Global Warming - what are the facts?
Background
According to the NASA Earth Observatory, “The world is getting warmer. Whether the cause is human activity or natural variability—and the preponderance of evidence says it’s humans—thermometer readings all around the world have risen steadily since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. (Click on bullets above to step through the decades.)
According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8° Celsius (1.4° Fahrenheit) since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade.
But why should we care about one degree of warming? After all, the temperature fluctuates by many degrees every day where we live.
The global temperature record represents an average over the entire surface of the planet. The temperatures we experience locally and in short periods can fluctuate significantly due to predictable cyclical events (night and day, summer and winter) and hard-to-predict wind and precipitation patterns. But the global temperature mainly depends on how much energy the planet receives from the Sun and how much it radiates back into space—quantities that change very little. The amount of energy radiated by the Earth depends significantly on the chemical composition of the atmosphere, particularly the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
A one-degree global change is significant because it takes a vast amount of heat to warm all the oceans, atmosphere, and land by that much. In the past, a one- to two-degree drop was all it took to plunge the Earth into the Little Ice Age. A five-degree drop was enough to bury a large part of North America under a towering mass of ice 20,000 years ago.” https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/DecadalTemp
Causes
Fossil Fuels
Ever since the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, the burning of coal, oil, and other fossil fuels has resulted in the release of carbon-based greenhouse gases. Coal was the substance that powered the world’s first factories and steam engines, but today, oil has become the dominant fossil fuel, powering our vehicles and our electric grid. Although many countries are actively reducing their carbon emissions, fossil fuels continue to be a vital component of the global economy, and oil is still the #1 major export of over 30 countries.
Deforestation
Plants are essential to every ecosystem on land, not only because they are sources of food, but because they absorb CO2 and release oxygen gas. However, since an ever-growing number of trees are cut down each day, less CO2 is absorbed, and thus more CO2 remains in the atmosphere to trap the sun’s heat.
The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest, and its wide variety of plants account for as much as 20% of the world’s oxygen supply. The trees in the Amazon Rainforest currently absorb an average of 2.2 billion tons of CO2 per year. However, this is likely to change for the worse because, every year, the Amazon Rainforest also shrinks by 78 million acres. Trees in the Amazon are, quite literally, cut down every second. The South American national governments are doing little to protect the Amazon Rainforest. In 2012, the Brazilian Congress even changed its deforestation laws by allowing an extra 112,000 square miles of the Amazon to be cut down.
Cows
Nearly 20% of greenhouse gas emissions comes from livestock, and the most common form of livestock is cattle. To be clear, cows do not produce CO2. However, they do produce large amounts of methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas that animals release when defecating. Although methane only accounts for a minority of greenhouse gas emissions, methane is still extremely dangerous to the environment when it comes to global warming, as methane traps 30 times as much of the sun’s heat as CO2 does. In 2016, the EPA reported that, while CO2 emissions in the United States were on the decline, methane emissions only increased, due to the pasteurization of cows.
Effects
Flooding
Global warming causes the ice caps at the North and South Poles to melt and an expansion of the seawater as it warms, causing sea levels to rise. Average sea levels have already risen by 7.5 inches over the past century, and the pace of sea level rise accelerating with 3 inches of that coming between 1993 and 2017 [15]. This makes coastlines more vulnerable to floods, and in the United States alone, the rate of high-tide flooding has doubled over the past 30 years. The U.S. cities with the highest risk for high-tide flooding include metropolitan centers such as New York and Miami. Other countries are not faring any better. The low-altitude Southeast Asian countries are already seeing their coastal populations being displaced due to rising sea levels. In Iran, the Caspian Sea levels are on the rise, and by 2100, it is estimated that 15 million people’s worth of property will be flooded if no action is taken.
Acid Rain
Greenhouse gases mix with water and oxygen in the atmosphere to form deadly substances, such as sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and nitric acid (HNO3). These toxic substances contaminate the Earth’s surface in the form of acid rain. When terrestrial environments experience acid rainfall, the acid rain sinks into the soil and exposes plants to dangerous doses of aluminum. This makes plants weaker, as they can no longer defend themselves against diseases or cold temperatures. Many trees, especially in mountainous regions, die from the aftermaths of acid rain.
However, acid rain has even more devastating effects on aquatic life. When acid rain comes into contact with a body of water, the water absorbs aluminum from surrounding sediments and becomes toxic. This aluminum pollution kills various species of fish, clams, and other aquatic animals. Aquatic animals that do survive the effects of acid rain will often raise offspring with severe mutations and deformities.
Humans are not entirely safe either. Acid rain creates air pollution, as it releases sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOX) into the atmosphere. These gases can cause lung diseases in humans, and in some cases, even heart attacks. Children, pregnant women, asthmatics, and people with a history of heart disease are especially vulnerable to these risks.
Work Productivity
People tend to become less productive and earn less money from work on hot days. In fact, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the average person’s work productivity decreases by 1.7% for every 1ºC (1.8ºF) increase in daily temperature above 15ºC (59ºF). In addition, the average worker’s income decreases by $20 for every weekday whose daily average temperature is above 30ºC (86ºF). This may seem insignificant, but if a person worked during a years’ worth of days whose average temperatures were above 30ºC (86ºF), he or she would be $7,300 poorer than otherwise expected.
