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Cause and effect of global warming
Cause and effect of global warming
Climate change human activities impacting global warming
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Introduction The country Maldives is a string of beautiful islands that can be found just southwest of India. The problem with this is that the islands are surrounded by the Indian Ocean and the sea level is rising because of global warming and the islands are no higher than eight feet above sea level. There is an overwhelming consensus amongst scientist that human activities from countries around the world are primarily responsible for global warming due to the use of fossil fuel, pollution, and deforestation. These activities contribute to excessive fluorinate, nitrous, methane, chlorofluorocarbon, and carbon dioxide gases being emitted into the atmosphere. These emissions contribute largely to the greenhouse gases which are the cause of global warming. The effects of global warming are; record high temperatures, glaciers melting, and sea levels rising. Even though the effects of global warming will eventually be felt by everyone, it will however be felt by low-lying islands like Maldives first, threating their very existence. As the ocean slowly consumes the islands the islanders will be subject to economic hardship, civil conflict, and displacement. Maldives Maldives is a collection of about 1000 islands with a combined mass of 115 square miles occupied by approximately 330,000 people, which is in the Indian Ocean (Hannah, J. A., Muller, P. O., & Nijman, J., 2012). The rise in the sea level is a concern that all of Maldives shares, the islands only set eight feet above sea level at its highest point. Any rise in the sea level would disrupt the country’s economic balance. The rising sea level threatens the beachfront resorts for which most of Maldives economy depends on. Thousands of people every year travel to Maldives to... ... middle of paper ... ... Regions (5th ed., p. 451). Jay O'Callaghan. Hoffman, J. (2007, May). The maldives & rising sea levels [Fact sheet]. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from Ice Case Studies website: http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/maldives.htm IPCC [Fact sheet]. (2014). Retrieved from Intergovernmental Panel on Cimate Change website: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ Jacob, T., Wahr, J., Pfeffer, T. W., & Swenson, S. (2012). Recent contributions of glaciers and ice caps to sea level rise. Nature, 514-518. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10847 McMean, G. (2007, June). Artic climate impact assessment (C. Symon, Ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge Univercity Press. http://www.acia.uaf.edu/pages/scientific.html Szalay, J. (2013, March 6). Deforestation: fact, causes & effects [Fact sheet]. Retrieved March 12, 2014, from LiveScience website: http://www.livescience.com/27692-deforestation.html
The effect of sea level rising is especially challenging for the population that lives in low-lying coastal communities, such as Miami Beach. The city is surrounded by sea. Miami Beach is linked to the mainland city of Miami through causeways, and it is an area that allocates much of the wealth from its art decoration and former celebrity playground standing. For them, funding does not seem to be a problem. However, the threat they are facing, cannot be entirely solved by money. Its sea level rising is at 9 millimeters a year, while there is only 3 millimeters on global average acceleration. If the sea level rises for 6 feet by 2100, Miami Beach city will get swallowed. When referring about sea level rising phenomenon, Miami Beach always acts as a ground zero example. Government leaders around the world are waiting to see how this rich living laboratory experiment place can avoid drowning. Below is a figure showing the sea level rising between 1900 and 2020 in Miami and Miami Beach
Global warming affects the ocean water level because of the raising temperatures; it causes the icebergs to melt which adds more water in the ocean. This poses a threat to Hawaii and other islands because Hawaii is made up of islands, which are small and surrounded by water. This leaves us at risk for many things with the reef and the people.
. Policy Problem Rising sea levels are becoming a prominent issue along with global warming and climate change for many regions near coastal areas, with Miami, Florida being one of the most detrimental areas. With a current population of 413,892 living just 6 feet above sea level, Miami is positioned as one of the first areas to experience some of the disastrous effects of climate change (Johnson). Within the next 100 years, rising sea levels have the ability to damage South Florida’s fragile barrier islands, the population that lives near coastal areas, and its appealing subtropical beaches (Madigan A12). Coastal areas, which provide the largest area for disaster, however, are not the only areas that will experience the effects of climate change.
Climate scientists project that the detrimental effects of climate change will be most profoundly felt in low-income and tropical regions like Puerto Rico, making the island highly susceptible to climate change effects such as ocean acidification, rising temperatures and sea levels, and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Puerto Rico’s Climate Change Council (PRCCC) expects that the rising sea levels in Puerto Rico will affect our infrastructure, freshwater resources, agriculture, ecosystems and economic growth. The government needs to decide whether Puerto Rico requires more elaborate strategies for combatting rising sea levels, while taking into consideration what measures are
The use of fossil fuels has greatly increased the amount of atmospheric and oceanic CO2 to a point where it’s ruining the natural flow of the world; the earth’s temperature is rising. As a result, the polar ice caps are melting causing the seas to rise. With only a 1 meter increase in sea level the United States alone could lose over 10,000 square miles of land, and thousands of houses will be destroyed. The effects will be just as prominent around the world: many islands will become submerged, 17% of Bangladesh will be underwater, and tens of thousands of people will be displaced (“Global Warming” 3).
