Bahcesehir Bakirkoy

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CLIMATE CHANGE UNBALANCES THE NATURE

The amount of burning trees has almost doubled in the world in the last 20 years.

In 2021, an area of almost 16 football fields vanished in one minute by the forest fires.

Climate change seems to be the main propulsive force of these fires and the increasing heat causes drier conditions that causes more tree fires.

The year 2021,when forests , as big as Portugal, have dissappeard worldwide,is archieved as the second among the years in which the most areas have been lost due to forest fires.

The effects of losts related to fires are felt firstly in the forests that are in the borders of further north countries like Canada and Russia.

The worrying part of this situation is that the fires become more severe and have the potential of revealing the most of the carbon that is stored in the burning areas.

The northern regions of the world are warming up faster and this causes longer fire seasons.

Because of storing carbon dioxide, which is one of the most important gases that warms our atmosphere, trees and soil are among our most important allies.

Climate change increases the risk of faster, hotter and bigger fires.

Deforestation, changes the local and regional climates as eliminating the effect of vaporization,which helps the temprature to be low and moisturized.

The largest forest fire in the country's history

2021 Forest Fires in Turkey especially the fires in the Aegean and Mediterranean regions were not like the fires that we know. They were enormous. According to the data of the European Forest Fires Information System (EFFIS), the forest area burned only in Muğla and Antalya is approximately 124 thousand hectares between 28th of July and 12th of August. The forest area destroyed in the forest fires in Turkey in the whole of 2021 is around 178 thousand hectares, that is 1 billion 780 million square meters! If we express it in popular measure, approximately 250 thousand football fields is an area of ​​approximately 1/5 the size of Istanbul. This is more than 8 times the average burned area between 2008 and 2020 in the same period and in the same region.

Some reasons such as increasing in average temperatures, decreasing humidity in the air, heat waves increasing in frequency and intensity create perfect conditions for forest fires. As the fires of 2021, the tiniest trigger or the tiniest spark can cause an unstoppable catastrophe. It was an endless firestorm and it will continue.

 Because the planet is approxiamately 1.2 degrees warmer than  the industrial revolutions period , due to climate change. Because the carbon ratio in the atmosphere is now 420 ppm. Because the sea level rise of the last 20 years has averaged 3.2 millimeters per year. We have come to the end of the era of natural disasters.

To limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, countries must  halve their emissions soon.

Most of the planet is under the influence of heat waves.

The extreme heat of recent times would have been impossible without human effect.

Lake Van Is Drying

Lake Van is getting smaller step by step. The drought caused by the global climate has affected the Van Lake basin and the surrounding water resources negatively. With the decrease in precipitation compared to previous years and the increase in evaporation due to temperature, serious withdrawals have occurred around Lake Van.

In some parts of Lake Van, where the water level dropped by an average of 3 meters, there were recessions of up to 10 kilometers. The world's largest microbialites, which were formed in Lake Van over thousands of years and can only be seen during diving, began to appear on the surface as the lake receded.

The resource of water streams in the lake with rains and snowfalls and steams out with evaporation. While the duration of summer months prolong , and the duration of winter months shorten, the evaporation in the lake also increases. For every 1 unit of water entering Van Lake, approximately 3 units of water is evaporating.

As a result, Lake Van begins to recede. When we go to the lakeside, we see that the places that were previously under water have come ashore today. We notice that there is a very serious drought in the basin.

Birds and Climate Change

As it is known, birds affected by negative weather conditions begin to migrate. Birds which finish their breeding season move to areas with more favorable weather conditions. Changing climate conditions affect the migration times of the birds. Birds start to migrate earlier because of a rise in temperature due to global warming. Birds that come to the breeding areas early begin to breed but as  the food in that area is not ready for the incoming birds, there is a decrease in the population of birds.At the same time as there is a rival  between migrant birds and local bird species in the region, the population of the species which lose the rival is decreasing and these species are becoming endangered. The nightingale birds and willow grazers in the Mediterranean basin can be shown as examples of the species affected by this situation.