Global Warming: It’s Affects on the Polar Ice Caps

Everywhere you look right now you will hear about the pheonomia of “global warming.” To understand global warming you need to understand the difference between climate and weather. Climate, as defined by Webster’s Dictionary is “the average course or condition of the weather at a place over a period of years as exhibited by tepemperature, wind velocity, and precipition” while weather is the “state of the atmosphere with respectto heat or cold, wetness or dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness” (Webster). Therefore climate describes the weather over time. Climate change and global warming are frequently used interchangeable but like climate and weather they do have different definitions. “Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate for an extended period” and global warming is an increase in the temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth's surface and in the troposphere, which can contribute to changes in global climate patterns” (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basicinfo.html right sidebar). The climate of the earth has made many changes since before written history. From the first recorded ice age about 800 to 600 million years ago all the way up to the present day long summer. The planet during one of these changes expienced a warming trend. This occurred fifty-five million years ago. This rise in temperature is believed to have been caused by a natural gas -presumably methane, which was forced out of the sea floor and as it was passing through the earth it was heated and this caused the methane gas to become carbon dioxide that was released into the seas. This influx of carbon dioxide actually turned the ocean waters acidic and the earth's surface temperature rose by 9 to 18 degrees Ferienheight. Nature was the cause of the global warming fifty-five million years ago. To understand global warming you need to have some understanding of the atmosphere. The atmosphere consists of four major parts. The part