Report Writing – Practice Project

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - ObjectivesIn this project you will learn:• something about Global Warming and it effect on

the planet. • how to used facts and data to create a report.• use a report format to write a report

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The TaskUsing the information in this document and your own research, produce a report on the effects of Global Warming on the planet.

You must use at least one chart and one image in your report.

Submission deadline: Wed 17 April.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The FactsIs It Happening?

Yes. Earth is already showing many signs of worldwide climate change.• Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century's last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.• The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average, according to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The Facts

• Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting—for example, Montana's Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.• Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching—or die-off in response to stress—ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 percent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.• An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heat waves, and strong tropical storms, is also attributed in part to climate change by some experts.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The Facts

Are Humans Causing It?• "Very likely," the IPCC said in a February 2007 report.The report, based on the work of some 2,500 scientists in more than 130 countries, concluded that humans have caused all or most of the current planetary warming. Human-caused global warming is often called anthropogenic climate change.• Industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases that help trap heat near Earth's surface. (See an interactive feature on how global warming works.)• Humans are pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than plants and oceans can absorb it.• These gases persist in the atmosphere for years, meaning that even if such emissions were eliminated today, it would not immediately stop global warming.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The Facts

Are Humans Causing It?• Some experts point out that natural cycles in Earth's orbit can alter the planet's exposure to sunlight, which may explain the current trend. Earth has indeed experienced warming and cooling cycles roughly every hundred thousand years due to these orbital shifts, but such changes have occurred over the span of several centuries. Today's changes have taken place over the past hundred years or less.• Other recent research has suggested that the effects of variations in the sun's outputare "negligible" as a factor in warming, but other, more complicated solar mechanisms could possibly play a role.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The Facts

What's Going to Happen?A follow-up report by the IPCC released in April 2007 warned that global warming could lead to large-scale food and water shortages and have catastrophic effects on wildlife.• Sea level could rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 to 59 centimeters) by century's end, the IPCC's February 2007 report projects. Rises of just 4 inches (10 centimeters) could flood many South Seas islands and swamp large parts of Southeast Asia.• Some hundred million people live within 3 feet (1 meter) of mean sea level, and much of the world's population is concentrated in vulnerable coastal cities. In the U.S.,Louisiana and Florida are especially at risk.• Glaciers around the world could melt, causing sea levels to rise while creating water shortages in regions dependent on runoff for fresh water.• Strong hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and other natural disasters may become commonplace in many parts of the world. The growth of deserts may also cause food shortages in many places.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The Facts

What's Going to Happen?• More than a million species face extinction from disappearing habitat, changing ecosystems, and acidifying oceans.• The ocean's circulation system, known as the ocean conveyor belt, could be permanently altered, causing a mini-ice age in Western Europe and other rapid changes.• At some point in the future, warming could become uncontrollable by creating a so-called positive feedback effect. Rising temperatures could release additional greenhouse gases by unlocking methane in permafrost and undersea deposits, freeing carbon trapped in sea ice, and causing increased evaporation of water

http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The Facts

1. Global warming is the increase of Earth's average surface temperature due to greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels or from deforestation, which trap heat that would otherwise escape from Earth.

2. Greenhouse gases keep heat close to the earth’s surface making it livable for humans and animals. However, global warming is happening largely to an over-emittance of these gases and fossil fuels (natural oil, gasoline, coal).

3. With the start of industry in the 1700s, humans began emitting more fossil fuels from coal, oil, and gas to run our cars, trucks, and factories. By driving a “smarter” car, you can not only save on gas, but help prevent global warming.

4. There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than at any point in the last 800,000 years.

5. In total, the U.S. emits approximately 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year. 40 percent of that comes from power plant emissions alone.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The Facts10 Facts About Global Warming

6. The NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) proposed the Clean Air Act to cut power plant emissions by 26 percent in the next 7 years.

7. In the last century, sea levels rose roughly 7 inches after not having changed noticeably in the previous 2,000 years. Sea levels rising are an effect of global warming and put many states at risk of existing in the near future.

