What We Know About Climate Change

In the essay What We know About Climate Change by Kerry Emanuel, speaks of how climate change is influenced mostly by humanity and some natural forces. I believe that the most important passage in the essay is when Emanuel writes about the history of our planet including the Greenland Ice Cores. The Greenland Ice Cores hold the mystery of the bipolar or chaotic weather Earth has had up to 100,000 years ago. As the ice in the ice cores formed, it trapped bubbles that contain carbon dioxide and other molecules. Scientist measures the rates of molecules in order to tell the temperatures from the past.

This is important because I believe that even though the planet is completely unpredictable, people can still find ways and factors to make the climate much more comfortable in the state there is. Unlike some, I have much hope in the world as a whole. Our planet’s natural forces and the destruction that it has cause to the blessings of natural resources has showed the human population that on earth anything is possible. However, in order to do this I believe that it will take much dedication and more severe thought on how we mistreat our economy today.

It is also nerve wrecking to know that even the Greenland Ice cores will someday melt due to our earths global warming. The warmer the atmosphere, the more water vapor can accumulate; as more water vapor accumulates, more heat gets trapped, and the warming spirals downward. This uncontrolled feedback is called the runaway greenhouse affect (Emanuel 2007: 10). The runaway greenhouse factor is important because this also partakes in the melting of our major ice caps and the evaporating of our oceans and land water resources. I simply believe that we need to act know even though there is little to do because the little things can make the biggest difference.