In the last two decades or so, people around the globe have been witnessing weather anomalies, which may well be the consequences of global warming.
During the month of June and the first week of July, an extreme heat wave affected much of Western North America. The Western parts Canada and USA got adversely affected by this rare weather anomaly. The heat wave resulted in the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada, that is 49°C, while cities like Seattle has recorded a temperature of 46°C. The exact data of human casualties is not known until now and the death is still rising, but according to various sources more than 840 people have died due to the heat wave; out of which almost 645 people have died in Canada, while more than 195 people have died in USA. In totality, the heat wave has affected a population of 50 million people living in these regions. This heat wave caused wildfires in some parts of the Western North America, which resulted in the destruction of several square kilometers of forest cover.
Even, the marine life was not spared by this heat wave. It has been reported that this weather anomaly has killed over 1 billion of aquatic lives along Canada’s Pacific coast. However, we need to understand, what is the cause of such catastrophic weather anomaly.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said that in order to understand this current meteorological anomaly known as the heat dome, one should consider the Pacific Ocean to a large swimming pool in which the heater is turned on. Once the heater is on, the portions of the pool close to the heating jets will warm up faster and therefore, the temperature in that area will be higher. In the same way, the western Pacific ocean’s temperatures have increased in the past few decades and are relatively more than the temperature in the eastern Pacific.
This has resulted in creation of a strong temperature gradient, or pressure differences that drive wind, across the entire ocean in winter. Because of convection, the gradient causes more warm air, heated by the ocean surface, to rise over the western Pacific, and decreases convection over the central and eastern Pacific.
As prevailing winds move the hot air east, the northern shifts of the jet stream trap the air and move it toward land, where it sinks, resulting in heat waves. The high-pressure circulation acts like a lid or a dome, which forces the air downwards, increasing the air column, but even as the air becomes increasingly lighter and hotter due to the sun’s energy, it cannot escape the dome because of the high-pressure lid or dome. This situation is meteorological terms is called heat dome.
It may well be the case that it is a rare weather anomaly but the fact it became so severe, points out that, it would be virtually impossible without anthropogenic climate change. As warming continues, such weather anomaly will become a lot less rare and much more severe.
According to a study by ‘World Weather Attribution’ in a world with 2°C of global warming (0.8°C warmer than today which at current emission levels would be reached as early as the 2040s), this event would have been another degree hotter. An event like this – currently estimated to occur only once every 1000 years, would occur roughly every 5 to 10 years in that future world with 2°C of global warming. So, even a relatively small increase in mean global temperatures caused by climate change can pass a threshold that triggers a sharp increase in the probability of extreme heat wave phenomena. Also, according to their studies, weather anomalies such as these would be very rare but their likelihood has increased at least 150 times because of anthropogenic climate change.
But, in reality, can the whole of humanity be held responsible for the climate change? is it actually anthropogenic change? The answer to these question is just no, its not the whole humanity but more likely the privileged sections of the human population that has brought upon the climate change and hence one should see the reason behind the climate change to be capitalogenic. According to a 2015 study by Oxfam, top 10 percent of the population is responsible for the 49 percent of lifestyle consumption carbon
dioxide emissions, while the bottom 50 percent are only responsible for 10 percent of total lifestyle consumption carbon dioxide emissions. According to carbon measures report published in 2017, only 100 companies have been the source of more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.
The weather anomaly in Western North America has posed serious questions globally. Have we reached the tipping point? How can humanity still thrive, if such anomalies become the norm?
For now, we must pressurize the governments worldwide to take effective measures against climate change. The struggle for environment conservation should become a mass movement. As, we have seen in Canada and USA, how people who were from underprivileged sections of the society, have been affected the most by this heat wave. So, the governments throughout the world must be made responsible towards such incidents and it must take necessary measures to protect the people against such meteorological anomalies.
But in the long time, we will have to start looking beyond these climate protocols, which do nothing at all. We must understand as long as this capitalist remains, our environment and climate will always be under threat. This current capitalist system, which has now become illogical must be replaced by more logical system, which knows the value of ecology and environment.
- Vivek
Commenti