8. Consequences of global warming include drought, severe hurricanes, massive fires, and melting of the polar caps.

9. Heat waves caused by global warming present greater risk of heat-related illness and death, most frequently among patients of diabetes who are elderly or very young.

10.According to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the temperature in the U.S. has increased by 2 degrees in the last 50 years and precipitation by 5 percent.

http://www.dosomething.org/actnow/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-global-warming

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The FactsIs it real?Records show that the average temperature of the planet is climbing quite rapidly.The global average surface air temperature has risen by between 0.3 and 0.6 degrees C in the last century. For Britain, 1998 has proved the hottest year in the last thousand years.• Although the global weather system is extremely complex and not wholly

understood, experts say that such a rapid change in temperature is bound to have severe implications for future weather and climate patterns.

• Climate researchers are predicting that the Earth's average temperature will continue to increase in the next 100 years.

• If greenhouse gas emissions drop slightly, the average world temperature in 2100 could be 1 degree C warmer than in 1990.

• But if they increase a lot and the climate proves very sensitive, the rise could be 3.5 degrees C.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The FactsIs it real?• Scientists think they have uncovered evidence of just such sensitivity. They

believe that rainforests damaged by the results of climate change will themselves start emitting carbon, making the problem worse still.

• The global sea level has risen by between 10 and 25 cms over the last century, as glaciers melt and warming sea water expands.

• Levels could rise by between 15 and 95 cms by 2100, and they will inevitably go on rising for 500 years, because the oceans have only just begun to warm up.

• If the researchers' predictions are correct, the rate of change over the last two to three centuries will have been greater than at any other time in the last 10,000 years.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The FactsThe greenhouse effectMost scientists believe recent global warming has been generated by human influence on a naturally-occurring phenomenon called the greenhouse effect.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The FactsThe greenhouse effect• Most scientists believe recent global warming has been generated by human The Sun's energy heats the surface of the Earth, although some of that heat is radiated back into space and the planet cools.• Some gases in the atmosphere, called the greenhouse gases, prevent this radiation and so trap the heat.• Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been pumping out huge quantities of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide.• Before 1850 human activity had little influence on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but since the industrial revolution concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, have greatly increased.• Burning fossil fuels is responsible for most of the increase in carbon dioxide.• The upsurge in concentrations of methane is due to gas produced by livestock and rice paddies.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The FactsThe consequencesGeneral warming is expected to lead to an increase in the number of extremely hot days and decrease in the number of extremely cold days.•Warmer temperatures will lead to more severe droughts and floods in some places, and because rapid climate changes are unpredictable may lead to some "surprises".• And even if people are able to adapt to climate change, many animal species will not.• For vegetation the prospect is even worse. Plants and trees will not be able to migrate fast enough to find new habitats as the heat encroaches on their existing territory

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The FactsWhat can be done?Future trends may depend on action humans take to modify their activities. Both scientists and environment campaigners say human impact on the climate can be reduced by a number of measures:• We could reduce energy consumption by making fewer journeys and using better insulation in our homes. This would lessen the need to burn coal and oil, and lead to reduced emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.• Advances in technology could result in fossil fuels being burned more efficiently.• Emissions could be reduced by making wider use of low carbon fossil fuels like natural gas, and decarbonising exhaust gases from power plants.• Environmental groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth would like to see a switch to renewable and clean sources of energy such as solar, wind and hydro- electric power.• Sustaining existing forest cover, planting new trees and better management of land use is also suggested as a means to slow global warming.

Report Writing – Practice Project

Global Warming - The FactsWhat can be done?• More controversial is the use of nuclear power. Nuclear fission avoids using large quantities of fossil fuel for energy but is very contentious because it produces radioactive waste.• Nuclear fusion, a theoretical way of harnessing power by fusing atoms which is still under development, may one day provide a cleaner alternative to the world's energy problem.What we are seeing now is the result of the greenhouse gases emitted up till 1968, because the climate takes about 30 years to catch up with extra pollution already emitted.The damage our pollution today is causing will not become apparent till about 2030.And analysis of ancient ice rings drilled from miles down on the Greenland ice cap shows that the climate can cool down or heat up quite dramatically in less than three decades.

Global Warming Images

Global Warming Images