Global warming is a serious threat, one that cannot be taken lightly. This article delves deeper into global warming and identifies the causes as well as the devastating effects.
Global
warming is primarily caused by an imbalance of the "greenhouse gases."
Greenhouse gases in of themselves are not malevolent; in fact, the
earth's atmosphere is essentially a by-product of the greenhouse
effect. The greenhouse effect keeps some of the heat generated on earth
from escaping into space. Without the greenhouse effect and its
corresponding gases, the average temperature of the earth would be
about zero degrees Fahrenheit, and not the current 57 degrees
Fahrenheit. However, numerous scientific institutions have concluded
that the ratio of c02 in the atmosphere, as measured in parts per
million, is much higher than it was during the last 650,000 years, and
is only projected to increase throughout the twenty-first century.
The
creation of this extreme amount of carbon dioxide is linked to recent
post-industrial human activities such as deforestation and fossil fuel
combustion. Deforestation is a particularly heavy contributor to global
warming. Trees process carbon dioxide and release oxygen. As forests
are destroyed, this natural processing center is eradicated. Fossil
fuel combustion from the burning of gas, oil, and coal releases a
'light' isotope of carbon into the atmosphere.
The oceans have
become increasingly acidic from carbon dioxide absorption.
Additionally, the trapped heat causes glaciers to recede, which
increases sea levels. These rapid environmental changes result in the
extinction of wildlife. In the case of the arctic, polar bears are
dwindling. In the Antarctic, certain predatory crustaceans are now
moving into waters that were previously too cold, disrupting and
sometimes outright destroying the ecosystems of the Antarctic sea
bottom.
While there are a few other non-human causes of global
warming, such as volcano blasts and solar radiation, carbon dioxide is
the most potent contributor to global warming. Carbon dioxide has one
of the highest 'radiative forcing' indexes, meaning that a substantial
amount of energy is retained in an average molecule of carbon dioxide.
Although there are several other gases in the atmosphere that can
actually absorb and trap heat more efficiently than carbon dioxide,
scientists have observed that there is simply more carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere than, for example, methane, which has the highest
radiative forcing index of any gas. Additionally, once carbon dioxide
is released into the atmosphere, it takes an average of one hundred
years, and in some cases, up to 800 years, for it to leave the
atmosphere. Because of this delay, the temperatures currently being
experienced on earth are the result of activities carried out
approximately 100 years ago; the effects of the activities carried out
today will not be felt for roughly another century.
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