An inconvenient truth

Today might be a good day to write about global warming, as the temperature hit 13C in Toronto. That's kind of unusual, given that it's eight days from Christmas and all.

During the past few years, when Al Gore wasn't attempting to run for President of the United States and either failing or getting ripped off (depending on whom you believe), he's been trying to warn people about the Earth's changing climate and the possible nasty side effects thereof. Here, according to Gore, are the undisputed facts on the subject:

• The pre-industrial concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million. By 1960, the CO2 level was roughly 315 parts per million. In 2005, the level was measured at 381 parts per million. This is the highest total in 650,000 years.
• Mount Kilimanjaro was covered in snow and ice as recently as 1970. As of 2000, the snow and ice is nearly gone, and it may be completely gone by 2010.
• Of the 21 hottest years on record, 20 have been in the last 25 years. The hottest year on record is 2005, in which world temperatures were over 0.6C higher than their 1961-1990 averages.
• In 2005, there were so many hurricanes that the World Metereological Organization ran out of names for them, and had to use letters of the Greek alphabet. Floods and tornadoes are also at historic high levels.
• Global precipitation has increased by 20% in the last century, but deserts have been growing at a faster rate in the last two decades.
• Many houses and buildings built on permafrost in Alaska and Siberia have had to be abandoned, as the permafrost is melting, causing the buildings to collapse.
• The Alaska tundra was frozen over 200 days a year in the early 1970s. This number has now fallen to fewer than 80 days per year.

If this continues, some very bad things could happen. For example, melting polar ice caps could lead to rising seas. If half of Greenland and half of Antarctica were to melt, the seas would rise between 18 and 20 feet. Coastal lands all around the world would be devastated, forcing millions and millions of people to evacuate their homes: for instance, 20 million would be forced to leave Beijing, 40 million would be forced to move out of Shanghai, and 60 million would be displaced in Calcutta and Bangladesh.

Also, the warming oceans could disrupt the Gulf Stream, which is the flow of warm water from the Atlantic Ocean to Western Europe. It's the Gulf Stream that makes Europe a pleasant place to live: Paris is actually farther north than Montreal, and London is as far north as James Bay.

By the way: there is a reference to global warming on Robert Fripp's Exposure album, released in 1979. This album features Peter Gabriel singing a version of his "Here Comes The Flood". The intro to this song includes a recording of J.G. Bennett claiming that many cities near the ocean were likely to be flooded in 50 years or even sooner.