Global warming likely to turn Earth into a different planet - Research

The Earth's temperature has reached its record level in thousands of years, causing warming, which has started affecting animals and plants, a study by the US space agency NASA revealed on Monday.

In their research, the lead researcher James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, and the fellow scientists from other organizations concluded, that due to the rapid warming tendency over the past 3 decades the Earth is now touching and surpassing the warmest levels in the current interglacial period, which has lasted about 12,000 years.

After analyzing data of the worldwide warming recorded during the last 100 years, scientists discovered that the Earth has been warming at the magnificent rapid rate of approximately .36° Fahrenheit (0.2° Celsius) per decade for the past 3 decades.

According to the scientists, an "interglacial period" is a time in the Earth's history, when the area of Earth enshrouded by glaciers was similar or smaller than the current time.

The study observed that the world's temperature is greatest at high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere which is forcing many species of this area to move towards the North Pole. An earlier study that was published in 2003 discovered that 1700 plant, animal and insect species moved towards the North Pole at an average rate of about 4 miles (6.4 km) per decade in the last 50 years of the 20th century.

“If we do not slow down the rate of global warming, many species are likely to become extinct. In effect we are pushing them [the plants and animals] off the planet,” Hansen said.

The study, unleashed in the September 26 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, noted that the planet was now within 1.0 degree Celsius (1.8 degree Fahrenheit) of the maximum estimated temperature of the last million years.

The warming has been witnessed with great impact in the far north, where melting ice and snow unmask darker surfaces and rocks allowing them to absorb more sunlight than deep oceans. Oceans change temperature more slowly than land, as they are deep enough and have the greater capacity to absorb the heat.

“If further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know. The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about three million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 25 meters (80 feet) higher than today,” researchers say.