Causes and Effects of Global Warming

The entire planet is forever changing. Things don’t always stay quite the same forever do they? Over the years there has been changes in politics, traditions, and television for that matter. The list can go on and on, but there is one element of the world that if changed can really impact how we live right now. The surrounding environment is becoming more complicated and fragile on a yearly basis. The main reasons why these problems are sprouting more nowadays are because of the abundant use of carbon emissions, drier or hotter temperatures, and plant growth that cannot be kept under control.

What is it that is the cause to these problems? Global warming, and it’s not here because of some coincidence. Global Warming has been a big issue that has effects on the environment, people, and the world, and if not stopped now, the results could be catastrophic.

This essay on global warming needs to look at the cause of the problems.

Global warming in a whole term is caused by a steady pace of heating up the earth’s atmosphere as a result of energy being trapped within. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane can cause the atmosphere to rise up, leading to solar radiation becoming trapped within the earth like within a greenhouse, hence the name “greenhouse gas”. Over time, the trapping of this radiation inevitably leads to earth’s atmosphere rising in temperature and the earth becomes warmer than result. The causes of global warming are both natural and anthropogenic.

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However, the anthropogenic influence is the most damaging to the earth’s surface temperature. Carolyn Kormann, in an article about global warming, wrote, “ The fire is so large—more than a hundred and ten thousand acres—that it has created its own weather system”(Paragraph 1). Once the planet starts to rise in its temperature, places that have prolonged dry spells end up creating deadly beings of nature, such as the forest fire. Whenever a major forest fire happens, it can send out more carbon dioxide than they do through regular plant growth. Wildfires do create carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that continue to warm the planet well into the present and the future. This in turn brings up the temperature of the atmosphere, causing more fires and repeating the process all over again. In retrospect, forests have been seen as one of the main tools for taking out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a great scale. However, severe fires have become so abundant in California that scientists now argue whether the state’s forests have turned into creators of carbon dioxide, rather than the extractors of carbon. These occurrences aren’t happening by chance, they all come from one main source: humans. As a species, humans destroy more than they create. From factories, to cars, all of this carbon dioxide being filtered into the air, and the atmosphere has only irreversibly damaged the planet. Carolyn Kormann, writer for The New Yorker, stated “Much of the heat that’s gripped California and hastened the spread of deadly wildfires”(Paragraph 7). The jet stream, known for its wind above the northern hemisphere, is one such thing that’s been damaged by prolonged time of gases being spread through the air. With the jet stream damaged, patterns in the weather have severely changed, causing all sorts of plant life and fires to sporadically happen.

The change in climate patterns has caused plant life to grow at an irregular rate. In fact, plants react far more sensitively to fluctuations in the planet’s temperature than animals. The California Native Plant Society once stated, “Irregular blooming periods, range contractions, and population declines are underway”(Paragraph 1). Considering the rising temperatures, a decrease in water availability and changes to soil conditions make it more difficult for plants to thrive. Plants can’t just get up and leave whenever they feel uncomfortable with the environment. Being stationery life forms, plants cannot change places to warmer or cooler spots if there is a change in the weather. Instead, they adapt to it to survive its temperature. Because California is notorious for being hot and dry, plants grow taller to cool themselves off. It may reach a point where it’s too unstable to control. With all this hot weather going on plus the addition of high plant growth, it’s a recipe for wildfire to emerge. This can eventually lead to forests in general to not fulfill the necessary duties they have to do, such as carbon being made instead of taking out of the atmosphere. Declining plant growth destroy many forests, which dramatically changes the habitats of species that need to survive. As the CNPS, the author of the article, agrees with me, “ The results of the analysis warn that native plants are struggling to keep up with changes around them as pollution from fuel burning and deforestation continues to warm the planet”. (Paragraph 3). If conditions get worse, forests could actually produce carbon instead of removing it from the atmosphere, causing the main cause of climate change. These blames aren’t on the plant, rather that falls under another group of species. Many can argue that humans aren’t to blame for the rapid change in plants, but they can be the ones responsible for the cause of the changes. Plants transform to their environment to survive such grounds, if the area they are in is nothing but intense heat and sun, plants will do what they can to adapt. Based on plant life alone one can see how badly global warming has affected the planet, but what’s worse is not something that dies because of these droughts, but rather a species that thrives on hot environments.

