1. We hear a lot that the world must avoid the dangerous limit of 2 degrees Celsius – 3.6 F -- of warming.
What nobody mentions is, there are already places on Earth that have warmed double that amount – 4 degrees C, or 7.2 F.
This is one of them.
washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/…
What nobody mentions is, there are already places on Earth that have warmed double that amount – 4 degrees C, or 7.2 F.
This is one of them.
washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/…
3. Granted, there are a few other contenders. We use the @BerkeleyEarth dataset, and when it comes to land regions, it flags a part of Siberia as being just above 4C in our analysis, which compares the last 5 years with the final twenty of the 19th century.
4. Other studies have made a similar claim for the Norwegian island chain of Svalbard, albeit over a different, more recent time period. Svalbard also looks super warm in the Berkeley Earth data. uib.no/en/matnat/1243…
5. And near Svalbard there are stretches of ocean – in the Barents and Greenland Seas – that appear to surpass all of these land regions when it comes to their warming rate.
6. But Alaska’s North Slope is clearly one of the very fastest warming places on Earth – especially when it comes to places where people actually live and work -- and is experiencing truly radical climate change.
7. That includes a small town of 480 called Nuiqsut, which is put in an odd position by this extraordinary warming.
8. The town derives a key part of its income from royalties from nearby oil drilling, and has also reaped many other benefits, such as cheap natural gas for home heating (which is vital here), by having a good relationship with oil companies that work on the North Slope,
9. Oil drilling in this region – more specifically, Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve -- is actually set to expand right now, a true paradox in light of the staggering climate change that’s happening there.
10. The impacts are hard to understate. Permafrost is rapidly thawing, sea ice is vanishing – all of which is triggering a wetter environment, since the open ocean is putting water vapor into the air, which falls as rain, even as the permafrost is unleashing it into the ground.
11. Meanwhile, there have been key ecological impacts, to the nearby caribou herd upon which Nuiqsuit villagers rely, as well as to the bowhead whales that they traditionally hunt, which are getting harder to catch.
13. @eilperin goes on to profile Itta, the administrator of Nuiqsut, who has tried to change the town’s intense relationship with oil. She wants to break away, though it is very difficult and it is far from clear what would take its place.
14. Indeed, this issue has divided the town itself, between some elders who have strong ties to the industry and feel keeping those is essential, and some younger villagers who feel that their lives are being upended.
15. As our story follows this drama, it also features the wildlife and landscape photos of @bonjomo, which are just stunning in how they capture this wilderness, and how close to bears and caribou she is able to make us feel that we are.
16. 2 degrees Celsius is a target for the globe, obviously, and the globe is not going to warm up evenly. So in one sense, I suppose the Nuiqsuts of the world -- warming at 4 times the global average and two times above the global limit already -- are statistically expected.
17. But maybe this very fact shows the limits inherent in the idea of a global limit.
18. We are not yet at 1.5C for the globe, and 2C is still quite far away -- but some parts of the world are experiencing impacts that already rank as severe.
19. It is not even and it is not fair. And that climate impact inequality -- further worsened by economic inequality -- is what underlies a lot of the huge tension at global climate talks. washingtonpost.com/world/at-un-cl…
20. In the end, I think, what our 2C series has taught us -- taught me -- is just this. The very way that the world warms -- at different rates, with hotspots flung around the globe in seemingly haphazard fashion -- arguably exacerbates such tensions.
21. We are just learning it now -- as we hurtle past 1C for the globe, approach 1.5C, and learn that as that happens, some spots are passing 2C, some 3C, and a few even 4C.
22. And with that, I will leave you to read @eilperin's powerful story and to look at @bonjomo's powerful photos. washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/… /end
