The Global Warming - Case Study Example

Geology – Issue, Perspectives and case study on Global Warming Global Warming: The actual concept The may suggest that Global Warming is just a relative increase of global temperatures in the lower part of the atmosphere. In many cases, this might even be true, however the true definition of Global warming, extends the phenomena of just an increase in the degree of warmth. It is actually a global phenomenon of instability in temperature. Global warming may cause some regions to heat up, while other regions to cool down excessively (Maslin, 2007). This phenomenon is not just limited to temperatures. It may be related to the level of humidity and the precipitation as well. Some regions might face a drought, while others may experience flooding due to excessive rainfall. Hence, global warming can be related as instability in climatic conditions all around the world, due to human interference in the natural process of the Earth’s atmosphere. According to several theorists, there will be a trend in temperatures seen in many regions all around the globe. According to them, there will be a warming of the lower range of temperatures of several regions hence decreasing the annual range of temperatures of the entire area. These were once just claimed to be theories, however temperature databases have proven otherwise. These trends are not visible by just the observation of day to day weather changes, but by a watch on the weather changes of a region over a much longer period of time, or more easily referred as climatic changes (Houghton, 2004). The temperature ranges of the United States alone have shocked critics. In 1960, the ratio of the average record high temperature to the average record lowest temperature of the entire United States was 0.77:1. By 2000’s, this ratio has jumped up to around 2.04:1. Another trend was observed that the record lower temperatures have increased significantly as compared to the record higher temperatures. This shows a decrease in winter spells of weather in the entire United States by almost half, thus proving the theorists right. This trend is on the rise and will continue to do so till Global warming is controlled dramatically (Zebrowski, 2011). Some might argue that due to these climatic changes and increase in temperatures, there might be a decrease in precipitation in major areas all around the world. This has been true in some cases, however there is a general trend seen internationally of records showing a significant increase in precipitation in majority areas. Taking the precipitation data from the United States alone, there has been a general increase of nearly 5 percent in the precipitation records in the United States (Houghton, 2004). This trend is not regular because the North-Western Regions have received a significant rise of heavy precipitation levels of about 67%. On the other hand, the South-Western regions of the country has received an increase of hardly 9% in the levels of precipitation and have rather faced frequent droughts and a significant decrease of about 15% in average precipitation levels. This entire data has been presented by the United States Global change Research Program. Trends like these might seem mysteries, but they are easily explainable. Due to the increase in hot days throughout, there has been an increase in the rate of evaporation as well (Zebrowski, 2011). This means that coastal regions and the regions where already the precipitation levels were high would face even more severe rainfalls and perhaps in some cases more frequent flooding. On the other hand, the dried regions such as Nevada, with already low precipitation levels, would face higher number of droughts due to increase in the number of warmer days, as the sources of precipitation would dry out even sooner. This trend is not only observed in the U.S., but in other countries as well. Ireland for instance, in the month of March, has observed an increase of 8 wet days in the month alone, according to precipitation data from the past 30 years. A similar trend is observed in nearly every other month of the year. The same reason is applicable here as the reason in North-Western United States. Effects of a Warmer Climate: Skeptics claim and believe that global warming will only affect the average temperatures and precipitation levels and nothing else. This is entirely wrong. With a warmer climate, all of the natural processes such as evapotranspiration will be hugely disrupted. With increase in temperature, the arid areas will get more and warmer as the evapotranspiration of the limited sources will increase. On the other hand, water dense regions will also face increasing evapotranspiration. This will result in an imbalance of precipitation in these regions. Evapotranspiration means the combination of both, transpiration and evaporation of a particular region. The regions will receive extreme levels of precipitation, dry will have less while humid and water ample areas will face higher precipitation (Maslin, 2007). Due to this change in precipitation, the land might face deformation due to the concept of surface runoff. Dry areas will become further arid and the rivers located there might even get dried up, thus deforming the land. In wet areas, the surface runoff will greatly increase, due to increase in