Climate Change Fingerprint
Many people think about climate change almost exclusively as a matter of a changing average global temperature. That’s an over-simplied and misleading view. Average global temperature is just one of the many variables that scientists are tracking as part of the “climate change fingerprint." The discussion over a supposed “global warming hiatus” several years ago, for example, failed to note that virtually all of the rest of the climate fingerprint indicators continued to demonstrate change in the expected direction. Any given fingerprint variable might be subject to random variation that might temporarily confuse a climate change signal, but that won't happen simultaneously across all the variables.
Looking at the entire fingerprint generates a much more reliable picture of what’s already happening, what's likely to happen in the future, and the business implications. Through Your Climate Change MBA you can come rapidly up to speed on fingerprint variables like those listed below:
- Antarctic Ice Impacts
- Arctic Ice Decline
- Average Nighttime Temperatures
- Average Temperature Change
- Changing Growing Seasons
- Cloud Cover and Type
- Coral Reef Impacts
- Extreme Precipitation
- Glacier Ice Loss
- Heating vs. Cooling Degree Days
- High vs. Low Temperature Records
- Increased Methane Emissions
- Melting Permafrost
- More Droughts
- More Flooding
- More Heatwaves
- More Wildfires
- Ocean Acidification
- Ocean Current Changes
- Ocean Heat
- Sea Level Rise
- Shifting Disease Ranges
- Shifting Species Ranges
- Snow vs. Rain
- Species Extinctions
- Storm Frequency and Strength
- Stream Flows and Temperatures
In each case you’ll gain insight into the covered topics, and be hyperlinked to curated knowledge collections in the Climate Web itself.