The Latest on the Climate Crisis

Since the beginning of industrialization, atmospheric CO2-levels have been rising to a point which is by far the highest in about a million years. At the same time the average surface temperature of the earth has increased by 0.8 degrees Celsius. So far, global warming has been advancing unabated: 2010 on par with 2005 was the warmest year globally since records began more than 130 years ago.

The ice cover in the Arctic Ocean continues to gradually dwindle and has reached a new record minimum in September 2012. The two large ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are progressively losing mass. Sea level is rising more and more rapidly.

In the last decade, the world has experienced an unprecedented increase of extreme weather events, such as the heat wave of 2010 in Eastern Europe, or the floods in Pakistan in the same year. Statistics reveal that the proportion of land affected by heat extremes has increased significantly in recent years: from only one to two per thousand between the 1950s and 1970s, to around ten percent in recent years.

Moderation: Daniel Erlacher (Elevate / AT)

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