Imagine you are placed into the future. The year is 2100. You begin to live in this new world. You hear about huge storms over much of the USA that cause severe damage and flooding. San Francisco, New York City, New Orleans, Seattle, and Miami all experience major flooding from the ocean level having risen so high. Thousands and thousands of people perish each summer across the USA alonehundreds die in Chicago as the temperature soars to 100 for 2 weeks straight.
No, this isnt total fantasy. These events all could occur. All of them could result from one thingglobal warming. global warming is a huge problem with many consequences that people dont realize could occur. If we work together, though, we can stop them from happening. In this essay, Ill tell you about global warming, its causes, and what we can do to help stop it. First, global warming is fairly new–the talk of this problem is fairly recent, and so is the problem itself. For example, according to Why Files, from the University of Wisconsin website, the global warming debate first heated up in the late 1980s.
When you look at the attached graph, from Meteorology Today, you can see that temperatures have simply soared in the past century, especially in the last 25-30 years. Due to dramatic increasing, global warming has become a very large problem as of the last few years. Temperatures have really increased. According to NOAA, the second warmest year on record in the world was 2001. In a Why Files report on global warming, it is said that the 10 warmest years in the 150-year history of recorded temperatures have all occurred since 1983. This means that 10 of the last 21 years have been in the list of the top 10 warmest years since record keeping began. So as you can see, the world is heating up. In the Europe heat wave of 2003, London reaches 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time EVER, and in France alone, nearly 30,000 people died.
The Essay on Global Problems
Problems that affect the whole world either directly or indirectly are said to be global problems and they could range from being economical, social, political or environmental. According to me insecurity, global warming, Aids, poverty and energy are today’s five major global problems. (www. globalissues. org) Global warming is a major factor affecting or precipitating climate change, which has ...
And recently in Antarctica, grass was actually seen! According to the Green Car Congress website, scientists have reported that broad areas of grass are now forming turf where there were once ice-sheets and glaciers. Never before was grass seen there! Now, where are all of these sizzling temperatures coming from? In other words, why is the world warming? Global warming is occurring because of the EXPANSION of the greenhouse effect. As a weather geek, I know personally that the greenhouse effects is caused by certain actions that release carbon dioxide into the air, resulting in more absorption of outgoing energy from the earth, and more reflection of this energy BACK to the surface, which keeps the surface warmer. Because more carbon dioxide is being put into the air, there is more absorption by the atmosphere and more reflection back to the surface, so the surface is getting warmer. Now, what actions are resulting in the expansion of the greenhouse effect? Two main causes are burning fossil fuels and driving our cars. According to a NASA earth observatory web page, fossil fuel burning (coal, oil and gas) releases about 6 billion metric tons per year. On the EPA web site, it is stated that most of the emissions of greenhouse gases, about 82%, are from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and power our cars.
As I said before, driving our cars also is a large cause. For example, Ecobridge states that Twenty percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions comes from the burning of gasoline in internal-combustion engines of cars and light trucks. So a fair amount of the emissions is from driving your car. Deforestation, the cutting and burning of a forest, also increases the amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A NASA page says that when a forest is cut and burned to establish cropland and pastures, the carbon that was stored in the tree trunks (wood is about 50% carbon) joins with oxygen and is released into the atmosphere as CO2.
The Research paper on Global Warming and the Effects
... rates at which hurricanes, tornadoes and the general blowing of strong wind is also attributed to global warming. These effects were experienced in ... these vapors contribute 36 to 70 percent of the global warming while carbon dioxide accounts for 9-26 percent while others like ... is a small storm water is blown to the earths’ surface. Human activities that contribute to global warming dates back to ...
CO2, is, of course, carbon dioxide. That NASA page also says that currently the rate of deforestation worldwide is more than 1.5 billion metric tons annually. Fossil fuel burning, the largest cause of global warming, releases 6 billion metric tons per year. 1.5 billion metric tons seems like a fair amount, tooits one fourth of 6 billion metric tons. In essence, deforestation is a significant cause of global warming. Now, we have learned about global warming and its causes.
But what we really want to know about is its effects. Lets look at the effects in detail. One large effect of global warming is intense storms, which could result in possible flooding and structural damage. The NASA earth observatory page says that precipitation, especially in the Northern Hemisphere latitudes, will likely increase. They believe, however, that it will come in the form of bigger, wetter storms. We can relate this to the terrible rains of early 2005 in Los Angeles. Los Angeles received storm after storm, and this resulted in flooding, mudslides, damaged buildings, and even roads collapsing.
We could see more of these storms in the future. We could see more hurricanes, toothe 2005 hurricane season is already extraordinarily active. We saw 4 named storms before July 5, the first time thats ever occurred. We had the earliest Category 4 storm on record. Why more hurricanes due to global warming? Hurricanes derive their energy from the warm ocean. The warm ocean water evaporates into water vapor, the vapor rises, and then condenses into huge cumulonimbus clouds.
