Earth’s Cycles and Global Climate Change

The planet Earth goes through cycles in every aspect of its environment from temperature, to water levels, to levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There has always been a limit to the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The Earth is like a human body. If a human does not take care of their body through healthy eating and workouts, they become unhealthy and may have health problems. As with Earth, if Earth takes in more heat than it can let out, or vice versa, there will be global climate changes. This begs the question, what could cause these imbalances to happen on Earth?

Earth’s carbon levels have followed a natural cycle throughout the past 800,000 years where the carbon dioxide concentration varied from 180 ppm (parts per million) and 280 ppm which resulted in several changes in the environment.. In the grand scheme of Earth, these changes are miniscule and have stayed within the natural cycle. But when looking through the eyes of humans, these changes are drastic causing ice ages, draughts, and rain for years (Goldstein 6). During the last century carbon dioxides levels in the atmosphere have become significantly larger than they ever have in the past 800,000 years. Today these levels are at 390 ppm and show no signs of stopping which will cause temperatures to rise because carbon is a greenhouse gas. When a greenhouse gas, such as carbon dioxide or water vapor are present in the atmosphere, they absorb the heat that the Earth is giving off, creating a thermal blanket over Earth trapping in heat (Houghton 20).

Now that the problem has been identified, determining the source the problem becomes much easier. The human population is growing exponentially, in 1990 there were about 5.2 billion people o...

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...impressive speeds, but at what cost? Is rapid industrialization more important than efficient production methods?

After the human involvement carbon levels in the atmosphere raised about 36% from a high of 280 ppm to a whopping 390 ppm (Houghton 37). In order to test if fossil fuel emissions are to blame for the increase in the carbon levels in the atmosphere, scientists looked compared emissions from the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere. They found that about 95% of the fossil fuels burned are in the northern hemisphere and when comparing the atmospheric levels in the northern and southern hemisphere it can be noted that the northern hemisphere is generally 2 ppm higher than the southern. Clearly there is an imbalance in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the natural resources involved in reducing those emissions due to human interference.