A brief history of Earth's climate
In this essay we will explore some key trends in the study of climate change. For all we know that Planet Earth is unique in that is unique in our solar system that has an atmosphere and oceans of water. Currents in this heat and humidity bring everyone so that life is basically generalized. These currents also create the climate. The weather pattern in a particular place is its climate and climates vary slowly over time forcing life to adapt to new conditions. But recently, the rate of change has increased.
In the 1890s the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, said last ice ages may have been caused by volcanic eruptions less pumping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These gases keep heat thereby reducing the earth to make it cool. Then he wondered what would happen if intense industrial activity produces more of these gases by burning fuels such as coal. He really discovered the factor that industrialization and fuel use associated with changing temperatures global. For a very clear exposoition basic theories on climate change, please read the guide to Denmark and Climate Change 2008.
The Greenhouse gases are the major water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. Like all gases that exist as groups of atoms called molecules. A carbon dioxide molecule consists of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms. A methane molecule has one atom of carbon and four hydrogen atoms. Not all greenhouse gases containing carbon, such as nitrous oxide. However, the main atmospheric gases greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is one of the most important. It absorbs much less energy per molecule of greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and methane, but there is much more of it.
Measurements of carbon dioxide in the air by the U.S. scientist Charles Keeling show their concentration has increased each year since 1958. This leads to a brief description of the carbon cycle itself. Basically, carbon is constantly being absorbed and released by living things. The plants and other photosynthetic carbon dioxide uptake and use of some of the carbon to build their tissues. The carbon is released as carbon dioxide or methane when the plants die and decompose. If animals eat the plants they use some of the carbon to build their own tissues, but eventually die. Meanwhile, plants and Animals release carbon dioxide when converting sugar into energy through respiration. In fact, carbon sequestration is one of the major controls on the greenhouse plants and marine plankton, such as carbon dioxide is no more to absorb.
There are a number of checks and balances that work for stability climate. These can be through positive or negative feedback. Some natural processes are resistant to change. For example, when strong sunlight warms the surface Ocean water evaporates and rises into the air like invisible water vapor. As it rises it cools and forms clouds that shadow the ocean to cool. Finally, evaporation and cloud formation stops sunlight can heat the ocean. This is an example of negative feedback. When the ice forms and snow falls white surface acts like a mirror. Reflects solar energy so that less heat is absorbed by the soil and ice forms. This is called the albedo effect and is an example positive feedback that promotes change instead of resisting it.
The British scientist James Lovelock is famous for his theory that living things regulate the climate and chemistry of the atmosphere in their own interest. In the long term a negative reaction network ensures that life survives despite the disasters that cause mass extinctions. The theory is the name Gaia, the Greek goddess of Earth.
Natural causes of climate change
Before considering the human resources impact on global climate change begin to examine briefly some of the factors in the natural climate change. Climate changes have occurred on Earth many times before humans arrived on the scene. These changes were caused by natural cycles that affect the Earth's orbit around the sun, by changes in solar radiation levels and catastrophic natural events such as massive volcanic eruptions. Some of these changes seem to have provoked events positive feedback, which increased its effect. We know for example that the Earth has gone through several ice ages that occurred at least in part by the orbital cycles. Now are living in a warm phase of an ice age that peaked 20,000 years ago. In a much longer evidence of rocks, fossils and other sources show how the Earth's average temperature has changed since it was formed 4,600 million years ago. For most of geologic time that has been warmer than it is now, but with the ice ages during the Pre-Cambrian and Paleozoic eras.
The Mesozoic age of dinosaurs was a period warm, but temperatures fell during the Cenozoic, until the coldest phase of the current ice age. Besides the Earth's orbit must also consider variations in the tilt of the Earth's axis drift, sunspots and plages, the effects of continental drift, volcanic eruptions and the ages mini ice in a full analysis of natural climate changes. For example, in the 1300s to around 1850, the northern hemisphere suffered a small age ice reached its coldest point in the mid 15th century.
Henry Kamen wrote and excellent book about this period and the works of Braudel in history show the link between climate and short-term events. In Europe crops and starving people and created the very harsh winters frozen landscapes portrayed in many paintings of the period, as the work of Dutch artist Hendrick Avercamp in early 1600. The cause of the age of this particular bit of ice remains unclear but may have resulted from volcanic activity.
Human Impact
Now we must turn to human influence on global climate change. The past century has seen overall average increase in air temperature almost 0.8 degrees C at ground level. This represents a relatively strong recovery in the rate of warming since in the 20,000 years since the peak of the last ice age the temperature has risen by only 4 ° C. Most of the advances of man have made use of fuel which when burned releases carbon dioxide. This has increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air and this comes close to the rise in global air temperature so it is very likely accelerated global warming is caused by our modern power hungry way of life. Ice core samples that we know that in 1700 dioxide level carbon was about 280 parts per million of air. Today is 380 ppm. Let's use some of the ways in which humans are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide of carbon released into the atmosphere. We will consider two important aspects of this – the burning of forests and fossil fuels. Then we will conclude this section with a note on the production of greenhouse gases.
