Global Warming Paper

THE FUNDAMENTALS GLOBAL WARMING

The process of global warming has had a major influence on both the economy and society. In this essay I will give a detailed explanation of the science of global warming and how other processes, both natural and anthropogenic, has contributed to global warming. The first question I choose address is what is global warming? It is crucial to understand that global warming is influenced by a natural process called the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is a process needed to sustain life on Earth, natural processes such as volcanic eruptions, evapotranspiration, and other processes contribute greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Generally, they include carbon dioxide and water vapor while methane and nitrous oxide are considered anthropogenic (human produce) greenhouse gases. The process begins as short sunrays penetrates the Earth’s atmosphere, however, they exit as long sunrays or inferred radiation and cannot penetrate the layer of greenhouse gases, this results in the natural warming process that sustains life on Earth.

Humans have produced additional greenhouse gases from processes such as deforestation, burning of fossil fuels, and garbage production. Deforestation causes the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to increase, this is because trees use carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and water from the soil to form glucose and oxygen thorough the process of photosynthesis. Depleting tree population in rainforests prevents the replenishment of oxygen and increases the concentration of carbon dioxide. The combustion of fossil fuels release carbon dioxide that was stored from thousands of years ago. When organic material is buried, it decomposes over thousands of years and forms oil, the carbon dioxide that is trapped in the tree can be used as fuel for cars, airplanes, and trucks. Garbage production is another major contributor of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. When garbage is buried in a landfill, it decompose anaerobic (without oxygen) and releases methane that is significantly stronger than carbon dioxide.

I have addressed the major producers of greenhouse gases but I still have not demonstrated its effect on the Earth. It is certain that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are contributing to the warming process of the Earth; the main question is what will its affects be and how severe. The answer to this question can only be hypothesized since we must take into account the effect warming has on other systems on Earth. One such system is the ocean conveyer belt, which is responsible for distributing warm and cold water through out the planet. Let me concentrate on one specific example: Europe and the Gulf Stream. First off, water has a very high specific heat (this is the amount of heat required to raise one unit of water by one unit of temperature), this gives water a unique property that allows it to take a long time to cool and a long time to heat up. Warm Gulf of Mexico waters move North to Europe, since the water is still warm, westerly’s (wind prevailing from the west) blow over the warm water and keep Europe warm during the winter months. The ocean conveyer belt is driven by the sinking of warm salt water around Greenland. Since anthropogenic climate change has been melting polar ice caps, large amount of fresh water has begun to pour into the Atlantic Ocean. This decrease the salinity of the ocean and slows the sinking of the warm salty water, if this process stops, Europe can enter into a mini ice age.

Several additional problems can be caused by the increasing in global temperature and cause additional stress on the environment. For instance, as the ice pack decreases at the poles, less light is reflected back into space since white snow reflect a large percentage of sunlight. More sunlight reaching the Earth will considerably accelerate climate change. Moreover, a warmer Earth will result in melting of the permafrost releasing methane, a strong greenhouse gas.

Global warming will result in rising sea levels, intensification of natural weather phenomenon, and decrease in drought and floods reoccurrence intervals. Rising sea level is cause by two major processes, thermal expansion and melting sea ice. The laws of science states that as the temperature of water increases its mass increases and its density decreases. The melting of polar ice caps has also contributed to sea level rising. Although there are a number of consequences of global warming, rising sea level constitutes the most hazards to humans. Most of our largest metropolitan areas are located along the coasts: New York City, Tampa, New Orleans, San Francisco, etc. Most people are ignorant as to how sea level rise is measure; as a result, they disregard what major scientists have to say. Let us take a close look at what a 1-foot rise in sea level will cause. (Fig. 1) Sea level rises horizontally as well as vertically, as shown in the figure above. Slight rises in sea level will result in cataclysmic damages to cost lines across the globe. Parts of New York City are expected to be under water while other states such as Florida may potentially be eradicated.

How can we mitigate global warming?

