Globe just keeps getting hotter
Worldwide, temps hitting records as coral reefs cook
Six months after climate change summit in Paris, problems worsen.
Six months after 195 nations vowed tougher action to curb global warming, the problem has only grown worse, with higher accumulations of greenhouse gas emissions, record worldwide temperatures and widespread coral bleaching from hotter ocean waters.
On top of that, a new United Nations report documents increased pollution levels for the world’s cities.
The primary greenhouse gas that leaders at a global summit in Paris last December agreed to reduce — carbon dioxide (CO2) released from burning of fossil fuels — is now fixed above the historic milestone of 400 parts per million that was reached for the first time last year.
The worsening reports come as the United Nations convened a climate conference in Bonn, Germany, on Monday to assess the global warming problem.
In the Northern Hemisphere, where most of the world’s population lives and burns fossil fuels, a benchmark reading from the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii reached a monthly average of 407.42 parts per million in April. In the slightly cleaner Southern Hemisphere, readings from an Australian measuring station surpassed 400 parts per million last week, according to scientists.
The rate of 400 parts per million is significant because the planet hasn’t seen that much car- bon dioxide in the atmosphere for millions of years.
“This is the new normal. This isn’t going away,” said Pieter Tans, chief greenhouse gas scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It’s like we just set the thermostat at a higher level.”
A drumbeat of increasingly hotter temperatures continues. March was the 11th straight record-setting month for global temperatures, according to NOAA, the longest streak in 137 years of gathering data.
Tans said a direct result of accumulating CO2 is warmer, more acidic ocean waters creating havoc with coral formations by bleaching great stretches of reefs in the world’s oceans. The bleaching occurs when algae that live inside and nourish coral, providing their brilliant colors, wither from the warming waters and die, leaving behind white coral skeletons.
The algae can return in some cases as temperatures decline. But episodes of coral bleaching have become far more widespread.
The 1,400-mile-long Great Barrier Reef of northeastern Australia has been decimated in recent months.
Aerial and underwater surveys reveal that 93% of it has suffered some level of bleaching, according to the Australian-based ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.
About 81% of the reef ’s northern third has severe bleaching, researchers found.
More recently, a U.N. World Health Organization report released Thursday found that 98% of the moderate and poor cities with more than 100,000 people live each day with poor air quality that violates health standards.
“This is the new normal. This isn’t going away.” Pieter Tans, greenhouse gas scientist The Great Barrier Reef of northeastern Australia has been decimated in recent months.