Global Warming : What Else Can You Do about It?

by Eastwood, Elton, M.D.

• ISBN13: 9781462011506
• ISBN10: 1462011500
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-06-09
• Publisher: Textstream

Excerpts

When we get temperatures as low as 20 degrees below zero, and have to walk through a foot of snow, we tend to say, "So much for global warming". Maybe we could use some global warming around here. But the process does continue. Green house gases, such as carbon dioxide, [CO2], from burning fossil fuels, continue to accumulate in a layer up in the atmosphere, and continue to warm the earth and melt the ice caps.Scientists have taken ice cores in Greenland and the Antarctic, which contain air bubbles, and have checked the CO2 levels of the air in the bubbles and found it to range from 200 parts per million, [ppm] to 300 ppm when the temperature was at its peak.They can estimate the time the ice was formed by counting, as you would count the rings on a tree stump, and by the depth on the ice core.They can also determine the temperature and they have found that in the last 400,000 years, there have been 4 peaks of temperature, and the CO2 levels rise when the temperature rises and falls when the temperature falls. The CO2 levels range from 200 ppm to 300 ppm. Then in about l950, there was an increase in the rate of warming and now the CO2 level is at 380 ppm. This increase in the rate of warming is attributed to the increase in green house gases from burning fossil fuels.