Six Degrees Could Change The World Video Paper

447 Words2 Pages
The world is getting warmer. Whether the cause is human activity or natural – evidence says it is likely humans- readings from all around the world state that the world’s temperatures are steadily rising. How much though? And what will the effects be if they continue to intensify? According to temperature readings conducted all over the world, the Earth’s temperature has increased by about one degree Celsius. But why should we care about one degree of warming? A one degree global change is significant because it takes a vast amount of heat to warm all the oceans, atmosphere and land by that much. In the past, one to two degree drop could cause the world to plunge into a little ice age. Global temperature mainly relies on the amount of energy received from the sun and on the chemical composition of the atmosphere, particularly the green house gases which trap heat. With a one degree gain the world could easily experience major droughts, fires, even some flooding and storms. How is the scientific data of temperature increases collected and how do we learn about the affects changing temperatures could have on our planet? To conduct its analysis scientists collect data from multiple sites including: ship-based and satellite observations of sea temperatures, meteorological stations around the world, and Antarctic research station measurements. The affects generated from this data can then be used to create hypothetical but scientifically supported theories to what the impact the changing temperatures could have on Earth. The video Six Degrees Could Change the World by National Geographic personally had a significant impact on me. I knew that “global warming” was occurring as we speak and I knew that there were some dramatic effects from it. I could not, however, even fathom how fast it was happening nor that some of the effects demonstrated were even possible.
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