Extreme weather conditions. Global warming and human activity
It is scientifically proven that throughout the history of the planet Earth, at least seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat took place. Each time when the change happened, ice age formed the beginning of a new climate era. Previously, dramatic changes in the climate system were mainly caused by deviations in the amount of solar energy that our planet gets from the sun. However, current tendencies of a climate warming make scientists all over the world think that the reason for the weather alteration is, in fact, human activity. The issue of the global warming with a correlation to the effect of a human influence on the planet is being studied actively for several decades now. However, in the light of the recent extremely unusual weather conditions in different countries (the USA in particular), the issue of the drastic climatic change stands out more than ever before.
Greenhouse effect
Due to the technical and industrial revolution which took place during the past century, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere increased dramatically. This caused a greenhouse effect, i.e. the abnormal amount of gases and air pollutants gets collected in the atmosphere, the heat gets trapped and planet’s surface is becoming hotter. As a result, the glaciers melt shifting the temperature levels around the globe and causing abnormal weather conditions. Sea levels rise, snow cover decreases, oceans get acidified and many species get instinct as they lose their usual habitual conditions.
Rise of the global temperature
Since the time when global temperature levels started to be actively monitored by the scientists, the atmosphere of the planet got heated up to additional 1.1 degrees Celsius (2.0 degrees Fahrenheit). The seemingly small rise of the temperature brought excruciatingly drastic consequences for the globe in terms of weather patterns. Many researchers are convinced that this happened due to human-made emissions into the atmosphere during past 30 years.
Scientific assumptions
The sea ice cover is one of the main keys of the climatic balance on our planet. Several decades ago the decline of the Arctic sea ice became so fast that it became seriously alarming. The extent is being measured by earth-orbiting satellites since 1970; however, in 2017 we witnessed an unusually strong decrease in the sea ice cover. Surely, it is not a coincidence that during this year we encountered many extreme weather conditions around the globe. Hurricanes, temperature records, drought, unusually heavy rainfalls etc. caused havoc and cost record-braking bills for many countries.
The impact of a global warming is felt all over the planet. Ninety-seven percents of scientists are sure that climate changes on our globe are due to the human activity. The ancient pieces of evidence reveal that the current process of atmospheric heating develops 10 times faster than the previous climate changes before the ice age eventually took place. A lot has been done by researchers and scientists around the world to tackle this burning issue already, however, there is still so much that needs to be accomplished in order to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. The humankind must realize that if actions are not taken urgently, very soon we might suffer the same fate as mammoths and dinosaurs.
