Global Warming

by Dora Craven, Junior

Fall 2016

For years, global warming has become a seemingly prominent affair and is considered the most widely acknowledged dilemma in our world currently, right alongside the rising demand of global water, and the reduction of deforestation. Our recent climate change has been distinguished as the world’s top global risks in Global Risks Report, which is published in the World Economics Forum. Many have made the conclusion that humans are the primary contributor to global climate change, ranging from the proposition of excess fossil fuels being burned, to population growth and human activity increasing Earth’s average land temperature. Given the knowledge of climate change that I had before I adjudicated what exactly I desired to write about, I was under the impression that the Sun’s increasing radiation was responsible for the sudden climate change. However, due to my recent personal research, I infer that as a result of human activity, climate change has been ongoing since the Industrial Revolution, and is largely dependent on population growth and human combustion of fossil fuels.

Many current issues involving global warming are due to global greenhouse gases, predominantly focused on excess carbon molecules in the atmosphere. The human activity of burning of fossil fuels over the decades contribute to the build of greenhouse gases and interferes with the Earth’s “greenhouse effect” and have grown nearly 80% since the 1970s. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), from 1970 to 2000, greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions have grown 1.3 percent annually containing only 55% fossil fuels. From 2000 to 2010, GHG grew 2.2% and fossil fuels emissions rose to 65%. Scientific analysis has presented evidence that for hundreds of thousands of astronomical years temperature discrepancy have been nearly directly traced to atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Since the Industrial Revolution in 18 century, the emission of carbon dioxide molecules has risen to a rough total of 500 billion tons, about half lingering in the atmosphere.

Excessive amounts of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere has resulted in an increase of Earth’s temperature, as we’ve discussed, but has also effectuated our weather patterns. Carbon dispenses the inceptive greenhouse heating needed to maintain water vapor concentrations. When CO2 concentrations globulate, air temperatures rise and additional water vapor evaporates into the atmosphere, and consequently amplifying greenhouse heating.

Given the evidence I’ve provided, I am still convinced that most of the contributing factors to global warming are due to human activities over the past couple hundred years. However, some contributing factors are only consequences from human activity. For example, oceanic temperatures have recently been escalating more frequently than the long-term average for the past three decades, pursuant to the increase in gloabal temp. Current arid temps cause seawater to expand, resulting in less room in the ocean, and melts ice over land, which is also added to the ocean and causes a rise in water levels and vast floods. Arctic sea ice has shrunken by 40% since the early 1970s,becoming another correspondent to warmer air in the Arctic region. This is followed by average sea levels rising 3mm each year, much more rapidly than any period of time in previous 2,000 years. Even more disturbingly so, atmospheric circulation patterns. For instance the gulf stream (oceanic currents) and the jet stream (horizontal and vertical air currents).

All of these components are thought to be connected to additional frequent and potently harsh weather events droughts, storms, and alternating precipitation patterns. A single gallon of gasoline once burned, produces 19 pounds of carbon, which is released into the atmosphere. Insurers have estimated that weather-related economic loss have nearly tripled since the 1980s. According to the IPCC, there is a chance of catastrophic climate change if Earth’s temperature is not limited to 2 degrees Celsius.

What can you do as an individual? All you can really do is support major companies that help finance corporations that strive to make our future have more stable climate conditions. You can aspire to emit minimum carbon molecules into the atmosphere by burning less fossil fuels. But in all reality, humans have already demolished any hopes for re-establishing stable climate conditions. Unsustainable population growth can overwhelm the effect of GHG, leading us to conclude that "we not only need smaller footprints, but fewer feet."