Human Influence on Global Warming

Discuss About The Global Experienced Periods Of Warming.

Global warming is referred to as the long-time rise in the average temperature of the climate of the Earth which is again known as the aspect of the climate change shown by the measurement of temperature and its multiple effects of the warming. However, earlier earth related periods have experienced periods of warming, where the terms refers to the observed and continuing increase within the average air and ocean temperatures since the year of 1900 which were caused mainly by the emissions of the greenhouse gases within the modern industrial economy. Down the modern context, the term global warming and the climate change are generally used interchangeably, however the climatic change includes both of the global warming and the effects which is has on the environment and the species living within the enclosure of the environment.  

In the year of 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report concluded that the great significance and the reason behind the warming since the 20^th Century has been due to the human influence. The majority of the human influence was due to the emission of the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Climate model evaluations summarized in the report which stated that during the time of the 21^st century, the surface temperature is supposed to rise a further of 0.3 to 17 degree Celsius depending on the rate of rise in the future emissions of greenhouse gases and climate feedback effects.

The effects of global warming include the conditions such as that of rise in the sea level, regional changes in precipitation, more frequent extreme weather events such as heat waves and expansion within the desert area. Increase of surface temperatures are greatly observed in the Arctic with the continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice. Overall, the higher temperatures bring in more rain and snowfall, but in case of some regions, droughts and wildfires are on a steady increase. Change in the climate have an impact on the humans in cases related to food security from the decrease in the crop yields, and the abandonment of areas populated causing a damage to the infrastructure due to the increase in the rising sea levels. Impacts of global warming upon the environment include the extinction or relocation of ecosystems adapting to the climatic change, with the coral reefs, arctic and the mountain ecosystems getting affected the first. The greenhouse which has already been added to the atmosphere will remain being in the atmosphere and affecting the atmosphere even if new levels of greenhouse gases have not been added.

Effects of Global Warming

On a global level, majority of the population considers global warming as a serious concern which is on a rise. Possible rectifications in order to have a stop on the greenhouse effect include mitigation by emission reduction, adaptation to the effects predominant, and possible future of climate engineering. Ever country present in the world is a part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which has a primary objective to prevent the virus which is leading to the climatic change. Countries which are a part of the UNFCCC have agreed upon the fact to reduce emissions which is the most important issue towards the rise of the global temperature.

Global warming refers to the global averages, with the amount warming varying from region to region. Since the year of 1979, global average of the land temperatures have increased to an amount twice as fast as the global average temperatures of the ocean. This is happening due to the larger heat capacity of the water bodies because the water bodies lose more water due to the process of evaporation. Where greenhouse gas emissions occur does not have an impact upon the location of warming because of the major greenhouse gases persist long enough to diffuse across the globe.

The northern hemisphere and the North Pole have heated much more than the South Pole or the southern hemisphere. The Northern hemisphere not only consists of much more land but also the arctic ocean has resulted in the maximum surface area flipping from the reflective snow and ice cover to the ocean and the land surfaces that absorb a much more amount of sunlight. The arctic temperatures have increased and is estimated to increase more during this century at over twice the rate related to the rest of the world.

Since, the climate change contains a larger thermal inertia, it can take a time near about centuries for the climate to fully adjust. Such an example includes, the slower rate of surface temperature has increased from 1998 to 2012, which was a given a title of the global warming hiatus by the media and some of the scientists. Through this period of time the heat of the ocean continued to progress steadily upwards, and in the following years the surface temperature has also taken a toll.

On itself, the climate change may generate changes within the global temperatures for years to the upcoming decades. Other changes are due to the so-called external forces. These forces may be external to the climate system, but certainly not external to the temperature of the earth. All of these external forces may include changes in the composition of the atmosphere, solar luminosity, volcanic eruptions and the variations in the Earth’s orbit around the sun. A primary approach includes the scientists to be entrusted upon with a responsibility to find out the factors leading to the potential external forces.

UNFCCC Agreement on Emission Reduction

The greenhouse gases work in trapping the heat radiated back from the Earth to the space. This form of heat which is in the form of infrared radiations get absorbed and are emitted by these gases into the planet’s atmosphere thus warming the lower atmosphere along with the surface of the earth. The presence of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere cases the air temperature to rise up to a temperature of about 33 degree Celsius that it would have been in the absence of these gases. Without the presence of the Earth’s atmosphere, the temperature of the earth would have been below the freezing temperature of the water. The major portion of the greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and ozone.

The human activities since the era of the industrial revolution has increased to an amount of the presence of the greenhouse gases within the atmosphere, leading to an increasing radiative forcing from the CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide.

Change in the type of vegetation in a region has an impact in the local temperature by changing how much amount of the sunlight gets reflected back into the outer space and the amount of heat which is lost by the process of evaporation. For instance, the change of a dark forest to a grassland makes the surface a lot lighter and compels it to reflect more sunlight. Moreover, humans create an empty land to create more land for agriculture. Solid and liquid particles which are commonly known as aerosols, from the volcanoes, planktons and human made pollutants also reflect the incoming sunlight from the sun, hence providing with a helping hand in cooling the climate. From the period of 1961 to 1990, a gradual reduction in the amount of the sunlight which was reaching for the Earth’s surface was observed. This phenomenon was given a name which was popularly known as, global dimming specifically holding the aerosols from the burning of biofuel and fossil fuel combustion responsible. As an addition to this, there is a direct scattering effect and absorption of solar radiation which takes place. In here, the aerosols have an indirect effect on the Earth’s radiation budget. Sulfate aerosols mask themselves as the cloud condensation nuclei and thus may lead to the clouds that have a lot smaller cloud droplets. These clouds contain the ability to have reflected more of the solar radiation, than the clouds having fewer and larger sized droplets. This phenomenon is again referred to as the, Twomey effect. This effect also makes the droplets to take the form of having an unique shape which reduces the growth of raindrops and makes the cloud a lot more reflective to the incoming sunlight also known as the Albrecht effect.

As the sun is referred to be the earth’s primary source of energy, changes taking place in the incoming sunlight leads to changes taking place within the Earth’s climate. According to recent calculations, there has been no noticeable change in the amount of sunlight which reaches the earth, hence this cannot be the reason behind the warming of the earth. If the solar radiations had been behind the warming, both the troposphere and stratosphere would have been warming up, but no such occurrence has been noticed.

The response recorded from the climatic system is to have contained both of positive and negative feedbacks which increases strongly with the rise in the global temperature and the amount of radiative cooling along with the infrared radiations which increases with the increase in the temperature.