Environmental Effects Of Climate Change

In recent years, global climate change due to global warming has been largely researched. The paper, “Global Climate Change Triggered by Global Warming,” offers compelling evidence from various scientific papers that the process of Earth’s climate undergoing significant change has already begun and requires our attention due to the probability that human-generated greenhouse gases are the primary cause. Major focal points are shifting towards determining the causes to mitigate the effects rather than establishing the existence as sufficient amount of evidence has proven that global warming is indisputable. During the final decade of the 20th century, climatologists have concluded that the past millennium to be the warmest, especially in the year of 2005. Solutions towards the cause would require assistance from the population as a whole.

Throughout the years climate change has been a controversial issue affecting individuals worldwide; climate change has been debated by scientists including the rest of the world. Many factors can affect climate change such as biological factors and human actions. The intricate details are what go unnoticed and unmanaged, people may be greatly against this claim. However, it is underlying factors, like landfills and driving cars, that help maintain the increasing temperature of the earth thus, climate change has become a controversial topic. There have been concerns that climate change does not exist but there is reliable proof that it does even if many scientists do not agree on the existence of climate change.

Climate change began in the 1820s with Joseph Fourier and in the 1860s with John Tyndall. Fourier put into motion the “greenhouse effect.” An effect where trapped gasses in the lower atmosphere absorb the sun’s heat. Tyndall found that “greenhouse gasses” cover the earth like a sheet. This is how the earth keeps cool and warm. Yet, too much greenhouse gasses can be futile. During this time, humans did not know that they were the ones causing implications. 100 years later, Svante Arrhenius proposed that “…doubling the CO2 content of the planet’s atmosphere would raise its temperature by 2.5 to 4.0 degrees Celsius” (Frank, para 7). Any slight change in temperature can offset the ecosystem. People began to act to save their planet, but there are still many in denial.

The idea of climate change, for many, is an opinionated subject with much discussion of whether it is a real issue or just a natural phenomenon. However in recent years it is clear to see that trends in the Earth’s climate and surface temperature has spiked to levels never seen before. Despite all the evidence of the high levels of greenhouses gases and the rise in temperature, many still believe that

Climate change is influenced by the greenhouse effect which is the increase of Carbon dioxide, Methane, Ozone and Nitrogen Oxide. On one hand, the presence of these gases in the atmosphere make the earth habitable with respect to regulating the earth’s temperature. However, an increase in the concentration of these gases results in trapping energy in the atmosphere and this in turn increases earth’s temperature. “Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown since pre-industrial times, with an increase of 70% between

Earth’s climate system has been experiences changes during the last century. Dating back in 1859 a Swedish scientist named Svante Arrhenius was the first to claim that fossil fuel combustion eventually resulted to the contribution of global warming. According to S.M. Enzler MSc, in his article “History of the Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming”, published by Lenntech, Dr. Arrhenius’ findings were long forgotten, “At that time it was thought than human influences were insignificant compared to natural forces, such as solar activity and ocean circulation. It was also believed that the oceans were such great carbon sinks that they would automatically cancel out our pollution.” (Enzler 1.). Global Warming was just an illusion up until the mid-1900s a scientist named Gilbert Plass began experimenting with carbon dioxide which he soon concluded that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would intercept infrared radiation, that is otherwise lost to space, thus warming the earth. Dr. Plass’ conclusion is very similar to that of Dr. Arrhenius, and the reason why it was not overlooked was due to the advances in technology during Dr.Plass time, proven to have a more accurate data compared to the past. Further research was conducted to help explain the rise in the global annual mean temperature. As of 1988 it was finally acknowledged that climate was warmer than any period since 1880. I agree that

In the early 20th century people knew that they could cause changes to their local climates by, for example, leveling large portions of forests and over ploughing fields; but very few thought human action could affect the global climate. It wasn’t until 1958 that humans began to record measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which revealed an increasing amount. This new data scientists were recording supported the idea of global climate change as real and that increased green house gases in the atmosphere would in fact cause the world’s climate to become warmer. In the 1980’s the world’s global temperature started to climb at a faster pace than seen before which helped the issue gain attention among the public, the scientific community,

Climate change is a global issue that is under an endless debate for its causes. The increase in the global mean annual surface air temperature in the previous century by 0.75C (IPCC 2007) in coincidence with the excess of the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere from 289 to 353 ppm (Lean et al. 1995) by burning fossil fuels support the human-induced hypothesis of climate change. On the other hand, the protestors of the natural origin of climate change build their argument on the variations of solar radiation and volcanic activities (Rind and Overpeck 1993). Meehl et al. (2005) report that the global warming will continue in this century, even if the greenhouse gasses are stabilized. This reveals that the climate change is

