Researchers from George Mason University asked nearly 500 scientists about climate change and the results were unequivocal: 84% agreed that human-induced global warming is occurring; and only 5% disagreed that human activity is a significant contributor. Yet when the Americans are asked what the most important problem facing society is, the answer is rarely climate change.
As anyone who lives on Earth can attest, weather is rarely “average.” However mild or extreme a climate may be, it can be relatively warm one day and cool the next; clouds appear or the sun breaks through; precipitation, if it occurs, tends to do so in bursts. Yet many climate models focus on “average” weather for a particular time and place, something that occurs only rarely in the real world.
On summer days, city air can be 5 or more degrees warmer than that in surrounding areas. Known as the “urban heat island effect,” it results in part from limited shade trees and the large surface area of pavement and dark roofing materials.
The melting of land-based ice masses as a consequence of climate change has significant implications for sea level rise. The shrinking of the ice sheets in the Earth’s polar regions has been the subject of intense study for many years now, but scientists have been sharpening the satellite tools and techniques they use to analyze the true mass of ice and its rate of decline.
