Critical Thinking The climate change of the United States and the globe, in general,

Critical Thinking

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The climate change of the United States and the globe, in general, is strongly related to the changing climatic conditions that make the world experience varying weather conditions due to global warming. The current warming trends concerning the climatic change are of significant due to the extreme probability of being a result of the human activities since the mid-20th century (Herring et al. 2014). The global climatic change is also proceeding at an alarming rate to which have not been evidenced over decades in the past but is now a current problem to the present millennia. The global climate has changed throughout history with the last 650,000 years experiencing seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago hence marking the beginning of the modern climate era as well as the end of human civilization. A majority of the global climatic changes are attributed by minimal variations in the earth’s orbit that change the amount of the solar energy received on planet earth.

Data collected via satellites and other technological advances have enabled the scientists to have a view of the bigger picture through data collection for many years that have revealed that there has been evidence of climatic change over the years. NASA demonstrated the heat-trapping nature of gases including that of carbon dioxide as well as their ability to effect the transfer of the infrared energy through the atmosphere in the mid-19th century. Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica and the tropical mountain glaciers indicate that the globe’s climate responds to changes in the level of the greenhouse gases (Alley, 2014). Ancient evidence can be traced in tree rings, coral reefs, ocean sediments as well as from the layers of sedimentary rocks. With this evidence revealing that the current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of the ice age recovery warming, and this has contributed significantly to the current climatic changes that are evidenced around the world.

There is compelling evidence for the rapid climatic change across the globe. The global temperature rise is among the core issues that have hard hit the planet causing tremendous changes in the climate. The average earth’s surface temperature has risen to about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit that is to about 0.9 degrees Celsius, and this has been witnessed since the 19th century. The change in the temperature levels can be derived from the increased concentration of carbon dioxide as well as that of human-made emissions into the atmosphere. Most of the warming got witnessed in the past 35 years, whereby five warmest years were recorded since the year 2010. The year 2016 was not only the warmest year on record but also had eight months of the twelve months, from January through September being the warmest except for June (Peterson et al. 2017). Another evidence of the global climate change that is still witnessed in the globe today is the warming oceans. The oceans have absorbed much of the heat that has been caused by the overall rise in the heat levels, and this has created an increase in the temperature of the oceans with the top 700 meters that is about 2,300 feet of the oceans indicating warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the year 1969.

Another evidence of the climatic change is the shrinking ice sheets. Antarctica, as well as the leaves of Greenland, have for years decreased in mass. According to the data retrieved from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, 281 billion tons of ices were lost from the Greenland sheets between the years 1993 and 2016. Antarctica as well lost 119 billion tons of ice during the same period. Since then, the rate of the Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade implying that the temperatures are also on the rise increasing the rate of ice melting. Glacial retreat is another evidence of the global climatic change (Benn & Evans, 2014). The glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world due to the increase in temperatures as well as the human activities on the planet. Some of the regions to where the glaciers have been evidenced to retreat include the Himalayas, Alps, Rockies, Africa, Andes as well as Alaska.

There has been a reduction in the snow cover around the globe. Satellite observations have revealed that the amount of spring snow cover from the northern hemisphere has reduced over the past five decades (Hori et al. 2017). It has also been evidenced the decrease has been as a result of the melting snow that can be attributed to the increased temperatures around the globe. Human activities can also be said to have contributed to a large portion of the melting ice due to their encroachment to the icefields where a lot of activities such as sporting have been conducted. The sporting activities have resulted in the interruption of the thick ice leading to melting and the eventual decrease in its levels.

Over the past decades, the sea level has raised, and this is another evidence of climatic change across the globe (Dutton et al. 2015). The global sea level rose to about 8 inches in the previous century. However, in the last two decades, the level of the sea rise was nearly double that of the past century. Each year, the level of the sea water has been increasing accelerating each year slightly. The rising levels of the water can be attributed to the high rate of the melting snow and glaciers from the mountains leading to the massive flow of water into the oceans. Besides, additional water collected from flooding that is as a result of the higher rains can also account to the increased water levels into the sea as these water all find their ways into the oceans.

Currently, the Arctic sea ice has been on the decline according to the evidence form the satellites. The decline has been evidenced on both the extent and the thickness of the Arctic sea ice over the last few decades (Comiso & Hall, 2014). The melting of the sea ice can be attributed to global warming whereby the globe’s temperature has risen leading to the massive melting of ice bodies in the sea as a result of the rise in the water temperatures. Over time, the Arctic sea ice will be reduced as there are slight declines over each year if the trend on global warming is not reverted.

