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The world uses sand for everything, but we will soon run out. This article talks about the effects.

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To build those cities, people are pulling untold amounts of sand out of the ground. Usable sand is a finite resource. Desert sand, shaped more by wind than by water, generally doesn't work for construction. To get the sand we need, we are stripping riverbeds, floodplains and beaches.

Extracting the stuff is an estimated $70 billion industry. It runs the gamut from multinational companies' deploying enormous dredges to villagers toting shovels and buckets. In places where onshore sources have been exhausted, sand miners are turning to the seas.

This often inflicts terrible costs on the environment. In India, river sand mining is disrupting ecosystems, killing countless fish and birds. In Indonesia, some two dozen small islands are believed to have disappeared since 2005 because of sand mining. In Vietnam, miners have torn up hundreds of acres of forest to get at the sandy soil underneath.

Sand miners have damaged coral reefs in Kenya and undermined bridges in Liberia and Nigeria. Environmentalists tie sand dredging in San Francisco Bay to the erosion of nearby beaches.

People are getting hurt, too. Sand mining has been blamed for accidental deaths in Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Gambia. In India and Indonesia, activists and government officials confronting black-market sand mining gangs have been killed.

Stronger regulations can prevent a lot of this damage, and do in most developed countries. But there's a downside. Sand is tremendously heavy, which makes it expensive to transport. If you forbid sand mining in your backyard - as many American communities are trying to do - then it has to be trucked in from somewhere else. That drives up the price. Concrete is relatively cheap; if the cost of making a new building or road were to double, it could hit the economy hard.

Not to mention the extra truck traffic and pollution. California state officials estimated that if the average hauling distance for sand and gravel increased to 50 miles from 25 miles, trucks would burn through nearly 50 million more gallons of diesel fuel every year.

We can make more sand, but crushing rock or pulverizing concrete is costly, and the resulting sand is ill suited for many applications. We can use alternative substances for some purposes, but what other substance can we possibly find 40 billion tons of, every year?

The fishing villages in the mangrove-rich estuaries of Cambodia's Koh Kong province might be the canaries in the global sand mine. For years, villagers have complained that rampant sand mining is wiping out the crabs and fish that provide their living. Locals told me on a recent visit that families have had to send members to work in Phnom Penh garment factories, or have simply moved away. The dredging also threatens endangered native dolphins, turtles and otters.

Last year, members of Mother Nature, an environmental group led by Mr. Gonzalez-Davidson and others, began a campaign to rein in the mining, organizing villagers to blockade and board the dredging ships. The government, which had expelled Mr. Gonzalez-Davidson a few months earlier for blocking road access to government officials trying to reach a hydropower dam in the province, arrested three of the activists, charging them with threatening to damage dredging boats, an offense that could mean two years in prison (Mr. Gonzalez-Davidson was charged in absentia as their accomplice a few months later).

Mr. Gonzalez-Davidson, who lives in Barcelona, is petitioning to be allowed back to attend his own trial. Meanwhile, the three jailed Cambodians have been denied bail for the past 10 months. Their trial has finally been scheduled for the end of June.

There's an urgent question of justice for them. For the rest of us, there's a profound lesson. Hardly anyone thinks about sand, where it comes from or what we do to get it. But a world of seven billion people, more and more of whom want apartments to live in and offices to work in and malls to shop in, can't afford that luxury anymore.

It once seemed as if the planet had such boundless supplies of oil, water, trees and land that we didn't need to worry about them. But of course, we're learning the hard way that none of those things are infinite, and the price we've paid so far for using them is going up fast. We're having to conserve, reuse, find alternatives for and generally get smarter about how we use those natural resources. That's how we need to start thinking about sand.

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To build those cities, people are pulling untold amounts of sand out of the ground. Usable sand is a finite resource. Desert sand, shaped more by wind than by water, generally doesn't work for construction. To get the sand we need, we are stripping riverbeds, floodplains and beaches.

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Humans have polluted the Earth in many ways, from air to water to soil. The increasing amount of cars and vehicles have caused a large amount of air pollution. The waste and chemicals used by humans have contaminated Earth's bodies of water and caused water pollution. Pesticides and insecticides have stripped the soil of its vaulable nutrients and caused soil pollution.

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Plastic waste is choking our planet - polluting the air, water, and soil both people and wildlife need to survive. And as this crisis spreads to every corner of the globe, WWF is leading the charge to help reimagine how we source, design, dispose of, and reuse the plastic materials communities most depend upon. Because while plastic can help make our hospitals safer, our food last longer, and our packages more efficient to ship, it has no place in nature.

Every day plastic is flowing into our natural environment at an unprecedented rate - a dump truck every minute into our oceans alone. It's time to turn off the tap. Together. WWF is uniting our global networks of industry leaders, consumers, and policymakers to transform our systems, so the plastics we discard become plastics we use again.

As everyday people continue doing their part to reduce, reuse, and recycle, WWF is engaging policymakers to ensure the plastics leaving recycling bins stay in effective waste management systems, and out of the hands of illegal plastic traffickers.

Through our ReSource:Plastic activation hub, we're helping some of the world's leading companies translate ambitious plastic commitments into measurable change - both across their business operations, and well beyond their supply chains. We're working on the ground with local partners from Indonesia to Peru to keep plastic out of our planet's most extraordinary ecosystems. And in oceans the world over we're supporting communities and fishing crews, big and small, to improve gear use and recovery, so issues like abandoned nets no longer pose one of the biggest threats to marine life.

WWF is fighting for a world with no plastic in nature by 2030. It's a world where our oceans teem with marine life, not discarded nets, bottles and bags. Where no human breathes the toxic fumes of burning plastic. And where every indispensable plastic product is used to make another.

It's a world where people and nature thrive together. Join us.

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Plastic waste is choking our planet - polluting the air, water, and soil both people and wildlife need to survive. And as this crisis spreads to every corner of the globe, WWF is leading the charge to help reimagine how we source, design, dispose of, and reuse the plastic materials communities most depend upon.

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Over 100-1000 species of anmials become extinct every year mostly due to human hunting and human causing climate change. Humans have caused 1000 times more animals to go extinct (National Geographic).

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On May 19, 2010, at Joint Base Balad, north of Baghdad in Iraq, someone brought U.S. service member Jonathan Trouern-Trend a frog in a plastic bottle. The brightly colored amphibian had been hiding out in an unlikely place: the latrine.

Many on base knew Trouern-Trend as "the guy to identify critters," he said. A lifetime nature lover, he was on his second tour of duty in Iraq as a sergeant.

Before releasing the frog into a nearby pond, Trouern-Trend uploaded a picture of it to the mobile app iNaturalist, which connects a worldwide community of people who report sightings of animals and plants online.

App users informed him that he'd found a l emon-yellow tree frog ( Hyla savignyi)-and noted that scientists had never recorded one outside of Kurdistan (map). The species' known range had suddenly expanded.

This kind of citizen science has exploded in recent years because of smartphones. Now, according to a new review of research about Earth's biodiversity, it's giving conservationists hope that new technology can slow extinctions. (See: " 5 Surprising Drone Uses (Besides Amazon Delivery).")

That's good news, because according to a review published on May 29 in the journal Science, current extinction rates are up to a thousand times higher than they would be if people weren't in the picture.

Study leader Stuart Pimm, a conservation ecologist at Duke University and contributor to National Geographic's News Watch blog, and his colleagues analyzed various data sources-in particular the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, a global inventory of species-to produce the first major review of extinction data. (See: " 20,000 Species Are Near Extinction: Is It Time to Rethink How We Decide Which to Save?")

Mobile apps, GIS satellite data, and online crowdsourcing, Pimm says, may be a partial antidote to the problem. Through these technologies, "we're mobilizing millions of people around the world, and we're on the cusp of learning very much more about where species are than we have ever known in the past." That's critical, he explains, because now "we know where the species are, we know where the threats are, and-even though the situation is very bleak-we are better able to manage things."

Peter Crane, dean of Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, said by email that the new "paper does huge service in pulling together the latest thinking on species extinctions for very diverse groups of organisms."

Crane, who was not involved in the study, agreed that new technologies like remote sensing and more comprehensive databases "will not only improve the effectiveness of conservation investments, but will also strengthen monitoring of change in species-level biodiversity through time."
How Many Out There?
Calculating extinction rates can be difficult, in part because no one knows exactly how many species there are. Scientists have identified at least 1.9 million animal species, and possibly millions more have yet to be named. And according to the study, at least 450,000 plant species likely exist.

