Terminating Change Of Climate By Reflecting Sunlight

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Controlling Global Warming and Concluding Climate Change by Reflection of Sunlight- Revolutionary or Devastating Idea?

For the progress of modern civilization using ground breaking research and development in the field of science and technology it is amazing to see that humans have learnt no limit and have achieved greater heights each day. But in the process of the scientific, technological and industrial developments human have compromised with their own home planet. The progressing civilization and industrialization is mercilessly releasing poisonous gases in atmosphere which in turn is altering the climate of Earth. These gases are known as greenhouse gases and the effect cause by these gases is known as greenhouse effect. Greenhouse effect can be described as the global rise in Earth's average temperature due to an imbalance in the amount of incoming solar radiation and outgoing terrestrial radiation caused by the green houses, mostly carbon dioxide. Millions of tons of carbon dioxide is released each day in the atmosphere mainly from industries and vehicles which allows the sun's incoming radiation to fully pass but absorbs good amount of outgoing radiation after reflection from the Earth's surface. The full incoming radiation energy cannot escape due to partial absorption by the greenhouse gases causing rise in Earth's global average temperature known ads global warming. The global average temperature has alarmingly raised than few decades ago drawing attention of global community. Countries worldwide are now campaigning and trying to control global warming by cutting down their poisonous emissions by converting those harmful greenhouse gases into less harmful ones before releasing in the atmosphere. But we have already harmed our planet so much that it will take many years for the Earth's global average temperature to be normal again. The global warming has greatly affected the normal climate of the Earth which is drastically changing now towards worse and hampering the global ecological balance. Scientists and researchers worldwide are deeply concerned with this fact now are trying to figure out solutions to reduce global warming and bring back the Earth's climate to its original condition. 

Human civilization never lack innovative and ground breaking thoughts and ideas which have lead to their evolution from stone-age beings to modern homo-sapiens. This is again reflected from the mind blowing concepts and ideas for preventing global warming and climate change by reflecting the light of the sun, as an ultimate desperate measure after failing to control alarming level of climate change. But the question lies in the fact whether this innovative idea for reflecting sunlight to stop global warming and climate change will come with revolutionary or devastating results. Some researchers pointed out the incident of eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 as nature's illustration of controlling global warming. The hot ashes and gases after eruption spread in the upper atmosphere globally reflected the sun rays and cooled the planet naturally for more than a year. The idea from this is to spray aerosols using airplanes that can reflect the sunlight. One hypothesis says it will protect the crops from the extreme heat waves. But a recent publication in Nature using data from the historical eruption of two volcanoes concluded that changing the atmosphere accordingly would have no net effect on the crop yield. By altering the atmosphere though the crops will suffer less heat waves but they will also receive less photosynthesis-powering sunlight. Though no such technology exists now but it can be developed in due course for example by powering planes with special fuels to burn sulfur and spray aerosols in atmosphere. If this mega-project is undertaken in future then efficient ways have to be developed to maintain constant aerosol level in the atmosphere. The fluctuation of aerosol level will cause sudden heating and cooling and will adversely effect the Earth's habitat and ecosystem. Many other researchers are of the view that it is better not to tamper the Earth's atmosphere as it can lead to devastating consequences for mankind. The best way is to stop treating Earth as 'deposit ground' of our sewage and reduce the emission of harmful greenhouse gases to as low as possible by proper filtration of smokes and fumes before discharging them in the atmosphere. It is also necessary to plant as much amount of trees as possible rather than cutting them down to expand our own civilization. We all know that trees are the best source of filtration of carbon dioxide as they absorb lots of carbon dioxide during day time and release oxygen for us to breath. We have already harmed our Earth and changed its climatic conditions to an alarming level. Taking these steps determinedly can bring the global average temperature and climatic conditions back to normal but it will take few decades. This is the only natural process we are left with to save our Earth from destruction but our intervention by altering its atmosphere can lead to more devastating consequences.

