What is the connection between the greenhouse effect and global warming Brainly?

The climate crisis: the causes, the effects and the solutions

The climate crisis: the causes, the effects and the solutions

Why is climate change such a concern? What has caused it and what are the risks we face? We take a look at the causes of the greenhouse effect that are the result of human activity, the commitments made to invert the trend, and the push for electrification.

• 0,98°

  0,98° The temperature increase in 2019 compared to pre-industrial levels

• 1,5°

  1,5° The temperature increase by 2030 - 2050 if no steps are taken

• 97%

  97% The percentage of scientists who attribute global warming to human activity.

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Scientists study the relationship between greenhouse gases (heat-trapping gases emitted from human and natural sources) in the atmosphere and the global climate. Specifically, scientists look to determine how higher greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from human activity, may contribute or have contributed to global warming, defined as a rise in global average temperature, and climate change, defined as significant or large-scale change in weather-related events over decades, centuries, and millennia.

This article summarizes various terms related to global warming and climate change, the relationship between greenhouse gases and Earth's climate, estimates of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, and various scientific arguments for and against the view that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are the primary driver of global warming and climate change.

Background

Climate is a combination of normally prevailing weather conditions averaged over decades, centuries, or longer periods of time. These conditions include air pressure, atmospheric conditions, humidity, temperature, precipitation, cloudiness, fog, frost, sunshine, winds, and more. By contrast, weather is a combination of the same conditions in an area or region over shorter periods of time, such as days, weeks, or months. The earth's climate system is affected by several factors, including the atmosphere; volcanic eruptions; snow; ice; oceans and other bodies of water; land surface; biological organisms, including human beings, wildlife, and vegetation; changes in Earth's orbit; and solar activity.[1][2]

Climate change can refer to significant or large-scale changes in land surface and ocean temperature, precipitation, storm and wind patterns, or other weather-related events that can occur over a long period of time, including decades, centuries, and millennia. In the public debate, the term climate change may be used interchangeably with the theory that human activity since the Industrial Revolution contributes to and/or is responsible for global warming and subsequent changes in the climate. This theory states that global warming will occur when concentrations of greenhouse gases (heat-trapping gases) such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane rise and thus keep more heat in the atmosphere than can escape into space and/or be absorbed on Earth. More heat in the atmosphere, less absorption of greenhouse gases on Earth, and solar and volcanic activity may contribute to an increase in global average surface temperatures.[3]

Global warming refers to a gradual increase in global surface temperatures and the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. Global warming is associated with the greenhouse effect that is produced when the Earth's surface and atmosphere absorb solar energy and reradiates the energy back into space. A portion of the absorbed energy is emitted by land and oceans, absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, and reradiated back to the Earth. The greenhouse effect is one of several climate forcings, which are the major drivers of Earth's climate, alongside solar activity, volcanic eruptions, and aerosols.[4][5][3]

The image below shows how greenhouse gases produce the greenhouse effect.

Climate feedbacks

The greenhouse effect caused by greenhouse gases is known as a climate forcing; climate forcings are the major influencers of Earth's climate. Along with greenhouse gas concentrations, climate forcings include changes in the sun's energy output, volcanic eruptions, and the presence of aerosols (small airborne particles from human-made and natural sources). Climate scientists study the impact of greenhouse gases on global temperature compared to other factors and thus their contribution to global warming (defined as a rise in global average temperature) over time, as greenhouse gas concentrations and global temperatures have fluctuated over periods of hundreds, thousands, and millions of years.[6][7]

In addition, scientists observe other factors that may influence the greenhouse effect and other climate forcings. These factors are feedbacks, which are processes that can either accelerate or reduce the warming effects of climate forcings like the greenhouse effect. A positive feedback can increase warming, while a negative feedback can reduce warming. The following positive and negative feedbacks can affect the impacts of the greenhouse effect on warming.[8][9]

• Clouds: Clouds reflect back into space approximately one-third of all sunlight that hits the Earth's atmosphere. Increased cloudiness caused by more water in the atmosphere can limit the amount of sunlight from hitting the Earth's surface, resulting in less absorbed heat and less warming.
• Precipitation: A warmer atmosphere that holds more water can increase precipitation, though not in all regions. Changes in precipitation patterns can result in more water available for plants, which remove carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas, also known as CO2) from the atmosphere. Increased plant growth could result in more CO2 absorption from the atmosphere and thus less warming.
• Forested areas: As negative feedbacks, forests, trees, and other plants remove CO2 from the atmosphere and thus can reduce warming that may be the result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. However, forests and plants may also be cut down so that land is cleared for agriculture or other uses, which results in less CO2 absorption.
• Ice: Compared to ocean surfaces, which are dark and absorb heat more quickly, ice is white and thus quickly and more easily reflects sunlight. More ice and glaciers result in greater heat reflection and thus less warming. However, greater sea ice and glacier melting reduces this reflection and allows the ocean to absorb more heat and accelerate warming. This process is known as the ice albedo feedback.

