Name: ABHISHEK RANKA

Batch: BBA 5A

Subject: Environment
Management
 GLOBAL WARMING
Global warming is the term used to describe a gradual increase in the
average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans, a change
that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth’s climate. There
is great debate among many people, and sometimes in the news, on whether
global warming is real (some call it a hoax). But climate scientists
looking at the data and facts agree the planet is warming. While many
view the effects of global warming to be more substantial and more
rapidly occurring than others do, the scientific consensus on climatic
changes related to global warming is that the average temperature of the
Earth has risen between 0.4 and 0.8 °C over the past 100 years. The
increased volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released
by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, and other
human activities, are believed to be the primary sources of the global
warming that has occurred over the past 50 years. Scientists from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate carrying out global warming research
have recently predicted that average global temperatures could increase
between 1.4 and 5.8 °C by the year 2100. Changes resulting from global
warming may include rising sea levels due to the melting of the polar
ice caps, as well as an increase in occurrence and severity of storms
and other severe weather events.
Giving voice to a growing conviction of most of the scientific
community, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was
formed in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the
United NationsEnvironment Program (UNEP). In 2013 the IPCC reported that
the interval between 1880 and 2012 saw an increase in global average
surface temperature of approximately 0.9 °C (1.5 °F). The increase is
closer to 1.1 °C (2.0 °F) when measured relative to the preindustrial
(i.e., 1750–1800) mean temperature.
Many climate scientists agree that significant societal, economic, and
ecological damage would result if global average temperatures rose by
more than 2 °C (3.6 °F) in such a short time. Such damage would include
increased extinction of many plant and animal species, shifts in
patterns of agriculture, and rising sea levels. By 2015 all but a few
national governments had begun the process of instituting carbon
reduction plans as part of the Paris Agreement, a treaty designed to
help countries keep global warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above
preindustrial levels in order to avoid the worst of the predicted
effects. Authors of a special report published by the IPCC in 2018 noted
that should carbon emissions continue at their present rate, the
increase in average near-surface air temperatures would reach 1.5 °C
sometime between 2030 and 2052. Past IPCC assessments reported that the
global average sea level rose by some 19–21 cm (7.5–8.3 inches) between
1901 and 2010 and that sea levels rose faster in the second half of the
20th century than in the first half. It also predicted, again depending
on a wide range of scenarios, that the global average sea level would
rise 26–77 cm (10.2–30.3 inches) relative to the 1986–2005 average by
2100 for global warming of 1.5 °C, an average of 10 cm (3.9 inches) less
than what would be expected if warming rose to 2 °C (3.6 °F) above
preindustrial levels.
The scenarios referred to above depend mainly on future concentrations
of certain trace gases, called greenhouse gases, that have been injected
into the lower atmosphere in increasing amounts through the burning of
fossil fuels for industry, transportation, and residential uses. Modern
global warming is the result of an increase in magnitude of the so-
called greenhouse effect, a warming of Earth’s surface and lower
atmosphere caused by the presence of water vapour, carbon dioxide,
methane, nitrousoxides, and other greenhouse gases. In 2014 the IPCC
reported that concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous
oxides in the atmosphere surpassed those found in ice cores dating back
800,000 years.

