“If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm.” –Frank Lane

It was the first time in many years that I found myself monitoring two major storm systems, which struck the Philippines and the United States over the weekend. There was Typhoon Mangkhut, locally referred to as Ompong, which killed 70 in the Philippines before it began heading for China; and Hurricane Florence, which drowned over 30 in North Carolina (with a death toll expected to rise).

As of late, it appears weather in both countries has synchronized. When there are heavy rains in the Philippines, parts of the US also experience heavy rain; when humidity is felt across the tropical islands, Americans feel they are in hellish temperatures – are these a “sign of the times?”

Scientists often refer to abnormal weather conditions as “climate change” instead of “global warming.” They believe average temperatures around the world are rising, winds and ocean currents are either warming or cooling various parts of the globe, and rainfall and snow accumulation numbers are falling. These variations show climate changing differently across Earth.

Were these systems a result of “global warming?”

With glaciers melting, sea levels rising, cloud forests dying, and wildlife scrambling to keep pace, experts believe it is “becoming clear” that humans are the cause of the Earth’s warming over the past century. Heat-trapping gases released as we power our lives, referred to as greenhouse gases, are, according to scientists, at their highest levels, compared to the last 650,000 years.

The resulting “greenhouse effect” occurs because such gases are now trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere; they let in light, which is absorbed and radiated back as heat, but these said gases are preventing some of that heat from escaping, like a greenhouse – the more greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere, the more heat gets trapped.

Scientists have been aware of this greenhouse effect since 1824, when Joseph Fourier said the Earth would be much colder if it had no atmosphere. It’s reportedly what keeps the Earth livable; without it, the world would be about 60°F cooler.

In 1895, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius discovered people have the ability to enhance the greenhouse effect by generating carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas created when humans exhale. This began 100 years of climate research, which has since provided us a sophisticated understanding of global warming./WDJ