The Concept of Global Warming - Essay Example

?Introduction All around the world, there are changes taking place in regard to temperatures and human activities, as well as economic activities, where all these aspects have a profound effect on one another. This is in that the economic activities of humans affect greatly the temperature of the world, by either lowering it or increasing it, which in most cases is increasing, and this causes global warming. As a result, this essay focuses on global warming, where the causes and changes experienced in the present and future are explored with focus on evidence and the future. Situation  There are different reasons as to why scientists change their mind on the trends of global warming since there is differing opinion with some scientists saying that the world is warming while other are of the belief that it is actually cooling. One of the reasons for this is due to research conducted on global warming, where there are studies indicative of increasing temperatures all around the globe and there is a potential for the failure of temperature regulation around the globe. This is to imply that there is a high possibility, according to some weather scientists, that the mechanism that ensures the weather and climate remains stable within the atmosphere is likely to fail, in which case the temperatures will fall to a scenario of the legendary ice age (Carter 2008, p.182). This accounts for the larger percentage of the reason why there are varying opinions pertaining to global warming, whereas there are others such as research that looks into the erratic patterns of the weather and the climate following the large impact of global warming across the globe. This is to an extent that it is difficult to provide detailed information on how much change has occurred and even future trends of the world based on climate change studies, where the effects of different causative agents of global warming are evaluated and their amount of damage assessed to ensure that the latest data is acquired and utilized adequately. With this in mind, there are also sceptical scientists that only focus on single aspects of global warming thus with every new research or study on the weather, there is a new opinion based on hypothetical situations. This will be discussed later when looking at the future of the world from the perspective of global warning. Problem To understand the concept of global warming and even the theory of global warming, there is a need to look at the evidence presented by different researches as to how global warming works and affects the world. With this in mind, scientists have discovered that humans are the greatest cause of global warming, where they do not cause it by their state of being but through their activities, both economic and social. As a result, the temperatures of the earth have increased over the past 250 years at a steady pace, but this is not to mean that there are no other factors causing this. First looking at this reveals that burning fossil fuels for energy and heat is part of what causes global warming by releasing carbon dioxide which traps a layer of warm air (Jacobson 2004, p.2910). Findings that brought this to light states that a combination of human activities and natural causes has resulted in the rapid in surface temperature rise (Zuo et al 2012, p.3432). However, there are also other findings that refute and support this at the same time in that there are natural occurrences and human activities that have significantly contributed to the cooling of the earth meaning that a form of balance to the global temperature belt is returning including chloral-flouro-carbons. These include eruptions of mountains as seen in the 1991 case of Mt. Pinatubo, which lowered global temperatures for a number of years (Soden et al, 2002). On a similar note research has also found that global warming is not necessarily a bad thing based on studies and evidence presented by various scientists. As such, there have been findings that since 1860 to date, there has been roughly an increase in global temperatures by 1 degree Celsius, and this has been explained using the arguments of recovery from the former ice age (Carter 2008, p.182). In addition, they show that has not been significant global warming since 1958 to 2005, which translates to a cumulative increase in global temperatures over an extended period rather than gross human interference with Mother Nature in contributing to global warming (Soden et al, 2002). Increases in global temperatures have been reported with significant evidence based off melting of ice glaciers in New Zealand and breaking off of the sea and land ice across the globe, which is inclusive of the ice in the Atlantic ocean. With this, much of the ice in the Atlantic ocean and northern hemisphere has been receding steadily, and even the sea-level has risen substantially across the globe to indicate how serious global warming is, and this only serves as scientific evidence. Besides this, there is also increased cloud cover that serves as evidence for the severity and presence of global warming, where the cloud cover has increased by roughly 2% over the northern hemisphere since the beginning of the 20th century (Page 2007, p.9). Solution Based on the above evidence of the presence and absence of global warming, depending on different scientific camps, global warming is real and is bound to change the world. With this, the future is marked with warmer a climate which is marked by an overall and noticeable climate change as even in winter in the northern hemisphere snowing will thin out. However, due to high temperatures across the globe, the rate of evaporation will be high which implies further increase in cloud cover and increased precipitation, which will vary according to the height in latitude. Considering this, tropical areas will have high rates of precipitation; while subtropical will suffer lower levels of rainfall, while the higher latitudes afterwards will suffer even higher rainfall. The most life threatening event in the scope of global warming is the oscillation of two events; El Nino and la Nina, where interference in evaporative damping will result in unprecedented lack of rain or drought, while in other areas there will only be heavy rains resulting in flooding (Schuldiner-Harpaz and Coll 2013, p.6). Conclusion In conclusion, the future of the earth according to weather and climate points to unprecedented events, which can only be speculated at this point in time due to increasing heat levels according to evidence presented by research. This is in spite of the cause of this increase in temperature being human and natural activities with the finger pointing at human activities more than natural events. References Carter, R. (2008). Knock, Knock: Where is the Evidence for Dangerous Human-Caused Global Warming? Economic analysis and policy, Volume 38, Issue 2, pp. 177 – 202. Jacobson, MZ 2004, 'The Short-Term Cooling but Long-Term Global Warming Due to Biomass Burning', Journal Of Climate, 17, 15, pp. 2909-2926. Page, E. (2007). Fairness on the Day After Tomorrow: Justice, Political Studies, Volume 55, Issue 1, pp. 225 – 242. Schuldiner-Harpaz, T, & Coll, M 2013, 'Effects of Global Warming on Predatory Bugs Supported by Data Across Geographic and Seasonal Climatic Gradients', Plos ONE, 8, 6, pp. 1-9. Soden, B, Wetherald, R, Stenchikov, G, & Robock, A 2002, 'Global Cooling After the Eruption of Mount Pinatubo: A Test of Climate Feedback by Water Vapor', Science, 296, 5568, p. 727. Zuo, Z, Yang, S, Kumar, A, Zhang, R, Xue, Y, & Jha, B 2012, 'Role of Thermal Condition over Asia in the Weakening Asian Summer Monsoon under Global Warming Background', Journal Of Climate, 25, 9, pp. 3431-3436. Read More