Waypoint: Shanghai, China: 31° 12′ 0″ N, 121° 30′ 0″ E

Shaghai, China

Shanghai will be underwater by 2100

Shanghai is seeing higher temperatures due to continuing global warming. A report by US-based research group Climate Central came out last week, outlining the consequences of global warming for the planet's coastal areas and mega-cities. It states that a 4 degree Celsius increase in the earth’s weather will cause sea levels to rise enough to submerge coastal areas, leaving 470 to 760 million people's homes underwater. Major cities such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, London, New York, Sydney and Mumbai could end up submerged by 2100 (timeoutshanghai.com).

Shanghai will be look like this if there's a 4 degree temperature increase

Commuters on a tricycle cross a flooded road outside a subway station in Shanghai China AP

Waypoint: The Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica: 69° 30′ 0″ S, 65° 0′ 0″ W

The Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica

Warming Temperatures are causing ice melt

The effects of global warming in Antarctica include rising temperatures and increasing snow melt. The continent-wide average surface temperature trend of Antarctica is positive and significant at >0.05 °C/decade since 1957. The West Antarctic ice sheet has warmed by more than 0.1 °C/decade in the last 50 years, and is strongest in winter and spring. Although this is partly offset by fall cooling in East Antarctica, this effect is restricted to the 1980s and 1990s. Research published in 2009 found that overall the continent had become warmer since the 1950s, a finding consistent with the influence of man-made climate change. The region of strongest warming lies along the Antarctic Peninsula (Wikipedia).

On warming Antarctic Peninsula, moss and microbes reveal unprecedented ecological change

Antarctic Peninsula summer melt season prolonged by global warming

Fast climate change on the Antarctic Peninsula has affected the base of the food chain

Waypoint: Queensland, Australia: 23° 0′ 0″ S, 143° 0′ 0″ E

Queensland, Australia

Drought and other issues caused by Climate Change

Drought has plagued parts of Australia since 2012 hurting agriculture and wild life. Climate change is making drought conditions worse affecting people’s health and hurting the agriculture industry. Since the mid-1990s, Australia has seen a 15% drop in rainfall during late autumn and early winter and a 25% drop in April and May. The severe droughts are even being linked to suicide. Climate change is not only causing drought, it is also affecting the ocean causing acidification which puts the Great Barrier Reef at great risk. Glacier melt in Antarctica is causing the sea level to raise affect Australian coast. Fires are a problem that comes with drought (theguardian.com). 

Climate Change Makes Droughts in Australia Worse

Embers glow after a bushfire in the Adelaide Hills in January, the worst the area has seen in decades. Photograph: Brenton Edwards/AFP/Getty Images

Waypoint: Bangladesh: 23° 48′ 0″ N, 90° 18′ 0″ E

Bangladesh is now widely recognized to be one of the countries that is most vulnerable to climate change. Natural hazards that come from increased rainfall, rising sea levels, and tropical cyclones are expected to increase as climate changes, each seriously affecting agriculture, water and food security, human health and shelter.  It is believed that in the coming decades the rising sea level alone will create more than 20 million climate refugees. Bangladeshi water is contaminated with arsenic frequently because of the high arsenic contents in the soil. Up to 77 million people are exposed to toxic arsenic from drinking water. Source: wikipedia

Waypoint: Kiribati: 1° 25′ 0″ N, 173° 0′ 0″ E

Kiribati Islands

Rising Sea Level

Kiribati, a tiny Pacific island nation, became the first nation to declare that global warming has made their island uninhabitable. Last summer they started evacuating its people, the first climate refugees. Home to some 100,000 people, they are losing the battle. Rising sea levels are contaminating their fresh water supplies and crop soil. They have purchased a island of Fiji to move to. 

President of Kiribati Anote Tong on climate change: "It's too late for us" on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS – CNN Press Room - CNN.com Blogs

Building beach barriers on Kiribati. Global Environment Facility (GEF)/Flickr

In Kiribati, climate change is a fact of life – and often a scary one for young people wondering what the future will bring. Source: unicef

Waypoint: Niger Delta: 5° 19′ 34″ N, 6° 28′ 15″ E

Niger Delta

Even though Africa accounts for less than 4% of the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions, they bare a lot of the burden. Here are some ways the International Panel on Climate Control Change, the IPCC, predict what will happen to Africa:

1. Farming will be harder-higher temperatures and unpredictable rain

2. Farming will be easier in highland countries.

3. Malnutrition-growing population can not keep up with struggling agricultural

4. Malaria-insects will thrive in higher temperature

5. Water shortages due to drought.

consequences of climate change and climate variability in the Niger River Basin
Source: www.tyndall.ac.uk

Study shows projected climate change in West Africa not likely to worsen malaria situation
Source: news.mit.edu

climate change lead to diminishing water levels and water scarcity. Less water means less fish, less fodder and fewer cattle and other household uses Source: africa.wetlands.org

Waypoint: Bickmore, West Virginia, Fola Coal Company Mountain Top Removal Site: 38°19'28.98"N 81° 0'21.26"W

West Virginia

Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Coal mining is a major contributor to climate change but the areas where the coal is mined from is very much affected by global warming. I wanted to add this stop on this VFT because it is a global warming hot spot and because this is where I live. This MTR site is about 10 miles from my home in Clay County, WV. 

