The article is organized around three levels of certainty and consensus about particular elements of climate change. Based on your prior exposure to this issue, discuss one or two items that surprised you. Was there an item with "strong agreement" that you thought was more controversial? Was there an item "not well understood" that you considered to be more certain?
Overall, I pretty much agreed with the article. I feel that it presented accurate information about global warming and climate change. Even though I mostly agreed with it, the article surprised me with some of its information. Many times in many sections, the article stated things that stated that “it is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future.” I have, in many places, seen estimates and specific values regarding the changes that will occur on Earth. I have seen predictions regarding, temperature, atmospheric carbon dioxide, ocean acidification, ice cap melting, and much more. While the article may have been accounting for varying predictions from different sources, I have always thought that we already know the majority of effects of climate change and their severity (approximate). I feel now that we may not know as much as I thought regarding both predictions and other areas. The article listed several points under the “not well understood” category that I initially thought we had some information on. Overall, I agreed with most aspects of the article. I feel that the information presented in the three different categories was accurately placed. The article showed that we do know some about global warming, but are also unsure about other parts.
ReplyDeleteOverall I found the article to be full of good information that I found to be easily agreeable. One piece of information that I found to be pretty surprising was the fact that the two gasses contributing most to the green house effect are water vapor and carbon dioxide. I had always learned that CFC's were the worst of the gasses in a way that would effect global warming. I found it strange that two gasses so regularly seen in the environment and which are necessary to the survival of our ecosystems could be so detrimental as green house gasses. Also I found it to be interesting that the climate of the Earth has been found to be constantly changing over time and the recent introduction of human interaction has made a some what minimal difference. One part that I did not agree with was that scientist say that the globe has been gradually warmer but certain parts like the UK used as an example which may be experiencing a colder winter as opposed to warmer. I don't find it to be possible that the earth is getting warmer and yet certain regions are having weather colder than ever. One section that I did agree with was the one in which the climate forcing. If we are capable of maintaining the amount of global warming or cooling why are we not researching possibilities to take total control through climate forcing? With modern day technology I feel that there should be no problem solving the problem of global warming using this theory.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the article presented very good information regarding the damage being done to the Earth. I liked that the article gave in depth information about the processes happening because of the human impact on our resources. I think that it made the article more agreeable and easier to present to those that do not agree with Green Values. Although I knew that carbon dioxide was one of the main gases affecting the climate change I was unaware that water vapor was. Although this may have nothing to do with it...is the steam coming from the sewer along Blossom Street water vapor? I was also surprised that scientist are not certain about the effects. For example, the climate has always been changing so it is more difficult to determine if that is because of human impact or because the Earth changes rapidly anyways.
ReplyDeleteIn all, the article was pretty accurate and I agreed with most of what the author was saying. The author organized it so that it was simple to understand the different factors that play in to climate change. One item that surprised me was the idea of the sun being actually physically closer to the earth. I always assumed that global warming was due to the greenhouse gases and human actions but knowing that the entire planets movements have an effect was an eye opener. I do not know much about the earths orbit but I always assumed it was pretty much on a set path until I read this article. One “strong agreement” item I thought was a tad controversial was the idea of a misguiding few years. The author says that just because a few years have been warmer or colder doesn’t indicate a climate change. This makes me wonder that in the grand scheme of the earth, are these couple hundred years of warmth really an indicator of global warming or just a pattern similar to that described. An item that was “not well understood” that I was certain about was the idea of volcanic eruptions putting pollutants in to the environment. I do not understand how someone could argue this point. It is clearly visible that when there is an eruption a massive amount of debris and gases are released in to the air. It is difficult to argue that volcanic eruptions aren’t detrimental to the environment. This article was very informative.
ReplyDeleteIn conclusion, I took the article to be filled with a lot of good information, that I could easily agree with. Something I took to be a surprising fact was the two gasses that added to the green house effect are water vapor and carbon dioxide. From previous classes, I had already known that CFC's were one of the worst gasses that effected global warming. However, I was quite taken back that those glasses, that are essential to our ecosystem, are as harmful as green house gasses. I didn't particularly agree with the one scientific research that stated the idea that, although the globe has been increasing in temperature, specific areas in the United Kingdom had been experiences colder winters oppose to warmer ones. I can't comprehend the possibility that the Earth's global temperature has been increasing, yet there are regions experiences colder weather than previous years. However, something I could agree with was climate forcing. The idea that we can have such an impact on the temperature of the Earth, yet haven't researched the possibilities to take hold of the changes through the forcing of climate? Taking into account all of the advances we can make technologically with such non-pertinent things, there shouldn't be a problem with looking further into solving the global warming dilemma, or coming up with a solution closer to solving it.
