Effects on our weather: climate change and global warming

Effects on our weather: climate change and global warming

By Maria-Elise Kitras Posted March 2 2011

In the past few months, the weather has seemed to differ from its usual course of action. In the spring we usually have plants starting to bloom with the occasional rain shower. Then we move into summer with its warm sunshine and bright blue skies. Next is autumn; the leaves change colors and the air becomes more crisp and clean. Last of all we have winter, the snow starts to pile up, making Winnemucca seem frosty and white. The plants still bloom in spring but the rain seems more scarce. The summers seem more dry and hot. Autumn hasn’t varied much. Winter feels colder than ever, with the exception of this one. It is February and we had a pitiful amount of snowfall to the ground until recently.

In the east, snowstorms have scourged the coast making driving almost impossible. There has been cold weather and snow in Australia, where usually temperatures are warm during December. There have been floods in Pakistan. Is it possible that changes in the climate and global warming have affected our weather and played a part in these strange weather occurrences?

To answer this question we need to know the definition of global warming and climate change. According to Eoearth.com “Global warming is the combined result of anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions of greenhouse gases and changes in solar irradiance, while climate change refers to any change in the state of the climate… that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.”

According to Geocraft .com the world undergoes an ice age every 100,000 years, though the world did go through a mini ice age during the medieval era. A period of warming ensued after this, possibly caused by the Industrial Revolution and the black smoke that filled the sky during this time. Global warming is not the actual problem here; the problem is the greenhouse gas effect. Greenhouse gases trap light from the sun and this keeps the globe at a relatively warm temperature. The problem is that too many greenhouse gases are going into the atmosphere, trapping too much energy. Increasing temperatures cause the polar caps in the Arctic and the Antarctic to melt. This in turn causes sea levels to rise. If rising sea levels are unchecked, they could potentially sink any cities at or under sea level; for the United States that would mean our cities on the coasts and much of Hawaii.

Greenhouse gases also affect our climate change. According to Astrobio.net, 3.8 billion years ago the earth’s temperatures were similar to the temperatures that we have today. The power of the sun’s energy was 30% weaker then. Due to reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, the earth went through a cooling period, causing an ice age. When greenhouse gases and volcanic activity increased, the earth warmed up again. This cycle has been in effect for many hundreds of thousands of years, but it usually happens over a long period of time. Air pollution, building up from the Industrial Revolution has sped up this process. According to Discovery.com studies of hurricanes over the past fifty years have shown them to be more “intense and destructive.” Also, the current in the Gulf Stream is slowing down, a bad sign since this stream keeps Europe from resembling Alaska and helps regulate the temperature of the earth.

Mrs. Pasquale. /Courtesy • Winnada
Mrs. Pasquale. /Courtesy • Winnada

The possibility that the Gulf Stream is slowing would help to make clear the fact of why strong blizzards occurred in the east. It could also clarify why we have had intermittent snowstorms. This could also explain the tsunamis, hurricanes, and other various, destructive storms that we have had in the past few months.

Mrs. Michelle Pasquale, a teacher in the science department, explained why she thought our storm patterns were different than usual.

“I believe in the theory that we do have global warming. A lot of people don’t exactly know what that means…Because our earth is warming up and because our temperatures are hotter in the summertime, we have more evaporation in other places that we haven’t had in the world before…so where does that water go? It goes up into our atmospheric layers. Well, it’s got to condense and come down somewhere, so that’s going to be the reason why we have all these catastrophic events later on.”

Leave a Reply