BONO, LEO JOSELITO E.

EH406

The history of the scientific discovery of climate change began in the early
19th century when ice ages and other natural changes in paleoclimate were first
suspected and the natural greenhouse effect first identified. In the late 19th century,
scientists first argued that human emissions of greenhouse gases could change
the climate. Many other theories of climate change were advanced, involving forces
from volcanism to solar variation. In the 1960s, the warming effect of carbon
dioxide gas became increasingly convincing, although some scientists also pointed
out that human activities, in the form of atmospheric aerosols (e.g., "pollution"),
could have cooling effects as well. During the 1970s, scientific opinion increasingly
favored the warming viewpoint. By the 1990s, as a result of improving fidelity
of computer models and observational work confirming the Milankovitch theory of
the ice ages, a consensus position formed: greenhouse gases were deeply involved in
most climate changes, and human emissions were bringing serious global warming.
Since the 1990s, scientific research on climate change has included multiple
disciplines and has expanded, significantly increasing our understanding of causal
relations, links with historic data and ability to numerically model climate change.

The most recent work has been summarized in the Assessment Reports by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate change is a significant and
lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging
from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions,
or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions (i.e., more or fewer
extreme weather events). Climate change is caused by factors that include oceanic
processes (such as oceanic circulation), biotic processes, variations in solar radiation
received by Earth, plate tectonics and volcanic eruptions, and human-induced
alterations of the natural world; these latter effects are currently causing global
warming, and "climate change" is often used to describe human-specific impacts. 1

Economics and climate change science have a lot in common. Both rely on
sound predictions of what the future will bring, these being largely based on what
has gone before. Just, though, as you can only make an educated guess at what the
housing market will do next year, you cannot be wholly sure how emissions of
greenhouse gas will increase in years to come, and exactly how the planet’s climate
will then react. Bring all these unknowns together, by attempting on the one hand to
calculate the economic impacts of climate change and on the other the costs of
climate change mitigation, and the range of possible outcomes is almost limitless.
Given such uncertainty, the environmental lobby can use economic arguments to
justify the differing stance on climate change mitigation.

Existing cost-benefit analyses of greenhouse gas reduction policies are

examined, with a view to establishing whether any such global reductions are
currently worthwhile. The potential for, and costs of, cutting our own individual

1 Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science (accessed October 7, 2014).

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greenhouse gas emissions is also assessed. A host of abatement strategies are able to
deliver significant emission reductions at little or no net cost when the full economic
impacts of climate change are considered. Additionally, there is great potential for
individuals to simultaneously reduce their climate impact and save money. The use
of economics to excuse political inaction on greenhouse gas emissions is not justified.

The causes are many of which the main culprit is the increase in the
greenhouse gases that is produced by burning fossil fuel and deforestation, thus
intensifying the greenhouse effect leading to global warming. The four main
contributors of the greenhouse effect are, water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and
ozone. Mining for coal and oil releases methane in the atmosphere. More ever the
leakage from natural gas fields and landfills are additional source of
methane. Excessive cutting down of the trees is another factor causing global
warming. When deforestation happens the efficiency by which carbon dioxide is
stored and oxygen released by the green plants are decreased to a huge rate in turn
causing increased concentration of carbon dioxide that leads to increased greenhouse
effect. The nitrous oxide from fertilizers, gases used for refrigeration and industrial
processes are other factors that cannot be forgotten as the cause of Global Warming.
Another source of methane is methane clathrate, a compound containing large
amounts of methane trapped in the crystal structure of ice. As methane escapes from
the Arctic seabed, the rate of global warming will increase significantly.

Ice caps and glaciers reflect sunlight, bouncing high temperature sun -rays
back into space away from the Earth. When these icecaps are removed the earth gets
warmer as the dark oceans absorb much thermal radiation from the sun. Some
regions may be wet with rain and some areas will suffer drought due to global
warming. The climatic changes happen due to global warming. Seasonal changes are
unpredictable unexpected thunderstorms might result as mentioned earlier.

