Since 1880, average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenhiet (0.8 degrees Celsius), and much of this has been in recent decades. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850 and the last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest in several millennia. The Arctic is the hardest effected area, where average temperatures in Alaska, Western Canada and Eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average says evidence compiled between 2000 and 2004 by the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report. Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing and the region may be completely ice-free by as early as 2040. Indigenous cultures and animal life are already suffering. The melting of the glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctica could result in drastic changes along the world’s coastal areas, including Egypt. Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting. In the United States’ Glacier National Park, only 27 glaciers remain, as compared to the 150 in 1910. Thaws in the Northern Hemisphere are currently arriving about one week earlier in the spring and freezes are beginning around one week later than normal. Coral reefs, which are extremely sensitive to the small changes in water temperature, are suffering the worst bleaching, or dying off, in response to the stress recorded since 1998. In some areas, the bleach rate is as high as 70 percent. Experts expect these events to increase in frequency and intensity over the next 50 years as sea temperature and water levels rise. Extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heat waves and massive tropical storms, are on the rise and climate change is attributed to these changes by many experts. BM