Agricultural Productivity
Farmers are hit especially hard by the dangers of global warming. A study by Tatyana Deryugina and Solomon M. Hsiang revealed that, during a “warm day” of 24-27ºC (75-81ºF), the average income per capita would drop by $14.78. In a typical American county, out of all the lost income that resulted from warm weather, nearly 80% of the income was lost by farmers. To make matters worse for the farmers, a hotter climate results in decreases in rainfall and soil fertility, making it more difficult to grow crops. In addition, when CO2 levels are high, crop quality declines, as plants exposed to large amounts of CO2 contain less nitrogen and protein.
Potential Solutions
Renewable Energy Sources
There are various forms of energy that do not require the burning of fossil fuels, which include hydroelectric energy, geothermal energy, wind power, and solar energy. Choosing the ideal form of renewable energy depends on a person’s or a country’s geographical region. For example, Iceland lies on the rift between two continental plates, so the country is constantly bombarded by volcanic activity. In recent years, Iceland has taken advantage of this by using geothermal energy as one of its main sources of power, and today, 25% of the nation’s electricity is fueled by geothermal energy. At the same time, hydroelectric energy is more suitable for countries with large numbers of rivers, such as the United States and China.
However, according to a study at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, wind power is the most efficient and the most profitable source of renewable energy. Compared to other forms of energy, wind power has a relatively low production cost, and it requires no fuel. In addition, while fossil fuels lose more than half their energy as heat during combustion, wind power wastes less than 1% of the energy it produces as heat.
It is necessary to reduce the use of fossil fuels as much as possible, and the United Nations understands this. The 1995 Kyoto Protocol called for a strict limit on carbon emissions, and the more recent Paris Agreement even set a goal to prevent average global temperatures from increasing by more than 1.5ºC. However, these types of international goals are often violated, and the danger of global temperatures increasing by more than 1.5ºC remains a very real threat to our world.
Water Reservoirs and Dams
The Dutch are masters of the sea. Throughout history, natives of the Netherlands needed to control the flow of seawater, as much of the country lies below sea level and is at constant risk of flooding. Today, as ocean levels are rising to new heights, the Netherlands has an organized system of canals and reservoirs. These reservoirs collect floodwaters and prevent cities from receiving any damage. The Netherlands also has a large number of dams and river dikes to stop the flow of floods, but the Dutch government understands that these structures are not enough to protect the Netherlands from rising sea levels. Dutch senior government advisor Harold van Waveren defended the use of floodwater reservoirs when he said, “We can’t just keep building higher levees, because we will end up living behind 10-meter walls. We need to give the rivers more places to flow. Protection against climate change is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain, and the chain in our case includes not just the big gates and dams at the sea but a whole philosophy of spatial planning, crisis management, children’s education, online apps and public spaces” [Source (14)].
”Carbon Sinking”
The efforts being made to reduce the production of greenhouse gasses, while very important, they are by most estimations not enough. It is therefore critical that we find ways to drastically reduce the amount of pollutants in the atmosphere. Ecosystems capable of absorbing and storing large amounts of carbon dioxide known as “carbon sinks” are ideal for this. Underwater seagrass meadows and algae are one such solution.
When the algae dies and sinks to the ocean floor, so does the absorbed carbon, hence the reason why this process is known as “carbon sinking.” So how do you grow more algae? One way is to fill the ocean with a compound known as iron sulfate. The iron allows algae to reproduce more rapidly, and larger amounts of algae in the ocean would naturally absorb more CO2.
Back in 2004, biological researcher Victor Smetacek, along with a team of colleagues based in Germany, experimented with the idea of “carbon sinking.” They covered 64 square miles of the Southern Ocean with 7.7 tons of iron sulfate, and after they completed this procedure, they used their ship’s propellers to control the sea currents. The result was a large algal bloom, with some of the algae growing over 300 feet below the ocean surface. In 2007, an Ecuadorian company called Planktos made an even bigger success when it fertilized nearly 4,000 square miles of the South American Pacific with iron sulfate. The resulting algal bloom absorbed carbon dioxide 34 times faster than naturally occurring algae would.
Seagrass plants have an excellent capacity for taking up and storing carbon in the oxygen-depleted seabed, where it decomposes much slower than on land. This oxygen-free sediment traps the carbon in the dead plant material which may then remain buried for hundreds of years.[16]
Although “carbon sinking” may seem like a promising solution to the emission of greenhouse gases and the rise of global temperatures, it is a controversial idea, as the long-term effects of carbon sinking are currently uncertain.
Algal blooms induced by carbon sinking are sometimes large enough to be seen from outer space.
Bibliography
2) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fertilizing-ocean-with-iron-sequesters-co2/
3) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/04/how-will-climate-change-affect-productivity/
4) http://www.nber.org/papers/w20750
6) http://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?id=56337&pt=10&p=39373
8) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/which-countries-produce-the-most-hydroelectric-power/
9) https://www.borntoengineer.com/efficient-form-renewable-energy
10) https://www.ecotechinstitute.com/ecotech-news/is-wind-energy-viable
11) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/01/brazil-amazon-protection-laws-invite-deforestation-ngo
13) https://www.epa.gov/acidrain/effects-acid-rain#health
14) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/world/europe/climate-change-rotterdam.html
15) https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level
16) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/underwater-meadows-seagrass-could-be-ideal-carbon-sinks-180970686/