precipitation and thus may even cause flooding. This will cause the rivers present there to flow over their banks and hence cause flooding. These trends have been largely seen in regions like China and India. In the 1990s alone, these regions have faced 10 major floods which have cause a loss of more than $100,000 and have also taken nearly 20,000 lives along with them. These regions of China and India face ample rainfall, hence due to increasing evapotranspiration, the surface runoff was disrupted hence these regions had to face a grim fate (Houghton, 2004). Studying trends like these has become necessary. This is so because the climatic changes have become far severe than expected because people largely under estimated the global effects of Global Warming. We need to learn from the general trends observed by the meteorologists and prepare ourselves accordingly. If we have proper insight about the flooding and precipitation trends, it will give us a better chance to prepare ourselves from any such extreme conditions and eventually help us control our financial losses and the loss of lives as well. Further Implications of Global Warming: Sadly, the change in precipitation is not the only change that the planet is to see. What many don’t relies is that the Earth is covered by a percentage of 71 entirely water, which plays the major role in maintaining the Earth’s atmosphere. There are further and far worst implications that might end up in disastrous results for many regions such as Europe, North America and Asia, along with all other countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Global warming has inflicted the Polar Caps of the Earth to a dangerous extent. This will have disastrous results over the system of the earth’s atmosphere. This is so because the polar ice caps are the reservoirs of Fresh water for all around the world. According to studies from the Portsdam Institute of Climatic Impact Research, the Earth’s temperatures and climates in the northern hemisphere are controlled by a feature called the north Atlantic Drift in the Atlantic Ocean. It is a current flow of warm water from the equator to the Polar Ice Caps. The warm and salty water from the equator rises up and travels in the form of Currents to the Polar Ice Caps (Maslin, 2007). This warm water is then cooled down by the Polar ice caps and hence changes into Cold and dense water which sinks into the ocean bed. The heat released in this process is enormous. So much so that it is carried away by Winds over the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, hence causing a warm spell in the entire European region and in parts of the Asian continent as well. This natural process is called the North Atlantic Current. However, with the dumping of more and fresher water into the ocean, the warm water that reaches the polar caps is mixed up with all that cold water, hence disrupting the entire water flow of the North Atlantic Drift. This would mean that there will be no discharge of heat from the warm water hence Europe will not face any warm spells, thus plummeting it into a cold spell unlike any other that it has seen. Manabe and Stouffer, in 1988 were the first scientists to discover this affect due to the absence of this drift. Trends have shown that this disastrous implication is almost underway. Take for instance the region of Bodo in Norway. The average temperature here in January was -2°C and in July, this average temperature rose to around 15°C. However recent temperature data has brought forth a staggering change in the temperature. The average temperature of January has fallen down to nearly -10°C and in July it has also fallen down to 10°C. Satellite data has shown that ocean surface temperatures have dropped by nearly 7°C in regions such as Scandinavia and the air temperatures in these regions have dropped by nearly 10°C. If trends continue like this, then the colder spells in Europe might even further extend and the warm spells might even cease to exist if the North Atlantic Drift doesn’t continue its natural flow. Some might argue that this is a natural process and may fix itself over a couple of years. This is certainly not true. Several human agencies are responsible for this trend. In the 1950s the coolant known as Chlorofluorocarbon has been one of the major causes for this monstrosity. Whenever the fridges and refrigerators went out of order, they were thrown away and their coolant was allowed to escape. The Coolant CFC had almost no effect in the lower atmosphere of the Earth, but when the CFC molecules reached the upper troposphere, they had disastrous effects. The CFC molecule would break down in reaction with UV rays from the sun, causing the emergence of the Chlorine Radical. The Chlorine Radical would react with the ozone molecule in the Ozone layer in the upper troposphere close to the ionosphere to form Oxygen molecule. The radical would emerge again from the reaction and continue this process with other ozone molecules. One radical would deplete nearly 100000 ozone molecules. These reactions caused severe depletion of the ozone layer over the polar caps. This is the reason why the melting of polar ice caps has increased to such an extent. Are we responsible for this? Human agencies neglected the results of CFCs for almost 30 years until it was discovered in the 