Question:

What causes Global Warming?

by Guest66268  |  earlier

0 LIKES UnLike

I'm doing a biology project and we have to do background information on global warming, climate change,etc. I was just wondering if anyone had anything that they think I could include?

 Tags:

   Report

10 ANSWERS


  1. The first answer got Global warming and the ozone layer kind of mixed up together.

    The Earth's atmosphere contains elements in the form of gasses like H2O and Carbon and Argon and blah blah blah. Basically the Sun send down energy in the form of UV rays which then are either reflected off of clouds or Aldebo I think it's called, or from some other surface like the Earth's surface.

    Once the UV rays are reflected they are degenerated into lower frequency waves in the form of infrared energy, normally the rays would just leave the Eart however the greenhouse gasses like WATER VAPOR(the common and most plentiful GG) and Carbon, and all those other ones too absorb the infrared energy and reradiate it IN A TON OF DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS, so although some of this energy gets sent back out of the atmosphere the gasses also send it back to the Earth.

    In other words it's really natural, but it's possible humans can be helping a little by putting more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

    Any questions? Okay, good.


  2. global warming is basically the ozone layer (which is a layer of gas above the earth) getting destroyed by the other nasty pollution coming from earth like car fumes and factory smoke. when this happens more sun can get to the earth therefore warming up the earth and destroying ice in the antarctic and poles of the earth. these fumes that destroy the ozone layer are called greenhouse gas emissions.This changes the climate by getting warmer. to help this thehy are making new petrol which helps to stop petrol fumes being so harmful. hope this helps. Callum O'Neill

  3. The world has fluctuations in its climate. Some minor, some major and some catastrophic.

    Obviously for something as large and complex as a planet, the factors involved are also numerous and can be complex.

    Moreover, they tend to be interlinked (e.g. a cooling trend tends to create more ice cover that reflects more sunlight that then increases the cooling).

    There are some natural, periodic cycles (e.g. short term: solar activity, el nino or long term: axial precession, orbital variation, etc) that affect the climate in generally preditictable ways. These affect the planet on a minor (e.g. warm medieval period) or major (e.g. ice age) level.

    Plate tectonics also create major changes to the climate over very long-terms but are non-periodic.

    Then there are non-periodic short-term events that can cause anything from minor to catastrophic shifts in climate. These events include volcanic eruptions, mass lava outflows and comet/meteor impacts.

    A catastrophic shift is one defined by a "mass die-off" where significant (50,60,70+%) of species on the planet become extinct. There have been 5 in our planet's history and the theory is that we are at the start of the 6th.

    What all mass die offs have in common is that a single event (e.g. supervolcano) creates a change in one or more factors involved in determining the climate (e.g. particulate matter in the atmosphere that reflects sunlight) sufficiently to create a domino effect that in turn creates this catastrophic climate change.

    Note that the resulting climate is not necessarily out of the normal range of climates that the Earth experiences but that the change happens suddenly - instead of thousands of years, it happens in decades.

    The present-day 'single event' is mankind's industrial  activities that has doubled the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere. This isn't as rapid as, say, a comet strike, but it is still rapid compared to orbital variations...

    CO2 is a normal factor in determining the Earth's climate; doubling it has caused a significant enough change in climate to start affecting the other climatic factors: slight warming = greater water vapour = more warming. Slight warming = decrease in ice cover = more warming, etc.

    Plant cover and the ability of plants to absorb CO2 is also one of these climate factors (I did remember you were doing a biology project!). They are both affected by, and effect, climate change.

    Climate change means some areas (sub-tropics) become less hospitable to plants (many areas becoming deserts) whereas other areas (temperate zones) become more suited to plants

    Increased sea levels flood some areas reducing plant growth as does increased salinity of the soil in coastal areas evewn if they don't flood

    On average, rainfall around the globe will increase as will the length of growing seasons in high latitudes, encouraging plant growth. In some cases, plants will move from flowering and producing seeds once per year to twice per year.

    However, these presupposes that plants can adapt, evolve or migrate quickly: They can't, not quick enough to keep up with the rate of change in the climate. Hence they are part of the mass die out.

    Currently, approximately 50,000 species (animal and plant) become extinct each year - this is 1,000X times the normal rate: Change is simply happening too quickly for plants (and animals) to adapt or evolve so the net long-term effect of GW on plants is a drastic decrease in the number of species although total plant bio-mass may stay somewhat constant (greater number of the few species that do survive).

    EDIT:

    stealspartan (and maybe boatman, hard to tell) says that I mixed up GW and the ozone layer... I can't see where that came from - did I mention ozone anywhere? no...

    And Boatman - if you were referring to my answer re the lack of citations, let me know which fact you want backed up (there were a lot!) and I'll get you a source but please remember that not everything is on the net and the reference may just be a published text but msot should be available on the net... I've given a few below to start with.

  4. Read this and take from it want you will (from the National Academy of Sciences)...

    http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/clim...

  5. It's a regular cycle the Earth has been going through for the last 400k years, at least.

  6. Global warming is caused by burning of fossil fuels. This directly increases the amount of CO2 in the air. Some of this excess CO2 is absorbed into the biosphere, but not all.

    CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which is transparent to visible light, but absorbs strongly in the infrared. The Earth (and all objects at normal earth temperatures) shed excess heat from the Sun by radiating in the infrared. When there is more CO2 in the air, less and less of that radiation escapes into space, and more and more is re-absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, causing temperatures to rise.

  7. The sun.

  8. NOT even ONE link to backup what you just posted --------- amazing!

    1. The ozone hole was caused by the release of CFCs prior to 1980-- they were banned --- the hole is slowly repairing itself-- given another 50-75 years it will be gone. It has NOTHING to do with GW.

    http://www.theozonehole.com/

    2. The sun is a variable star-- while it has been observed for over 100 years the exact mechanism of the sun's structure has only recently been determined (in theory).

    http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q217....

    http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/global-wa...

    http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getR...  yes it is an old document

    http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/...

    http://bruderheim-rea.ca/warming4.htm

  9. The history of the planet. You need only go back 20k years to learn that this planet was nearly covered in ice, now not so much.

  10. The Sun!!

Question Stats

Latest activity: earlier.
This question has 10 answers.

BECOME A GUIDE

Share your knowledge and help people by answering questions.