Session 14

Unit VI
CLIMATIC CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING
Dr. H.S. Ramesh
Professor of Environmental Engineering
S.J. College of Engineering, Mysore 570 006

Carbon di-oxide is a natural constituent of atmosphere, but now, its concentration

is increasing at an alarming rate. According to an estimate, CO2 level is expected to be
doubled by 2030 A.D.

The term Green House Effect is also called as Atmospheric Effect, Global
Warming or CO2 Problem.
Human activities are changing the composition as well as behaviour at an
unprecedented rate.

The pollutants form a wide range of human activities are increasing

the global atmospheric concentration of certain heat trapping gases, which act like a
blanket, trapping close to the surface that would otherwise escape through the atmosphere
to the outer space. This process is known as Green House Effect. Green House is that
body which allows the short wave length incoming solar radiation to come in, but does
not allow the long wave outgoing terrestrial infra red radiation to escape.

The

progressive warming up of the earths surface due to blanketing effect of manmade CO 2

in the atmosphere is called Green House Effect. (Figure 1).

The four major green house gases, which cause adverse effects are CO2, CH4,
N2O and CFCs.

Among these CO2 is the most common and important green house gas.

In addition, ozone and SO2 are also act as serious pollutants in causing global warming.

Green House Effect

Under normal concentrations of CO2, the temperature of the earths surface is
maintained by the energy balance of the suns rays that strike the planet and the heat is
radiated back into the outer space.

However, when concentration of CO2 in the

atmosphere increases, the thick envelope of this gas prevents the heat from being reradiated out. The heated earth can radiate this absorbed energy as the radiation of longer
wave length.

Figure 1 Green House Effect

Sources
A number of industrial as well as agricultural operations generate and emit waste
gases into the atmosphere. Burning of fossil fuel emit CO2, growing paddy, or live stock
releases methane. The use of aerosols and coolants in refrigerators and air conditioning
devices or sprays releases chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere. These gases create a
canopy in the atmosphere and trap the solar radiation reflected back from the earths
surface leading to atmospheric and climatic changes.

Green House Effect on Global Climate

A huge amount of CO2 gets introduced into the environment from furnaces of
power plants, fossil fuel burning, vehicular exhaust and breathing of animals, but the
ocean may not be able to absorb this increased CO2 and the plants also cannot utilize the
whole during photosynthesis. So, much of CO2 is still left in the atmosphere, which is
supposed to be responsible for increasing the atmospheric temperature.

As a result of rise of temperature of earth, the oceans get warm up and sea level
would rise flooding low lying regions.

A slight increase in sea level could have

profound effects on habitation and coastal land. In temperate regions, the winter will be
shorter and warmer and the summer will be longer and hotter.
likely to make some cities extremely hot.

A warmer climate is

There will be enormous increase in rainfall,

but the problem of desertification, drought and soil erosion will further worsen.

The

most obvious effect of climate change will be on agriculture. Because CO2 is a natural
fertilizer, the plants will grow larger and faster with increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.
The abnormal fast growth results in increase of yield but the soil fertility goes down at a
very fast rate.

Scientists believe, the average global temperature will be higher than ever in the
past thousand years.

The global warming trend can cause significant climatic changes. Human society
is highly dependent on the earths climate pattern and human adaptations determine the
availability of food, fresh water and other resources for sustaining life.

The social and

economic characteristics of a society have also been shaped largely by adapting to the
seasonal and year to year patterns of temperature and rainfall.

Some potential effects associated with the enhanced green house effect and
the associated global warming is as follows.

Water Resources
Due to changes in precipitation pattern and increased evaporation the quality and
quantity of water available for drinking, irrigation, industrial use, electric generation,
aquatic life, etc., are significantly affected.

Coastal Resources
An estimate of 50 cm rise in sea level by the year 2100, could inundate more than
8000 Km of dry land.

Health
Changing pattern of temperature and precipitation may produce new breeding
sites for pests, shifting the range of infectious diseases.

Heat stress mortality could

increase due to higher temperature over longer periods.

Oceans
Oceans can provide sources for the increased water vapour because of the earths
increased temperature. On the other hand, the thermal holding capacity of the oceans
would delay and effectively reduce the observed global warming.

In addition, oceans

play an important role in the global green house gas budgets. The ocean biota, primarily
phytoplankton is believed to remove at least half of the anthropogenic CO2 added to the
atmosphere. The ocean sink of CO2 is called Biological CO2 Pump.

Vegetation
Vegetation changes due to climatic change would affect the hydrologic cycle.
The biggest impact of CO2 induced climatic change would be changing precipitation
form lead to overall lower rainfall amount or drought during growing season with
increased frequency and severity.

However, the rise in atmospheric CO2 should cause

increase in photosynthesis, growth and productivity of the earths vegetation. Thus the
change in climate on vegetation has less adverse impact.
increase forest susceptibility to fire, disease and insect damage.

Higher temperature could

Clouds and Water Vapour

Global warming will lead to an increase in the amount of water vapour in the
atmosphere and because water vapour is a powerful green house gas, lead to an increase
into the warming. However, tropical storm clouds reach higher in the atmosphere under
warmer conditions.

Then the clouds would produce more rain thus adding less water

vapour to the middle troposphere.

Sea Ice
Increased temperature would tend to melt ice and result in increased absorption of
solar energy by the ocean. However, a decrease in sea ice would also lead to larger heat
fluxes from the ocean to the atmosphere. Thus, the interaction among the atmosphere,
the ocean, sea ice and the interaction of sea ice to climate change need to be observed and
quantified.

Global Climate
It is even postulated by scientists that melting of glaciers and the release of the
resultant cold water in large quantities could affect the major sea currents in the Atlantic
Ocean.

The ocean currents of Atlantic in fact, act as a heat conveyer of the planet

regulating the global climate.

If the heat conveyer is interrupted, the northern

hemisphere would plunge into an ice age and the southern hemisphere will be facing
severe drought.

In general, global warming is likely to make the weather more unpredictable in

the coming years.

Prevention of Global Warming

The major steps to be taken for the reduction of green house gases includes,
improving the energy efficiency of electric generation, as well as switching to less
polluting fossil fuels. Following are some of the suggestions to prevent global warming.

1. Reduction and elimination of green house gases emission that is disturbing the
climate.

Clean electricity technologies including wind turbine, solar panels and

hydrogen fuel cells are continually improving, becoming more efficient, economical
and capable of competing with polluting gas and coal power plants.
2. Biofuels including ethanol and bio-diesel could substantially cut down the CO2
emission from automobiles.
3. Sustainable farming and forestry techniques look up carbon in plants and soils and
provide new revenues to rural communities.
4. Besides protecting the climate, CO2 emission control techniques dramatically reduce
air pollution provide communities with higher quality of life and climate.
5. Conservation and produce energy that causes no environmental damage with cost less
than building new power plants. They lower electricity bills and reduce constraints
on energy systems.

Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto protocol is a legally binding international agreement to reduce green
house gas emissions. It was initially negotiated during a meeting held at Kyoto, Japan in
1977.

The protocol commits in industrialized countries to reducing emissions of six

green house gases by 5% before 2012.

Global Dimming
In contrast to global warming there is another phenomenon called Global
Dimming.

Scientists have observed that 2-4% reduction in the amount of solar

radiation reaching the earths surface, due to increase in cloud cover aerosols and
particulates in the atmosphere. Higher temperature leads to an increased cloud cover.
The scattered light through the clouds boosts the plants adsorption of CO 2 and
photosynthesis process.

Thus global dimming is a process working against global

warming to some extent.

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