The Causes and Perils of Global Warming

The rising temperature on planet earth is being caused by an increase in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Greenhousegases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide are trapping heat and light in the earth’s atmosphere and thereby causing the earth’s temperature to increase. Evidence of rising global temperatures is visible by the melting of the ice caps in the North and South poles. Also, the sea level has risen by seventeen centimeters during the twentieth century as a consequence of global warming (Scientific Facts 4). As the sea level continues to increase there is a danger that coastal lands will experience increased flooding. Scientists have concluded that there is more than a 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, thus making it nearly impossible to say that natural forces are to blame for the phenomenon. Scientists are in agreement that human activity has resulted in tremendous amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into the earth’s atmosphere since 1750. As a result, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and halocarbons now far exceed pre-industrial levels. Such a high concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in turn is causing climate change as it affects the absorption, scattering and emission of radiation within the atmosphere and the earth’s surface (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report 13, 16).