The Global Warming

The global warming is consequence of the increase of the Greenhouse Effect.

Global warming has several important consequences: it causes ice melting, sea level rising and, consequently, floods on coastlands. Ecosystems are affected by climate changes as well. Natural disasters are stronger and more frequent… and so on.

All of these gases emissions contribute to the increasing of the greenhouse effect which affects the balance (talked on the preview topic): the incoming radiation becomes less than the outgoing one and, consequently, global temperature rises up. This is a vicious cycle because as the temperature rises up, more water will evaporate which affects the earth energy balance, consequently.

The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Effect

As we already saw on this blog, greenhouse gases have anthropogenic sources which contribute to the increasing of theirs concentrations on the atmosphere.

Most of greenhouse gases emissions are due to fossil fuels burning.
Mankind started using coal on the Industrial Revolution and now we depend on fossil fuels. Coal, oil and natural gas are used as energy resources to generate electricity and to heat buildings. Petroleum is also used as a raw material to produce plastics, fertilizers, pesticides and, of course, gasoline and other fuels.
These fuels contain carbon that combine with oxygen form carbon dioxide. Besides, they are responsible for others greenhouse gases emissions, like Nitrogen oxide, and others air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds and heavy metals.

Although greenhouse gases have more source, like livestock, which produce methane, fossil fuels are the main cause of Anthropogenic greenhouse emissions.

Deforestation is another cause of the increasing of the greenhouse effect. Burns on forest releases carbon into the air. Also contributing to deforestation are producing fuel, wood and paper products and clearing land for farming, pastures for animals and building infrastructures.
Forests are so important because they retain CO2 and produce O2 by photosynthesis. Actually, it is estimated that deforestation is responsible for one-third of CO2 anthropogenic emissions.

Besides contributing for global warming, deforestation has other serious consequences: drier climates (because with less vegetation, less water is hold), soil erosion, ecosystems lost and extinction of species. These last two topics will be developed later on this blog. As well, we will talk about global warming, whose main cause is the anthropogenic greenhouse effect.

Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon

Sources:
http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/greenhouse.htm
http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/envFacts/facts/deforestation.htm
http://travel.mongabay.com/peru/sections/Deforestation.html