Climate Change, sea level rises and engineering Hull for the future. In areas such as Hull, which is and area that could potentially be at risk of flooding in the near future as a side effect on climate change, defences along the river Humber would be ve

Authors Avatar

Climate Change, sea level rises and engineering Hull for the future

Over the period since planet Earth formed “there have always been fluctuations in the earths climate“(Claussen E,Cochran VA, Davis DP, 2001, Climate change: science, strategies, & solutions, ed,: Leiden, Boston, Koin; Brill, 2001) through variations of the amount of sunlight passing through the earths atmosphere, changes in the distance the earth is from the sun, which affects how long the glacial periods last on earth, “the period where the earth is furthest away creates a period of colder darker summers and winters, but when the earth is closer the glaciers retreat and warmer winters and summers occur . Every 100,000 to 400,000 years the earths course around the sun alters slightly to follow an elliptical pattern around the sun“(Johnson D, James DR.R, Hammer M, January 6th 2009, Ocean World [online], What turns ice age on and off ..,   http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/students/iceage/iceage2.htm), creating extreme winters and summers, thus altering the vegetation allowing it to adapt and adopt the surrounding environment.

Also the Earth faces different orientations around its axis, where every “23,000 to 26,000 years the earth wobbles by 23.5 degrees about its axis”(Johnson D, James DR.R, Hammer M, January 6th 2009, Ocean World [online], What turns ice age on and off ..,   http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/students/iceage/iceage2.htm) which on its own creates colder winters allowing for the spread on glaciers and snow across parts of the earth as well as warmer summers with the glaciers retreating. Winters and summers will never be the same as the last winter or summer because nothing is ever exact as we only measure to the smallest degree that’s appropriate and without scientific research, curiosity and sheer persistence to find out more information about the surrounding world, changes in the climate would have gone unnoticed.

 Ice core analysis which is studied by drilling ice cores from areas such as Antarctica and Greenland, “ the carbon dioxide trapped within the ice is a climate indicator”(Redfern D, Skinner M, 2003, Advanced Geography, Chapter 9, Oxfordshire,p202-203) where CO2 levels tend to be lower during cooler periods and tend to be higher during warmer periods. Another example is Pollen analysis where species have particular climatic requirements which influence their geographical distributions.” Each plant species has a distinctively shaped pollen grain and if these fall in to oxygen free environments, such as peat bogs, they resist decay”(Redfern D, Skinner M, 2003, Advanced Geography, Chapter 9, Oxfordshire,p202-203). The changes in the pollen found in different levels of the bog indicate changes in climate.

In today’s world the fact that the climate on earth is going to change again is believable in all cases because it has changed before and will continue to change, but scientists believe that with the introduction of the Human race there has been a rapid change in the warming of the planet that wouldn’t have naturally occurred and another name for this is global warming and even though scientists have thought to have found proof that its being brought about due to pollution of the atmosphere, in particular the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide from power stations, motor vehicles and factories ,there are still many people worldwide that are skeptical of this and think that the government is pulling the wool over their eyes sort of speak. “Since the 1800, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased markedly, due almost entirely to the human activities. At the same time, the average surface temperature of the earth has warmed by about 0.7 degrees Celsius“.(Maslin M, Motorbooks International

Join now!

, Global warming: causes effects & the future,12 April 2002) Both these figures seem to correlate with each other, but only the people who believe Climate change is happening would agree with this.

Global warming has become probably the major environmental issue of our time, and although scientists have often been slow to commit themselves about cause and effect, there is no doubt that the temperature of our planet is increasing. Climatic changes have happened in the past, but recent evidence suggest that the recent increase in  carbon dioxide in the troposphere allows incoming short wave radiation from the ...

This is a preview of the whole essay