Besides greenhouse gasses, what are some major contributing factors to global warming?
This isn't for homework, I'm just curious. Still, I'd like an informative answer. Thanks.
Answer:
I think we humans are to concerned about global warming and should forget all about it... And let mother nature take care of it.
when green gases get caught in the earths atomshpere they catch sun and make more heat
ask our pal AL.
WASHINGTON - President Bush, under international pressure to take tough action against global warming, on Thursday called for a summit of the United States and other nations that spew the most greenhouse gases on the planet.
The goal: set a long-term global strategy for reducing emissions — and counter allegations that the United States is foot-dragging.
The White House said the president's proposal addresses "life after" the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, and he wants to bring India, China and other fast-growing countries to the negotiation table so they are part of the solution, not the problem.
"The United States takes this issue seriously," Bush said.
Critics disagree. They say Bush wants to set unenforceable targets for curbing greenhouse gas, not concrete limits on emissions. They contend he is ignoring other international efforts on climate change that are already under way, and is trying to avoid taking action until he leaves office.
David Doniger, climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Bush will have no credibility with the countries he wants to bring to the table unless he's committed to specific limits to cap the United States' own contributions to global warming.
"The president is warming up to throw his opening pitch while business, states and the rest of the world are already at the top of the ninth inning," Doniger said. "It is nothing less than embarrassing that three of the world's biggest oil companies are calling for tougher measures than the White House."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), just back from a climate change fact-finding trip to Greenland and European capitals, said getting nations to set voluntary emissions targets was not enough to reverse warming of the planet.
"Today's announcement fails to respond to the severity of the crisis that most of the rest of the world has long since recognized," she said.
The president outlined his proposal in a speech just days before he attends a summit in Germany of leading industrialized nations. Global warming is a major topic on the agenda and Bush will be on the spot.
"The new initiative I'm outlining today will contribute to the important dialogue that will take place in Germany next week," he said.
The administration is resisting parts of a climate change initiative being pushed by the host of the G-8 meeting, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She backs a plan that would limit the average global temperature increase to 3.6 degrees. Practically, experts say that would require — by 2050 — a global reduction in emissions of 50 percent below 1990 levels.
Despite U.S. opposition to her plan, Merkel welcomed Bush's idea, saying it provided "common ground" for getting a new international agreement on global warming. Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair, traveling in South Africa, said Bush's announcement shows that the United States is accepting global warming as a "real problem" and is prepared to be part of a global deal on reduction of emissions.
Bush is proposing that the United States and about a dozen other nations hold a series of meetings to set long-term goals by the end of next year for reducing greenhouse gases. The final list of nations has not yet been decided, but other participants would likely include India, China, Brazil, Russia, Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea and the European Union.
He envisions that each country will set goals on how they want to improve energy security, reduce air pollution and cut greenhouse gases in the next 10 to 20 years. Leaders from power generation, alternative fuels and transportation industries would form working groups to share clean-energy technology.
"We will create a strong and transparent system for measuring each country's performance," Bush said. "The way to meet this challenge of energy and global climate change is through technology, and the United States is in the lead."
Separately, the Bush-appointed head of the U.S. space program said Thursday that he was not sure global warming was a problem and that it was "a rather arrogant position" to say the world's climate should not change.
"I am not sure that it is fair to say that is a problem we must wrestle with," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said on National Public Radio.
While the United States signed a 1992 global agreement on climate talks, it refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol limiting emissions. Bush argued that Kyoto would harm the U.S. economy, unfairly excluded fast-growing nations like India and China and said nothing about cutting emissions after the treaty expires in 2012.
The White House argues that Bush's proposal does not ignore, but complements ongoing multinational efforts to address the problem.
More than 1,000 diplomats have begun working on a new accord to succeed Kyoto. The ideas will be put before a larger meeting of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in December in Bali, Indonesia, when U.N. officials hope to launch formal talks on a post-Kyoto treaty.
In a voluntary program called the Asia-Pacific Partnership, Bush also is working with Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea — producers of half the world's greenhouse gases — to attract private money for cleaner energy technologies.
god, mother nature..thats all !
For thousands of years the earth has been getting warm then cool then warm again before we humans came along,its just that we are aware of this mentally now adays and concider that we must be the reason for it all...BULL S**T.
Deforestation, trees clean the air and maintain the balance of the atmoshere. They also release moisture back into the air, which helps keep it cool.
water polution, and stupid people that dont think it is serious
Besides greenhouse gasses:
Albedo of the earth is another, or reflectivity of the earth. It determines how much of the suns energy is reflected and how much is absorbed. Ice reflects (has a high albedo) and therefore will stay cooler longer. Asphalt surfaces..if you've been outside barefoot this summer you know...have a low albedo, they absorb the suns energy which then raises the temperature of the surface. The suns energy is re radiated as heat energy rather than reflected as electromagnetic energy.
Cities have a urban heat island effect because the natural albedo has been lowered and also the industrial/urban heat sources. To create electricity we burn coal, this releases heat energy..cooling may take place with water cooled systems, but the water is returned to the environment with additional heat. The loss of glacier/arctic ice can also change the average albedo of the earth.
Changes in land use also remove the plants that remove CO2 from the air and transform it into oxygen. Carbon sinks (because the carbon stays in the plant material) are very valuable and their loss means more greenhouse gasses..even if we weren't producing them.
There are also natural causes of warming/cooling. Major volcanic events that place large volumes of dust/sulfur compounds in the air can contribute to cool cycles.