Extreme weather events can be witnessed across the globe in the world today (Blunden & Arndt, 2016). In the United States, the number of recorded high temperatures events have been increasing while the number of low temperatures has been decreasing since the year 1950. The United States has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events that were not previously observed. The massive temperatures increase as well as the rainfall have also been witnessed across the globe and has resulted in other effects such as the rise of the sea water level. However, concerning to temperature as an extreme event, some of the regions of the word experience extremely low temperatures during the night to the extent of freezing while during the day there are extreme higher temperatures as evidenced from the deserts such as the Sahara in Africa.

There has been higher evidence climatic change, especially with the ocean acidification. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the acidity of the ocean’s surface waters has increased by about 30 percent (Ferrari et al. 2015). The increase in the acidity levels can be attributed to the human activities that have contributed to the massive emissions of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that is eventually absorbed into the oceans. The amount of carbon dioxide that has been absorbed by the upper layers of the oceans is increasing by about 2 billion tons per year, making the water more corrosive and salty.

Following the data provided from the text, there is significant evidence of global climatic change that has been as a result of global warming as well as the increased human activities across the planet. Various factors can be used to show evidence of climatic changes that include the rise in the sea water level, change in the amount of snow and glaciers, extreme weather events, high temperatures across the globe as well as the acidity of the oceans. Besides, the amount of the sea ice in the Arctic has been reducing, and this has been as a result of the increased water temperatures from the sea.

In my opinion, the global climate is wanting, and a reversal trend needs to be put in place. The reason is that we have been witnessing massive changes in the climatic conditions across the globe and not only in the United States. For some decades now, the temperatures have been increasing day by day with extreme weather conditions being evidenced. Most of the global climatic conditions can be attributed to change due to the human activities that have led to the increased greenhouse effect. Some of these activities include industrialization, deforestation as well as the combustion of fossil fuels leading to the increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

The level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere such as carbon has been attributed to causing massive changes in the global climatic conditions for decades now. The reason as to why it is the crucial point is that it has led to the increase in the heat levels around the globe. And this has resulted to other natural damages such as unpredictable weather conditions, ice melting, and a rise in the level of sea waters, increased acidity in the sea water, sea ice reduction as well as high temperatures across the globe. The current climatic conditions are worrying, and if they are not reversed, the world will become inhabitable in the future. Reversal strategies may involve the use of renewable sources of energy to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Besides, reforestation and the reclamation of the deserts by planting trees may also play a significant role in making the environment cooler and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. Through this, we shall have a safe planet to live in in the future.

Reference

Alley, R. B. (2014). The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future-Updated Edition. Princeton University Press.

Benn, D., & Evans, D. J. (2014). Glaciers and glaciation. Routledge.

Blunden, J., & Arndt, D. S. (2016). State of the Climate in 2015. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 97(8), Si-S275.

Comiso, J. C., & Hall, D. K. (2014). Climate trends in the Arctic as observed from space. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(3), 389-409.

Dutton, A., Carlson, A. E., Long, A. J., Milne, G. A., Clark, P. U., DeConto, R., & Raymo, M. E. (2015). Sea-level rise due to polar ice-sheet mass loss during past warm periods. Science, 349(6244), aaa4019.

Ferrari, M. C., Munday, P. L., Rummer, J. L., McCormick, M. I., Corkill, K., Watson, S. A., … & Chivers, D. P. (2015). Interactive effects of ocean acidification and rising sea temperatures alter predation rate and predator selectivity in reef fish communities. Global change biology, 21(5), 1848-1855.

Herring, S. C., Hoerling, M. P., Peterson, T. C., & Stott, P. A. (2014). Explaining extreme events of 2013 from a climate perspective. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 95(9), S1-S104.

Hori, M., Sugiura, K., Kobayashi, K., Aoki, T., Tanikawa, T., Kuchiki, K., & Enomoto, H. (2017). A 38-year (1978–2015) Northern Hemisphere daily snow cover extent product derived using consistent objective criteria from satellite-borne optical sensors. Remote sensing of environment, 191, 402-418.

Peterson, W. T., Fisher, J. L., Strub, P. T., Du, X., Risien, C., Peterson, J., & Shaw, C. T. (2017). The pelagic ecosystem in the Northern California Current off Oregon during the 2014–2016 warm anomalies within the context of the past 20 years. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 122(9), 7267-7290.