♥ Monday, February 9, 2009 ♥

okay, today we watched a video, "The inconvenient truth" and the blog post will answer the question "To what extent should we be concerned about carbon dioxide emissions?" based on it. Basically, our Earth is livable due to the presence of the atmosphere. However, it is very thin, and vulnerable such that we can change its composition. Although one may arue that the atmosphere is really huge, it is actually only as thick as a coat of varnish on a ball, imagining that the ball is of the sanme size as the Earth, so ya, our atmosphere is really thin. Apparently, our atmosphere keeps our Earth warm by retaining some of the sun's radiation, however, it is thickening as increasing carbon dioxide is being emitted. This thickening of the atmosphere is resulting in more outgoing infrared radiation to get trapped and thus leading to global warming.

The concentration of carbon dioxide is also directly proportional to the temperature. In 650, 000 years in the past, the carbon dioxide level never exceeded 300 million parts per million, now however, it far exceeds 300 million parts and this level is predicted to go up for the next 50 years or more. More carbon dioxide in the air will also just mean a higher tenperature of the Earth as more heat is trapped from the Sun. Global warming thus occurs.

Global warming is having negative effects world widely. One example is the rise in temperature leading to the melting of glaciers world-wide and the Himalayas. However, the spring water from the Himalayas is providing 40% of the earth's population with water supply, and the melting of the whole Himalayas will just result in this 40% without water.

One of the effect of global warming that is often unnoticed is the increase in precipitation worldwide. When there are storm conditions, all these precipitate will just come down together. One example is the rain in India when there was 37 inches of rain within 24 hours, resulting in the biggest downpour ever in India. However, the precipitate is often relocated due to global warming, causing floods and droughts to occur simultaneously in neighbouring provinces. lakes are also dried up and water is evaporated from oceans and even soil. People then have to be relocated as where they live are often determined by climate patterns and global wamring is changing these patterns.

The Arctic is one of the places which is receiving the fastest impact of global wamring. Permafrost is thawing, resulting in the collapsing of buildings and trees not standing straight. Moreover, in 1970, there was a decrease in the amount, extent and thickness of th Arctic ice cap by about 40%. By an approximate 40 to 50 years time, it is guessed that the ice cap would have be completely gone.

With global warming, polar bears are also for the first times, reported to drown. This is due to the decrease in ice in the oceans. When the sun shnes, the ice reflects back the heat while the open ocean absorbs the sun energy. Withthe rising temperature, the water absorbs more heat energy and warms up, thus melting the ice into open waters. As a result, there is no more ice to reflect the sun's energy but all has melted to become water, absorbing the heat energy. This causes polar bears to swim for miles looking for ice, yet being unable to find one and drowning.

There are also planetary effects which will be affected. Heat is regulated by wind and ocean currents. These currents are formed when water sinks due to higher density from the salt content and becomes cold water. The cold water sinks at 5 billion gallons per second which results in the direction of the currents to go South resulting in the currents. With this, an ncrease of 5 degrees of the Earth, the equator increases by 1 degree while the poles increase by 12 degrees and the Earth's average temperature is 55.8 degree farenheight. However, these currents can be disrupted. For example, when the dam at the Great Lakes(melted water) broke, water gushed out and reduced the concentration of salt content in the water, causing the currents to jam.

Glabal warming can also result in a change in seasons, like for the hatching seasons of animals. In the past, the peak of hatching seasons for the birds and worms are the same, thus the birds will always have enough food to eat. However, recently, the peak of the hatching season for the worms are earlier and the hatching season for the birds is unable to catch up with it, thus leading to hunger of the birds.

Number of days with frost are also decreasing with the years. Pine beetles which are often killed by the frost can now survive more due to the days of frost decreasing. This will then lead to the destruction and devastation of the pine trees): Furthermore, due to higher temperatures, mosquitoes can climb to higher altitudes and new diseases such as SARS are emerging. Diseases such as Avian flu and West Nile, which were under control for a very long time, have also re emerged. Coral reefs have been bleached and organisms dependent on it are also affected.

Someone also mentioned that ice shelves in Antartica breaking is a great alarm bell for glabal warming. That is exaclty what is happening, one example is Larsen B. With this breaking ice shelves(floating ice), pools of water used to find the problem are increasing. Land based ce supported by the floating ice also falls into the ocean, increasing the sea level. One analogy provided was the one of ice cubes in a cup. When the ice cube is already in the liquid, melting of it will not raise the water level. However, when the ice cube is resting on the top of other ice cubes, melting of the paricular ice cube which is not in contact with the liquid, the water level will rise and lead to over flowing. This is what is happening in the oceans))): Also, lakes which were expected to refreeze form moulins instead..

Another effect of global warming is the melting of greenland reulting in the map having to be redrawn. This is because of the melting of Greenland keeps occuring, other places such as San Francisco, Netherlands, Beijng, Shanghai, Florida,Calcutta and east Bangladesh will be underwater. these places which have approximately 100 million people will then have to relocate the people.

