Download Cause and effect for global warming and more Essays (high school) Earth science in PDF only on Docsity! 3/31/2019 Cause and effect for global warming | Time for change https://timeforchange.org/cause-and-effect-for-global-warming 1/5 Home › Spirituality › earth Cause and effect for global warming Cause of global warming Almost 100% of the observed temperature increase over the last 50 years has been due to the increase in the atmosphere of greenhouse gas concentrations like water vapour, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and ozone. Greenhouse gases are those gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect (see below). The largest contributing source of greenhouse gas is the burning of fossil fuels leading to the emission of carbon dioxide. The greenhouse effect When sunlight reaches Earth's surface some is absorbed and warms the earth and most of the rest is radiated back to the atmosphere at a longer wavelength than the sun light. Some of these longer wavelengths are absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before they are lost to space. The absorption of this longwave radiant energy warms the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth some of the heat energy which would otherwise be lost to space. The reflecting back of heat energy by the atmosphere is called the "greenhouse effect". The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide CO2, which causes 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes 3- 7%. It is not possible to state that a certain gas causes a certain percentage of the greenhouse effect, because the influences of the various gases are not additive. Other greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons. Global warming causes by greenhouse effect Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (see above) act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth a part of the heat radiation, which would otherwise be lost to space. The higher the concentration of green house gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more heat energy is being reflected back to the Earth. The emission of carbon dioxide into the environment mainly from burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas, petrol, kerosene, etc.) has been increased dramatically over the past 50 years, see graph below. Time for change 3/31/2019 Cause and effect for global warming | Time for change https://timeforchange.org/cause-and-effect-for-global-warming 2/5 Fig. 1: Cause for global warming: Carbon dioxide emissions in million tons per year over the last 200 years. (graph taken from http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Global_Carbon_Emission_by_Type_png) Fig. 2: Global warming cause: Concentration of carbon dioxide has dramatically increased in the last 50 years (Source: NOAA)
