The adverse effects of global warming are no secret. Despite a constant slew of deniers trying to refute official studies and statistics, global warming is a serious threat that’s slowly but surely advancing. A look at how hot the earth has become since the 17th century reveals concerning results — and more than enough reason to stay in the shade, whether indoors or outdoors.
2. The adverse effects of global warming are no secret. Despite a constant slew of
deniers trying to refute official studies and statistics, global warming is a
serious threat that’s slowly but surely advancing. A look at how hot the earth
has become since the 17th century reveals concerning results — and more
than enough reason to stay in the shade, whether indoors or outdoors.
Heating Things Up
According to data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
in the United States, global temperatures (both land and sea) increased about
0.85 degrees Celsius on average from 1880 to 2012. Continents warmed the
most compared to oceans, since water heats and cools down much faster. The
IPCC also notes that the Northern Hemisphere, which possesses most of the
world’s land mass, experienced the warmest 30-year stretch in the last 1,400
years from 1983 to 2012.
Constant temperature increases year after year can prompt questions on how
hot the Earth can get. There is no exact answer, because the planet can
technically control its temperature on its own. Much is said of the negative
effects of the greenhouse effect, but it’s the one which historically kept the
Earth from plunging into an eternal ice age. Without the greenhouse effect,
average global temperatures would plummet to -18 degrees Celsius, and life
wouldn’t exist. It keeps the planet warm, but since then, the gases that
constitute the atmospheric greenhouse got added to over time.
3. Natural Or Man-Made?
The sun is not getting hotter. It’s just that the Earth’s climate control
mechanisms are all out of rhythm. Obviously, a major contributor to the
increase of greenhouse gases is human activity. The more recent estimates
show that greenhouse gas emissions more than quadrupled between 2000 and
2010 alone. Because of this, experts believe that the world will be 4 degrees
warmer on average than it used to during the 18th Century.
Global warming cannot be caused by man alone. Earth possesses many of the
greenhouse gases naturally. The truth is that global warming is both natural
and man-made. In the roughly 4.5 billion years of the Earth’s existence,
various episodes of global warming have already occurred. Otherwise, the
planet will still be in an ice age.
4. Sources:
https://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq/how-much-has-global-temperature-
risen-last-100-years
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151130-how-hot-could-the-earth-get
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/three-quarters-of-climate/
https://www.onlineblindsshop.com.au/product-category/blinds/roman-
blinds/
But there’s no denying the human hand helping global warming go faster. An
independent study by Swiss researchers reveals that 74 percent of the
observed warming phenomena are due to human activity. The study, published
in the journal Nature Geoscience, discovered that worldwide surface air
temperatures increased by over .5 degrees Celsius by analysing how the
balance of heat energy leaving and entering the atmosphere changed over the
years.
It’s safe to blame much of global warming on humans, but one can’t count out
the nature factor as well.