Greenhouse gas concentrations

Earth's atmosphere is composed of different gases in different amounts. The atmosphere is more or less permanently composed of nitrogen (78 percent), oxygen (21 percent), and argon (0.9 percent). Trace gases, including greenhouse gases, account for the remaining 0.1 percent. As of April 2016, carbon dioxide accounted for 0.04 percent of the atmosphere's chemical composition. Water vapor, the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect, varies in concentration between seasons and at different altitudes of the Earth's lower atmosphere. Thus, it is difficult to measure precisely, though a warmer atmosphere in general contains more water vapor. The atmosphere also contains trace amounts of human-made greenhouse gases, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and perfluorocarbons (PFCs).[10][11][12][13]

The table below shows an estimate of the tropospheric (the lowest region of the atmosphere, with a height of between 3.7–6.2 miles) concentration of the five naturally occurring greenhouse gases (excluding water vapor) in the pre-industrial era (pre-1750) and the estimate of the tropospheric concentration of these gases measured in April 2016. The figures come from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at the U.S. Department of Energy and were calculated using data from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The carbon dioxide concentration given is the average for the year 2015 from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).[12]

Views on the role of greenhouse gases in global warming

Summarized below are various arguments from those who argue for and against the view that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are the main drivers of global warming and climate change.

Support

• According to its 2007 assessment on global warming and climate change, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose stated objective is to provide "the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change", argued, "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [human-caused] GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations." The report's authors also argued that existing or higher rates of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions "would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century." In its 2013-2014 assessment, the IPCC's authors concluded that doubling the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) from pre-industrial levels would lead to a temperature rise of between 1.5°C (Celsius) and 4.5°C, with a best estimate of 3°C, by the year 2100.[14][15][16][17]

• David Titley, director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Pennsylvania State University, argued in December 2015 that the warming effect of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2 emissions from 1750 to 2011, accounted for approximately 42 percent of the total warming influence from human-caused emissions during this period. Titley further argued that the reduced rate of warming observed between 1998 and 2013 did not alter the view that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions were the dominant driver of global warming; that climate models already predict short periods of warming and cooling; that the reduced rate of warming occurred alongside continued near-surface warming of the atmosphere; and that any reduced rate of warming would likely become more rapid over time due to existing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Titley concluded, "The basis of the science of climate change is exceptionally well-understood and can be—and has been—applied by many researchers inside and outside the government."[18]

• In a July 2012 op-ed in The New York Times, Robert Muller, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, argued that the best explanation of rising global surface temperatures since 1753 is human-induced greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2. Muller and other scientists analyzed global average surface temperatures and concluded that temperatures had increased 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the year 1753 and publication of his study (2012) and had increased 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1962. Muller argued that his team's analysis had included consideration of other factors that may influence temperature increases, including urban heating, data selection, and poor temperature collection stations, as well as climatic factors such as oscillating ocean currents, solar activity, and volcanic eruptions. Muller and his associates argued that “it appears likely that essentially all of this [temperature] increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases” and that “the best match was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide.” Muller concluded, "As carbon dioxide emissions increase, the temperature should continue to rise."[19]

• In a February 2010 op-ed in the Boston Globe, Kerry Emanuel, director of the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), argued that "global temperatures have been rising for roughly the past century and have so far increased by about 1.4 F [Fahrenheit]." Emanuel added that the "rate of rise of surface temperature is consistent with predictions of human-caused global warming that date back to the 19th century and is larger than any natural change we have been able to discern for at least the past 1,000 years." Emanuel concluded that "theory, actual observations of the planet, and complex models - however imperfect each is in isolation - all point to ongoing, potentially dangerous human alteration of climate." In March 2011, Emanuel argued that "increased levels of greenhouses gases remain the only plausible mechanism for explaining very warm climates" in the distant past, such as the Eocene period approximately 50 million years ago.[20][21]

Opposition

• Judith Curry, former Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, argued in December 2015 that considerable scientific debate exists about "whether the warming has been dominated by human causes versus natural variability, how much the planet will warm in the 21st century, and whether warming is ‘dangerous’." Curry argued that human-induced emissions could not have played a causal role in specific warming periods, such as the warming period of 1910-1945, which Curry claimed had accounted for 40 percent of all warming from 1900-2013 but 10 percent of the CO2 increase during the period. Curry also argued that the 1998-2013 period had showed a warming rate below earlier climate model projections and below the warming rate observed between 1970-1998 despite a 25 percent increase in human-induced CO2 from 1998-2013. Curry concluded, "The growing discrepancy between climate model predictions and the observations has raised serious questions about the climate models that are being used as the basis for national and international energy and climate policies."[22]

