Climate change is doing that damage to the earth.
Climate change is one of the biggest problems in the world today. US President Barack Obama called it a bigger threat to national security than terrorism. Many in the Conservative faith, however, reject the notion of climate change. And so do the billion-dollar industrial-trade merchants. As the first step in tackling this global threat is to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from factories, for industrialists to accept climate change would mean billions of dollars in uncertainty for businesses. So on various pretexts they try to disprove the idea of climate change. However, over time, climate change and its effects have become more pronounced.
The two most significant effects of climate change are global warming and sea acidification. Man-made carbon dioxide is the main culprit in both cases. Carbon dioxide gas forms a mantle around the earth, which cannot penetrate the heat generated by sunlight. As a result, the earth’s temperature is slowly rising. Between 180 and 2015, the average global temperature rose by about 1 degree Celsius. Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, save energy from the surface, so global warming is causing sea surface temperatures to rise. As a result, the number of hurricanes worldwide is increasing.
Due to overheating, frozen perineal (intact year after year) ice at the North and South Poles has begun to melt. Theoretically, if all the ice in the North and South Poles melted, it would be able to increase the sea level by 220 feet!
Due to overheating, frozen perineal (intact year after year) ice at the North and South Poles has begun to melt. Theoretically, if all the ice in the North and South Poles melted, it would be able to increase the sea level by 220 feet!
As a result of global warming, the direction of the wind over the ocean, as a result of which the direction of the ocean currents, is changing and the current of warm water is flowing towards the polar region. These warm currents are breaking the glaciers in Antarctica and bringing ice cubes into the sea. When the iceberg moves into the sea water, its melting rate increases.
A few years ago, a glacier at the South Pole broke and a vast expanse of 60 square kilometers of ice moved into the Amandasan Sea. Although glacier breaking is a regular and normal process in icebergs, scientists agree that global warming is increasing the rate of glacier breakage. Although the massive ice floes floating in the ocean have been around for thousands of years, the relatively imminent threat of relatively small icebergs, which have a lifespan of less than a few years, is increasing the risk of shipwrecks. For example, in 1912 the famous RMS Titanic sank after colliding with a huge iceberg.
As a result of global warming, the melting of glacial cavities as well as polar ice caps is increasing at an alarming rate. The amount of Arctic ice in the summer of 2012 was the lowest in the history of the satellite record. Contrary to many people’s claims, climate change is not an isolated incident. All of the six records for reaching the lowest amount of seasonal ice on a satellite record have occurred in recent years! As a result of this warming, not only is polar ice melting, but the thickness of non-melting ice is also decreasing.
Polar ice reflects sunlight and helps keep the earth cool. Due to global warming, the Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight is declining due to the rapid melting of ice. As the reflection capacity of sunlight
decreases, the temperature of the earth increases and the amount of water evaporating from the sea surface increases. The resulting water vapor, like carbon dioxide gas, is playing a role in warming the earth by retaining significant amounts of solar heat. In short, global warming is a process that is ultimately having a negative effect on the earth by activating one phase after another of the vicious cycle.
Another catastrophic consequence of climate change is ocean acidification. Oceanographers call it, aptly, “The evil twin of global warming”. It is also known as “The other CO2 problem”. Evil carbon dioxide gas is also responsible for the acidification of the oceans due to global warming.
A special feature of carbon dioxide gas is that it produces carbonic acid (H2CO3) through chemical reactions with water. This carbonic acid (actually, the hydrogen ion produced in the reaction) increases the acidity of the solvent water. The same thing happened at sea.
The oceans absorb one-fourth of the carbon dioxide gas in the Earth’s atmosphere. This gas reacts with seawater to increase its acidity. As a result, the existence of aquatic animals living in the sea is under threat. At the same time, our food supply is under threat. In recent times, for example, in many parts of the world, the availability of certain species of fish, especially shrimp (from a scientific point of view, shrimp, however, does not include fish species), has declined significantly. The amount of this reduction is so obvious that many are forced to think about running a long-term business! According to scientists, the pH of sea water has dropped by 0.1 unit since the dawn of industrialization, in the 1800s. PH is the unit of measurement of acidity. Since the scale of this unit is logarithmic, the concentration of hydrogen ions (H +) increases the acidity of seawater by 29%! The amount of carbon dioxide gas (mole fraction) in the Earth’s atmosphere before industrialization was 260 ppm, up from a record 400 ppm last year. As a percentage, this increase is 40%!
Scientists have calculated that if it is not possible to reduce the rate at which industries currently emit carbon dioxide, the mole fraction of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere will exceed 1000 ppm by 2100, which will increase the acidity of sea water by 100-150%! Again, since plants use carbon dioxide gas as a raw material for photosynthesis, a significant increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could increase the amount of vegetation on Earth in a way that is not normal for Earth. In a word, except for a few exceptions, such as the so-called asteroid ratio of 65 million years ago, the Earth has undergone as much change in its four and a half billion years as it has in the last 300 years due to man-made disasters alone!
Climate change is an inescapable reality today. As a result of climate change, the world today is facing a double whammy called global warming and sea acidification. Although there are differences of opinion among scientists about the ultimate effects of climate change, there is no disagreement among scientists as to why the earth should be confronted with a negative reality.
The world is already beginning to see the effects of climate change. The unusual behavior of the seasons, the change in the size of the jet streams affecting the seasons over 10 kilometers of the earth, global warming, the rising sea level, the acidification of the oceans – these are undisputed realities today. As a Bangladeshi, it is a matter of panic for us that lowland countries like Bangladesh will be most affected by climate change.
According to scientists, as a result of climate change, sea level could rise by more than 3 feet by 2100, flooding the coastal areas of low-lying countries like Bangladesh. In the meantime, as a result of climate change, the agricultural lands in the southern part of Bangladesh are being affected by salinity. The north and northwest have to deal with drought and extreme temperatures. Cyclones have increased in the south and southeast. In other words, whether the sea level rises or a natural disaster, we are at the beginning of the list of victims from all sides. Therefore, as one of the victims of this man-made disaster, we should be the first to be aware and vocal.