Many people believe that the way we can put a cap on global greenhouse gas production is by forming a consensus between all 195 nations in the world. Many conferences have taken place in the past; the most recent of them was Copenhagen. The Kyoto Protocol was one example of a global consensus that involves almost all the nations in the world. It states that all countries that are included in Annex 1[1] are required to reduce their anthropogenic carbon dioxide below the 1990 levels by the year 2050. The protocol has been rejected by two industrial countries, The United States and Australia (However Australia ratified it in 2007).

The cap-and-trade system is another possible way to reduce global anthropogenic greenhouse gases. The system puts a quota on the amount of carbon dioxide large corporation would be able to emit each year. The companies would have the ability to trade carbon credits from other companies that have a surplus of carbon credits. This is more widely supported by governments because it is not considered a tax. However, other has proposed a carbon tax that would tax consumer on the amount of carbon they emit.
Global Warming and the Weather System

Global warming will have profound influence on the weather systems. As air is heated, its ability to hold moisture increases, moisture air would cause flooding in many parts of the world that is not prone to flooding. Flooding along with the combination of increasing sea level would cause catastrophic damages to costal communities. To prevent this, many costal areas have begun to build floodwalls and sea walls. However, these forms of mitigation are short lived, as waves reflect off sea walls they remove the sand that supports it and the wall slumps into the ocean.

Global warming increase the temperature of the ocean waters and make for stronger hurricanes. This is another problem for costal communities. As the waters in the tropical Atlantic warm up, they allow stronger and more powerful storms to develop. Thought this is true, it is important to remember that global warming does not constitute more hurricanes. Hurricanes are formed when both wind at the upper levels and the lower levels are heading in the correct direction. Global warming will only cause those storms that do develop to intensify. The 2009 hurricane season is an excellent example of this, winds blew from the pacific due to a pacific El Nino blew into the tropical Atlantic and helped to sheer apart tropical waves preventing hurricanes formation.

In general, global temperatures are expected to raise thought out the planet. The greatest increase in temperature will be felt at the poles while the least temperature increases will be on the equator.

As global climate continues to change due to anthropogenic influence, we are certain that they would be dramatic influences to our weather system, coast lines, and sea levels. Scientists are almost certain that human activities have greatly influenced the process of climate change. On the other hand, it is important to realize that climate change is also due to natural causes. We began to understand the process of climate change with the development of the Milankovitch theory, which states that the Earth encompasses both warm and cold periods. However, for years scientists have struggled to understand why this happens. Until the theory of Plate Tectonics was discovered, it is said that the continents drift on top of a plastic layer of the Earth called the asthenosphere. Then, as a continent moves to the poles, conditions become favorable for the formation of frozen precipitation. This results in a blanket of white all across the continent that reflects sunlight back into space causing the temperature to decrease. As the temperature on Earth decreases the conditions for frozen precipitation, moves further north or south (relative to the pole). From here, the outcome is obvious; the planet becomes filled with glaciers. As the continents move from the poles, the ice begins to melt and the Earth enters into an interglacial period. The process is repeated.

The purpose of this paper was to entertain the discussion of anthropogenic global climate change. Over the years, I have found that most people are not familiar with the fundamentals of global warming, for that reason, I choose to only address basic causes and effects of global warming. I also find that people are not familiar with the terminology used by scientists to address global warming and choose to use and discuss them in this paper. I choose to omit the complexities of the process of global warming only because I feel that most people are already familiar with them and because most authors have already addressed this. I hope I have address issues that have not been over done, and issue that truly interested the public. I know form my experiences that global warming is an issue that is on most individual’s minds but the science of global warming is commonly misunderstood. From reading this paper, I hope that it would clear not all but some misconceptions about global warming. The information that I presented in the paper is gathered from a combination of physics, natural disasters, and other science classes I have taken in the past. Some of the information has also been researched from other reliable textbooks.






[1] Developed countries such as the United States, Canada, Austria, England.