Research Synthesis Essay

The Earth receives energy from the Sun in the form of visible light and ultraviolet radiation and re-radiated away to the atmosphere as thermal radiation in longer infrared wavelengths than the sunlight. Some of these longer wavelengths are absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as water vapour and carbon dioxide, before they are lost to the Space and carbon dioxide strongly absorbs energy with a wavelength of 15 μm (micrometers) (Climate Science Investigations, 2016). This makes carbon dioxide a good absorber of wavelengths falling in the infrared radiation region of the spectrum. The absorption of this longwave radiant energy warms the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth some

As a result, this timing mismatch caused hatchlings to starve. The claim is supported by a research conducted by Bauer et al. (2009) in Central Europe. The result shown that in the past 47 years, the peak activity period of caterpillar has advanced for 8.7 days while the average global temperature increased by 0.7 oC (Anon., 2015). Another research conducted by Both et al. (2005) also supported the claim. The research is conducted over a 20 years period between 1987 and 2003 to find the population changed of flycatchers in 10 different sites in Netherland. The result found that the timing of caterpillar peak differs in areas and years with a clear shift forward over the past 20 years. Flycatchers have declined by about 90% in areas with the earliest food peak but only about 10% in areas with the latest food peak. On the other hand, there is no research evidence to show that warmer temperature is the only reasons to cause the earlier emerge of moth caterpillar but not by other factors such as environmental change and adaptation

It is supported by the organisation called PlantsNeedCo2. It lists three facts that falsify the hypothesis of carbon dioxide cause global warming. The first one is the ice core analyse from scientists around the world have established the relationship that even there is a change of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it does not mean that an effect must be followed. The second fact is the ability of carbon dioxide to trap additional heat radiated from Earth's surface has almost maxed out per the laws of physics. That is additional carbon dioxide is having very little warming effect. Finally, empirical and real world observations indicate that carbon dioxide is not having a significant effect on Earth's current or historical temperatures. Any influence by carbon dioxide is clearly overridden by other natural causes (PlantsNeedCO2, 2017). On the other hand, there is no research evidence can clearly identify the main cause of the global warming, but the average global temperature and the greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide level, in the atmosphere are increasing. Water vapour should not be the cause because it has a short life cycle in atmoshphere of about 10 days and will return back to Earth as rain (Union of Concerned Scientists , 2017). Therefore, unless further empirical evidence