Some pollutants act in a way similar to volcanic gasses and ash. Recent restrictions to improve air quality and reduce acid rain may actually have been counteracting the warming due to greenhouse gasses. The reduction of these pollutants may actually increase warming.
Milankovitch cycles..see web for more information. These are physical alterations in the solar system that affect how much radiation we get from the sun.
Feedback is another factor: If we have a little more CO2, we have more heat, this evaporates a little more of the oceans water, placing a little more water vapor in the air, which in turn traps a little more heat, evaporating more water, trapping more heat.and so on...
Ozone is interesting..we need it in the right places. In the troposphere (the air nearest the earth that we breathe) it is a pollutant. It causes irritation of the lungs and health issues. In the upper atmosphere it blocks certain types of radiation..so a hole in the ozone layer lets in more radiation, and more harmful types of radiation (if you're thinking about skin/eye health). CFC's, now regulated...but previously allowed into the atmosphere caused this problem.
Greenhouse gasses are all the gasses that effect the air. They are fuels, carbon dioxide, and other gasses. So the answer to your question is that all polluting gasses are considered greenhouse gasses and polluting gasses are the cause of the greenhouse efffect.
95 percent of what keeps the earth warm is water vapor. Pollution (such as carbon dioxide) only accounts for 1/3 of 1 percent of global warming greenhouse gasses
this is my opinion.
the main contributor to global warming is the sun.
ya know that big ball of gas burning uncontrollably in the middle of our solar system. the one that "Warms the Globe"
i would agree that human activity at present is less than eco-friendly and is in fact damaging the planet to a degree.
I do think it is very ego-centric and antiquated thinking to believe we are to blame for the rise in temperature on Earth
When there is a big * fireball a couple of billion light years away kinda doing that job already.
also i think the air pollution leads to a cooling effect on the atmosphere. It actually blocks those "global warming" rays of sun that are so feared. this is called global cooling i guess.
Pollution in terms of gases.
Ozone is a gas that occurs in our atmosphere by the combination of a single oxygen atom to an oxygen molecule.
O(g) + O2(g) =O3(g) g-gas. it is a natural self regulating process. Ozone block harmful rays by trapping them. It is found in the stratosphere- region of atmosphere 11-50m from the ground .
However an increase of greenhouse gases such as NO2, SO2 and CO2 as well as CFCs-chlorofluorocarbons. Cause destruction of this protective layer. CfCs are inert and are not easily broken down. Eventually the carbon-chlorine bond being the weakest is broken resulting in chlorine liberation. this leads to the chlorine reacting with the ozone. a series of reactions occur in which oxygen and oxygen atoms are produced. hence the breakdown of ozone exceeds its production resulting in disintegration of the layer. harmful wavelengths of light are therefore allowed free passage into the earths atmosphere. the gases stated when they come in contact with UV radiation they absorb it. however particular wavelengths are not able to escape(infra red radiation) this too stays in our atmosphere all leading to global warming- they are trapped.
Acid Rain. the gases stated when reacted with water in the form of rain produce acids. these include nitric acid, sulfuric acid and carbonic acid.
that's all i can remember right now.
1. The Sun
"We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, and 25–35% of the 1980–2000 global warming. These results, while confirming that anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century, also suggest that the solar impact on climate change during the same period is significantly stronger than what some theoretical models have predicted."
2. Land Use Changes (urban heat island effect).
"The warming of about 0.3 _C in recent years has prompted suggestions about anthropogenic influence on the earth’s climate due to increasing human activity worldwide. However, a close examination of the earth’s temperature change suggests that the recent warming may be primarily due to urbanization and land-use change impact and not due to increased levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases."
3. Combo of the Sun and Tectonics
"The current global warming is most likely a combined effect of increased solar and tectonic activities and cannot be attributed to the increased anthropogenic impact on the atmosphere. Humans may be responsible for less than 0.01_C (of approximately 0.56_C (1_F) total average atmospheric heating during the last century."
4. Cloudiness due to cosmic ray ionization
"The influence of solar variability on climate is currently uncertain. Recent observations have indicated a possible mechanism via the influence of solar modulated cosmic rays on global cloud cover. Surprisingly the influence of solar variability is strongest in low clouds <3 km, which points to a
microphysical mechanism involving aerosol formation that is enhanced by ionization due to cosmic rays. If confirmed it suggests that the average state of the heliosphere is important for climate on Earth."
Four different factors, besides GHGs.
Pollution is an entirely different matter. It i typically made up of particulates, sulfates, nitrates, etc. On balance, these may actually act as coolers, since the reflect light. They typically are not discussed when discussing AGW.
none
The sun is about +10% and destruction of the ozone layer maybe +5% and hopefully decreasing. Here are all the major factors, plus and minus. Peer reviewed. Note that "greenhouse gas" covers a few things; different sources, land use, etc.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/ima...
Pollution causes the air to be dirty so that causes the atmosphere to be "changed". Some major factors are deforestation, and there are too much people for the earth to handle so more CO2 is being sent into atmosphere.
Besides green house gases, the disturbance in natural heating-cooling cycle is the main reason for the present Global warming, I identify following three main factors:
(1)So far we do not know if intensity of sun's em radiation has increased over the years, I am talking of the solar emmissions and not the periodic solar flares.
(2)Another factor is increase in domestic and industrial heat sources.
(3)Next in prominence is the increase in heat radiators due to concreting - urbanisation.
We cannot do anything to to the first, yes the next two can be manipulated to our advantage through efficient and better practices which includes evolving and using better materials and better technologies.
The ingenuities of man would do it, we do it fast when the crises fall on us and this is part of Darwin's doctrine of evolution which I need not elaborate.
thnks
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