The Cause Of Global Climate Change

The world has evolved over the past century in ways never seen before. The global population has exponentially grown to nearly eight billion human beings, leading to incredible achievements and technological advances. Industrial life has stripped away the burden of everyday tasks and made essential parts of life such as transportation seem effortless. This drive for progress has created solutions to nearly any problem a human can face, while leaving one major aspect in the dark. How has the self-centered, enterprising attitude of humanity affected the Earth we live on? Whether humans know it or not, global climate change is occurring. Unfortunately, uneducated leaders and executives have responded to this crisis calling it a cyclical occurrence

Those who believe they have experienced a change in the intensity of heat in their community would not be wrong. The root of this change comes from the thin layer of atmosphere around the Earth, which has faced some of the worst effects of pollution. When the Earth absorbs the emissions of solar energy through light waves of sun, it reradiates these light waves back into the atmosphere in the form of infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, trap a great deal of this radiation in the atmosphere. This results in the increase of temperature that has turned ordinary weather patterns upside down. Since 1880, the annual global temperature of the Earth has risen by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. “This has led to seventeen of the eighteen warmest years on record occurring since 2001 according,” claims the Earth Science Communications Team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Whether human induced or not, the trend of increased temperature matches that of levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (see Graph 1). Simply put, as the carbon dioxide levels rise and fall during Earth rotation around its axis, so does the average temperature. As the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth tilts towards the sun durings its rotation, the Earth sustains lower levels of carbon dioxide and temperature. This occurs due to the fact

Their conclusion, that erupted in headlines across the world, asserts, “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate” (Lasthof). Seasons have changed in all climates as warm weather proceeds longer and cold weather seasons continue to diminish. The days of frost in most environments have dramatically decreased, while harsh heat waves have struck arid ecosystems. This has caused the ecological niche of organisms to be thrown off. For example, migratory birds are arriving earlier than normal and hatching eggs weeks prior to usual. Changes in weather patterns have developed holes in ecosystems that are filled rapidly by invasive exotic species. “This weather pattern of increased warmth,” notes Daniel Lashoff, “will be greater over the next century than ever see in the last ten thousand years.” It will continue to warm excessively in areas to the point that the tundra grounds will decompose. A recent Geographical journal article states, “The threat to the global climate posed by methane escaping from permafrost as it melts would be unimaginable” (Geographical 12). Melting can already be viewed in forests where trees have coined the name “drunk trees,” since they have moved in all sorts of directions due to the thawed soil. The greenhouse gas methane would contribute to and fuel future