Did you know that 2020 is on its way to becoming the warmest year we have recorded since we performed accurate temperature measurements?

Although the whole world slowed down during this year due to the pandemic, our planet continued to warm up, and 2020 was marked by many extremes. In May and September, the highest average temperature ever for these two months was measured globally. In Death Valley, California, mercury was as high as 54.4 ° C in August, one of the highest temperatures ever measured on the planet. The Arctic Ocean recorded the second-worst year ever when it comes to melting ice. U.S. West Coast was hit by one of the hardest seasons of fires that made the whole of San Francisco look like a scene from a Blade Runner movie.

However, although in many ways extreme, 2020 is not an anomaly when it comes to the state of our climate and is in line with warnings coming from the scientific community for years. As global warming is easily measurable and now visible to the naked eye, it would be expected that there is a clear consensus in public on this issue. Unfortunately, there are still many inaccurate myths that in various ways deny or relativize the dangers that threaten us because of climate change.

Like urban legends, these myths are spreading very quickly among the population, there is every chance that you have encountered many of them if you have ever discussed climate change in a larger society. In this text, we will examine three myths that often occur in our country and provide you with counter-arguments by which you may be able to convince an unfaithful Tom of scientific facts/reality.

MYTH 1. Have you heard of Milankovic?

One of the most common, and favorite in Serbia, claims that you can hear from skeptics who deny the human impact on climate change is that the climate on Earth has always changed, and that what is happening now is only part of natural cycles and that human activities have nothing to do with it.

Indeed, changes in the Earth's orbit and the tilt of the axis of rotation that occur at almost regular intervals (from tens of thousands to 100,000 years) cause certain latitudes of our planet to receive more or less energy from the Sun, which causes warming or cooling of the climate and the change of warmer periods and ice periods. The mentioned changes in the orbit and their connection with the climatic cycles were first described by our scientist Milutin Milanković, and they were named "Milanković's cycles" after him.

Milanković's great contribution to world science has led to the fact that the myth that human is not able to influence the climate of the planet in our country gets one mandatory supplement, and that is the question of whether the people talking about climate change have heard Milutin Milankovic?

However, what skeptics neglect to tell you is the fact that "Milankovic cycles" describe changes in the planet's climate that occur gradually over thousands of years. While we are currently witnessing serious warming in, for geological and astronomical terms, in an extremely short period of time, of only 140 years. In addition, according to the regularities observed by Milanković, the Earth should cool down at this moment and move towards a new ice age, which it should enter in about 50,000 years. Instead, unless significant action is taken to reduce emissions, our planet could be warmed by 3-4 ° C by the end of the century due to human activities, which is many times different from possible natural variability.

So the next time you hear this argument, you can answer that precisely because they are familiar with the work of Milutin Milanković, modern climatologists are very worried about the future of the planet. Because all the data indicate that human activities have led to the disruption of natural cycles of climate change

MYTH 2. The main driver of climate change on Earth is the Sun.

The logic behind this myth is clear. The Sun is the main source of energy on our planet, so if there are any changes in its activity, it is logical that the temperature on Earth changes accordingly.

As in the previous myth, there is a grain of truth in this one. The Sun does not shine with the same intensity all the time. There are periods when it has increased activity and emits more energy in the universe, and there are also periods when it has reduced activity and when less energy reaches our planet. These changes in the activity of the Sun are called solar cycles.

Solar activity generally varies in regular cycles that last an average of about 11 years and which are caused by the Sun's north and south poles changing places. During one cycle, solar activity starts from the so-called solar minimum, after which it gradually increases, reaching the solar maximum in the middle of the cycle, and then the activity begins to decline again until a new minimum is reached, ending the cycle.

If the Sun is the driver of climate change on our planet, the warming we are now recording should coincide with its very high activity, but the problem is that the data show the opposite. In the last 35 years, there has been a slight decrease in the activity of the Sun, and the planet should cool accordingly. However, it is during this period that the accelerated warming trend that we are now witnessing begins.

The last cycle of solar activity, which began in 2008, ended in September 2020 and was one of the "calmest" ever recorded, and it was during that period that we measured the 8th warmest years so far. Scientists predict that the activity of the Sun will be below average during the next solar cycle.

In this graph, you can see trends in the amount of energy emitted by the Sun and the average temperature on the Earth's surface in the last 45 years.

Differences in the Sun's activity can have a specific influence on the movement of temperature on Earth, but as in the case of Milanković's cycles, human impact and "interference" in the climate of our planet now overcomes natural cycles and actually "pushes" it in the opposite direction.

MYTH 3. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by humans is many times less than that which comes from volcanic eruptions

Volcanic eruptions look spectacular. A large amount of lava, stones, and ashes that erupt from the crater, as well as the smoke that rises hundreds of meters high, are without a doubt one of the big performances that nature can prepare for us.

At the same time, eruptions can have a major impact on people's lives. One of the latest examples is the eruption of a volcano in Iceland in 2010 when air traffic in most parts of Europe stopped for a week.

Given the grandeur of volcanic eruptions, it is easy to understand why the myth has arisen that volcanoes contribute much more to greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere than human activities.

But, as in the case of the previous two myths, here the concrete data show a completely different picture. Volcanic eruptions emit about 0.2 Gt of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while in 2016, the total anthropogenic emissions of all greenhouse gases were 245 times higher, ie they were equivalent to emissions of over 49 Gt CO2. This means that volcanoes contribute less than 1% to total emissions annually.

Of course, as in past myths, there is a grain of truth here. Some of the biggest volcanic eruptions are indeed able to emit large amounts of greenhouse gases in a short time. However, such eruptions are very rare, while on the other hand, as Professor Vladimir Đurđević pointed out in an article for klima101.rs: " Our thermal power plants, factories, cars, planes, ships, etc. behave like mini volcanoes that emit this gas constantly, 24/7, 365 days a year. ”

What to do with the myths about climate change?

Although persistent, it seems that the myths are about how human activities have no impact on climate change at the exit door. Years of effort by the scientific community to educate the population, as well as the increasingly obvious consequences of climate change, have led most people to take climate change quite seriously now.

A study by the Reuters Institute from the University of Oxford, conducted on over 80,000 respondents from 40 countries, shows that 69% of people think that climate change is a serious issue, while less than 3% said that they are not worried about it at all.

According to data collected by the Regional Cooperation Council, Balkan citizens are aware of the dangers of climate change - 73% of citizens of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo *, Montenegro, Albania, and Northern Macedonia perceive climate change as a problem.

Understanding the seriousness of climate change is only the first step in successfully overcoming the challenges that lie ahead, so it is important to establish a framework for monitoring how successful we are in doing so. One of these frameworks is the United Nations Agenda 2030, which within the Sustainable Development Goal 13 - Climate Action defines the sub-goals that all countries need to meet in order to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees, as prescribed by the Paris Agreement.

SDG 13 monitors, inter alia, the extent to which the population is educated about climate change, whether communities already affected by the changes are doing enough to adapt to the new conditions, and whether measures to combat climate change are integrated into state laws and strategies.

The world is not yet on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid the most severe consequences of climate change, but there are some positive signals that this can change. In the last two years, a large number of countries, including the EU and China, have promised to achieve carbon neutrality by the middle of the century, and after Joe Biden's victory in the US elections, the United States will join the group.

The struggle for everyone to understand the seriousness of the situation is more or less obtained, now a far more important task lies ahead, and that is finding concrete solutions that will enable the final goal - stopping warming at 1.5 ° C by the end of the century - to be achieved.

Photo source: canva.com

Nemanja Milović, klima101.rs