Global warming has had little noticeable impact in Washington, D.C. Politicians in the nation's capital have been reluctant to set limits on the carbon dioxide pollution that is expected to warm the planet by 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit during the next century, citing uncertainty about the severity of the threat.
These changes seriously threaten animals such as polar bears, which live and hunt on the sea ice. The bears have already suffered a 15 percent decrease in their number of offspring and a similar decline in weight over the past 25 years. If the Arctic sea ice disappears altogether during the summer months, as some researchers expect it will by the end of the century, polar bears have little chance of survival.
Things are less serious in the lower 48, where the effects of climate change have been more subtle. In much of the United States, spring arrives about two weeks earlier than it did 50 years ago. Tropical bird species have appeared in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.
http://www.detnews.com/2004/nation/0411/14/A11-4237.htm
These changes seriously threaten animals such as polar bears, which live and hunt on the sea ice. The bears have already suffered a 15 percent decrease in their number of offspring and a similar decline in weight over the past 25 years. If the Arctic sea ice disappears altogether during the summer months, as some researchers expect it will by the end of the century, polar bears have little chance of survival.
Things are less serious in the lower 48, where the effects of climate change have been more subtle. In much of the United States, spring arrives about two weeks earlier than it did 50 years ago. Tropical bird species have appeared in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.
http://www.detnews.com/2004/nation/0411/14/A11-4237.htm
