Environmental+Science

__**GLOBAL CLiMATE CHANGE**__ media type="custom" key="2059346"I think that global warming is definitely happening. The temperature of the earth is definitely rising there is no doubt about that, what is causing it is the thing that is "uncertain" even though it is pretty well known that greenhouse gasses have something to do with the rising temperatures, the ocean levels are slowly rising too which also shows that the temperature is rising. It is a very important issue that needs to be adressed quickly. People are taking many steps to try and modify or at least stop the damage that is being done to the climate. A good example of this was California's ability to save energy. They were having an energy problem there and just by asking the California citizens to turn off their machines and lights when they aren't being used they greatly reduced the amount of energy that was used in the state. Another way that people have been saving energy and consequently the environment, is by changing to compact flourescent lightbulbs. Not as much pollution has to go into the air from power plants to power regular bulbs because these new ones use less electricity and produce just as much light. Recycling, and not taking unnecessary trips in your vehicle also help to slow the effects of global warming. As for reversing the negative effects that have already been done to the environment, i don't believe anyone has found a way. It is pretty hard to reverse something like that that has already been done. Many many years of damage is hard if not impossible to reverse.

Final project: There actually are ways or ideas that people have thought of that will help stop global warming. Some people suggest that dumping dissolved iron into the oceans will help boost phytoplankton growth. If there is more phytoplankton in the ocean then they are going to remove more carbon from the atmosphere. This will in turn help the temperature of the earth to stop rising and stop global warming, or at least slow it down. Also, people have suggested that burrying CO2 down in the earth would be a save way to help stop global warming. They get sandstone to absorb the CO2 and then they burry it. They discovered that injected fluids reacted quickly and well with sandstone. **__Natural effects thet modify the Earth's climate __** Greenhouse effect: Process that occours when energy is retained longer than it should.

Natural Effects:The Earths orbit, the greenhouse effect, seasonal effect    s, the greenhouse effect. Human Effects: Fossil fuels (turned into electrical energy) and transportation can contribute to the greenhouse effect.

**Things humans do to modify the climate is to conserve energy by unplugging things that aren't being used, recycling, using ecofriendly products, and cutting back on burning fossil fuels. The less harmful things in our environment doesn't help global warming and climate change but it keeps it the same so it doesn't get worse. It's a controversaI issue but I personally don't think that we can reverse the damage done. Our Earth can't take back ruining our environment with cars and all the new inventions but if everyone makes a concious effort to better our planet our Earth will stay the same.** What if we examine a longer period of time—say, the past 1,000 years? This presents a problem since accurate records of temperature were not kept prior to the middle of the 19th century. But there are ways of estimating temperature from other information such as the size of growth rings on trees and the composition of ice taken from Antarctica and Greenland. The records used for these indirect measurements of temperature are called “proxy data.” Find out more about how temperature estimates are made from [|proxy data]. (http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/change.htm)
 * [[image:http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/images/global_temp1.jpg width="371" height="248" caption="Global temperature"]] ||
 * Global temperature ||

New Ice age Prediction?? In about 10,000 to 100,000 years, the study suggests, Antarctic-like "permanent" ice sheets would shroud much of [|Canada], [|Europe], and [|Asia]. (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081112-ice-age-global-warming.html)


 * The greenhouse gasses are one of the biggest things that are causing the ice sheets to melt because of the Co2.

**__ Cons of Global Warming: Is it Humans Fault? __**      Global Warming may actually chill the planet. Considering that it may not be our entire fault for Global warming because of the patterns in the past. For example earth was coming out of an ice age 8,200 years ago. Which means earth was heating up, including life. And then unexpectedly the earth chilled for about 100 years. A theory for this cause is that a lot of fresh water was released into the Atlantic Ocean. Since the earth’s oceans run in some sort of conveyor belt to regulate warm and cold temperatures, what if the “belt stopped” This would cause the cold water to rise causing waters to mix, then resulting in a worldwide chill.

