Scientific Essay on Climate Change

Scientific Essay on Climate Change

The long and short history of climate change

On August 8, 1975 it appeared in the prestigious scientific journal Science a term that from then on would become one of the main concerns of our species: climate change. Back then the evidence of a progressive and sustained warming of the atmosphere was notorious, and the main suspicions fell on humanity, since since the 19th century we have bombarded our atmosphere with impunity with gases rich in carbon, such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) or methane (CH₄).

Naturally, there were also skeptical voices about it. After all, it was known for a long time since the entire human civilization has developed in the 12,000 final years of an ice age (known as Würm), which is not very different from many others our planet has vivid. Our planet was in transit, long before human beings invented the industry, a natural heating stage. And seen like this, why should we take the blame for a climatic process that happened many other times in the geological past of the planet?

Perhaps that is why it took 30 years for the World Meteorological Organization to account for the current process of global warming and, after comparing it with the available evidence from previous processes, arrive at an irrefutable conclusionNever before has the heating process occurred in such a rapid and sustained way as from the 19th century to the present day. In fact, the record of temperatures world averages, available since 1850, corroborate our worst suspicions: the global warming process, the main causative factor of climate change, has accelerated markedly as humanity progresses in its model of industrialization.

This is due, as is already known, to the fact that the energy needs of our civilization and our model of life are enormous and constant, and the models available to meet them are simply detrimental to the planet's climatic stability. Especially burning fossil fuels, which releases tons of carbon-rich gases into the atmosphere, produces a disproportionate increase in the greenhouse effect.

The calculations, in that sense, are not optimistic. It is estimated that during the next decade, average temperatures will increase by almost 2 ºC compared to the levels pre-industrial, which is enough to bring about drastic changes in the way the climate manifests itself global scale. In short, we are talking about harsher and more extreme seasons: colder winters and hotter summers, but also torrential rainfall and a higher frequency of cyclones, as well as long periods of drought and desertification.

Nevertheless, the most serious effects of this change will be suffered by the oceans: the increase in the water level as a result of the melting of the poles will bring with it greater acidification and lower oxygen levels, which will directly attack the biodiversity of the seas at a rate too fast to allow adaptive evolution. It is, then, a phenomenon that will directly and indirectly threaten our model of existence and that of millions of people. plants and animals. A global temperature 2 ºC higher than the current one, for example, would destroy all coral reefs.

The first consequences, however, are already here: fires in long stretches of various continents, recurrent floods, droughts that reduce the amount of land available for cultivation and increasingly intense and prolonged hurricane seasons. All of this is being observed daily on our planet.

The committees of specialist climatologists that advise the United Nations Organization have established 2050 as a deadline to achieve the desired “zero emissions” of carbon, something that could only be achieved if previously emissions are reduced by 45% before 2030. At the beginning of 2021, a reduction of just 1% has been achieved. The future of our species is in jeopardy.

References:

• "What is a scientific essay?" on the National university of Trujillo (Peru).
• "Climate change" in Wikipedia.
• "What is climate change?" on International Amnesty.
• "What is climate change?" on the United Nations.
• "Climate change" in Greenpeace.
• What is climate change? A really simple guide ”in BBC News.

What is a scientific essay?

A scientific essayit is a type of writing that addresses a scientific topic, explores it in depth and supports its findings, hypothesis and conclusions in scientific evidence, that is, in own and / or other people's research in the area. It is the main type of documents in scientific and informative publications, aimed at a specialized or general public, and whose fundamental purpose is to transmit and preserve knowledge scientific.

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