Human Activities on Global Climate

¶ … human activities on global climate and how these activities result in the global climate change. The first portion of this paper basically concentrates on the debates that have risen with regards to the influence of human activities on global climate and the response to the climate change from various sectors. In this analysis, the paper discusses how proponents and opponents of various factors that affect global climate support their claims while disputing the claims of their opponents.

Moreover, the paper discusses the effects of human activities and how they cause climate change while also showing the scientific evidence that nature causes climate change. The final part of the paper shows why human activities are considered as major causes of climate change and their extensive influence on climate.

Table of Contents: Introduction Debates on the Effects of Human Activities on Global Climate Responses to the Changing Global Climate Human Activities Contributing to Climate Change Scientific Evidence that Nature Contributes to Global Climate Change How Human Activities Cause Global Climate Change Conclusion References Introduction: There has been ongoing debate on the global warming controversy concerning the effects of human activities on global climate. This debate has also included the suggestions that some policies should be adopted to evade the possible detrimental effects of these activities on the global climate.

According to the current scientific consensus, the recent global warming highlights a moderately firm long-term tendency which is largely caused by human activities. If necessary steps are not taken to stop this long-term and human-caused tendency, serious damages are likely to be experienced in the future. On the contrary, there are a number of vocal scientists in the climate field who disagree with the opinion of the current scientific consensus though they are small in number.

Debate on the Effects of Human Activities on Global Climate: In addition to the opposition from the small number of scientists who disagree with the current scientific consensus, considerable opposition on the consensus view has also been raised by portions of the political and business communities. These communities not only disagree with the view that human are causing change in the global climate but they are also in disagreement to the conclusion that some actions should be taken to lessen human effects on climate.

This opposition mainly arose from claims that these actions may result in huge expense and interruption to the existing geopolitical and economic conditions without identifiable short-term benefits. However, by the year 2007, the opposition had bee largely reduced as a result of the accumulation of more evidence on the effects of human causes on global climate change. The debate on the effects of human activities on global climate is both political and public with the difficulty in calculating the economic and political effects on both reduction strategies and global warming.

For instance, it's challenging to foresee the social and technological changes that have an effect on the costs of lessening fossil fuel dependency. Among typical climate scientist, there is less debate on the reality of global warming even with the continuing debate in the media and on policy levels about the effects of humans on global climate. For non-scientists, debate on the possibility of a scientific consensus concerning the reality of global warming is ongoing.

Additionally, this group also debates the existence of enough evidence to validate actions geared towards ameliorating its effects ("Disagreement on Human-Caused," n.d.). Those who believe in the existence of such a consensus have various opinions such as the recognition of the observed temperature increase, support of efforts that have impact on future climate effects like Kyoto Protocol and resultant measures. Moreover, others believe that the damages on the environment will be harsh necessitating necessary actions in reducing CO2 emissions regardless of the economic costs.

On the other hand, the critics of this theory of global warming also express various opinions such as the fact that global temperatures changed way before the industrial revolution when examined over longer time spans. They emphasize that determining global temperatures tendency within the usually cited limited temperature record is impossible. Responses to the Changing Global Climate: There have been various responses to the changing global climate that basically arise from the global warming theory that has four main issues.

These four main issues that determine the responses to the changing global climate are the extent of the effect of human activity on climate, historical change of global climate beyond natural variations, the future changes in global climate and the results of climate change. These issues are usually mixed up by the proponents of one opinion or another about the changing global climate. In response to the changing global climate, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change) attributes the recent global climate change to human activities.

The Panel generally believes that answers to the major questions concerning global climate can not be entirely provided by climate science. However, opponents to this argument state that there is no scientific evidence that supports the scenarios in global warming. For these opponents, if the changing global climate is as a result of human activity, there is no need of any actions since future scientific advances will resolve the problem.

