Preview

Global Warming

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
3291 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Global Warming
Global Warming

11/27/2012
Global Warming

11/27/2012
Individual Observing Project
Individual Observing Project

Summary
Global warming is a significant increase in the Earth 's climatic temperature over a relatively short period of time as a result of the activities of humans. Observations show that warming of the climate is clear. The global warming observed over the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. These emissions come mainly from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), with additional contributions from the clearing of forests and agricultural activities. Reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would lessen warming over this century and beyond. Sizable early cuts in emissions would significantly reduce the pace and the overall amount of climate change. Earlier cuts in emissions would have a greater effect in reducing climate change than com- parable reductions made later. In addition, reducing emissions of some shorter-lived heat-trapping gases, such as methane, and some types of particles, such as soot, would begin to reduce warming within weeks to decades. A protocol called Kyoto has been made to stop this huge catastrophe, but there are still some efforts to be made to convince the polluting countries from emitting extra amounts of CO2 than what the protocol has given.

Introduction
Global warming was once an uncommon term used by a few scientists who were growing concerned over the effects of decades of pollution on long-term weather patterns. Today, the idea of global warming is well known, if not well understood. It is not unusual to hear someone complaining about a hot day or a freak storm and remark, "It 's global warming." In this paper, we 'll see what global warming is, what causes it, what its current effects are and what the future effects could be. Although there has been a scientific consensus on global warming, some aren 't sure it 's something we need



Bibliography: Ammann, Caspar; et al. (2007). "Solar influence on climate during the past millennium: Results from transient simulations with the NCAR Climate Simulation Model" Dyurgerov, Mark B.; Meier, Mark F. (2005) (PDF). Glaciers and the Changing Earth System: a 2004 Snapshot Hoyt, Douglas V.; Schatten, Kenneth H. (1993–11). "A discussion of plausible solar irradiance variations, 1700–1992". Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (A11): 18,895–18,906. Sowers, Todd (10 February 2006). "Late Quaternary Atmospheric CH4 Isotope Record Suggests Marine Clathrates Are Stable". Science 311 (5762): 838–840. Walter, K. M.; Zimov, SA; Chanton, JP; Verbyla, D; Chapin Fs, 3rd; et al. (7 September 2006). "Methane bubbling from Siberian thaw lakes as a positive feedback to climate warming". Nature 443 (7107): 71–75.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    The following paper is meant to inform you about a serious threat facing the world today. This threat is known as Global Warming and has been a controversial topic which has been making headlines across the world in recent years. Throughout this paper we will discuss the possible causes and effects of Global Warming and the ways we can work to prevent them.…

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    global warming

    • 2464 Words
    • 10 Pages

    INSY 2303 Exam 3 Review Chapter 9 Dot Coms Offshoring Outsourcing Database Administrator Computer Engineer Technical Writer Network Specialist/Administrator VAR Chapter 10 Exception Report Summary Report Ad Hoc Report Transaction Processing Decision Support System Batch Processing vs. OLTP Expert System Neural Network PERT WBS Gantt Chart SDLC/Phases of the SDLC order of phases main purpose/activities in each phase main deliverable from each phase Centralized vs Distributed Processing Unit Testing Integration Testing System Testing Chapter 11 Database Database Models Hierarchical Network Multi-dimensional Relational O-O Object-Relational DBMS Data Warehouse Data Mining Cardinality XML Normalization Primary Key Foreign Key SQL create database/table add, modify, delete data retrieve, join data Chapter 12 High-Level vs. Low-Level Languages 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Generation Languages Problem Statement Algorithm Variable vs. Constant GoTo vs. GoSub Syntax, Run-Time, and Logic Errors Pseudocode/Structured English Flowchart Programming Control Structures…

