global warming

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Recommended: The physical impacts of HURRICANES

It was a dark morning that Sunday, it was the 28th of August of 2005. Douglas and his family heard a storm was coming, so they went to his mother-in-law´s house, as they always did when there were storms. They were there, and Douglas went to the bay behind the house to check the level of the water. It was too high, and the wind was getting stronger, so he went to warn his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law. As he was heading back, the roof of the house collapsed. None of the three women survived. That is the story of one of the thousands of victims of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. But, why do disasters with this magnitude occur? Hurricanes, for example, are caused due to the energy from water vapor coming from warm oceans. Oceans get warm because, when the atmosphere gets warm, air temperature increases and oceans absorb this heat. In the end, it all came down to the atmosphere.
The atmosphere is a layer, surrounding Earth, composed of air and different gases. One of its main functions is to act as a shield to protect Earth from solar radiation, and, at the same time, to trap heat inside to keep the planet warm. Over billions of years the atmosphere has changed several times. Atmosphere affects climate, so, as it changes, climate changes as well. Climate change, as its name says, is the variation of global climate over long periods of time. Climate model projections made by the US Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show that, recently, global temperature has increased. This increase in temperature is referred to as global warming. One of the main causes of global warming is greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are gases in the atmosphere that absorb solar radiation to keep the planet warm. These gases have increas...

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...//climatechange.procon.org/>.
The great global warming swindle. Dir. Martin Durkin. Perf. Scientists. A, 2007. DVD.
“U.S. Energy Information Administration – EIA – Independent Statistics and Analysis.” U.S.
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"Atmospheric Composition." — OSS Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2013.
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Zukerman, Wendy . "New Scientist."Warmer oceans release more CO2 than thought. N.p., 25 Apr. 2011. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
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"Survivors´stories: Living Through Katrina." NPR. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. To .

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