Global warming is the rise in temperature of the earth's atmosphere. Even though most of us enjoy being warm, this can cause some real problems for us all. Global Warming for Kids, explains it like this: Imagine you live in a timber shack in Alaska. It's chilly up there, so you build yourself a huge log fire and pile on all the wood you can find. To start with, the fire seems a great idea—especially since it's so cold outside. The shack warms up slowly, but predictably, and it's soon pretty cozy. Since the shack is much warmer than the atmosphere and ground that surround it, it loses heat quite quickly. If the fire supplies heat at the same rate as the shack loses it, the shack stays at roughly the same temperature. But if you make the fire too big, the shack will get hotter... and hotter... and hotter. Before long, you'll start feeling uncomfortable. You might wish you'd never made the fire so big in the first place. But once it's burning, there's nothing you can do to stop it. The shack will keep getting hotter long after you stop piling wood on the fire (2).
If Earth gets hotter, some important changes could happen:
- Water expands when it's heated and oceans absorb more heat than land, so sea levels could rise.
- Sea levels could also rise due to the melting of the glaciers and sea ice.
- Cities on coasts could flood. Causing many to lose their homes or be injured.
- Places that usually get lots of rain and snowfall might get hotter and drier. Which could take away the water we need for agriculture (growing our food), and activities such as skiing.
- Lakes and rivers could dry up. We could lose our recreation areas for swimming, boating and fishing.
- There would be more droughts making it hard to grow the crops we all enjoy and need.
- Less water would be available for drinking, showers and swimming pools.
- Some plants and animals might become extinct because of the heat.
- Hurricanes, tornadoes and other storms, which are caused by changes in heat and water evaporation, may get more common (1). As we have already seen in many areas, including the United States, people could lose their homes, be injured, or even die. In fact,Episodes of El-Nino (a type of storm) are more intense and are lasting three times longer than they did a century ago.
Diseases spread by pests are expected to spread much further as our climate warms up. Mosquitoes, which can spread malaria, breed faster in warmer climates, and it is expected that by the year 2100 two-thirds of our world will be at risk of getting this disease.
My question to you is: What can you do in your home/everyday life to reduce global warming?
Have you heard of a Carbon Footprint? A Carbon Footprint is a measure of how we as humans effect the earth by the activities we do and by how much carbon dioxide is put out into the atmosphere by us as we do these activities.
You will find out more about your carbon footprint as you venture into the next website.
By completing this web quest you will have the resources to reduce your carbon footprint in the Earth. By looking and following the directions below you will search two websites and find out what your carbon footprint is now and what you can do to change and reduce it. Have fun and best of luck!
