Global Warming Effects - Research Paper Example

Global warming Situations are not like they used to be, they have been amplified to a level that they are deadlier than ever. The sea level is rapidly rising, large forest fires have increased in frequency, and many parts of the world are experiencing severe storms. Droughts are more severe than ever, dangerous heat waves are on the rise. These are just a few disastrous occurrences that have detrimental effects on health, environment and the entire community. These are the consequences of global warming and they are not getting any better yet no man is immune from these situations. By definition, global warming refers to the average increase in air temperature of the globes surface and ocean. This increase has been estimated to have started in 1950. A term used as a synonym for global warming is climate change. According to facts it is a clear and unmistakable fact that the earths temperature is rising. Global warming is not just about two different summer seasons, but it involves changes occurring on the environment, weather and atmosphere. It is thought interms of decades and not seasons. The term global warming can be misleading as it can be wrongly thought to mean that thing are going to be hotter, yet in some cases situations are stormier, drier, or colder. Due to the fact that all things are linked such as temperature, wind and rain, global warming affects the earth in regards to both biology and hydrology. Each year in the past 37 year has experienced warmth that is higher than that of the 20th century on average. The earth has experienced the 12 warmest years ever in history with 2012 being the hottest year ever recorded in the United States. The average surface temperature increase has been over one degree Fahrenheit from 1800s with the last three decades being the worst (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2014). As observed by scientists, the earth’s history on variability is vast with instances such as the cold temperatures compared to ice age, to being as hot as easy bake oven. As projected by scientists, temperatures are expected to increase by an average of 2-11.5 degrees Fahrenheit’s by the end o f 21st century (Trimarchi 2014). As stated by Environmental protection Agency, the earth’s temperature is a balance between the suns heat that leaves and the amountstays on the planet. The earth becomes warm when it absorbs heat from the sun and it is made cooler when the suns heat is reflected back. A lot of factors are responsible for earth’s energy balance, some of which include variation in the green house effect, changes occurring in the ability to earth’s atmosphere and surface,and differences in the energy of the sun reaching the earth. Through analyzing some indirect factors of climate such as tree rings, glacier lengths, pollen remains and even ocean sediments, scientists have put together an image that dates back to hundreds of thousand years before. Based on records of history, climate systems change occurs naturally within a great period of time. For instance changes experience before industrial revolution can be shown based on evidence for natural occurrences such as volcanic eruptions, changes in green house gases concentration and solar energy. However natural causes alone cannot explain the recent climate changes, according to research natural occurrences are not best suited to explain these changes more so from 1950s. Human activities are in the best position to give explanations. The green house effect occurs when the sunlight that reaches the earth is either reflected or retained. The earth gives out some retained energy as heat in a process called infrared. Some of the heat is absorbed by green house gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. This ends up slowing the release of heat into space, causing a blanket effect that makes the earth warmer. The glacierscycles in the distant past are tracked using the levels of CO2, when the CO2 levels were lower, the interglacial periods were cooler, and when they were higher the periods were warmer. This happens due to the fact that the earth’s temperatures can cause variations of how green house gases are concentrated. Human activities in recent years such as the industrial revolution (1700s) have added green house gases into the atmosphere. These gases have enabled more heat to be trapped causing the earth to be warmer. Burning of fossil fuel is one primary activity that cases increase of green house gases into the atmosphere. The most important greenhouse gases include Carbon dioxide, Methane and Nitrous oxide. Others include water vapor, tropospheric ozone, and chlorofluorocarbons. Natural changes such as change in suns energy and earths position within the orbit cause climatic changes that influence how much suns energy make it to earth. These changes have a minor ability to cause changes on the earth’s temperatures with earth becoming warmer during stronger solar periods and cooler during weaker periods. The sun has a cycle of up and down changes that occur every 11 years. Earths position in terms of changes in orbit shape and tilting on its axis also has minor effects on the amount of heat reaching the earth. These changes are believed to have caused effects on earths temperature in the past such as in the period of the