ReplyDeleteIn the past I have had my doubts about global warming and I have especially questioned what causes global warming. If I acquiesce to say that I believe there has been average temperature increase on the Earth then I still have my doubts that it is completely human-caused and/or due to the Greenhouse effect and our CO2 emissions. It is a fact that humans' CO2 use has increased dramatically over the years and to most, it is believed that there has been a global temperature increase. However, correlation does not always equal causation. The author does not thoroughly support his belief that CO2 is directly related to climate change. He simply states, "changes in CO2 can lead to climate change". I cannot intelligently nor knowledgeably say whether or not C02 and climate are related but I feel this article does not give evidence for the relation between the two. I do believe that it is very possible for one region of the world to be experiencing an unusually cold season in the same year that another region experiences an unusually hot and dry season. Researchers must average these temperatures to find the overall global temperature and I feel that more years of research are required to determine whether there may be a year of global decrease in temperature. I do not deny global warming, but only feel I cannot yet conclude it's existence.
ReplyDeleteI think the thing that most surprised me in the article was the fact that the two time periods that had the most drastic change in overall global warming were between 1910-1940 and 1975-2000. I think like others, I find it very hard to believe that some places have had little to no global warming, and that some have actually gotten colder. You hear everyone preach about global warming, but not global cooling. Something I found fascinating was the paragraph under "Changes in atmospheric composition" that talked about the "ancient air". This air was trapped in bubbles deep in ice below Greenland and Antarctica. It was definitely not surprising to read that concentrations are higher today than what was found in the ancient air. I don't agree with the article when it says that water vapor or carbon dioxide contribute to global warming. These are things that have been around and are not what I think we should consider a "harmful" gas.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I was surprised to find was that water vapor was the gas making the largest contribution to the greenhouse effect. It kind of makes sense since it traps many chemicals in the atmosphere, but one wouldn’t think that a form of water would be so involved in the problem of global warming. I was previously unaware of the term of “climate forcing.” I was also surprised to find the extent to which volcanic activity contributes to climate change. One of the items with strong agreement that I considered to be more controversial was the fact that more precipitation is expected in areas of already high precipitation and less is expected in areas of low precipitation. It makes sense in a way, since the general trends are projected to continue, but I would expect the irregularities of global warming to play more of a role in this aspect. I expected the melting of the ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica to be more definite on the predicted amount of rise in the sea level. I suppose I think this could be more definite due to data that has been collected from glaciers (dating techniques and air bubbles). Measurement of melting of ice sheets has been documented for global warming data before, so I would expect it to be more certain in the areas of Greenland and West Antarctica as well.
ReplyDeleteKeeping in mind that I know relatively very little about this topic, I found several things that intrigued me about this article. The periods between 1910 to 1940 and 1975 to 2000 presumably saw the highest forced climate change. I would think that this data works against the notion that this phenomena is fundamentally caused by human action. I would not think that resource consumption was that significantly lower between 1940 and 1975. What happened during this period to make humans have such a smaller impact on the globe? I also do not understand how "ancient air" pockets are a reliable source of demonstrating air quality from the past. Again, I know little about the topic, but it seems like thats not exactly infallible data.I would also think that there would not be much dispute over volcanoes causing climate change. I thought this to be true even knowing very little coming into this topic. The natural processes of climate change seem just as much of a contributor as human activity. In order to gain more certainty, as the article says, research should be pursued especially in relation to ice caps and the more polar regions. These ecosystems are facing the most immediate threat with absolutely irreversible consequences which was surprisingly not mentioned much in this article.
