Global Cooling: The Effect Of Global Warming

Global warming is the occurrence of the earth’s atmospheric temperature rising. (WWF, 2014) This is due to the influence of greenhouse gases, including the burning of fossil fuels which emits carbon dioxide. The sun’s rays naturally go through our atmosphere so they can reach the earth’s surface and warm it. Some radiation is reflected off the Earth’s surface and some is absorbed into our Earth’s atmosphere. In the atmosphere, naturally occurring greenhouse gases trap the radiation in a ‘blanket like effect’. These gases include carbon dioxide, water vapour, nitrous oxide and methane, among others. This helps to stabilize the average temperature of approximately 15 degrees Celsius on Earth. Excess greenhouse gases results in more heat being

When a volcano erupts, it emits a sulfate aerosol which therefore leads to the reflection of the sun’s rays leading to the cooling of the planet. (Skeptical Science, 2012) Between 1889 and 2006 a small cooling effect on global temperatures has occurred due to volcanic activity. (Skeptical Science, 2012)Foster and Rahmstorf found that volcanic activity caused the earth to cool between 0.02 and 0.04 degrees Celsius per decade. (Skeptical Science, 2012) Similarly, Lean and Rind found that volcanic activity can be held responsible for 10% of global warming from 1979-2005 as volcanic eruptions have decreased. (Skeptical Science, 2012) Thus, volcanoes can only be blamed for a small fraction of global warming over the last 25 years as they actually help to slow it down. Due to the lack of volcanic activity, there hasn’t been as much sulfate aerosols emitted therefore leading to the earth

The following graph from Skeptical Science shows that the humans have a far greater contribution to Global Warming. The two largest human influences include Greenhouse gases (GHG) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). This occurs from burning coal, oil and natural gases as spoken about in previous paragraphs. It also shows that although there are natural causes for global warming they have a very little impact. The other graph shows that the majority of people believe that global warming is occurring and it human induced. According to CSIRO 50% of Australian citizens believe that humans have a role in changing the global climate (JoNova,