Climate Change : Melting Ice

The Arctic Sea Ice is melting or slowly disappearing and it is said to be one of the reasons of global warming. What is happens is that the Arctic Ice it melts a little and gets smaller during the summer season and than during the winter season the ice gets bigger and expands over the Arctic Ocean, “a freeze-thaw cycle that in the Arctic has been dramatically altered by global warming (Global Warming Effects).” The Arctic Sea Ice in the past could grow up to 3 meters, which is around 10 feet, but now the average thick ness is becoming much less, and some scientist are afraid that in a few decades there might not be any sea ice during the summer (Global Warming Effects). Another major thing that has been discovered is that the amount of ice

Climate change is the most significant, most revisited, most controversial, most discussed climate issue in modern history. Global warming serves as a glaring demerit on the lengthy list of accomplishments of mankind: a reminder that progress coupled with reckless abandon never has a good outcome. Though its presence in the national spotlight is a recent phenomenon, the early stages of global warming were detected centuries ago.

Climate change has been happening over the last century, and the debate of its effects has become more intense over the last years. The issue of the climate change has become national, to the point that even the government has gotten involved. The fight between the government and the environmentalists has created a controversy in the United States, but not many changes have been done to protect humanity.

As Earths average temperature increases every year, the discussion of climate change has become a significant topic in the scientific community. Human activities such as powering factories, running automobiles or something as simple as burning wood for heat, emit dangerous greenhouse gases. What makes these greenhouse gases so detrimental is that they absorb the heat radiating off of Earth and keep it in the lower atmosphere creating a “blanket” of warmth around the Earth’s surface. This causes a drastic increase in the Earths average temperature. Due to the rise in temperature, the polar caps have been melting faster than ever, this is dangerous not only because of the risk of floods and sea level increase but ocean water will become less saline and ecosystems will be destroyed, impacting humans just as much as marine life. In the article, Understand faulty thinking to tackle climate change by George Marshall, Marshall states that most people in our world today do not care about climate change because it will not affect them, “Which points to the real problem: climate change is exceptionally amorphous, … no deadlines, no geographic location, no single cause or solution.” (Marshall 2014). Because the author makes it clear that climate change is indeed a great plight, and fails to be acknowledged by people, it is a significant matter that should be discussed

As stated in the previous section, climate change is not necessarily a new issue. However it’s been receiving the spotlight lately, as it should. The issue of the “Greenhouse Effect” has been around as early as 1820’s when scientist Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier theorized that the Earth should be colder than it is. His main idea was that the Earth technically had a blanket around it, trapping in heat and keeping us as warm as we are.

Economic growth is vital to sustain human life; however, the unsustainable consumption of natural resources to attain this demand is leading to self-destruction. The Earth is facing environmental changes, including climate changes, which are altering the Earth system. Significantly higher thermal expansion is inescapable if the increasing pollution by carbon dioxide emission continues relentlessly. One evidence of this change is global warming and its impact in the Arctic Ice. The critical role of the Arctic in the global climate system implies that Arctic Ice changes will have far-reaching connotations for, and feedbacks to, the entire Earth. Currently, the warning signs include: rapid diminishing of sea ice, increased mass

Global climate change is an issue being debated all over the world from the recent presidential debates late last year to documentaries being created on either side of the global warming debate. Currently, the world is experiencing many tremendous changes including warming or the earth and rising of our oceans. “The heat extremes were especially pervasive in the Arctic, with temperatures in the fall running 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal across large stretches of the Arctic Ocean. Sea ice in that region has been in precipitous decline for years, and Arctic communities are already wrestling with enormous problems, such as rapid coastal erosion, caused by the changing climate” ”(Gillis, 2). Some believe that global warming exists while

The world warmed by about 0.7°C in the 20th century. Every year in this century has been warmer than all but one in the last century (1998). If carbon-dioxide levels were magically to stabilize where they are now (almost 390 parts per million, 40% more than before the industrial revolution) the world would probably warm by a further half a degree or so as the ocean, which is slow to change its temperature, caught up. But CO2 levels continue to rise. All this affect the ice pack in the Arctic. As temperature rises, ice melts. This causes many problems.

The major contributors to climate change so far had been the Industrial Revolution and the invention and wide-spread use of the gasoline powered automobile. The world had now become industrialized and new technologies were constantly being invented. The next big event to come from this happened soon after 1945. After the end of World War II in 1945 the world’s economy started to recover. This sent industrial production into overdrive. The automobile industry quadrupled and major corporations became bigger than ever before (Jeffries). The United States had begun to feel the effects of industrialization in the 18th century, but at the end of World War II the economy was beginning to pick up sending the United States into another period of industrialization. The burning of all this coal and oil put pollution into the atmosphere, partially blocking the sun’s rays. This effect caused the years 1940-1970 to get cooler, leading some to speculate that the world was heading toward a new ice age (Jeffries). But in the 1970’s the earth started getting warmer again, and the phrase “global warming” was now used in some research papers (Jeffries).

In the Ian Eisenman, Tapio Schneider, Davis Battisti, and Cecilia Bitz’s article “Consistent Changes in the Sea Ice Seasonal Cycle in Response to Global Warming”, published in Journal of Climate, authors describes and illustrates how global warming affect arctic ice. Authors explain that even though, changes in distribution in ice on both hemispheres of earth looks different it is only due to geological factors. However, in conclusion, the rate of withdrawal of the ice is drastic on both hemispheres, and it is mostly due to global warming.

Ice is one of the first indicators of global warming actually occuring and it is important for research to be done on these layers of before they disappear. The recession of glaciers and the fragmentation of ice caps has been a clear sign to many that rising temperatures are having an impact, even on our very lives.

Because of global warming, glaciers and ice sheets have began to melt. There are also many differences in sea levels and ice sheets. When these ice sheets melt, the creatures that live on the ice sheets’ populations can decrease. Furthermore, a scientist has seen the amount of penguins lower a great amount because of global warming. Their population decreased 21,000 in 3 decades. Global warming also affects communities near the shore. When sea levels rise, they flood communities. Not only this, but the precipitation amount has changed drastically. Since recently, it has increased in some areas and decreased in others. This is because of climate change, caused by global warming. In addition, an invasive bug called the Spruce Bark Beetle

One of the major effects of the changing of our climate in recent years has been on our glaciers. These massive sources of fresh water can greatly change our ocean climate, which can lead to many negative effects on the marine environment. The ecosystems within this environment rely on a delicate balance, and glacial melting can seriously upset this equilibrium.

The Arctic is global warming’s canary in the coal mine. It is a highly sensitive area which is profoundly affected by the changing climate. The average temperature in the Arctic is rising twice as fast as elsewhere in the world (nrdc.org). Because of this, the ice cap is getting thinner, melting away, and rupturing. Here is an example of this; the largest ice block in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had been around for 3000 years before it started cracking in 2000 (nrdc.org) By 2002, the Ward Hunt has cracked completely through and had started breaking into smaller pieces. The melting ice caps are affecting the earth and its inhabitants in many ways. In this paper, the following concepts and subjects will be

Climate change has been around since Earth first developed an atmosphere and it has always been changing. Many things have caused the climate to undergo these changes such as fluctuations in the Earth's orbit around the sun, change in the oceans which absorb many greenhouse gases, and the amount of forest area removed because most of the Earth’s carbon dioxide is stored in forests and jungles. Climate change has affected the global temperature negatively by forcing it to rise, and due to the higher temperature, the world's ice is melting away. The main reason that the sea level is rising is the warming and melting of many large glaciers in Antarctica, Greenland and the North Pole. In brief, climate change has caused many changes in the Earth particularly during the Anthropocene.