Additionally, they state that if there is reduction in emissions, there may be a corresponding decrease in the GDP growth rate. Human Activities Contributing to Climate Change: As stated earlier, the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change states that human activities are responsible for the change in global climate. This conclusion is as a result of the widespread assessment of the scientific evidence that has been conducted by the Panel. Additionally, the Panel ascertains this to the visible influence or effect of human activities on global climate.

There are two major parts in all the studies conducted to determine human influences on climate with the aim of separating the human-caused factors in climate change from the surrounding noise of natural climate changeability. These two major parts of these studies are the identification of an extraordinary change and the attribution of this change to a certain cause. These concepts of identification and attribution are simply understood in terms of a medical analogy.

Fro instance, the measurement of body temperature basically identifies the existence of an unusual situation or symptom but does not reveal the underlying cause of the situation or symptom. In this medical analogy, the attribution of the condition or symptom to an underlying cause is only possible through extra and more complex tests like x-rays and blood or urine analyses.

The step of attributing parts of the observed changes in temperature to human activity utilizes climate models that have been used to approximate the climatic effects of a series of human-caused and natural factors. These human factors that are currently attributed to the change in global climate include the latest changes in atmospheric concentrations of sulfate particles and greenhouse gases.

Moreover, the natural factors attributed to the change in global climate include solar changeability, the impact of volcanic eruptions and the internal changeability of the climate system because of the interaction between individual components ("Are Human Activities," 2006). Notably, the expected effects of human activities on global climate are considered to be much more complex than the identical warming over the whole surface of the Earth and the entire seasonal cycle. As a result, to identify the patterns of change over time and space generally provide a more potent analysis technique.

Nonetheless, there are still doubts in the identification and attribution investigations on climate change. These uncertainties are mainly because of the imperfect knowledge of the actual climate-change signal because of human influences. The uncertainties are also because of the partial understanding of the surrounding noise of natural climatic changeability with which the climate-change signal must be identified and the shortages in the observational record. Identifying the actual extent of the contributions of human activities to global climate change is more complex because of such uncertainties.

According to the recent examination of science reveals that human activities have resulted in a visible influence on global climate and that these human activities will have a growing impact on future climate. To further understand whether human activities result in global climate change, it's important to examine both the scientific and political parts in the global climate. These two parts also help in determining the reason why there is ongoing debate on whether human activities cause global climate change.

While these two parts do not necessarily validate whether human activities cause global climate change, they are important to understanding the global climate change. They are & #8230; Scientific Part: When considered scientifically, climate is very complex since the weather system is fragile regardless of the fact that winds and storms appear to be powerful to humans. Additionally, weather is very complex because of the fact that the atmosphere of the earth is very thin even though it appears to be deep.

In fact, the scientific complexity of the weather and climate is clearly explained by using the analogy of a soap bubble. A closer look at a soap bubble basically reveals swirling colors that are usually in motion with the forces that keep these colors swirling being likened to those that create weather. The weather is moved around by very delicate forces which are the variations between cool and warm areas and their slight variations in constituents.

Similar to the complexity of these processes, it's difficult to understand the nature of human influenced climate change. Carbon dioxide and methane which are primarily greenhouse gases are the derivatives of industrial activities. These greenhouse gases basically gather in the atmosphere and bring changes in the way the earth absorbs and discharge heat. One of the major examples of the effect of these gases is Venus than is hotter than Mercury regardless of the fact that it is farther from the sun.

While human beings didn't create the greenhouse gases on Venus, the effects of the gases on Venus are similar to those on the planet. Additionally, as compared to humans, volcanoes create more carbon dioxide while swamps create more methane. Therefore, the three major producers of greenhouse gases are volcanoes, swamps and humans respectively. While it is difficult to determine the extent of their effect on climate, human activities influence climate.

Political Part: The oil industry being the largest supplier of hydrocarbons will be mostly hurt since curtailing greenhouse gas emissions will be very difficult. Consequently, the oil industry and investors in this field reject the idea of global climate change because the industry will be seriously affected if making of carbon dioxide was stopped.

