Studying climate change is not limited only to researchers and scientists alone. Nowadays, every average Joe wants to be exceedingly aware of the effects of climate change and do his part to save and protect himself as well as our planet as a whole. Did you know that it was over 4 million years ago that the carbon dioxide levels were as high as they are currently?
In today’s article, we have compiled a list of some crazy facts about climate change that most people don’t know. Keep reading to find out what they are!
The Hottest Decade
According to the IPCC’s sixth report on the topic of the climates state, it is said that the last decade was most likely the hottest period in the last 125,000 years. The last 100,000 years have seen the climate swimming back and forth between warmer interglacial periods and glacial periods. And yet, this is the hottest period that we have had within this timespan.
We Caused It
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote in their 2021 report that it is unmistakable that it was due to human influence that the atmosphere, land, and ocean have warmed up. The researchers are certain because of the refined climate modeling that can predict how the world would be without the influence of humans, within the error margin. However, the climate that we are currently living in is way beyond the error of margin.
The Ocean Absorbs Heat
A study that was conducted in 2019 found that the oceans have absorbed up to 90% of the heat that our planet had gained in the time period between 1971 and 2010. Another study concluded that back in 2020, the oceans sucked up 20 sextillion joules of heat, which are equal to two Hiroshima bombs per second.
We Are Losing Ice
This part of the climate change facts can be difficult to understand as its volume is quite beyond our comprehension. Our planet has lost 28 trillion tons of ice on average since the mid-1990s. And with the melting rate standing as of today, that makes 1.2 trillion tons of ice a year! That is around the same weight as all of the living things that are currently present on Earth.
Global Warming Is Reversible
If we were to entirely cease the global net emission, the warming that we humans have caused to the planet would slowly but surely reverse. However, other changes induced by climate would resume for decades or even centuries.
