Global Warming, What Does It Mean?
Have you noticed that it’s way hotter nowadays than let’s say, ten, five years ago? And when it rains, it pours. Wildfires are fiercer than ever, damaging hectares of wildlife. Does it not concern you how the climate has become quite extreme?
True, throughout Earth’s history, the climate has warmed, cooled, and gone to extremes one too many times. Basically, the climate does change due to a number of factors including biotic processes, subtle changes in the planet’s orbit, plate tectonics, or when the sun’s energy fluctuate. There have been a series of scorching climes that alternated with glacial periods. However, each cycle lasted several thousands of years!
So why has the climate changed faster this time around? And why is it unreasonably hot these days? First, a background on how Earth keeps warm.
Heat and radiation from the sun enter the atmosphere and gets bounced off from the surface back to the atmosphere. In the atmosphere, greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane absorb heat reflected from the Earth’s surface. These atmospheric gases trap heat for extended periods, all the while radiating heat in all directions including down back to the surface. Consequently, the Earth’s surface temperature elevates as the atmosphere continues to radiate heat.
Greenhouse gases are naturally present in the planet and has been contributory to the life-sustaining workings of the planet. However, in the past century, greenhouse gases emitted from the Earth’s surface have spiked due to burned fossil fuels, increasing the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere. So imagine the amount of greenhouse gases absorbing heat and how much heat is radiated back down to Earth’s surface, and for how long.
Global Warming may seem self-explanatory, but is the reality of it as simple as it sounds? What can and must we do to safeguard the future of the planet and humanity?