Pimm says conservationists can calculate the extinction rate of the known species by keeping track of how many die out each year.

The technique is similar to that used to figure out a country's death rate: track the number of people who die in a given population each year, scaled to that population. Mortality rates are usually calculated as the number of deaths per thousand people per year.

Applying the same statistical approach to extinction data revealed a rate of 100 to 1,000 species lost per million per year, mostly due to human-caused habitat destruction and climate change. (See: " 7 Species Hit Hard by Climate Change-Including One That's Already Extinct.")

To calculate the rate of extinction before modern humans evolved, about 200,000 years ago, Pimm and his colleagues reviewed data from fossil records and noted when species disappeared, then used statistical modeling to fill in holes in the record. That analysis revealed that before humans evolved, less than a single species per million went extinct annually.

The study authors suspect that the extinction rate will only increase if trends continue-possibly resulting in what scientists call the sixth mass extinction in Earth's history. (Related: " The Sixth Extinction: A Conversation With Elizabeth Kolbert.")

Another conclusion of the study that can't be ignored, says Yale's Crane, is "that there remain huge gaps in knowledge. At least for the most diverse groups of organisms on Earth, the urgent need to clarify how many species there are, where they live, and how their populations are changing remains a key impediment."

To Jenny McGuire, a postdoctoral research scientist at the University of Washington's School of Environmental and Forest Sciences who wasn't involved in the study, the results aren't surprising.

Though some might quibble about the exact rate, she says, "in general scientists are in agreement that we're at a period of heightened extinction risk and rates, and that's been occurring nearly since humans have come onto the landscape."

McGuire sees the new study as a "really excellent call to arms" for people to act to prevent more species from vanishing.

She says that people can vote for policies that lessen the impact of climate change, which is hitting the oceans particularly hard by raising the water's pH and dissolving the shells of many marine animals. People can also encourage their governments to connect one nature reserve to another.

Pimm says protected areas, the "frontline of conservation," have kept extinction rates of mammals, birds, and amphibians 20 percent lower than they would have been without refuges. Nearly 13 percent of Earth's land has been set aside, but only 2 percent of the ocean is part of a refuge.

Pimm and colleagues noted that global databases and crowdsourcing are helping to fill in blanks by tracking biodiversity outside of protected areas, where species tend to be less studied. (Also see " The Ethical Flap Over Birdsong Apps.")

And of course anyone can contribute by becoming a citizen scientist like Trouern-Trend, who said he's part of a "a niche of people who want to help out" by giving conservationists a snapshot of our world. "From fungus to birds to plants," he said, "it's all interesting to me."
Follow Christine Dell'Amore on Twitter and Google .

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Species Extinction Happening 1,000 Times Faster Because of Humans?

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On May 19, 2010, at Joint Base Balad, north of Baghdad in Iraq, someone brought U.S. service member Jonathan Trouern-Trend a frog in a plastic bottle. The brightly colored amphibian had been hiding out in an unlikely place: the latrine. Many on base knew Trouern-Trend as "the guy to identify critters," he said.

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The levels of co2 in the atmosphere has risen, causing the earth's climate to grow hotter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

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The natural resources on Earth are not infinite, and will run out eventually at the rate that we use them.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-limits-of-the-earth-part-1-problems/

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Humans are able to inflate the crime rates and increase the amount of harzardous materials such as radioactive lands. In the 1970's, fuel was used in most cars and along with lead since hot rods were "cool" back then. The lead was unhealthy both physically and physchologically. Most people would behave different because of the lead. This was the cause in Rome as well. People would behave more rash and destroy the environment. Also humans have caused more harzardous environments because of the atomic bomb ane more radiations,

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The usage of fossil fuels ave eroded at the Ozone Layer causing rising temperatures. This has made ice caps start to melt, endangering the habitats of countless species.
- Tori Jackley

Read more about it here:
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/04/06/endangered-species-penguins-ice-caps-and-arctic-monitors

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Plants need this for growth, and it is used for fetilizer. However, since phosphate rock is only available in a handful of countries, and the demand is becoming higher with human population, it could run out 50 to a hundred years form now if it isn't found elsewhere.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/oct/31/six-natural-resources-population

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It is predicted that coal will continue to decrease after the U.S. used more than 40% of the world's supply of it.

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Resource depletion is the consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished. Natural resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources (see also mineral resource classification). Use of either of these forms of resources beyond their rate of replacement is considered to be resource depletion.

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Because of the need of lumber and other supplies, jungles, forests, and rainforests have been dissappearing.
http://e360.yale.edu/features/choco_rainforest_cacao_ecuador

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The Effects of Deforestation - Crystal Millar

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The Effects of Deforestation - Crystal Millar

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With high demand for trees, the process of deforestation is not only effecting out quality of life, but the animals we share Earth with.

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As the world seeks to slow the pace of climate change, preserve wildlife, and support more than eight billion people, trees inevitably hold a major part of the answer. Yet the mass destruction of trees-deforestation-continues, sacrificing the long-term benefits of standing trees for short-term gain of fuel, and materials for manufacturing and construction.

We need trees for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that they absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale and the heat-trapping greenhouse gases that human activities emit. As those gases enter the atmosphere, global warming increases, a trend scientists now prefer to call climate change.

There is also the imminent danger of disease caused by deforestation.

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Deforestation and Its Effect on the Planet

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As the world seeks to slow the pace of climate change, preserve wildlife, and support more than eight billion people, trees inevitably hold a major part of the answer. Yet the mass destruction of trees-deforestation-continues, sacrificing the long-term benefits of standing trees for short-term gain of fuel, and materials for manufacturing and construction.

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The Ozone Layer protects earth from ultraviolet waves.  However, humans creating oil breaks down the Ozone layer.

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Human activities cause ozone depletion and global warming

Ozone (O ₃) depletion does not cause global warming, but both of these environmental problems have a common cause: human activities that release pollutants into the atmosphere altering it.

Global warming is caused primarily by putting too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when coal, oil, and natural gas are burned to generate electricity or to run our cars.

Carbon dioxide spreads around the planet like a blanket, and is one of the main gases responsible for the absorption of infrared radiation (felt as heat), which comprises the bulk of solar energy.

Ozone depletion occurs when chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons-gases formerly found in aerosol spray cans and refrigerants-are released into the atmosphere (see details below).

Ozone sits in the upper atmosphere and absorbs ultraviolet radiaton, another type of solar energy that's harmful to humans, animals and plants. CFCs and halons cause chemical reactions that break down ozone molecules, reducing ozone's ultraviolet radiation-absorbing capacity.

How ozone works

The sun emits electromagnetic radiation at different wavelengths, meaning energy at different intensities. The atmosphere acts like a multi-layer shield that protects Earth from dangerous solar radiation.

Ozone is found in two different parts of our atmosphere. Ground level or "bad" ozone is a human health irritant and component of smog. It is found in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) and has nothing to do with the "ozone hole."

High level or "good" ozone occurs in the stratosphere and accounts for the vast majority of atmospheric ozone.

The stratospheric ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet (UV) radiation, preventing dangerous UV rays from hitting Earth's surface and harming living organisms. UV rays cannot be seen or felt, but they are very powerful and change the chemical structure of molecules.

UV radiation plays a small role in global warming because its quantity is not enough to cause the excess heat trapped in the atmosphere. UV radiation represents a small percentage of the energy from the sun, and is not highly absorbed or scattered in the atmosphere-especially when compared with other wavelengths, like infrared. But, ozone depletion is also concerning because it directly impacts the health of humans, and other living organisms.

The ozone hole

The term 'ozone hole' refers to the depletion of the protective ozone layer in the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) over Earth's polar regions. People, plants, and animals living under the ozone hole are harmed by the solar radiation now reaching the Earth's surface-where it causes health problems, from eye damage to skin cancer.

Stratospheric ozone is constantly produced by the action of the sun's ultraviolet radiation on oxygen molecules (known as photochemical reactions). Although ozone is created primarily at tropical latitudes, large-scale air circulation patterns in the lower stratosphere move ozone toward the poles, where its concentration builds up.

