The temperature of the Earth has risen for the past five decades. Currently, it has been raised to an average of 0.6 degrees Celsius, and the trend seems to keep accelerating. Certain changes are being observed in the overall climate. The oceans are raising water, forests are dying, glaciers are melting, and wildlife is finding it difficult to survive. If proper measures are not taken, Scientists claim that the Earth will further experience an increase in temperature by around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, probably by the end of this century (Radford, 2018).
This climate change is called global warming as the Earth is facing a set of changes in its weather patterns that do not remain the same for the whole planet but vary from one place to another. It might be because the Earth spins every day, taking different heat swirls along with it each day. These heat swirls bring certain changes to the rhythm of the global climate. The term ‘global warming’ is often replaced by ‘climate change’ as the average temperature of the Earth increases, the oceans and winds pick up moisture and move the heat all around the Earth in a way that it rises here and settles there, i.e., warming someplace while cooling others down and altering the amount of snowfall and rain in various places (Gramling, 2018).
Humans are held responsible for this hazardous global warming as they continue to emit heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere to modernize their lifestyles. The levels of these gases, also known as greenhouse gases, have gone higher than they have ever been in the past 650,000 years. The greenhouse effect refers to the gases that trap heat in the atmosphere of the Earth. Similar to a greenhouse’ glass walls, these greenhouse gases do not let the heat escape while letting the light in at the same time. The more gases are present in the atmosphere, the more heat from the sun is trapped (Schneider, 1989).
Scientists came up with the discovery of the greenhouse effect in the year 1824 when Joseph Fourier realized that without the presence of the atmosphere, the temperature of the Earth would have been much cooler by then. It is the greenhouse effect that is making the Earth a livable place. Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish Chemist, came up with this idea that humans could enhance the greenhouse effect in the year 1895. Carbon dioxide is one greenhouse gas, i.e. if produced in a larger quantity; it can increase the temperature of the Earth (Schneider, 1989).
Although the level of greenhouse gases has been observed to remain constant over the past thousands of years recently, they have increased to quite a high level. The emission of greenhouse gases in generous amounts and the burning of fossil fuels have been playing the major part in contributing to global warming. This rapid increase in climate change is proving to be difficult for some living things to adapt to. Also, unpredictable climates bring certain challenges to life (Gramling, 2018).
In the past, the Earth temperature regularly went up and down, but the average difference between temperatures remained around 5 degrees Celsius, and these changes happened over the time span of thousands of years which was very slow. Now, as greenhouse gases are rising to much higher levels, the large sheets of ice such as Antarctica and Greenland, most of them located in Europe and North America, have started to melt. This excess of water has the potential to increase the sea levels in quite a greater extent (Gramling, 2018).
With the rise of mercury, extreme climate changes are expected on the Earth. Along with the rise in sea levels, major storms are also predicted. Intense rain will follow much drier and longer droughts that will bring a significant challenge for farmers who are responsible for growing crops. Also, humans will face a shortage of water as glaciers have started to melt and they have been the major source of water supply for centuries (University of Leeds, 2018).
The rapid increase in industrialization has been contributing a lot to these global climate changes. It is because the urge for a modern lifestyle has grown to a much greater extent. Global warming and the increased population are increasing the demand for air conditioning in homes. This air conditioning is expected to increase the overall temperature of the Earth by 0.5 degrees Celsius over the next century. A radical change is quickly required in the home cooling technology so that its impact can be neutralized. The energy used by air conditioners is mostly produced by carbon-emitting coal, gas and oil generation which play a significant part in global warming. Also, air conditioners leak hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) that also pollutes the climate (Mckenna, 2018).
Only recently, some researchers have conducted research and proved that ocean warming might be quicker than it was expected. The oceans are getting hotter day by day, and it is reported that the seas have absorbed around 60 percent more heat than they had ever in the last 25 years. The Earth is also known as the blue planet because 70 percent of its area is covered by water. Thus, the ocean absorbs a major part of the excess energy as the Earth gets warmer. The seas are also becoming acidic as the greenhouse gases are mostly soluble, especially carbon dioxide. But as the temperature of the ocean is rising, it is unable to hold the dissolved gases, ending up in releasing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere of the Earth (Radford, 2018).
Global warming has also affected the tree species of the Earth. Increased temperature, longer droughts and an excessive amount of carbon dioxide have a negative impact on the growth and mortality of these species. A study has been conducted that found out that global warming has the most impact on moisture-loving trees and they are found to be dying quite rapidly as compared to other tree species. However, the pioneer trees are the ones suited to drier or warmer climates and are enjoying benefits from this acceleration of global warming. But despite the fact, these trees will never be able to replace the ones that are dying because of this forest dynamics (University of Leeds, 2018).
Various World organizations have been working to keep global warming as low as possible. In the year 2015, 195 countries signed an agreement known as the Paris Accord with the goal to curb the emission of greenhouse gases and to limit the warming so that it does exceed the figure of 2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. But a recent report suggests that keeping the figure even lower will help the Earth big times. There will be fewer chances of life-threatening storms, stronger droughts, and intense rains (Mckenna, 2018).
Fewer species, whether they are trees or wild animals, would have the risk of going extinct and the sea levels would rise to a lower level. Also, the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are expected to become quite unstable between 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius. Thus, this report says that keeping the rate of global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius would be much more beneficial and further steps should be taken to achieve this target (Gramling, 2018).
In the end, it can be concluded that various factors are contributing to global warming. The temperature of our earth is increasing day by day. This ever-increasing temperature has negative or harmful effects on all species of the earth including plants, animals and human beings. Ocean warming has become a more threatening issue for us, which has rapid impact on climate change. We must take some measures to overcome the problem of global warming to save the human race on the earth.
References
Gramling, C. (2018, October 18). Half a degree can make a world of difference. https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/
article/global-warming-limit-degrees-IPCC-climate-change
Mckenna, P. (2018, November 12). Fast-Rising Demand for Air Conditioning Is Adding to Global Warming. The Numbers Are Striking. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11112018
/climate-change-home-air-conditioning-half-degree-global-warming-by-2100
Radford, T. (2018, November 10). Ocean warming may be faster than thought. https://physicsworld.com/a/ocean-warming-may-be-faster-than-thought/
Schneider, S. H. (1989). The greenhouse effect: science and policy. Science, 243(4892), 771-781.
University of Leeds. (2018, November 8). Amazon forests failing to keep up with climate change. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018
/11/181108091317.htm
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