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BY CHRISTINA NUNEZ
Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are dying,
and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace. It has become clear that
humans have caused most of the past century's warming
by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modern lives. Called
greenhouse gases, their levels are higher now than at any time in the
last 800,000 years.
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An iceberg melts in the waters off Antarctica. Climate change has accelerated
the rate of ice loss across the continent.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL NICKLEN, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
As sea levels rise, salty ocean waters encroach into Florida’s Everglades. Native
plants and animals struggle to adapt to the changing conditions.
PHOTOGRAPH BY KEITH LADZINSKI, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
The western U.S. has been locked in a drought for years. The dry, hot weather
has increased the intensity and destructiveness of forest fires.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL NICKLEN, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
Bunches of oil palm fruit are harvested by hand and then trucked to a mill in
mainland Malaysia, where they are processed. Ancient forests around the tropics
are being cut down to
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In the high plains of Bolivia, a man surveys the baked remains of what was the
country’s second largest lake, Lake Poopó. Drought and management issues
have caused the lake to dry up.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MAURICIO LIMA, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
Climate change is impacting flora and fauna across the Arctic. Although
scientists don't know specifically what killed this individual polar bear, experts
warn that many of the bears are having trouble finding food as the sea ice they
historically relied on thins and melts earlier.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CRISTINA MITTERMEIER, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
Lake Urmia, in Iran, is a critical bird habitat and used to be a popular tourist
destination. It is drying up because of climate change and management issues.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NEWSHA TAVAKOLIAN, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
The Scherer power plant in Juliet, Georgia, is the largest coal-fired power plant in
the U.S. It burns 34,000 tons of coal daily, pumping over 25 million tons of
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBB KENDRICK, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
Ice melts on a mountain lake. Lakes around the world are freezing less and less
over time, and in a few decades, thousands of lakes around the world may lose
their winter ice cover entirely.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ORSOLYA HAARBERG, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
The Amazon is losing the equivalent of nearly one million soccer fields of forest
cover each year, much of which is cut down to make way for agriculture. When
forest is lost, the carbon it sequestered ends up in the atmosphere, accelerating
climate change.
PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANS LANTING, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
In Glacier National Park, forests are feeling the effects of early snowmelt and
long, dry summers. The stresses on the park's flora are exacterbated by climate
change.
PHOTOGRAPH BY KEITH LADZINSKI, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
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How Antarctica is melting from above and below
Sunlight shines onto the Earth's surface, where the energy is absorbed
and then radiate back into the atmosphere as heat. In the atmosphere,
greenhouse gas molecules trap some of the heat, and the rest escapes
into space. The more greenhouse gases concentrate in the atmosphere,
the more heat gets locked up in the molecules.
A polar bear stands sentinel on Rudolf Island in Russia’s Franz Josef Land
archipelago, where the perennial ice is melting.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CORY RICHARDS
Levels of greenhouse gases have gone up and down over the Earth's
history, but they had been fairly constant for the past few thousand
years. Global average temperatures had also stayed fairly constant over
that time—until the past 150 years. Through the burning of fossil fuels
and other activities that have emitted large amounts of greenhouse
gases, particularly over the past few decades, humans are now
enhancing the greenhouse effect and warming Earth significantly, and
in ways that promise many effects, scientists warn.
Greenland is covered with a vast amount of ice—but the ice is melting four times
faster than thought, suggesting that Greenland may be approaching a dangerous
tipping point, with implications for global sea-level rise.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MELFORD, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION