Many people might think that anthropogenic influences are the only cause to climate change on Earth. However, there are many factors which are unnoticed by the human population that contributes to this crucial issue. For example, the most common phenomenon is global warming which is a factor to the progression of climate change over time. (1) This means that climate change has not just happened for a year, but throughout the Earth`s climatic history. In the modern era, this has been a controversial issue at which people only think that human activity is a primary cause of climate change, but there is a consensus view of this problem. There are 97.1 percent of the scientists who believe that climate change trends are caused by human effects. (10) This means that human actions such as deforestation, burning of fossil fuels, and growing population results in an increase of greenhouse gases such as CO₂ in the atmosphere to contribute to the greenhouse effect. (4, 5) Nevertheless, there are many natural causes such as volcanic eruptions to cause global cooling, solar irradiance which affected climate in the past and ocean currents which affects the exchange of gases going in and out the atmosphere. (2, 3)
To begin, a cause of climate change due to human effect is deforestation and using it for land purposes and agriculture. One of the effects is that the water cycle is disrupted due to the loss of trees which moves water vapour up to the atmosphere. (6, 9) Also, trees absorb the greenhouse gases so without it there is an increase amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. (6) According to the IPCC, based on the Edgar Databases in 2004, the result of deforestation caused 7-16 percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions. (7)It is because the e...
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15) http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains3.html
16) http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_01.pdf
17) http://eprints.usq.edu.au/2530/1/climate_justice_campaigns_and_environmental_refugees.pdf
18) http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php
19) http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/ROG2000.pdf
20) http://climate.nasa.gov/causes
21) http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/3945/2013/acp-13-3945-2013.pdf
22) http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SORCE/sorce_03.php
23) http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms1.html
24) http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms3.html
25) http://www.pfeg.noaa.gov/research/climatemarine/cmfoceanatm/cmfoceanatm2.html
26) http://www.neaq.org/conservation_and_research/climate_change/climate_change_and_the_oceans.php
Climate change is one of the biggest concerns for all nations across the globe over centuries. Climate shift refers to changes in patterns of weather which can be indicated through global warming, natural disasters and rise in sea level. There is a group of people, climate change skeptics, argue that climate change is not the result of human activity, meaning that it is naturally occurred. According to Slaght, this refers to internal factors which are the interaction between the atmosphere and ocean, and external factor, such as solar energy variations and volcanic eruption (John Slaght, 2009). However, most scientist claims that human also involve in this process. Consequently, this essay aims to discuss the impacts of greenhouse gases on climate, and then the contribution of human to climate change and lastly, some statistics about the effects of global warming.
Mankind’s industrialization of the world has caused a drastic increase in temperature. This rise in temperature is caused by solar radiation remaining in our atmosphere because of gases produced by humans through the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, and other human activities. These gases block the radiation from escaping into space therefore warming our planet. The result is raising of ocean levels, extinction of species and threatening of children’s health because of disease and less freshwater to drink. While many view climate change to be a more natural occurrence than others do, scientists have proven the average temperature rise of the Earth between 0.4 and 0.8 °C over the last 100 years.
There are so many factors in today’s growing population and its action that contributes to the environment. With the rise in population there is also increase in the needs and demands resulting in more production of food and assets. Most of the actions of human lead to increased environment risks which in return will only effect the livings of this planet. Currently mostly all individuals have at least one form of vehicle for transportation. There is increased industrialization and requires a lot of energy which comes from fossil fuels as the need for oil increases to fuel large amounts of humans daily work and chores. The climate change is no mystery, it is known to be cause of various human actions trying to satisfy their needs while putting
Global warming, by definition is the “ gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants.”(Webster) In the last several decades, there have been numerous debates regarding global warming. As of now it has become one of the biggest problems facing the world today. Scientists do believe that our production of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide is having a warming effect on the atmosphere, but it also is creating a positive impact to on the planet. The controversial side is scientific consensus that it is the fault of mankind that our actions have led to the results of earthquakes, tidal waves, geographical plates moving, all because of global warming pollution. The other side that is also debated on is that global warming can bring new developments to our planet and to all that dwell within. In this paper I will examine the positive and negative side of global warming and suggest some ways nature and humans are solving the issue. Global warming is causing the largest impact to nature and humanity in the 21st century, but with green house gases on the rise, humanity, nature, and species will learn to evolve.