It is widely held that climate change is real and happening now Case (2006) as global average temperature has warmed about 0.8°C within the past century. Coupled with this, the past three decades has witness a global average warming of 0.6°C (Hansen et al., 2006). This is largely to due to human induced factors (IPCC, 2001). A recent report produced by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences confirms that the last few decades of the 20th century were in fact the warmest in the past 400 years (National Research Council, 2006). The IPCC also projects that if greenhouse gas emissions, the leading cause of climate change, continue to rise, the mean global temperatures will increase 1.4 – 5.8°C by the end of the 21st century (IPCC, 2001). In a similar

The planet has been experiencing considerable climate change for the last several decades. There have been many explanations toward the main causes of the increased warming of the planet. On one hand are the environmentalists who believe that the major cause of this increased warming of the planet is the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere induced by human activities. On the other hand, the scientists believe that there are natural causes of global climate change. While the supporters of the man-made theory of global climate change reason that the major greenhouse gas causing global warming is carbon dioxide, the advocates of natural causes

The climate changing was first suspected in the 19th century when scientists in britain debated whether Europe was covered by ice in the past. “Guy S Callender suggested that the warming trend revealed in the 19th century had been caused by a 10% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.” (Harding) The debate intensified by 2005 when a study was published stating that a large scale disruption could occur by 2050 if we do not slow the process of climate change. The debate has now spiraled back to whether climate change is occurring or not. However the climate warming pattern has been increasing exponentially since the 1950’s.

The effects of global warming touch every human, animal, plant, ocean, landmass, and atmosphere level on this planet. The numerous effects of global warming are mixes of "good" and "bad" results, depending on how your definition of "good" results and "bad" results are. A "good" effect, a person could say, would be for regions with normally cold temperatures to receive warmer temperatures for their normal. Yet, there are more "bad" effects that seem to out weight the "good" effects. Some of the effects would include increases of flooding, severe storm systems, and rising sea-levels. One major consequence would be an increase of temperature globally. This would

Climate change is a serious environmental issue which influences changes in temperature, humidity, air quality, precipitation, and land surface wetness across the globe (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2011). Small changes in these factors can snowball into larger and potentially disastrous outcomes in climate and weather. For example, the 1.5°F increase in the average global temperature during the past century has been accompanied by serious environmental consequences such as an increase in floods, droughts, heavy rainfall, and more frequent and intense heat waves (Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], n.d.). Over the next century, the increase in the Earth’s average temperature is predicted to rise by another 0.5 to 8.6°F (EPA, n.d.). The risk for additional severe changes to the Earth’s system is projected to increase, as well as the potential harm to the health of the global population (World Health Organization [WHO], 2009). One way through which this is expected to occur is through climate change affecting the indoor environment by creating favorable conditions for the growth of mold, ultimately harming inhabitants’ respiratory health (IOM, 2011).

Since the industrial revolution, scientists keep telling the story that the earth is not what most people might think back then: “a mother”, to be feared and respected. Instead, science today gives man godlike power; the earth is a machine, and we are its engineer, masters. We can change the earth like Lego blocks; we extract from it whatever we want to make use of, without needing to think about the consequences on environment, animals, or people. Humans caused global warming. With the economy that was built to deny any responsibility for the environment and cover up the truth behind their disgusting selfishness, it is hard to start fixing the environment when many people do not even believe a problem exists. I believe that it all came from the overwhelming power of the industry to lie and blind people from what is right there. Related to “Two Economies” by Wendell Berry, the economy that we have is an economy without value; I learned the lesson from history, nothing without value can survive as time goes on. Many may still believe in the industrial revolution but to me it is definitely the end of the world.

Climate change impacts are not new issues nowadays. Many scholars had identified some phenomena that show the occurrence climate change. For instance the increases of Earth’s temperature, the significant records of sea level rise, which threaten mostly on Small Island developing states, extreme weather that cause the shifting season, and drought events. Basically, impacts of climate change cannot be avoided. However as intellectual creatures, humans are expected to be able to take actions in minimizing its impacts. In addition, people need to understand the context of climate change impacts on certain locations over time, and how the local systems work before implementing the climate change adaptation and mitigation actions because these actions could not be generalized to be applied on all conditions. Due to these actions depends on the local context, therefore, I belief that it is necessary to understand about the concept of climate change comprehensively as well as its adaptation and mitigation actions in order to enhance our capacity to deal with the climate change’s consequences.