Aspects of Global Warming
The planet Earth has been experiencing constant heating and cooling due to the varying amount of sunlight and other forces influencing the humidity of the earth surface. (Kelley et al. 2015). Global warming entails the rapid adjustments in the temperature of the universe for the past few years due to human activities like the release of greenhouse gases, which result especially from human beings burning fossil fuels. From the records by NASA, the global temperature has risen by about 0.4 degrees within 98 years, and this has made the temperature to be nearly double in only 50 years (Kelley et al. 2015). Global warming is very dangerous to human life; we have to control it to ensure that earth remains conducive for human life.
There is a possibility of temperature continuing to increase even further if it is not controlled. Aspects of global warming, therefore, includes the greenhouse effect (Nordhaus et al. 2014). Estimation shows that about 30 percent of the total radiation from the goes back to the atmosphere by radiation from the bright facades. The atmosphere, land and the oceans absorb the remaining percentage, and this is what heats up the whole world. As these surfaces get heated, they radiate back heat to the atmosphere, and this is what determines the daily temperatures we experience (Nordhaus et al. 2014). The water vapor and greenhouse house gases absorb the radiation back into the atmosphere. After absorbing the radiated heat from the earth surface, greenhouse gas molecules plus microscopic water droplets converts to small heaters, which radiates heat in all directions.
Thus, the energy radiated back to the atmosphere is what heats the lower atmosphere. The greenhouse effect raises the earth’s temperature, which would otherwise be as low as -18 degrees Celsius as a substitute to the 15 degrees Celsius experienced today (Jeppesen et al. 2015). Despite the advantage of the greenhouse effect, scientists are, however, worried of the constant increase in the gases concentration in the air. Human activities like burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests, which creates the balance of greenhouse gases in the troposphere. This has thus resulted in the existence of more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which makes infrared energy emitted from the ground to end being absorbed by atmospheric gases (Jeppesen et al. 25). The increase in temperature also known as global warming has more side effects than just the temperature increase. The side effects include changes in the rainfall patterns, melting of glacier ice in the Arctic region, which in turn raises the sea level, increasing the lengths of growing seasons in certain areas and even alteration of range for some infectious diseases.
In summary global warming is constantly increasing the greenhouse gases, which causes an imbalance in the control of infrared radiations that are responsible for temperature changes in the earth. Scientists are trying to ensure that they control all this effectively by putting in place measures to counteract this situation.
References
Nordhaus, W. D. (2014). A question of balance: Weighing the options on global warming policies. Yale University Press.
Kelley, C. P., Mohtadi, S., Cane, M. A., Seager, R., & Kushnir, Y. (2015). Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(11).
Jeppesen, E., Brucet, S., Naselli-Flores, L., Papastergiadou, E., Stefanidis, K., Noges, T., … & Bucak, T. (2015). Ecological impacts of global warming and water abstraction on lakes and reservoirs due to changes in water level and related changes in salinity. Hydrobiologia.