But, warmer ocean water means more intense hurricanes, because warmer ocean water evaporates and rises quicker, and therefore condenses into clouds quicker. The faster the clouds form, the more clouds there are, and the more intense the hurricane. Due to melting of glaciers, sea level rise is likely, possibly resulting in flooding of low lying areas. According to the NRDC, the current pace of sea-level rise is three times the historical rate and appears to be accelerating. And since 1979, the size of the summer polar ice cap has shrunk more than 20 percent. Global warming will cause melting of ice caps, and all of that melting ice will become water, and all of that water will flow into the ocean. I read in The Coming Storm that sea levels could rise somewhere around 30 inches by 2100; I forget the exact number, but it was somewhere around there.
The Term Paper on Sociological Perspective On Global Warming And Health Problems Associated With It
Sociological Perspective on Global Warming and Health Problems, Associated With It (1) The effects of Global have been discussed from different perspectives; however, only in recent years, it became obvious to many scientists that rising of Earths atmosphere affects the lives of people in very immediate manner. Therefore, those who suggest that humanity have another hundred years, before Global ...
Thats nearly 3 feet! Ill leave it to you to imagine what would happen with a 3 ft. increase in sea level. An obvious effect of global warming is more heat waves. Intense heat waves could take the lives of thousands. What is also alarming is that Heat waves are already the largest natural caused killer in the world, taking more lives than tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes, according to a fact sheet from the Harvard Medicine site. So heat waves kill more people than any other natural caused killer. But according to the fact sheet, global climate change is likely to be accompanied by an increase in the frequency and intensity of heat waves.
So basically, theres going to be more heat waves, and theyre going to get worse. These more intense heat waves could be like the recent heat wave in Phoenixthe city hadnt been below 89 degrees (even at night) in over a week, and temperatures had reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit for at least nine straight days. Sadly, more than 10 people perished. This could be a preview of what is to come. We have learned all about global warming, its causes, and the severe effects of it if it continues. Now, we must understand how we can try to help stop these events from happening. The best solution I have found is choosing a fuel-efficient car, riding a bike, or taking public transportation.
Choose a vehicle with more miles per gallon, or better yet, dont drive at all! Take the bus! The NRDC says to choose an efficient vehicle, Drive smart, and Drive less. The advantages would include less carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, therefore resulting in less-trapped heat and cooler, and less money spent on fuel. If you rode a bike, no CO2 would be burned for power, and no CO2 would be released when it was being ridden. And again, choosing a vehicle with more MPG would really help. The NRDC web site says that A car that gets 20 miles per gallon will emit about 50 tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. A car getting 40 mpg will emit half that much. And again, less money would be spent on fuelaccording to Ecobridge, increasing the average gas mileage by 3 miles per gallon will save a million barrels of oil every day which would save US drivers $25 billion in fuel costs annually.
The Essay on The Problem Of Global Warming
The Problem of Global Warming First discovered at the turn of the century by the Swedish scientist Arrhenius, global warming was initially thought to only cause increased greenhouse gases from coal combustion emissions. It wasn’t until fifty years later that the real causes and effects of global warming would be discovered. A British scientist by the name of Calendar correlated the 10% increase of ...
Another solution is to take BART. Gas prices, now nearing $3 per gallon, are amazingly high, and parking is even worse! With BART, its only a few bucks to get to work, and you dont have to worry about all that horrible traffic and horrible parking. Another solution would be to make your voice heard by writing to public officials and informing people about global warming. Write to people like senators and congressmen about the harmful consequences of global warming, asking them to try to do things like inform people and use more solar and wind energy. The NRDC says to raise your voice. One person cant stop global warmingwe need to group together as a whole to try to help prevent it.
The more people informed about global warming, the better. Now you understand about global warming, tis causes, its harmful effects, and what we can do to help stop it. I encourage you to join me by informing people about global warming, and trying to help put a stop to it. Works Cited Heating Season. The Why Files. Ahrens, Donald C.
Climate Change. Meteorology Today. Keith Dodson. Pacific Grove. Brooks/Cole, 2003. 520-544 Grass GrowingIn Antarctica.
Green Car Congress. Global Warming-Frequently Asked Questions. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Tropical Deforestation-Deforestation and the Global Carbon Cycle. NASA Earth Observatory. Global Warming-Emissions-Individual.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Causes of Global Warming. EcoBridge. Global Warming-Potential Effects of Global Warming. NASA Earth Observatory. Consequences of Global Warming.
Natural Resources Defense Council. Heat Waves and Climate Change: Fact Sheet. Harvard Medicine. How to Fight Global Warming. Natural Resources Defense Council. .