The Debate Over Climate Change - 1388 Words

There is a dire divide between scientists politicians in America that has potential to seriously harm the entirety of the world. Nothing represents that divide as closely as the debate over climate change. An almost unanimous amount, 97%, of climate scientists believe there is strong evidence to support global warming (nasa.gov.) In congress, over quarter of Representatives and Senators obstinately believe the opposite, no matter what evidence is presented to the contrary (thinkprogress.org.) The depth of the issue became especially apparent when Senator Jim Inhofe, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, brought a snowball into congress as testimony against global warming. Even after thousands of people have pointed out the†¦show more content†¦Comparatively, something relatively cool like the Earth or a human body emits a very large wavelength. When small wavelength light of the sun enters the atmosphere, most of it doesn’t interact with greenhouse gas es (such as carbon dioxide and methane) and simply passes through. Once the light hits Earth, it can either be absorbed or reflected.In the case where it is reflected, its wavelength doesn’t change and it has a relatively high chance of passing back through the atmosphere. If the light is absorbed, it will eventually be reemitted by the Earth at a comparatively longer wavelength light, which interacts with the atmosphere much more frequently. This results in more of the light becoming â€Å"trapped† in Earth’s atmosphere. If there are more greenhouse gases, it essentially increases the degree cycle’s effect. More of the light being trapped leads to the Earth having more energy, or equivalently a larger temperature. Global warming, as the name might suggest, has resulted in a rise of global temperature averages. Already, inaction over in the increase of greenhouse gases has caused the global temperature average to rise by about .7â„Æ' (1.3℉) in t he past century as shown in Figure 1.The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), predicts that it could easily rise by a further 2â„Æ' to 6â„Æ' in the coming century if nothing is done