The burning of forests
The most basic of all fuel is wood that people has been burning for thousands of years. Huge increases in human population has greatly increased the amount of wood burning and at the same time large forests are being cleared for agriculture, grazing and road construction – this also contributes to climate change in the release of all carbon forest trees have absorbed in their lives. Brazil has lost more than 423,000 square kilometers of forest. Indonesia has lost about 300,000 square kilometers. Is certain that fires are part of the natural carbon cycle and carbon dioxide released soon absorbed by young trees, but if a forest is cut, burned and not allowed to grow for all the coal is converted into carbon dioxide increases the greenhouse effect.
Fossil fuels
Coal prompted the emergence of modern industry and the steamboats and railroads of the 1800s. In the 20th century oil and natural gas have been developed in fuel for road vehicles and aircraft. The world's first oil wells were sunk in Baku on the Caspian Sea coast in 1847, but the oil industry, really took off in the 20th century when oil refined forms could be used as fuel for automobiles. These are all carbon fossil fuels created from rich long-dead bodies by the processes that take millions of years. That are burning much more quickly than they were formed so the release of carbon into the atmosphere contributing to global warming.
Different fossil fuels release different amounts of carbon dioxide. Coal is the worst, followed by oil then gas. Coal contains other pollutants such as soot and sulfur dioxide which can combine with water vapor form smog and acid rain. For a more detailed discussion, please read Harding and 2008 STARZYNSKA working on a comparison of fuel types.
Another aspect of modern life
Other aspects of modern life also compound the problem. Methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are released in much smaller quantities than carbon dioxide but they have a big impact because they are much more powerful. A molecule of methane, for example, has the same effect that 25 molecules carbon dioxide. Let's look at several aspects of modern life that add to the problem of greenhouse gases and global climate change.
Some of them are obvious, others less known. First is the landfill problem. Developed countries produce large amounts of waste – much is burned releasing dioxide carbon and other harmful gases, but many also buried where it is degraded by bacteria that produce methane – a greenhouse gas very powerful, as we have seen. Therefore, even burying trash can increase global warming. Perhaps a lesser known issue relates to the production of cement. Cement is from stone limestone in a process that turns the rock into calcium oxide and carbon dioxide. Spray and heating uses large amounts of fuel. Cement is also Heavy vehicles, and also uses a lot of fuel. Cement production releases large amounts of total carbon dioxide per sack of cement made. STARZYNSKA Smith will release a more detailed study of the effects of construction and cement industries on global climate change.
Third artificial fertilizers also release nitrous oxide and this is 300 times more potent greenhouse gas dioxide carbon! In fact, food production can cause problems. Our taste for beef encourages cattle breeding cows still producing large amounts of methane. Rice cultivation also produces relatively high levels of methane.
Results
Therefore, by burning, logging, excessive use of fuel fossil fuels, cement production, transportation, intensive agriculture, fertilizer use, and CFC gases humans accelerate global warming.
We now allows an examination of some of the main results of climate change. We fully these can be divided into themes such as heat waves and droughts, melting ice, ocean warming, and impacts on wildlife. Scientists can record temperature increase, but for many people the evidence of change climate is much more evident in the form of heat waves, reduction of lakes, desertification, drought, famine and forest fires. The temperatures high extremes are becoming more common. These are not always recorded higher temperatures, but maintaining the exceptional heat periods, such as the European heat wave August 2003.
Irrigation projects that the problems of shrinking lakes worse. A classic example of the dramatic decline of the Lake Chad – Now a twentieth of its original size. Desertification is taking place. The Gobi and Sahara deserts are expanding in the region the most influential African Sahel. Many people who live in dry desert margins depend on seasonal rains to grow crops and supply water for livestock. If it rains, due to the disasters of climate change continues as in Ethiopia in 2006.
Forest fires are increasingly common in Australia, California and other regions such as land becomes dry – there's even forest fires in parts of the Amazon – a region accustomed to wildfires in general. Just as dramatic is the phenomenon of melting ice in the polar regions of the world. The Arctic ice cap is shrinking and platforms vast Antarctic ice are collapsing and mountain glaciers in retreat everywhere. In polar margins are also higher temperatures melt ice beneath the earth, transformed the landscape of tundra.