Nowadays, earth has been facing a series of severe environmental issues which require urgent attention to make the ecology friendly, and global warming is considered as the most vital one. Although some people doubt and disagree that global warming is happening, climate change is real and it is mainly influenced by human activities through the increased production of green house gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. Global warming has the effect of melting polar ice caps and glaciers, which will lead to sea level to go up. Moreover, due to the rise of sea level, the survival of those people who live in islands and coastal cities can ultimately be threatened. Deforestation has been considered to be one of the most important contributing factors to global climate change. Also, since trees absorb greenhouse gases, reduce carbon emissions, and produce oxygen, without trees, the greenhouse effect can be improved tremendously. As World Resources Institute has pointed out in the data, forest loss contributes between 12 percent and 17 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, what is “deforestation”? Why do people have to deforest? How does it affect environment?
Throughout history climates have drastically changed. There have been shifts from warm climates to the Ice Ages (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2009, p.204). Evidence suggests there have been at least a dozen abrupt climate changes throughout the history of the earth. There are a few suspected reasons for these past climate changes. One reason may be that asteroids hitting the earth and volcanic eruptions caused some of them. A further assumption is that 22-year solar magnetic cycles and 11-year sunspot cycles played a part in the changes. A further possibility is that a regular shifting in the angle of the moon orbiting earth causing changing tides and atmospheric circulation affects the global climate (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2009, p.205). Scientific studies suggest that all these played a role in past global warming and cooling periods. Today, however, there is a lot of conflict on whether humans are causing a global warming that could be disastrous to humans and all species of plants and animals on this earth. This paper will first explain the greenhouse effect, then take a look at both sides argument, and, finally, analyze the effect of global warming on world-wide sustainability
Climate change refers to the long term change in weather patterns. The changes in weather patterns could last from a period of a few decades to millenniums (Field). The average weather conditions may be altered as a sign of climate change. The variations in terms of weather conditions and time may also result into an increase in the number of extreme weather conditions, while also reducing the number of favorable weather seasons. Climate change is caused by a myriad of factors. Among them includes plate tectonics, biotic processes, volcanic eruptions and the variations of radiation that reaches earth (Bulkeley et al.). There have also been reported cases of human contribution to the rate and condition of global warming as it is seen to take place today. Pollution activities have been majorly noted as the primary causes of global warming. Destruction of the natural environment through activities such as the rapid deforestation activities and pollution of the atmospheric space have greatly
The article “an introduction to climate change” describes in detail about the causes of climate change, and its potential effect on earth. According to this article, the global warming is due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other pollutants formed from burning fossil fuels that accumulate on earth’s atmosphere so that light rays are reflected back to the earth surface causing the atmospheric air to heat up. In addition, the article also gives some relevant solutions to global warming such as reducing air pollution and use of “clean energy.”
Global warming means the rise in the mean global temperature to a level which affects the life-forms on the earth surface. The factors responsible for this warming may be both natural and human induced. For the past centuries human reaction with an environment for industrialization was bad for the betterment of their livelihood pollution level increased which is caused largely by human activities. Therefore significant evidences of global warming due to green house gas, increased in global temperature, increase in sea level, and retreat of Himalayan glaciers are based on human induced.
