Global Warming and Its Effects

Global Warming and Its Effects on the Ecosystem

Studies have shown that human activities like burning of fossil fuels and deforestation have a great impact on our planet, causing emissions of greenhouse gases and determining changes in the climate system: heat waves, increases in rainfall, increase in intensity of many extreme climate events, ice melting at Earth's poles. These phenomenons are part of the global warming process, an important environmental problem that our planet has to face.

In the last years our planet is facing an increase in the average temperature and specialists and researchers consider that the global warming phenomenon will continue as long as people will not change their way of life.

The impact that global warming has on human communities and ecosystems represents a great challenge for the entire planet, and adaptation and prompt actions are needed. Specialists recommend that we try to find alternative sources of energy, and, in the same time, use less of the fossil-fuel energy.

The Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement adopted in 1997 is one of the most important steps made because it establishes legally-binding emission target for the countries that ratify it, and these countries commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases. The protocol is a good start for global cooperation among countries, even if there are important economical costs for every country that ratifies this treaty.

Restoration methods must be found in order to reintroduce extirpated species in the ecosystems, to build wetlands where they have been wiped out, to recover destroyed ecosystems.

Historical Perspectives of the Problem

At this moment, humanity is facing a lot of challenges: diseases, wars, political changes, global warming.

Stephen Schneider, one of the world's leading global warming experts had first predicted global warming in 1976. Before him, in 1896, a Swedish scientist - Svante Arrhenius - suggested that the fossil fuel combustion can lead to global warming; Arrhenius and Thomas Chamberlin considered that "human activities could warm the earth by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere."

Many specialists agreed with their theory and underlined that elements like water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and ozone represent the natural greenhouse gases and contribute to the greenhouse effect that influences earth's temperature. The increasing presence of these gases in the atmosphere determines a temperature rise and, in the same time, ice melting at the planet's poles; and because water and land absorb more solar radiation than ice, the planet faces the warming process, that leads to more melting, and so on, setting off a chain reaction that can endanger people's life. Findings from many studies show that 2005 is considered to be one of the hottest year since 1880 and specialist underline that the industrial revolution has a great impact on the global warming process.

There are other opinions that underline the fact that global warming started before the industrial revolution, and that our planet's climate is characterized by ice ages and glaciers. It is thought that what we are living today is an interglacial warm period, that will be followed by another Ice Age. This theory also underlines that greenhouse gases influence temperature in a small way, and that Earth's rotation and variations in sun's energy have a greater impact on global warming process.

By contrast, other researchers consider that "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change has predicted that global temperatures are likely to increase by 1.1 to 6.4 "C (2.0 to 11.5 "F) between 1990 and 2100.

Given the logic of these arguments, one thing is sure: humanity is facing a great challenge - the global warming phenomenon - and whatever causes it may have, people must try to stop or at least slow down this process.

The Impacts on and Responses of Humans or other living organisms to the Environmental Variation

The impact of climate change is felt today in almost the whole world and it is considered to be the result of our actions during the last period of time.

Researchers have discovered that the global warming phenomenon influences people's health because high temperatures and floods determine a very quick spreading of many diseases. The greatest irony is that people and places that feel the global warming effect are, in the same time, the ones that had the smallest influence or contribution to the rise of this phenomenon - for example poor countries from Africa. In the same time, a lot of other countries are threatened by great damages because they are a few feet above the sea level and the melting ice from the North Pole determines a constant rise of the sea level.

Studies show that more than one million square miles of sea ice has vanished the past three decades. The polar bear's way of life is influenced by this phenomenon because the ice is melting three-week sooner every year, determining less time for bears to hunt and eat. As a result, the Hudson Bay polar bear population has declined by 14% during the past ten years.

What is certain is that annual temperature is constantly increasing, sea ice is melting in the Antarctica and the Arctic, the sea level is rising. In countries like USA or Canada shorelines are suffering from erosion, coral reefs disappear, saltwater is polluting the fresh water sources, wildfires in forests increase and there is less rainfall.

Terry L. Root, a senior fellow with Stanford's Institute for International Studies (IIS) said that "Birds are laying eggs earlier than usual, plants are flowering earlier and mammals are breaking hibernation sooner,." This affirmation reveals the fact that the climate changes in general, and the global warming in particular important changes in the life of bird and animals that can also have some negative important impacts on human's life too. Studies have also shown that global warming could have an important influence on the weather, determining extreme weather events like catastrophic storms or hurricanes.

In addition, global warming has also great effect on crops and weather conditions around the world. It is known that oceans absorb more heat than the land areas. The Earth's northern hemisphere contains more land area than the southern hemisphere and, given the logic of the argument above, most climate models predict faster heating over the northern hemisphere than the global average. The result of this phenomenon will be a lower agricultural productivity.

Changes in the Ecosystem and Biosphere Structure

Rising temperatures have important effects on ecosystems: sea ice is melting, algae that grow on its underside are affected, birds are affected, weather is changing, sea levels are rising, some species are threatened with extinction while others are flourishing.