Over half of our electrical power, in the US, comes from coal and a large percentage of that coal comes from West Virginia. Of the nearly 150 million tons of coal extracted each year from the state's mines, an increasing amount comes from surface mining and mountaintop removal. Mountaintop removal can have serious impacts on the health of local people. The pollution of groundwater by mine runoff and exposure to airborne toxins and dust, and on the environment, through permanent loss of critical ecosystems, destruction of forests and loss of streams. Scientific evidence suggests that these impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that efforts to reclaim the disturbed land can't make up for the impacts felt by the mining process (wvpublic.org).

Waypoint: Matterhorn Mountain, Alps, Europe 45° 58′ 35″ N, 7° 39′ 30″ E

The Alps have been warming about three times the global average. Alpine Glaciers are melting, even plant life is migrating up toward cooler weather. The winter sports industry attracts 60-80 million tourists annually. Ski resorts are preparing for more seasons with less or no snow. Some places are using man-made snow or hauling snow from nearby glaciers. Some resorts are becoming spas, conference centers, and luxury hotels (Scientific America).

In addition to ski tourism there is another concern about global warming's effect on the Alps. About 40% of Europe's freshwater originates from the Alps. Climate change threatens the water cycle. The water cycle is dependent on precipitation, snow, and glacier cover.

Matterhorn Panorama from Gornergrat
credit: J. Paylor

The nearly 15,000-feet-high Matterhorn Mountain, located in the Alps on the border between Italy and Switzerland. Left: August 16, 1960 at 9:00am. Right: August 18, 2005 at 9:10am. Source: Panopticon Gallery, Boston, MA.

Thanks to the effects of climate change, the Swiss peak, is being eroded due to melting ice water from the glaciers at its summit. The water penetrates the cracks and fissures in the mountain and is then re-frozen in the winter. This freeze-thaw action causes large boulders to be dislodged and swept further down the mountain.
Photo credit: Juan Rubiano

Waypoint: Quinault Indian Nation, Washington, US: 47°20'46.22"N 124°17'50.74"W

The Quinault Indian Nation, whose small village lies at the mouth of the Quinault River on the outer coast of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, for now they are relying on a 2,000-foot-long sea wall to protect it from the encroaching Pacific Ocean.

This Native American Tribe has considered abandoning the lands it has lived on for thousands of years. The Quinault tribe has developed a $60 million plan to move their entire village of Taholah uphill away from the sea. They will have to relocating the school, the courthouse, the police station and the homes of 700 tribal members.

The effects of climate change for the Quinault doesn't end with sea-level rise. Five years ago, the Anderson Glacier, which contributes cool water to the Quinault River, disappeared for good. This past winter, there was minimal snowmelt feeding into the Olympic Peninsula's rivers, including the Quinault. Normally, glacial melt supplements river flows late in the summer and early fall. Without the glacier, the Quinault River was lower than ever recorded. So low that while walking through a newly exposed stretch of riverbed, one tribal member stubbed his toe on what turned out to be a mastodon jaw that may have been submerged since the last ice age.

The Quinault people are dependent on salmon fishing. The warm ocean waters and dry summer have made for a confusing and hostile environment for salmon, which rely on cool river flows to find their way home to spawning grounds above Lake Quinault.

Indigenous peoples around the world are often on the front lines of climate change despite the fact that they contribute the smallest amount of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2015/12/01/455745765/facing-rising-waters-a-native-tribe-takes-its-plea-to-paris-climate-talks

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers repairing the seawall that protects the village of Taholah, March 2014.
Photo Credit: Larry Workman, Quinault Indian Nation

A tribal fisherman brings up his nets near the mouth of the Quinault River on the coast of Washington state. Climate change is threatening tribal families, who have worked the same fishing grounds along this river for generations. 
Photo credit:Ashley Ahearn/KUOW/EarthFix 

Map of Quinault traditional tribal territory and reservation
en.wikipedia.org

Waypoint: Muir Glacier, Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, U.S- 59°06′17″N 136°22′56″W

Muir Glacier is located in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve Alaska, US. It is approximately 0.43 miles wide at the terminus. The terminus is the end of a glacier. As recently as the mid-1980s the glacier was a tidewater glacier and calved icebergs from a wall of ice 60 meters.

The glacier is named after Scottish naturalist, John Muir.   Muir traveled around the area and wrote about it, generating interest in the local environment and in its preservation. His first two visits were in 1879 (at age 41) and 1880. During the visits, he sent an account of his visits in installments to the San Francisco Bulletin. Later, he collected and edited these installments in a book, Travels in Alaska, published in 1915, the year after he died.

Muir Glacier has undergone very rapid, well-documented retreat since its Little Ice Age maximum position at the mouth of Glacier Bay around 1780. Between 1941 and 2004 the glacier retreated more than seven miles and thinned by over 2625 feet. Ocean water has filled the valley replacing the ice.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muir_Glacier

Muir Glacier, Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska
1882 photo taken by G.D. Hazard;
2005 photo taken by Bruce F. Molnia.
Courtesy of the Glacier Photograph Collection, National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology

Maps showing retreat of Muir Glacier from 1941 to 1982

 Muir glacier is named after Scottish-born naturalist John Muir, who traveled around the area and wrote about it, generating interest in the local environment and in its preservation.