The Balance That Keeps Climate Stable Is Out of Whack, U.N. Report Finds
The continued burning of fossil fuels is locking heat in Earths atmosphere, oceans and land instead of allowing it to reflect back into space, a new report finds.
The Earth is out of balance.
Thats the message from a United Nations report released late Sunday that looked at how much energy from the sun is absorbed by the Earth or reflected back into space.
Researchers found the gap between the two is the biggest since measurements began in 1960, meaning more of the suns heat energy is now staying on Earth. And that energy imbalance is heating up the oceans, atmosphere, and frozen regions of the world, according to the World Meteorological Organization's State of the Global Climate report.2
Ashkay Deoras, a research scientist at Britains National Center for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading, likened the planet to a heated room with the windows closed.
If you open the window, naturally, you will allow the hot air to escape, said Dr. Deoras, who was not associated with the report. But now what is happening is that, because of all these greenhouse gases, they are just trapping more and more heat. The planet is just not getting a chance to cool down.
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