    • 2464 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Global Warming

    • 287 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The sky is falling, the sky is falling! Growing up I heard this phrase in folktales as a “wolf cry”-- a cry that is so ridiculous that nobody would believe it. Now that global warming is a major environmental issue, the saying doesn’t sound so out of place. Most people might say: what is global warming? That’s the question that was running through my mind when I first heard we were watching a documentary on it in my English 130 class. The film is Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and it is about the causes of global warming and what it is doing to our planet. Being an environmentally involved citizen and growing up with conservative Republicans as parents, I was torn between not really liking Gore and this extreme reality that I felt was an impending doom on Mother Earth. The day before my writing class my dad called me and I brought up the fact that I was watching Gore’s film; his reaction was, “I’m paying for you to do that?” I tried to tell him it wasn’t about Gore and when I brought up global warming he claimed it was a scheme to get money and that our wor...…

    • 287 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The average temperature of Earth has been warming up since 1840, coinciding with the start of the industrial revolution. However, we can not establish a cause and effect relations, because the atmosphere does not react so quickly. During the decade of the 80 's started to be clear that had begun a warmer period, so that the discussion moved towards global warming that would lead us soon to a planet unbearable in which the oceans would boil. The taste for the catastrophic end seems endless. But today they not exaggerate so much about the subject. We know that global warming is evolving slowly, is part of Earth 's natural process, but we are contributing to this process and we are not being responsible with our environment. “For almost two decades, the United Nations has sponsored annual global talks, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international treaty signed by 194 countries to cooperatively discuss global climate change and its impact". (Nytimes.com, 2012) Is not a new issue, is known worldwide and is exploring options to minimize the impact.…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Many countries have been working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent global warming; some have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol for this purpose. However, others feel that this is either ineffectual or unnecessary.…

    • 2393 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Along with many other problems, global warming has become one of the top issues in the world. As the consequence of emitting carbon dioxide, the world’s temperature has risen from the past. Despite the fact that there is statistical evidence, there have been controversies as in how much effort should be put in to solve the issue of global warming.…

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Metcalfe, T. (2008). The Sun 's Magnetic Field Changes. The Magnetic Sun. Retrieved February 26, 2010, from http://solar.physics.montana.edu/YPOP/Spotlight/Magnetic/cycle.html…

    • 2810 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Global Warming Essay

    • 684 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Global warming is, in essence, the gradual rising of temperatures in the Earth’s atmosphere. As global warming increases, temperatures become higher; mostly in the Earth’s oceans, which can have devastating effects on the Earth’s ecosystem (Weart, 2004). Global warming in when “the Earth's atmosphere is overloaded with heat-trapping carbon dioxide, which threatens large-scale disruptions in climate with disastrous consequences” (nrdc.org, 2014). Global warming has become a prevalent issue as of late, given our increased acknowledgement of our own complicity and role in the dramatic increase in global warming in recent years. Global warming can happen for a number of reasons, but the most commonly cited one is the greenhouse effect, in which carbon emissions flow between the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere and outer space, increasing in volume within the atmosphere (EPA, 2014). This essentially keeps solar radiation trapped in the atmosphere, preventing it from escaping and making temperatures rise further. Global warming is a very urgent, immediate issue that human intervention plays a big part in, both in our role in facilitating and minimizing contributions to global warming.…

    • 684 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Global warming is the greatest challenge facing our planet. It is, in fact, the increase in temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. It is one of the most current and widely discussed factors. It has a far-reaching impact on biodiversity and climatic conditions of the planet. Several current trends clearly demonstrate that global warming is directly impacting on rising sea levels, the melting of ice caps, and significant worldwide climate changes. In shorter terms, global warming represents a fundamental threat to all living things on earth. Global warming is the term used to describe a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans, a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth’s climate. There is great debate among many people, and sometimes in the news, on whether global warming is real. But climate scientists looking at the data and facts agree the planet is warming. While many view the effects of global warming to be more substantial and more rapidly occurring than others do, the scientific consensus on climatic changes related to global warming is that the average temperature of the Earth has risen between 0.4 and 0.8 °C over the past 100 years. The increased volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, and other human activities, are believed to be the primary sources of the global warming that has occurred over the past 50 years. Scientists…

