Why are Winters Getting Warmer?

Recent winters have been warmer than usual. The winter of 2016-2017 was one of the warmest on record. Why is this? The reality of unnatural global warming is widely agreed upon by about 98% of climate scientists. A disbeliever of global warming, Donald Trump, said, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

One reason for global warming is greenhouse gasses. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in one hundred parts per million higher than it has been in over 400,000 years. As written by NASA, “Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.” The increase in greenhouse gasses helps trap heat in, storing that heat to warm the earth.

This excess heat that can’t escape melts polar ice, causes droughts, and makes seasons warmer. Melting ice puts pressure on polar life, making them need to swim farther distances across the open ocean. Droughts dry the earth and plants, making huge forests a veritable tinderbox. Because of the warmer seasons, plants open earlier and animals come out of their winter dens sooner. This messes up the ecosystem. In the end, global warming and its effects concern every living thing on earth.