Free Paper Sample: The Human Fingerprint on Climate Change

Introduction

Climate is a term used to refer to the weather conditions such as atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind, temperature, and precipitation of a place in general over a long period of time. Climate change refers to a significant deviation of the average weather conditions such as rainfall and temperature in a place over many years (Letcher 12). For example, weather conditions might become wetter, warmer, or drier over several years. The United States, for example, experienced dwindling mountain glaciers more than 20,000 years ago when much of the country was covered with glaciers (Pelto 30). The entire Earth also has experienced fluctuations in precipitation patterns as well as warming temperatures.

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Evidence has shown that there have been constant changes in the Earth's climate, stretched even before human beings came into the picture (Benjamin, Wiegandt, and Luckman 30). However, scientists have recently observed unusual climatic changes, such as the normal world temperature increasing much more quickly than scientists predicted over the past one and half decades.

Measurement of climate change

Present-day scientists monitor current weather and climate patterns using meteorological stations remotely located, ocean buoys, and Satellites orbiting the Earth. However, scientists would range the Earth's climatic data using paleoclimatology records from natural sources like tree rings, ice cores, lake sediments, oceans, and corals to millions of years back. The records provided wide-ranging insights into the variations in the Earth's atmosphere over a long period of time. These data are then fed into climate models that help to predict climate trends for the future accurately.

Causes of Climate Change

The Earth cools when the sun reflects its energy, by ice and clouds mostly, off the planet back into space or when the energy gets released by the Earth's atmosphere. When the planet absorbs energy from the sun, or when heat released by the planet's atmospheric components fails to radiate into space, the result is called the greenhouse effect and makes the planet warm (Letcher 17). There are various factors, some natural while others human, that affect the climate system of the Earth.

Natural causes of climate change

Scientists have long proven that the planet has undergone cool and warm cycles in the past before human existence. Volcanic eruptions, the intensity of the sun, and variations in concentrations of natural greenhouse gases are all forces contributing to climate change. Scientific records point out that climatic warming, especially from the middle of the 20th century, is happening at a much faster rate than natural environmental causes alone can't explain. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA records that much as these natural environmental causes are still in play up to this moment, their impacts are too insignificant, or they take place too slowly to give details on the rapid warming of the Earth seen in the past few decades.

Climate change caused by Human activity

Human beings generate greenhouse gas emissions that are the principal cause of the rapid changes in Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases occur naturally. They make the Earth habitable by ensuring that some of the heat from the sun is not reflected back into space. They play a key role in ensuring the planet is warm enough and liveable. Greenhouse gases are essential to the existence of human beings and several other living things. Large-scale agriculture and deforestation have caused the atmospheric quantities of greenhouse gases to skyrocket in the past few decades. The cumulative levels of greenhouse gas emissions have consistently increased as populations, living standards, and economies grow (Benjamin, Wiegandt, and Luckman 60). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that the levels of methane, nitrous oxides, and carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere have skyrocketed to unprecedented levels in the past few centuries.

Industrialization has also seen the share of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rise by 40 percent (Letcher 12). Emissions generated by human activities are primarily caused by the combustion of fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal for transportation, heat, or electricity. Deforestation has also proven to be a major source of human emissions as it discharges sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. Environmentalists estimate that the felling of trees, fires, logging, and other forest degradation forms make up approximately 20 percent of the total carbon secretions in the world (Pelto 40).

The human hand in air pollution is also seen in the use of fertilizer, and livestock production, with goats, cattle, sheep, and buffaloes being major methane emitters. There are also human industrial developments that emit fluorinated gases. Actions such as road construction and large-scale agriculture can affect the Earth's surface's reflectivity resulting in local warming or cooling. Though the Earth's forests and oceans take in greenhouse gases from the planet's atmosphere through processes such as photosynthesis, these natural carbon sinks are not able to keep up with the rising emissions from human beings (Pelto 45). This accumulation leads to a resultant build-up of greenhouse gases that leads to worryingly quick warming of the globe. Scientists have also estimated that the average temperature of the planet rose by about 17.2 Celsius during the 20th century.

Climate Change Effects

It is evident that Climate Change is the central issue of modern times. There have been rising sea levels that escalate the risk of disastrous flooding to the ever-changing weather patterns that affect food production, the effects of climate change have become worldwide in scope as it transforms international ecosystems and affects everything from the homes we live in, drinking water and the air for breathing, and unmatched in scale. Drastic action is needed today as acclimatizing to the impacts in the future will surely be difficult and costly.

Extreme weather conditions

Heating up of the Earth's atmosphere gathers and holds more water, altering weather patterns and causing dry places to be drier and wet places wetter. The increased temperatures aggravate and intensify the frequency of different disasters, including heatwaves, storms, droughts, and floods. All these cause devastating consequences threatening wildfires, access to portable water, property damage, air pollution, and loss of life.

Air Pollution

The rise in Earth's temperatures makes the air dirtier, the presence of higher levels of soot and smog, and brings more allergenic pollutants, including circulating pollen and molds.

Risks to Human and Animal Health

The rise in global temperatures leads to a corresponding increase in illnesses and deaths from cardiovascular disease, heat stroke, heat stress, and kidney disease. Respiratory health deteriorates with the rise in air pollution. The presence of additional airborne pollen plagues also affects allergy and fever patients. Extreme weather occasions, including flooding and storms, may cause arable water contamination, and storms can affect local infrastructure and result in the displacement of communities.

Rising Oceans and Seas

Since the Arctic is warming twice as aggressively as other parts of the Earth and ice sheets and glaciers melt into the seas, the year 2100 will see oceans rising higher by one to eight feet, threatening seaside environments and low-altitude areas. Island countries and some of the globe's largest cities such as Mumbai, New York, Sydney, and Miami face the biggest risk.

More Acidic and Warmer Oceans

The planet's oceans and seas absorb from a third to a quarter of human fossil fuel emissions and have increased in acidity by 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution. This increase in acid levels is a major hazard to water life, specifically organisms with skeletons or calcified shells like coral, oysters, and clams. The effects on birds, fish, and mammals that rely on shellfish for nutrition can be devastating (Letcher 27). The increase in ocean temperatures also causes fluctuations in the population and range of underwater organisms and causes coral bleaching that can kill entire coral reefs.

Endangered ecosystems

Climate change has prompted most wildlife to develop adaptive responses to the changing ecosystems. Wildlife seeks out higher altitudes and cooler climates, varying seasonal behaviors, and altering old-fashioned migration behaviors. These changes can profoundly alter whole ecosystems and the complex communities of creatures that depend on these ecologies.

Interestingly, longer summers and minor winters have allowed some species to flourish, such as tree-killing insects that pose a risk to entire forests. The change of climate caused by humans has led to changing extreme weather patterns globally, from hotter and longer heat waves to heavier rains. While nature continues to play a role in weather patterns, climate change has altered the odds and changed the limits of nature, making certain extreme weather activities more intense and more frequent (Pelto 45). It is crucial, then, to develop strategies for climate change mitigation, actions, and technological developments for monitoring in order to save humans and other animals.

Works Cited

Letcher, T M. Climate Change: Observed Impacts on Planet Earth. , 2009. Print.

Pelto, Mauri. Recent Climate Change Impacts on Mountain Glaciers. , 2017. Print.

Orlove, Benjamin S, Ellen Wiegandt, and Brian H. Luckman. Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Print.