Elisha kimutai mbasu

 Climate Change and Global Warming Name: Institution: Global warming and climate change makes the headlines in the modern day news as the two occur simultaneously. Climate change is the changes in the average weather including humidity, rainfall etc. In the recent years, the World has witnessed drastic changes in climatic patterns that has resulted in disasters and the major cause is human activities especially industrialization, agriculture and emission of gases. Other cause is the natural geophysical activities that influence amount of sun energy reaching the earth’s surface. Global warming refers to the increase in the earth’s atmospheric and oceanic temperatures because of greenhouse gases trapping heat. Global warming interferes with earth’s energy balance and cause negative climatic changes. This paper discusses natural vs. anthropogenic climate change, global warming and its effects and possible strategies to stabilize global warming. Natural climate change is the change in climate due to natural phenomena including volcanic eruptions and changes in earth’s location on orbit. Whenever volcanoes erupt, they emit gases and dust that reduce the the amount of energy entering the earth’s atmosphere causing climate change. The position of the earth on its orbit causes seasonal variations, as the earth is located at different positions in relation to the sun on its elliptical orbit. Natural climate change cannot be altered or controlled and usually take long period to manifest the changes. On the other hand, anthropogenic climate change is the change in climate due to human activities including burning fossil fuels, emission of greenhouse gases and deforestation. These activities eventually lead to global warming, depletion of ozone layer and melting of polar ice caps and glaziers. Emission of greenhouse gases including chlorofluorocarbons and carbon dioxide cause an increase in the temperatures of the earth. Anthropogenic climate change takes place rapidly and can be controlled or altered. (Samanthi, 2017) With industrial revolution, anthropogenic activities increased. New industries necessitated burning of fossil fuels and deforestation to meet industrial demands. Industrial gases cause greenhouse effect where rays reflected back to atmosphere are trapped by the greenhouses gases causing the earth to be warmer through time (Global warming). Global warming causes a permanent change to the global climate. Climatic scientists believe that the earth’s temperatures have risen by 0.4-0.8 degrees Celsius on the last 100 years and expected to rise by 1.4-5.8 by the year 2100. (Live Science, 2018) The rise is mainly attributed to human activities in the last 50 years that lead to increased amounts of Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Most of warming occurred in the last 35 years with 16 of 17 warmest years witnessed since- was recorded as the warmest year with highest warmth on 8 months of the year.(NASA, n.d) A section of scientists belief that climate change is a hoax but a number of evidence support that global warming is real and causes a serious climate change all over the World. Firstly, the shrinking of ice sheets of the polar regions of the World. According to NASA, Greenland has lost 150-250 cubic kilometers of ice from-, and 152cubic kilometers in Antarctica from-. Increasing temperatures of the Earth causes ice to melt thus causing the shrinking of the ice sheets. This has also caused glaciers in the major mountains including Kilimanjaro, Rockies, Alps and Himalayas to disappear or retreat. The amount of Snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has declined in last 50 years due to increased melting (NASA, n.d). Secondly, the ocean temperatures have doubled since 1992 and the heat reaches deep waters, rising by 0.12 degrees Celsius per decade for last 50 years. This result in migration of fish towards poles, bleaching of corals and increased storms and Hurricanes witnessed in 2017. (Shankman & Horn, n.d) Thirdly, there is a rise in the sea level by about 8 inches in the last 100 years due to the melting of ice caps and thermal expansion of the heated seawaters. Climate change mitigation strategies aim to cut or prevent emission of greenhouse gases thus limiting future warming, and also targets to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.(BBC, 2014) Such involve adoption of new technologies to increase efficiency of old technologies, use of clean energy sources, and changing behavior of the people. Use of clean renewable energy sources including solar, wind and, nuclear aims to reduce the carbon emissions and such sources never exhaust once tapped to produce energy. Despite the tremendous impact on reducing impact of carbon emission, the adoption is still low due to reduced investment on the technology, high initial cost of putting up and maintenance, people’s perception and overdependence on fossil fuels. Due to the widespread use of fossil fuel as a source of energy, a technology to curb impact the effects is the Carbon capture and Storage (CCS) technology, where carbon from industries is captured chemically and stored underground within rock formations to prevent leaking. However, this technology is subject to critics due to lack efficiency trials. Other minor ways to cut off carbon emission are greening urban areas, use of energy efficient housing, reduction and recycling of waste and finally conservation of natural carbon stores like the oceans and forests. Despite the attempt to reduce carbon footprint, there needs policy framework to cut emissions at a reasonable cost. The 3 types of policies to achieve reduced carbon emission are economic signals, performance standards and supporting innovation. (Rissman, 2014) Economic signals include government imposition on carbon tax to make fossil fuels expensive and subsidization of clean energy to reduce use of fossil fuels in cars for example .Performance standards policies dictate the minimum level for operation e.g. the emission limits and energy consumption limits, and should be tightened every time to ensure higher standards. Policies for innovation helps to increase research and development of more eco-friendly technologies e.g. nuclear to cut carbons emissions .This is achieved through government partnerships with private companies in research funding. When these three policies approaches are combined the emission cuts can be achieved and help reduce global warming. In conclusion, climate change and global warming exists, accelerated by human activities though natural phenomena play a role. This paper examines the natural against the climate change caused by human activities, global warming and consequences. It also outlines the possible mitigation strategies and their shortcomings. The paper also talks of the possible policy approach to reduce the emission and carbon footprint, for the sake of reversing or avoiding future negative effects of global warming. References Samanthi (2017) Difference between Anthropogenic and Natural Climate Change Rissman, J. (2014) The Three Policies That Can Counter Global Warming BBC (2014) what is Climate Change Mitigation. Science and Environment Shankman, S., and Horn, P. The most powerful Evidence Climate Scientists Have of Global Warming Livescience. Global Warming: News, Facts, Causes and Effects NASA .Climate Change and Global warming .Retrieved from https://climate.nasa.gov