1980’s that there were huge holes and depleted zones in the Ozone Layer. Not only coolant producing agencies, but human industries that have been established on a wide scale all around the globe have increased the emission of insulating gases such as SO2 and CO2 into the atmosphere. These gases have increased the storage of heat coming from the sun and hence have inflicted a high increase in the temperature. Sadly, the governments of countries all around the world, including the United States are not only silent over the continuous emission of these harmful gases that are polluting our atmosphere, but are also protecting them from various NGOs and organizations who are working tirelessly to bring a halt to these companies responsible for this emissions. The organizations such as NRDC are given limited powers and are hardly responsible for public awareness. Therefore, due to the continuous emission of these gases by human industries without any stop, this dangerous trend in the rise of temperatures, imbalance in the Precipitation, depletion of ozone layer and the disruption of the North Atlantic Drift will continue and further destroy the Earth’s natural atmospheric balance. Case Study: Wabash Watershed These climatic trends are particularly dangerous for the population of the Wabash Watershed. This region is home to the Wabash River, the largest undammed river in the Rocky Mountains, nearly 505 miles long. This entire region has a total land area of around 53,000 square miles. The people of Wabash Watershed have recently faced many disastrous results due to global warming. There has been abnormally frequent flooding in this region in 2008, which caused the loss of property worth millions of dollars. The flooding sequence repeated itself in 2011, whose damage is still to be determined. This has caused a huge increase in the total number of insurances and has put a lot of economic burden on the government. This has been basically caused by the increase in the evapotranspiration of this region, as it is abundant with water due to the Wabash River and is situated in a densely green region as well. This means that due to the increase of temperatures, there has been an imbalance in the evapotranspiration and hence the precipitation which has caused imbalances in the surface runoff. To examine this, we have to study the precipitation and evapotranspiration trends of this region in the past 40 years. For this examination, we are taking data from the time duration of 1961 to 1990. According to the 11 year moving averages of this region, the average precipitation in this region in the 1960s used to be 37 inches per year. This was a significant number, but the geography of this area prevented any serious flooding in this region. However, by 1990, this 11 year moving average had significantly risen to around 45 inches of precipitation per year. This is a huge increase and this increase has various causes as well. This can be explained by seeing the trend of average temperatures in the Watershed region. It can be clearly seen that in the 1961-1990 time period, there has been a significance increase the lowest minimum temperature of this region. In 1961, it was 68°F, and by 1990, this temperature had increased to about 74°F. The average more or less remained the same but this increase resulted in higher level of precipitation in the winters, thus increasing the evapotranspiration in this region. The evapotranspiration has increased, from about 25 inches in 1961, to around 26.4 inches in 1990. These are very significant changes in the evapotranspiration. This means that more and more water is evaporated via transpiration from the plants and evaporation from the river and enters the atmosphere. As there is no significant rise in the highest temperatures, hence the trend has regularized throughout the year, thus even causing off-season flooding in the Wabash region. As there has been no significant step taken in the field of global warming, this trend continues to increase for the people of Wabash. In near future, the temperature annually may be regularized and seasonal changes in temperature may halt, thus evapotranspiration will continue to increase and hence the precipitation which will eventually give rise to more frequent flooding. Consequences like these are the actual image of global warming. Databases like these give us a negative, yet sadly true image of this phenomenon and are warning signs of what might come next. Trends similar to these at both extremes are now becoming visible in nearly every region all around the world. Everyone has come into the effect of this dangerous and negative phenomenon of Global Warming. We have disrupted the Earth’s atmospheric processes with our industries and continuous emission of dangerous greenhouse gases and hence have induced negative effects on the Earth’s atmosphere like Global Warming. If immediate steps are not taken, and our gaseous emissions are not halted, then the Earth may cease to exist as a nurturing womb of life as we know it. References Houghton, J. H. (2004). Global Warming: The Complete Briefing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Zebrowski, E. (2011). Global Climate Change. London: Charlesbridge Publishing Maslin, M. (2007). Global Warming: Causes, Effects, and the Future. NY: MBI Publishing Company Read More