by Daniel J. Gansle

Created on: April 19, 2008

Recently, China has been experiencing a rash of extreme weather. In that country, drought, flooding, and historically large hurricanes are causing many Chinese to wonder whether global warming is to blame. Europe has likewise experienced strange weather, and each year seems to be increasingly warmer. Recent reports indicate that by 2080, European winters will be a thing of the past. It is truly an alarming picture of an increasingly volatile global climate.

Truly, the signs are everywhere. It isn't simply melting glaciers and tumbling chunks of ice falling from gigantic ice formations thousands of miles to our north and south; it's also a change in ecosystems, drought in some areas and flooding in others, volatile weather events, and ironically, increased global warming due to methane and hydrates exposed as a result of melting ice (a.k.a. positive carbon cycle feedback).

One of the most underreported stories of the day is how the indigenous Inuit peoples of the Canadian and Alaskan North are seeing firsthand the reality of a warming globe. The Inuit's subsistence relies heavily on hunting and the permanence of the permafrost (perennially frozen ground) beneath their feet. But with warming occuring at an alarming rate, they are afraid that their entire culture will literally go extinct by the year 2070 unless the world; specifically, the United States to their south; can do something to alleviate the warming trend that is affecting their food sources and wreaking havoc on structures such as homes, airport runways, and bridges.

It seems that for some reason, the United States isn't feeling the effects of global warming as severely as China or northern Canada. But as warming becomes more severe, we may witness drought in our western states (e.g. Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico) so severe it will cause mass migration to more temperate climes. The central and midwestern states may see an increase in deadly tornadoes; and the East may suffer from frequent and severe flooding.

To be fair, some extreme weather events could actually be the fault of ocean currents and jet streams. But what is clear is that warming of the oceans does in fact cause more frequent and extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes. Perhaps not every extreme weather event is the fault of global warming, but that doesn't mean warming is a factor in causing many cases of bizarre weather we're seeing around the world today.

So in addition to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 assessment that global warming is "unequivocal" and "very likely caused by human activity," tangible signs of this critical environmental issue of our day are increasingly coming to the fore.

It's just human nature to believe something only when one sees it. When it comes to the global warming issue, more and more people are seeing and are beginning to understand that global warming is not only real, it's happening all around us.

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