    • 1175 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Global Influence

    • 3685 Words
    • 15 Pages

    China’s energy demand is increasing rapidly as a rapidly economic development. This trend is expected to continue for several decades. China’s rapid economic growth had caused the country and its people to pay for large social cost, the cost is unavoidable. Green development is the main concern for country development in china presently. In this assignment, the focus is on the green development of China as well as government initiative to achieve goals in green development.…

    • 3685 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Global Warming

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In the article How We Can Stop Being Eco-Hypocrites Raina Kelley talks about five different things that we can individually do to help out our planet. The first example is by getting rid of trash. Kelley shows us how San Francisco is vowing to go waste free by 2020 by setting up a recycling program throughout their communities. A second way we can save our planet is by putting an end to driving. We produce a large amount of carbon dioxide by driving everyday and our economy is the second largest in carbon dioxide. We have the largest transportation system and by cutting down on driving we cut out an obese number of the carbon dioxide being produced. Third, we must watch the amount of water we waste in our everyday lives. Turning off the water when brushing our teeth is the first step but also the length of our showers and your sprinkler system “water supply is being drained faster than nature can replenish it. The fourth example Kelley listed was that we should push for cleaner skies. Now this statistic scared me, “a flight from New York to Denver a commercial jet generates from 840 to 1,660 pounds of carbon dioxide per passenger. That’s about what an SUV generates in a month.” (pg370) How many people does a plane fit? I couldn’t even begin to do the math. Kelley doesn’t believe we should stop flying all together but rather use bio jet fuel so it can reduce carbon pollution. Lastly we should buy less. We have so much stuff in our homes; do we really need it all?…

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cyclical global weather patterns and the increased usage of carbon emissions have lead to an increase of global warming. These higher temperature recordings are due to normal weather patterns according to scientists. Although there is an increase in global carbon emissions, the fact that climate measurements have been increasing since the beginning of the 20th century, long before society began using fossil fuels as an energy source in large amounts, illustrates the idea that “global warming” is actually just a normal, cyclical global weather phenomenon. According to the National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average temperature in 2012 was 55.3 degrees, which is 3.2 degrees higher than the 20th-century average (NCDC). These weather patterns are “described as part of a longer-term trend of hotter, drier and potentially more extreme weather” (Eilperin 1). However, the increased usage of carbon emissions is also contributing to the increase of global temperarures. According to a Global Carbon Project report, along with the record high global temperature average that rise every year, carbon emissions also rose 54%, and will continue to rise in the future. This correlation between record high global temperatures and an increase in carbon emissions proves the point that when carbon emissions rise due to an increase in human populations, temperatures are affected by what scientists call the greenhouse effect. Although the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that “imposes concrete reductions in greenhouse gas emissions on a number of industrialised countries” (“The Kyoto Protocol”), was supposed to cut the world’s greenhouse-gas output, the yearly increase of the world’s population will call for more energy usage. In fact, the World Resources Institutes predicts that 1,200 new coal plants have already been proposed for construction (Yang). When one of the cheapest energy…

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Global Warming

    • 3151 Words
    • 13 Pages

    In 1995 a popular science fiction movie called Water World, starring Kevin Costner came out. The plot of this movie is based on a distant future where the polar ice caps have melted, and the sea level has risen hundreds of meters covering all the continents and humanity is forced to live on abandoned ships and floating fortresses scavenging for supplies. Of course, this was only a science fiction movie, and in 1995 the idea of the polar ice caps melting was too far for society to believe that it would anytime soon happen.…

    • 3151 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Together with 1991, the years of 1983, 1987, 1988 and 1989 have been measured to be the warmest six years in the last hundred years. The year 1991 was the second warmest year of the past century. The consequences of the rise in temperature is being felt all over the globe the findings of scientific research done in this field reveal that the temperature of the earth is likely to rise from 1.4°C to 5.8°C within a period of 100 years.…

    • 1294 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Global Warming

    • 4971 Words
    • 20 Pages

    Paal Brekke - ESA scientist - declared that; scientists specialised on climate are researching Sun's circular movements and the change of its brightness. The Sun's magnetic field and the Sun wind that appears as…

    • 4971 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays