The Greenhouse Effect Essays - Climate Change, Greenhouse Gases

The Greenhouse Effect Essays - Climate Change, Greenhouse Gases The Greenhouse Effect The greenhouse effect is an increase in the atmospheric temperature caused by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases. These gases act as a heat blanket insulating the Earth's surface absorbing and trapping heat radiation which normally escapes from the earth. They include carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, CFC's, and other halocarbons. The earth's atmosphere goes through two processes constantly. Global cooling is the first process. This process uses the clouds which cover 60% of the earth's surface to reflect 30% of the solar radiation. It also uses a sulfate haze, which is formed by sulfur dioxide from industrial sources that enter the atmosphere and react with compounds to form a high-level aerosol. These cool the atmosphere by blocking us from direct contact with the sun. The reflection of the sunlight is referred to as planetary albedo and contributes to the overall cooling. The second is the warming process. This is when light energy comes through the atmosphere and is absorbed by Earth and transformed to heat energy at the planet's surface. The infrared heat energy then radiates upward into space. There the greenhouse gases found naturally in the troposphere absorb some of the infrared radiation. The gases insulate the Earth, but do eventually allow the heat to escape. Without these greenhouse gases the earth would be would 33 C colder. Global temperature is a balance of the effects of the factors leading to global cooling, and warming. Unfortunately, increased emissions of greenhouse gases increase the warming process. For example, every kilogram of fossil fuels burned equals 3 kilograms of carbon dioxide ( the mass triples because each carbon atom in fuel bond to two oxygen atoms, in the course of burning, and forms C02. ) 6 billion tons of fossil fuel carbon are burned each year adding 18 billion tons of C02 to the atmosphere. This has increase the carbon dioxide concentrations by 25% and has cause temperatures to increase more than 0.7 C over the last hundred years. We hope that the forests will act as a sink for carbon dioxide but instead they are a net source. This is because the forests are being cut and burned adding 1 to 2 billion tons annually to the 6 billion tons of carbon already from industrial processes. Fortunately, the top 300 meters of oceans absorb most of the carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels. Other factors are known to increase the greenhouse effect. These factor are water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, CFC's and other halocarbons. Water vapor is also a major factor in what has been called the "supergreenhouse effect" in the tropical Pacific ocean. Water vapor traps energy that has been radiated back to the atmosphere. The high concentration of H2O vapor contributes significantly to the heating of the ocean surface and lower atmosphere in the tropical Pacific. Methane (CH4) is a product of microbial fermentative reactions and is also emitted from coal mines, gas pipelines, and oil wells. Methane is gradually destroyed, but it is added to the atmosphere faster than it can be broken down. Nitrous oxide (N2O) can be found in biomass burning, chemical fertilizers, and fossil fuel burning. Nitrous oxide is more dangerous than some of the others because of its long residence time of 170 years. CFC's and other halocarbons are found in refrigerants, solvents, and fire retardants. Halocarbons have a greater capacity, 10 000 times, for absorbing infrared radiation, which is about 60% more, than CO2. Although there is increase in the application of some of these gases, they will decrease in importance in the future leaving carbon dioxide as the primary dilemma. In 1981, James Hansen of NASA invented a model with an ability to track known temperature changes and link them to past and future carbon dioxide levels as well as global temperature changes. The model suggested the combination of CO2 and volcanic emissions was responsible for most of the observed changes in temperature during the 1980's. A trend of warming of more than 0.7 C coincides with an increase of 25% in carbon dioxide. Two major impacts of greenhouse effect are regional climatic changes and a rise in sea levels. A climactic change will lead to variations in temperature. Scientists expect more precipitation which may prove to be disastrous for North America by flooding rivers and lakes. A rise in the sea levels is anticipated because of an increase in thermal expansion and the melting of ice caps and ice fields. Like extensive rainfalls, a rise in the ocean will flood lakes and rivers covering land and may someday

How to Write a Horror Story 7 Tips for Writing Horror

How to Write a Horror Story 7 Tips for Writing Horror How to Write a Horror Story: 7 Tips for Writing Horror In our era of highly commercialized crime and thriller novels, it may seem like zeitgeist-defining horror books are a thing of the past. Indeed, Stephen King was once the perennial bestselling author in the world, and children in the 90s devoured Goosebumps books like The Blob devoured, well, everything.But let’s not forget there’s a huge base of horror fans today, desperate for their next fix. So if you’re hoping to become the next Crown Prince of Dread, your dream can still come true! And the first step is learning how to write a horror story. 7 key tips to writing a blood-chilling horror story 😠± 1. Tap into common fearsThe most important part of any horror story is naturally going to be its fear factor. People don’t read horror for easy entertainment; they read it to be titillated and terrorized. That said, here are a few elements you can use to seriously scare the pants off your reader.Instinctive fearsFears that have some sort of logical or biological foundation are often the most potent in horror. Darkness, heights, snakes, and spiders - all these are extremely common phobias rooted in instinct. As a result, they tend to be very effective at frightening readers.This is especially true when terror befalls innocent characters apropos of nothing: a killer traps them in their house for no apparent reason, or they’re suddenly mugged by a stranger with a revolver. As horror writer Karen Woodward says, â€Å"The beating undead heart of horror is the knowledge that bad things happen to good people.†Monsters and supernatural entitiesThese stretch beyond the r ealm of logic and into the realm of the â€Å"uncanny,† as Freud called it. We all know that vampires, werewolves, and ghosts aren’t real, but that doesn’t mean they can’t shake us to our core. In fact, it’s the very uncertainty they arouse that makes them so sinister: what if monsters are really out there, we’ve just never seen them? This fear is one of the most prevalent in horror, but if you decide to write in this vein, your story has to be pretty convincing.Societal tensionsAnother great means of scaring people is to tap into societal tensions and concerns - a tactic especially prevalent in horror movies. Just in recent memory, Get Out tackles the idea of underlying racism in modern America, The Babadook examines mental health, and It Follows is about the stigma of casual sex. However, societal tensions can also easily be embodied in the pages of a horror story, as in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. Have you ever tried writing horror? Did you manage to scare yourself? Tell us in the comments!