Try if you can it is about earth?

Question

If the earth continues to warm can humanity still survive?

also i want to know if the heat keeps going will i die sooner or later? i have trouble in heat what can i do about it with out moving?

Answer 1

If the Earth continues to heat up, it is only a matter of time before we too will be wiped out.  

Signs of Global Warming

The Poles

Bering Sea water temperatures are warming up to 3 or more weeks earlier in spring and freezing later in the fall reducing time for sea to form. This has allowed some sub-Arctic species of fish to move north and forced Arctic species even further north into the Arctic. (recent issue of the Journal of Science)

Warmer waters are moving north into the Northern Bering Sea, melting sea ice and pushing walruses, polar bears, and some diving seabirds further north.

The Arctic Ocean’s summer sea ice has been shrinking for decades.  Researchers from NASA detect a loss of 2.05 million square miles of ice in Sept 2005; the largest loss on record. Sea ice losses are now at about 8.5% per decade, according to NASA. Climate models predict 50-60% of sea ice being lost by 2100. Another model predicts that by 2070 the Arctic Ocean will be ice free.

More ice-free waters are expected to exacerbate local warming trends because water is darker than ice and absorbs more solar energy than sea ice and snow, which reflect sunlight back into space.  Same concept with why you wear a white tee-shirt rather than black on a hot summer day.  

In the last 10 years, scientists have become aware of a dramatic increase of melting glaciers in both the Arctic and parts of the Antarctic.  The ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica together contain enough ice to raise the sea levels to about 200 feet.  A total meltdown is unlikely, but with more than a fifth of humanity living on less than 2 feet above sea level is a sign of disaster globally.

Once warmer air and water have caused a tidewater glacier to thin and float off the seabed, there’s nothing holding back the mass of ice uphill and the glacier pours ice into the sea at an alarming rate.  Even though the glaciers’ fronts are retreating, the ice in the glaciers are moving into the sea faster than ever, gradually thinning and depleting the entire glacier.

The retreat of tidewater glaciers is plainly visible from the ground as well, where ice has been stranded on what are now shorelines of open fjords.  

NASA scientists are using a radar satellite to track a domino-like collapse of glaciers from south to north along both eastern and western coasts of Greenland.  In the last 5 years, the collapsing trend has moved north 300 miles according to recent study in the journal Science. Similar glacier retreat is underway in southern Alaska.

New research shows Greenland’s coastal glaciers are now retreating many meters per year and disgorging ice into the sea at several ties their normal rates.  They are not just bursts.  These glaciers have never come back to normal.

With all this being said about what is going on in the North Pole.  Let’s now take a good look at what is happening to the South Pole and why it is a significant series of events.  This continent isn’t only isolated geographically, also it’s often guarded by a ring of ocean and atmospheric currents that can keep out water and air from the rest of the world.  For this reason, it’s only the narrow and more northerly Antarctic Peninsula that is seen significant warming so far.  The rest of the continent is giving scientists mixed signals (some parts are losing ice and others are gaining ice).

A recent and exhaustive aerial and satellite study published in the journal Science found that 87% of the 244 coastal glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated over the past 50 years. In the 1950s, only those at the northern tip of the peninsula were retreating. But that trend has spread south.

In East Antarctica, there is a general warming of the middle atmosphere of about 1.25 degrees F per decade over that last 30 years.  It’s less clear that means in terms of what might happen to Antarctica in the future.  This may come to a very unfortunate dark time for all of us.

Elsewhere in Antarctica it’s less clear if there is any trend in the glaciers. Some are growing and others are shrinking.  Most models predict this slow climate response in Antarctica.  Part of the reason for it is that the continent is physically isolated from the rest of the globe.  In winter even Antarctica’s air doesn’t mix with the rest of the atmosphere.

Signs the Sea levels are giving us:

The global mean sea level (GMSL) has been rising at an alarming pace since the mid-1800s.  GMSL rose between 4-8” in the 20th century, and global warming is projected to accelerate the rate by 2-4 times because the rising temperature will cause expansion of ocean waters and accelerating melting of glaciers and ice sheets.

More so than California, Alaska is very tectonically active coastal area.  The clash of tectonic plates along the Pacific Coast of Alaska created the Aleutian Islands can causes uplift of the land.  Melting glaciers, which weigh a lot, also cause the land to rebound upward.  For that reason, sea level in Sitka relative to coastal features actually appears to be falling, not rising, according to USGS.