In addition to this global motion, strong winter polar vortices are also important to concentrating ozone at the poles. During the continuously dark polar winter, the air inside the polar vortices becomes extremely cold, a necessary condition for polar stratospheric cloud formation.

Polar stratospheric clouds create the conditions for drastic ozone destruction, providing a surface for chlorine to change into ozone-destroying form. They generally last until the sun comes up in the spring.

In the 1980s, scientists discovered that the ozone layer was thinning in the lower stratosphere, with particularly dramatic ozone loss-known as the "ozone hole"-in the Antarctic spring (September and October).

Scientists also discovered that the thinning in the ozone layer was caused by increasing concentrations of ozone-depleting chemicals - chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs (compounds with chlorine and/or fluorine attached to carbon) and to a lesser extent halons (similar compounds with bromine or iodine). These chemicals can remain in the atmosphere for decades to over a century.

At the poles, CFCs attach to ice particles in clouds. When the sun comes out again in the polar spring, the ice particles melt, releasing the ozone-depleting molecules from the ice particle surfaces.

Once released, these ozone-destroying molecules do their dirty work, breaking apart the molecular bonds in UV radiation-absorbing ozone.

The Montreal Protocol

CFCs were commonly found in refrigerants, solvents, propellants, and foam-blowing agents before the Montreal Protocol was agreed on in the 1980s- an international commitment to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals that was universally ratified by all countries that participate in the UN.

The Montreal Protocol set an important precedent but more needs to be done. It appears unlikely that the decrease in ozone-depleting substances alone will lead to the recovery of the stratospheric ozone layer to its pre-1980 concentration levels because of the competing and uncertain effects of further climate change.

In a worrying development, after an extremely cold winter in early 2011, for the first time the ozone reduction in the Arctic was comparable to that in the Antarctic.

Stratospheric ozone also has natural processes that remove it from the atmosphere. Tiny sulfate particles ( aerosols) blasted into the stratosphere by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 caused measurable decreases in ozone for several years following the eruptions.

Does global warming have an impact on the stratospheric ozone layer?

Since the 1960s, there has been a trend of increasing warming of the lower atmosphere and a cooling of the upper atmosphere. This warming-cooling dynamic creates conditions that lead to ozone loss.

Observations show that as greenhouse gases increase and result in heating in the lower atmosphere (troposphere), a cooling is occurring in the upper atmosphere (stratosphere). Largely because heat from Earth's surface that normally would convey through the troposphere and stratosphere, and eventually escape to space, is now being trapped (or confined to the troposphere).

The increasing temperatures at the Earth's surface and decreasing temperatures in higher parts of the atmosphere can be partly explained using the blanket analogy.

Carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases rise into the atmosphere and spread around the globe, like a blanket wrapping Earth. This blanket warms the surface of the Earth and protects it from the cold air above it.

The increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases make the blanket uncomfortably thicker. Wrapped now in a thicker blanket, Earth's surface warms up, heats the blanket itself, and traps more heat in the lower atmosphere.

The blanket also prevents heat from moving from the lower atmosphere to the stratosphere, cooling down the stratosphere as a result.

In other words, heat-trapping gases contribute to creating the cooling conditions in the atmosphere that lead to ozone depletion. Greenhouse gases absorb heat at relatively low altitudes and warm the surface--but they have the opposite effect in higher altitudes because they prevent heat from rising.

In a cooler stratosphere, ozone loss creates a cooling effect that results in further ozone depletion. UV radiation releases heat into the stratosphere when it reacts with ozone. With less ozone there is less heat released, amplifying the cooling in the lower stratosphere, and enhancing the formation of ozone-depleting polar stratospheric clouds, especially near the South Pole.

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Is There a Connection Between the Ozone Hole and Global Warming?

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Ozone (O 3) depletion does not cause global warming, but both of these environmental problems have a common cause: human activities that release pollutants into the atmosphere altering it. Global warming is caused primarily by putting too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when coal, oil, and natural gas are burned to generate electricity or to run our cars.

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The use of natural resources such as water, timber, oil, etc. leads to more competition for these resources. With the constant use of these resources we will soon run out and possibly die. -Derek Ngo

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Here is an article on global warming from Nasa. It has many graphs that will inform you on the effects of global warming. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page2.php

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Humans are taking nautral resources for granted and are wasting them. We also wste soil and water. Also we may ignore natural resources in fornt of us as tehcnology expands. For example if we start using hydrogen fuels then patroelum will go waste.
https://www.populationmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/D3Wasteofresources.pdf

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Loss of freshwater and freshwater ecosystems- Sebastian de Leon

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Loss of freshwater and freshwater ecosystems- Sebastian de Leon

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The impact of humans has hugely contributed to freshwater and ecosystem loss.

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Freshwater Status

Oceans cover around 70% of the Earth's surface and account for 97% of its water.

Only 3% of all water on Earth is freshwater.

Most of this freshwater is locked away in the form of ice caps and glaciers located in the polar regions - though perhaps not for much longer the way climate change is taking hold.

It won't change the fact that only about 1% of all water found on this planet is easily accessible for human use.

What's at stake

780 million people lack access to clean water and 2.5 billion lack adequate sanitation services; most of these people live in the poorest countries.

An estimated 80% of people without access to an adequate drinking water source live in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Asia and Southern Asia.

About 1.5 million deaths each year are caused by diarrhea.

It has been estimated that every individual needs between 20 to 50 litres of water free from harmful contaminants each and every day.

Sanitation coverage in developing countries is only half that of the developed world (49% as compared to 98%).

The vast majority of freshwater is used in agriculture.

Agriculture claims 70% of all the freshwater used by humans - with rice, cotton and sugar among the thirstiest crops of all.

In fact it takes 3,000 to 5,000 litres of water to grow just one kilo of rice

Population growth alone will push an estimated a further 17 countries, with a projected population of 2.1 billion, into water-short categories within the next 30 years.

By the year 2025, 48 countries will be affected by water stress or scarcity - affecting around 35% of the projected global population in that year.

Water demand already exceeds supply in many parts of the world, and many more areas are expected to experience this imbalance in the near future.

What we're losing

Freshwater species declined 76% between 1970 and 2010, representing a sharper decline than that measured in either terrestrial or marine biomes.

Since 1900, more than 50% of types of wetlands have disappeared.

In many parts of the world, 30 to 40% of our fresh water goes unaccounted for due to water leakages in pipes and canals and illegal tapping.

What we're damning

Dams and other infrastructure have caused the fragmentation of 60% of the large river systems in the world.

Only 64 of the world's 177 large rivers (1,000km and longer) remain free-flowing, unimpeded by dams or other barriers.

There are more than 45,000 large dams in over 150 countries.

About 1,500 are currently under construction.

Some 40 to 80 million people have been displaced by dams worldwide.

But not all dams are bad, it depends how and where they are built.

What it's worth

The average value of a wetland for recreation, flood control and storm buffering is $492 and $464 per ha per year respectively.

Restoration of the Florida Everglades will cost an estimated $7.8 billion over 38 years.

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Freshwater: what's at stake, what we're missing, what we're losing, what it's worth

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Oceans cover around 70% of the Earth's surface and account for 97% of its water. Only 3% of all water on Earth is freshwater. Most of this freshwater is locked away in the form of ice caps and glaciers located in the polar regions - though perhaps not for much longer the way climate change is taking hold.

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After years of innovating and inventing, humans have made a path towards our modern era. For example, America and their new ways of fighting war made a path for our modern guns.
http://www.theusaonline.com/history/industrialization.htm

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The melting of the ice caps is resulting in the raise of ocean water levels.

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A: Since the Industrial Revolution, the global annual temperature has increased in total by a little more than 1 degree Celsius, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Between 1880-the year that accurate recordkeeping began-and 1980, it rose on average by 0.07 degrees Celsius (0.13 degrees Fahrenheit) every 10 years. Since 1981, however, the rate of increase has more than doubled: For the last 40 years, we've seen the global annual temperature rise by 0.18 degrees Celsius, or 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit, per decade.

The result? A planet that has never been hotter. Nine of the 10 warmest years since 1880 have occurred since 2005-and the 5 warmest years on record have all occurred since 2015. Climate change deniers have argued that there has been a "pause" or a "slowdown" in rising global temperatures, but numerous studies, including a 2018 paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, have disproved this claim. The impacts of global warming are already harming people around the world.

What causes global warming?

