About
What Is It?
The Definition for Global Warming
You hear it in the news and on the street; but what exactly is the definition for Global Warming?
It’s a bit more complex than your hometown getting a bit hotter than it was last year (although it may well be).
Global warming occurs when greenhouse gases are released – for whatever reason – on the Planet, where they build up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
This forms a layer in the upper atmosphere that allows heat and light IN; then some of the heat/light energy soaks in to the surface of the Earth, and the rest, historically anyway, is reflected out to space.
But now, things are changing! Much of the sun’s heat/light energy being reflected from the Earth hits the artificially-created ceiling of greenhouse gases, and is reflected back to the Earth’s surface again.
Some of that heat/light energy soaks in, some is reflected, and on, and on, with a net gain of heat.
A good illustration to explain the definition for global warming would be your closed up car in a sunny parking lot: you climb inside, and it’s what? 30 degrees warmer than it is outside? All you have to do is open a window and wait a few minutes. Unfortunately, Mother Earth doesn’t have that option.
For a more scientific definition for global warming, see this Wikipedia article.
The average increase in temperature is only one degree or so world-wide in the past 30 years, but that is enough to start melting the polar ice caps. Now according to the definition for global warming, the melted white ice that tends to reflect sunlight becomes darker water – meaning it will absorb the sunshine.
This now warmer water melts the remaining ice at an even quicker pace.
Even that doesn’t seem so-o bad, until you consider that if either Greenland or Antarctica were to totally melt, millions of people would be displaced from their coast land homes. And both are melting at an alarming rate!
Our world’s climate patterns are changing drastically. There have been record droughts, floods, heat waves, and severe storms in the past several years.
The best demonstration and explanation of the definition for global warming that I’ve found is the Oscar-winning movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Whatever you think about Al Gore’s politics, he’s got his facts spot-on.
Borrow a copy from your local library, or get An Inconvenient Truth on Amazon, or from Netflix.
Here is the movie preview if you’d like a sample:
And the greenhouse gases you hear so much about?
Carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, and methane are created in much greater than natural volume, simply because of human behavior.
You could almost say the definition for global warming is “modern civilization.” Coal-fired electrical plants produce the largest chunk of greenhouse gases, while gasoline and diesel powered vehicles account for a strong second place.
While no one wants to give up their comfortable lifestyle, there are many simple things you can do in your everyday life to help prevent Global Warming without a lot of sacrifice.
Every single positive action makes a difference in the amount of greenhouse pollution that is created, whether it’s switching out one incandescent light bulb for a more efficient compact fluorescent, or donating 100 million dollars to fund renewable energy research.
Do what you are able to do.
