Global Warming: Assumptions and Predictions

There are lots of opinions and scenarios about the global warming, and the majority of them are very gloom.

It has been discovered that even if we would stop polluting, the effects of the global warming would be present even in the next millennium. If we do not stop polluting, then the effects would be very harsh. It has been estimated that the entire ice sheet from Antarctica could collapse by the year 3000 and that the water levels would rise with 4 meters. The researchers analyzed the situation by using a computer program. They analyzed the possible scenarios from 2100 and 3000. They discovered that even if we would stop with the pollution and with the creation of carbon dioxide, the atmosphere would still be damaged because of the carbon dioxide which was already released in the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide can stay in the atmosphere and in the waters much more than it can stay in the land, and they warm gradually. This means that they will be the hottest in a few decades or centuries. Shawn Marshall, an associate professor of geography at the University of Calgary, believes that something can be done about it, but that something needs to happen now.

There are various gases which contribute to the global warming, such as nitrous oxide, carbon oxide, and methane. The most dangerous of them all is the carbon dioxide because this is the one which we often send into the atmosphere and because it has a very long lifespan, being able to do damage for its entire life. Marshall said that the carbon dioxide which we send into the atmosphere today will be there over the next 1,000 years, maybe even more. He was the lead researcher in this study, but he received help from Nathan Gillett of the government agency Environment Canada. They found out that the Southern hemisphere will suffer the most in the next 1,000 year. They also found out that all the oceans of the world will warm very much and because of that, many regions of the world will be flooded. They also stated that the 2100 scenario shows very big differences between the south and the north. The north will also be affected by the global warming, but the changes will start to reverse after 2100 one. After that year, the south will start to become damage because of the global warming. The reason for that is the fact that the south does not have as much land as the north does, so the area is not cooled very fast. The land can make the heat dissipate faster than the water and the atmosphere can. The land will not warm for a very long period of time, but the water and the atmosphere will.

The reason why the south will become hotter in the following periods of time is because the oceans will continue to heat, long after the dioxide emissions have been stopped. They have reached to the conclusion that by the year 3000 the oceans of the world will be hotter with 3 degrees Celsius, which will lead to unwanted changes. The fauna and flora from the oceans will suffer because of that, as there are various types of fish which will not resist. The levels of the waters will grow as well, and that will lead to massive flooding. It has also been discovered that a very hot air current could move from the North towards the South and that will lead to further complications. It is believed that the entire Antarctic ice sheet will collapse by the year 3,000, and that will cause the raise of the global water levels with 4 meters. Gillet said that the ice sheet could be saved, but we would have to stop polluting the atmosphere and that might be very difficult to achieve. Because of the temperatures, the storms could intensify as well. The region which would have to suffer the most from these storms would be the intertropical convergence zone, the area where the south and the north winds merge together. Because of that, the North African region could become even dryer; in fact it is expected that it will lose 30 percent of its humidity. This was not the first time when someone predicted the negative effects of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but it was the first time when someone presented the effects of the global warming on the oceans.

Of course, since their predictions were based on a computer simulation that does not mean that this is the exact way in which things will happen. The simulation might have been wrong from certain points of view, but the researchers believe that the estimations made by it are pretty accurate. The problem is that if these emissions go out of hand, the effects might become irreversible in the years to come, and they might last for various millennia. It is clear that the number of carbon dioxide molecules in the air is higher than it was at the beginning of the industrial revolution. The levels at the current moment are of 385 parts per million, and back in time, prior to the industrial revolution they were 280 parts per million. Susan Solomon, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, stated that in the next period of time, the levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere might reach 450-600 parts per million, and if such a thing would happen, then the effects would be terrible. One of the biggest effects of such an event would be the dryness, which would be much worse than the ones we already encountered. It is believed that the 1930 Dust Bowl which affected the Great Plains will be nothing in comparison to the new ones. Unlike the one from the 1930, the new ones will affect the entire world, not just a region.

The researchers have predicted that the rainfalls will stop to occur in various regions of the world, and that might spread over the course of various centuries. If that would happen, then the entire world would become very dry, and the life conditions would be very weak. The farming would be affected as well, and the food would be in very short supply. Many of the world’s animals would not be able to live under these conditions. However, the majority of the scientists have stated that even under these circumstances, Earth will be able to survive, while we would not be so lucky. We as humans have affected the planet for a very long time, without realizing it. It is hard to understand that cutting trees or using certain machines can affect the world in which we live, but it is true. This is one of the main reasons why many people do not believe in global warming. It seems that there are two groups when it comes to this subject: one which believes that the humans are responsible for what happened, and one which believes that we have nothing to do with it. The situation is kind of complicated, and the truth is that it is unknown who or what is responsible. It is clear that we had our own fault for what happened, but it should not be ignored that these kinds of weather behaviors have occurred numerous times over the course of history.

