F330M Climate Change : Environmental Assessment Answers

Answer:

Introduction

Climate change is referred to as sudden change in the weather patterns, if the changes extend over decades to millions of years. Climate change mainly refers to global warming that refers to the sudden rise of the temperature of the earth. This assignment highlights the environmental changes that are referred to as climate change. Moreover, the chemistry behind climate changes has also been highlighted in this assignment.  

Climate change

Figure 1: Image of North Pole region in 1980 and 2012

(Source: Crutzen et al. 2016 )

Climate change is defined as a sudden change in the weather around the world that extends over a long period. One of the significant changes in the climate is of major concern is the global warming (Crutzen et al. 2016). Global warming refers to the sudden rise in global temperature, causing the snow from the earth’s surface, melt at a very rapid rate.  

Things that are classified as climate change

Climate change mainly refers to the phenomenon of global warming. Along with global warming, acid rains, increase in the green house gas emission, depletion of the ozone layer also accounts for climate change.    

Figure 2: Global warming in 2011 and 2014

(Source: Dessler 2015)

Figure 3: Image of Black Sea

(Source: Dessler 2015 )

The above images show the affects of global warming and how the lakes and seas have dried up in recent times, due to havoc climatic change. The causes of climate change are natural as well as human caused (Dessler 2015). The natural causes of climate change include continental drifts, volcanoes, ocean’s current, earth’s tilt, depletion of the ozone layer. Human beings cause climatic change. Emission of green house gases as well as increase of the pollution causes significant changes in the climatic conditions. Deforestation, excessive use of chemical fertilizers also causes changes in the climatic condition.      

Chemistry behind climate change

One of the chemical causes behind climatic changes is the increase of greenhouse effect. When the sunlight passes through the atmosphere and falls on the earth’s surface. The earth’s surface gets warm as it absorbs some of the sunlight and reflects the Infrared radiation (IR). Most of the rays escape to the outer space and allows the earth to cool down (Von Schneidemesser et al. 2015). Some of the infrared radiation is trapped by the air, thus keeping the earth warm. Increase in the level of carbon-di oxide retains more heat thus causing the atmosphere to be heated up. The various green house gases include water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, CFCs.  The sudden increase in the levels of these gases results in global warming. As the sun’s rays reaches the earth, the green house gases like water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane absorbs the heat and prevents it from radiating back. In this way, the green house gases act as a blanket, thus making the earth warmer, giving rise to global warming, and hence climatic changes. Carbon dioxide is the primary green house gas causing the climatic changes (Schuur et al. 2015). Human activities have increased the release of carbon dioxide and deforestation has also contributed to the rise in the amount of carbon dioxide, thus causing changes in climate. Methane had been abundant in the earth’s atmosphere in the past. However, with the increase in agricultural activities and natural wetlands, the concentration of methane has sharply increased thus adding to the green house effect.  

Figure : 4 Green house effect

(Source: Schuur et al. 2015)

Conclusion

Global warming is one of the main climatic changes caused mainly due to the green house effect along with deforestation and depletion of ozone layer. These changes are to be prevented to achieve sustainability of living beings on earth.  

References

Crutzen, P.J., Mosier, A.R., Smith, K.A. and Winiwarter, W., 2016. N2O release from agro-biofuel production negates global warming reduction by replacing fossil fuels. In Paul J. Crutzen: A Pioneer on Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Change in the Anthropocene (pp. 227-238). Springer International Publishing.

Dessler, A., 2015. Introduction to modern climate change. Cambridge University Press.
Schuur, E.A.G., McGuire, A.D., Schädel, C., Grosse, G., Harden, J.W., Hayes, D.J., Hugelius, G., Koven, C.D., Kuhry, P., Lawrence, D.M. and Natali, S.M., 2015. Climate change and the permafrost carbon feedback. Nature, 520(7546), pp.171-179.

Von Schneidemesser, E., Monks, P.S., Allan, J.D., Bruhwiler, L., Forster, P., Fowler, D., Lauer, A., Morgan, W.T., Paasonen, P., Righi, M. and Sindelarova, K., 2015. Chemistry and the linkages between air quality and climate change. Chemical reviews, 115(10), pp.3856-3897.