A: Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide (CO ₂) and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar radiation that have bounced off the earth's surface. Normally this radiation would escape into space, but these pollutants, which can last for years to centuries in the atmosphere, trap the heat and cause the planet to get hotter. These heat-trapping pollutants-specifically carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and synthetic fluorinated gases-are known as greenhouse gases, and their impact is called the greenhouse effect.

How is global warming linked to extreme weather?

A: Scientists agree that the earth's rising temperatures are fueling longer and hotter heat waves, more frequent droughts, heavier rainfall, and more powerful hurricanes.

In 2015, for example, scientists concluded that a lengthy drought in California-the state's worst water shortage in 1,200 years-had been intensified by 15 to 20 percent by global warming. They also said the odds of similar droughts happening in the future had roughly doubled over the past century. And in 2016, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine announced that we can now confidently attribute some extreme weather events, like heat waves, droughts, and heavy precipitation, directly to climate change.

The impacts of global warming are being felt everywhere. Extreme heat waves have caused tens of thousands of deaths around the world in recent years. And in an alarming sign of events to come, Antarctica has lost nearly four trillion metric tons of ice since the 1990s. The rate of loss could speed up if we keep burning fossil fuels at our current pace, some experts say, causing sea levels to rise several meters in the next 50 to 150 years and wreaking havoc on coastal communities worldwide.

What are the other effects of global warming?

A: Each year scientists learn more about the consequences of global warming, and each year we also gain new evidence of its devastating impact on people and the planet. As the heat waves, droughts, and floods associated with climate change become more frequent and more intense, communities suffer and death tolls rise. If we're unable to reduce our emissions, scientists believe that climate change could lead to the deaths of more than 250,000 people around the globe every year and force 100 million people into poverty by 2030.

Global warming is already taking a toll on the United States. And if we aren't able to get a handle on our emissions, here's just a smattering of what we can look forward to:

Disappearing glaciers, early snowmelt, and severe droughts will cause more dramatic water shortages and continue to increase the risk of wildfires in the American West.

Rising sea levels will lead to even more coastal flooding on the Eastern Seaboard, especially in Florida, and in other areas such as the Gulf of Mexico.

Forests, farms, and cities will face troublesome new pests, heat waves, heavy downpours, and increased flooding. All of these can damage or destroy agriculture and fisheries.

Disruption of habitats such as coral reefs and alpine meadows could drive many plant and animal species to extinction.

Allergies, asthma, and infectious disease outbreaks will become more common due to increased growth of pollen-producing ragweed, higher levels of air pollution, and the spread of conditions favorable to pathogens and mosquitoes.

Though everyone is affected by climate change, not everyone is affected equally. Indigenous people, people of color, and the economically marginalized are typically hit the hardest. Inequities built into our housing, health care, and labor systems make these communities more vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change-even though these same communities have done the least to contribute to it.

Where does the United States stand in terms of global-warming contributors?

A: In recent years, China has taken the lead in global-warming pollution, producing about 26 percent of all CO2 emissions. The United States comes in second. Despite making up just 4 percent of the world's population, our nation produces a sobering 13 percent of all global CO2 emissions-nearly as much as the European Union and India (third and fourth place) combined. And America is still number one, by far, in cumulative emissions over the past 150 years. As a top contributor to global warming, the United States has an obligation to help propel the world to a cleaner, safer, and more equitable future. Our responsibility matters to other countries, and it should matter to us, too.

Is the United States doing anything to prevent global warming?

A: We've started. But in order to avoid the worsening effects of climate change, we need to do a lot more-together with other countries-to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and transition to clean energy sources.

Despite the lack of cooperation from the Trump administration, local and state governments made great strides during this period through efforts like the American Cities Climate Challenge and ongoing collaborations like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Meanwhile, industry and business leaders have been working with the public sector, creating and adopting new clean-energy technologies and increasing energy efficiency in buildings, appliances, and industrial processes. Today the American automotive industry is finding new ways to produce cars and trucks that are more fuel efficient and is committing itself to putting more and more zero-emission electric vehicles on the road. Developers, cities, and community advocates are coming together to make sure that new affordable housing is built with efficiency in mind, reducing energy consumption and lowering electric and heating bills for residents. And renewable energy continues to surge as the costs associated with its production and distribution keep falling. In 2020 renewable energy sources such as wind and solar provided more electricity than coal for the very first time in U.S. history.

Is global warming too big a problem for me to help tackle?

A: No! While we can't win the fight without large-scale government action at the national level, we also can't do it without the help of individuals who are willing to use their voices, hold government and industry leaders to account, and make changes in their daily habits.

Wondering how you can be a part of the fight against global warming? Reduce your own carbon footprint by taking a few easy steps: Make conserving energy a part of your daily routine and your decisions as a consumer. When you shop for new appliances like refrigerators, washers, and dryers, look for products with the government's ENERGY STAR ® label; they meet a higher standard for energy efficiency than the minimum federal requirements. When you buy a car, look for one with the highest gas mileage and lowest emissions. You can also reduce your emissions by taking public transportation or carpooling when possible.

And while new federal and state standards are a step in the right direction, much more needs to be done. Voice your support of climate-friendly and climate change preparedness policies, and tell your representatives that equitably transitioning from dirty fossil fuels to clean power should be a top priority-because it's vital to building healthy, more secure communities.

You don't have to go it alone, either. Movements across the country are showing how climate action can build community, be led by those on the front lines of its impacts, and create a future that's equitable and just for all.

This story was originally published on March 11, 2016 and has been updated with new information and links.

This NRDC.org story is available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as grammar); you can't resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you can't republish our material wholesale or automatically-you need to select stories individually; you can't republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should to let us know when you've used one of our stories.

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What is global warming? Global warming causes, effects, extreme weather, facts, and relation to climate change.

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Because of so much usage of oil in the U.S., it is predicted that coal will continue to shorten until 2040.

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Because of pollution in cities, there is a lot of light pollution and you cannot see the stars in the city.

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Earth is Running Out of Fresh Water -Anika Lima 

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Earth is Running Out of Fresh Water -Anika Lima 

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As a study by NASA has shown of the world's largest underground aquifiers, which are underground sources of water, are rapidly being depleted, or used up. Only 3% of Earth's water is fresh water, compared to the 97% of salt water. In that 3%, 2% of that water is locked in icebergs, making only 1% usable for all the humans, animals, and plants in this world. Click here for more information:

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The world's largest underground aquifers - a source of fresh water for hundreds of millions of people - are being depleted at alarming rates, according to new NASA satellite data that provides the most detailed picture yet of vital water reserves hidden under the Earth's surface.

Twenty-one of the world's 37 largest aquifers - in locations from India and China to the United States and France - have passed their sustainability tipping points, meaning more water was removed than replaced during the decade-long study period, researchers announced Tuesday. Thirteen aquifers declined at rates that put them into the most troubled category. The researchers said this indicated a long-term problem that's likely to worsen as reliance on aquifers grows.

Scientists had long suspected that humans were taxing the world's underground water supply, but the NASA data was the first detailed assessment to demonstrate that major aquifers were indeed struggling to keep pace with demands from agriculture, growing populations, and industries such as mining.

"The situation is quite critical," said Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and principal investigator of the University of California Irvine-led studies.

Underground aquifers supply 35 percent of the water used by humans worldwide. Demand is even greater in times of drought. Rain-starved California is currently tapping aquifers for 60 percent of its water use as its rivers and above-ground reservoirs dry up, a steep increase from the usual 40 percent. Some expect water from aquifers will account for virtually every drop of the state's fresh water supply by year end.
[Rich Californians balk at limits: 'We're not all equal when it comes to water']
The aquifers under the most stress are in poor, densely populated regions, such as northwest India, Pakistan and North Africa, where alternatives are limited and water shortages could quickly lead to instability.

The researchers used NASA's GRACE satellites to take precise measurements of the world's groundwater aquifers. The satellites detected subtle changes in the Earth's gravitational pull, noting where the heavier weight of water exerted a greater pull on the orbiting spacecraft. Slight changes in aquifer water levels were charted over a decade, from 2003 to 2013.

"This has really been our first chance to see how these large reservoirs change over time," said Gordon Grant, a research hydrologist at Oregon State University, who was not involved in the studies.

