Monday, May 4, 2009

The disaster at hand – Man Made Global Warming.

Bits and pieces of the city remain after hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans destroying every thing that stood in its path. Katrina passed away, but left behind it a trail of melancholy. The media flooded the news channels with the cries of people of New Orleans who had suffered a great deal of sorrows. Despite this destruction the previous Bush administration did not get any were near of the bottom of this problem. The answer to this question lies in plain sight. It is not that nature suddenly decided to bring its fury upon man, but the consequences of man’s action were showing up. At beginning, Katrina was just a category one hurricane, but its devastation capability was amplified by global warming. Global warming is an anthropogenic creation and not a natural one.
According to NASA, global warming is the increase in the earth’s average surface and oceanic temperature caused by an increase in anthropogenic emission of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere (Herring). Green house gases give birth to a natural phenomenon called greenhouse effect. It is responsible for regulating the Earth’s temperature allowing life to proliferate on the earth.Without natural green house effect; life on the earth would be unsustainable. Because of this effect, earth’s average temperature is 59°F (15°C) (Herring). If this process was not in existence, the earth temperature would be0°F (-18°C) (Herring). Therefore, the question is that, if human caused emission of green house gases is the leading reason towards the enhancement of the green house effect?
There has been an enormous ongoing speculation in the media as to whether global warming is a natural process. The scientists at NASA disagree with this point of view. Scientist believes that global warming is caused by human because in the latter half of the 20th century -- there has been no significant changes in the natural processes of maintaining the Earth’s temperature. Another reason that influence scientist’s outlook towards global warming are the natural records of temperature that have been preserved in the ice and coral reefs. The light this data shed suggests that at no time in the past millennium has the Earth’s average surface temperature been this warmer or has it climbed as rapidly as it has since 1950. (Herring)
There are only there things that can bring about big change in the earth’s temperature. They are: change in the sun energy, volcanic eruption and, anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases. In the past few decades the sun ray intensity has been almost the same with some variation, but these variations can not explain this change. Moreover if, this change was caused because of the Sun’s activity we would expect to see the whole atmosphere heating up, instead there is only a reported increase in the surface of the Earth and lower layer of atmosphere (Herring).
The volcanic eruptions have a cooling effect on the temperature. Therefore eruption has nothing to do with global warming since the temperature is rising. After taking this into consideration the only one that remains to be examined is human emission of green house gases. Scientists are certain that global warming is a man-made disaster beyond any scope of doubt because simulation models cannot reproduce the changes that have been in the last 50 years unless human green house is include in the model. This proves that global warming is an anthropogenic creation (Herring).
CDAIC says that the Greenhouse gases namely- carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and CFCs are responsible for global warming (blasing).
Among these green house gases carbon dioxide has been received great deal of attention form the media, government, and public. The carbon cycle has been altered in the past few decades with increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mainly from the combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas. (Doyle)Trees are responsible for absorbing carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen, but with the increasing amount of deforestation less and less CO2 is absorbed. Currently 78 million acres per year of rainforest are being uprooted because of deforestation; an area large than Poland (ESSEA). There has been a significant increase in the amount of CO2 because of human activities and deforestation; before the mid 1700 level of CO2 was fairly good at 280 ppm (part per million of volume), but currently it has reached a new high of 383.9 ppm (Blasing). There is a 37 % increase in the amount of CO2 since 1750.The current concentrations are way beyond the natural range. In the last 650,000 years concentration of co2 have been between 180 to 300 ppm which are way below the current level (Global). IPCC projects the growth in CO2 concentration anywhere from 490 to 1260 ppm; an increase of 75-350% since the pre-industrial era (Global). Dr James Hansen of NASA commented that the current concentration of CO2 is good enough to bring a catastrophic change in the climate of the earth; the level of Co2 should be brought to 300–350 ppm in the next few decades if we want to stop radical climatic change (“Oceans”).
Another green house gas that is overlooked is Nitrous oxide. Professor David Richardson of University of East Anglia has issued a warning about the growing impact of nitrous oxide (N2O) or laughing gas. Even though it makes up a small proportion of the green house gasses it has 300 times the global warming potential ( the amount of infrared absorbed) of CO2 and can survive in the atmosphere for 150 years. Nitrous oxide emissions from waste-treatment plants, landfill and fertilizer pollution have increased as bacteria in oxygen depleted environments switch from oxygen to nitrates to respire, releasing nitrous oxide.”(“Oceans”)
The second last of the major green house gases is Methane .Even thought is a far smaller quantity than carbon dioxide, it is extremely capable of absorbing radiation ("Greenhouse”).In fact , its Global warming potential is 25 time that of carbon; its concentration as increased from 700 ppb in the mid 1700 to 1857/1735 ppb in current times.(Blasing)
The last green house gas responsible for man-made global warming is CFC. It is not directly responsible of global warming, but it helps break down the ozone layer allowing more infrared ray to enter the Earth.
If global warming goes on for the next century than the outcome will not be anywhere near our imagination, IPCC predicts an increase of 2.5°-10.4°F in Earth’s average temperature. The sea level will rise between 9 and 88 cm; this doesn’t include any major melting from Greenland and Antarctica if this ice glaciers were to melt than the sea level would rise more that 20 feet.( Herring)
The way we stand on this issue the future at this point looks pitch dark. The pace we are moving is not the path of progress but the path of destruction. The fate of the future generation rest in our hand, so it about time we wake up and what is right. Small changes can cut down emission of green house gases like driving less, using more fuel efficient car, insulating homes, planting trees etc. We as a society should urge the government to use more renewable energy sources, stop deforestation, and increase energy efficiency standards. It time that we make the world a better place.