Shortwave Radiation - Essay Example

Based on the graph, it can be observed that the CO2 from 2006 to the present went up only to drop the following year. The only break is seen from 2009 to 2010 when the CO2 increased for each year. However, it went back to its up-and-down movement from 2010 to 2013. In my opinion, the trend of atmospheric carbon dioxide for Mauna Loa may be affected by the overall effect of the people’s activities and nature as the data is a representation of “human activities and (by) natural processes.

” (Tans) For seasonality, the trend stays the same, increasing, although it is affected by the corrections made to the data as the “black curve represents the seasonally corrected data.” (Tans). Thus it can be said that for seasonality human error may be a reason for the change in CO2. 4. Albedo is a small part of the energy from the sun that is on Earth and reflected back into space. It comes from the Latin word Albus which means white. An average of about 4% of the incoming radiation from the sun is reflected by the Earth (Budikova).

Since original forests have a higher albedo, it would that little of the sun’s energy is absorbed by the earth. If the earth is already too warm, a higher albedo would be ideal to avoid further increasing the surface temperature. 5. Based on the data, it can be observed that the warmest year was in 2007 (1.0857) while the coldest year was in 1884 (-0.5941). I have to say I see some global warming in the data. Even if there are years from 1988 where the numbers declined, the trend in the graph shows a dramatic increase starting from 1985.

This period also reflects a direct contrast from when the data was first compiled which showed very cold temperatures.