Ok, so it’s been forever
since I got riled up enough to bother writing another rant that we politely
call a blog. My apologies. College got this thing started, and it takes college
to keep it rolling. Most of the frustration I experienced last semester was due
to people’s bad grammar and poor spelling, so other than listing yet another
reason to homeschool,I had nothing to write about. However, this semester I am
taking a Geography class and I would
like to do a Math/Science Unit study (if you don’t know what that means ask the
nearest homeschooler lol) on the facts of Global Warming…um I mean Climate
Change. To help with the calculations I am going to do you need to remember
PEMDAS- or Please Excuse My Derision And Sarcasm.
One more thing: to get
the right mood for this blog, it is imperative that you read it aloud, and
whenever you see the word “Earth”, as in “Earth’s oceans”, or “Earth’s atmosphere”,
stop for a moment, compose yourself, and then reverently say “Eeaarrtthhh”
After all, as you’ll note by the capital letter and personification, Earth is
now and entity and apparently a god. Got it? Good.
OK, here we go. The Facts
of Global Warming, condensed from sections from four chapters of my Geography
book, supplemented with calculations from a math assignment.
1.
The
Ozone Layer is Getting Thinner.
Ozone, typically found in a layer of the
Troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth’s Atmosphere, helps reduce the amount of
UV radiation reaching Earth. Ozone, which is a compound of three Oxygen atoms,
breaks into one oxygen atom and a molecule of diatomic (two atom) oxygen (the
stuff we breathe) when exposed to the energy of radiation. The molecules then
rejoin to form ozone again and the process continues as one big cycle.
However, due to man’s interference,
the ozone layer is thinning. Humans have released Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) into
Earth’s atmosphere. When exposed to the energy of UV radiation, the CFC’s break
apart, as does the ozone, freeing a carbon atom and the oxygen atom. The Carbon
atom then joins the diatomic oxygen molecule to form carbon dioxide (CO2) which
must be broken apart by UV radiation before the Ozone molecule can be formed to
absorb UV radiation by being split into Oxygen and O2.
So somehow, since the
presence of CFC’S in Earth’s atmosphere creates another molecule and therefore
requires more UV energy to break apart, we have a surplus of radiation hitting
Earth. Radiation levels in WV, on a scale from 1-11, with 11 being worst, are
ranked at 8. To protect yourself you should wear a hat, sunglasses, SPF 15 or
greater sunscreen, and avoid direct sunlight between the hours of 10 am and 4
pm.
2. The Greenhouse Effect
The gases of Earth’s
atmosphere act like a giant greenhouse, trapping heat to keep Earth from
turning into a frozen mass overnight. However, “Since the industrial era began
in the mid 1700’s, human activities have increased the concentrations of
greenhouse gases-such as carbon dioxide, methane, tropospheric ozone , and chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere.” (McKnight’s
Physical Geography: A Landscape Appreciation,
10th edition, page 92-93. Emphasis added)
Since we’re making so
much Ozone (the compound that is being depleted from the atmosphere making
Earth warmer because of unfiltered Radiation) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2, the
stuff we exhale), Earth is getting warmer.
3. The Earth’s
Temperature is Rising
Scientists have averaged
the temperatures from the past century, and concluded that the Earth is growing
warmer. That’s exactly right, the people who believe Earth is billions of years
old and the 5 or 6 thousand years of human history would look like a millimeter
compared to a football field of “prehistoric time” have looked back a whole
century to come to this conclusion. Using this logic, I have averaged the
temperatures of this week and have concluded that no matter what that ignorant
ground hog said, Spring will never come.
Anyways, back to the
rising temperatures, when Scientists looked back into history, they couldn’t
find exact temperatures for every year, so they looked at ice cores and tree
rings and estimated the temperatures for each year...of course, this leaves
some room for error. Using this method they have determined Earth’s temperature
has risen a whole …drumroll please… 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s right folks,
it is 1.3 degrees warmer today than it was 100 years ago.
4. The Ice Caps are Going
to Melt and We are All Going to Die…or at least our Children are…or maybe Grandchildren…Great
Grandchildren?
The average high temperature
in January-the peak of Summer in Antarctica- is -18 degrees Fahrenheit.(
http://traveltips.usatoday.com/average-temperature-antarctica-13726.html)Let’s
assume all the ice melts the moment the temperature hits 32 degrees Fahrenheit
(which anyone who’s lived through a snow storm will tell you it won’t. Water
takes longer to heat than air and therefore even though the air is 32 degrees,
the ice is still much colder.). If the temperature rises 2 degrees Fahrenheit
every century, how long will it take before it raises the 50 degrees (32--18) necessary
for the ice to melt?
The average 3rd
grader should be able to tell me it would take 50 x 100=5000 years.
5. What Should We Do?
The following is taken
from my Math text book , Jeffery Bennett and William Briggs’ Using and
Understanding Mathematics, A Quantitative Approach, 5th edition. It
is Question 6 of the Chapter Two ‘Critical Thinking’ activity, found on page
80.
“Global warming is expected to cause
melting of the polar ice sheets, but scientists cannot predict how fast the ice
will melt. Given this uncertainty how should the danger of polar melting be
dealt with in political discussions of global warming?”
Here is my answer:
If the sea level remains
the same (since the water will not just stack up on top of itself but will
overflow the land) at 3.73km (3730 meters
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/SyedQadri.shtml ), with an influx of (35 million cubic km+3.5million
cubic km)=38.5million cubic km of water, the surface area of the world ocean
would increase by (38.5millioncubic Km/3.73km)= 10.3 million square km, about
one third of its current area.
In exchange for this we would have the continent of Antarctica, which is 14
million square km of land (some of which would be lost to the rising water, of
course) plus the area of Greenland now covered in ice (410450 square km
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greenland/surface-area-sq-km-wb-data.html )a
net gain of over 4 million square km. In
addition the melting of the ice in the Arctic Ocean would allow it to hold 1/6
more water than it currently does.
The
heat increase needed to melt the ice would also increase the rate of
evaporation, meaning there would be more rain, so perhaps desert areas would
become livable again. Though the tropics would become unbearably hot, the
northern and southern extremes would become more temperate, leaving a large
portion of the world with a tropical climate. This would allow for longer
growing seasons, which in combination with the increase in rainfall would mean
more food.
This
taken into account, if global warming is a fact and the weather we are
experiencing is not simply part of a large pattern, any politician who tries to
bring about legislation to prevent global warming should be tried for treason
against the world, as the melting of the ice caps could greatly benefit us.
So even if I am wrong, and
the sky is falling,or global warming is possible, why worry?
