The Concept of Global Warming - Research Paper Example

The concept of Global Warming is a very much in the news in todays world. Popular media is replete with references to the changes that are apparently taking place in our environment due to the release of the hydrocarbons that we use in every aspect of our lives but most conspicuously in the cars we drive. In the face of so many sound bites of information it is important to achieve an understanding of the implications of the problem through a more reliable source. This paper will examine the issue of Global Warming through five scientific, timely articles, one which will outline a sensible approach to interpreting the data and the other four will outline various quantitative methods of analysis of objective indicators of the problem. In the article Mutual Vulnerability, Mutual Dependence : The Reflexive Relation between Human Society and the Environment the authors Evan D.G Fraser et al argue that the past approaches to the study of the environment have been hampered by an “either or” approach, that is the environment is seen either to be effecting the individual or the population at large were damaging the environment. This approach was not, the authors argue, adaptive to the world as we know, and it did not addresses the problems that arose at attempts of so called human management of the problem. In exchange for this approach the authors call for new method to interpret environmental data, one that is based on the the complex changing nature of the relationship between the environment and human populations. They use the terms “Environmental Sensitivity” for the effect of human populations on the environment and “Social Resilience” to describe the human adaptation to changes of the environment. As they state this relationship is not a simple direct cause and effect but one that includes many factors which do not change in an immediately predictive ways. For example, they cite the Canadian Government's policy in Toronto of establishing farm land in a sand and silt based soil, ill suited to cultivation, and this caused within a few generations terrible soil erosion, and what became know as the Ontario dust bowl.(Fraser 2003) An approach of this nature is necessary to better understand the problem of changes on the environment and vice versa and and present the data in a way that makes more sense to a population that has become inured to the problem of Global Warming. The alarmist approach that marked the dire consequences of Global Warming in the past,Fraser argues, has fallen on deaf ears because up to now the Apocalypse that had been predicted has not occurred. The old approach the authors suggest had been to view the problem as a conflict issue and that is not sustainable now because as one authority cited in the study suggestedthe environment is too complex a subject to simply be labeled a security issue.(Fraser 2003) This approach can be used to interpret the usefulness of the remaining studies in fulfilling the goals of this approach. The need for a sound understanding of statistical methods is vital to implement the approach; it is through quantitative methods that inferences can be made that allow predictive reasoning patterns in the data . Gerald Meehl et all in their article Introduction to Trends in Extreme Weather and Climate Events: Observations, Socioeconomic impacts , Terrestrial Ecological Impacts and Model Projections outline a sound approach to extremes in weather. This is certainly also important in the face of so many statistics that fly around about the effects of global warming. The authors of this study point that extremes in weather patterns are deduced from the analysis of parameters such as mean, variance and standard deviation that describe aspects of normal population curves. Extremes in statistics are sensitive, logically, to the mean and variance and its related descriptor standard deviation. A small change in the mean of a distribution will exhibit a dramatic change in the frequency of extreme values. A greater change will be seen with the standard deviation beyond a minimally required value.( Meehl et al 2000) Therefore the authors argue that when extreme values of weather are seen it is important to understand how these value relate to overall trends so that they can be viewed in terms of the distribution to decide whether they are indeed significant. The truly significant changes are reflections of changes in the mean or standard deviation because these reflect whole sale changes in the distribution from previous patterns. The problem of arriving at distributions that determine overall patterns in which there are infrequent extremes has also been accounted for by the Gumbel analysis which is a statistical method for making these inferences. These statistical methods, the authors argue, are important in making a true assessment of the socio-economic consequences of the changes in the environment. It is also a vital feature of the original schema that was developed of Environmental Sensitivity and Social Resilience where it is of inordinate importance to understand the the quantitative changes that are taking place to make reasoned inference about future events. The statistical trends described here were used in the next study. Research into the problems of how extremes in temperature adversely effect human populations are hampered by the ethical limitations that also hamper medical research, namely attempting to study negative effects of certain conditions without making the morally required intervention. Using complicated models and sophisticated statistical techniques of regression Jan Kysely in his paper Estimates of Heat-related Mortality in Climate Model Outputs for Present Climate Conditions describes techniques and methods to study the effects of extreme variations on temperature on mortality in the Czech Republic. Essentially the study involved the comparison of mortality rates in the Czech Republic in two periods, between 1961 and 1990 and 1982 to 2000 . With all other variables accounted for, the mortality rates were compared. Models were used to simulate weather pattern changes, so-called Climate Control Models (GCM) and a Stochastic weather generator, another algorithm that generates weather patterns based on input data; all these models were by statistical regression applied to the periods in question to see which model would best match the changes in mortality due to heat, to those that actually occurred. Of these the Stochastic weather generator proved to be the most successful in its predictive qualities.