Global Warming

Global warming can be defined as the current increase in the temperature of the Earth and even its atmosphere. This temperature increase is both for the land as well as the water. The average increase in the temperature in the world is observed as 1.4⁰F or 0.75⁰C (Dai 2013). This is the highest average temperature rise in the last 100 years. The world is experiencing the temperature rise because of the depletion of various natural resources and also for the accumulation of the greenhouse gases within the atmosphere by the human activities. The natural effect of greenhouse is responsible for maintaining the total temperature of the Earth at the safest level and hence making it subsequently possible for the human beings as well as other life forms to exist in the world (Crutzen et al. 2016). Although, the Earth is vulnerable for these types of dangerous effects, IT or information technology is extremely useful in all of these cases.

The following report outlines a brief discussion on the entire concept of global warming and how this global warming is becoming a major challenge for the world. The various causes as well as effects of global warming will also be provided here. Moreover, the procedure of how information technology could be helpful for removing the causes of global warming will also be described in the report properly.

Global Warming

Global warming is the specific phenomenon where is a drastic increase in the overall temperature of the Earth. The climatic change is extremely complex and hence various scientific data are being utilized to figure out, what actually is occurring (Kosaka and Xie 2013). The overall alteration in the climatic system of the Earth as well as the related effects is termed as global warming. However, this type of phenomenon differs from one location to the other and several anticipated effects involve the rising sea levels, deforestations, expanding deserts, change in the precipitation and many others.

There are several major and the most significant causes of global warming (McGlade and Ekins 2015). All of these causes are properly given below:

i) Emissions of Carbon Dioxide from Fossil Fuel Burning: The first and the foremost cause of the global warming is the specific emission of carbon dioxide or CO2 from the burning the fossil fuels. These types of emissions are mainly from burning fossil fuels from the various power plants (Trenberth et al. 2014). It has been observed that more than 40% of the carbon dioxide emissions are because of the electricity production. Moreover, around 93% of the emissions are from the burning coal accounts. Hence, this is one of the major causes of global warming in the world.

ii) Emissions of Carbon Dioxide from Burning Gasoline: The next important and significant cause of this global warming is the typical emission of carbon dioxide or CO2 from the burning of gasoline for the purpose of transportation. The excess usage of vehicles for the human beings is responsible for more than 33% of the total emissions of carbon dioxide in the world (Karl et al. 2015). Since, there is a huge increase in population, the demand for the cars or other vehicles have risen excessively. This excess consumption of fuels is the next major cause of the global warming phenomenon.

Causes of Global Warming

iii) Emissions of Methane from Animals and Agriculture: The third important cause of the global phenomenon is the significant emission of methane from the animals or agriculture. This methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, which is as polluted as carbon dioxide (Hansen et al. 2016). When the organic matter is being broken down by the bacteria in presence of oxygen starved conditions like in the rice paddies, this dangerous gas, methane is eventually produced. Methane clathrate is the next source of methane, which is a compound that contains huge amounts of methane trapped within the crystal structure.

iv) Deforestation: The fourth popular and significant cause of the global warming is the deforestation (Fyfe, Gillett and Zwiers 2013). The utilization of forests for the fuels like wood as well as charcoal is the most important cause for this deforestation. The major requirement for the wood or paper products has enhanced the deforestation to a higher level. The consumption of the forest land or the utilization of tropical forest land for various commodities such as palm oil plantation is contributing to the major deforestation within the world (Chen and Tung 2014). The forests remove as well as store the carbon dioxide from atmosphere and hence the deforestation is releasing the larger amount of carbon. This in turn is reducing the amount of the significant carbon capture within the planet.

v) Increase in the Use of Chemical Fertilizers: The overall utilization of the chemical fertilizers for the agriculture as well as crops has eventually increased in the last 50 years. This higher rate of application of the nitrogen rich fertilizers comprises of various effects over the storage of heat on the cropland (Hughes et al. 2017). The nitrogen oxides subsequently have 300 times more capacity of the heat trapping in one unit of volume than the carbon dioxide. The excess running off the fertilizers has created dead zones within the oceans.

The above mentioned causes of global warming have brought significant changes in the Earth’s atmosphere and thus have given rise to the various effects and these effects of global warming are given below:

i) Rise in Sea Levels: The first and the foremost effect of the global warming causes is the rise in the sea levels in the entire world (Myers et al. 2013). This type of increase in the sea levels for the melting of the two huge ice sheets in Greenland as well as Antarctica has substantially become one of the major destruction in the environment. This type of issue should be resolved as soon as possible for avoiding other major problems in the environment.

ii) Massive Crop Failures: The second major effect of the global warming causes is the massive crop failures (Cook et al. 2016). As per a recent survey, there is a 90% chance that the crop failures are occurring because of the methane emissions from agriculture.

iii) Excess Heat: Another important and significant effect of the various causes of global warming is the increase of the heat. Due to the causes of global warming, excess heat is being depleted and hence the overall temperature rise is possible here (Frieler et al. 2013). This type of heat is extremely vulnerable for both the Earth’s surface spaces and water and even the atmosphere.

