Global Warming: The Fuel that is Affecting Weather - Student Operated Press

Published:May 28th, 2012 23:19 EST

I wrote a couple of articles on the problem of global warming in the past and I discussed a little about what global warming is, the future trends as global warming increases and what scientist are expecting to happen play by play over the next hundred or so years if global warming is not harnessed and gotten under control.

We all see the current affects global warming has had on our environment but the one element global warming has really affected like pouring fuel on a hot Bar-B-Que is our weather. Scientists have been baffled trying to predict and chase theories of how global warming will continue to affect our weather but have not been able to pinpoint a definite hypothesis as to what the effects of global warming will have on our normal or should I say once normal weather patterns not only across the United States but globally.

We are seeing it right now as summer is roaring in like a freight train out of control with the extreme temperatures that are so hot you can fry and egg on your local sidewalk. It is over 90-degrees in my apartment and I have the air going right now! Unbelievable!

With the effects of global warming the trends of extreme weather patterns are expected to worsen. We are already seeing major weather related power outages that are getting as routine daily as drinking your morning cup of coffee. Our gas and oil infrastructure that are located in the Gulf region are becoming more and more at risk with the intensification of hurricanes and tropical storms in that region and other problems like the transporting of coal from the Midwest that may be disrupted with the more intense flooding and extreme tornadoes in that area of the country. Another problem that is being predicted is the electricity generation in the Southwest which could become limited by water shortages caused by extreme heat. So, you see the problems keep coming as global warming keeps rolling along.

Not only does our planet warm with the problem of global warming and in one of my last articles on this I believe science mentioned our planet has warmed over one-degrees in the last hundred year and the one-degree warming may not seem like a lot but on a large scale it is as intense as jumping into a frozen lake in Minnesota in the middle of January just after you came out of a ninety-degree heated room. Not that I have ever done that but that is the measurable scale of heating our planet up by just one degree.

With this information scientists are predicting our country alone will heat up another four to eleven degrees on average over the next century and this will bring more and more extreme heat waves. We are already seeing hotter and intensely hot summer days around the country.

Even the little things like living in urban and closely populated areas that have a lot of asphalt and concrete that radiate and absorb heat will make it fell at least ten degrees hotter in those areas. This is bad news for a lot of people especially the elderly.

I know one thing that I cannot stand at the beginning of spring and early summer especially when it starts to get hotter and that is the extreme allergies. The prediction is for those Americans that suffer from allergies to worsen for them. The spring time tree pollen that we all see every day when we go to our car in the morning and cannot recognize it because it is draped in yellow pollen is expected to worsen and the pollen counts are expected not just to rise but to intensify to extreme levels.

The ragweed we try to dodge in the fall is expected to thrive as increased carbon dioxide levels go to the next level. With this major allergy problem expected to intensify; the problem does not just lie with the ones that go through a box of Kleenex every hour trying to keep their noses dry it also causes a domino effect on our direct health care costs and companies will probably see lots of workers out of work and that causes lost productivity costs. The United States alone already pays over 32 billion dollars annually in direct health care cost, not a cost we really need to see rising right now with our economy finally turning around.

Global warming doesn`t just affect the warm and hot elements of our weather and climates. The winter months are also affected. In the Northern United States the winter months are becoming milder and shorter on average and spring is arriving 10 to 14 days earlier than normal than it once did just 20 years ago.

Also in the northern United States and other Northern areas are starting to experience more intense and heavy snowfall evens as more and more storm tracks are gliding and shifting Northward as the reduced ice cover over the Great Lakes increase the chances of more lake effect snowfalls to happen.

As I mentioned above global warming is expected to cause more water shortages which lead to extreme droughts. Global warming is starting to shift precipitation patterns and is also having an effect on evaporation rates. These trends are expected to continue and are also expected to create persistently drier conditions in a lot of places including the Southwest where it is already hotter than normal lately.

Global Warming is also expected to intensify the already periodic droughts in other locations in the country. With this problem come longer and drier droughts which will impact and have major consequences for water supply, agriculture and our valued wildlife?

Not only these problems of droughts more intense weather patterns, allergies and hotter summer days that are becoming pieces of a puzzle that make up global warming but add in another piece to the global warming puzzle that is also starting to become a more intense problem; Wildfires.

I just saw on the news yesterday the out of control wildfires in New Mexico, Arizona and my home state of California that are burning out of control and blackening some of the most beautiful landscape in the country but the prediction is for more catastrophic wild fires to happen especially in the West.

With the rising and hotter temperatures and the more intensely drying conditions are proving to set the stage for feeding more and more wildfire to happen. Also, with the more intense weather patterns that have fueled thunderstorms that were once like baby lambs and are now like hungry lions that are so intense just the lightning strikes from those thunderstorms are as powerful and more intense as a drag racer hitting zero to sixty in less than a nanosecond. The more intense thunderstorms have more and more lightning strikes which are one of the main culprits to causing wildfires.

If you live anywhere in the Midwest or the extreme South you know about floods. The effects of global warming has caused heavier rainfall amounts and increased the likelihood of more intense floods. Since global warming has caused warmer air which tends to hold more moisture, this is the reason and prediction that heavier amounts of precipitation will occur in the coming years as global warming intensifies. You also have the possibility with the ice melting faster in many rivers and the shifts in snowfall patterns will become problems with flooding around the country.

If you live in Florida or in some cases along the East Coast and Gulf region then you live with the possibility of hurricanes. "As per National Wildlife Federation Stronger hurricanes, heavier rainfall and rising sea level: this is what global warming has in store for the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts. The latest science indicates that maximum hurricane wind speed will increase 2 to 13 percent and rainfall rates will increase 10 to 31 percent over this century. At the same time, sea-level rise will cause bigger storm surges and further erode the natural defenses provided by coastal wetlands that buffer storm impacts." (nwf.org, 2012)

So, think about it, if any of you are spiritual then you know all these predictions by scientist that are supposedly going to happen as a result of global warming is the same thing the Bible states is going to happen and take place. From the human side of it we really need to try to get a grip on this major problem of global warming and nip it in the bud while we still may have a chance to do so.

If you have kids like I do then you worry that in their lifetime the effect of global warming may have an impact on their world, so something really does need to be done as soon as possible.

Reference:

National Wildlife Federation, Global Warming is Affecting Weather, (http://www.nwf.org/global-warming/) Retrieved 2012.