Outside the video!!
right, Mr Heah said that the tipping point is the point when positive or negative feedback has no more power. For example, when a body is super super super cold, it can only shiver this much and will thus eventually die. yeps, of vice versa when the body is super super super hot, it can also only perspire this much before it finally dies):

okay, so yea, tt's bout it, except that in a essay, we must not just keep wondering "WHAT points" to write but "WHAT TYPE of points" to write so that we won't keep writing and writing thinking that we have a lot of points only to realise later that all the points are just different examples of A SINGLE point(:

Crapped at 3:49 AM -

9 Comments:

At February 9, 2009 at 6:26 AM, 08IP03! said…

I think that the video today was very enriching because it had a lot of crucial information on the impact of global warming on Earth. After looking through both the video and this comprehensive blog post, I feel that man is not destroying just Earth but is destroying himself too due to the extent of the problem which is bound to increase over the years. In addition, I have the most impression on the effect of the melting glaciers because the difference between the past and present is too obvious and without these glaciers, many people on Earth are going to experience water shortage. Also I find that the new term introduced to us today, Tipping point, really emphasize the seriousness of this issue as if both positive/negative feedbacks are not useful anymore, the state of global warming will be irreversible.

HuiQi<3
At February 9, 2009 at 6:28 AM, liqin said…

After watching "the inconvenient truth", i realised how shallow my understanding of global warming is. From this video, I've learnt about all the other destructive effects global warming has bring about. One major issue is the changes in climate, which affects the lifestyles of humans and animals severely. what's upsetting me is that many people still do not realise that global warming is worsening and that the effects of it can kill the earth eventually(by judging how alarming the earth's tempereature rises to in another 50 years' time as shown in the video). government officials still appear to be ignorant and not concern with this problem. To curb global warming, a worldwide effort is definitely needed and governments of the strong countries such as America will need to take the lead to mitigate these effects. Humans are the culprits of worsening global warming, if humans have to change their lifestyles or lower their living standards(egs:governments can set electricity quota for each household, reduce number of cars etc) to reduce the emission of CO2, it is defintely worth doing. And yeah, after listening to mr.heah's explanation on thinking of the TYPE of points to write, i've learnt yet another essay wrting skill!
At February 9, 2009 at 6:54 AM, blahhh! said…

I find that the video today was an interesting way to learn about global warming. By watching the video and seeing the visual images and charts, it allows us to understand the severity of global warming on our environment. Also, Mr Heah mentioned today the difference between just putting points in and the placing them under the same category. I think that was the problem most of us had, just chunking in points for our essays not caring about the category they go under.
At February 10, 2009 at 3:01 AM, xinyi said…

After watching the video and reading this blog post, i have definitely learned more about the impact of global warming on Earth. I never knew that as diseases such SARS are emerging due to global warming. Like what huiqi said, man is not destroying just Earth but is destroying himself too. I believe that if we continue destroying Earth at this rate, the Earth will soon reach a tipping point and die. or maybe the temperature of Earth will simply be too high for humans to survive. Thus, maybe just humans will die, not Earth. heh
At February 10, 2009 at 3:23 AM, YUAN! said…

The video we watched is very similar to one movie, 'the day after tomorrow'. Even though i have watched the movie for several times already, i'm still moved. The crucial facts shown in the video remind us how much damage we had made to the earth's atmosphere, and how fragile the atmosphere is.
As related to the question given today, "to what extend should we be concerned about carbon dioxide emission", i think we should be serious about the problem now and try to solve it as soon as possible, as the problem has already been so severe that it threatens the survival of many species on the earth.

However, I didn't really get the part that Mr Heah said we should ask WHAT TYPE of points we should write in the essay. I didn't really get what u guys mean by different types of points. I think points that are to be written in the essay should be relatively useful to help explaining why and how u chose your stand. Also, non-related points, as we all know, should not be written in the essay. What other kind of points are out there? Can someone give me an example to show what's shouldn't be written in a good essay? (is it repeated points? or merely facts?)
At February 10, 2009 at 6:22 AM, i.am.heah said…

Well, first some things to correct. For one, the tipping point is only with regards to the negative feedback. It is when the feedback loop is unable to cope and negate the change. Positive feedback, if you remember, encourages change.

That answer above looks like it was written for longer than 10 minutes! There are definitely too many of the same points in there and some of it can be cut down. So here's a good chance for you to review it and see if you can review.

It's a good summary but not exactly a good answer. But I ought to thank whoever it is that wrote so much cause now we have some material to work on. Try grouping the points made above into categories. Use what you've learned about systems, carbon cycle and planetary heat balance and see if you can improve to get all 8 marks.
At February 11, 2009 at 5:05 AM, Unknown said…

yayy, thanks for the comments!(: the points are just in chronological order from what i caught in the video, so yeps,there're repititions, sorry!
At February 12, 2009 at 5:06 AM, Violet said…

The moive "The Inconvient Truth" was really impressed. As a young adult, I did not really very concern about our environment and earth since the pollution and global warming was not so obvious and serious among us. But when I saw those icebergs melting and those low-lying cities submerging(including Shanghai and Beijing), I felt scared and knew that it would become reality if we ignore it and do nothing. Therefore, it was really important to save our world, to protect our environment and the first thing we need to do is to reduce the emission of CO2 and cool our earth a bit.
At February 14, 2009 at 6:47 AM, Anonymous said…

enjoyed that video man.
its kinda scary when you see the water cover the land, massive flooding.
but i think its scarier
how people can see all this and go, oh my goodness i must stop using plastic bags, start cycling instead of taking cars, stop breathing out (ok thats a joke)....
and then forget all about it afterwards.

the thing about humans now is this :consumerism
do you REALLY need 200 shoes?
20 different pairs of jeans?

no you buy for the "nice to have" sort of thing, without realising how much carbon was released into the air when manufacturing the product!

08IP03! (:

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