• According to the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, a self-described panel of scientists and scholars who "are not predisposed to believe climate change is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions", climate models overestimate the climate's sensitivity to greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, because they exclude or inadequately consider factors that may moderate or reduce global warming, such as low-level cloud formation, the cooling effects of natural and industrial-caused aerosols, and ocean emissions of organic sulfur compounds that contribute to cloud formation and thus cooling. The panel argued that solar activity in the 20th century could account for rising global temperatures and that solar activity may have an equal or greater effect on temperatures than CO2. The panel further claimed, "Earth has not warmed significantly for the past 18 years despite an 8 percent increase in atmospheric CO2, which represents 34 percent of all extra CO2 added to the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution."[23]

• John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, argued in December 2015 that climate model projections for global warming and the role of greenhouse gases "have a strong tendency to over-warm the atmosphere relative to actual observations." Christy argued that climate models had predicted a warming rate three times that of what upper atmospheric temperature data showed between 1975 and November 2015. Christy further argued that the 1975-2015 timeframe was also "the highest concentration of greenhouse gases and thus the period in which the response [to greenhouse gases] should be of largest magnitude." Christy concluded, "[T]he models do not accurately represent at least some of the important processes that impact the climate because they were unable to 'predict' what has already occurred."

• In a 2011 article published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a self-described think tank that is "open-minded on the contested science of global warming", William Happer, professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University, argued that "there is very little correlation between the estimates of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the estimates of the earth’s temperature over the past 550 million years." Happer cited two periods—a warming period beginning near the year 1000 and a cooling period beginning near the year 1300—when atmospheric CO2 levels remained constant. Happer also claimed that ice core samples from glacial periods (a period of colder temperatures and advancing glaciers) and interglacial periods (a period of warmer temperatures and retreating glaciers) of the past one million years showed a correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. However, Happer argued that "these records show that changes in temperature preceded changes in CO2 levels, so that CO2 levels were an effect of temperature changes." Happer concluded, "The earth’s climate has always been changing. Our present global warming is not at all unusual by the standards of geological history, and the mild warming is probably benefiting the biosphere."[24]

See also

Footnotes

1. ↑ NASA, "What Are Climate and Climate Change?" October 26, 2011
2. ↑ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Definitions of climate change," accessed March 10, 2016
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Climate Change: Basic Information," accessed January 21, 2015
4. ↑ United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "What is the Greenhouse Effect?" accessed June 30, 2017
5. ↑ American Chemical Society, "What is the Greenhouse Effect?" accessed June 20, 2017
6. ↑ AccuWeather, "What are Climate Forcings?" accessed July 22, 2017
7. ↑ Climate of Concern, "Basics of Climate Science - Feedbacks," accessed July 11, 2017
8. ↑ OSS Foundation, "Climate Feedback/Sensitivity," accessed July 20, 2017
9. ↑ National Aeronautics and Space Administration, "The Study of Earth as an Integrated System," accessed July 22, 2017
10. ↑ UCAR Center for Science Education, "Carbon dioxide," accessed September 13, 2016
11. ↑ About.com, "What Is the Chemical Composition of Air?" accessed September 12, 2016
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, "Recent greenhouse gas concentrations," April 2016
13. ↑ American Chemical Society, "It’s Water Vapor, Not the CO2," accessed September 13, 2016
14. ↑ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers," accessed September 13, 2016
15. ↑ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report - 3. Projected climate change and its impacts," accessed August 22, 2017
16. ↑ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report - 2. Causes of change," accessed August 22, 2017
17. ↑ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report - 9.7 Combining Evidence of Anthropogenic Climate Change," accessed August 22, 2017
18. ↑ U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, "Testimony of David W. Titley, Rear Admiral USN (Ret.), Ph.D. to United States Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness," accessed December 11, 2016
19. ↑ The New York Times, "The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic," July 28, 2012
20. ↑ Boston Globe, "Despite uncertainties, need to confront climate change is clear," February 15, 2010
21. ↑ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Advance Written Testimony, Kerry A. Emanuel - Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Hearing on ‘Climate Change: Examining the Processes Used to Create Science and Policy’, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology - U.S. House of Representatives," March 31, 2011
22. ↑ Hearing on 'Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate Over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Climate Change' at the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, "Testimony of Judith A. Curry, Georgia Institute of Technology," accessed September 14, 2016
23. ↑ Heartland Institute, "Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming: The NIPCC Report on Scientific Consensus," accessed September 12, 2016
24. ↑ Global Warming Policy Foundation, "The Truth About Greenhouse Gases," accessed August 22, 2017

What is the connection between greenhouse gases and global warming?

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What is the relation between greenhouse effect and global warming Brainly?

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