The burning of wood (should be reduced to a greater extent) releases

oxidizable carbon to the atmosphere whose presence in greater amount causes the
elevation of temperature. There is strong evidence that emissions of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were the major cause of the recent abnormal
warming. Like carbon CFC do not trap heat but in the presence of UV rays the
chlorine gets detached from CFC, drifts up into the stratosphere and these
unattached chlorines catalytically convert Ozone molecules into Oxygen molecules
depleting the ozone layer.2

Global warming has caused changing weather patterns, ensuring that weather
phenomena have become extreme. Of recent concern is the increase in the number
and intensity of storm weather reports. Where there is usually wet weather, the
storms have increased in intensity and rainfall amount, causing floods and violent
thunderstorms. Also, in areas where there is drought, these drought conditions have
become prolonged. In some parts of the world, the violence of thunderstorms has
increased by a staggering 100%. In addition, the heating up of oceans has seen the

2 Billmckibben, http://thecafetechno.com/tutorials/essay/global-warming-cause-effect-and-prevention/ (accessed October

7,2014)

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rise of violent hurricanes and cyclones. Another interesting effect relates to geology.
Global warming has been linked to increased volcanic and tsunami activity. The
glacial masses put considerable pressure on the earth’s crust. As they melt and
become lighter, they cause unexpected movement within the earth’s crust which in
turn causes volcanic and tsunami activity. As the earth warms up, some pests and
diseases thrive more in new warming up areas. Mosquitoes that spread malaria,
yellow fever and dengue have migrated north to new countries. Pests such as the
spruce bark beetle have wreaked havoc on spruce trees in Alaska on an area of about
four million acres.3

The greenhouse effect is the process by which absorption and emission of

infared radiation by gases in a plant’s atmosphere warm its lower atmosphere and
surface. It was proposed by Joseph Fourier in 1824, discovered in 1860 by John
Tyndall, was first investigated quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, and was
developed in the 1930s through 1960s by Guy Stewart Callendar. On Earth, naturally
occurring amounts of greenhouse gases have a mean warming effect of about 33 °C
(59 °F). Without the Earth's atmosphere, the temperature across almost the entire
surface of the Earth would be below freezing. The major greenhouse gases are water
vapor, which causes about 36–70% of the greenhouse effect; carbon dioxide (CO2),
which causes 9–26%; methane (CH4), which causes 4–9%; and ozone(O3), which
causes 3–7%. Clouds also affect the radiation balance through cloud forcings similar
to greenhouse gases.

Human activity since the Industrial Revolution has increased the amount of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to increased radiative forcing from CO2,
methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide. According to work published
in 2007, theconcentrations of CO2 and methane have increased by 36% and 148%
respectively since 1750. These levels are much higher than at any time during the last
800,000 years, the period for which reliable data has been extracted from ice cores.
Less direct geological evidence indicates that CO2 values higher than this were last
seen about 20 million years ago. Fossil fuel burning has produced about three-
quarters of the increase in CO2 from human activity over the past 20 years. The rest
of this increase is caused mostly by changes in land-use, particularly deforestation.
Estimates of global CO2 emissions in 2011 from fossil fuel combustion, including
cement production and gas flaring, was 34.8 billion tonnes (9.5 ± 0.5 PgC), an
increase of 54% above emissions in 1990. Coal burning was responsible for 43% of the
total emissions, oil 34%, gas 18%, cement 4.9% and gas flaring 0.7%. In May 2013, it
was reported that readings for CO2 taken at the world's primary benchmark site
in Mauna Loa surpassed 400 ppm. According to professor Brian Hoskins, this is
likely the first time CO2 levels have been this high for about 4.5 million years. 4

3 Ashton, M., Tyrell, M., Spalding, D., & Gentry, B. (2012). Managing forest carbon in a changing climate. Roterdam,
Netherlands: Springer
4 Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming (accessed October 7, 2014).

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