In order to find scientists who disagree with the notion that human activities result in global climate change, the industry and its investors give a lot of money into anti-climate change organizations such as the Heartland Institute. The anti-climate change organizations basically produce complex charts and graphs that suggest that global climate changes all the time in reaction to CO2 and other factors ("Global Climate Change," n.d.). The other thing that these anti-climate change organizations emphasize on is the name global warming as opposed to global climate change.

This emphasis is because it's easier to argue on global warming instead of the global climate change and the fact that people wouldn't mind if the weather was slightly warmer. On the contrary, scientists who suggest that global climate change is as a result of human activities work for the same reason as the anti-climate change scientists. These scientists who work for both intergovernmental and governmental agencies wouldn't be funded if other factors other than human activities are found to be the major cause of global climate change.

Therefore, these intergovernmental and governmental agencies scientists may lose their jobs if global climate change is not caused by any human activity and are motivated to find human-caused global climate change. Similar to most world leaders, more scientists have generally accepted that certain human activities contribute to the changes in global climate. However, this doesn't mean that the scientists and leaders are basically right in their conclusions.

Scientific Evidence that Nature Contributes to Global Climate Change: While the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change attributes human activities to be the primary cause of global climate change, the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change suggest that nature rather than human activities is the main course of global climate change. This panel rejects the idea fronted by the intergovernmental panel through a careful analysis of the IPCC report and scientific evidence showing the influence of nature on the global climate.

The non-governmental panel states that the IPCC fails to reflect on significant scientific issues that would prove that the increase in global temperatures is not as a result of the visible rise in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Furthermore, the panel argues that the IPCC does not apply the normally accepted techniques of determining the exact fraction of climate change caused by nature and increase in greenhouse gases.

Moreover, the non-governmental panel states that the intergovernmental panel continues to underestimate the irresistible evidence that the Sun and other atmospheric cloud effects are the causes of historical climate change. Given that these atmospheric conditions associated with the Sun were the causes of previous climate change, there is a probability that they are the major causes of today's global climate change. However, anthropogenic greenhouse gases are also considered to be the causes of global climate change though their contribution is only in a minor fraction.

Consequently, given that the NIPCC considers human activities to be a minor contribution to the global climate change, they attempt to examine and provide the major causes of the changes in global climate. According to this panel, the prominence of a contributing factor is dependent on the considered time scale with decade-long factors being regarded as the major causes of global climate change.

NIPCC provides the following scientific evidences as the proof that nature rather than human activities are the major contributing factors to global climate change & #8230; Internal Oscillations: As considered on a time range of decades to centuries, natural oscillations of internal basis play a significant role in global climate change (Singer, 2008). While these internal oscillations cannot be predicted or estimated, they are examined on a regional scale and are not associated with human causes.

Some of the most famous natural oscillation of internal origin are the Atlantic Multi-Decadal, El Nino-Southern, North Atlantic and Pacific Decadal Oscillations. These oscillations contribute to global climate change regardless of the fact that they are assigned to the atmosphere-ocean system by the IPCC. Solar Variability: This is considered to be one of the most important factors that contribute to the recent increases in global temperatures. According to the NPCC, the influence of solar variability on the global climate can no longer be underestimated and neglected.

While IPCC initially neglected the influence of solar variability on global climate, the demonstration of its influence is very overwhelming. According to research, the visible variations of carbon-14 are a vivid illustration of the equivalent changes in galactic cosmic rays. These parallel changes are transformed by the differences in solar activity with the intensity of galactic cosmic rays being altered by both the solar wind strength and its associated magnetic field.

These studies on solar activity over a given period of time usually from decades to centuries basically reveal the climate effects of fluctuating differences of the galactic cosmic rays. Consequently, the findings have proven that the solar-wind differences are a major cause of global climate change based on a decadal time range. How Human Activities Cause Global Climate Change: While it is difficult to examine the exact extent within which human activities contribute to global climate change, there are various ways in which these activities contribute to climate change.

Over the past century, there are many visible changes in global climate that have been widely recorded in a number of reports ("Global Climate," n.d.). These human activities lead to climate change by bringing changes to.