Global Warming

What happens when too much carbon dioxide gets omitted into the Earth’s atmosphere? The condition known as Global Warming occurs. Global Warming is the rising of the Earth’s surface temperature due to chemicals in the atmosphere. Global Warming has many threats on the climate and even the health of the people on this planet. Some of these threats include the altering of crop seasons and even effect the way organisms survive on the planet. The first thing I think I should discuss when talking about global warming is what causes it to occur. Gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, which are known as greenhouse gases, all build up in the atmosphere of the earth. All these gases make it so that it becomes harder for the radiation that the sun shines into the atmosphere to escape. The heat continues to build up and this is what causes the temperatures to increase. I know this seems like the temperatures increase massively but in the last hundred years the average temperature of the Earth has gone up between 0.8 and 1.0 degrees farenheight. Also in the last fifteen years, we have had the ten warmest years in record. Global Warming also helps the Earth and it has been for many years.

Without global warming, the Earth’s temperature would be a lot lower than the 60-degree average. Unfortunately due to there being many more harmful “greenhouse gases” being placed into the atmosphere, instead of the temperature staying at a constant, its rising. What are many of the dangers of the Earth’s temperature rising? First of all it cause many of the glaciers that are floating in the Arctic and Greenland to melt. This in turn causes the sea levels to rise around the world. In the last hundred years alone the seas around the planet have risen anywhere from four to ten inches. I know it does not sound like a massive change but being able to raise all the seas in the world a whole ten inches is a huge problem. Sea levels also continue to rise is because the hotter temperature cause the ocean water to expand. An example of the sea level causing problems could happen on a little Native Island in the middle of an Ocean. On these islands usually where native tribes live, if the sea level rises three fourths of a meter then half of the island will sink. This could happen in many different islands around the world and if the water keeps on rising as it is, then farming land near the seashores will be flooded and the crops will be destroyed and many farmers will be left without much to live off of. The melting of the glaciers are also causing some problems in the Himalayas. Many of the tips of the mountain’s in that area.

Massive flooding and rivers that are well above their normal levels are threatening the crops and homes in the area. Many of the locals that live in the area and many of the scientists that are surveying the area are saying that the glaciers are melting at a phenomenal rate. Another danger that comes with the changing of the climate is that the increased heat causes more evaporation to occur in the hotter climates. This causes there to be more precipitation in many other climates that are not used to handling massive rainfalls. The increased rainfall also leads to speeding up the process of the sea levels rising. Health is also something that becomes threatened because of global warming. Heat becomes a huge factor in the health of humans, especially the elderly. Incidents such as heat stroke head exhaustion and diseases increase drastically. The heat makes it possible for mosquitoes and other insects to transmit diseases. This is something that happened in New York during this summer. A very rare disease called St. Louis Emphyitis (spelling?) that would spread in puddles of water that mosquitoes would drink out of due to the heat. These mosquitoes would then bite humans and infect them with this disease. I don’t recall how many people, if any died due to this, but it did cause a bit of a panic in the New York Metropolitan area. Heat is not the only weather problem. Global Warming doesn't only increase temperatures in hot areas.

It also decreases temperatures in cold areas. An example of this has been the cold spell that struck the Midwest. In Montana, temperatures plummeted to 30 degrees below and stayed there. The coldest weather ever recorded plagued our country's heart for over three weeks and still hasn't returned too normal. A related incident has been the blizzards of the East Coast. Some places in New York State got over twenty feet of snow. So what is in store for Earth in the future? Possible nothing. There are many people that believe global warming is nothing more than the normal rise of temperature around the world. So if this is the case, we have nothing to really worry about. Unfortunately, this scenario of normal raise in temperature might not be the case. If it isn’t, Scientists estimate that the global temperature will rise between five and nine degrees by the middle of the 21st century accompanied by a sea-level rise of one to four feet. Once the temperature reaches a certain threshold, the polar ice caps will began to melt. While those living in the Arctic may find that a nice surprise, the implications for the rest of the world are serious. Even a partial melting of the polar ice caps will cause sea levels to rise so much as to completely wipe out most coastal cities. This includes such big cities such as San Francisco and New York. Those cities that are not totally wiped out by the water will eventually be hit with hurricanes much more severe than any other one in history.

Of course, inland cities are not safe either. Rather than surging seawaters and hurricanes, they will face drought. So what can be done in order to keep from all of that from happening? We need to stop putting so much pollution in to the air. No matter what there will always be a little bit of Carbon Dioxide omitted into the atmosphere. If we could just limit all the coal and fossil fuels that we burn, there will not be so much “greenhouse gases” and it would keep all of that from happening so quickly. There have also been many attempts by the United States Presidents Administrations in order to help slow down the effect. In my lifetime I know that I won’t see anything too drastic happen due to global warming, but there is a chance that my children and grandchildren will. Hopefully they wont.

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