Since 1979, the size of the layer of Arctic summer ice has decreased by about 1.5 million square kilometers. In the 1990s, its thickness also decreased by 1m. We see other effects on the road 3 kilometers of Greenland ice thickness, with margins each summer melting and iceberg formations break faster. This phenomenon causes an increase in sea level. About a quarter of the land in the northern hemisphere is so cold that is permanently frozen below the surface. This permafrost is covered by a surface layer that freezes in winter, but melting in the summer the creation of vast areas of swamps. In many areas of the Arctic lower active surface layer is deeper and deeper each year, the melting of ancient ice.
Retreating glaciers in mountain areas is also dramatic examples such as the retreat of the Upsala Glacier in Patagonia High show. In Antarctica the ice is melting faster in the Antarctic Peninsula, where temperatures are rising faster than in any other place on Earth with an increase of 3 degrees C since 1951. The collapse of the Larsen Ice Shelf in 2002 shows the power of global climate change. Heating ocean effects of global warming on the earth are therefore obvious in terms of whether forest fires, desertification, heatwaves, etc. but the impact on the ocean is less obvious. However, the average levels of ocean warming and sea snowmelt adds to the problem.
Moreover warmer waters in the ocean's surface reduces the growth of plankton and carbon dioxide absorption. In fact, rising sea levels are already causing serious flooding for example, the coral island of Tuvalu in the Pacific, where most of the land is just 2-3 meters above sea level. From the sea levels continue to increase over time, even if global warming slows down, it seems inevitable that these areas will be destroyed. The Maldives are also particularly vulnerable. Equally serious is the phenomenon of the current slowdown.
Dense salt water on the surface of the North Atlantic sinks and pushes through flows from the deepest parts of the world's oceans, but the melting icebergs, glaciers and permafrost adds freshwater to the oceans, reducing salinity and its effect on the conduct of deep water currents. Finally, we are seeing the most intense storms caused by warmer oceans. In the temperate zone to the north we see the rain, through 5-10%, causing floods which affected England in 2007 and in Mumbai in 2005.
Effects on wildlife
In the evolution of wildlife in the long term to cope with the warmer and colder, but the process of evolution can be harsh and loss of wildlife may be the latest signs that we are at the beginning of an age of extinctions. We will consider the effects global climate change on wildlife on acidified oceans, disruption of food webs, altered patterns of migration and expansion, early loss of species, wetlands and coral reefs disappear overheating. When rain dissolved carbon dioxide in the atmosphere becomes a weak carbonic acid and the very process of measuring the oceans absorb extra carbon dioxide from the air. This is making the oceans less alkaline and this can make life more difficult for most marine animals such as corals, clams and lobsters alkaline materials needed for training Shell .. We also see that the breaks in marine food webs. Ocean food chain is based on micro drifting life of the fish that eat plankton and finally seabirds.
Warmer oceans are changing the distribution of plankton to fish away from the nesting sites of sea birds. We see the numbers falling within Guillemot communities in the North Atlantic, for example. Our chapter of deep-sea environment also provides examples of how global warming might affect marine life. We also see altered patterns of migration and expansion. Some animals seem to be adapting change to climate change. For example, insects have short life spans and rapid reproductive rates that allow them to evolve rapidly and move easily on habitats.
These include the disease-carrying mosquitoes that spread diseases like malaria and West Nile virus to areas that were previously too cold for the insects. In fact, climate change may already have made some extinct animals. The golden toad was discovered in the Monteverde cloud forests of Costa Rica in 1966. In 1991 it was considered to be extinct because young toads were attacked by a fungus that flourished as nights became warmer. As warmer oceans, tropical coral reefs are also beginning to suffer with coral bleaching occurring. Rising ocean temperatures will likely cause more bleaching threatening vulnerable corals with extinction.
Finally, as droughts become more common and the human population grows and use of wetlands more water, such as swamps and lakes are beginning to dry up. These wetlands are vital for many animals as places to live and drink so its reduction or disappearance can be disastrous for wildlife. Perhaps the most famous examples of global climate change on wildlife found in the Arctic. The ice is shrinking each year and the summer ice may disappear entirely by 2070 or earlier.
The most vulnerable is the top of the food chain – the bear polar. If the food webs are disrupted by global warming will be seriously implemented. Besides polar bears are adapted to hunting on the ice shelf. If this goes away the bears may disappear too. Rising temperatures mean that large areas of ocean that once froze over the year become open water. Polar bears can swim long distances to hunt.The also melts the ice in early summer and ground forces before the bears have accumulated fat reserves.
Conclusion
This chapter has given a brief outline of some of the issues and results of global warming. Let's see some possible solutions in the next chapter. However, it is noted that some scientists believe that climate change may already have moved beyond a case of overturning or simply no quick fixes now.
Dr Simon Harding
www.biblon.com
www.chronosconsulting.com
About the Author
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