The Changing Planet

As I said in my introductory post "The Road Ahead," the issue of global warming/climate change/climate disruption is one of the biggest issues we face right now as inhabitants of planet earth. It is an issue that almost everyone has heard something about, yeah uh huh, like that movie "Day After Tomorrow," right? Except, wait a minute - that wasn't warming, that was freezing, instant Ice Age, wasn't it? So, what's the deal?

Popularizing scientific events of extreme complexity into soundbites, movies, and novels often totally disguises their real nature and importance from the public. There is a lot of confusion in the public mind about this issue, which is entirely understandable as there is still some confuson and disagreement even in the scientific community about its exact parameters. It is not something that can be precisely predicted and computer models show variations. The one thing that the reputable community of scientists in many different fields DO agree upon is this: It is much more likely than not that our civilization faces global warming.

So what are we talking about here, anyway? Global warming refers to an average increase in the Earth's temperature, which in turn causes changes in climate. A warmer Earth may lead to changes in rainfall patterns, a rise in sea level, and a wide range of impacts on plants, wildlife, and humans. When scientists talk about the issue of climate change, their concern is about global warming caused by human activities. Climate is the long-term average of a region's events lumped together. We are already seeing some of these effects around the planet. This story by Chip Ward might bring it a little closer to home for us: It's Not Just Eskimos in Bikinis.

The fact that the sun's warmth is trapped in the earth's atmosphere (greenhouse effect) is actually a good thing, it's what makes this planet inhabitable. However, if this warming increases beyond a certain level, the results may render it far less habitable. The bad greenhouse effect is a warming of the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere that tends to intensify with an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, water vapor, ozone, methane, nitrous oxide, and the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These are what are referred to as the greenhouse gases. The one which has increased most dangerously is carbon dioxide, as a result of the burning of fossil fuels - petroleum products, coal, wood, since the dawn of the Industrial Age (the human activities referred to previously).

That's the short story. It is, of course, immensely complex, and there are all kinds of unknowns (volcanic eruption, events such as the Asian tsunami in December, burning oilwells in the Mid-East, nuclear weapon detonation) that must be imagined and factored in. For a very readable history of climate change, read Spencer Weart's A Hyperlinked History of Climate Science Change. I will be referring to Weart in further posts on this subject, which I hope you will look for as I manage to get them into some sort of comprehendible order.

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