To define the concepts of global warming and climate change properly, it

is first necessary to recognize that the climate of Earth has varied
across many timescales, ranging from an individual human life span to
billions of years. This variable climate history is typically classified
in terms of “regimes” or “epochs.” For instance, the Pleistocene glacial
epoch (about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago) was marked by substantial
variations in the global extent of glaciers and ice sheets. These
variations took place on timescales of tens to hundreds of millennia and
were driven by changes in the distribution of solar radiation across
Earth’s surface. The distribution of solar radiation is known as the
insolation pattern, and it is strongly affected by the geometry of
Earth’s orbit around the Sun and by the orientation, or tilt, of Earth’s
axis relative to the direct rays of the Sun.
Worldwide, the most recent glacial period, or ice age, culminated about
21,000 years ago in what is often called the Last Glacial Maximum.
During this time, continental ice sheets extended well into the middle
latitude regions of Europe and North America, reaching as far south as
present-day London and New York City. Global annual mean temperature
appears to have been about 4–5 °C (7–9 °F) colder than in the mid-20th
century. It is important to remember that these figures are a global
average. In fact, during the height of this last ice age, Earth’s
climate was characterized by greater cooling at higher latitudes (that
is, toward the poles) and relatively little cooling over large parts of
the tropical oceans (near the Equator). This glacial interval terminated
abruptly about 11,700 years ago and was followed by the subsequent
relatively ice-free period known as the Holocene Epoch. The modern
period of Earth’s history is conventionally defined as residing within
the Holocene. However, some scientists have argued that the Holocene
Epoch terminated in the relatively recent past and that Earth currently
resides in a climatic interval that could justly be called the
Anthropocene Epoch—that is, a period during which humans have exerted a
dominant influence over climate.
Though less dramatic than the climate changes that occurred during the
Pleistocene Epoch, significant variations in global climate have
nonetheless taken place over the course of the Holocene. During the
early Holocene, roughly 9,000 years ago, atmospheric circulation and
precipitation patterns appear to have been substantially different from
those of today. For example, there is evidence for relatively wet
conditions in what is now the Sahara Desert. The change from one
climatic regime to another was caused by only modest changes in the
pattern of insolation within the Holocene interval as well as the
interaction of these patterns with large-scale climate phenomena such as
monsoons and El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

The Greenhouse Effect

The average surface temperature of Earth is maintained by a balance of

various forms of solar and terrestrial radiation. Solar radiation is
often called “shortwave” radiation because the frequencies of the
radiation are relatively high and the wavelengths relatively short—close
to the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Terrestrial
radiation, on the other hand, is often called “longwave” radiation
because the frequencies are relatively low and the wavelengths
relatively long—somewhere in the infrared part of the spectrum.
Downward-moving solar energy is typically measured in watts per square
metre. The energy of the total incoming solar radiation at the top of
Earth’s atmosphere (the so-called “solar constant”) amounts roughly to
1,366 watts per square metre annually. Adjusting for the fact that only
one-half of the planet’s surface receives solar radiation at any given
time, the average surface insolation is 342 watts per square metre
annually.

Water vapour

Water vapour is the most potent of the greenhouse gases in Earth’s

atmosphere, but its behaviour is fundamentally different from that of
the other greenhouse gases. The primary role of water vapour is not as a
direct agent of radiative forcing but rather as a climate feedback—that
is, as a response within the climate system that influences the system’s
continued activity (see below Water vapour feedback). This distinction
arises from the fact that the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere
cannot, in general, be directly modified by human behaviour but is
instead set by airtemperatures. The warmer the surface, the greater the
evaporation rate of water from the surface. As a result, increased
evaporation leads to a greater concentration of water vapour in the
lower atmosphere capable of absorbing longwave radiation and emitting it
downward.

Carbon dioxide

Of the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most significant.

Natural sources of atmospheric CO2 include outgassing from volcanoes,
the combustion and natural decay of organic matter, and respiration by
aerobic (oxygen-using) organisms. These sources are balanced, on
average, by a set of physical, chemical, or biological processes, called
“sinks,” that tend to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Significant
natural sinks include terrestrial vegetation, which takes up CO2 during
the process of photosynthesis.

Natural influences on climate

There are a number of natural factors that influence Earth’s climate.

These factors include external influences such as explosive volcanic
eruptions, natural variations in the output of the Sun, and slow changes
in the configuration of Earth’s orbit relative to the Sun. In addition,
there are natural oscillations in Earth’s climate that alter global
patterns of wind circulation, precipitation, and surface temperatures.
One such phenomenon is the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a
coupled atmospheric and oceanic event that occurs in the Pacific Ocean
every three to seven years. In addition, the Atlantic Multidecadal
Oscillation (AMO) is a similar phenomenon that occurs over decades in
the North Atlantic Ocean. Other types of oscillatory behaviour that
produce dramatic shifts in climate may occur across timescales of
centuries and millennia (see climatic variation and change).