How Serious Is Global Warming?

This report will cover Global Warming and its effects on people. Also, this report will look at different ways that Global Warming affects humans as well as animals. This research report will cover climate change, greenhouses gases and evidence to support Global Warming.

Evidence

There is a lot of evidence to support the Global Warming; however the significance of the source depends on the reliability of the source.

One of the most reliable methods of collecting data to show Global Warming is ice-core dating. Ice cores are samples dag up from accumulation of snow and ice over a period of time that recrystallized and trapped air bubbles.

Measuring temperature of the Earth’s surface with thermometer can only provide data for past two or three centuries. Another sources of information about the past, is studying peat bogs or dendrochronology. Plants produce pollen in vast amounts, and each species of plants has a distinctive type of pollen. When looking at peat bogs. Differences between species and between the ecological conditions needed to flourish best, their pollen allows scientists to determine temperature and humidity levels of past years.

Tree ring analysis is also used by scientists when looking at Climate change. Each year, tree produces new layer of xylem vessels. The diameter of xylem depends on the season2. The width of the tree ring can tell the scientists about the growth of the tree. This evidence is reliable as tree is dependent on the environment, the temperature and the humidity.

All methods produce reliable data, however validity of the evidence can be questioned. The validity depends on whoever carries out the research. If the research is carried out by a private company (e.g. (BP) British Petroleum) will show only some of the data the most reliable to the question or to prove a certain point. The most reliable researches are carried out by independent companies or universities.

What is Global Warming?

The solar radiation in form of light waves passes through the atmosphere. Most of it is absorbed by the earth and warms it. Some of the waves are reradiated back into space in form of infrared waves. However, some of the Infrared radiation is trapped by the Earth’s atmosphere and it warms it. As the composition of atmosphere changes and it thickens, more infrared radiation is trapped causing the raise in global temperatures.

In natural cycle the concentration of CO2 in the air should equal the composition of carbon dioxide in the soil. However human activity changed that by releasing extra CO2 from the fossil fuels into atmosphere. The natural cycle is out of equilibrium and can not get rid of the excess of the gas.

Causes of global warming

One of the main causes for the Global Warming is human activity. The human needs and populations becoming lazy caused everything to be computerized and the energy use is great. To supply great deals of energy more fossil fuels are burned and more greenhouse gases are given off to the atmosphere. Also the lack of commitment of human race to healthy life styles caused the car manufacturers to increase the car production in recent years. Everyone wants to own at least one car, but they don’t think about consequences of that. Many more cars cause a lot of emission of CO2 into the atmosphere.

The raising temperature causes more water to vaporise, which leads to more UV light being trapped by the atmosphere, therefore the increase in the average temperature. The increase is around 1oC, which could suggest a fast increases in surface temperatures.

Environmental Implications

The increases in the concentration of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere, the possibility of acidic rains increases. Acid rains are caused by emissions of compounds of ammonia, carbon, nitrogen, and sulphur which react with the water molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids. The below diagram shows the damage to the European Forests caused by Acid rain and Air pollution.

The data shows on the above diagram was collected in 1988, which means that by now there would be more damage made to the European forests over the past 20 years as the concentration of gases increases in the atmosphere.

Economic Implications

As the climate changes and the surface temperature increases, the food companies may find it tricky to grow crops in certain parts of the world where they did before. This means that rice for example may not grow in Asia and this may lead to big scale starvation. This could also be seen as a social implication to the Global warming.

On the other hand, car industries may have planned rises in sales. There are two reasons for that. One of them is the fact that everyone now want to own a car, however that will only increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in air. Car industries are coming with new ways of overcoming the CO2 emission and are producing hydrogen powered cars. Many hybrids have been designed by many different car manufactures, however they are not widely available for public use as they are more expensive than the petrol powered cars.

Prevention of Global Warming

To help prevent Global Warming, the emission of Carbon Dioxide has to be lowered and emission of other greenhouse gases. One of the ways in which gas emission can be lowered is use of renewable energy sources.

One of the powers that we could use is solar power or wind power, however in England there is a problem with solar powering as there is not a lot of sun and it is not reliable. Many hot countries in the developing world, for example countries of South America could use sun light as their source of energy. However when using sun light energy, back up batteries or generators are essential as sunlight is not a reliable source of energy. In the UK not many houses are solar powered as the installation of PV cells is very expensive.

It is important that the developing countries lower their gases emission and start to use renewable sources of energy as the consumption is going up along with the CO2 emission. The industrialized countries are around 24% of world population and use about 75% of energy. Along with that they account for 73% of CO2 emission in the combustion of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, it is projected that energy consumption will increase primarily in the developing world related to the population growth and the ongoing industrialization in the future.

Another way of lowering carbon emission was introduced by the car industries which introduced hydrogen powered cars. In hydrogen combustion water is given out when hydrogen is used as a fuel. It can be seen that Global Warming is a serious issue even to the government, as the mayor of London decided to have 8 hydrogen powered buses by 2012. It sound like it is not a lot but still developing hydrogen powered engines are very expensive.