Global warming -a known term, but unnoticed condition.
By: Karthik Arulraj
Tags: Climate Change, Pollution, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Global Warming, Environment

Photo by Florian Olivo on Unsplash

The global warming is a frequently used term when climate change is discussed. Even with frequent usage of the term, people tend to notice less and care little about the effects of global warming. The main reason for this misconception would be the limited awareness of the situation. The main cause of the global warming would be the greenhouse gases surrounding the atmosphere of the earth.

The earth naturally has a layer of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere around it. The greenhouse gases are not entirely useless and completely harmful. The greenhouse gases are the layers of combined gas that traps heat from the sunlight leaving the earth. Without this layer of greenhouse gases the earth would become very cool and there would not be a warm weather condition. This layer of atmosphere create a better habitual environment on earth.

The problem is they are being produced than the desired rate. This makes more amount of gases to get accumulated to those that are already present.The greenhouse gas addition makes the amount of heat trapped to rise and gradually increase the earth’s temperature.

The increasing temperature of the earth gradually melts the glaciers which increases the sea level. The sea level rising would mean reduction of land area. This process keeps on going like a chain reaction. The most serious cause right now is the sea level rising and the forest fires accelerated by climate change.

The Global warming is not a single process. It is a result of many processes and a major one in climate change which includes many steps to come.The global affects the earth environment in a very serious way. The Flora and Fauna are both affected equally by the climate change triggered mostly by global warming.

The well known effects of global warming are glaciers melting and increasing sea level. They also have many other effects on the environment that are not that transparent. Some of the many unknown factors affected by global warming are,

CLOUD FORESTS:

The cloud forests are forests present in high altitude places like mountains and hills. They contribute to the water for the rivers that originate from the mountains. The soil around these forests are usually covered by moss and grass and no soil surface will be visible. These forests usually favor the cold climate and low temperatures. The global warming increases the temperature of these areas which destroys the favorable condition for cloud forests and as a result they tend to reduce in area. The forest shrinking over period also an effect on the animals living within it. They also reduces the rare plants that grow only in those forests and climatic conditions.

ANIMALS :

The forest degradation will directly affect the animal and their ecosystem. The herbivorous animals become less in number due to the decline in plant vegetation. This will affect the carnivorous animals and the whole food chain gets affected.The animals are also very dependent on forest and trees for shelter. Without them, they would be prone to move towards the populated area which affects the human population.

SEA FLOOR :

The sea floor becomes clearer as the ice present over them gets melted. This will increase the luminosity and temperature of the sea floor which will affect the organisms dependent on darkness present in the deep sea floor .

TEMPERATURE OF SURFACES :

The heat level rising of the earth will increase the temperature of the surroundings of earth. This in turn will increase the ambient temperature and make the comfort level of the people to go low. It also damages the human skin and changes it’s characteristics which may be harmful. The buildings and structures also gets weakened because of the increased exposure to higher temperatures.

The greenhouse gases are produced both naturally and man made. People always think greenhouse gases are produced from automobiles only. Even with automobiles being the major contributor to the green house gases, the other greenhouse gases emissions are from electricity generation and production industries. There are also many hidden factors that contribute to the greenhouse gases in a silent way.

Global warming doesn’t need extra effort to be reduced. The usual activities of the humans can be altered to reduce the emission rate of greenhouse gases. This would reduce the accumulation of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and keep them in perfect level. An example of changing individual activity would be using public transportation or carpooling instead of using a vehicle for a single person. These type of minor alterations to our daily life could contribute more to the prevention of more greenhouse gas emission.

Another major contributor to the reduction of greenhouse gases would be turning towards the renewable energy instead of relying only on fossil fuels. The fossil fuels tends to produce heat and emit gases during the operation. The renewable energy would take this factor out and produces more cleaner energy. For example the solar energy and steam energy also produces electricity. But the solar energy is more cleaner as it doesn’t leave any byproducts such as any gases during the operation.

The usage of renewable energy is also very economical and should be embraced to make the atmosphere cleaner. The forest fires also contribute more to the greenhouse gases and they should be prevented by proper maintenance of the forests. The heating systems in the colder regions of the world should also be upgraded to better and greener ones.

Global warming is a serious issue and we should try to keep the greenhouse gases in limit. The greenhouse gas emitting machinery such as automobiles should be changed to better environment friendly types like electric vehicles. Reducing the greenhouse gas emission will automatically lower the heat global warming rate and the earth’s atmosphere will change back to its old self.

Global warming has more serious effects on the environment than most of the pollution combined. The global warming should be contained to make the earth return to its greener and better form.