Many species will be affected by the global warming phenomenon: arctic fauna, including polar beard, emperor penguins, salt flora and fauna species, species that inhabit the low areas near the sea, gyrfalcons, snowy owls, butterflies that shifted their ranges northward by 200 km, animals that cannot migrate because of the cities and highways. Animals and birds are beginning to shift their populations northward or to higher and cooler elevations. The sea life is also affected and many species are threatened with extinction.

Marine expert J.P. Barry of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute tried to compare sea life in 1993-94 to what it was more than 60 years earlier and collected more than 58,000 specimens from the same site in Monterey Bay, California, where a similar underwater census had been conducted in 1931. The study reveals that eight of nine species that preferred warmer waters had increased significantly in numbers. On the other hand, animals preferring colder waters had declined sharply.

As the global temperature rises, water temperature also suffers changes, and sensitive coral reefs can be affected by the more and more warm waters. Warmer water temperatures might lead to changes in the course of ocean currents that determine the distribution of ocean temperatures and nutrients that sustain marine life, and these changes may disrupt the entire marine ecosystem. The coldwater fish populations are affected by the same problem - the warm waters, that are not adequate for them and than can drive them to extinction.

Furthermore, in the issue regarding vegetation, specialists have made some discoveries that can reveal several changes: the transition of tundra to forest types found in the Russian arctic and Far East, in north Scandinavia, Iceland, Canada, and Alaska; the emergence of large non-forested areas with vegetation types found in Yakuita to the east from lake Baikal in Russia and in Canada on some areas presently occupied by forest types; vegetation that will be replaced by other forest and non-forest types in some areas of the planet.

The bottom line is that forests will suffer important changes and they face also another risk - forest fires that occur more and more frequently on larger scale in some parts of the globe because of the rising temperatures.

In their Nature paper, researchers show that recent temperature change has apparently already had a marked influence on many species and that rapid temperature rise in combination with other environmental pressures "could easily disrupt the connectedness among species" and possibly lead to numerous extinctions.

Ecosystem Dynamics Relative to Repair and Restoration

Ecological restoration activities are created to reverse the effect of previous human activities that damaged important parts of ecosystems. Terry L. Root, senior fellow with Stanford's Institute for International Studies affirms in one of her studies that "One thing we might do now is to consider adjusting the bag limits for hunters so we don't add insult to injury in the coming years. Because anticipation of changes improves our capacity to manage, it behooves us to increase our understanding about the responses of plants and animals to a changing climate."

In order to anticipate and prevent the predicted changes in planet's ecosystems people must create projects and activities that can improve life. For example, trees can help offset or global warming, because they absorb CO2. People must be encouraged to plant trees and preserve older forests as a way to cut down on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Forests have a great importance because they are stores of the carbon, and people should try stopping the fires that occur almost every summer in order to avoid a growing source of greenhouse gas emissions that contributes to global warming.

In 1998 Dr. Thomas J. Goreau and Wolf Hilbertz of Global Coral Reef Alliance were awarded for pioneering the use of solar panels to grow large limestone structures in the sea which help the growth of corals and provide habitat for fish. Their invention represents a method for restoring and creating new coral reefs - one of the most complex marine ecosystems - and, in the same time is contributing to the protection of the shorelines from erosion and rising sea levels, representing a major step towards reducing the impact of global warming.

Concerted programs of preventing further destruction and of restoration are needed nowadays in order to ensure that there is a sustainable future for us and for all the other species living on earth.

Economic Costs and Social Costs of the Ecological/Environmental Impact

The Bush administration has rejected in 1997 the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the European Union criticized this action. President Bush considered that the protocol restrictions could have a negative impact on American economy. He also underlined that his administration will sustain voluntary reductions of greenhouse gases, in order to avoid economic problems. Every country knows that reducing global warming isn't a cheap and specialists have underlined that "The costs to implement a worldwide plan to cut the production of CO2 and other gases which contribute to global warming would cost approximately 3% of the World's total GDP."

What is certain is that not only the environment is negatively affected by the global warming, but also economy and agriculture suffer changes. In some regions, like Iceland for example, the rising temperatures may have some positive influence, but in other parts of the planet global warming brings reduction of rains and, in the same time, reduction of crops. In the poor and developing countries this changing will affect people's way of life because less food leads to higher prices and more people will be at risk of hunger. On the other hand, economists underline that a warmer climate could benefit certain crops and communities.

Another issue is represented by the more and more often natural disasters like storms, floods and hurricanes that damage and even destroy people's establishments. The regions most vulnerable to sea-level rise are river deltas such as the Nile delta in Egypt, the Ganges in Bangladesh, the Yangtze and Hwang Ho in China, the Mekong and also the United States that could loose 8000 square miles (20,000 km2) of land, valued at about $650 billion, and 30-80% of its coastal wetlands. Insurance companies are also affected by the natural disasters that come along and in order to avoid bankruptcy they try to develop new strategies on the market and diminish the risks.

As the ecosystem changes, all the aspects of people's life will change. Some countries are more affected than others, but one thing is sure - the global warming brings major changes in the economical environment.