Essay About Population Increases And Indirect Effect Of Tropospheric Aerosols

Green House Gases
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1) Scientists have found that “over the past 250 years humans have been
artificially raising the concentration of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. Our factories, power plants, and cars burn coal and
gasoline and
spit out a seemingly endless stream of carbon dioxide. We produce
millions
of pounds of methane by allowing our trash to decompose in landfills
and by
breeding large herds of methane-belching cattle. Nitrogen-based
fertilizers, which we use on nearly all our crops, release unnatural
amounts
of nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere.” [6] Natural forces also play a
in modeling. Factors such as clouds, plants, and ozone layers are used
some models. Society plays a role in models as well, as some
researchers
take into consideration land use changes, population increases, etc.
2) Disagreements on the exact role each element plays in a model
depends on
the individual model and its components. Information from NASAs
website
suggests that factors such as greenhouse gasses, the tropospheric ozone
layer, and solar variability are generating an increase in the Earths
temperature. However, the same study suggests that fossil fuels,
biomass
burnings and even an indirect effect of tropospheric aerosols are
causing a
general decrease in temperature. [6]
3) Roughly over the last 150 years, the concentration of Carbon Dioxide
increased by thirty percent. This boost causes 1.46 Watts per meter
squared
of the suns energy to be trapped. [6]
4) The concentration of methane has increased from .791 pp/m in 1850 to
1.735 pp/m in 2000 [7]. This contributes to an increase of .48 Watts
meter squared of the energy stored [6]. Increases life times of other
greenhouse gasses and increases water vapor in the air. [7]
5) Scientists are gathering more data from the atmosphere and
performing
more experiments with the green house gasses. [7]
6) As problems with models occur, we find ourselves facing two possible
consequences: overreaction and a lack of response. Overreaction is a
possibility, as errors predicting the future might lead us to believe a
situation is much worse than it actually is. This could cause society
invest in an extremely costly solution to a problem that truly doesnot
deserve the attention. On the other hand, a model could seriously
underestimate the severity of an issue, causing a lack of reaction, and
turn, a horrendous outcome in the future.
7) “A comparative analysis of long-term (several-hundred-year)
temperature
and carbon dioxide (CO/sub 2/) trends suggests that the global warming
the past century is not due to the widely accepted CO/sub 2/ greenhouse
effect but rather to the natural recovery of the Earth from the global
chill
of the Little Ice Age, which was both initiated and ended by some
unrelated
phenomenon, the latter expression of which is the very warming
generally
attributed to the CO/sub 2/ increase of the past century.”[3] The
natural
recovery from a mini ice age, according to this source, might result in
global warming.
According to another source that used a model to represent the climate
system response to solar and volcanic forcings, “using a
middle-of-the-road
model sensitivity of 3 degC for doubled CO/sub 2/, solar forcings of
than 0.5% are too small to account for the cooling of the Little Ice
Age.”[4] These volcanic events seem to have had some cooling effect,
this model suggests that this event alone was not enough to produce the
Little Ice Age.
8) In order to answer the question, “What would be the consequences of
mini ice age?” one may consult the consequences of an ice age that
previously occurred. According to A.T. Grove of the Department of
Geography
at Cambridge University, “Alpine glacier advances