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global warming - theoretical framework

The concept of global warming comprises three subordinated concepts related to one another namely the causes, process, and consequences of global warming. Their scientific conception is explained below. The causes of global warming. The heat is absorbed by heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. This keeps the Earth in a temperature range that allows life to flourish. These gases are known greenhouse gases. There are a number of greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N20), methane (CH4), water vapor, sulfur hexafluoride, and CFCs, etc. Earth's most abundant greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and CFCs. Water vapor, the, most prevalent powerful greenhouse gas holding onto 2/3 of the heat trapped by all greenhouse gases, is also a consequence of global warming. Atmospheric CO2 is produced by a number of sources including burning of fossil fuels by cars, electricity generating power plants, airplanes and deforestation. Methane is derived from rice paddies, bovine flatulence, bacteria in bogs, and fossil fuel production. Nitrous oxide (N2O) or laughing gas is produced either naturally in ocean forest or by humans in nylon and nitric acid production, the use of fertilizers in agriculture, and cars with catalytic converters Process of global warming: greenhouse effect. The Earth receives energy from the sun in the form of visible light. Most of this energy is not absorbed by the atmosphere since it is transparent to visible light. The energy hits and warms up the earth. It then radiates back to the atmosphere in the infrared range or heat. The energy is, this time, trapped since the greenhouse gases are not transparent to infrared. They absorb thermal infrared radiation. As a result of its warmth, the atmosphere also radiates thermal infrared downwards to the Earth’s surface. This keeps the Earth’s temperature steadily heated. This mechanism is fundamentally different from the mechanism of an actual greenhouse which isolates air inside the structure so that heat is not lost by convection. Anthropogenic global warming is a global mean temperature anomaly trend that results from an enhanced greenhouse effect mainly due to human-produced increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Consequences of global warming. Increasing global temperatures are causing a broad range of changes: sea levels are rising; land ice in the poles is melting; and the amounts and patterns of precipitation are changing. Moreover, there is an increase in the frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, and tornadoes. Other effects of global warming include lower agricultural yields, further glacial retreat and disappearance, reduced summer stream flows, and species extinctions. In addition, diseases like malaria are returning into areas where they had been eliminated earlier.