Climate Consequences
This story first appeared in Southport High School’s ‘The Journal Rewired,’ on April 30, 2024.
December 2023 broke records.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, it was the warmest December ever recorded.
These temperatures could in part be explained by the “El Niño” year Americans experienced in 2023. This occurs every two to seven years, warming the sea’s surface level and average temperatures all around the globe.
But that isn’t the only culprit to blame.
Climate change played a large role in the heat from December, as well as the sudden cold front that sprung up in early January. It has also affected the 80 degree temperatures seen this April, which is unusually warm for springtime.
If citizens do not take a stand and help to change what has already started, these patterns may only worsen from here.
Map of global average surface temperature in 2023 compared to the 1991-2020 average, with places that were warmer than average colored red, and places that were cooler than average colored blue. The bars on the graph shows global temperatures compared to the 20th-century average each year from 2023 (right) back to 1976 (left)–the last year the world was cooler than average. Based on data from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. (Image credit: NOAA Climate.gov, using NOAA NCEI data)
“50 degrees (Fahrenheit) is pleasant, 50 degrees is nice. It should not be 50 degrees in February,” Southport High School environmental science teacher Rachel Brunsell said.
While it is easier to understand and attribute the high temperatures seen in December, the sudden drop in January can be confusing. Brunsell says that this can be connected back to the warm winter that ended 2023.
She says that the northern ice caps have been melting due to the heat, and the excess fresh water has been diluting the salt in the seas. This imbalance caused the polar winds to blow to different areas, causing frigid temperatures.
“You can be too hot because of climate change and too cold because of climate change,” Brunsell said. “It has a lot of consequences.”
Since temperatures have been recorded, they have only been going up. The continuous increase of averages affects environments and everything that lives in it. But this rise doesn’t have to continue.
There are numerous things that people can do to help climate change, one of them being voting.
Brunsell said that politicians have lots of power when it comes to what decisions are made to help. Choosing to vote for someone who values environmental change can help push the movement forward. The temperatures will keep climbing higher and disrupting the natural cycles if nothing is done to start a change.
“I would encourage people to look up ways that they can personally help reduce the effects of climate change and see what they can do in their own lives,” Brunsell said.
