Global Warming and Climate change are important topics. Recent talks at the United Nations have highlighted the concern about these planetary issues that go beyond borders and seek to unite people in discovering means to solve the emerging problems.
The United Nations climate change site indicates that 2014 is on track to being among the hottest on record. Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change states "Fortunately our political climate is changing too with evidence that governments, supported by investors, business and cities are moving towards a meaningful, universal climate agreement in Paris 2015 - an agreement that keeps a global temperature rise below 2 degrees C by putting in place the pathways to a deep de-carbonisation of the world's economy and climate neutrality or 'net zero' in the second half of the century."
A recent article in Scientific American discusses United Nations climate talks in Paris last December. As the article indicates "(The planet's surface has warmed about 0.85 degrees C (1.5 degrees F) since 1880, worsening floods, storms and deadly heat waves.) The 2 degrees C target has since become a keystone goal of the negotiations."
NASA's, Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet displays information about climate change. including graphs and latest measurements. This information shows steadily increasing recorded carbon dioxide levels in recent history, with inputed history obtained from ice cores indicating significant variation from historical levels over three glaciation periods. Ice cores have been drawn from the Arctic, Antarctic and mountain glaciers. The measured value as of January 2015 showed 399.73 parts per million (ppm), just under 400 ppm. At current rates it should exceed 400 ppm in February 2015.
Global Warming concerns have fostered considerable research on climate change issues, seeking ways to mitigate the impacts of climate change, providing potential solutions. Climate change and environmental issues have been addressed at local, state, federal and international levels. The CIA World Factbook provides a list of Current Environmental issues and international agreements which countries listed are a "party to" and/or "signed, but not ratified".
I discuss some of the issues relating to climate change, including global health in other blog articles relating to Climate Change and Global Health and Avian Flu.
Carbon, and especially carbon dioxide are sequestered in a number of areas on the planet, including in the rocks and in the oceans. Other greenhouse gases, such as methane, are sequestered in areas such as Arctic Tundra, and in the oceans. The questions remain as to how much capacity does our planet have to sequester carbon, without over stressing the resource with storage demands and whether there is a risk that carbon which has been already sequestered might be released back into the environment.
An outgassing of carbon dioxide at Lake Nyos (1986), in Africa, illustrates the problem which can occur with a body of water that is saturated with carbon dioxide. Lake Nyos lies above a pocket of magma and is one of only three lakes saturated with carbon dioxide. Lake Nyos is not the size of the ocean, however.
It is clear that carbon, and carbon dioxide are keystone issues in addressing global warming and climate change. Global warming is especially sensitive to changes in carbon dioxide, as increases in carbon dioxide can also lead to increases in water vapor in the atmosphere, as indicated by a NASA report. Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas. Thus, increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can act in a positive feedback manner to increase the greenhouse effect.
Just as carbon dioxide is a sensitive indicator in the atmosphere, and may represent a bifurcation between different climatological paradigms, one pursues, seeks and finds answers as to the equivalent impact that changing carbon dioxide atmospheric concentrations have on the human body, which is also a sensitive indicator of climate change. These findings have implications for Global Health, as well the psychosocial milieu in which mankind experiences climate change.
These are all very serious issues worthy of further research, consideration and action. The key question is the manner in which homeostasis is achieved, given the climate change issues.
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