WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING AND ITS EFFECTS. GREEN HOUSE EFFECT.

Climate change

What is GLOBAL WARMING..?

Green house gases trap some of the sun's energy within our atmosphere and increase the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere.This is called the green house effect.

1. Solar energy passes through the atmosphere, is absorbed by the Earth's surface, and warms it up.

    2.   Green house gases absorb some of the reflected heat energy.           Without them the Earth's average temperature would be                  around -18 degree Celsius.

     3.    Human actions gradually increase concentration of green               house gases in the atmosphere and lead to  global warming.  

• Agriculture is a huge source of methane and nitrous oxide, and responsible for 15% of world wide green house gas emission.
• climate -friendly agriculture management (organic farming) could reduce emissions significantly

•    One quarter of all man made co2 emissions is transportation related.
• 750 million cars world wide emit a total of approx. 2.25 billion tons of co2  each year.

• Industrial production is responsible for more than half of all co2 emissions.
• Largest quantities of co2 emitted by energy producers and energy -intensive industries.
• New filtration technologies could reduce co2 emissions by 30 to 50%.

• A quarter of co2 emissions world wide result from deforestation. 
• Net forest loss since 2000:7.3 mill.hectares per year(roughly the size of panama)
• Improvement measures : afforestation, reforestation, avoided deforestation.

  

The following effects emerge.

  4.     The accelerated warming process has a number of   dangerous impacts (see below)

      

• Since early 1960's, mountain glaciers around the  world have experienced an estimated net loss of over 4,000 cubic kilometers of water; this loss was more than twice as fast during the 1990's as in the previous decades.
• Projection : 4 degree Celsius rise in the global temperatures would cause nearly all of the world's glaciers melt , resulting in rising sea levels.

• Globally , the annual number of  strong storms doubled from around 8 (early 1970's ) to 18 (2000-2004).
• Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was the sixth largest hurricane on record, and cause over 60 billion US dollars in damage.
• The magnitude and damages caused by by the 27 tropical storms in the Atlantic during 2005 were the  highest yet recorded.

• 2 bill. people in 110 countries are affected and threatened by accelerating desertification.
• The UN projects that 30% of the world's fertile land surface will turn into desert in the future.
• Example : in Niger , 250,000 hectares , an area about the size of Luxembourg, becomes desert each year.