(Kysley 2003) This study was remarkable in demonstrating that a study of the environment and its relationship with human populations can be a quantitative discipline from which patterns can be inferred and then predictive conclusions can be drawn. It showed that the one can indeed study the effects of a broad and complex area such as the climate and make inferences in keeping with the original schema that we adopted from Fraser's approach. The practical implications of the previous study are clearly seen in the next, The Relationship between increases in global mean temperature and impacts on Ecosystem, Food Production and, Water and Socioeconomic Systems by Bill Hare. Hare consider how incremental ranges of temperature increase will cause widespread problems to various ecosystems and how that will in turn lead to great social problems. Hare from the research surmises that a 1 degree Celsius increase will damage delicate ecosystems like the coral reef structures in Australia.(Hare 1992) Two degrees of temperature rise will further the damage in many parts of the world, the salmon population in North America and Mexico's Fauna to name just two of the examples he cites.(Hare 1992) Every degree change after seems to expand the devastation and he stops his projection at 3 degrees because at this point there would be widespread extinctions of species. There is a similarly distressing projection for human populations in terms of food production and water availability. An increase of over 3 degrees would be catastrophic Hare argues with a risk of hunger in the 100 million range and up to 3 billion in terms of the scarcity of water. Clearly these numbers are untenable. The study is useful in that it raises a general alarm, but it does not go further and link the problems that would arise to the loss of fragile ecosystems at the lower temperature increases. The loss of coral reefs at a one degree increase of temperature would not be an insular event. As Fraser has suggested in his study there is an cascading pattern of problems that can come out of a small initiating event that is not immediately predictable. The complexity of the relationships is better examined in the next study. In the Study Impacts of Extreme Weather and Climate on Terrestrial Biota by Camille Parmesan et al the relationship between ecology and rapid warming due to high carbon dioxide production is shown in the spirit of Fraser's complex dynamic. Essentially the authors argue that natural selection has resulted in species that occupy a certain range of temperatures and levels of water, and on the fringes of these ranges the chances of survival becomes more difficult. In the Pleistocene era in response to gradual temperature changes species adapted by moving into ranges that that could sustain them.(Parmesan 2000) Today with the twin threats of more rapid warming from Global Warming and the the restriction of space from human expansion species are not able to either adapt to the speed of the change in their range or due to the unavailability of space to simply find other areas to which to move. This is resulting in the extinction of entire species and the implications of this are not at this time easily predictable. The effects are not clearly predictable and this is the crux of the issue. Without sound research only the crude effects of rapid warming are being reported, that is survival and death. But there are other changes. Ranges of migratory birds are changed because of the temperature changes. These birds that move to another area remove their influence on the particular ecosystem that they occupied and then the imbalances will manifest in new problems in the complex way that Fraser argues is the nature of the relationship between environments and populations. There is the fascinating example of how temperature levels effect Map turtles. These turtles depend on a certain range of temperature for embryonic sex determination. At an incubation of 28 degrees Celsius or below produces only males while incubation at 30 degrees or above, females. Therefore in this case extreme fluctuations in temperature will alter the sex ratio and if it is persistent threaten the species because of the unavailability of mating partners Changes in rainy seasons effects African elephants where dominant male mate during the rainy season and the subordinates in the dry.(Parmesan 2000) The effects that these changes will have on the population are not predictable and therefore unsettling. The problems of Global warming are only now being understood. As Fraser has indicated the problem is not a problem of a simple cause and effect relationship but rather a complex dynamic that needs to examined systematically to find patterns that can be rigorously studied for their predictive potential. Meehl and his associates identified the correct method of viewing extreme weather phenomena with the tools of statistics so as to quantify the problems that occur and fulfill the requirements of Fraser's schema with meaningful data. The Jan Kysley article then demonstrated how sophisticated statistical regression models could offer a way to predict the mortality data of changes of temperature increases without the ethical and moral considerations that are inherent in any area that involves potential harm to human populations. Bill Hare then raises the the true significance of widespread temperature changes to large populations. His projections based as they were on an extensive literature search raise some alarming figures. Finally Parmesan and her associates link some of the problems that occur in the link between climate changes and complex ecosystems in the spirit that Fraser intended. Through the perspective of this research it has been possible to approach the problem of Global Warming in a scientific way, aware of the scale of the problem and equipped with the ideal way to interpret the data, and be able to come to reasonable conclusions free from the ebb and flow of popular fashions. References Hare,B.,(1992).The Relationship between increases in global mean temperature and impacts on Ecosystem, Food Production and, Water and Socioeconomic Systems Visiting Scientist University of Potsdam. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change. New York Fraser, E D.G., and Mabee,W., and Slaymaker, O. (2003) Mutual Vulnerability, Mutual Dependence : The Reflexive Relation between Human Society and the Environment Global Environmental Change 13 Kysely,Jan.(2003) Estimates of Heat-related Mortality in Climate Model Outputs for Present Climate Conditions Institute of Atmospheric Physics Meehl, Gerald.,karl,T.,Easterling, D.,Changnon,S., Pielke,R.,Chngnon,D.,Evans,J., Groisman,P., Knutson,J. (2000) Introduction to Trends in Extreme Weather and Climate Events: Observations, Socioeconomic impacts , Terrestrial Ecological Impacts and Model Projections Bulletin of American Meteorological Society Parmesan,C., Root,T.,Willing, M., (2000) Impacts of Extreme Weather and Climate on Terrestrial Biota Bulletin of American Meteorological Society Read More