Floodwaters covered roughly 80 percent of New Orleans, 1,836 people died, hundreds of thousands became homeless and the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record was far from over. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast. But below are a few of the areas where climate scientists have made significant progress since 2006.Ģ006: The warming ocean could fuel more frequent and more intense Atlantic hurricanes.Ģ016: Hurricane frequency has dropped somewhat hurricane intensities haven’t changed much - yet. The far-reaching effects of climate change - from ocean acidification to disrupted ecosystems - are too numerous to examine all at once. “We’ve learned so much in the last 10 years, but the fact that the unprecedented climate change of the last 40 years is being driven by increased CO 2 hasn’t changed.” “The physics and chemistry that we’ve known about for over 200 years is bearing out,” Thompson says. While a lot has changed, the fundamental understanding of climate change, dating back to the 19th century recognition that carbon dioxide warms the planet, has held strong, he says. In a controversial paper in March in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, researchers argued that the effects of climate change could be even more severe and sudden than current predictions. A few of the most dire warnings need revising, says Thompson, at Ohio State University in Columbus.
Some of the bold forecasts of the 2006 movie are holding, and others are on an accelerated track. More observations, faster climate-simulating computers and an improved understanding of the planet’s inner workings now provide a clearer window on how Earth’s climate will change. In the 10 years since the movie sparked increased public discussion, climate scientists have made major advances. Last December, Gore was on hand in Paris as 195 nations committed to the most ambitious pledge yet to fight back against climate change and curb carbon emissions ( SN: 1/9/16, p. But the film did what he and other researchers had been unable to do: “It got climate change on the radar,” Thompson says. Thompson missed the premiere of the documentary because he was gearing up to return to South America’s vanishing ice. Six years after his unsuccessful presidential campaign, Al Gore reentered the national spotlight to release An Inconvenient Truth, which heavily featured Thompson’s mountaintop research.
Despite the gravity and urgency of their findings, the scientists’ warnings fell mostly on deaf ears for years. The delicate balance of Earth’s climate was upset.Īs research mounted, scientists around the world from fields as diverse as chemistry and astronomy were coming to grips with a newfound truth: Carbon dioxide spewed by fossil fuel burning and other greenhouse gases were warming the world at an alarming rate, potentially threatening the health and livelihoods of millions of people. Mammoth glaciers were disappearing at unprecedented rates and withering to the smallest sizes in millennia. Rising temperatures were melting ancient titans of ice and snow. It was 1978, and high in the rugged Andes, Thompson and fellow scientists were witnessing the first glimpses of a pending worldwide disaster. Moreover, the evidences that Al Gore offered are convincing and the movie brought a lesson for our society.More than 25 years before the star-studded Los Angeles premiere of An Inconvenient Truth, glaciologist Lonnie Thompson was about as far away from the red carpet as possible. I definitely admire Al Gore’s intention because all the shocking moments in this documentary make us to reconsider about global warming consequences and how we should find possible ways to reduce the problem. Future catastrophes are coming and we are totally relaxed about it.Įqually important, it is to realize how ignorant we are about this problem and its solutions. We have been exploiting our resources since the beginning of humans being and we are not giving back anything to The Earth.
It is really interesting how Al Gore could show to everybody his opinion and actually the real situation of our lovely and not immortal planet. To begin with, this movie described the consequences of global warming from a scientific, political, and economic interpretation. Al Gore’s documentary explores different kinds of sources about climate change and predictions about it.
This movie is based basically in Al Gore’s point of view about the problem of our environment making awareness of that through impacted images. This is the perfect way to show how humans are modifying Earth’s weather and how that problem can affects us and our future generations. “An Inconvenient truth” is a documentary movie about the change of global warming.