3. ‘Climate Change and Global Warming’ is written by
‘Michael Shafer’. He is a teacher, consultant and the founder and
director of ‘Warm Heart’ which is a community development
organization. It is serving Phrao, one of the poorest districts in the
northern Thailand. Since 2008, Warm Heart has been transforming
the lives of many people, dealing with the issues such as family
care, education, micro-enterprise, environmental sustainability
and health care for the elderly people. In the present essay he
wrote about the ecosystems and environmental pollution across
the globe.
4. Ecosystem is a community of living and non-living things that work
together. It consists of abiotic and biotic components that are linked
together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the system
through photosynthesis and is incorporated into plant tissue. By feeding
plants on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of
energy through the system. They also influence the quantity of plant and
microbial biomass. By breaking down dead organic matter decomposers
release carbon back to the atmosphere and facilitate nutrient cycling by
converting nutrients stored in dead biomass back to a form and that can be
readily used by plants and other microbes.
5. Global warming is one of the dangers the earth is facing. It is the slow
increase in the average temperature of the atmosphere of the earth. It
increases the amount of heat striking the earth from the sun is being
trapped in the atmosphere and not radiated out into the space. Global
warming is mostly occurred because of burning things like gasoline to make
cars to go and natural gas to keep the houses warm. The heat which comes
from the burning makes the world a tiny bit warmer. The carbon dioxide gas
which releases from the burning creates the biggest problem. Among the
greenhouse gases, the increase of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is
the main cause of global warming. When people burn fossil fuels like coal,
oil, and natural gas more carbon dioxide is released into the air. The
atmosphere of the earth works like a greenhouse to capture the heat of the
sun while saving the living beings on the earth.
6. Greenhouse gases absorb and emit radiant energy within the thermal
infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The main greenhouse gases
are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, nitrous oxide and
chlorofluorocarbons. These gases can trap heat. Greenhouse is full of
windows that let sunlight in. That sunlight creates warmth. The greenhouse
doesn’t let the warmth to escape that is exactly how greenhouse gases act.
They let the sunlight pass through the atmosphere, but they prevent the
heat that the sunlight brings from and leaving the atmosphere. Without
greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earth’s surface would be
about -18 degree Celsius. The present average is 15 degrees Celsius.
Scientists are worried that human activities are adding too much of these
gases to the atmosphere.
7. Global warming melts the ice deposits and increase the seas and
oceans water level at the Earth’s poles. This includes mountain glaciers, ice
sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic Sea ice. In
Montana’s Glacier National Park, the number of glaciers has declined to
fewer than 30 from more than 150 in 1910. Rising temperatures are affecting
wildlife and their habitats. Vanishing ice has challenged species such as the
Penguins in Antarctica, where some populations on the western peninsula
have collapsed by 90 percent. Precipitation has increased across the globe,
on average. Yet some regions are experiencing more severe droughts
increasing the risk of wildfires, loosing crops and drinking water shortages. If
the greenhouse is not protected, the humans on the earth will face dangers.
8. Scientists say that the particles like black carbon, smoke attribute
their warming effect. These black particles in the lower atmosphere absorb
heat like a black blanket. Scientists say that this warming trend has
accelerated as we have increased more use of fossil fuels like gasoline,
diesel, kerosene and natural gas as well as the petrochemicals we make from
oil. These fuels releases into the atmosphere and stores carbon that was
sequestered millions of years ago. According, to the data historical or real-
time can also help us to tackle the problem by locating harmful emissions.
The data found out that multiple methods of assessing methane emissions
led to a more complete and actionable set of insights than any single
method.
9. We have to face horrible consequences in future if we don’t curb
global warming. The writer says that heat is energy and when you add
anergy to any system changes occur because all systems are connected to
the global climate system. Much of the world is covered with ocean, when
the ocean heats up more water evaporates into clouds. Whereas storms like
hurricanes and typhoons result is more energy-intensive storms. A warmer
atmosphere makes glaciers and mountain snow packs, the polar ice cap, and
the great ice shield jutting off Antarctica and raising sea levels. Changes in
temperature change the great patterns of wind that bring the monsoons in
Asia and around the world. One of the most striking impacts of rising
temperatures is felt in global agriculture. These impacts are felt very
differently in the largely temperate developed world and in the more
tropical developing world. Different crops grow best at their specific
temperatures and when those temperatures change their productivity
changes significantly.
10. Climate change includes both global warming driven by human
emissions of greenhouse gases, and resulting large-scale shifts in weather
patterns. Since the mid-20th century, humans had unprecedented impact on
Earth’s climate system and change on global scale. The largest driver of
global warming is the emission of greenhouse gases, of which more than
90% is carbon dioxide and methane. Fossil fuel burning for energy
consumption is the main source of these emissions, with additional
contributions like agriculture, deforestation and industrial processes.
Temperature rising is accelerated by climate feedbacks, such as loss of
sunlight reflecting snow and ice cover, increases water vapour. Increasing
rates of evaporation cause more intense storms and weather extremes.
Temperature rise is amplified in the Arctic, where it has contributed to
melting permafrost and the retreat of glaciers and sea ice, this leads to
severe impact on the lives of humans as well as on the other living beings
and things.