WPF/World Preservation Foundation, 2010, Deforestation statistics, sponsored by WPF, viewed 3rd November 2013, Available at: http://www.worldpreservationfoundation.org/blog/news/deforestation-statistics/#.UoFtypQY3TV
A research from a group of scientists from Utrecht University confirmed that a third of the current ice mass in Asia will be lost by 2100 if temperature rise 1.5 degrees celsius above the pre-industrial level.3 Climate scientists, Kraaijenbrink, Bierkens, Lutz, and Immerzeel used a climate model and a set of scenarios to conduct their experiment on 33,587 glaciers found around China, India, Tibet and Mongolia and analyzed the change in ice mass as temperature increase. The team projected that a third of the current ice mass in Asia will be lost by 2100 if the temperature rises 1.5 degrees celsius above
Consequences of Global Warming? N.p., n.d. Web. The Web. The Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
There is no longer any question that our world climate has changed (King, 2004). Over the last 100 years, "temperatures have risen by about 0.6 degrees Celsius and global sea level has risen by about 20cm" (K...
RISING SEA LEVEL AND ITS MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS/COASTAL WETLANDS BEING MOST VULNERABLE AND THE POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES AND IMPACTS (2 PAGES)
These scientists are not looking at the short term effects of sea level rise, but the long term effects which could be catastrophic. Another scientist named Richard Alley stated that “you want to be able to handle the problem, but not be too conservative,” which means that we should only control what we can control but not be too concerned with the things that are naturally occurring processes. If these ice sheets are really that big it
All over the world indigenous communities are faced with an array of new problems, though the public continues to gain insight into the lives of these people they continue to be marginalized in the global arena as well. The Pacific Islands are an entity far removed from the minds of most westerners. The primary focus of any political discourse within the United States places most emphasis on Australia and New Zealand ignoring the smaller less politically salient states. However, it is these smaller islands that will bare the brunt of one huge problem in the future, global warming. For the purpose of this paper I will ignore the polemics of global warming and not hypothesize whether or not it actually has any permanent adverse effects on the ecosystems of the world or whether or not it is cyclical. Instead, I will focus on the evidence already documented within the Pacific Island states, evidence which lends strong support to the notion that the earth is getting warmer and the oceans are rising. For the people of the lowland Pacific Islands it doesn’t matter if the current warming is a temporary trend that will reverse itself in a few centuries, they will have to deal with it on a much more short-term basis. The ocean has already begun to change and for the people of the Pacific Islands that is a major concern, it could be catastrophic if left unattended. The prospect of rising waters in the oceans has a transcendent effect on the Pacific Islands. Not only will the oceans rise and the seas become more torrent, their very cultures could be uprooted and their modes of existence forever changed.
According to NOAA, air temperatures in the Arctic were 4°C warmer in 2010 than in the period from 1968-1996. Satellite images show that sea ice cover has declined by about 30% over the last 30 years. Satellite data also shows that snow cover on land in the region has decreased and glacial ice is retreating in Greenland and northern Canada (Climate Change in the Arctic, 2017). According to our text, Global Climate Change, loss in volume of sea ice in the Arctic is more indicative of
One of the major effects of global warming is the rise of sea level due to thermal expansion of the ocean, in addition to the melting of land ice. Now there are dozens of land areas that sit well below sea level and the majority of those land areas are very well populated. At least 40 percent of the world 's population lives within 62 miles of the ocean, putting millions of lives and billions of dollars ' worth of property and infrastructure at risk. (Juliet Christian-Smith, 2011) This means if the sea level rises to the projected level of 25 meters (82 feet) half of the world will retreat back to the ocean. (Rohrer, 2007) Also rising sea levels means higher tides and storm surges riding on ever-higher seas which are more dangerous to people and coastal inf...
The Maldives: a group of islands just off Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. This tropical paradise sees thousands of tourists visiting its shores per year. There is just one problem: the highest point of the Maldives is just six feet above sea level, which means that any rise in water level at all would spell disaster for the 1,190 islands and their inhabitants. That is why for the last decade or so the Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed worked vigorously in the fight against global warming while overcoming the tyranny of the previous government. Although this could be the end of this beautiful country Nasheed is not giving up yet.