Global Warming
...change caused by human activities, which result in an increase in greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and others keep the ground temperatures at an average of approximately fifty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. Without Greenhouse gases the average temperature would drop two degrees Fahrenheit, and all the oceans would be frozen, but with too much greenhouse gases the earth will get hotter. Greenhouse gases have this heating effect because radiation emitted by the Earths’ surface is absorbed, or trapped by the gases and radiated both out of space and then back towards the surface. The attribution of global warming is controversial because the climate system of the earth is complicated. Therefore it is hard to determine the causes and effects with certainty. It is also controversial because proposals to eliminate the causes, such as reducing fossil fuel burning, poses a threat to some industries and some parts of the economy (Anthes).
The first theory of global warming came in 1824 when French mathematician Jean Baptiste
Joseph Fourier discovered that the Earth's temperature was slowly increasing. Fourier said that the earth's atmosphere traps solar radiation and reflects it back toward the earth.
In the late 19th century Fourier's theory was labeled the "greenhouse effect" when Nobel Laureate Svante Arrhenius coined the term to explain how carbon dioxide traps heat in the Earth's atmosphere. Arrhenius believed that the greenhouse effect was responsible for the onset of the ice ages. By the 1960s, many scientists dismissed this theory in favor of the hypothesis of Serbian geophysicist, Milutin Milankovitch, relating climate. In the 1950s, rookie scientist G.S. Callendar warned that the greenhouse effect was true and dramatically impacting the atmosphere of the Earth. Callendar's claims were...
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