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Understanding the Warming Process

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The Science and Impact of Climate Change

Part of the book series: Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences ((AGES))

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Abstract

Greenhouse gases form a thick blanket around the Earth to regulate the loss of energy into space, thereby keeping the Earth warm enough for the survival of living beings. However, during the past three centuries the uncontrolled and unregulated emission of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, ozone and other long-lived industrial gases such as CFCs, HFCs and PFCs have changed the global energy balance. This has resulted in warming of the Earth, and the current estimates are that a temperature increase of 4 °C may lead to disastrous and irreversible changes. Carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides are the largest source of GHGs that are being released due to deforestation, land diversion, burning of coal and petroleum, soil erosion and water pollution. As a consequence, large quantities of carbon stored in living and dead vegetation, soil organic matter, as dissolved organic and inorganic carbon in oceans, have been liberated into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or methane with serious impact on global climate. Increase in nitrogen in the atmosphere due to extensive use of fertilizers and combustion processes, loss of blue-green algae and nitrogen-fixing bacteria has further aggravated the warming process.

The more we convert carbon into carbon dioxide, the more we deplete oxygen in the atmosphere.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Carbon dioxide has a special affinity to absorb infrared radiations.

  2. 2.

    Carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs and emits infrared radiation at wavelengths of 4.26 µm (asymmetric stretching vibrational mode) and 14.99 µm (bending vibrational mode), thereby playing a crucial role in the greenhouse effect.

  3. 3.

    Carbon-13 isotope is a heavy form of carbon that has been found to be less abundant in vegetation and fossil fuels but is more abundant in carbon found in volcanic and geothermal emissions. There is another rare radioactive isotope of carbon called Carbon-14 which is present in atmospheric carbon dioxide but absent in fossil fuels.

  4. 4.

    High global demand for timber by industrialized countries during the second half of twentieth century leads to heavy loss of forests in South America, Africa and Asia. Africa lost more than 52 million hectares in the 1990s alone.

  5. 5.

    GPP can be calculated for a plant or all plants in a given area.

  6. 6.

    One cubic metre of growing stock = 1.3 ton of total biomass = 1 ton of above ground biomass + 0.3 ton of below ground biomass = 0.7 ton of carbon + 0.6 ton of other elements.

  7. 7.

    One ton of soil carbon = 3.67 tons of carbon dioxide emitted or sequestered (Molecular wt of carbon is 12 and that of carbon dioxide is 44. Therefore, carbon dioxide/C = 44/12 = 3.67).

  8. 8.

    NO2 and NO gases are collectively known as nitrogen oxides.

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  1. Indian Forest Service, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

    Asheem Srivastav

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Srivastav, A. (2019). Understanding the Warming Process. In: The Science and Impact of Climate Change. Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0809-3_3

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