Green House Effect- Earth's Rising Major Threat

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Green House Effect- The Main Cause of Global Warming

The greenhouse effect is a continuous method  by which heat radiation from a planet's atmosphere warms the planet's surface to a temperature above what it would be without its atmosphere. The greenhouse effect continuously upsurge the temperature of the Earth by ambush heat in our atmosphere. This handles the temperature of the Earth greater than it would be if direct heating by the Sun was the only source of warming. When sunlight reaches the surface of the Earth, some of it is absorbed which heats the ground and some reflects back to space as heat. Greenhouse gases that are in the atmosphere consumes and then bounce some of this heat back towards the Earth. Earth’s natural greenhouse effect is important  to supporting life. Human activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests, have invigorated the greenhouse effect and caused global warming. The other planets in Earth's solar system are very hot or bitterly cold, Earth's surface has nearly optimum, stable temperatures. Earth relish these temperatures because of its atmosphere, which is the film layer of gases that camouflage and prevent the planet. Nonetheless, 97 percent of climate scientists acknowledge that humans have alternated the Earth's atmosphere in breath-taking ways over the last two centuries, culminating in global warming. To discern global warming, it's important to become usual with the greenhouse effect, though.

History

In the year 1824 A.D., Joseph Fourier first argued the existence of the greenhouse effect. Later in the year 1827 A.D. Claude Pouillet strengthened the evidence of greenhouse effect. John Tyndall in 1859 measured the radiative properties of specific greenhouse gases. Down the line in the year  1896 A.D., the effect of greenhouse was fully quantified by Svante Arrhenius. He made the first prediction quantitatively of global warming due to a hypothetical doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The term was first used in this way by Nils Gustaf Ekholm in 1901 AD.

How does Energy in and Energy Out occurs? 

There's a delightful adjust act occurring every day all crosswise the Earth, affecting the heat radiation the planet accepts from space and the radiation that's bounces back out to space. Earth is constantly bombarded with massive amounts of radiation, mainly from the sun. This solar radiation hits the Earth's atmosphere in the form of visible light, plus ultraviolet (UV), infrared (IR) and other types of radiation that are invisible to the human eye. UV radiation has a shorter wavelength and a greater energy level than visible light, while IR radiation has a greater wavelength and a lesser energy level. About 30 percent of the heat radiation striking Earth's atmosphere is immediately bounces back out to space by clouds, ice, snow, sand and other bounce surfaces, according to NASA. The remaining 70 percent of approaching solar radiation is absorbed by the oceans, the land and the atmosphere. As they heat up, the oceans, land and atmosphere gives out heat in the form of IR thermal radiation, which gives out of the atmosphere and into space. It's this balance of incoming and outgoing radiation that makes the Earth habitable, with an average temperature of about 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius), according to NASA. Without this atmospheric balance, Earth would be as terrific cold and lifeless as its moon, or as extreme hot as Venus. The moon, which has almost no atmosphere, is about minus 243 F (minus 153 C) on its dark side. Venus, on the other hand, has a very impenetrable atmosphere that ambush solar radiation; the average temperature on Venus is about 864 F (462 C).

Greenhouse gases

The primary greenhouse gases which are found in earth’s atmosphere are as follows:

• Water vapour: 36-70%
• Carbon Dioxide: 9-26 %
• Methane: 4-9%
• Ozone: 3-7%

It is impossible to accredit a specific percentage to each gas because the absorption and emission bands of the gases imbricate. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and the fluorinated gases are all well-mixed gases in the atmosphere that unreacted to changes in temperature and air pressure, so the levels of these gases are unaffected by condensation. Water vapour on the other hand, is a highly active component of the climate system that responds rapidly to changes in conditions by either condensing into rain or snow, or evaporating to return to the atmosphere. Thus the impact of the greenhouse effect is primarily broadcast through water vapour, and it acts as a fast assessment. Carbon dioxide and the other non-condensing greenhouse gases are the cornerstone within the Earth's atmosphere that sustain the greenhouse effect and control its strength. Water vapour is a fast-acting feedback but its atmospheric concentration is controlled by the radiative forcing supplied by the non-condensing greenhouse gases.

Can the greenhouse effect be reversed?

