“Today is going to be another warm winter day, no rain, as our drought since May continues. On the other side of the world, people continue to suffer from raging typhoons and massive flooding.” This could be our weather report in a few years, all due to global warming. Global warming is a rise in temperature. The Earth’s surface temperature has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. Surface temperatures have been rising at faster rate in the last twenty years. “Scientists predict that by the end of this century, the average global temperature will rise between 2.5 and 10.4 fahrenheit.” (1) Global warming is cause mainly by our actions. Carbon dioxide plays a big part in the rising temperatures. The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas are big sources of carbon dioxide. Since 1800, when people began using fossil fuels often, the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased by nearly 30%. Carbon dioxide is nicknamed a “greenhouse gas” because it works almost like a greenhouse. Instead of glass trapping heat from the sun in a greenhouse, carbon dioxide traps heat from the sun in the atmosphere. So the more carbon dioxide that gets into the atmosphere, the harder it is for heat to get out of it. Another gas that contributes to global warming is methane. “There’s more of it in the earths atmosphere now than in the past 400,000 years.” (1) It can be formed by growing rice, raising cattle, coal mining, using land fills, and handling natural gas. Fertilizers and chemicals can also cause global warming, because they release nitrous oxide, which is another gas that contributes to global warming. Global warming might have a great effect on the climate. One good thing it may do is to cause some plants to grow faster. Plants change carbon dioxide into food, so more of it in the atmosphere could help them, but this will make no difference if the plants have no nutrients to grow. Also, climate changes could cause major extinction in plants. Many plants have to have a certain climate to grow in, and climates change all over the earth, which could mean that a plant that grows here might grow better in Europe. Over the years plants have been able to adapt to climate changes and migrate, but global warming might cause these changes to happen too fast for them and so many plants wouldn’t be able to adapt. This in turn would affect insect populations and food chains, and could increase the spread of disease. The warming of the earth would also have a big effect on the sea level. Since water expands when it gets warmer, the heat would make the sea level rise by that and melting some ice. “An increase of 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit could increase the sea level from 8 to 30 inches.” (2) It could flood some coastal cities and could damage coastal plants, animals, beaches, and water supplies. It would affect coral reefs because the warmer water can kill the algae the animals use for food. Ocean flooding to swamps could also kill animals that live there, because it would increase the amount of salt in the water and change the nutrients. Also higher sea levels would mean that storms like hurricanes could do much more damage than in the past, and could occur more frequently in a warmer environment. These climate changes could also majorly affect people. Many countries rely mainly on crops for their income, and global warming could cause drought and flooding which would destroy crops and greatly impact their income. Many of these countries would suffer from famine because they don’t have enough money for the technology to adapt to these changes. Low level island countries could be flooded and suffer a lot from storms. It may actually help some more northern countries, by making their growing season longer and making heating bills lower in the winter. We can still survive with global warming. There are many things that can be done to prevent it. One thing that is helping is geo-engineering, which engineers the earths atmosphere and oceans for resources of instead of nonrenewable resources. You don’t have to burn fossil fuels so it greatly reduces the amount of carbon dioxide that’s released into the atmosphere. There are also actions we can take to help global warming like carpooling, turning off things when we’re not using them, and planting trees. Global warming is a more serious issue than people realize. We all need to take better care of what we have unless we want our lives to eventually be turned upside down, all by just a couple of degrees rise in the temperature. Works Cited Page 1. Uncertainties in Climate Predictions National Academy of Sciences 2001 2. US Global Change Research Information Office CIESIN 2003 3. Global Warming GWIC 2003
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