouse gases to record levels.
With an El Niño event starting in June 2023, some of the highest temperatures worldwide were recorded like the same event in 2016. Already July and August last year were the two hottest months ever recorded. The United Nations World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) estimates that this year, 2024, has a 90 per cent certainty of ranking it amongst the five warmest years ever with a 33 per cent chance that temperatures will exceed those of 2023, whilst the UK’s Meteorological Office expects 2024 to outcry 2023 as the warmest year yet recorded.
The El Niño event has already created increasing aridity in Brazil and Colombia leading to massive forest fires even threatening homesteads in the capital city Bogotá.
What of our sea temperatures?
The increase in temperatures worldwide in 2023 has affected our oceans by increasing the evaporation rates and thus concentrating the salt content of sea water. Salt particles are also lifted up into our atmosphere by high evaporation rates through thermal convection. These salt particles form condensation nuclei for water droplets in the clouds. This in turn increases the amount and intensity of tropical rainstorms in such places as Borneo.
The year 2023 saw a rise in sea surface temperatures with salinity at an all-time high meaning that there was little mixing of the layers of water in our deeper oceans thus affecting the upwelling of nutrients to the surface and reducing the natural supply of fish food.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution more and more carbon dioxide has been expelled into the atmosphere with our oceans providing huge carbon sinks by absorbing this gas by as much as 90 per cent of the human created pollution. As implied earlier, increased salinity in some areas and increased acidity in other areas of our oceans has had a profound effect on marine wildlife. Coral bleaching is an ongoing problem to the livelihood of reef fishermen worldwide as, indeed, are the changing patterns of fish migrations. Worldwide local fishermen are slowly adapting to seasonal shoal migrations and changes in the type of fish they now catch.
In UK waters, traditional mackerel and pilchard catches have seen a massive decline in recent years. The Southwest England fishermen have noted a massive decline in basking sharks as the plankton on which they feed, normally in cooler waters, has shifted to northern waters. However, a greater variety of sharks than ever before has been observed including sightings of great white sharks.
In my county of birth, Cornwall, where there are several large fishing ports, the fishing fleets are now catching hitherto unseen fish in these waters such as blue fin tuna, anchovies, and squid – all previously native to the Mediterranean Sea! Flying fish, puffer fish, and swarms of crystal jelly fish were observed in the summer of 2023 with larger than usual pods of dolphins.
Climate change effects on animal life and mankind
Seasonal animal migrations have also experienced shifts in their movements in East Africa where many traditional waterholes have dried up because of increasing aridity caused by successive drought years. This, in turn, has led to a gradual reduction in the populations of elephants, giraffes and wildebeests through dehydration. Increasing aridity has led to severe forest fires in Australia, USA, and the Mediterranean countries of Europe and now in South America leading to animal’s loss of habitats and indeed their lives.
Increasing river levels to over bank state through exceptional prolonged periods of intensive rainfall have seen many major UK, European, and Asian rivers in flood and severe landslides in other parts of our world causing the evacuation of residential areas and in some instances leading to the mass migration of inhabitants. Successive drought years have found an increasing number of people migrating in search of better grazing land for their animals and perceived sources of better incomes.
Many farmers in the developed world too have been forced to change their farming patterns and crops and especially those in the field of intensive cultivation. Rice farming in particular has suffered either through extreme drought at planting time or through flooding of the paddy fields and destruction of crops at harvest time. Food prices inevitably rise.
Dramatic effects of climate change
The heat of 2023 saw a massive reduction in the ice surfaces of Antarctica, the Arctic, and Greenland. A huge iceberg, three and half times the area of Greater London has broken off the Antarctic ice shelves, melting at a hitherto unseen rate in the Weddell Sea. This will inevitably lead to a rise in sea levels.
Already, the increasing global temperatures have led to the expansion of the waters in our oceans thus increasing sea levels with dramatic consequences. With ever increasing storm surges, once safe coastal settlements have been destroyed as the height of wave attack has increased toppling houses from cliff edges into the sea.
My greatest fear is for the Pacific Islanders living at near present sea level. It is refreshing to know that Australia has welcomed such ‘Climate change refugees.’
The detailed effects of our continuous atmospheric and oceanic warmings are too numerous to note but rest assured they are with us to stay. How we as humans can mitigate further global warming does not ‘lie in the lap of the gods’ but in our own hands and that of a concerted effort of politicians globally. What can we mortals do to prevent more frequently occurring disasters? I only wish I knew the answer!