Patrick Mooney
10/25/15
Earth Science, D Odd, McClellan
The article “2015 Likely to Be Hottest Year Ever Recorded” by Justin Gillis focuses on global warming and the effects of El Niño and the proof that El Niño offers about global warming. The opposition for global warming has often stated that global warming has stopped and cited that the El Niño of 1998 was the last year of the strongest El Niño to date. However, this year the Earth is projected to heat up even more. Even with the strong El Niño temperatures are head and shoulders over other years. If 2015 continues to follow its temperature trend it will become the hottest year on record by about .1 degrees. Although this temperature change may seem small it will have catastrophic effects on the environment. One of the effects of the increased warmth was a spring heat wave in India and Pakistan that killed several thousands of people and the region experienced temperatures of up to 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Additionally, this heat rise could bleach out coral reefs and cause the reefs to suffer lasting damage. The article went on to talk about the science behind the weather event of El Niño and explained that when the Pacific trade winds stop, which occurs about every 4 years the monsoons of the Eastern pacific receive drought instead of the usual monsoons and the Western Pacific receives heavy rain that will usually cause mass flooding instead of little water. The main idea of the article is summed up with a call to action to reduce emissions.
I think you did a very good job on this review, Patrick. You did a very good job of presenting your article and its findings. One point that was very well presented was the impacts that the rising temperature will have on humanity. You stated how the rising temperatures will cause heat waves in Pakistan and India and how rising ocean levels can devastate coastal cities, especially New York City, whose destruction may halt the global economy. You also did an excellent job of describing how this will affect the ecosystems, by bleaching reefs and causing droughts that will affect animals as prolifically as they will affect humans. Another thing you did a good job with was stating the credibility of the article and explaining its strengths and weaknesses. I learned a lot by reading this report. First, I knew that global warming is going to affect humanity in the future, but I just learned that it will have such a direct impact on humanity in the near future. I also learned about how the rising temperatures can cause droughts in certain areas, while monsoons and floods in others. This "climate swap" could potentially devastate the nearby ecosystem. Overall, this was a very good report, but there was one main point in which you could have improved on. This was the fact that you did not explain what El Niño is. I had to look it up after reading your report in order to figure out exactly what it is (I knew it was a sort of storm). You should have explained what it is when you were talking about it, to make everything easier for people who don't know what it is. Besides that, though, this was a very well written and interesting current events report.
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