Global warming is a war that we should not get involved with because we will lose if changes aren’t made soon. Global warming is the rapid increase in earth’s average surface temperature over the past century due to the fact that greenhouse gases are being released into the atmosphere increasing the earth’s average temperature (EarthObservatory.NASA.org). There are many contributing factors that play a role into the cause of global warming. Greenhouse gasses are gasses such as Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Nitrous Oxide, and F-gasses that trap heat in the atmosphere. The heat that is trapped in the earth’s atmosphere is a slowly melting glaciers, cause sea levels to rise and is messing with the weather patterns. People need to get educated and recognize that global warming is a problem and it might not affect us in our life time but if we continue to ignore the problem out children will be greatly affected by the threats we are seeing right now. Slowly sea levels are rising over time. In the past century sea levels have gone up an average of 4 to 8 inches, and scientist believe that this change is accelerating over time. They predict that by 2100 sea levels will have risen an average of about 10 to 23 inches (nrdc.org). Between the months of January and March of 2002, a piece of the Larsen B shelf in Antarctica collapsed. The Piece of the ice shelf was the size of Rhode Island, scientist found this surprising
Every place, country, city, region has its own climate. Climate plays one of the important roles in people’s life. Climate is defined as the average weather, which means variety of weather conditions as rain, snow, hail, sun, and wind over period of time about 30 years that can be measured in any particular place.( IPCC Third Assessment Report - Climate Change 2001; editor:A.P.Baede) Climate change is a variation of average weather. There are 2 causes of climate change. The first is human activity which includes deforestation, burning fossil fuels, agriculture, transportation and infrastructure. The second is natural causes which include volcanic eruptions and variations in solar outputs. These causes have negative effect on the natural environment which leads to increasing of temperature, increasing in sea level, changing of precipitations, extremely weather, killing species of animals, birds, fish and plants. This essay will show that the causes of climate change have different effects on the environment. Atmospheric carbon dioxide variations, volcanic eruptions and solar outputs, have negative impacts on animals, plants, and environment.
As we approach the future we are faced with many global problems. Most of these problems arise because we have caused them ourselves. We need to face these problems and find a solution. Global warming, although most often overlooked in importance, is a crucial problem of the future directly related to human activities. Global warming is caused by gases humans release into the atmosphere called anthropogenic gases and by deforestation. Anthropogenic gases include carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofl...
Climate Change can result from both natural events and human activities. Some examples of natural causes of climate change are volcanic eruptions, ocean currents, solar variations, and earth’s orbital changes. Some examples of human activities are fossil fuels, warming of temperature due to industrialization, and deforestation of tropical rainforests. Factors of climate change can change and vary naturally over time. The issue of the fast increase in earth’s temperature over the past years is one of global importance and disputed origin. All these justifications are for the change in the earth’s temperature are valid, however, there is a reason to believe that human activity and carbon dioxide emissions are a great part of the cause for the
The earth is a complex system, which continues to evolve and change. Climate change and global warming are currently popular in the political agenda. But what does “climate” really mean? The difference between weather and climate can be conveyed in a single sentence: “Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.” Based on research of the geologic record, we know that climate change has happened throughout Earth's history and at present, ever-increasing evidence points to the roles that humans play in altering Earth systems. The Earth and its atmosphere receive heat energy from the sun; the atmospheric heat budget of the Earth depends on the balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing radiation from the planet; which has been constant over the last few thousand years. However present evidence seems to suggest that the recent increase in temperature has been brought about by pollution of the atmosphere, in particular the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide, mostly through Anthropogenic Forcing (human activity) and other various internal and external factors. I...
Climate change is a serious problem and the effects can clearly be seen through new and extreme weather. I think that many people have under estimated climate change, because they automatically associate it with global warming and do not believe that it is real. However, it is a huge and growing concern. Climate change is an accepted scientific consensus proven by a large amount of data. The first step to impacting climate change is to change this mistaken view. By stressing the amount of evidence showing that climate exists, the need to work to reduce it will become apparent. Then, actions can be made to slow climate change. Climate change is largely influenced by human activities and the production of greenhouse gases. By reducing the world’s carbon foot print, the effects of global warming will become less extreme. Currently, global warming is melting the polar ice caps, causing a threat to humans leaving in tropical and coastal islands. However, these effects can become e...