little ice age(cooling of North America and Europe) from 17th to 19th century. This might have occurred due to low solar intensity approximated between 1645 to 1715. Over thousands of years suns energy has had effects on climate such as the shrinking and advancing of ice in the northern hemisphere. This is affected by the changing in the orbit of the earth. The past cycles of ice age and interglacial periods in the past were caused by such changes. In recent years changes in earth’s position and orbit shape cannot explain the changes on climate as these positional changes have been constant. The suns energy reaching the earth can either be absorbed of reflected depending on the atmosphere and the earth’s surface. Surfaces with lighter colors such as clouds and ices reflect much light while darker surfaces such as soil, ocean and forests tend to absorb mostly. Albedo is a term used to denote the amount of energy reflected from a surface. It is expressed as a percentage. Most of the energy reaching the earth is absorbed because the earth’ssurface has an albedo of about 30%. This energy absorbed warms water, land and air. Other factors affecting reflectivity are aerosols. These are either water droplets or small particles that reflect of absorb sun light. This have a different effect from green house gases as their effects depend upon what they are made of. Reflective aerosols such as particles from sulfur emissions and volcanic eruptions make the earth cooler, while those such as carbon from fossil fuel that absorb sunlight have warming effects. Changes in nature such as meltdown of ice and cloud cover have had significant effects on climate in the past. Activities such as volcanic eruptions have also contributed; particles from volcanic activities that have reached the upper atmosphere have the ability to reflect suns energy within some tenths of degree in a period of time.Particles from one eruption do not cause major changes as they stay shorterin the atmosphere as compared to green house gases. In recent times human activities such as land use have caused changes on the reflectivity of the earth. These have effects on the places they occur; they include deforestation, reforestation and urbanization. These may have significance regionally but their effect globally may be little. These activities have contributed to the amount of cooling aerosols in the atmosphere that reduces the warming effects of the green house gases causes by human emissions. When reduction of aerosols is targeted overally it can lead to more warming, but reduction in black carbon can lead to more cooling (Causes of climate change, 2014). Global warming has led to severe effects not just on the climate but on the environment, effects such as rising sea levels is one of them. Hotter temperatures mean Artic life is changing. This heat causes ice (seas ice, polar ice and glacier) to experience melt down. These melt downs have consequently increased the amount of water in the seas and oceans. Melt down in Greenland has an effect on the lives of people in America directly;ColoradoRiverhas experience up to six times increased flow. Scientists say that if the meltdown in Antarctica and Greenland continues, the sea levels will rise by 21 feet by 2100. This means most islands in Indonesia and low cities such as Miami, New York and Bangladesh will experience submerge. Another effect is the reduction of glacier cover, parts of the earth that were once covered with permafrost such as Tundrahave experienced melt down and planet life can be seen. Within just 100 years, ice cover in Montana Glacier national park has seen reduction from 150 to only 35. The source of Grange River which comes from Himalayan glacier has seen reduction by 40 yards each year. This important water source suppliers 500 million people with water for drinking and irrigation. Dangerous heat waves that were experienced across Europe had destructive effects killing up to 35,000 people. These waves are thought to be the manifestation of heat waves scientists startedtracking in the 1900s. These heat wave occurrences have risen to two to three times more in the past 50 to 100 years. Over the next 40 years there will be a 100 times more ability of such occurrences. These heat waves will lead to the rise in wild fires, overall increase in earth’s temperature and diseases related to such occurrences. These have deadly effects as it is hard to function. In as much as experts use models to see the impact of rise in temperatures on the moisture content of the atmosphere, it does not take a special eye to see how frequent storms are happening. The last 30 years has experience an increased chance of deadly hurricanes occurring, with the chances of level 4 and 5 hurricanes being doubled. Hurricanes gain strength from warm water, and so the rate of violent storms is related to the rise in ocean and atmospheric temperatures. (Trimarchi 2014). Work cited Causes of climate change (2014), http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/causes.html Union of concern scientists (2014) global warming: confronting the realities of climate change, http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/ Trimarchi M. (2014) top 10 worst effects of global warming, http://www.discovery.com/tv- shows/curiosity/topics/worst-effects-global-warming.htm Read More