China News Service, August 14 (Chen Shuang, Kong Qingling) Most of 2020 has passed. When the world is still focusing on the new crown epidemic, few people realize that the various secondary disasters caused by global climate change are right. Drag humans into another quagmire.

  Global warming, the northern hemisphere "cold poles become furnaces"; glaciers melt, the Arctic Circle is "greener and greener"; wildfires are raging, and 3 billion animals are affected; ecology is deteriorating. In 2020, various climate disaster scenarios will strike again, and they will become more and more intense...

Finland's Riisitunturi National Park, under the magnificent northern lights, forest trees are covered with snow. This natural scene creates a beautiful blue-green sky. The temperature is as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius, and the trees 15 feet high are completely covered by white snow. Image source: Visual China

The Arctic is "green" and "hot" under high temperature

  Can the Earth’s “Doomsday Seed Bank” support it?

  There is no hottest, only hotter.

Data map: The sultry heat wave spreading from the Midwest Plains hit the Atlantic coast. The heat and high temperatures made it difficult for the American people to keep cool.

  The period from 2015 to 2019 is the hottest five years in human history, and each of the next ten years may enter the ranking of the hottest decade in the history of the earth.

  In 2020, even the snow-capped North Pole is setting a new record of "high fever".

  The Russian town of Verkhoyansk in the Arctic Circle is one of the cold poles in the northern hemisphere, and is also called "a place as cold as Mars." However, on June 20, the temperature here approached 38°C, breaking the record for the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic Circle!

  Why did the coldest place in the northern hemisphere set the hottest record?

  The US "New York Times" quoted experts as saying that if there is no climate change caused by human activities, Siberia will experience such a rare high temperature every 80,000 years on average.

Data map: The Global Seed Bank located in Svalbard has been called the "Doomsday Granary" to preserve the world's crop seed samples and prevent the loss of the earth's biodiversity.

  The Svalbard Islands in Norway also recorded a record high temperature. This archipelago in the Arctic Circle ushered in a record high temperature of 21.7°C on July 25. And in the cave here, there is a "doomsday seed bank" set up to prevent humans from encountering global disasters.

  Although it is not clear how the abnormally high temperature this year will affect the seeds in the bank, in 2016, the seed bank had a water seepage accident due to rising temperatures, and it took a full 20 million euros to complete the repair work.

  Under the influence of global warming, the Arctic Circle is not only "heating" but also "greening".

  As the glaciers melt, a large number of bryophytes occupy the Arctic, and the green area here is increasing. Moreover, scientists have also observed that shrubs and trees are accelerating northward migration. In the future, the Arctic may become more and more green.

They lost the last complete ice shelf,

  Is the polar bear on the brink of extinction in 80 years?

  The melting of glaciers brought green, and also took away the snow and ice scenery.

Data map: Reported on September 24, 2019. A few days ago, photographer Nicola Bayes had a photographic expedition in eastern Greenland and accidentally hit the shocking moment of an iceberg collapse. Image source: ICphoto

  At the end of July, an ice shelf in Canada began to disintegrate from the north. A large piece of ice with an area of ​​approximately 81 square kilometers peeled off the main body of the ice shelf, and then gradually disappeared into the sea, covering an area equivalent to three-quarters of Vancouver.

  This country of ice and snow lost their last complete polar ice shelf.

  But the creatures who live here all year round have no such good luck. As glaciers continue to melt, polar bears that rely on sea ice for predation are facing unprecedented survival challenges.

  In recent years, people have often seen skinny polar bears on the news. This picture is far from their title of "Arctic Hegemon". A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change stated that this was caused by the melting of sea ice due to global warming, which greatly shortened the time for polar bears to hunt their prey.

  Through the calculation of many data models, the researchers finally came to a heartbreaking conclusion: by 2100, the ability of polar bears to raise cubs will be greatly weakened, "only the subgroup of the Queen Elizabeth Islands can have a chance of life," Amstrup, the chief scientist of the Polar Bear International Association, said regretfully.

  Compared with the long-term impact of the possible disappearance of a species, humans living in high latitudes have already experienced the pain of the skin. In the Hudson Bay area of ​​Canada, some areas have set up warning signs of "beware of bears."

  In 2018, a terrible tragedy happened here-a hungry polar bear attacked a father who came to play with a child. As more sea ice melts, the chances of humans meeting polar bears will only increase.

On December 10, 2019, local time, Sydney, Australia, the New South Wales fire continued to spread. The sky over Sydney was filled with smoke. Firefighters continued to rescue to protect residential areas from forest fires.

A wildfire changes the fate of 3 billion animals

  Is the title of "Lung of the Earth" guaranteed?

  The hot weather has also created excellent conditions for the spread of forest fires. The forest ecosystem is the most abundant ecosystem on earth. Therefore, the impact of forest fires is far beyond imagination.

  Recently, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) issued a heart-wrenching report: The Australian wildfires that lasted from 2019 to 2020 have scorched land about the size of the United Kingdom.

  The fire also caused the death or displacement of about 3 billion animals living there, including 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds, 143 million mammals, and more than 51 million frogs.

Data map: Near Apui, Amazonas, loggers and farmers cleared an Amazon rainforest with fire.

  In South America, the Amazon rainforest fire that attracted the attention of the world in 2019 has also recently returned. The National Institute of Space Research of Brazil stated that in July 2020, the number of fires in the Amazon rainforest reached 6,803, an increase of 28% year-on-year.

  Not only forest fires, but human logging activities are also exacerbating the ecological deterioration of the Amazon rainforest. A study of Amazonian greenhouse gases revealed that as many as one-fifth of the Amazon rainforest currently emits more carbon dioxide than it absorbs.

  Scientists worry that if at the current rate, the Amazon rainforest will lose the title of "Lung of the Earth" faster than expected.

On July 29, 2020, local time, the middle stream of the Upper River in Yamagata Prefecture in northeastern Japan burst its bank and the residential area was flooded. According to Japanese media reports, on the 28th, heavy rains in northeastern Japan caused many rivers to burst their banks. At present, more than 75,000 people have been asked to evacuate urgently.

Extreme weather "getting together"

  Will global warming be accompanied by a lifetime?

  In addition to high temperatures and wildfires, global extreme weather events will also increase in 2020. The Atlantic hurricane will be more active, and many Asian countries are suffering from heavy rains and floods.

  This summer, torrential rains in India have killed at least 180 people and affected millions of people.

  The rainy season in central Korea has also lasted for 50 days, setting a record for the "longest rainy season". The Korean Meteorological Department believes that it is the Arctic high temperature that has caused the extension of the rainy season.

  Japan also suffered heavy losses due to heavy rains. A farmer in Kurume City, Fukuoka Prefecture said that all of his 76 greenhouses were submerged by water, and the loss amounted to at least 10 million yen. He said: "Sometimes I can hardly avoid thinking: Did we do something wrong?"

  Faced with the global climate crisis, it is urgent to take action. However, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, this issue has been ignored on many levels.

Data map: US President Trump is wearing a mask publicly for the first time.

  In March, the "European Green Agreement", which had high hopes, was temporarily shelved due to the epidemic; on July 16, US President Trump still emphasized that the "Paris Agreement" was unfair to the United States.

Data map: UN Secretary General Guterres.

  "The epidemic will eventually pass, but global warming may accompany us for life." As UN Secretary-General Guterres reminded us, if we do not turn our worries into action, the world may be the same in 2021 and 2022. "Magic". (Finish)