The Enhanced Green House Effect

The Enhanced Greenhouse Effect

For the past ten thousand years the earth's climate has been extremely good and beneficial to mankind. Today however , major changes are taking place. Humans beings are changing the face of the entire planet by destroying the rain forests and pumping our pollutants into the air and water. Some of these gases are very toxic and they are destroying our ozone layers which allows life to exist on earth These things are changing the make-up of the earth's biosphere and its heat balance in a very negative way.

Global Warming is an increase in the earth's temperature due to the use of fossil fuels and other industrial processes, leading to a buildup of green house gasses. It has been known that using these gasses stops the suns heat rays from getting into space.

This is called the green house effect. There is a question weather this adds to Co2 levels in the atmosphere. A rise in temperature could cause coastal folding and major climatic changes. This could have serious effects on agricultural productivity. Since 1850 there has been an average rise of 1 degree calculus (1.8 Fahrenheit). But this rise could be just a natural fluctuation or it could be from humans pumping fossil fuels into the atmosphere. It can be hard to tell if it is natural or man made, but either way, in 1995 it was the hottest year on record, research shows from the British Meteorological office. Some scientists predict that if green house gasses are not reduced quickly, temperatures could raise the average temperature 1.8 to 6.3 degree Fahrenheit

by 2100. The average temperature rose 1.8-degree Fahrenheit from 1850 to about 1998. This says the temperature is rising faster because of more fossil fuels and Co2 being pumped into the atmosphere. These increases of temperature, scientists predict, could cause sea levels to rise 20 inches and more. Many of the world's greatest scientist's say the potential consequences are so great that many are urging immediate action, and are asking for international cooperation.

Climate Change has caused some extreme and weather breaking events in recent years. There have been heat waves in European and North America, floods in Africa after nearly 2 decades of drought, and nearly continuous rain and cold in the middle of summer at other places. In the 80`s six of the hottest years of the century were recorded. This could be a result of a global climate change caused by the chemical pollution of the atmosphere. As of yet, no sign of climate change has happened yet that can be blamed on the green house effect.

The Greenhouse Effect is the roll that the atmosphere plays in insulating and warming the earth's surface. The atmosphere is the part of the earth that is covered by a thin blanket of gasses. Nitrogen and oxygen are the main gasses in our atmosphere. We would not be able to survive without oxygen. When the sunlight hits the earth it turns to heat or infrared energy. Some of this heat energy is absorbed by soils, plants, and water on the earth's surfaced. A lot of this is reflected back toward space, but not all. Carbon dioxide and other similar gasses absorb this heat, and prevent it from going back to space. Carbon dioxide absorbs this heat and warms the atmosphere. It is like a window in a car on a summer day. The glass lets in sunlight but keeps the heat from escaping, like a glass or plastic window in a greenhouse traps heat and protects plants from the cold. This is the greenhouse effect.

The Carbon Cycle is a natural process of carbon dioxide entering the air. It is present in some kinds of rocks and in coral reefs. Large amounts are also stored for a time in soils, in ocean waters, and in sediments at the bottom of the oceans. It is released by erosion, plants and from decaying things. The scientists learn about the earth's atmosphere and past by studying glaciers. By drilling more than a mile deep in Greenland glaciers, scientists have collected cores of ice formed a hundred thousand years ago. Their studies show gas bubbles in the ice reveal changes in the earth's atmosphere. The scientists have learned that the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere has changed as temperatures and other conditions have changed over thousands of years.

Greenhouse Gasses in the atmosphere really began to increase in the early nineteenth century with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. When fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas are burned, carbon combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. Human use of fossil fuels has quickly added large amounts of this gas to the atmosphere. Cutting down forests also adds carbon dioxide, because when wood decays it releases its carbon slowly, also when it is burned. Each year many square miles of forests are burned to clear land for farming especially in the tropics. This cutting down of the forests has released at least a billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. Methane gas is another gas released during coal mining and the production of petroleum products. Natural gas is also methane and so any leaks during the production or distribution, or in the use of natural gases also ad methane to the atmosphere. It is produced when forests or grass lands burn, but mainly when dead things decay. It a raises where ever decay occurs and there is little oxygen present, like from swamps and rice paddies, from garbage buried in land fills and even from the guts of cows and termites. Cattle are one of the greatest sources of methane because their numbers have more than doubled the number of people. Methane is chemically twenty times more effective than carbon dioxide as a heat trapping gas. Gases called chlorofluorocsrbons (CFCs) also are dangers because they are used as coolant gasses in refrigerators and air conditioners, as insulation and as propellant gasses in spray cans, also in things like the foam in car seats. When we