Changing Weather Patterns Essay

Total Length: 1667 words ( 6 double-spaced pages)

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Global Warming

Climate change has proved to be a controversial subject over the past decade. Every time you turn on your television or when you are reading the newspaper, you must always come across something new about climate change (Depledge, J. 2004). Climate change is basically based on science, the understanding of earth's climate system revolve around scientific knowledge that is obtain from the electromagnetic radiation, non- linear, fluid dynamics, physical chemistry, ecology among many other aspects.

In tackling this issue of global warming there are unique chances that arises in the minds of atmospheric scientist, our friends, neighbors and family members is ask, is our climate changing?. The records of temperature from the weather station all around the world are the most appropriate place to get the information on whether the climate is changing. Climate is the average weather condition over a period of 20-30 years or more (Oberthu-r, S. 2011).

The natural forces that are known to change climate are sun or the natural cycles. This has been responsible for the change in climate over the past and is most likely to causes changes even in future. These natural forces cannot be controlled by human beings. The contribution of human beings on the other hand is observed in the variation of earth's climate that it is made more difficult with the fact that the climatic system also varies naturally (Depledge, J. 2004). By combining information derived from the spatial patterns of anthropogenic and natural climate variation, the workers conclude that the upward trend that was witnessed in the ocean heat content during the period 1993-2003 was as a result of anthropogenic influence that was created due to the imbalance. This imbalance was due to the absorption of sunlight by the earth and the heat it emitted to the space at that particular time.

The other aspect is radioactive forcing from natural changes, solar changes and explosive volcanic eruptions are responsible for natural forcing. The solar output in the industrial era seems to increase gradually hence causing a small positive radioactive forcing. This will answer the additional to cycling changes in the solar radiation that always follow an eleven year cycle (Oberthu-r, S. 2011). The heat from solar energy directly heats the climate system and the effect is felt in the atmospheric abundance of some greenhouse gases that include stratospheric ozone.

The occurrence of explosive volcanic eruptions may create a negative forcing that can be short lived for a period of 2-3 years through temporary increases that are brought about by the existence of sulphate aerosol in the stratosphere (Depledge, J. 2004). Looking at the difference in radioactive forcing estimated between the modern days and the start of the industrial era where solar irradiance changes, we can say that the effects of volcanoes are very minimal as compared to the effect that is caused by the radioactive forcing which resulted from the activities of human beings. The radioactive in the atmosphere today is mainly composed from radioactive forcing mainly influenced by human activities, so for the current and the future climate change largely depend on the activities of human.

It would be inappropriate for me to state whether global warming does exist or not (Saulnier, J.2011). This question has always raised heated debate with scientist coming up both positive hypotheses that contradict other finds. On one side scientist say that the temperatures are falling and not rising. These researches were given out in a review in 2008, the research was conducted in the northern hemisphere and the scientist discovered the greatest snow cover since the 1966. But this is not the case on the other side. The global warming trends data that are witnessed and scrutinized shows that there are relative rapid and widespread increases in temperature, this is according to the research that was conducted during 1997-2008

The other notable change is patterns of precipitation.
Some places are witnessing more rainfall while others are experiencing less rainfall (Oberthu-r, S. 2011). The regions that are experiencing more rainfall, this is due to the ability of these regions to experience warmer air that is responsible for hold more water vapor. These changes that are caused by global warming have made climate of other regions to shift from their initial climatic conditions.

According to report by the United Nation Environment Program, it stated that the global warming was the main cause of melting of glaciers in the Himalayas (Depledge, J. 2004). The effect of the local warming was described as vast over that region. Atmospheric brown cloud that is made up soot was witnessed in that region, it is said that this was due to dramatically increased burning of fossils fuels as well as deforestation that was being witnessed in Asia.

The environment has always played a major role in shaping the population, movements as well as influencing the distribution of the human population across the entire planet. Mankind tends to move from regions that are witnessing harsh or deteriorating climatic conditions. It is always a preferred choice to those people that are living in regions that are experience harsh environments in order to maintain their livelihoods.

Over the past two decades the environmental migration has be witness to have change. Climatic change has posted a great risk that is most likely to increase the level of humanitarian emergencies that can trigger large movement of population due to the increase weather events, the rise in sea-level, and the acceleration of environmental degradation that includes coastal erosion and desertification (Romm, Joseph 2006).

The emission of greenhouse gas can be reduced through cost-effective methods that involve market based approaches that are able to put a price on carbon. The two approaches that are commonly talked about are a cap and trade system and a carbon tax (Oberthu-r, S. 2011). By introducing a price for the greenhouse gas emissions will play a major role in aiding the correction of the market failure that exist when the value of environmental damages are omitted in the market of fossil fuels. The fundamental difference between the two approaches would maximize the level of emissions and this will make the environmental outcome known and the resulting price to be unknown.

Carbon taxing influences price set and let the market determine the environmental outcome (Depledge, J. 2004). In carbon tax what is considered is the weighing of carbon tax that may include environmental integrity, cost-effectiveness, distributional equity and all the fundamental designed issues. Fundamental designed issues include who is to pay the tax and how the appropriate tax rate is set.

Coal when burnt becomes the dirtiest of all fossils fuels. There are a range of technologies that are put in place to come up with an approach that will reduce the environmental impacts that are caused by coal fired power stations. Clean coal technology (CCT) is the name that is given to such approaches that are aimed at cleaning coal chemically and get rid of minerals that are impure, the process sometimes include gasification, burning then the resultant flue gases are treated with steam with aim of removing sulphur dioxide and later burned to make the carbon dioxide in the flue gas economically removable (Saulnier, J.2011).

Coal plays a very important role in the economies for energy in industrialized nations. The need to sustain energy has always ensured that coal has a rising demand in the market, but the greatest disadvantage that is associated with coal the effect it has on the environment. The environmental problems that are associated with the production of coal are; floods, forest fires, tornados, air pollution among many others. So there is a need to address the problems that are associated the production of coal so as to improve the environment and the performance.....

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