Global Temperature Synthesis Essay

According to NASA, 2016 was the warmest year we have ever experienced; the average temperature was about 1℃ above the 20th century average. In contrast, since the last ice age that ended more than million years ago, global average temperature rose about 4℃ to 7℃ over 5,000 years. The average global temperature rise over several decades has never been this rapid.

The impact of a rapid increase in temperature can be observed and quantified through the amount of glacier shrinkage occurring in the High Mountains of Asia. A research from a group of scientists from Utrecht University confirmed that a third of the current ice mass in Asia will be lost by 2100 if temperature rise 1.5 degrees celsius above the pre-industrial level.3

Climate scientists, Kraaijenbrink, Bierkens, Lutz, and Immerzeel used a climate model and a set of scenarios to conduct their experiment on 33,587 glaciers found around China, India, Tibet and Mongolia and analyzed the change in ice mass as temperature increase. The team projected that a third of the current ice mass in Asia will be lost by 2100 if the temperature rises 1.5 degrees celsius above

By 2100, it is estimated that the sea-level will rise one meter due to increased water flow.6 With a growing glacial loss posing an increased danger of living in the Tibetan Plateau, almost 700,000 nomads relocated themselves to the city since 2000. Similar to Tibet, about 990,000 people living in the Small Island Developing States such as Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall, and Tuvalu were forcibly displaced.

The ongoing displacement situation is very ironic. The risk of glacier shrinkage is affecting the communities who have contributed the least to climate change. They emit just 1.5% of the total greenhouse gas emissions released by industrial