Earth: Hot or Not?

Earth: Hot or Not?

The term “Global Warming” is used by people to refer to the phenomenon of global change caused by human activities, which result in an increase in greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and others keep the ground temperatures at an average of approximately fifty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. Without Greenhouse gases the average temperature would drop two degrees Fahrenheit, and all the oceans would be frozen, but with too much greenhouse gases the earth will get hotter. Greenhouse gases have this heating effect because radiation emitted by the Earths’ surface is absorbed, or trapped by the gases and radiated both out of space and then back towards the surface. The attribution of global warming is controversial because the climate system of the earth is complicated. Therefore it is hard to determine the causes and effects with certainty. It is also controversial because proposals to eliminate the causes, such as reducing fossil fuel burning, poses a threat to some industries and some parts of the economy (Anthes).

The first theory of global warming came in 1824 when French mathematician Jean Baptiste

Joseph Fourier discovered that the Earth's temperature was slowly increasing. Fourier said that the earth's atmosphere traps solar radiation and reflects it back toward the earth.

In the late 19th century Fourier's theory was labeled the "greenhouse effect" when Nobel Laureate Svante Arrhenius coined the term to explain how carbon dioxide traps heat in the Earth's atmosphere. Arrhenius believed that the greenhouse effect was responsible for the onset of the ice ages. By the 1960s, many scientists dismissed this theory in favor of the hypothesis of Serbian geophysicist, Milutin Milankovitch, relating climate. In the 1950s, rookie scientist G.S. Callendar warned that the greenhouse effect was true and dramatically impacting the atmosphere of the Earth. Callendar's claims were termed the "Callendar effect," and led to more research on global warming. Over the next few decades, scientists developed ways to measure the Earth's climate and devised created mathematical models to better analyze global temperature. This led to a steady rise in the belief that human activity was hugely effecting the environment. Scientific studies began to predict that increased carbon dioxide emissions, due to increased use of fossil fuels, would begin to start global warming. Media in the late 20th century were confused about the effects of the warming; some predicted another ice age, while others predicted the melting of ice caps, which would generate world wide flooding. In 1992, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development more than 150 nations signed a declaration committing themselves to reducing carbon dioxide emissions in their countries. However, in 1994, the United Nations Panel on Climate Change asserted that global warming was still a threat and nations needed to enact drastic changes in order to negate the effects of global warming. This announcement sparked the creation of the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to fight global warming. The protocol called for countries to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases and was to take effect in 2005. The treaty was signed and ratified by 125 countries (History). Over the years scientists have tried to prove to people that Global Warming isn’t happening. Dr. Peter Doorman and his team of scientists have determined that since 1876 temperatures have been dropping average of 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade and similar downturns have occurred since 1978 in the McMurdo Valleys of E. Antarctica. When the scientists noticed that “glacial ice wasn’t melting, streams weren’t flowing, lakes were shrinking and microorganisms were disappearing, they decided to expand their data collection and discovered that “Antarctica as a whole had gotten considerably colder." The study seems to confirm what 17,000 scientists have been saying all along, there is no “Global Warming”. Global Warming fear is melting ice caps in Antarctica as proof that the world is rapidly warming and soon islands in the Pacific will disappear under the waves (Matters).

One sign of global warming is thinning sea ice. In the early 1970’s satellites began monitoring the amount of sea ice present in the oceans. Since then they have reported a noticeable and steady decline in the amount of ice caps of about three percent per decade. However a scientist writing in Geographical Research Letters, a specialized scientific journal, says that his studies of the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean from 1991 to 1997 don’t show any melting trends (Shaw 62) Studies show that climate changes are most extreme in the polar regions than anywhere else on Earth. In the arctic and around the world summers have gotten longer. The summer days are now 11% warmer than they were in the 1960’s (Fridell 62). Scientists have found that the Antarctic ice cap is starting to break up in many places; five of the nine ice shelves attached to the Antarctic Peninsula have disintegrated (Shaw 63). This thinning and melting of ice in polar regions raises alarms because it brings a rise in global sea levels. In Global Warming: Opposing Viewpoints; Geoffrey Leon states that even if Global Warming was stopped today, the seas would continue to rise for centuries (Bily 36). Jens Bischof argues in Global Warming: Opposing Viewpoints, that changes in rainfall patterns could be affecting the rise of the sea levels, not melting ice caps (Bily 62).

Over 17,000 scientists have signed a petition saying “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse

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