Over the years, scientists have devoted so much time and effort trying to explain to the lay people the dynamics of climate change and how this phenomenon is related to global warming. In general, global warming happens when the earth’s surface temperature rises. Scientists have emphasized that the warming of the earth is a natural process. Greenhouse gases are vital in maintaining an optimal temperature for the survival of all living organisms (Spencer, 45). While it is true that such warming is important, excessive greenhouse gases may result to substantial increase in temperature (Spencer, 46). Such increase in temperature may have dire consequences to the planet.
Although there are various factors to which global warming may be accounted for, one explanation that has caused a hullabaloo in the public is the anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases. This growing concern about anthropogenic global warming has even lead to numerous discussions and debates on how to curb the increasing human emission of pollutants to slow the changes in climate. Such concern has also lead to the publications of various scientific papers linking the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to sea level rise and climate anomalies such as the unusual heating and cooling in some areas of the United States.
With the fact that global warming as a natural phenomenon has been already established. The question now lies on how significant is the contribution of human in global warming? Is there enough data to suggest the validity on the link between human emissions and global warming? And how valid is the manner of data collection to draw such inferences?
In the paper Perceptions of Climate Change by Hansen et al. (2416), they concluded that since 1951 – 1980, the temperature of the planet has increased by an average of 0.5 – 0.6 °C. That change in temperature based on their study period has made a significant impact in many parts of the world. It has been further pointed out that there is indeed a linked between the “unusually warm summers and cold winters” to global warming. Hansen et al. (2416) predicted that there is a high probability that such phenomenon is accounted to what is known as modified global warming. However, if the span of time is widened, a different trend may be observed which may not support some of Hansen’s claims to include the strong correlation of global warming to periodic heatwaves in Moscow (2420). Hansen has dismissed the idea that the heatwaves in Moscow may be due to natural variability in climate and not because of the slight increase in global temperature. But global warming may enhance the effect of drought in Moscow.
Hansen et al. (2420) also pointed out that the study is based on pure statistics and it does not try to show that pronounced heatwaves during summer is directly caused by climate change. Although there have been several models that were used to understand the climate system. Still these models have limitations. It is difficult to infer from such statistics knowing that we cannot replicate extreme weather conditions on the earth to see the reliability and accuracy of the data. Yet still these statistics shown illustrates a pattern which could help understand the effects of human global warming to the climate system. Hansen’s main concern is that people should not get the wrong message that anthropogenic human emissions have no influence to the earth’s climatic conditions because of the limited data sets.
Works Cited
Hansen, James, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy. “Perception of Climate Change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1205276109(2012): 2415-2423.Web.
Spencer, Roy W. “How Serious is the Global Warming Threat.” Social Science and Public Policy 44(2007): 45-50.