But the NASA satellites could not measure the total capacity of the aquifers. The size of these tucked-away water supplies remains something of a mystery. Still, the satellite data indicated that some aquifers may be much smaller than previously believed, and most estimates of aquifer reserves have "uncertainty ranges across orders of magnitude," according to the research.

Aquifers can take thousands of years to fill up and only slowly recharge with water from snowmelt and rains. Now, as drilling for water has taken off across the globe, the hidden water reservoirs are being stressed.

"The water table is dropping all over the world," Famiglietti said. "There's not an infinite supply of water."
[California's water woes primed to get worse as groundwater is drained]
The health of the world's aquifers varied widely, mostly dependent on how they were used. In Australia, for example, the Canning Basin in the country's western end had the third-highest rate of depletion in the world. But the Great Artesian Basin to the east was among the healthiest.

The difference, the studies found, is likely attributable to heavy gold and iron ore mining and oil and gas exploration near the Canning Basin. Those are water-intensive activities.

The world's most stressed aquifer - defined as suffering rapid depletion with little or no sign of recharging - was the Arabian Aquifer, a water source used by more than 60 million people. That was followed by the Indus Basin in India and Pakistan, then the Murzuk-Djado Basin in Libya and Niger.

California's Central Valley Aquifer was the most troubled in the United States. It is being drained to irrigate farm fields, where drought has led to an explosion in the number of water wells being drilled. California only last year passed its first extensive groundwater regulations. But the new law could take two decades to take full effect.

Also running a negative balance was the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains Aquifer, which stretches across the southeast coast and Florida. But three other aquifers in the middle of the country appeared to be in relatively good shape.

Some groundwater filters back down to aquifers, such as with field irrigation. But most of it is lost to evaporation or ends up being deposited in oceans, making it harder to use. A 2012 study by Japanese researchers attributed up to 40 percent of the observed sea-level rise in recent decades to groundwater that had been pumped out, used by humans and ended up in the ocean.

Famiglietti said problems with groundwater are exacerbated by global warming, which has caused the regions closest to the equator to get drier and more extreme latitudes to experience wetter and heavier rains. A self-reinforcing cycle begins. People living in mid-range latitudes not only pump more water from aquifers to contend with drier conditions, but that water - once removed from the ground - also then evaporates and gets recirculated to areas far north and south.

The studies were published Tuesday in the Water Resources Research journal.

Famiglietti said he hoped the findings would spur discussion and further research into how much groundwater is left.

"We need to get our heads together on how we manage groundwater," he said, "because we're running out of it."

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New NASA data show how the world is running out of water

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The world's largest underground aquifers - a source of fresh water for hundreds of millions of people - are being depleted at alarming rates, according to new NASA satellite data that provides the most detailed picture yet of vital water reserves hidden under the Earth's surface.

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Declining of costs for raw materials: Thomas Escobar

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Declining of costs for raw materials: Thomas Escobar

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Oil and natural gases are declining in cost be because humans are evolving their tech to involve less of each.

http://www.autonews.com/article/20150804/OEM01/308059995/survey%3A-raw-material-costs-are-declining

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Due to the high amount of poaching for ivory, 98% of female african elephants are born tuskless.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/25/arctic-ice-melt-trigger-uncontrollable-climate-change-global-levelhttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/25/arctic-ice-melt-trigger-uncontrollable-climate-change-global-level

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The amount of fertile land is the world is decreasing due to highways, commercial centers, and homes being built in the area. This lack of fertile land can lead to food shortages.
http://www.dw.com/en/loss-of-fertile-soils-a-food-security-risk/a-18395856

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This article describes how the polar areas of the world are melting due to global warming. The temperatures have been rising making the polar caps melt. As a result, the sea level is rising, causing some islands and part of the U. S. to go underwater.

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The polar regions are particularly sensitive to small rises in the annual average temperature, they are sometimes referred to as "the canary in the coalmine" in that they show changes long before they can be seen elsewhere in the world. The mean annual air temperature of the Antarctic Peninsula has increased by nearly 3°C in the region in the last 50 years, the only comparable regions are in the Arctic. The temperature of the rest of Antarctica shows indications of rising at a slower rate.

The situation in Antarctica is being assessed constantly and changes that may have already occurred (such as with the WAIS ice sheet - below) are being discovered.

New research is being carried out, new things found and understanding is improving. For the foreseeable future, global warming in Antarctica is likely to be a fairly lively topic, for the latest news try here. Though ALWAYS take news reports in the papers, offline or online with a pinch of salt, the real purpose of many newspaper stories is very often to sell newspapers and/or gain some fame or career progression for the journalist or publication. There have also been a number of bandwagons spring up about the whole subject of global warming / climate change which has become a very political subject.

Summary points of this page:

Global warming is real, it is happening more quickly in some parts of the world than others.

The Antarctic Peninsula is particularly sensitive to small rises in the annual average temperature, this has increased by nearly 3°C in the region in the last 50 years, this is about 10 times faster than the average in the rest of the world. This makes it an excellent study area.

The temperature of Western Antarctica has also risen by a comparable amount, this is the region attached to the Peninsula and stretches to the Transantarctic Mountains.

The temperature of Eastern Antarctica has risen by a much smaller amount or has remained stable, this is the region on the other side of the Transantarctic Mountains.
There is no unusual significant loss of ice of any kind from the larger 96% of Antarctica that is not the Peninsula.
Rising temperatures cause ice shelves to break up - as they are floating already this will not affect sea levels, it may cause the glaciers behind them to speed up their flow-rate considerably. These glaciers will add to sea-level rise if they melt.

The temperature of Antarctica as a whole is predicted to rise by a small amount over the next 50 years. Any increase in the rate of ice melting is expected to be at least partly offset by increased snowfall as a result of the warming.

The extent of annual sea-ice has been changing in both the Arctic and Antarctic, in both cases it is explicable in terms of global warming.

What evidence is there from ice?
West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) - a slow motion collapse
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula) has thinned significantly as a result of warmer temperatures in the surrounding Antarctic Ocean. The upper ocean in this region has increased in temperature by more than 1°C since 1955. The greatest degree of thinning has happened in an area called the Amundsen Sea Embayment.

Many glaciers have retreated and 10 ice shelves have been seen to retreat in recent years. 87% of glaciers along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated in the last 50 years with most of these showing accelerated retreat in the last 12 years.

Recently (May 2014) it has been revealed that the WAIS is collapsing, an event that seems to be unstoppable. It will still take a very long time to happen however, several centuries or perhaps up to 1,000 years.

The key area is the 182,000 square km (70,000 sq miles) Thwaites Glacier which is being undercut by warmer water from the Amundsen Sea resulting in its retreat. The water is being driven by changes in wind patterns in this part of Antarctica. The collapse of the Thwaites Glacier alone could lead to a 1.2m (4ft) rise in global se levels, though the biggest effect is likely to come from it acting as an "ice dam" a sort of cork in a bottle of the rest of the WAIS behind it. This could lead to another 3-4m (10-13ft) rise in sea level.

The collapse of the glacier and rise in sea levels is thought to progress slowly for about two hundred years, but then it probably will speed up considerably. It is thought that there may be two stable states for the WAIS, as it is at the moment (or rather as it was about 50 years ago) and then for it not to be there at all, currently it is undergoing a change between the two states. From 1992 to 2011, the Thwaites Glacier retreated around 14 km, faster than anywhere else in Antarctica.
The end result of this is the possibility that we have already been committed to a rise in global sea levels by 3m or more over the coming centuries.

The Larsen B Ice Shelf

The break-up of the Larsen B ice shelf in early 2002. This event has been attributed to the effects of global warming. That it occurred is beyond dispute and that it is a result of the warming of the Antarctic Peninsula where it is situated is also beyond dispute. What remains unclear is whether or not this is a taste of things to come and an indicator of an Antarctic-wide phenomena or simply a localized result of the localized warming of the Antarctic Peninsula region alone.

An ice shelf is a thick layer of ice that is floating on the sea. They are fed from the land by glaciers. Where the ice leaves the land and starts to float on the sea is a region known as the "hinge zone" where the ice is particularly chaotic due to cracks, broken-up and a nightmare to try and travel over. Ice shelves surround much of Antarctica.

The Larsen B ice shelf was about 220m thick (720 feet) and during a 35 day period in early 2002 lost about 3,250 km 2 of ice into the ocean. It is thought to have been in existence for at least 400 years prior to this and probably as long as 12,000 years since the end of the last ice age.

