"The
Washington Post’s examination of accelerated warming in the waters off
Tasmania marks this year’s final installment of its global series “2C:
Beyond the Limit,” which identified hot spots around the world. The
investigation has shown that disastrous impacts from climate change
aren’t a problem lurking in the distant future: They are here now.
Nearly a tenth of the planet has already warmed 2 degrees Celsius
since the late 19th century, and the abrupt rise in temperature related
to human activity has transformed parts of the Earth in radical ways.
In the United States, New Jersey is among the fastest-warming states,
and its average winter has grown so warm that lakes no longer freeze as
they once did. Canadian islands are crumbling into the sea because a
blanket of sea ice no longer protects them from crashing waves.
Fisheries from Japan to Angola to Uruguay are collapsing as their waters
warm. Arctic tundra is melting away in Siberia and Alaska, exposing the
remains of woolly mammoths buried for thousands of years and flooding
the gravesites of indigenous people who have lived in an icy world for
centuries.
Australia is a poster child for climate change. Wildfires are currently raging on the outskirts of its most iconic city and drought is choking a significant portion of the country."
