Cold Truths for a Warm Planet

"Cherish the natural world, because you're a part of it and you depend on it." - Sir David Attenborough

Global warming doesn’t mean that winter is cancelled and intense cold is one of its effects. Climate change affects winter in following ways:

• Increase in snowfall happens because a warmer planet is evaporating more water into the atmosphere which means more precipitation in the form of heavy snowfall or downpours.
• During warmer months, the extra moisture in the atmosphere can cause record-breaking floods while in winter when earth is tipped away from the sun, the temperatures drop and instead of heavy rains we get blizzards.
• A normal winter feels colder to us now as the world has warmed up over the last half century.
• Sea ice in the Arctic Region has been steadily melting and enhancing the effects of global warming by causing a positive feedback loop. The loop starts when sunlight which would have been reflected by the ice, gets absorbed by the newly exposed dark ocean water instead. The sunlight warms the sea surface which in turn melts more sea ice. As a result, the Arctic is warming about twice as fast as the rest of the world and the phenomenon is known as Arctic amplification. This increases the likelihood of extreme winter weather in parts of the United States, Europe and Asia.

Sharing a few pictures of the ongoing winter season in this blog post. 

A tryst with nature #climatechange #winter

“This post is part of Blogchatter’s CauseAChatter.”