Scientists acknowledge that the disturbance to the Earth's atmosphere and climate is past the point of no return or that the damage is near the point of no return. "I agree that we have passed the point of avoiding climate change," Josef Werne, an associate professor at the department of geology & planetary science at the University of Pittsburgh told Live Science. In Werne's opinion, there are three options from this point forward: 

• Do nothing and live with the consequences.
• Adapt to the changing climate.
• Mitigate the impact of climate change by aggressively enacting policies that actually reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is composed by fossil fuel burning and other activities such as cement production and tropical deforestation. In 1960 ,measurements of carbon dioxide from the Mauna Loa observatory show that concentrations have rised from about 313 parts per million (ppm) to about 389 ppm in 2010. In the year 2013, on 9th of May, it reached the 400 ppm milestone. The current observed amount of carbon dioxide crosses the geological record maxima (~300 ppm) from ice core data. In the year 1896 Svante Arrhenius described the effect of combustion-produced carbon dioxide on the global climate, a special case of the greenhouse effect . It is also been called the Callendar effect.

Alarming Rise in Sea Level- Global Warming

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Global warming is catalyzing the melting of Antarctic ice causing alarming rise in sea level 

The human civilization has immensely developed since last few decades in the field of advance science and technology but their progress is occurring at the cost of compromising with our own mother nature. Our progress in the field of advance science and technology has lead to the imbalance of our ecosystem as well as the Earth's atmosphere. Vehicles and industries itself emits huge amount of smoke which mainly contains carbon dioxide, the major cause for global warming. Apart from this our environment is polluted from several other sources that cause the total amount of carbon dioxide to rise in our atmosphere. Other than carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and CFC also contribute to the rise of the average global temperature and this phenomenon is known as Global Warming. The release of these gases from different sources have drastically increased which in turn are trapping the incoming solar radiation and not allowing to escape the outgoing terrestrial radiation thus causing rise in our average global temperature. Scientists and environmentalists have been repeatedly warning about the consequences of global warming by different means but all are in vain as we are too busy with our progress in the field of advance science and technology. Our action is hurting our very own mother Earth and now we will have to face the consequences.

A recent shocking report from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory over a broad period of study from 1992 to 2017 has revealed that the increasing melting of Antarctic ice has lead to global rise in sea level by 0.3 inches. Before the year 2012 the antarctic ice was melting at the steady rate of nearly 83.8 billion tons per year whose contribution to the rise in sea level was nearly 0.008 inches per year. But after 2012 the loss of polar ice has abruptly increased to nearly 241.4 billion tons i.e. almost triple than it was before 2012. This drastic rise is contributing to nearly 0.02 inches rise in sea level per year. The report further shows that the ice caps of West Antarctica are badly affected with a drastic increase in their melting and the ice caps of North Antarctica  have also severely increased, whereas only the ice caps of East Antarctica are relatively stable than others in the melting process. Antarctica lying in the south pole contains very massive amount of ice frozen in its landmass and melting of this ice can leads to an alarming rise in sea level of nearly 190 feet. According to NASA, the contribution of Antarctica ice to global rise in sea levels is nearly 7.5 times than any other source of frozen landmass in our world combined. Thus it is really alarming that in our race for achieving advancement in science and technology, we are threatening our very own existence in future. The alarming rise in global warming gases over last 25 years have accelerated the melting of Antarctica ice caps. Moreover the habitat, ecosystem and wildlife of Antarctica are adversely affected by the gradual increase in the melting of these polar ice caps. Now it is high time for human civilization to carefully think about controlling the emission of global warming gases in our atmosphere in order to prevent the melting of polar ice caps which is causing rise in sea level. It is not that our civilization should stop progressing in the field of advance science and technology but side by side they should take care of their very own home Earth. By the use of advance technology combined with rigorous effort and hard thinking we can find out certain technologies or solutions that will help us to control the emission of harmful greenhouse gases in the atmosphere keeping the natural balance. If NASA's present alarming report has not strike us hard in our mind then unfortunately we are threatening the very own existence of us and more possibility for our future generations.