Such a disintegration in such a short time period is therefore an extremely significant event. What now remains of the Larsen B is about 40% of what was there in 1995. It had been breaking up at what was considered to be a rapid rate anyway before this major event. The break-up is thought to be a consequence of higher temperatures and large amounts of summer melt-water running down crevasses in the ice shelf so speeding the disintegration process.

Overall in the Antarctic Peninsula, seven ice shelves have between them declined in area by about 13,500 km ² since 1974.

A more recently seen phenomena that follows this ice shelf collapse is that the glaciers that fed the ice shelf seem to now be speeding up their flow down to the sea. This will certainly deposit more water in the oceans, and as this was previously on the land it will add to an increase in sea-level. The Antarctic peninsula doesn't have enough ice to make much of a difference to sea level in itself even if it were all to melt, but it is best seen as an indicator region that can be observed to enhance understandings of the mechanisms in other parts of the world.

Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice

Seasonal sea-ice, that is ice that forms in the winter and disappears in the summer, in Antarctica and the Arctic are both changing though in opposite directions.

Arctic sea ice trend, 1981-2015:
average decrease of 2.4% per decade

Antarctic sea ice trend, 1979-2015:
average increase of 4.1% per decade

Sea ice can build up and disappear much more quickly than the much thicker glaciers and ice shelves, the average thickness in Antarctica is around 1m, in the Artic it is 2m, glaciers and ice shelves measure in at least 10's of meters and commonly 100's and 1000's. The area of Antarctica approximately doubles each winter due to the formation of sea ice.

The area of Arctic sea ice in April 2015 was the second lowest ever measured, at the same time, the area of Antarctic sea ice in the same month was the highest ever measured (it is measured by satellite). During this time the average temperature in the Weddell Sea was 1-4 °C (2-7F) above average for the month of April, this was where much of the extra sea ice had formed leading to the record measurement for ice cover.

The reasons for these changes is complex, different areas react in different ways to changing climate, while it may seem intuitive that warmer temperatures mean less ice in Antarctica and not more, it is explicable, in part by the effect of the ozone hole that forms annually over Antarctica.

The depletion of the ozone hole has caused an overall cooling trend on the Antarctic continent, this has masked the effects of warming temperatures at a local level, particularly on the larger part of East Antarctica and areas away from the peninsula region.

The loss of ozone has also led to increased winds and storms, both in frequency and strength. Winds in the Southern Ocean have been estimated to have increased by 15-20%. It has caused a low pressure system to form in the Amundsen Sea again both with increased frequency and strength. This low pressure sucks cold air from the interior of Antarctic and across the Ross Sea leading to a great increase in the amount of sea-ice forming in this area in recent years. This has been exacerbated by cold fresh melt water from the Pine Island glacier, which less dense than the sea-water below, floats above it freezing more easily than sea water due to it's lower salt content. The result is that a combination of more frequent cold storms and more readily frozen surface sea water leads to more sea ice being formed.

In addition to these factors are the effects of the El Nino Southern Oscillation which makes the situation more complicated leading to the large annual variability of sea ice formation.

Note, the two graphs are "opposites" as winter and summer are at different times of the year. Note also how more variable sea ice cover is from year to year in the Arctic than the Antarctic. Prince Gustav Channel

The Prince Gustav Channel is a stretch of sea that is found between the Antarctic Peninsula on its west side and James Ross Island at its east side. It is around 130km (81 miles) long and from 6 to 24 km (4-15 miles) wide. Until 1995 an ice shelf covering around 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) largely filled this channel, by February 1995 this ice shelf had broken up and the channel was open water and navigable once again.

Evidence from seabed sediments in the Prince Gustav Channel on the Antarctic Peninsula after the ice shelf that previously blocked it collapsed has shown that it had disappeared at least once before in the last 10,000 years.

"Thus, the present loss of ice shelves cannot be assumed to be a consequence of Man-made climate change,
unless and until a cause can be identified"
British Antarctic Survey

The ice edge of the Prince Gustav Channel where, here HMS Endurance is moored (1985)

A photograph that may not be able to be taken again for a few hundreds or even thousands of years. In 1985, HMS Endurance is moored up to the ice barrier that blocked the Prince Gustav channel between James Ross Island and the Antarctic Peninsula. Standing by the ship and looking to the left in the picture, the ice slope could be seen to rise to well over 100 feet (30m) altitude into the distance (and 9 to 10 times that thickness under the level of the sea). Today, the whole lot has gone.

Ice Cores

Antarctica has ice that is up to 4700m thick. This ice preserves a record of the conditions at the time it was frozen, of the amounts of gases in the atmosphere and an indication of the temperature. The deeper you drill, the further back in time you go.

Research into ice cores show that current atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane gas levels (both greenhouse gases) are higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years. The rate of increase of these gases is faster than any likely to have happened in the recent geological past. This 800,000 year record came from a 3km long ice core.

Is the whole of Antarctica warming?

No.

The Antarctic Peninsula, particularly the West coast of the Peninsula is warming at a rate about 10 times faster than the global average. This has received a great deal of publicity in recent years and is where the Larsen B ice shelf (see above) is situated. The average annual temperature of this region has increased by nearly 3°C in the last 50 years.

Data on temperatures in Antarctica only really go back about 50 years, anything beyond that is surmised from ice cores or other sources and so we don't accurately know how the temperatures vary over even the medium term in Antarctica. The reason that the Peninsula region appears to be so dramatically warming is that it has a large amount of snow and ice, glaciers, ice shelves and other features, It also has an annual average temperature not far off the freezing point of water. A small increase in the average annual temperature can mean that a few more weeks or even just a few more days per year when melting can occur can result in very visible results of ice features reducing or disappearing.

The vast majority of Antarctica is so cold that even if the temperature was to rise by the same amount as the Peninsula, there still wouldn't be any melting going on at all. The average surface temperature of continental Antarctica is about -37°C as opposed to -5°C for the warmest places on the peninsula.

Scenario 1 - A warmer day in most of Antarctica still gives a temperature well below freezing, say -30°C to -20°C
= Nothing much to see.

Scenario 2 - A warmer day in the Peninsula takes temperatures from say -5C to +5C
= Lots of melting and potential ice break up, lots to see.

This is no reason to become complacent however as part of the reason that the Antarctic ice sheet is so cold is that it's so high, due to the thickness of the ice. The melting and flow of the glaciers removing ice from the continent is also slowed by the ice shelves around the continent edge.

Small rises in temperature that start to nibble away a little faster at the edges could eventually speed up the loss of ice from the interior and cause greater temperature rises to take place further inland. Ice shelves seem to act as "corks" in Antarctic "ice-bottles", remove the ice shelf and a huge amount of ice from the interior could start to flow towards the sea where it will melt even though the temperature in the interior may be stable. The "corks" are currently keeping the ice at the coldest places.

The problem with trying to predict the future in these matters is that firstly there is not enough data available to base predictions on and secondly, the way things work is not fully understood. Most models from different researchers and teams tend to agree however that there will be some small changes in temperature over the next 50 years. It is also expected that the rise in global temperature will put more moisture into the atmosphere and more of this will reach Antarctica so giving a greater snowfall to offset the melting ice. Despite all the snow and ice there Antarctica is actually classed as a desert as there is so little snow-fall, it's just that what does fall stays there so it builds up over a long time period.

Are there any biological effects of global warming in Antarctica?

Plants

Antarctica's only two flowering plant species that grow only on the Peninsula have spread considerably in the last few decades in both geographic distribution and also abundance in the areas where they are found. In some areas they are becoming the dominant species. Deschapsia antarctica, Antarctic hair grass shown in picture right.

Part of the reason for this is that there has been a switch from snowfall to rainfall during the summer. This means that more water is available physiologically to the plants rather than being locked up as ice crystals and so unavailable.

Melting ice and permafrost has led to newly available land that has become colonized by plant, animal and microbial communities.

Adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) have also been suffering a steady decline in parts of the Antarctic Peninsula region for the last 20 years. Adelies are reducing in number and abandoning certain nesting sites. Until the last 20 years or so, Chinstrap penguins ( Pygoscelis antarctica) were taking their place. Adelies require pack ice for most of the year and feed almost exclusively on Krill, Chinstrap penguins will eat a wider variety of foods and prefer open water. The sea ice has declined over the last 20 years with the rise in temperature in the Peninsula region.