ReplyDeleteSomething that really shocked me were the time periods that were stated to have the most affect on Global Warming, 1910-1940 and 1975-2000. The impression that I have gotten from the media in the past years, was that global warming was consistently getting worse year after year instead of coming and going in phases. All this time i have been a strong believer that human actions have played a direct role in the climate change, but now I am not so sure. Consumption and was significantly lower in the early 1900's due to the lack of technological advances and progress, so it would not make sense that this was a time of climate change. Maybe the world and the climate does flucuate with time and the whole idea of sustainable living is worthless in the grand scheme? I dont know enough to form a solid opinion but they do make a good argument. Anotherhing that I thought was really cool, along with a lot of my classmats, was the idea of the "ancient air pockets". Since glaciers have melted and the sea level has risen, air pockets from many many years ago have been exposed and released into our environment. I dont necessarily think this air is dangerous or harmful to us, like it was laid out. In my opninion, if it is older air, its probably more clean and thus healthier.
ReplyDeleteThis is a topic I've done only a bit of research into, but this article seemed to state facts fairly well. It was interesting to read that water vapor contributes to climate change, usually one thinks of just CO2 contributing to greenhouse gases. From previous research I knew the Earth periodically warmed up and cooled down by itself, but recently human involvement has made us reach higher temperatures than ever before. I know that natural contributions to climate change exist too, but I did not know that volcanoes are one of them. This surprised me, and I would like to further research into the subject and what other natural happenings affect greenhouse gases. I was also surprised with the timeline presented in the article, where the highest impacts on climate change were from 1910-1940 and then 1975-2000. I didn't expect much of an impact until the 80's or so, but maybe contributions from the Industrial Revolution and non-existent environmental protection laws helped raise climate change.
ReplyDeleteThis article as a whole really educated me in not only what is climate change but also how it takes place. Globally climate change is always a controversial issue, whether some believe that it is caused by the lack of awareness of humans while others believe it is just natural occurrence. What surprised me about climate control is how much the earths energy balance makes a difference, even though positive climate causes warming while the negative climate causes cooling, it is the balance between both of them which causes such inconsistent energy tables. What also I found very interesting was that fact mentioned that the earth’s surface has warmed 0.8 degrees celcius since 1850. From 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to around 2000 were the two time periods that showed the most significant change. This really made me think about what could the earth’s surface be like in the next twenty years when it comes to having a substantial increase in heat, how much more can not only the earth take but how can we start to adjust to such erratic weather patterns throughout our lives. I really hope more effort can be put in when researching the earths climate, even though it is very hard and time consuming to try to predict what kind of climate we will have in years to come. Future research can only benefit us as humans in the long run.
ReplyDeleteI think the article presented very in depth and interesting research and information on the history and state of global climate change. I found that I pretty much agreed with everything in the article, but I consider myself to be a strong believer that humans are mostly responsible for climate change. I was not surprised to learn from this article about some of the other types of greenhouse gases such besides just CO2, but at the same time I wasn’t really sure exactly which gases these were specifically. An item which I strongly agree with is that humans are the primary source of global climate change over the last half century. I believe that human use of fossil fuels and the overall degradation of the planet by human activities deserve most of the blame for the dramatic changes we are witnessing today. I believe that the idea that there is little knowledge about what the future of climate change will hold, as far as specific predictions or changes in temperature, is something that I thought was a little more certain because I have seen a number of documentaries and presentations which sight specific data and predictions on the future of climate change. I think climate change, the impacts which it causes, and the collective human response will be a defining issue of the 21st century and the future of our world.
ReplyDeleteUpon reading this article, I was mainly surprised that the emission of carbon dioxide is such a huge factor to climate change. It was interesting that “modern” air so to say can be compared with “ancient air” that is trapped in air pockets or bubbles in ice. The rate of carbon dioxide effusion into the atmosphere is directly affected by population growth and global industrial development. I was astounded to learn the length of time in which carbon dioxide resides in the atmosphere. According to research, half of the carbon dioxide emitted by humans since the industrial revolution has stayed in the air. The rest has gone in the ocean, soil, and vegetation. That means that the situation can only get worse, seeing as the population has doubled in the last few hundred years and continues to grow at a rapid pace. Increased population means increased use of fossil fuels, especially as less developed countries start to go through their own Industrial revolution. I also didn’t know that water vapor had any effect on the Greenhouse Effect and thus, climate change. Apparently, water vapor doubles climate sensitivity. One question I have is do we have any control or affect on the amount of water vapor in the air? I know we completely effect fossil fuel emissions into the air, but water vapor seems to be at nature’s handling.
ReplyDeleteI thought nothing was controversial that was of “strong agreement” and there was no item that I was certain of that was widely “not well understood”.