Let’s see why summers are getting colder, and world news more often resembles footage from The Day After Tomorrow movie.

What is global warming?

Global warming is an increase in the average temperature on Earth, which has been fixed since the end of the 19th century. The average temperature rose an average of 0.8 degrees over the land and the ocean since the beginning of the 20th century.

Scientists believe that by the end of the 21st century, the temperature can rise by an average of 2 degrees. Find out more about the global warming from this cheap essay.

The increase is very small, is it really affecting something?

All the climate change that we’re experiencing is the consequences of global warming. That’s what happened on the Earth for the last century.
• There are more hot days and fewer cold days on all continents.
• The global sea level increased by 14 centimeters. The area of glaciers is shrinking, they are melting, water is desalinated, and the movement of ocean currents is changing.
• Due to the fact that the temperature rose, the atmosphere began to hold more moisture. This has led to more frequent and powerful storms, especially in North America and Europe.
• In some regions of the world (the Mediterranean and West Africa), there has been more drought, in others (the middle west of the USA and the north-west of Australia), on the contrary, it has decreased.

What caused global warming?

Additional intake of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – methane, carbon dioxide, and water vapor, ozone. They absorb long waves of infrared radiation, without releasing them into space. Because of this, a greenhouse effect is formed on the Earth.
Global warming has provoked rapid development of industry. The more emissions from enterprises, the more active deforestation (forests absorb carbon dioxide) is and the more greenhouse gases accumulate. The warmer the Earth becomes.

What all this can lead to?

Scientists predict that further global warming can intensify disastrous processes, provoke droughts, floods, and spread of dangerous diseases.
• Due to rising sea level, many settlements located in the coastal zone will be flooded.
• The consequences of storms will become more global.
• Seasons of rain will be longer, which will lead to more floods.
• The duration of dry periods will increase, which threatens with powerful droughts.
• Tropical cyclones will become stronger: the wind speed will be higher and the precipitation will be more abundant.
• The combination of increased temperature and drought will make it difficult to grow some crops.
• Many species of animals will migrate to preserve habitual habitat conditions. Some of them can disappear completely. For example, acidification of the ocean, which absorbs carbon dioxide (it is released by burning fossil fuels), kills oysters and coral reefs, as well as worsens the conditions of predators.

Are Harvey and Irma storm also provoked by global warming?

According to one of the versions, the formation of destructive hurricanes is due to the warming in the Arctic. It created an atmospheric blockade– slowed the circulation of jet streams in the atmosphere. Because of this, powerful sedentary storms have formed, absorbing a huge amount of moisture. But there is as yet no sufficient evidence of this theory.
Many climatologists rely on the Clausius- Clapeyron equation, according to which an atmosphere with a higher temperature contains more moisture, and therefore conditions for the formation of more powerful storms arise. The water temperature in the ocean where the Harvey was formed is about 1 degree higher than the average temperature.
The Irma hurricane followed the similar scheme. The process began in warm waters off the coast of West Africa. Within 30 hours the elements increased to the third category (and then to the highest, the fifth category). This rate of formation was recorded by meteorologists for the first time in two decades.

Is it possible that we are waiting for what was described in The Day After Tomorrow?

Scientists believe that such hurricanes can become the norm. However, climatologists don’t predict an instantaneous global cooling.
The first place in the top five global risks for 2018, voiced at the World Economic Forum, has already taken extreme weather events. 90% of the world’s largest economic losses today are floods, hurricanes, torrential rains, hail, and drought.