More recently however, Gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua) have started to replace both Adelie and Chinstrap penguins and now nest on the Peninsula. Studies of the bones and remains found in abandoned colonies indicates that prior to 1950, no Gentoo penguins nested in these sites at all.
Losers - Adelie and Chinstrap penguins
Winners - Gentoo penguins
On the other side of Antarctica, the Ross Sea region and East Antarctica, Adelie penguin colonies have remained stable or even increased.

Krill
Studies have shown that stocks of krill in Antarctica have declined dramatically in recent years. The reason for this is likely to be a fall in the amount of sea ice in the winter months in the Antarctic Peninsula region.

Krill numbers in this region may have dropped by as much as 80% since the 1970's - so today's stocks are a mere 1/5th of what they were only 30 years ago. The decline in krill may in turn account for the decline in the numbers of some penguin species.

Dr Angus Atkinson from British Antarctic Survey, says:

"This is the first time that we have understood the full scale of this decline. Krill feed on the algae found under the surface of the sea-ice, which acts as a kind of 'nursery'.

The Antarctic Peninsula, a key breeding ground for the krill, is one of the places in the world where there has been the greatest rise in temperatures due to global warming. This region has warmed by 2.5°C in the last 50 years (much more than the mean global rate), with a striking consequential decrease in winter sea-ice cover.

"We don't fully understand how the loss of sea-ice here is connected to the warming, but we believe that it could be behind the decline in krill."

There are commercial implications as well as scientific ones. The Southern Ocean is a valuable fisheries resource, many of the species caught feed on krill. Thousands of tourists are also attracted to Antarctica to enjoy the spectacular wildlife, most of which feed on krill.

There has been previous speculation that krill stocks might have decreased, based on smaller more localized surveys over shorter time periods. This new finding comes from data from nine countries working in Antarctica who pooled their separate data covering 40 Antarctic summers, in the period between 1926 and 2003. This is the first time such a large-scale view of change across the Southern Ocean has been seen.

Another animal that feeds on the same phytoplankton food as krill, jelly-like colonial animals called salps that drift in the ocean currents have increased in the same time the krill have decreased.

This decline in krill will also make it more difficult for the great baleen whales to return to pre-exploitation levels following their decimation in numbers during the years from approximately 1925-1975.

Picture credits, copyright pictures used by permission: Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, images and graphs - National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado. / Deschampsia antarctica - Lomvi2, used under Creative Commons 3.0 Share and Share Alike Unported license. / Ice core - Emily Stone, NSF / Satellite images - NASA

More (lots more!) 555 page report by The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR);"The Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment (ACCE) Report"

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Antarctica, the Effects of Global Warming

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The polar regions are particularly sensitive to small rises in the annual average temperature, they are sometimes referred to as "the canary in the coalmine" in that they show changes long before they can be seen elsewhere in the world.

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The Ozone layer has greatly decreased due to pollution. If the ozone layer keeps decreasing, we would have nothing to protect us.

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Annual Antarctic Ozone Hole Larger and Formed Later in 2015

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The 2015 Antarctic ozone hole area was larger and formed later than in recent years, scientists say.

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Many countries now are sacrificing fertile farming land to make way for roads, buildings and other modern neccesties. As the world's population is growing, a worldwide hunger famine will emerge because less fertile land is equalivent to less crops which is less food.

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Because of the high demand of ivory, people slaughter lots of elephants every years.

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Get answers to key questions about ivory and the poaching crisis, including how The Nature Conservancy works to protect African elephants.

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We have started to search for oil in far-out places.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/united-states-of-oil/
David Tassev

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People in the world use a lot of the water supply that is already very limited. For example, factory farming, pollution, and human use cause a lot of water shortages. Humans use a lot of the less than 1% of the drinkable water for very wasteful purposes, which will cause a dilemma in the future in water shortage.
http://panmore.com/water-supply-shortage-human-impact-public-health

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The usage of fossil fuels have eroded at the ozone layer, causing rising temperatures. This has made the ice caps start to melt, endangering the habitats of countless species.

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The purpose of this article is to show the disadvantages of the Industrial Revolution. Due to greenhouse gases there has become a long-lasting effect on the ozone layer.

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The Industrial Revolution sparked a huge advance in technology and development, but it also had its downside. As human society has grown and advanced, its effects on the environment and the atmosphere have become more and more pronounced.

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Bauxite ores produced primarily in Australia are non-renewable and are the prinicpal souces of aluminum, a metal used in everyday life. The reserves of the material are constantly being drained from the earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauxite

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Humans have impacted the national energy resources. There has been less coal and oil production, as resources are declining. Energy is something humanity has caused to decline, and we must strive to protect it.
-Amruth Chilukuri

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There is pollution across the world. Plastic and garbage are in the seas. Our world is becoming worse and worse. There is 14 billion pounds of garabge pollution. The numbers are increasing. Over 1 million seabirds and thousands of sea mammals have died due to pollution.Vincent Vu

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Indoor air pollution is 2 to 5x worse (sometimes a 100x worse) than the air outdoors.

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African Congo Deforestation may be on the decline...

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African Congo Deforestation may be on the decline...

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This article describes the decline of deforestation and rain forest clear-cutting since 2000. However, they also claim that Africa's loss of forest is faster than that of the Congo's. Import of cereal is reducing the demand of land for farming. Mr. .I.

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Deforestation has fallen in Congo Basin countries over the past decade despite a sharp increase in the rate of forest clearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B as part of a set of 18 papers on the region's tropical forests.

The special issue, which was put together by Yadvinder Malhi, Stephen Adu-Bredu, Rebecca Asare, Simon Lewis and Philippe Mayaux, covers a range of issues relating to the rainforests of the Congo Basin, including deforestation, the impacts of global change, the history and key characteristics of the region's forests, and resource extraction, among others.

With 178 million hectares of rainforests, the Congo Basin is second only to the Amazon in terms of tropical forest cover. Overall the region accounts for 89 percent of Africa's tropical rainforests and stores 39 billion tons of carbon, accounting for 79 percent of the continent's terrestrial carbon.
Congo deforestation on the decline
Analysis of satellite data by Philippe Mayaux and colleagues shows the Congo Basin - at 0.3 percent annual forest loss - has the lowest deforestation rate of the planet's major tropical forest regions, both in proportional and absolute terms. The region's deforestation rate is also declining, falling 36 percent from 285,400 hectares a year in the 1990s to 181,500 ha per year in the 2000s. Africa's overall rate of rainforest loss is outpacing that of the Congo, falling more than half from 592,000 ha in the 1990s to 288,000 ha per year during the past decade.

The special issue notes that Africa's relative low rate of forest loss is a product of its circumstances, including "the almost complete absence of agro-industrial scale clearing", which globally accounts for more than half of tropical forest loss. Thomas Rudel of Rutgers University analyses drivers of deforestation in the region and finds that oil and mineral wealth seem to be acting as a deterrent to deforestation by triggering urban migration away from forest areas. But at the same time, this shift appears to weakening food security by increasing countries' dependence on food importance.

"The wetter Congo basin countries had lower rates of deforestation, in part because tax receipts from oil and mineral industries in this region spurred rural to urban migration, declines in agriculture and increased imports of cereals from abroad," writes Rudel. "In this respect, the Congo basin countries may be experiencing an oil and mineral fueled forest transition."

The research found most deforestation is "found around transport networks and close to cities, including areas suitable for agriculture within 5 hours travel time to major markets, and wood fuel and charcoal provisioning within 12 hours from a city."

But unlike other parts of the world, research published in the special issue suggests that commercial logging does not appear to be a major driver of deforestation in the Congo Basin. Instead it drives forest degradation and is associated with the burgeoning bushmeat trade by granting access via logging roads to hunters.

"In the high diversity African tropics, there are typically only one to two timber trees harvested per hectare, and it makes little economic sense to clear cut forests remote from markets," write Malhi and colleagues. "This contrasts with Southeast Asia, where the dipterocarp-rich forests yield many more timber species, and are much more intensively logged (around 10-20 trees per hectare) and heavily damaged by logging."

