Facts about CO2 Emissions, Climate Change and Antarctic Sea

GENERAL FACTS:

• ·       Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities.
• ·       Carbon dioxide is a natural gas in the atmosphere as part of the earths carbon cycle.
• ·       Human activities are altering the carbon cycle–both by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere and by influencing the ability of natural sinks, like forests, to remove CO2 from the atmosphere,
• ·       The main human activity releasing CO2 in the atmosphere is from energy and transportation
• ·       The combustion of fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel to transport people and goods was the second largest source of CO2 emissions in 2015, accounting for about 32 percent of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 26 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. This category includes transportation sources such as highway vehicles, air travel, marine transportation, and rail.

 https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases

NZ FACTS:

• ·       NZ’s net greenhouse gas emissions have increased 54% between 1990 and 2014. Total emissions increased 23 percent.
• ·       Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, and so remove it from the atmosphere. The increase in net emissions and decrease in removals are partly explained by the large quantity of forests planted in the early 1990s, which are now mature or have been harvested.

http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/nz-progress-indicators/home/environmental/greenhouse-gas-emissions.aspx

POLAR BEAR INFO:

• ·       From frozen oceans to infinite ice deserts, the polar bear's world is changing fast. In order to understand polar bear population trends, and support good conservation decisions, WWF is supporting high-tech polar bear research.
• ·       Polar bear researchers need to understand what will happen to the bears when sea ice disappears. For that purpose, biologists in the field use light and compact GPS collars to track the bears' movements in real time.
• ·       As the climate warms, Arctic sea ice is disappearing
• ·       By 2040, only a small amount of sea ice is projected to remain in the summer Arctic.

http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/wildlife/polar_bear/safeguarding_polar_bears/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwofHHBRDS0Pnhpef89ucBEiQASEp6LEbI3mE3K6WfD_hvd8oJOcH4QXLVmpC7IuKo9DkUdTcaAiu88P8HAQ

HOW IS CO2 EMMISSIONS EFFECTING CLIMATE CHANGE?:

• ·       CO2 gas emissions can remain in the atmosphere for different amounts of time, ranging from a few years to thousands of years.
• ·       Some gases are more effective than others at making the planet warmer and "thickening the Earth's blanket."
• ·       Greenhouse gases (GHGs) warm the Earth by absorbing energy and slowing the rate at which the energy escapes to space; they act like a blanket insulating the Earth. Two key ways in which these gases differ from each other are their ability to absorb energy (their "radiative efficiency"), and how long they stay in the atmosphere (also known as their "lifetime").