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Transcript

&

the carbon cycle

Climate change

by Ryan Garsee

The Problem

Climate

change

Our planet is heating up due to an event that's been going on for AGES,

called the "greenhouse effect".

The good thing is, this is normal. The bad thing is, we're heating up the planet WAY more than normal due to everything extra we're doing.

Evidence

The

Stats

This graph, shown at the bottom right, shows

the carbon dioxide ppm (parts per million) levels

for the past 800,000 years. As you can see, until

very recently (around the 1850s or so, the start of the Industrial Revolution), carbon dioxide ppm levels were fluctuating, as they should be.

But recently,

they've been

getting worse.

This is

undoubtably

(95%) caused by

human activity.

There has been, since at least the late 19th century:

  • a global temperature rise of about 1.62°F
  • retreating glaciers all over the world:
  • Alps
  • Himalayas
  • Andes
  • Rockies
  • Alaska
  • Africa
  • a sea level rise nearly double that of the last century in the last 20 years
  • an increase in natural disasters and extreme events since 1950
  • and a whole lot more...

Addendum

to

Evidence

It's obvious that since this started around the late 19th century, this is caused by human (that's us!) activity.

There's a ton of causes for global warming, let's take a look at 2 of them!

Causes

The greenhouse effect is when warming occurs when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space, and certain gases prevent this heat from escaping, like water vapor, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and methane. Certain activities can cause this to happen, like burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil (increases CO2).

Here's an informative GIF:

The

Greenhouse

Effect

https://climate.nasa.gov/system/content_pages/main_images/1_greenhouse_effect_rev_5-22-19.gif

Click here!

It's OK to assume

changes in the Sun's energy

output can cause the climate to

change, since the Sun is pretty much our

only source of energy to drive the Earth.

And this has played a tiny role in the past climate

changes, e.g. a decrease in solar activity with an

increase of volcanic activity could have helped trigger

the Little Ice Age from 1650 to 1680. But, global warming

can't be completely explained by energy changes from

the Sun, because greenhouse gases are

trapping heat in the lower atmosphere,

creating a cooling effect in the upper

atmosphere and a heating effect on

the surface & the lower atmosphere.

And climate models that include solar

irradiance changes can’t reproduce

this temperature trend over the

past century or more without

including a rise in greenhouse

gases.

Solar

Irradiance

Climate change has

already affected the Earth, oh

the humanity! Glaciers have shrunk,

ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up

earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted

and trees are flowering sooner, as well as extreme

heat waves, accelerated sea level rise, and loss of

sea ice. And the temperature will continue to rise, the

growing season will lengthen, precipitation will increase,

droughts and heat waves will get worse, the sea level will

rise by 1-4 feet by 2100, etc.

There's a ton of things that climate change is causing, and

there is scientific evidence that we're part of the problem.

If we don't fix this soon, we're gonna have to move to Mars.

And even if a 1.9°F increase in temperatures during the

20th century doesn't seem that bad, just think: this

is unusual for our planet's history. Our temperatures

are becoming more and more unstable.

Effects

Whew.. now that we're

past that wall of text that are the

stats, now we get into what we can really

do. Here are 3 things:

1. Stop cutting down trees: Every year, around 33

MILLION acres of forests are cut down. If we can be

more efficient with these agricultural practices, there

could be an equilibrium reached between the number of

trees cut down, and the number of trees planted.

2. Unplug your devices: In every house, there's at least a

dozen appliances, and even those can lead to global warming,

and thus, the climate change. So if we unplug these when we

aren't using them, this will decrease the emission of harmful

gases, and might even control global warming and climate

change.

3. Focus on renewable energy: Fossil fuels will be used

up in around 20 years, so we should move towards

these renewable energies, or the entire world will

go into chaos. Many cities are already

utilizing renewable energy, like wind

energy, solar energy, hydroelectric

dams, etc.

But what

can

we do?

The carbon cycle is one of

the most important cycles on Earth.

Without carbon, pretty much all life on

earth would cease to exist, or rather, wouldn't

have even started to exist. Our economies, our

homes, our means of transport, they're all made out

of carbon.

Most of our carbon, all 65,500 billion metric tons of it, is stored in rocks, the ocean,

atmosphere, plants, soil, and

fossil fuels. This carbon goes

in slow and fast cycles, and

any change in either cycle

that shifts carbon out of one

reservoir can put carbon in

the other reservoirs.

The

carbon

cycle

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