climate change

Climate ChangeJiangzhenghui Southern New Hampshire University1 IntroductionIs human activity a substantial cause of climate change? Since the early 20th century, earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two-thirds of the increase occurring since 1980[1]. Due to the temperature becomes higher, the related changes has varied from region to region around the globe.The impacts of global warming include a rise in sea levels and a change in the amount and pattern of precipitation, as well a probable expansion of subtropical deserts. The strongest effects of global warming is in the Arctic and would be associated with the continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice. For example, warming would be more appropriate for pathogens breeding, the incidence of malaria, Lyme disease,West Nile fever and other infectious diseases continue to increase. Extreme weather will make floods more frequently, which will affect more than one regions' safe drinking and weaken the natural self-cleaning ability. These negative impacts of climate change is the most serious in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Rim as well as the Sahara desert in the hinterland of the least developing African countries. Further, scientists estimate that the earth's average temperature will rise by 1.4 ℃ to 5.8 ℃. In short, the global climate change will greatly harm to human health, the destruction of ecosystems, and thus bring about huge economic losses to society as a whole.Many people argued that wether is human activity a substantial cause of global climate change the human or not. Even some people think that global warming is a fraud, they contend that our forests and oceans are capable of absorbing these small increases, and that 20th century warming has resulted from natural processes including fluctuations in the sun's heat and ocean currents. They say that global climate change is based on bunk science and scare tactics. However, global warming has actually happened. So it is agreed that greenhouse gas levels are rising due to human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation which are causing significant climate changes.This will be proven by analysing three reasons. The first reason is that human activities produce CO2 is warming the earth is warming the earth. The second is that Human release greenhouse cannot be balanced by nature and thethird is many organizations believe that human activity is a substantial cause of global climate change.2 The reasons of why human activity is a substantial cause of global climate change2.1 Human activities produce CO2 is warming the earthFigure1 The relative importance of these gasesA greenhouse gas (sometimes abbreviated GHG) is a gas(include water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone) in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect[2]. Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth. Some people believe that rising temperatures are caused primarily by water vapor, not by CO2,which concentrations in the atmosphere are driven by natural storm systems and ocean currents. However, the role of carbon dioxide accounts for about half of the total greenhouse effect which is shown in Figure1[3].Human-produced CO2 is warming the earth, not natural CO2 released from the ocean and other "carbon sinks." CO2from fossil fuel combustion has a specific isotopic ratio [4] that is different from CO2 released by natural "carbon sinks." 20th century measurements of CO2 isotope ratios in the atmosphere confirm that the rise results from human activities, not natural processes[5] .Carbon dioxide is produced when coal, oil, and natural gas (fossil fuels) are burned to produce energy used for transportation, manufacturing, heating, cooling, electricity generation, and other applications. 75% of the 20th century increase in the atmospheric greenhouse gas CO2 is directly caused by human actions like fossil fuels burning ,cement production and deforestation. Fossil fuels, oil,coal and gas,all of these materials are used increasingly and rampantly in industries. The use of fossil fuel currently accounts for 80 to 85% of the carbon dioxide being added to the atmosphere. In addition, deforestation increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Also, due to the disappearance of trees, photosynthesis cannot take place and the burning of wood would release more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One report said that CO2levels were 389ppm (parts per million) as of Apr. 2010 - the highest they have been in the past 650,000 years[6]. This increase in CO2 was a substantial contributor to the 1°F to 1.4°F warming over the 20th century[1][7]. So, human activities produce CO2 is warming the earth.2.2Human release greenhouse cannot be balanced by natureFigure2 The Global Carbon CycleIt may be argued that human release of greenhouse gas cannot cause climate change due to it has been eventually balanced by nature. As you can see in Figure2[8], natural land and ocean carbon remains roughly in balance and have done so for a long time and we know this because we can measure historic levels of CO2in the atmosphere both directly (in ice cores) and indirectly (through proxies). Moreover, human produced greenhouse gases will continue to accumulate in the atmospherecausing climate change because the earth's forests, oceans, and other "carbon sinks" cannot adequately absorb them all. As a consequence, atmospheric CO2is at its highest level in 15 to 20 million years. In 2009, these carbon sinks were only absorbing about 50% of human-produced CO2[5]. The other 50% is accumulating in the atmosphere. Human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era, creating an artificial forcing of global temperatures which is warming the planet. While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all the additional CO2. Therefore, greenhouse gas which produced by human activities cannot be balanced by nature, human activities is a substantial cause of climate change.2.3 Many organizations believe that human activity is a substantial cause of global climate changeOpponents argue that theories of naturally caused climate change are often ignored by "mainstream" scientists and organizations. They think that many research scientists are more interested in maintainining the flow of federal grant money for climate change research than in questioning the basic theory of human causation. However, many organizations believe that human activity is a substantial cause of global climate change. These groups include: the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the InterAcademy Council, the Network of African Science Academies, the European Science Foundation (ESF), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Royal Society (UK national academy of science), the US National Academies of Science, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).Nearly all climate change studies show humans as the main cause, and studies which contradict this claim are often funded by petroleum companies, making their conclusions suspect given the obvious conflict of interest. From 2004-2005,ExxonMobil gave $2.2 million[9] in grants for climate change research to organizations that deny human caused climate change. In 2006 US Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) chastised ExxonMobil [10] for providing more than $19 million in funding to over 29 "climate change denial front groups."3ConclusionIn summary, human activities produced abundant greenhouse gas and natural cannot balance so much greenhouse gas, So I agreed that human activities is a substantial cause of the global climate change. Therefore, the need of the hour is to spare a thought on the damage that we might be causeing to the environment. We may not live long enough to witness the repercussions of our actions , but our future generations might have to pay for our actions.References[1]National Research Council of the National Academies, "Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years," , 2006 .[2] "IPCC AR4 SYR Appendix Glossary". Retrieved 14 December 2008.[3] /CO2-cause-of-global-warming[4] Robert Andres, PhD, and Gregg Marland, PhD, et al., "Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil Fuel Consumption and Cement Manufacture, 1751-1991," Oak Ridge National Laboratory, May 23, 1994[5] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis," www.ipcc.ch, 2007[6] National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), "Global Climate Change: Evidence - How Do We Know," (accessed Apr. 26, 2010) [7] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), "Global Climate Change Indicators," , Apr. 13, 2010[8] http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml[9] Greenpeace USA, "ExxonMobil's Continued Funding of Global Warming Denial Industry," , May, 2007[10] John Rockefeller (D-WV), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), "Rockefeller and Snowe Demand ThatExxon Mobile End Funding of Campaign That Denies Global Climate Change," , Oct. 30, 2006。