As snow falls on Antarctica, layers build up and turn to ice. Over time, this compressed snow has become a continent-sized glacier, or ice sheet. It's enormous—almost double the size of Australia and far larger than the continental United States.
Throughout human history, technologies have been used to make people's lives richer and more comfortable, but they have also contributed to a global crisis threatening Earth's climate, ecosystems, and even our own survival.
Research suggests that climate change is altering the jet stream, pushing frigid air down to southern climes more frequently. But the scientific jury is still out.
The data is clear: Rising global temperatures mean winters are getting milder, on average, and the sort of record-setting cold that spanned the country Friday is becoming rarer. But at the same time, global warming may be altering atmospheric patterns and pushing harsh outbreaks of polar air to normally moderate climates, according to scientists who are actively debating the link.
The winter storm that forecasters dubbed Elliott intensified into a bomb cyclone near the Great Lakes on Friday, bringing high winds and blizzard conditions from the Northern Plains to western and upstate New York, along with life-threatening flooding, flash-freezing and travel chaos as it went.
It’s no use telling developing nations to decarbonise. The west must accept it bears the bulk of the blame for the climate crisis
A couple of hundred years ago Britain was not a lot different from many poor countries today. Life expectancy was low, infant mortality was high, living standards barely rose from year to year, water-borne diseases were rife. People worked long hours and life for the struggling was, as Thomas Hobbes put it, “nasty, brutish and short”.
It is true that the graphs shown in newspapers and climate reports are correct. But they are taken out of context, biased.
Truly, taking only the last few thousand years, they are correct and it can be said that the temperature is increasing a lot compared to "near" pre-industrial times.
But what happens if we take all the available data, which go back many millions of years?
As snow falls on Antarctica, layers build up and turn to ice. Over time, this compressed snow has become a continent-sized glacier, or ice sheet. It's enormous—
Throughout human history, technologies have been used to make people's lives richer and more comfortable, but they have also contributed to a global crisis threatening Earth's climate, ecosystems, and even our own survival.
