Global warming is a trend increase in the average temperature on Earth over the past 100 years. It is calculated according to the data of meteorological stations around the world, in Europe, these stations have been around for about 150 years. But in General, around the world we have data for the last 100 years, and this calculation shows that the temperature increases, and increases the trend, then there is a significant trend and not just fluctuations around some long-run average values of temperature. And finally, we will answer a question: “what can each one of us do to avert global warming?”.
What is global warming in simple words
At the same time, it should be noted that this temperature is not rising smoothly and growing so-called “steps” and sometimes goes on a “plateau”. For example, in the last 30 years have seen a very noticeable increase in temperature, particularly strong rise occurred in 90 years, and since 2000 this process has slowed down. This happened before, that is to say that the temperature is rising “steps”.
Today the world is dominated by the theory that the main cause of global warming are greenhouse gas emissions. In this respect, in the scientific community there is an unprecedented consensus: 97% of publications on the topic of climate change has supported the theory that global warming due to emissions of greenhouse gases, primarily CO2, industry. In principle, CO2 emissions are small compared to emissions from natural sources. As the land and ocean are suppliers of carbon dioxide, but they eat it: in the ocean it makes plankton and land plants. If we sum these flows, the flows of greenhouse gases from fuel combustion are very small compared to natural fluxes, they represent about 4-5% of the natural flows.
Causes of global warming. Diagram
So the mystery is: why are these 4-5% of the “excess” CO2 can’t be absorbed by vegetation or the ocean? Moreover, in the experimental conditions observed the effect of fertilization by elevated carbon dioxide level: if the plant cover cap and start to pump back CO2, the plant will start to grow faster. Also the experiment was conducted on wheat field: the portion of the field supplied CO2 special hose, and place the wheat grows faster. But in vivo this effect of fertilization was not observed, instead there is an accumulation of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere, which for some reason is not absorbed by the vegetation.
Of these 33 degrees 30 degrees we can attributed to water vapor and only 3 degrees at the expense of all other greenhouse gases, among which are artificial substances, such as CFC contained in refrigeration. Why are talking about CO2? The fact that CO2 is a gas, which is directly associated with anthropogenic activities. There are, for example, methane, relevant to our country, in the permafrost zone may receive a large amount of methane, which can also contribute to global warming. But at present, CO2 is in the focus of attention of scientists.
Relevance of global warming
First and foremost, you need to calculate how much will eventually warm up the Earth. It should be understood that we all have adapted to existing climatic conditions. Of course, from year to year, they vary, but in General is very much tied to the existing system of atmospheric circulation. As an example: our country is characterised by large seasonal fluctuations in the winter accumulated snow, followed by spring flood, and then comes summer. But in recent years we see a trend that the snow cover does not accumulate, because too often in the winter comes the thaw, and no peaks of floods. But all our reservoirs are adapted under the conditions that existed earlier, in the spring they just not getting enough water, and for the second consecutive year in the Volga basin had enough water. But these things can be adapted.
On the other hand, there are calculations that the problem can be much more serious, because we live in a particular air circulation system for our latitude is, for example, westerly flow from the Atlantic, and in addition, there is the Siberian anticyclone. But if the warming of the Earth continues, subject to change and the air circulation system, and some signs of this are already visible.
In Europe, winters have become unpredictable: suddenly begins to blame the snow for several days, and airports simply can’t handle the snow. Primarily this is due to the weakening of the Western migration. It is necessary to consider many other factors, such as the melting of ice in the Arctic they are annual, not perennial, the result is a pole of heat, because the water is warmer than ice, and such things will immediately affect the air circulation there is a rapid change of weather. And this alteration of the system can be very dangerous and will require an overhaul of the entire industry and not only. In any case, we would expect greater challenges.
Remedies of global warming
There are two main methods of fight against global warming: drastic reduction of emissions and geoengineering methods. To date, it is unclear what is more real to do: reduce emissions or accelerate the development of bioengineering methods, although at the moment there is no one successful method of their application. In this way a drastic reduction in emissions has already proven unrealistic.
Signed in 1997 the Kyoto Protocol was based on different scenarios. But at the moment we have already exceeded the most pessimistic of the scenarios. Primarily, this is due to the accelerated development of third world countries and especially of China. If in 1990 years, the economic development of the PRC were in line with the scenario of the Kyoto Protocol, in 2000 years the pace of China’s economic development has increased dramatically. China needed additional energy resources that they were able to find only in a private corner.
Precautions of global warming
And coal is the major supplier of CO2 per unit of production, so we are unable to be kept within defined scenarios. Now, when the Kyoto Protocol was a fiasco, we were at a loss: it turned out that we can’t agree among themselves. At the moment is the Kyoto Protocol only exists in the Copenhagen accord, that is, voluntary commitments of the countries to control emissions, but this document is not even accepted at the official level, and, even if these commitments are adhered to, it still does not fundamentally change the situation.
The second way is bioengineering techniques. One of these methods is injection of CO2 into the mine. Such installations have already been established, but so far none of them worked. In 2009 was carried out another experiment an attempt was made to increase the bioproductivity of the ocean so that phytoplankton absorbed the “extra” carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Was found the area in the ocean with reduced productivity because of a shortage of dissolved iron, where an experiment was conducted. However, he failed: after it was added dissolved iron, began the rapid development of phytoplankton; according to scientists, plankton had to go to the bottom, but that didn’t happen, instead it went through the food chains and the effect was zero. There are also exotic methods, such as the increased reflectivity of the stratosphere with special aerosols.
Causes and consequences of global warming
Calculations of temperature increase maintained until the end of this century. Near the threshold is exceeded 450 ppm CO2 particles in the atmosphere. At the moment CO2 concentration is about 400 ppm of the particles (the first time this figure was recorded in February of 2015). At 450 million, we will have exceeded a threshold temperature of 2 degrees. It is believed that up to this point, we live in their world, then there will be a change in the circulation system. It is expected that this will happen in 2040, and by 2100 could occur in excess of 4 or 5 degrees, which would actually change the entire climate system of the Earth. During the ice age the average temperature was 11 degrees, today it is +15, that is, the difference is only 4 degrees. So, if we “warm up” at 4 degrees, this may mean a restructuring of the system of atmospheric circulation, the change of the whole biosphere of the Earth, which of course will lead to unpredictable political and economic changes around the world.
