Global Warming and the Climate ChangeIntroduction
The surface of the Earth, as well as its atmosphere and oceans, are steadily warming. The causes are human as well as natural. Hence, the carbon dioxide emissions together with other greenhouse gases result in crucial climate changes in the entire world. The concerns threaten the natural life and stability of the economic and social life of humans. The prospected changes in the climate patterns include the growth of the warming effect and deterioration of the existing implications. Since the global warming and climate change poses huge challenges to the life on the planet, the solutions must be essential and rapid. Moreover, this issue should be a goal of every nation as far as only global efforts can bring the sufficient result. The mankind is responsible for dealing with the concerns, determining the prospects and finding the solutions of the global warming since the climate change is a primarily human-caused challenge.
Causes of the Global Warming
The principal cause of the climate change and global warming is a too high concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Since these gases remain in the air for a long time, its warming effect prolongs promoting the climate change. Hence, it traps heat and the global average temperature increases. Thus, the greenhouse effect as a result of human activity causes relentless changes of the global climate and weather.
The most warming gas is a carbon dioxide that comes into the atmosphere from the combustion of the car fuels, production of the electricity and industrial activities. Other gases include methane and nitrous oxide that release as a result of the agricultural practice, wastes and landfills management. Besides, since the forests store CO2 the deforestation leads to concentration of the gas in the atmosphere.
Also, the natural effects constitute a significant part of the total impact to the global warming. Due to the solar activity the Earth’s atmosphere gets higher portions of radiation that heat the air and the surface of the planet. Also, the volcanic activity and the El Niño Southern Oscillation are among the dominant “natural influences on global temperature”.
However, the scientists claim that the causes of the global warming and climate change are primarily human (“Causes of Climate Change”). The demand in energy sources makes the humanity overuse oil, coal and gas. Burning of these fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide that in high amounts warms the atmosphere. Hence, since almost all energy production and transportation means rely on these sources, the effect is rapid and frustrating. The technological development and increase of electric gadgets use requires more and more energy that releases the dangerous warming gases into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, currently the alternative energy sources are not able to replace the fossil fuels completely due to the too high energy demand.
Concerns of the Climate Change
The concerns of the climate change in the global warming include energy and water supply, agricultural and transport areas and environmental issues. The weather disasters such as droughts, floods and storms are the major implications showing the negative effect of the climate change and global warming. Hence, the scientists establish links between the unnaturally warm weather conditions and frequency of natural disasters expansion.
In addition, the global warming affects human health threatening the global community and economies of the countries worldwide. Hence, the phenomenal heat can produce new diseases related to it and cause more deaths. Furthermore, the climate fluctuations lead to the food and water instability making the harmful health effects more likely to occur.
The scientists claim that climate change is the primary cause of the Arctic sea ice and snow cover loss. Moreover, the glaciers melting in all parts of the world pose a risk of floods and droughts. In addition, the global water systems shift is leading to the sea level rise and extremely heavy rains. From the other side, the unsustainable water supplies as an implication of the climate change may pose a risk of the global water shortage.
The climate change threatens ecosystems leading to the disappearance of native species of plants and animals. However, everything in nature is interconnected and the extinction of one species leads to imbalance and vulnerability of the biodiversity. Thus, the most vulnerable locations as the Great Barrier Reef or the rainforests of the Amazon region show the scarcity of natural life extinction and its consequences for the mankind.
Prospects of the Climate Change
The prospected outcome of the climate change in the global warming is the increase of average temperatures. Currently, it grows “at a rate of approximately 0.2 °C per decade”. However, unless the humanity starts controlling the CO2 emissions the warming effect will increase. Hence, it is necessary to act in order to prevent economic and social costs and losses.
Therefore, it will deepen the existing concerns and cause irreversible changes of the natural world threatening the existence of various plants and animals. According to the scientific prospects, the global warming “of 2–3°C will result in about 20–30%” of the Earth’s biodiversity disappear. Since, local people significantly depend on their ecosystems the future changes would alter the lifestyles and political governance of the entire nations all over the world.
If the climate continues to change the oceans would become warmer, and glaciers and ice sheets would melt causing the global sea level rise. The changes in precipitation patterns may bring more storms and rainfalls in certain areas and their absence in another. Such a shift can cause dramatic consequences and threaten the economic and social security of the world.
Thus, the future climate changes are not precise since the influence of natural processes and the level of greenhouse concentration is unpredictable. Even if humanity stops all the emissions, the warming effect would continue for a long time as far as carbon particles remain in the atmosphere. Moreover, the oceans store heat that together with the human and natural causes might bring more warmth and accelerate the climate change.
Solutions for the Global Warming
In order to preserve the planet of the catastrophic prospects of the global warming and climate change it is necessary to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions sharply and rapidly. The developed and developing nations should look for the opportunities to use environmentally-friendly technologies. Hence, putting the price and limits on CO2 pollution can make the businesses to invest into the development of clean energy sources.
The expansion of renewable and clean energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal and others is a significant step forward delaying the climate change and stopping the global warming. The range of countries is efficiently acting to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions and the greenhouse effect. Hence, only the global cooperation is able to find solutions and prevent air pollution.
Therefore, the humanity should realize that people are the part of the nature and it is necessary to keep the natural balance. The harmony in the environment would eliminate the global issues related to global warming and climate change. Nevertheless, people should be prepared to the consequences of the global warming and be able to prevent the possible damages.
The global community should cooperate with businesses increasing their awareness in order to keep them from building new coal fired power stations. Since they are the main contributors in the carbon pollution the humanity should stop new threats. Hence, finally, it is necessary to deal with the existing and prospected challenges.
Eventually, every person should take individual actions to decrease personal emissions and reduce negative impact on the atmosphere. Thus, using less electricity, reduction of the vehicle emissions, recycling the garbage are some of the opportunities available for every citizen of the planet. However, those small actions can bring huge improvements and stop global warming.
Conclusion
The planet’s climate is changing resulting in the global temperature growth, precipitation shifts and natural disasters. The record high temperatures and climate changes all over the world inform about the global warming issue. People in all places of the planet observe the frightening consequences of these changes and are even more scared with the tremendous prospects. The reason is in the growing level of the greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and other pollutants released by the humans. The emissions of burning fossil fuels and deforestation as well as agricultural and industrial air pollution impact the climate change on Earth. In the future the situation will worsen due to the accumulation of the CO2 in the atmosphere and irreversible natural changes related to the climate change. The working solutions for prevention of the climate change focus on the decrease of harmful emissions and development of the alternative and clean sources of energy. The latter can give on opportunity for cutting air pollution as well. Hence, if people do not stop releasing the dramatic amounts of carbon dioxide and invest into clean energy sources the consequences will be tremendous.