It is a clear fact that biology has the capability of affecting the environment. We, the humans, were not the first beings that have caused global warming. The first beings which caused this effect were the ancient microbes which started to use the sun for photosynthesis. Katrina Edwards, a geo-microbiologist at the University of Southern California, stated that we as humans have had an influence over the environment, but that influence can not be compared to the one done by the microbes. The effects of these microbes have been present for a very long time, but the scientists have just started to get familiar with them. The microbes are also very beneficial, as they help regulate certain aspects from our planet. For example they can suppress dust, and if they would not be around, a very vast majority of our world would be a dessert. Thanks to those microbes, which are known as cyanobacteria, the planets were able to grow, and life as we know it might have evolved. However, these microbes have also caused some shifts in the temperatures, in a way similar to the ones which take place nowadays. It has been discovered that the snowball earth which took place 2.3 million years ago was caused by the cyanobacteria. The entire world was covered in snow and in ice during that period and it is believed that the world would still be covered in snow if it would not have been for the various bacteria that appeared soon afterwards. They were the ones who started to exhale carbon dioxide, and that is the reason why the snow started to melt.

Trees appeared 380 million years ago and when they did, the influenced the planet once again. The trees inhaled carbon dioxide and exhaled oxygen, unlike the animals which did the opposite. The benefits of the trees were than when they died they did not pollute, as the carbon dioxide was not released in the atmosphere, but it was buried underground. That is when various glaciations started to occur, and the reasons for that were the plants. When you think about it, you would imagine that our influence on this planet was not very great, but that is not true. We also have a part in the changes which occurred on Earth, as we have affected the wild life on a much deeper level than we would like to believe. We have evolved, and our evolution was directly related to the changes we caused to the planets. We are not the first to alter the Earth, but we have altered it in a unique manner so far. We have created the industry, and because of that we affect the planet at a much larger scale. It would not be a problem if we would emit carbon dioxide on our own, just from breathing, but we have developed various technologies and machines which emanate much more carbon dioxide than we would be able to emanate on our own. Think about the automobiles for example, how much damage they can do to the environment.

We also influence the planet at a much higher rate than the other species. We are the most common large beings who have lived on this Earth, and coincidentally we are the smartest. We have used our intelligence in order to evolve, but we have damaged the Earth in the process. There are many who believe that we have not modified the processes which took place on this planet. The global warming would have occurred with or without us, but we have increased the speed at which these processes took place. However, regardless of the damage we as humans have done to the Earth, it will not die. It will manage to survive, just like it did prior to our existence, numerous times before. It has seen lots of things, and it is very likely that it will see many more things. If we do not care about the Earth, we should care about humans, and we should realize that life for our fellow people will be much harsher than it is for us. However, there are numerous scientists who do not believe that we have anything to do with the changes which have taken place on our planet. Earth is not the only planet that suffers from an increase in temperature. Pluto, Mars and all the other planets have seen an increase in temperature over the course of the years, and it is believed that the Sun is the one to blame for these temperature changes, and not the humans.

It has been proven that the Sun can affect the temperatures from our planet and the temperatures from the other planets as well. It has done so over the course of time, and it will continue to do so in the future as well. These researchers have stated that we have only a very small part in the case of global warming, and that the Sun did the rest. There were some who disagreed with these statements, as they said that the Sun did not actually affected the planets because its temperature grew, but because of the global variations which take place very often. It has been discovered that the solar radiations have an impact over our planet. They affected Earth between 1960 and 1990 but not for the reasons why we might believe. The Sun did not get hotter, and the reason why the planet suffered from those radiations was because of the aerosols from the atmosphere. We as humans have increased the levels of the aerosols, so in a sense we can be considered responsible for what happened. There were many who wondered about the temperature changes which took place on the other planets as well.

However, some of the scientists have stated that these changes in temperature on the other planets can be explained. For example the reason why the temperatures on Triton, which is Neptune’s moon, have increased is because of temperature increases on the Moon, which take place once every couple of hundred years. Pluto became hotter because it got close to the sun a very long time ago. The solar radiations change with each cycle, which lasts 11 years, but the changes are not big, so they can not affect our planet, various scientists say. Michael Mann, a meteorologist at Penn State, said that the changes which take place on the Sun can not even be detected here on Earth, and the reason why so many people believe that the Sun is responsible for the changes is because they like to make absurd assumptions, and to put the blame on something else. The truth is that the situation is kind of vague, as it is unknown if the sun can affect the temperatures from Earth or not. Back in the 1600s, the activity on the sun was very lot, and the global temperature here on Earth dropped, and this is the reason why many believe that the Sun is capable of influencing our planet.