Effects of Global Warming

These above mentioned factors demonstrate that the global warming causes are extremely dangerous as well as nefarious for the society and are thus giving rise to the various mentioned effects of global warming.

IT or the information technology is the proper use of various systems that help to do undergo or execute several operations of data or information like the data manipulation, data retrieval, data transmission as well as data storage within any organization (Dahlstrom, Walker and Dziuban 2013). Information technology is the subsequent subset of the ICT or information and communication technology.

The information technology has various advantages and all of these are extremely important for the environment and the Earth. For the significant causes of the global warming, this information technology could be a major help to the society (Eason 2014). The climate change could be easily controlled by several innovative IT methods and these methods are as follows:

i) Big Data: This big data comprises of various implications for creating awareness regarding the consequences of the change in climate. The utilization of big data is one of the best methods for controlling this particular issue of global warming (Marchewka 2014). The specific perspective of the Big Data Climate Challenge has become the most important innovation in information technology.

ii) Mobile Applications: Some of the most significant applications are present that help in the proper creation of the original changes on the regular basis (Dai 2013). The carbon footprint is tracked with the help of an application, namely Oroeco, which tracks the carbon foot print by simple placing the carbon value from wherever the emissions have occurred. The next method is the PaperKarma that helps in cutting the paper waste. It takes the snap of the junk mail and is then sent through this particular application for subsequently figuring out that what is inside the mailing list (Crutzen et al. 2016). All of these mobile applications are the significant boons of information technology for reducing the major causes of global warming.

iii) Hackathons: These are the extremely powerful tools for providing significant environmental solutions for the sustainability. The creation of the new wave of the environmentalism is done with these Hackathons tool (Kosaka and Xie 2013). Moreover, this Hackathons tool helps in energy supply and thus wind as well as solar energies is well tracked with it.

iv) Internet of Things: IoT or the Internet of Things is another important and significant technological innovation in the technology (McGlade and Ekins 2015). This IoT helps to the monitor the total usage of energy for making it possible to be smarter regarding this. The Internet of Things could easily save the carbon footprints as well as the energy with fewer things, which are as simple as the utilization of the application for turning off the lights, such as IFTTT (Trenberth et al. 2014). The effect of greenhouse gases is much higher than any other effect due to global warming and for this significant purpose; the technology of Internet of Things is being utilized eventually.

How Can IT Help to Reduce Causes of Global Warming

v) Open Source Movement: The fifth important technique of the information technology that could be easily utilized for the proper reduction of the causes of global warming (Fyfe, Gillett and Zwiers 2013). The open data as well as open source technologies are considered as the huge way for easily accelerating the specific environmental research or innovation. The various scientists have opened the climate data with the public for making it easier for the accessing that data.

vi) Geo Engineering: Another significant and important technique of the information technology that could be easily utilized for the proper reduction of the causes of global warming is geo engineering (Dahlstrom, Walker and Dziuban 2013). It is also termed as the planet hacking as it utilizes the literal hacking of all the resources of the Earth for finding the newer solutions. This particular method takes the specific form of two distinct things, which are reduction of the carbon dioxide such as planting trees or fuel emissions from the power stations (Eason 2014). The other thing is the management of solar radiation, such as the release of the volcanic ashes as the coolant or even redirecting the solar rays.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that global warming is considered as one of the most significant and important reasons for causing major destruction in the Earth’s atmosphere as well as land and water. It is the gradual increment in the total temperature of the atmosphere of the Earth, which is generally attributed to the respective greenhouse effects and is caused by the specific increasing level of chloro fluoro carbon or CFC, carbon mono oxide or CO, carbon dioxide or CO2 and many other pollutants. It is the significant phenomenon that has become extremely common for the last one or two centuries. There are some of the major causes of global warming and amongst them the most vulnerable are the burning of fossil fuels, depletion of the ozone layer, deforestation as well as farming. The high consumption of electricity and other natural resources are the other important causes of global warming. The information technology or IT is one of the most important or vital technologies. Information technology is the significant utilization of systems that are utilized for storing, retrieving, transmitting and finally manipulating the data. The above report has properly outlined the several causes of global warming and the various effects of this phenomenon. The procedure of IT helping to reduce the causes of global warming is also given here.

References

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