Global Warming - Bring More Rain

The recent observations of climate models and satellite indicate that the total amount of water in the atmosphere will increase at a rate of 7% per Kelvin of surface warming Climate experts have cast doubt on the conclusions of a new study predicting that a warmer world would lead to more rainfall - a contradiction of the prediction of most climate change models - which was based on just 20 years of data.

The observations shows that total atmospheric water and precipitation have increased at about the same rate over the past two decades. Where as the recent analysis of satellite observations does not support this prediction of a quiet response of precipitation to global warming.

According to climatologist Brian Soden of the University of Miami in Florida -

"The study is the first to question the accuracy of precipitation in current climate models. There are dozens of different climate models out there, and every single one of them predicts that precipitation will increase more slowly than this study suggests. Plus, they all get the historical record wrong. Improving these models could help climatologists better predict future storms,"

Global Warming - Melting Himalayan Glaciers

Chinese experts predict that by 2050 the icy area on their side of Himalayas will have shrunk by more than a quarter since 1950. Predictions for the India side are gloomier still.

Himalayan glaciers are among the fastest retreating glaciers in the world due to effect of global warming. This climate change threatening water shortages for thousands of people who rely on glacier-dependent rivers.

"The rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will first increase the volume of water in rivers, causing widespread flooding," says Jennifer Morgan, director of WWF's global climate change program.

"But in a few decades this situation will change and the water level in rivers will decline, meaning massive economic and environmental problems for people in western China, Nepal and northern India."

Because of the effect India’s agriculture will suffer more in comparison of any other country. The fall in India’s agriculture is about 30-40% by 2080.

WWF says – “As glacier water flows dwindle, the energy potential of hydroelectric power will decrease, causing problems for industry, as well as agriculture, as reduced irrigation means lower crop yields.”

Al Gore got the Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N. Panel

Former Vice President, Al Gore wrapped up a remarkable day of honors on Oct 12, 2007 by sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with a U.N. scientific panel announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. He and the panel work to raise awareness about global warming.

Gore and the IPCC were chosen from a list of 181 candidates to split the prize, worth 10 million Swedish kronors(about 1.5 million U.S. dollars).

Gore said - "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity, It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."

The award ceremony was held on December 10 in Oslo, Norway.

"Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming," Ole Danbolt Mjoes, chairman of the Nobel committee, said in making the announcement.

"Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man's control," the committee added.

The U.N. panel also warned that global warming could calm hundreds of millions of human lives due to increased risk of disease, starvation, and conflict triggered by drought, floods, storms, and other severe climate effects.

Hurricanes and Global Warming

Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones have always bedeviled coasts, but global warming may be making them worse. After doing a research, a series of prominent papers has been published claiming a link between global warming and increasing power of Atlantic hurricanes. There is regular increment in the level of sea level as the glaciers melts. And this will result in higher storm surges, that also increase coastal flodding and damages.

The global community of tropical cyclone researchers and forecasters represented the International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones of the World Meteorological Organization and the summary statement is :

"The surfaces of most tropical oceans have warmed by 0.25-0.5 degree Celsius during the past several decades. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers that the likely primary cause of the rise in global mean surface temperature in the past 50 years is the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

There have been a number of recent high-impact tropical cyclone events around the globe. These include 10 landfalling tropical cyclones in Japan in 2004, five tropical cyclones affecting the Cook Islands in a five-week period in 2005, Cyclone Gafilo in Madagascar in 2004, Cyclone Larry in Australia in 2006, Typhoon Saomai in China in 2006, and the extremely active 2004 and 2005 Atlantic tropical cyclone seasons - including the catastrophic socio-economic impact of Hurricane Katrina.

Some recent scientific articles have reported a large increase in tropical cyclone energy, numbers, and wind-speeds in some regions during the last few decades in association with warmer sea surface temperatures. Other studies report that changes in observational techniques and instrumentation are responsible for these increases."

Global Warming- A Warning

What is Global Warming?

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation. As the Earth is getting hotter, disasters like hurricanes, droughts and floods are getting more frequent. Over the last 100 years, the average temperature of the air near the Earth´s surface has risen a little less than 1° Celsius (0.74 ± 0.18°C, or 1.3 ± 0.32° Fahrenheit).

Causes 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".

Without it, the Earth's average temperature would be a chilling -18 degrees Celsius, even despite the sun's constant energy supply. In a world like this life on Earth would probably have never emerged from the sea. Thanks to the greenhouse effect, however, heat emitted from the Earth is trapped in the atmosphere, providing us with a comfortable average temperature of 14 degrees. Sunrays enter the glass roof and walls of a greenhouse. But once they heat up the ground, which in turn heats up the air inside the greenhouse, the glass panels trap that warm air and temperatures increase. But our planet has no glass walls; the only thing that comes close to acting as such is our atmosphere. But unfortunately, in here, processes are way more complicated.

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 given graph.

Effects of Global Warming

The major eefect of global warming is increase of temperature on the earth by about 3° to 5° C (34° to 41° Fahrenheit) by the year 2100.

Some impacts from increasing temperatures are already happening.

* Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth's poles. This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic sea ice.
* Researcher Bill Fraser has tracked the decline of the Adélie penguins on Antarctica, where their numbers have fallen from 32,000 breeding pairs to 11,000 in 30 years.
* Sea level rise became faster over the last century.
* Some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have moved farther north or to higher, cooler areas.
* Precipitation (rain and snowfall) has increased across the globe, on average.
* Spruce bark beetles have boomed in Alaska thanks to 20 years of warm summers. The insects have chewed up 4 million acres of spruce trees.

Other effects could happen later this century, if warming continues.

* Sea levels are expected to rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 and 59 centimeters) by the end of the century, and continued melting at the poles could add between 4
and 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters).
* Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger.
* Species that depend on one another may become out of sync. For example, plants could bloom earlier than their pollinating insects become active.
* Floods and droughts will become more common. Rainfall in Ethiopia, where droughts are already common, could decline by 10 percent over the next 50 years.
* Less fresh water will be available. If the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru continues to melt at its current rate, it will be gone by 2100, leaving thousands of people who rely on
it for drinking water and electricity without a source of either.
* Some diseases will spread, such as malaria carried by mosquitoes.
* Ecosystems will change-some species will move farther north or become more successful; others won't be able to move and could become extinct. Wildlife research
scientist Martyn Obbard has found that since the mid-1980s, with less ice on which to live and fish for food, polar bears have gotten considerably skinnier. Polar bear
biologist Ian Stirling has found a similar pattern in Hudson Bay. He fears that if sea ice disappears, the polar bears will as well.