DEADLIEST EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING

Polar ice caps melting

The ice caps melting is a four-pronged danger.
First, it will raise sea levels. There are 5,773,000 cubic miles of water in ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, if all glaciers melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet. Luckily, that’s not going to happen all in one go! But sea levels will rise.

Second, melting ice caps will throw the global ecosystem out of balance. The ice caps are fresh water, and when they melt they will desalinate the ocean, or in plain English – make it less salty. The desalinization of the gulf current will “screw up” ocean currents, which regulate temperatures. The stream shutdown or irregularity would cool the area around north-east America and Western Europe. Luckily, that will slow some of the other effects of global warming in that area!

Third, temperature rises and changing landscapes in the artic circle will endanger several species of animals. Only the most adaptable will survive.

Fourth, global warming could snowball with the ice caps gone. Ice caps are white, and reflect sunlight, much of which is relected back into space, further cooling Earth. If the ice caps melt, the only reflector is the ocean. Darker colors absorb sunlight, further warming the Earth.

Warmer waters and more hurricanes

As the temperature of oceans rises, so will the probability of more frequent and stronger hurricanes. We saw in this in 2004 and 2005.

Increased probability and intensity of droughts and heat waves

Although some areas of Earth will become wetter due to global warming, other areas will suffer serious droughts and heat waves. Africa will receive the worst of it, with more severe droughts also expected in Europe. Water is already a dangerously rare commodity in Africa, and according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global warming will exacerbate the conditions and could lead to conflicts and war.

Spread of disease

As northern countries warm, disease carrying insects migrate north, bringing plague and disease with them.

Economic consequences

Most of the effects of anthropogenic global warming won’t be good. And these effects spell one thing for the countries of the world: economic consequences. Hurricanes cause billions of dollars in damage, diseases cost money to treat and control and conflicts exacerbate all of these.

PARTICLES MULTI-TASK TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Particulate, or aerosol, pollution has influenced climate in several ways during the past century. While the net effect is global-cooling, in opposition to the greenhouse gas warming, the aerosol effects include a combination of cooling and warming components. Probably the best understood effect is the direct scattering and absorbing of sunlight by aerosols suspended in the atmosphere, the "direct effect". Bright particles scatter incoming radiation. The most important scattering component is sulfate, which comes from combustion of coal and oil and from industrial activities. Darker particles absorb sunlight and warm the atmosphere where they are suspended. Black carbon is the most important absorbing particle; it comes from incomplete combustion of coal, wood and diesel. Since the scattering effect is larger than the absorbing effect, the overall direct effect over the century is cooling.

Surface air temperature changes from 1890 to 2000, from aerosol direct (top), indirect (middle) and BC-albedo (bottom) effects. Global and [Arctic] mean changes are indicated above each panel.
Pollution aerosols also cool climate by altering cloud properties, known as the "indirect" effect. Cloud droplets form around suspended aerosols. Pollution has increased the number of particles, which makes the cloud droplets smaller and more numerous. These polluted clouds last longer and are brighter. Overall, clouds cool Earth's climate by blocking the surface from incoming sunlight. So the increased cloudiness from pollution has cooled climate over the past century.
A third effect occurs when black carbon (BC) particles land on snow, and the tiny specks of dark material in the upper snow layers absorb heat from the sun and promote melting. This is called the "BC-snow-albedo" effect. Loss of snow or ice makes Earth's surface much darker, so that even more warming and melting occur. Thus the BC-snow albedo effect contributes to warming.
We recently conducted global climate model experiments to distinguish the ways these three aerosol effects have changed climate during the 20th century. The model was run for 1890 conditions and again for year 2000 conditions, and the resulting climates were compared. A first set of experiments made changes in aerosols only. In a second set we also changed greenhouse gases such as CO2 to determine whether the aerosol effects change if greenhouse gases simultaneously warm the climate.
In our study, the biggest aerosol effect on climate came from the effect of aerosol-cloud indirect effect. Over the century, it cooled the surface air temperatures -1°C, with more cooling in the northern hemisphere than in the south. Snow and ice cover increased 1% globally and 4% in the Arctic. Global cloud cover also increased by 0.5%.
The aerosol direct effect cooled the climate over the century by -0.2°C, also more in the north than the southern hemisphere. It also caused a small increase in cloud and snow/ice cover.
Warming from the BC-albedo effect was similar in magnitude to the cooling from the direct effect. The effect was largest in the Arctic, where snow/ice cover declined by 1%.
We found correlations among the aerosol impacts within regions, so that cooler (warmer) temperatures typically correlated with increased (decreased) snow/ice cover and increased (decreased) cloud cover.
If greenhouse gases increased together with aerosols over the century, the potency of the aerosol effects was reduced. One exception was the cloud changes from the indirect effect, which increased 0.5% with or without the greenhouse gas changes. Nevertheless the greenhouse gas warming reduced the indirect effect on surface air temperatures cooling by 20% and on snow/ice cover increase by 50%. Furthermore the greenhouse gas warming generally overwhelmed the changes from the BC-albedo effects.
Since the aerosol impacts were particularly great in the Arctic, we studied the seasonality of the changes there. Aerosols altered the surface air temperature changes most in winter, even though effects on snow/ice and cloud cover were greatest during summer. One explanation for the seasonal offset is that the large summertime snow/ice change alters ground temperatures, and these ground temperature changes are felt more at ground-level during winter when the surface atmospheric layer is most stable.

NOVELTY!!!

A pleasant thursday evening,balmy air, elated mind i was in a ecstatic state. It was an unexpected holiday the day after. I felt the consummate happiness. I was driving my vehicle in the taramani road amidst the thick cloud of traffic. My thoughts drifted to my favourite topic of climate change,global warming. Umpteen no of queries arised in my mind. I was allmost driving absent minded. The wind was blowing in the east-west direction to the movement of my vehicle. The blown wind stimulated the tiny particles and carried in a meandering fashion. I realised that not only rivers meander , but even wind has that ability.(albeit, not directly)The mighty lounges of IT parks and array of green bushes facing those giant mammoth buildings. Wow!!! what a picturesuque evening. I remembered the story of the small boy who defeated the mighty giant. I felt as if the small green saplings were confronting the aim of those it parks to polute the air. I started wondering about the pigment which was really absorbing those noxious gases released by moving vehicles as pollutants. I was confounded if really the chlorophyll in the trees had the capacity to absorb the co2 from vehicles. The amount of vegetal cover in a place is inversely proportional to temperature. So does it not reinforce the novel idea that there is global cooling. Ho readers, puzzled?? I shall ratify my statements with some apposite words.

1. The co2 is released by the vehicles.




2. Nowadays there is an accretion in the motor vehicles.




3. By and large the release of co2 has also aggrandized.

This is one part of the story. Lets now look into the global perspective.

1. The trees are in dire need of co2 for their growth.




2. S o when the co2 in the atmosphere increases, the plant growth gets higher and higher.




3. As the vegetal cover grows , the temperature in that area allievates.

As a compendium of the discussions , I felt that the higher co2 levels today can only cool the atmosphere and can no way be a gateway to what is called as "global warming"- The one which even the muffled voices in the labs trying to clobber at.