“The increase in the mean temperature of the earth due to excessive emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrogen.” ( Green) These extra gases are making it hard for heat to escape the Earth’s atmosphere resulting in warmer temperatures. Here is a model of the Greenhouse Effect retrieved from http://epa.gov/climatechange/kids/greenhouse.html. Ethical Issues on Global Warming There are many causes of Global Warming to include Carbon Dioxide from power plants, cars, airplanes, and from buildings. “In 2002 about 40% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions stem from the burning of fossil fuels for the purpose of electricity generation.”(Ayres) 93% of electricity generations is produced by coal. 33% of the carbon dioxide comes from vehicles.
Owing to the development of industry and the use of fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere has produced and the average global temperature seems to have risen. What’s more, deforestation can affect climate changes. The growing of trees and plants can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere because of photosynthesis, however, deforestation lead to carbon dioxide emissions. Both of these can lead to global warming of the atmosphere. The report (UNEPWMO, 2004, P10) also pointed out, the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation are altering the composition of the atmosphere and contributing to climate change.
Unfortunately, the activity of burning or combusting fossil fuels releases various kinds of hazardous substances and pollutants which eventually leads to changes in the environment; such as climate change, global warming, and changes in environmental health. Let us start with the change in climate or climate change. For over the past 150 years, the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil have caused the concentrations of heat-trapping "greenhouse gases" to increase significantly in our atmosphere. These gases prevent heat from escaping to space, somewhat like the glass panels of a greenhouse. It would change our climate, but it would not bring us close to the level of uninhabitable Venus.
Because they reflect solar energy back into space they have a cooling effect on the world. The greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is also produced however the CO2 produced is insignificant when compared to emissions created by humans. (see also featured article - Do Volcanoes cause climate change) Ocean current - The oceans are a major component of the climate system. Ocean currents move vast amounts of heat across the planet. Winds push horizontally against the sea surface and drive ocean current patterns.
This essay will show the reason why we need renewable energies and two solutions to use them effectively. There are three main problems with the use of fossil fuels. Firstly, although they are the main sources for world energy supply，they are also the main cause of man-made climate change resulting from the CO2 emissions produced. The global carbon budget has shown that 87 percent of all human-produced carbon dioxide emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil (Le Quéré, 1107-1157). The consequence of climate change is serious.
EAP VI/A R/W YUCHENG WAN 11/27/12 Is Global Warming Manmade? Abstract Global warming is caused by numerous activities such as driving, taking airplanes, generating electricity, displaying fireworks, using air conditioning, developing industry and logging because those activities emit so much carbon dioxide that global temperatures rise up. Trees store CO2 in the forest system, so if forests are damaged, much CO2 will be released, which will increase the global temperatures. As this paper illustrates, natural climate cycles have already changed from warm to cool, so global warming is not because of natural factors. The solutions for global warming may include improving the efficiency of energy, protecting forests, producing more energy from renewable sources, generating electricity by wind, traveling in more fuel-efficiently vehicles, riding bicycles and using more efficient electrical appliances.
The Earth’s average temperature has risen 0.6°C, while areas in the Arctic have risen up to 3.0°C in the last 20th century (Gardiner, 2008). Increasing temperatures have already caused changes in the Arctic such as; sea ice covering the Arctic has decreased in area and thickness due to melting of ice and snow, the warming of permafrost, snow cover area has also decreased, and ice on the rivers will freeze later during fall and break up earlier in spring. But why are these Polar Regions more vulnerable to climate change? This is due to the light colour of snow and ice and high albedo, which reflects the solar energy back into space. Due to the increase in greenhouse gases less solar energy is reflected back into space and more solar radiation is absorbed by the Earth causing the increase in ice and snow melting (Main & Ahlenius, 2011).
The sun radiates solar energy towards earth. Some of this energy gets absorbed by the earth’s surface and some energy is radiated back into space as long wave energy. Certain gases in the atmosphere prevent this reflected energy to pass; they trap the energy and thereby warm the atmosphere and the surface of the earth just like in a greenhouse. Therefore, those gases are known as greenhouse gases (GHG). The main GHGs within the atmosphere are Carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O).
Climate change may be limited to a specific region, or may occur across the whole Earth. Discussion of the predicted levels/amount of global climate change. Many greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for long periods of time. As a result, even if emissions stopped increasing, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations would continue to increase and remain elevated for hundreds of years. Moreover, if we stabilized concentrations and the composition of today's atmosphere remained steady (which would require a dramatic reduction in current greenhouse gas emissions), surface air temperatures would continue to warm.
Some of the radiation are absorbed, reflected or scattered, while the rest reaches the surface and warms the land and the oceans. Because the earth’s surface is cooler than the sun, the earth emits long-wave, largely infra red, terrestrial radiation back to the atmosphere where much is absorbed by greenhouse gases since these gases are more efficient in trapping long wave radiation. Some of the greenhouse gases include water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chloro-fluoro carbons and ozone. When these gases in the atmosphere absorb terrestrial radiation, they warm, but eventually they radiate this energy away. Some of this long wave terrestrial radiation travels upward, where it may be reabsorbed by other gas molecules.