Science and Climate Change

Our weather and climate affects all life on Earth. Earth absorbs energy from the sun, as do other plants in our solar system. We do have a system unlike that of most other planets in our solar system, most noticeably water. Water has been able to sustain life for many organisms on Earth for millions of years. Throughout time, these organisms have adapted to all natural systems and even drastic phenomenon that have occurred. In recent millennia, humans have ruled the Earth. In our presence, we have advanced our civilizations and technologies exponentially: medicine, shelter, edifices, roads, transportation systems, agriculture, mobile phones, etc.

Tropical Cyclones are magnificent, yet threatening forces that country along the tropics experience annually. Tropical Cyclones were barely understood nor were they successfully researched, until recent decades, and our knowledge and understanding of them continues to grow. Carrying torrential rains, and pulverizing winds, it is important that we gather as much data as we can to better understand the phenomenon of Tropical cyclones, as they affect the lives of millions every year, and can cost countries in the billions in preparation and aftermath.

A phenomenon occurring throughout today is global warming. Global warming is observable in warmer sea temperatures, rising sea levels, stronger storms, higher concentrations of gases, melting of ice caps, and loss of wetlands and marshes throughout the world. Over the past several decades, temperatures worldwide have spiked to temperatures that have not been experienced in hundreds of years. Global warming tends to point in the direction of the past decades of excessive use of greenhouse gases, which include methane, water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone and nitrous oxide, implying the greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect begins with the sun’s rays penetrating Earth’s atmosphere, where nearly half of the rays are absorbed by the surface of the Earth, where solar radiation is converted to heat energy, emitting longer-wave radiation,