This could be the same for today. Considering that the earth’s ‘natural cycle’ of heating up is in effect, this could repeat what happened years ago. Which means the polar ice caps would melt, causing water to rise and mix, which could just possibly leave the world in an ice age. For example in the article of National Geographic (March 23, 2006) It states that the earth’s water is rising. The Ice sheets and glaciers are melting faster than scientists think. They predict that in about 140 years [2100] that the earth’s temperature will be similar as it was 130,000 years ago.    **__Earth's Conveyor Belt__**    [White=Warm Water] [ Purple= Cold Water]  

**What's Known**
Scientists know with virtual certainty that: For years, global warming was dismissed as an apocalyptic vision dreamt up by cranks and hippies. But recently consensus has been growing that the climate is indeed changing and humans are directly responsible. Now the United Nations has concluded that humans are almost certainly responsible for global warming and issued its strongest-ever warning about the consequences . ( ** http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,463888,00.html  ** ) The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reached a conclusion, human activity are lending a hand in global warming, a bigger hand than ever thought. We can expect to see more droughts, stronger storms and rising sea levels by some time around 2100. We are most likely the main cause of global warming over the last 45 years. Human’s producing greenhouse gases can be blamed for fewer cold days, hotter nights, heat waves, floods and heavy rains, droughts, and increased hurricanes and tropical storms strength. Predictions say that the temperature should rises 2 to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100, and rising sea levels, the report projects jumps of 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century. An additional 3.9 to 7.8 inches are possible if polar ice sheets continue to melt. The report warns that no matter how much civilization slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and sea level rise will continue for centuries.
 * Human activities are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times are well-documented and understood.
 * The atmospheric buildup of CO 2 and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
 * An “unequivocal” warming trend of about 1.0 to 1.7°F occurred from 1906-2005. Warming occurred in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and over the oceans (IPCC, 2007).
 * The major greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries. It is therefore virtually certain that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to rise over the next few decades.
 * Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations tend to warm the planet. ( **  http://www.eoearth.org/article/Causes_of_climate_change  ** )

There are many opinions on why our planet is warming up and many of those reasons have either good backed up opinions and facts or are very superstitious. In this opinion though it is a very true opinion and has facts but also has some erie thoughts too. This opinion is the human factors that humans have put on global warming. Are we speeding it up? Is it our fault? Or is this nature taking its course? From much evidence there are signs that we have increased the level of greenhouse gases and have increased the speed of global warming. But all of this has happened in the past century or scince the engine has been used. We use fossil fuels like coal, and oil to fuel homes, cars, trains, planes, and ships. These fossil fuels have carbon dioxide in them. When we use these materials the carbon dioxide is released into the air and the greenhouse effect comes into place. When the greenhouse effect happens the increase the amount of gases that heat the Earth and this results to a quicker process of global warming. Here is a list of pros and cons on our factor in global warming;

PROS 4. we still are learning to improve vehicles and make them environmentally friendly
 * 1) We can make more fossil fuels with synthetic items and even speed up the process.
 * 2) We can still get transportation to other places
 * 3) It is a major business which can create jobs

CONS
 * 1) We are destroying the environment!
 * 2) we help increase the speed of global warming
 * 3) we are not using our full potential to help solve this issue
 * 4) we can try and stop this but we can't without help
 * 5) the government needs to understand but they don't

If you have ever seen a movie where there is a futuristic setting to it and everything is different? Well there are some predictions that in the future our children and grandchildren will have this problem and we would not want that to happen, right? We need to help save the Earth instead of destroying it.

Images of human effect on global warming:




 * [[image:http://img2.travelblog.org/Photos/20271/90961/f/577916-Smog-in-Bangkok-0.jpg width="600" caption="Smog in Bangkok"]] ||
 * Smog in Bangkok ||

landfill

Help keep the world looking like this!!!!! This is the true beauty of what earth can look like if we treat it right!!!!

http://www.nationalview.org/factory_pollution.jpg http://www.carlmaples.com/Arz_Strip_Mine.jpg http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/577916.html http://www.globalfootprints.org/wasteeducation/images/Landfill_trucks.jpg http://doubledeckerbuses.org/blog/media/blogs/new/Hintersee.jpg http://www.destination6.com/images/photos/fullSize/netherlands_0001.jpg

Meagan Abbott Mariah Bosse Jason Gass Christina Harrison Melissa Hodgins Marissa LaFlamme Riley Neel Fred Sinclair Abdi Abdikadir