Greenhouse Effect: Human's Impact On The Greenhouse Effects

Human’s impact on the greenhouse effect:

Although the greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon and that the greenhouse gases has always been in the atmosphere, the amount of greenhouse gases is a problem as it drastically increased over the past decades. The Industrial Revolution plays a big part in the quantity of atmospheric CO2 being released. During the ice ages the CO2 fluctuated between 180 ppm and during the interglacial warm periods 280 ppm. What is significant is that since the Industrial Revolution, the quantity of CO2 increased 100 times faster than the increase when the ice age ended (Lallanilla, 2015a)

During the industrial processes, fluorinated gases (gases that includes fluorine) was created like sulphur hexafluoride, perfluorocarbons

These activities includes burning oil, coal and gas thus releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. There are farming practices and land-use changes that increases the amounts of methane and nitrous oxide that’s being released. Factories produces long-lasting greenhouse gases that does not occur naturally in the environment. Deforestation contributes to the greenhouse effect as the trees that are being removed has a critical role by using the CO2 and release oxygen in the process which can form a balance in the atmosphere. Another factor is population growth, because more people will use fossil fuels for heat, manufacturing and transportation and this will just increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (West,

This will lead to large environmental changes (Lallanilla, 2015a). If this trend continues, the worst effects will be inevitable and it includes major shifts in climate, ocean acidification, plant and animal extinctions, rising sea levels and extreme weather (Lallanilla, 2015a).

One of the impacts is the rising sea levels. There are 5,773,000 cubic miles of water in permanent snow, glaciers and ice caps. The sea level will rise about 230 feet if all glaciers melted today. When the ice caps melt it will also make the ocean desalinate. This will distort ocean currents which will cause irregular pattern of warming and cooling effects in some locations. The ice caps are white and it reflects sunlight back into space which helps to cool down the Earth, but when it melts the darker colours of the ocean will absorb sunlight and warm the Earth even more (Sharma, 2008).

The weather patterns will keep on changing. The temperature change can benefit some regions and harm others. Globally mortality will rise, because of the summer heat waves. There will be an intensified water cycle with stronger droughts and floods. The areas that are subject to droughts will get drier and the wet areas will get wetter (Sharma,