Concern about recent and future changes in our earth’s temperature and the climate changes that those changes might cause has developed in the US and world-wide.
There have been recent increases in the global temperature, but most of the concern about global warming is for future temperature changes, said Richard Ambrose, director of the environmental science and engineering program at UCLA.
“Confidence in the future warming has gotten greater and greater … and confidence that the warming is caused by human activities has gotten stronger and stronger,” Ambrose said.
Global warming refers to an increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s surface, a phenomenon that has been ongoing over the past century.
In the last 100 years, the average global temperature has increased by a little less than a degree Celsius, and will very likely increase by an additional one to six degrees Celsius in the next hundred years, according to the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Control.
“Focus the Nation,” a symposium taking place in Bruin Plaza and Ackerman Grand Ballroom Thursday, will try to directly involve the campus in addressing global warming. The symposium will be part of a nation-wide event directed at the same goals.
More than 20 UCLA professors and staff, dozens of pro-environment businesses, students and Chancellor Gene Block will meet to help the campus understand what global warming is and to try to develop new solutions to the problem.
Though the change in global temperature seems trivial, even very small temperature changes can produce large regional climate effects.
The temperature increase over the past century was associated with a noticeable rise in sea level and an increase in the frequency of heavy precipitation and heat waves, according to the panel’s report.
“Temperature variations in the past have only been about one degree Celsius, and that includes the last (small) ice age,” said Richard Turco, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
A continued increase in global temperature will make sea levels rise and create more extreme regional climates, said Robert Mechoso, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at UCLA.
“Deserts will become bigger, monsoons will become more intense … hurricanes will become stronger,” he said.
In addition to such climate changes, the predicted rise in global temperatures would also cause big changes in the distributions of plants and animals, Ambrose said.
The report also indicates a strong belief that most of the warming the planet has undergone in the past 50 years is a direct result of human carbon dioxide emissions.
The role of carbon dioxide emissions in global warming is incontrovertible, Mechoso said. “(Greenhouse gas) emissions have increased in parallel with temperature increases since the late 1800s,” he said.
In the past year, Ambrose said, the discussion about global warming has really shifted from whether or not human activities are causing global warming to how the problem should be solved.
Carbon dioxide is a gas that is released into the air during the burning of fossil fuels, such as the gasoline that powers cars or the coal that is burned to create electricity.
The presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the earth because of the “greenhouse gas effect,” a process in which certain gasses blanket the earth and prevent excess heat from escaping.
About half of the energy coming from the sun is absorbed by the earth’s surface. Some of this energy is then emitted back out into the atmosphere. Most of that energy continues out into space, but some energy is trapped in the form of heat by various greenhouse gasses.
The presence of large amounts of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide greatly increases the amount of energy that is kept in the atmosphere as heat and inevitably contributes to warming the earth, Mechoso said.
The risks posed by extreme weather events due to increasing global temperatures can be avoided by slowing and eventually reversing the world’s increasing use of fossil fuels, according to the panel’s report.
However, knowing exactly how students can reduce their impact on climate change can be difficult.
Dante Cruz, a third-year history and Chicano studies student, tries to reduce his personal impact on global warming by using public transportation and walking instead of driving, though he wishes he did more.
“I don’t really know how I could be more helpful in supporting the cause,” said Cruz.
Ambrose said there are many easy and inexpensive ways to reduce personal impact on climate change, including driving less, using public transportation, installing compact fluorescent light bulbs and trying to use less energy.