"Mayaux et al and Rudel explore the possible linkages between logging and subsequent deforestation. They find little evidence of logging leading to deforestation, either at national or local scales. One key difference from Amazonia is the lack of an active colonization frontier with pressure to clear logged forest. The loose network of logging tracks, owing to the light exploitation density, combined with the low population density, does not provoke the critical conditions for deforestation, except around a few concessions in the DRC."

Another paper in the special issue looks specifically at the effects of logging on the structure and dynamics of the forest. Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury and colleagues found that while biomass and forest function rebounds quickly from logging within 25 years, commercial trees take "much longer" to recovery. Meanwhile, a review by Kate Abernethy reveals that "defaunation" from unsustainable hunting can have persistent, long-term impacts on forest structure by reducing the abundance of key seed dispersers and "forest architects" like elephants.
Elephants may have an outsized role in Congo Basin forests. As noted by Simon Lewis and others, elephants may be partly responsible for the region's tall trees and high biomass, by crushing and eating small trees.

"The extremely low stem density in African forests may relate to the very high large animal biomass: elephants ( Loxodonta africana cyclotis), gorillas ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and other large herbivores such as bongos ( Tragelaphus eurycerus) may keep the density of small trees very low," Lewis and colleagues write. "This view is reinforced by a recent paper from Southeast Asia showing a large increase in sapling density when the large animal fauna is extirpated."

Lewis and co-authors note that, on average, Congo forests are taller and less diverse than Asia or the Amazon. But they store nearly as much carbon as the great Dipterocarp forests of Borneo.
The great unknown for Congo forests: climate change
While Congo Basin forests appear to be absorbing more carbon at present, the science on the impact of climate change in the region is far from settled. Climate models agree that the Congo basin will see a sharp rise in temperatures - up to 4°C this century, but it is uncertain how vegetation and wildlife will respond to the new conditions. Furthermore, parts of the basin may see shifts in precipitation patterns, including "wetting of the eastern regions" and "intensified dry seasons in the western Congo Basin". Reconstructions of past vegetation cover in the region shows that Congo forests have waxed and waned with climate change, including a "substantial" retreat 3,000 years ago.

Richard Washington and colleagues note that part of the problem in predicting the effects of climate change in the Congo Basin is lack of understanding of current conditions.

"The Congo Basin is poorly studied because of the dearth of available ground-based climate observations from the region, particularly in the past few decades," write Malhi and colleagues. "This deficiency is of global significance, because the Congo Basin is the second most important convective 'engine' of the global atmospheric circulation after the Maritime Continent (insular Southeast Asia and the surrounding waters) and is also the region of highest lightning strike frequencies on the planet [57]. In transition seasons (March-May and September-November), the Congo Basin dominates global tropical rainfall."

Comparison of the satellite images and forest-cover maps over the region of Lisala-Bumba (DR Congo). (a) MODIS color composite; (b) Landsat color composite; (c) MODIS-derived map (Mayaux et al 2013 study); (d ) Landsat-derived map; (e) GlobCover map and ( f ) synthesis map.

Planning for the future
Given the importance of Congo forests, the special issue includes papers on conservation options in the region. Unsurprisingly, a big focus is the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) mechanism, a program that aims to provide performance-based compensation to tropical countries for protecting their forests. REDD+ could potentially trigger the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars a year to Congo Basin countries, but has yet to overcome significant technical, economic, and political challenges. Nonetheless, some $550 million has already been committed to REDD+ in the region, which the issue suggests "may already be having an impact on slowing down deforestation and degradation activities in the region."

Malhi and colleagues note that there may be a limited window for consolidating conservation gains in the region given rising interest in industrial agriculture, especially oil palm plantations.

"A major threat to the forest biome is the potential of a shift to commercial agro-plantations, the write. "If poorly planned, then these industrial croplands could lead to extensive loss of forests as witnessed in Southeast Asia, and in soya bean regions of Amazonia, especially when combined with poor governance."

Rainforest logs in Gabon
Need for more research
The special section ends with a call to better understand Congo Basin forests.

"This short synthesis has highlighted many surprising aspects of the African rainforest biome, and how different it is in many aspects from other, perhaps better understood, rainforest regions. It has also highlighted how little we know and how much there is still to discover," write Malhi and colleagues. "There are reasons for concern, such has the heavy levels of defaunation and the potential impacts of climate change, and reasons for hope, such as the low rates of deforestation and the possible resilience of rainforest species to climate change."

"We call on the research and policy communities to redouble efforts to give this fascinating rainforest continent the attention it so richly deserves."

Young gorilla in Gabon

PAPERS IN THE SPECIAL ISSUE:

Malhi, Yadvinder; Adu-Bredu, Stephen; Asare, Rebecca; Lewis, Simon; Mayaux, Philippe. Introduction: The past, present and future of Africa's rainforests

Mayaux, Philippe; Pekel, Jean-François; Desclée, Baudouin; Donnay, François; Lupi, Andrea; Achard, Frédéric; Clerici, Marco; Bodart, Catherine; Brink, Andreas; Nasi, Robert; Belward, Alan. State and evolution of the African rainforests between 1990 and 2010

Lewis, Simon et al. Aboveground biomass and structure of 260 African tropical forests

Mitchard, Edward; Flintrop, Clara. Assessing the relative magnitude of woody encroachment and deforestation in sub-Saharan Africa's woodlands and savannas 1982-2006

Rudel, Thomas. The National Determinants of Deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Oslisly, Richard; White, Lee; Bentaleb, Ilham; Favier, Charly; Fontugne, Michel; Gillet, Jean François; Sebag, David. Climatic and cultural changes in the West Congo Basin forests over the past 5000 years

Willis, Katherine; Bennett, Keith; Burrough, Sallie; Macias-Fauria, Marc; Tovar, Carolina. Determining the response of African biota to climate change: using the past to model the future

Abernethy, Kate; Coad, Lauren; Taylor, Gemma; Lee, Michelle; Maisels, Fiona. Extent and ecological consequences of hunting in Central African rainforests in the 21st Century

Gourlet-Fleury, Sylvie; Mortier, Frédéric; Fayolle, Adeline; Baya, Fidèle; Ouedraogo, Dakis; Benedet, Fabrice; Picard, Nicolas. Tropical forest recovery from logging: a 24 year silvicultural experiment from Central Africa

Fisher, Joshua; Sikka, Munish; Sitch, Stephen; Ciais, Philippe; Poulter, Benjamin; Galbraith, David; Lee, Jung-Eun; Huntingford, Chris; Viovy, Nicolas; Zeng, Ning; Ahlström, Anders; Lomas, Mark; Levy, Peter; Frankenberg, Christian; Saatchi, Sassan; Malhi, Yadvinder. African tropical rainforest net CO2 fluxes in the 20th century
James, Rachel; Washington, Richard; Rowell, David. Implications of global warming for the climate of African rainforests

Washington, Richard; James, Rachel; Pearce, Helen; Pokam, Wilfried; Moufouma-Okia, Wilfran. Congo Basin rainfall climatology: can we believe the climate models?

Otto, Friederike; Jones, Richard; Halladay, Kate; Allen, Myles. Attribution of changes in precipitation patterns in African rainforests

Asefi-Najafabady, Salvi; Saatchi, Sassan. Response of African humid tropical forests to recent rainfall anomalies

Maniatis, Danae; Gaugris, Jerome; Mollicone, Danilo; Scriven, Joel; Corblin, Alexis; Ndikumagenge, Cleto; Aquino, André; Crete, Philippe; Sanz-Sanchez, Maria-José. Financing and current capacity for REDD+ readiness and monitoring, measurement, reporting and verification in the Congo Basin

Asare, Rebecca. The Community Resource Management Area Mechanism: A strategy to manage African forest resources for REDD+

Gond, Valery; Fayolle, Adeline; Pennec, Alexandre; Cornu, Guillaume; Mayaux, Philippe; Camberlin, Pierre; Doumenge, Charles; Fauvet, Nicolas; Gourlet-Fleury, Sylvie. Vegetation structure and greenness in central Africa from modis multi-temporal data

Malhi, Yadvinder; Adu-Bredu, Stephen; Asare, Rebecca; Lewis, Simon; Mayaux, Philippe. African rainforests: past, presents and future

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Deforestation rate falls in Congo Basin countries

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Deforestation has fallen in Congo Basin countries over the past decade despite a sharp increase in the rate of forest clearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B as part of a set of 18 papers on the region's tropical forests.