OH NO....Stop of our wold from GLOBAL WARMING

The planet is warming, from North Pole to South Pole, and everywhere in between. Globally, the mercury is already up more than 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius), and even more in sensitive polar regions. And the effects of rising temperatures aren’t waiting for some far-flung future. They’re happening right now. Signs are appearing all over, and some of them are surprising. The heat is not only melting glaciers and sea ice, it’s also shifting precipitation patterns and setting animals on the move.
Some impacts from increasing temperatures are already happening.

• Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic sea ice.
• Researcher Bill Fraser has tracked the decline of the Adélie penguins on Antarctica, where their numbers have fallen from 32,000 breeding pairs to 11,000 in 30 years.
• Sea level rise became faster over the last century.
• Some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have moved farther north or to higher, cooler areas.
• Precipitation (rain and snowfall) has increased across the globe, on average.
• Spruce bark beetles have boomed in Alaska thanks to 20 years of warm summers. The insects have chewed up 4 million acres of spruce trees.

Other effects could happen later this century, if warming continues.

• Sea levels are expected to rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 and 59 centimeters) by the end of the century, and continued melting at the poles could add between 4 and 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters).
• Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger.
• Species that depend on one another may become out of sync. For example, plants could bloom earlier than their pollinating insects become active.
• Floods and droughts will become more common. Rainfall in Ethiopia, where droughts are already common, could decline by 10 percent over the next 50 years.
• Less fresh water will be available. If the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru continues to melt at its current rate, it will be gone by 2100, leaving thousands of people who rely on it for drinking water and electricity without a source of either.
• Some diseases will spread, such as malaria carried by mosquitoes.
• Ecosystems will change—some species will move farther north or become more successful; others won’t be able to move and could become extinct. Wildlife research scientist Martyn Obbard has found that since the mid-1980s, with less ice on which to live and fish for food, polar bears have gotten considerably skinnier.  Polar bear biologist Ian Stirling has found a similar pattern in Hudson Bay.  He fears that if sea ice disappears, the polar bears will as well.

Source for climate information: IPCC, 2007

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The Numbers of Tropical Rain Forest in The World Become Smaller

Section 1:
 

Tropical rainforests are a world like none other; and their importance to the global ecosystem and human existence is paramount. Unparalleled in terms of their biological diversity, tropical rainforests are a natural reservoir of genetic diversity which offers a rich source of medicinal plants, high-yield foods, and a myriad of other useful forest products. They are an important habitat for migratory animals and sustain as much as 50 percent of the species on Earth, as well as a number of diverse and unique indigenous cultures. Tropical rainforests play an elemental role in regulating global weather in addition to maintaining regular rainfall, while buffering against floods, droughts, and erosion. They store vast quantities of carbon, while producing a significant amount of the world's oxygen.


Despite their monumental role, tropical forests are restricted to the small land area between the latitudes 22.5° North and 22.5° South of the equator, or in other words between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. Since the majority of Earth's land is located north of the tropics, rainforests are naturally limited to a relatively small area.


Tropical rainforests, like so many other natural places, are a scarce resource in the 21st century. The vast swaths of forest, swamp, desert, and savanna that carpeted Earth's land surface a mere five generations ago have been reduced to scattered fragments; today, more than two-thirds of the world's tropical rainforests exist as fragmented remnants. Just a few thousand years ago, tropical rainforests covered as much as 12 percent of the Earth's land surface, or about 6 million square miles (15.5 million square km), but today less than 5 percent of Earth's land is covered with these forests (about 2.41 million square miles or 625 million hectares). The largest unbroken stretch of rainforest is found in the Amazon river basin of South America. Over half of this forest lies in Brazil, which holds about one-third of the world's remaining tropical rainforests. Another 20 percent of the world's remaining rainforest exists in Indonesia and Congo Basin, while the balance of the world's rainforests are scattered around the globe in tropical regions.


The global distribution of tropical rainforests can be broken up into four biogeographical realms based roughly on four forested continental regions: the Ethiopian or Afrotropical, the Australiasian or Australian, the Oriental or Indomalayan/Asian, and the Neotropical.


Rainforest cover by biogeographical realm

Realm	Percent share of world rainforest cover	Million square miles	Million hectares
Ethiopian/Afrotropical	30.0%	0.72	187.5
Australasian	9.0%	0.22	56.3
Oriental or Indomalayan	16.0%	0.39	100.0
Neotropical	45.0%	1.08	281.2
Total		2.41	625.0

Review questions:

• Where are rainforests located?
• How much land area rainforests do cover?
• What percentage of Earth is covered by rainforests?
• How many rainforest biogeographical realms are there?
• What biogeographical realm has the most rainforest?
• True or false - less than 5% of Earth's land is covered with rainforests.