Global warming is defined as rise in the average temperature of Earth, surface air and oceans. According to the studies conducted, it has been explained that the Earth’s temperature has risen by nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. It is one of the major environmental problems today. If this situation continues, then many adverse effects may take place on earth.
Causes Of Global Warming:
Global warming can be caused due to natural calamities or human activities. Natural causes of global warming include bursting of sunspots, solar output variations, volcanic explosions and changes in the Earth’s orbit. Human activities, which increase green house gases, including burning of solid waste, wood, and fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, and deforestation. Release of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) from industrial processes generates more heat than normal and gets trapped in the atmosphere resulting in global warming.
The main gases contributing to this are carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide. These gases are largely produced by thermal power plants that burn the fossil fuels, road vehicles, and industries. Another cause is deforestation, which is caused by cutting and burning of forests for building houses and industries.
Effects Of Global Warming:
Global warming produces several effects, ranging from the effects on atmosphere, economy, and environment and also on health of human beings.
- Due to this, there is an increase in average earth surface temperature, which resulted in the melting of polar ice. Continuous melting down of glaciers can lead to floods and other natural calamities. More increase in temperature may melt the ice and results in the increase of sea level, which will submerge and immerse low lying countries and coastal areas.
- It also affected animal kingdom and some animals become extinct due to loss of their natural habitat or failure to get adapted to the rapid changes in the climate. Animals’ lifestyles have changed due to changes in seasons and migrating birds changed their time of travel and also location of migration.
- Global warming also affected seasons, as there is change in season cycle, the summers are getting prolonged than the winters.
- It is quite responsible for the initiation of some new diseases. This is because, bacteria are very capable and multiply rapidly in warmer temperatures compared to cold temperatures. The increase in temperature has resulted in the increase of microbes, which cause diseases.
- Global warming is also responsible for variation in crop production, because crops are getting destroyed due to sudden change in temperatures or sudden attack of rains. Flash floods and other natural disasters also influence the crop production.
- As a result of it, the earth’s atmosphere is gradually becoming unstable. This is because of heavy rains in the places where there is very less rainfall and drought in the places where there is good annual rainfall. There is also change in months of rainfall.
- Effects of global warming, such as decreased snow level, increased temperature and other weather changes will not only influence humans but also affect complete ecosystems. These changes in ecosystem may lead to extinction of species. Another consequence is Glacier retreat, which means deterioration of glaciers. This may lead to flash floods, landslides and glacier lake overflow.
- Due to this, people may suffer from infectious, vector-borne diseases like malaria and food shortages.
- Due to global warming oceans will become significantly more acidic as more carbon dioxide is trapped into water and temperature of ocean increases. This may lead to extinction of ocean animals and plants and cause hurricanes and storms.
- The polar ice caps are melted which is fresh water and when it is submerged in sea, the salinity of ocean is disturbed and causes imbalance in ocean currents.
Global warming can cause heat strokes, cardiovascular, and respiratory problems. An efficient way to reduce emission of green house gases into atmosphere is to encourage public to use renewable energy sources and conserve energy to possible extent. More advanced technologies must be developed in order to build cleaner cars and improved way to generate electricity. These methods help in minimizing global warming and also to save energy for future generations.