Term Paper on "Global Warming Is a Crisis"

Term Paper 5 pages (1586 words) Sources: 4 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Global Warming is a crisis that the whole world is going to have to deal with soon. In the United Nations climate change is being debated for the first time. Britain's climate change ambassador John Ashton recently said that "global warming is a major threat to world security that must not be allowed to degenerate into regional bickering." Defending Britain's motion to have the crisis discussed last week by the United Nations' Security Council, Mr. Ashton reasoned "it was a global challenge demanding global answers across all sectors" Mr. Ashton told a conference on climate change and security focussing on Asia, "This is an issue of collective security, There are no nations or regions that will be winners if the world fails to face up to the challenge of climate change" (Correspondents 1).

On April 23, in Washington D.C., the Arizona senator and Republican presidential contender John McCain warned the nation about U.S. reliance on foreign oil and threats of global warming, dismissing some even in his own party who suggest climate change is a story made-up to make a movie popular. The way people in this country use oil "is a serious threat to our security, our economy and the well-being of our planet," said McCain in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Talhelm 1).

The United States has an agency monitoring such situations dealing with climate and mankind's part in controlling it, the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The agency has put out a paper entitled "Climate Change" that deals with every part of the crisis in global warming that the world faces today, from past periods of global warming to greenhouse gas emissions, health and environmental effects, U.S. Climate Policy, resources to find out about local condition and what an individual can do. "The phrase 'climate change' is growing in preferred use to 'global warming' because it helps convey that there are changes in addition to rising temperatures" (the National Academies).

Earth's climate has changed throughout history. From "ice ages," where ice covered major portions of the Earth to interglacial periods when ice retreated to the north and south poles or melted altogether, the climate has continued to change. Experts have traced the climate history of the world back decades to milleniums by measuring such things as ice cores, tree rings, pollen remains, changes in the Earth's orbit, boreholes, glacier lengths and ocean sediments. They have studied the causes and rates of change during the last 2,000 years through these means.

The causes of climate change throughout the Earth's history are known as "drivers" and include changes in the Earth's orbit, as well as the tilt of the Earth and its precession. The precession is a slow westward motion of the equinoctial points along the ecliptic, caused by lunisolar action on protruding matter on the earth's equator, bringing either equinox to the meridian sooner each day than it would otherwise come. The precession is modified by a comparatively small eastward motion of the equinoxes caused by planetary action, altering the plane of the earth's orbit. A complete revolution is accomplished in a cycle of nearly 26,000 years, called the Platonic year, or great year (Webster 780).

The precession affects the amount of sunlight falling on the Earth's surface. This and other orbital processes "which function in cycles of 100,000 (eccentricity), 41,000 (tilt), and 19,000 to 23,000 (precession) years," were brought to the forefront by Mulitin Milankovitch, a Serbian mathematician (1879-1958) and are thought to be the major drivers of ice ages. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Earth Observatory has utilized additional information obtained from the Milankovitch Theory and orbital variations (Climate 1).

Changes also occur on and inside the sun which can affect the intensity of the sunlight reaching the surface of the Earth. Intensity or directness of sunlight may cause either warming with stronger solar intensity, or cooling with weaker solar intensity. For instance,

NASA has determined that a reduction in solar activity from the 1400s to the 1700s was probably the key factor in a "Little Ice Age," a period when there was a slight cooling of North America, Europe and other areas around the globe (Climate 1).

Earth has additional geothermal activity that affect air and climate. Volcanoes emit aerosols and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Volcanic aerosols block sunlight and cause short-term cooling. They do not produce long-term change as they leave the atmosphere soon after they are emitted. For instance, the Tambora Volcano erupted in Indonesia in 1815, and global temperatures were lowered by as much as 5°F. New England historical accounts described 1815 as "the year without a summer," according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Volcanoes emit carbon dioxide (CO2) as well. However, human activity now emits 150 times as much CO2 as volcanoes. CO2 is considered a greenhouse gas, which has a warming effect. Volcanoes raised pre-historic CO2 levels and temperatures, according to the USGS Volcano Hazards Program, and today's volcanic emissions are modest compared to these earlier ages. Climate change "drivers" sometimes create additional aterations or "feedbacks" in the Earth's climate system, amplifying or dampening initial warming or cooling response to them.

Greenhouse gas concentrations are caused by heating or cooling of the Earth's surface. When temperatures become warm, the oceans release carbon dioxide. When Earth's orbit changes this may trigger a warm interglacial period, while increased carbon dioxide amplifies the warming through the greenhouse effect. When the orbit makes the temperatures cooler, CO2 enters the ocean and actually cools them down. During at least the last 420,000 years,

CO2 levels have followed the glacial cycles. So, during warming periods, there are high levels of CO2 and during cooler periods, there are low levels of CO2. Heating and cooling of Earth's surfaces also causes changes in ocean currents. Ocean currents distribute heat around the Earth and changes in currents bring about significant changes in climate on the continents (Climate 1).

Although the climate has changed sometimes suddenly throughout the history of the Earth, humans have only been on the planet during a relatively stable period. During the last 2,000 years, while humans have lived on the Earth, there have only been two periods in which the Earth has experienced major climate alterations, one during Medieval times (called the Medieval Climate Anomaly or Medieval Warm Period) and more recently during the "Little Ice Age," around 1500 to 1850 (NRC, 2006). These two period mark the coldest and warmest times during man's stay on Earth. There is evidence that the sun and volcanic activity and changes in the patterns of Earth's atmosphere and oceans had much to do with these changes in climate.

But humans have had little to do with those two aberrations. More recently, however, humans may have had a lot to do with current climate changes. According to the study by the Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, National Research Council:

There is a high level of confidence that the global average temperature during the last few decades was warmer than any comparable period during the last 400 years.

Present evidence suggests that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than any period of comparable length since a.D. 900. However, uncertainties associated with this statement increase substantially backward in time (NRC, 2006)

Prior to a.D. 900 there is very little data coverage of the Earth's climate there are major challenges in analyzing older data. However, the Industrial Revolution (around 1750), when factories began to put large amounts of smoke from fossel fuels and biomass (wood smoke) into the atmosphere aerosols have been emitted that absorb or reflect light and heat. Adding large amounts of greenhouse gases and aerosols to the Earth's atmosphere has changed it considerably, which has… READ MORE

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