Why is Climate Change a threat?

The issue of our temperature changing from the increase consumption and use of greenhouse gases is a concern for the general welfare of individuals and other creatures living on earth. Climate change is an effect of human actions and the transformations to the earth’s surface, and how these actions effect the climate and atmosphere on earth. In a forty-year time period the surface temperatures in Greenland have changed by about five to six degrees Celsius. There have been record of upper atmospheric temperatures declining, and there has been a concerning increase in methane in the last one hundred years. When we are looking at the different affects that could be leading our climate to change, we cannot only look at greenhouse gases. Other affects need to be considered such as acid deposition, greenhouse warming, corrosively of the atmosphere and various other effects.

EARTH’S SYSTEMS

It is important while considering the effects of climate change to understand the interactive physical and biological processes that regulate the whole earth system, and the unique environment that is provided to sustain life, the changes that occur within this system, and the manner in which human activities influence this system. Piecing together the different aspects of the earths system will give yourself a better understanding of why changes are occurring to our atmosphere on earth.

Looking at the global ozone in the earths system, in the lower atmosphere there is a very small amount of atmospheric ozone present. However, the amount of atmospheric ozone has increased at about twelve-kilometer elevation, this layer of earth’s surface shields the surface of earth from the harmful solar ultraviolet radiation. When the overhead column of ozone diminishes the ozone layer is thinned, this will result in more ultraviolet radiation getting through to the surface.

IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON EARTH

It is expected that carbon dioxide and methane emissions will continue to be released in the atmosphere at increasing rates. The impact of climate change is beginning to occur with changing weather patterns, increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events or storms, unpredictability of once stable cultivating and harvesting patterns, decreasing supply of water, and damage to the ecosystem. All of these changes to our environment have escalated and worsened through the years, changing the way families live and work on a daily basis.

Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and the Committee on Global Change, Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Resources National Research Council, (1989), Ozone Depletion, Greenhouse Gases, and Climate Change, National Academy Press 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington D.C. 20418, pg 4–31