Global Warming

Global Warming: The Issue at hand

The "greenhouse effect" is created when a potion of solar radiation that is given off by the sun is reflected upon the Earth's surface. This of course, warms the surface of our planet and without it we would be covered with ice. Unfortunately, recent scientific evidence shows that the "greenhouse effect" has increased; as a result releasing certain gases of the atmosphere have caused the rise in the Earth's temperature. However, from 1989 up to 2004 the percentage of people worrying about global warming has decreased greatly.

You just might ask yourself, what does the greenhouse effect have to do with global warming? The amounts of atmospheric gases have been elevating since the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century; creating the higher temperatures worldwide, which leaves the globe with severe climate changes. And according to the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, human activities are causing an increase on the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Due to the increase of carbon dioxide, in which is one of the many greenhouse gases that the atmosphere traps creating those drastic changes.

Even though there is plenty of speculation on the dispute of whether or not the effect of human activity has on the global warming situation, the definitively cause of the global climate change, according to experts whatever the cause is the earth is indeed getting warmer. Allowing global warming to continue without doing something about it will evidently have a devastating outcome for our planet. There is a not to familiar threat facing scientists and that is the concern that the warming temperatures can lead to very

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devastating changes in weather throughout a world-wide level. Some predictions of the changes may include: summers that may become too dry in North America and Eurasia, the Artic ice cap may disappear that might cause a drastic change to the ecosystem, and the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet may collapse leading towards a rise in sea levels through the globe.

As a matter of fact, the rising sea levels cause a threat to islands in which they can just completely disappear under rising waters. The melting ice from both the Western Antarctic and the Artic most definitely will cause an endangerment to the habitat of animals such as polar bears and other creatures. Scott Simon, an NPR reporter was recently investigating the effects of global warming and had this to say: "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may add polar bears to the endangered species