Global Warning: A historical reading
By Fonju Ndemesah
Right from the time of our early ancestors, humankind has always asked questions about the environment. People who lived before us questioned the effect of human activities on the environment. In this continuous questioning, many stated that human activities could have an impact on climate. Many years ago, Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, sustained that the draining of marshes had made a particular locality more susceptible to freezing, and he speculated that lands became warmer when the clearing of forests exposed them to sunlight. In line with this believe, the Renaissance and later scholars saw that deforestation, irrigation, and grazing had altered the lands around the Mediterranean since ancient times; they thought it plausible that these human interventions had affected the local weather.[i][ii]
In 1827, Fourier sustained that humans could affect the climate. 49 years later, Arrhenius endeavored to trace the link between fossil-fuel burning and warming. In 1979, the first ever World Climate Conference was held. The conference found that it was urgent and necessary to take action to stop anthropogenic changes in climate that may cause great problems to humanity in the near future.[iii]
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Few years later, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. The groundwork for the creation of the IPCC was laid by the Advisory Group on Greenhouse Effect created a decade after the first World Climate Conference.[iv]
The IPCC has become one of the most influential bodies on Global Warming issues. To undertake the task of understanding Global Warming and Climate Change the IPCC has been divided into three working groups:
Sources
[i] Glacken, Clarence J. (1967). Traces on the Rhodian Shore. Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[ii] Neumann, J. (1985). "Climatic Change as a Topic in the Classical Greek and Roman Literature". Climatic Change 7: 441–454.
[iii] Joyeeta Gupta(2001). Our Simmering Planet: What to do about global warming? Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing Ltd
[iv] Earth has been in radiative imbalance since at least the 1970s, where less energy leaves the atmosphere than enters it. Most of this extra energy has been absorbed by the oceans. It is very likely that human activities substantially contributed to this increase in ocean heat content. In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
Right from the time of our early ancestors, humankind has always asked questions about the environment. People who lived before us questioned the effect of human activities on the environment. In this continuous questioning, many stated that human activities could have an impact on climate. Many years ago, Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, sustained that the draining of marshes had made a particular locality more susceptible to freezing, and he speculated that lands became warmer when the clearing of forests exposed them to sunlight. In line with this believe, the Renaissance and later scholars saw that deforestation, irrigation, and grazing had altered the lands around the Mediterranean since ancient times; they thought it plausible that these human interventions had affected the local weather.[i][ii]
In 1827, Fourier sustained that humans could affect the climate. 49 years later, Arrhenius endeavored to trace the link between fossil-fuel burning and warming. In 1979, the first ever World Climate Conference was held. The conference found that it was urgent and necessary to take action to stop anthropogenic changes in climate that may cause great problems to humanity in the near future.[iii]
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Few years later, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. The groundwork for the creation of the IPCC was laid by the Advisory Group on Greenhouse Effect created a decade after the first World Climate Conference.[iv]
The IPCC has become one of the most influential bodies on Global Warming issues. To undertake the task of understanding Global Warming and Climate Change the IPCC has been divided into three working groups:
- Science: Looks at the scientific aspects of climate change system
- Impact and adaptation: focuses on the vulnerability of human and natural systems to change and possible adaptations
- Mitigation: survey ways of limiting greenhouse gases and mitigating climate change
Sources
[i] Glacken, Clarence J. (1967). Traces on the Rhodian Shore. Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[ii] Neumann, J. (1985). "Climatic Change as a Topic in the Classical Greek and Roman Literature". Climatic Change 7: 441–454.
[iii] Joyeeta Gupta(2001). Our Simmering Planet: What to do about global warming? Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing Ltd
[iv] Earth has been in radiative imbalance since at least the 1970s, where less energy leaves the atmosphere than enters it. Most of this extra energy has been absorbed by the oceans. It is very likely that human activities substantially contributed to this increase in ocean heat content. In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming