Effects to wipe out Alaska’s polar bears in 50 years

The best guess of federal scientists is that polar bears will disappear from the Alaska coast within the next 50 years. A bombshell set of nine studies ordered by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to help him decide whether to put the polar bear on the Endangered Species List was released to the press today at a national news teleconference. The results are significant and, in the words of the scientists, “robust.”

Trapping Cirrus Clouds

A study done by the University of Alabama in Huntville disputes the widely, but not completely accepted theory that man-made global warming will accelerate itself by creating more heat-trapping cirrus clouds.

According to Dr. Roy Spencer, individual tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming saw a decrease in the coverage area of these cirrus clouds. During month-to-month fluctuations of the tropical climate system they noticed that as the atmosphere warms, cirrus clouds decreased. This is opposite of what the leading climate models forecast, which is as the atmosphere warms there should be an increase in these heat-trapping cirrus clouds. A more detailed explanation of their findings is in this news release from the University.

Spencer expects these finds to be controversial. "I know some climate modelers will say that these results are interesting but that they probably don't apply to long-term global warming, but this represents a fundamental natural cooling process in the atmosphere. Let's see if climate models can get this part right before we rely on their long term projections."

Unnatural Disaster

The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) has issued an extensive new report on the effects of global warming on our national parks. The report is titled "Unnatural Disaster: Global Warming and Our National Parks" and includes information on what the organization believes can be done to save our national parks.

The NPCA should not be confused with the National Park Service, which is a government agency or its official non-profit partner, The National Park Foundation. The NPCA is an independent organization that was founded in 1919 and has over 325,000 members and supporters, with a mission "to protect and enhance America's national parks for present and future generations."

WARMING

Cause of global warming
Almost 100% of the observed temperature increase over the last 50 years has been due to the increase in the atmosphere of greenhouse gas concentrations like water vapour, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and ozone. Greenhouse gases are those gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect (see below). The largest contributing source of greenhouse gas is the burning of fossil fuels leading to the emission of carbon dioxide.

The greenhouse effect
When sunlight reaches Earth's surface some is absorbed and warms the earth and most of the rest is radiated back to the atmosphere at a longer wavelength than the sun light. Some of these longer wavelengths are absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before they are lost to space. The absorption of this longwave radiant energy warms the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth some of the heat energy which would otherwise be lost to space. The reflecting back of heat energy by the atmosphere is called the "greenhouse effect".
The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide CO2, which causes 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes 3-7%. It is not possible to state that a certain gas causes a certain percentage of the greenhouse effect, because the influences of the various gases are not additive. Other greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons.

Global warming causes by greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (see above) act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth a part of the heat radiation, which would otherwise be lost to space. The higher the concentration of green house gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more heat energy is being reflected back to the Earth. The emission of carbon dioxide into the environment mainly from burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas, petrol, kerosene, etc.) has been increased dramatically over the past 50 years, see graph below.

Temperature changes

The most commonly discussed measure of global warming is the trend in globally averaged temperature near the Earth's surface. Expressed as a linear trend, this temperature rose by 0.74°C ±0.18°C over the period 1906-2005. The rate of warming over the last 50 years of that period was almost double that for the period as a whole (0.13°C ±0.03°C per decade, versus 0.07°C ± 0.02°C per decade). The urban heat island effect is estimated to account for about 0.002 °C of warming per decade since 1900.Temperatures in the lower troposphere have increased between 0.12 and 0.22 °C (0.22 and 0.4 °F) per decade since 1979, according to satellite temperature measurements. Temperature is believed to have been relatively stable over the one or two thousand years before 1850, with regionally-varying fluctuations such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age.
Based on estimates by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2005 was the warmest year since reliable, widespread instrumental measurements became available in the late 1800s, exceeding the previous record set in 1998 by a few hundredths of a degree.Estimates prepared by the World Meteorological Organization and the Climatic Research Unit concluded that 2005 was the second warmest year, behind 1998. Temperatures in 1998 were unusually warm because the strongest El Niño in the past century occurred during that year.
Temperature changes vary over the globe. Since 1979, land temperatures have increased about twice as fast as ocean temperatures (0.25 °C per decade against 0.13 °C per decade). Ocean temperatures increase more slowly than land temperatures because of the larger effective heat capacity of the oceans and because the ocean loses more heat by evaporation.The Northern Hemisphere warms faster than the Southern Hemisphere because it has more land and because it has extensive areas of seasonal snow and sea-ice cover subject to the ice-albedo feedback. Although more greenhouse gases are emitted in the Northern than Southern Hemisphere this does not contribute to the difference in warming because the major greenhouse gases persist long enough to mix between hemispheres.
The thermal inertia of the oceans and slow responses of other indirect effects mean that climate can take centuries or longer to adjust to changes in forcing. Climate commitment studies indicate that even if greenhouse gases were stabilized at 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) would still occur.

The world is heating up.

Because of natural and engineered gases omitted in the atmosphere the ozone layer of our planet is diminishing. the ozone layer protects us from the powerful sun light that hits us. since that protection is leaving us, the planet is heating up due to more rays of light breaking through. Global warming also known as climate crisis is a serious issue that deals with the average measured temperature. Global warming is an effect in the earth's average atmospheric temperature that causes corresponding changes in climate. There are many effects caused by global warming.
Global Warming is a serious crisis right now. Not a lot of people are taking any notice to whats going on around them. People take for granted to the things they have and don't take care of the Earth. Global Warming is a global issue that involves everything and everyone. The main reason for global warming is something that is called the Greenhouse effect, which is when a gas called CO2 or also known as carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere and with that the suns rays can't escape causing the Earth to warm up. One major affect is that natural disasters will worsen such as hurricanes and droughts will become deadly. If people don't react soon and take action the world will suffer. Some things that people are doing are looking for energy substitutes such hydro power and wind power for cleaner energy instead of using fossil fuels.