Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans that has 82% of its surface covered in ice, last Wednesday has topped world news related to the climate change raising the level of concerns over the continuing global warming and its impact on human wellbeing.
The heat wave this summer has accelerated the melting of ice sheet in Greenland causing massive ice loss in the Arctic. “The area of the Greenland ice sheet that is showing indications of melt has been growing daily, and hit a record 56.5% for this year on Wednesday,” AP quoted Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute.
Mottram also quoted as saying, “More than 10 billion tonnes (11 billion US tonnes) of ice was lost to the oceans by surface melt on Wednesday alone, creating a net mass ice loss of some 197 billion tonnes (217 billion US tonnes) from Greenland in July.”
This development has come after the heat wave that engulfed Western Europe last July, which considered by scientist at the UN’s World Meteorological Organization as the hottest month in recorded history.
World Weather Attribution (WWA) said on Friday that “human-driven changes to the atmosphere added from 1.5 degrees to 3 degrees Celsius to the heat wave”, dangerously rising concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and making the carbon dioxide (CO2) reach its highest levels.
Siberia, in Russia, which is one of the coldest places in the earth, has become subject to forest fires caused by hot, dry weather and spread by high winds raging over nearly 30,000 square kilometres.
“These kind of heat waves are weather events and can occur naturally but studies have shown that both the frequency and intensity of these heat waves have increased due to global warming,” Sparrow, expert told AP.
According to experts, in a pre-industrial climate, thermometers might reach that high only once every 1,000 years but in recent decades is taking place frequently.
Climate breakdown is one of the greatest human rights issue people face, as climate change is causing drought and forced displacement of people, to cyclones and hurricanes that are causing flooding and destruction.
“It means food supplies failing, fuel shortages, dwindling access to drinking water, and homes being swallowed by the sea. It means forced migration and worsening resource conflict, more frequent and ferocious natural disasters,” Kim Bryan, associate director of 350 movements told Anadolu Agency.
Under these negative indications of accelerating global warming caused by human activities, governments approach to climate change should not be limited to words and global actions are required.