Call it an insect baby boom, but all the way back since about 1990 native bark beetles reproduced to a size that have killed billions of trees across Alaska to northern Mexico. Barbara Bentz, an illustrator for the United States department of agriculture, stated, “ Bark beetle ecology is complex and dynamic, and a variety of circumstances must coincide for a bark beetle outbreak to succeed on a large scale” (Paragraph 5). Bark beetle infestations are a regular force of natural change in forested ecosystems, several of the latest outbreaks, which are occurring primarily across Western America, are the largest, and most severe in recorded history. Climate change could be making these common tree killers go into a reproductive frenzy because of the rapid change in nature. One such insect, the mountain pine beetle, thrives in warm and dry conditions, and can reproduce during the colder seasons. These beetles kill trees and brush. Once these plants, leaves, and fields of grass is eaten all that’s left is the dried up remains. People know how easy is it for dry grass to ignite, and these insects are major benefactors to these problems. Barbra Bents, writer for the article, once spoke, “There is widespread concern that the hydrologic consequences of the extensive pine tree die-off will impact forest supply across the Western US” (Paragraph 3). By eating that many trees, beetles in this way will ruin plant life(or rather prepare forests for a wildfire) by eating the surrounding bark of trees. By eating trees, bark beetle outbreaks significantly influence forest carbon storage and cycling. Such as causing trees to not absorbing the necessary carbon and instead just be extra material for fires. With plants being forced to change their forms, beetles having the time of their life in the sun, and methane emissions being absorbed into the air, all these contribute to the major cause of forest fires, the heat in the state.

Over the course of years, because of climate change, California has become one of the hottest places in the United States. With having a place like Death Valley as a “hotspot” to visit, let that set a precedent of the relationship California has with heat. Global warming is causing atmospheric alterations that affect the formation of a kind of persistent high-pressure system that has driven up temperatures this state in particular. One famous heat danger that California faced was the heat wave named “El Nino.” As Bettina Boxall, creditor for the Los Angeles Times article, stated in her writing, “El Nino is characterized by warming surface waters in the east-central tropical Pacific and often warmer-than-average air temperatures in the West”. For these months California was devastated with scorching heat, many believing that global warming was to blame for this endless warmth. Bettina Boxall, author for Los Angeles Times, wrote, “ Climate change is amplifying natural variations in the weather” (Paragraph 1). This is alerting the weather for California in many ways. One way that this causes issues for California is how dry spells in snowy mountains and lakes lead to worse outcomes. Rising temperatures are leading to melt a mountain snowpack and reduced snow across Northern California. These trends can exacerbate water by changing the timing and availability of water supplies. Without the required amount of water that people need, cities across the state are forced to cut back on those earlier necessities, including agriculture, ecosystems, and urban areas. These impacts only happen because of a trend that involves enormous amounts of extreme weather for which society needs to plan and adapt to. In fact, these dry conditions will only increase the need for groundwater supplies. Due to less precipitation, the need to pump more water will be increasingly demanding. Groundwater levels decline whenever groundwater is pumped out more than what is replenished. Groundwater levels have now been declining for years in places located in the western United States, such as California. Just like how writer Kurtis Alexander, writer for the San Francisco chronicle agrees with me when he states, “Water loss from soil and plants is generally low while snowmelt and river flows are also down.” The human- caused warming was drying out forests so much that peak fire seasons across the Western United States. Forest fires caused by global warming are no matter to take likely, especially when the impact humans have caused will only grow from here.

In conclusion there are many causes of global warming. Whether it come from an insect, to a giant factory expelling large amounts of gas into the air. Unfortunately, it is highly likely that many of these problems to global warming will continue unless immediate action is taken. Problems will exist unless hard geoengineering is developed or if people are given god-given feeling of doing the right thing and change their actions for the better. Once everyone can take a stand and try to end most of the climate changes that are occurring, this state and even this world would be a safer place to live on.