Unlike much of the Gulf Coast and Atlantic seaboard, the Pacific Coast is a tectonically active coastline with many areas that are rising.  This is one reason that sea level rise in San Francisco 1.5mm per year; half the global average.  Still, there are low-lying areas in San Francisco Bay and other coastal regions that are at risk of inundation as sea level overtakes tectonic uplift.

One of the Earth’s biggest temperature switches can be flipped in the Northern Atlantic could potentially slow or stop the “thermohaline circulation.” This is a worldwide conveyor belt-like current that is powered in part by cold, salty water in the North Atlantic could sink to the ocean floor and then moving south.  Glacial meltwater from Greenland, which tends to float atop salt water, could upset the entire process, leading to much colder winters in Europe and hotter tropical regions.  A 30% slowing of the thermohaline current has recently been reported by oceanographers in the journal Nature.

Major storms have caused major flooding to the low-lying New York City area about every 50 years, according to NASA.  Between rising sea levels and more powerful storms being created by global warming, New Yorkers can expect more floods more frequently.

Sea level in Key West, FL appears to be rising at 2.2mm per year.  Key West, like parts of nearby mainland Florida, sits on a limestone platform that is neither sinking nor rising, according to USGS.  That said, sea level is still rising and all of southern Florida is a common target for hurricanes.

What the atmosphere has to say about global warming:

The temperatures in the Arctic are rising at 2-3 times faster than the rest of the world; that means 5-7.5 degrees F warming from 1990-2100.  The Earth is heating up anyway, so what’s the difference? To put that in perspective, Earth’s average temperature hasn’t varied by more than 1.8 degrees F for 10,000 years.  Human activity is speeding up the process significantly at an alarming rate.  It is not only with automobiles where speeding kills.

The Earth’s average surface temperature is projected to rise 2.5-10.4 degrees F between 1990-2100, if nothing major is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Scientists predict that even if we stopped emitting these gases immediately, the climate would not stabilize for many decades because the greenhouse gases we have released into the atmosphere will stay for many years or even centuries.

Spring is coming earlier in many parts of North America.  Winter snows stay on the ground 2-3 weeks less time now than in the middle of the 20th century.  The retreat of snow earlier in the year is worst along the Pacific Coast, from California to Alaska.  In the meantime, the Northern Prairies and Upper Mississippi Valley autumn snows are coming 1-2 earlier, perhaps somewhat moderating the earlier melts.

The rest of the world:

The snows of Kilimanjaro and other high, ice-covered tropical mountains are disappearing fast, according to decades of surveys by scores of geologists around the world.  The best known shrinking tropical glaciers include Quelccaya, Huascaran, Zongo, and Chacaltaya in South America; the Lewis, Rwenzori and Kilimanjaro glaciers in East Africa; and more in the Himalayas. Kilimanjaro glaciers, for example, is just 20% of the Hemingway gazed on in the early 20th century.

Permafrost Thawing

Currently, in the Northern Hemisphere, there are about 4 million square miles of land surface that do not thaw, even in the summer, which comes to about 24% of the land north of the equator.  Permafrost can range from a few yards to more than a mile deep.

New studies forecast that global warming will thaw surface soils and shrink the total surface area of permafrost 60-90% by 2100.  If so, it will increase freshwater runoff into the Arctic Ocean by 28%, lead to the release from soils of vast doses of greenhouse gases, and upset the ecosystems over wide areas.

Buildings, roads, pipelines and other man-made structures that are built on permafrost where designed to sit on top of hard frozen ground, when the ice turns liquid, foundations crack, sinkholes open up and pipelines break.  Many of these things are already happening in Alaska, Canada, and Siberia.

Carbon release is a consequence of shrinking permafrost.  Vast amounts of carbon could be freed by the thawing of permafrost.  This could increase the greenhouse effect significantly.

Unhealthy conditions spread

Changes in rainfall patterns are expected to create more droughts and heat in, what use to be, moist regions like Western Canada and Alaska.  That has already led to more dead wood that has fueled large wildfires.  Those fires spew megatons of noxious chemicals and particles into the air.  Plumes from large wildfires have already been tracked circling