Many people have either seen or heard of the movie, Day After Tomorrow. I guess, in a way, it raised somewhat of a short-lived concern among the general public regarding climate change. I say somewhat short-lived because it was drastically exaggerated. I mean, how realistic is the formation of three ice age-like super-storms in a matter of a couple of days across the globe?
Scientists have been studying super-storms lately, and after the horrors of Hurricane Katrina and Tropical Storm Sandy, I don’t see why they shouldn’t. Concerns about climate change have been growing, and not necessarily because of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, or Hollywood’s Day After Tomorrow. Schools and news stations have talked extensively about global heat rises. I don’t even take that many science classes, but anytime it’s a hot day, I’ll inevitably hear a student talk about how the weather of today is related to the long-term climate of the future.
What I’m more concerned about is the long-term effect. What does this mean for various structures? We know full well that the levees didn’t hold up against Hurricane Katrina down on the Gulf Coast. I’m pretty sure New Orleans still doesn’t know how to rebuild completely. Now THIS ARTICLE doesn’t particularly mention any correlation with past disasters to climate change, or any future connection either. It just states that severe weather is coming and hot air promotes air movement and rainy days.
All in all, I’m growing worried about current infrastructures life-span, as well as coastal dependence on commerce worldwide. After seeing Sandy desecrate parts of New Jersey and New York, I’m a little worried about the economical impact alongside the environmental. I mean, I guess we have until 2040 to see the real effects, according to Dr. Diffenbaugh, at least.
Picture Source: (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/05/08/climate-change-deniers-and-skeptics-whats-the-difference/)
The movie Day After Tomorrow sure is an interesting and obviously exaggerated extenuation of what ‘could’ happen– but that’s just where the fun lies, the uncertainty of what the future holds. I don’t know the specifics of exactly what the movie tried to portray however I do know that the catastrophic New York floodings were the result of the potential rapid melting of glaciers around Greenland and the North Pole and its affect on the water table world wide. I may sound absurd saying it, but I do believe that increased temperature world wide and continued accelerated melting of glaciers worldwide could be disastrous in the long term future of the planet. Check out some of the early signs of glacial decay, they’re pretty eye opening.
http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/fcons/fcons4.asp
With this in mind, one can only think what the potential effects would be for us. GreenPeace.org believes that minimal increases 3-6 inches would move the coasts inland worldwide as well as completely submerging certain islands. Check out a more detailed list of the potential effects here:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/impacts/sea_level_rise/
GreenPeace also brings up the point that in order to adapt the United States alone would have to spend over $156 Billion, 3% of our GNP. This might make a man think, when should we start thinking about this? Should we begin to make any proactive measures in the near future to protect the futures of our families?
The idea of the classic movie-like end of the world is both fascinating and terrifying. There have been plenty of times the world was supposed to end and its been a day like any other, yet is it possible for it to one day happen? All the movies are exaggerated, but after watching them one can only wonder if thats the fate of the world one day. The climate is indeed changing and there has been an increase in rough storms, but is this going to become more prevalent? Like you mentioned, in New Orleans, a storm can destroy areas and the economic as well as emotional effects are deadly.
I found an article very strongly supporting that climate change is directly related to natural disasters from the Washington University Political Review. It is scary to think that more storms like the ones we have seen are just to come and if so, action needs to be done to try and prevent such devastation. To read more on the correlation between the two, here is the link:
http://www.wupr.org/2012/12/11/yes-climate-change-causes-natural-disasters/
I’ve always been fascinated, yet terrified about the idea of our world ending. As silly as it sounds, when December 21, 2012 rolled around, I was a little on edge all day long. I know it’s ridiculous but you can only deny the inevitable for so long. I don’t think our world is going to be ending anytime soon, but it is still something that needs to be looked at. The article that you included in your post really takes a look at the change in our climate. Although it is just changes in the amount of storms, there is definitely evidence that our climate is slowly but surely changing. I did some more research and the link below gives some really good proof of how scientist know for sure that our climate is changing.
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence
I thought this post was interesting because many people are only thinking about the present and not of what there is to come in the future. As the temperature is increasing it does make one wonder what the storms will be like in the future but I found a website http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/352923/description/No_more_Superstorm_Sandys_expected_for_a_long_time that states a hurricane like Sandy only happens “once every 700 years” and it was just the right conditions that created Sandy. Possibly due to chance.