Bengaluru: While it is not ‘breaking news’, it certainly is hot news! Planet earth is getting warmer because of human activity. We are producing huge quantities of green house gases (GHG’s) which is making the atmospheric layer thicker, resulting in more infrared waves from the sun getting trapped, instead of getting reflected back into space. So how does all this affect our lives?
Oceans cover 71% of planet earth. 90% of the extra heat trapped by manmade global warming goes into the ocean. Cheryl Katz, a San Francisco Bay Area-based science writer covering energy, environmental health, and climate change reports, says that the ocean has been heating at a rate of around 0.5 to 1 watt of energy over the past decade, amassing more than 2 X 1023 joules of energy — the equivalent of roughly five Hiroshima bombs exploding every second — since 1990. Overall, the world's oceans are warmer now than at any point in the last 50 years and the top layer is now getting warmer at a rate of 0.2°F per decade. So what?
The devastating effect of warmer oceans is that it causes powerful storms. Storms gain energy from warm oceans, so what may start off like a small storm system intensifies to become a large more powerful storm, if the path of the storm has warm oceans.
Hurricane Sandy that struck the North East of the United States of America on October 29, 2012, was testimony of how warm oceans energise storms, making them bigger and deadlier. The waters on the pathway of Hurricane Sandy were warmer than usual. Typhoon Haiyan that struck Philippines on November 10, 2013 is another example. Scientists tracking the path of Typhoon Haiyan were able to conclude that the waters were much warmer, making it a deadly typhoon killing over 6,500 people.
With sustained wind speeds of more than 310 km per hour, Haiyan was the most powerful tropical cyclone to make landfall in recorded history. Warm air also adds other factors to the normal hydrological cycle. Warmer air can hold much more water vapour, and with each additional 1° (C) of temperature, the atmosphere’s capacity to hold water vapor increases by 7%. There is already 4% more water vapor over the oceans than there was only 30 years ago.
So what does all this result in? The down pours are becoming bigger! Are you still wondering how global warming is affecting you?
(The author is a well-known environmentalist. Visit www.cbramkumar.com)
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