Report Writing – Practice Project
Report Writing – Practice Project
Global Warming - Objectives
In 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 Task
Using 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 Facts
Is 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_warmin
g.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 overemittance 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 Facts
10 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 Facts
Is 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 Facts
Is 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 Facts
The greenhouse effect
Most 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 Facts
The 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 Facts
The consequences
General 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 Facts
What 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 hydroelectric 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 Facts
What 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