Threat of Global Warming

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Threat of Global Warming

There are two burning questions that I feel need to be answered before exploring the aspects of global warming. They are what is the greenhouse effect and how does the green house effect contribute to global warming? Gases in the atmosphere are transparent to visible light but absorb infrared (heat) waves that are reradiated from the earth’s surface (Cunningham, Cunningham, Saigo 05). However, some greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere, while others result from human activities. Naturally occurring greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere when solid waste, fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal), wood and wood products are burned. Methane is emitted during the production and transport of coal, natural gas, and oil and the raising of livestock.

The atmosphere, when loosely compared to the glass of a greenhouse, transmits sunlight while trapping heat inside is called the green house effect. The greenhouse effect is a natural atmospheric process that is necessary for life, as we know it. Too strong of a greenhouse effect that is caused by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, may cause harmful environmental change. The greenhouse effect is only troublesome when it gets too strong and warms things too much. And that’s just what scientists say has happened over the last 150 years or so as the people of industrialized nations have extracted Earth’s vast buried stores of fossil fuels and burned them.

Each greenhouse gas differs in its ability to absorb heat in the atmosphere. Methane traps over 21 times more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide absorbs 27...

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...appen if deforestation stopped entirely? Would the greenhouse effect stop immediately or would it take many, many years? We as humans are smart enough to stop doing things that will ultimately destroy human kind. Aren’t we? More studies must be done to find a definitive answer in order to save mankind. Or is this the way that history dictates that in this one million years global warming is inevitable?

Works Cited

Discovery Channel. 2005. Global Warming.discoverychannel.org.

EPA. 2006. U.S. Department of State website. Epa.gov/globalwarming.org.

Science Express, 30 September 2004

Knutson, Thomas R. and Tuleya, Robert, Journal of Climate, vol. 17, pp. 3477-3495.

Geophysical Research Letters, September 22, 2004.

Cunningham, W.P. Cunningham, M.A. and Saigo, B.W., Environmental Science, A Global Concern, ninth ed., publisher, 2005.

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