Week 5 Paper
Individual: Atmospheric Issues
Climate change; the gradual shift in weather patterns throughout the planet attributed to the use of fossil fuels used by humanity to make life more convenient and comfortable. People have been the stewards of the planet for roughly 200,000 years of which, the past 150 years would be classified as America’s peak industrialization, but this is a global issue and many nations have only recently begun their foray into industrialization, like China, India, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.
So what does the use of fossil fuels have to do with me? Let’s examine a more holistic view of what is happening now, what has happened in the past to get us here, and where all of this will take us in the future.
The Greenhouse Effect: This describes the purpose of a backyard green house, essentially trapping heat and moisture in a confined space to mimic a tropical climate. The thing is that a backyard greenhouse can be regulated, how do you regulate a planet sized greenhouse? When humans burn fossil fuels, they release greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases like chlorofluorocarbons, hydrochlorofluorocarbons, and halons. These gasses can take anywhere from a few years to thousands of years to dissipate in the atmosphere. Once released; these gasses act as insulators or blankets that trap these gasses in out atmosphere preventing heat from escaping the atmosphere and forcing temperatures to rise, but it doesn’t stop here. As temperatures rise, our polar ice caps at both of the poles have lost a significant amount of their mass; this causes desalinization, disrupted currents and their carrying of warm / cool air transfers from one region of the planet to another.
How we created killer weather: The presence of storms is nothing new but on occasion, we encounter something extraordinary, a super cell. Super
Climate change; the gradual shift in weather patterns throughout the planet attributed to the use of fossil fuels used by humanity to make life more convenient and comfortable. People have been the stewards of the planet for roughly 200,000 years of which, the past 150 years would be classified as America’s peak industrialization, but this is a global issue and many nations have only recently begun their foray into industrialization, like China, India, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.
So what does the use of fossil fuels have to do with me? Let’s examine a more holistic view of what is happening now, what has happened in the past to get us here, and where all of this will take us in the future.
The Greenhouse Effect: This describes the purpose of a backyard green house, essentially trapping heat and moisture in a confined space to mimic a tropical climate. The thing is that a backyard greenhouse can be regulated, how do you regulate a planet sized greenhouse? When humans burn fossil fuels, they release greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases like chlorofluorocarbons, hydrochlorofluorocarbons, and halons. These gasses can take anywhere from a few years to thousands of years to dissipate in the atmosphere. Once released; these gasses act as insulators or blankets that trap these gasses in out atmosphere preventing heat from escaping the atmosphere and forcing temperatures to rise, but it doesn’t stop here. As temperatures rise, our polar ice caps at both of the poles have lost a significant amount of their mass; this causes desalinization, disrupted currents and their carrying of warm / cool air transfers from one region of the planet to another.
How we created killer weather: The presence of storms is nothing new but on occasion, we encounter something extraordinary, a super cell. Super