Research Paper on Global Warming

We Have Changed the World, But Have We Gone Too Far?

Have you ever seen The Day After Tomorrow? It came out in 2004 and it was more or less about how a storm of epic proportions almost brought an end to civilization. But if we look past the special effects and Dennis Quaid, we find that the real issue at the heart of it all was climate change. Personally, I think it was a little…ok, very exaggerated. I mean, they had to make money somehow, right? But it is exaggerated propaganda like this that has put people off thinking about the real life issues of global warming. Epic storms that destroy the world can seem so farfetched and so unlikely that it can give some the mistaken idea that climate change is just as fake as some of the special effects on the big screen. I want to make known three things that, unlike The Day After Tomorrow, are very real that we can and should care about: global warming exists around the world, we are the ones who have caused it, and if we do nothing, there will be global consequences that will affect all of us.

            The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), has said that “scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal” (Jenkins). I think the first thing we must understand is that global warming is based on scientific facts, not just on theories.

Fig. 1. Global Land-Ocean Temperatures 1880-2009. Black dots represent yearly temperature averages, and the red line represents the overall averages of yearly readings. Released and Published by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, used on article "Research News:2009: Second Warmest Year on Record” (Voiland).  

Right now we are experiencing a very warm winter. There has been almost no snow up until recently in many parts of both North America and Europe, but this alone does not prove that global warming exists; last year, the winters were unusually cold. As you can see in fig. 1 (above), there will always be fluctuations in temperatures around the world from year to year. But it is when we look at the mean global temperature that we can see a definite positive trend that shows that temperatures are steadily rising.

Interestingly enough, even though the world wide surface temperature continues to rise, NASA has reported that we are at a solar low. David Hathaway, NASA’s head solar physicist, was one of those responsible for recognizing that sun activity runs in cycles made up of highs and lows.

Fig. 2. Sunspot Cycle 1995 to 2020. Jagged lines represent actual solar output data, and the smooth lines represent predictions. Released and Published by NASA on article “Deep Solar Minimum” (Phillips).

The most important thing to note about fig. 2 (above) is that 2008 and 2009 were years that had record lows as far as solar output was concerned. This is why it is so unnatural that our planet has continued to warm beside the fact that we are receiving less solar energy from the sun. But apparently, sunspot activity has been continually decreasing for a while now. Hathaway says that “sunspot counts are at a 50-year low. We’re experiencing a deep minimum of the solar cycle” (Phillips). This is evidence that we are contributing to the rising temperatures of the Earth’s surface.

            But how can we know that the Earth isn’t just “naturally” heating up? Some argue that the planet has been heating up since the last ice age and it’s true. But there is evidence that shows that our planet, in recent years, has been warming up at an unnatural rate.

Fig.3. Atmospheric CO2 count from ~650,000 BC to Present. Graph released by National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and used on NASA website “Climate Change: Evidence” (Jenkins).

             

Fig. 3 (above) is based on atmospheric samples that have been taken from ice cores, which has proven to be an accurate way of measuring CO2 parts per million (ppm) of the atmosphere at different periods of time. In this graph, CO2 levels rise above 300 ppm for the first time in 650,000 years around 1950 or so, which just happens to be exactly when the Industrial Revolution is fully underway. But how do these CO2 levels prove that we are contributing to recent climate change? Humor me for a moment, as we go back to 1991 to a remote glacier in the Otztal Alps. A man, now nicknamed Frozen Fritz, was found naturally mummified in the ice, dating back to around 3300 BC (Deem). For many archeologists and historians this was an amazing find, but for the climate change community it meant much more. This discovery meant that a glacier, that has since been estimated to have been 5000 years old, had finally melted. This lead scientist to investigate at which point in time this glacier, and others like it, began to melt. Fig. 4 (below) shows the maximums and minimums of glaciers measured around the world since the 1700s. Some don’t have measurements until later years, but as we can see, most glaciers actually reached a maximum after a period of decline in the 1800s. But starting around 1950, the glaciers around the Himalayas, South America, and Tibet began to slip into heavy declines. And by 2000, glaciers around the world were smaller than ever.

Fig. 4. Glacier Growth around the World, 1700-Present. Grey represents lack of recorded data. All other colors represent maximums, minimums, growth, and shrinking. Released and Published by UNEP on article “Overview on glacier changes since the end of the Little Ice Age.”

Some of these glaciers had existed for thousands of years. Is it just a coincidence that they began to melt faster than they ever had around the peak of the Industrial Revolution? I think not.

            So why does any of this matter to us? Why should we care that global warming is real? Well, first of all, as the land surface temperature rises, the sea temperature rises. These warming water currents are shown to make more intense hurricanes. Ok, I know this is starting to sound a bit The Day After Tomorrow-esk, but hear me out. I am talking about normal hurricanes that we have seen before. The American Meteorological Society has reported that studies and models have shown that “hurricanes are more intense and have higher precipitation rates” when they form under “high CO2 conditions” (Knutson). I was able to find a list of every charted hurricane between 1900 and 2005 (Hurricanes). Of those 23 hurricanes, only four occurred before 1940. There is also an obvious increase in hurricane activity as the dates come closer to present day. Of the 17 that occur after 1940, 11 of them struck after 1980. In 2005 alone, there were three hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, which hit the US, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Caribbean. They caused together about 96 billion dollars of damage, and worse than that, at least 1,300 people were killed during the storms. But that is just one year out of many. Think of all those who lost their families, those who lost their homes, and those that truly lost everything. I strongly believe that the rise in temperature due to global warming is responsible for this increased hurricane activity. It makes me ask myself if hurricanes like Katrina really had to happen. Did all those people have to lose their lives and their homes? Even if you don’t believe in global warming, is not even the possibility of saving a human life worth a few minor life style changes?

But global warming is real and sadly, we have caused it. This increased hurricane activity is only one of the many ways our choices will affect our, and our children’s, futures. In a matter of years, melted ice caps will cause seas to rise, covering cities around the world. There will be record droughts, ocean acidification, and warmer oceans, which have already began killing off species of life that have existed for millennia. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can slow global warming by doing simple things like recycling and using public transportation, which decrease the output of CO2. Even reforestation could go a long way to reverse the warming. Now, does it really take all that long to plant a tree or two? If we all do a little, we can begin to slow global warming and make a difference in and for the world.

Works Cited

"HURRICANES: MAJOR STORMS SINCE 1900 | Scholastic.com." Scholastic | Children's Books. Scholastic. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.

Deem, James M. "Ötzi the Iceman: His Discovery." Enter the Mummy Tombs for Information about Mummies from Egypt and Around the World. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.

Jenkins, Amber. "Climate Change: Evidence." Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. 

Knutson, Thomas, and Shirley Laska. "New Orleans, Hurricanes and Climate Change: A Question of Resiliency." American Meteorological Society. American Meteorological Society, 2005. Web. 24 Jan. 2012.

Phillips, Tony. "Deep Solar Minimum." NASA Science. 2009. Web. 26 Jan. 2012. 

Voiland, Adam. "Research News:2009: Second Warmest Year on Record; End of Warmest Decade." NASA GISS: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2012.