Global Warming: Cause and Mitigation

Assignment 2: Global Warming: Cause and Mitigation

STRAYER UNIVERSITY, PHYSICAL SCIENCE 110

Author Note

FOR PROFESSOR AT STRAYER UNIVERSITY

Contrasting and comparing the anthropogenic (human) influences versus nature changes on the climate can be difficult. The natural changes in the climate constantly occur in different parts of the atmosphere and underlying oceans. Examples of these natural changes include climate changes due to seasonal cycles and tropical storms, notably El Nino. Determining the anthropogenic affect from aerosol usage and greenhouse gas emissions on these naturally occurring changes is extremely difficult to differentiate on a short-term review. However, the difference between past natural cycles is it took over thousands of years and current global warming is evolving in a matter of decades, due to humans are a contributing factor.

Global warming is a current issue that is taking place. Natural season cycles have occurred millions of years before humans existed. Scientists found the difference in temperature from the end of the last ice age through today was 5 degrees Celsius over 10,000 years or 0.05 degrees Celsius in 100 years.^[1]In the past 50 years, scientists have observed a 0.7 degrees Celsius difference in the global warming rate, equal to 1.4 degrees Celsius in 100 years. Anticipating the future warming estimate per the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates the average global temperature to rise 2 degrees Celsius by year 2100.^[2] Review of these figures show humans are overwhelming the nature cycle.  Our use of fossil fuels creates carbon that is delivered into the atmosphere, thus affecting the natural cycle as well.

Beyond adaptation, decreasing the rate in which carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gasses enter the atmosphere and affect future climate change is known as mitigation. From 2000 to 2010 emissions have been the highest in history ever recorded.^[3] To overcome these staggering figures, people must understand even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gases now, climate changes including global warming would continue to affect the future atmosphere for generations to come.^[4] Of the many proposed mitigation strategies, I researched and believed the people would benefit from carbon sequestration. Carbon sequestration is a process that captures or collects carbon for long term storage from the atmosphere and into a reservoir. Geoengineering is another name for this carbon dioxide removal process. In agriculture, carbon sequestration of soil serves as a carbon sink effectively reducing 20% of carbon emissions annually. The notable downfall to this method is after 20-30 years, the soil will become too saturated to absorb carbon. Another notable downside is according the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the cost is .01 to .05 of an increase per watt hour, thus making this the second option for mitigation.