Greenhouse effect

The greenhouse effect will likely get an exciting new name, perhaps something like “weather violence” or “ecogenocide.” Carbon dioxide isn’t the only greenhouse gas, though it’s the most voluminous. There are also methane and CFCs to fret over. Put together, all these waste gases in the atmosphere are adding about two and a half watts of captured energy for every square meter on the planet’s surface. The greenhouse effect comes from digging up fossils and setting fire to them. The greenhouse effect, first discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824, and first investigated quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, is the process by which an atmosphere warms a planet. Recent measurements of carbon dioxide amounts from Mauna Loa observatory show that CO has increased from about 313 ppm (parts per million) in 1960 to about 375 ppm in 2005. The current observed amount of CO exceeds the geological record of CO maxima (~300 ppm) from ice core data (Hansen, J., Climatic Change, 68, 269, 2005). CO production rate from increased industrial activity (fossil fuel burning) and other human activities such as land-use changes has overwhelmed the normal feedback control mechanisms. Global climate model calculations indicate that the elevated CO levels are likely to lead to global warming. There has been an observed global average temperature increase of about 0.5C since 1960 (Science 308, 1431, 2005). There is still some public controversy about the role of human activities and that of CO and other greenhouse gas increases for global warming.