ecology
march 2015
9
Now, global warming has been an issue for a while due to the excessive burning of fossil fuels. Especially in the Arctic. (Who hasn’t heard about the struggles of polar bears, right?) Everything was looking up when scientists believed that global warming had, at long last, come to a “pause”- less dramatic increases in temperature and ecosystem displacement had us thinking we were somewhat in the clear.
Unfortunately, it was recently discovered that this “pause” in global warming is due to the fact that our oceans have been absorbing more heat from the atmosphere than normal due to a lengthy weather pattern known as Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).
This abnormal pattern seemed like it was working in our favor…until scientists also discovered that long periods where oceans absorb excess heat tend to be followed by long periods where oceans absorb minimal excess heat. And that could catapult the earth into a yo-yo scenario of wildly fluctuating temperatures for the next few years.
Don’t worry, though. All this excess heat won’t simply be released from the oceans and come back to haunt us- it just won’t be absorbed as thoroughly. Dr. Chris Roberts and his scientists from the UK Met Office's Hadley Center predict that the “pause” in global warming will end in the next five years. This will then be followed by rapid bursts of global warming, likely focused in the Arctic region. On the bright side, five years is far enough in the future to give us some preparation time. And, even if we can’t reverse our fossil-fuel burning ways, at least the warming is focused in the Arctic. I’m safe in California…right?