Usman Abbas

FIQWS: Science of Homeland Security

Professor Greenspan  

11/9/2018

The relation of Human Activity and Climate Change

 

Proposal:

The topic that I am going to focus on is whether climate change is due to human activity. Climate change has been a controversial topic for many years and has led to much research in order to figure out the main cause of climate change. There has been scientific research that has measured human activities and how it is significantly contributing to climate change. Research has been done from various sources such as The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as they have measured the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from centuries ago until now. This is an example of how they measure how human activity has affected are climate currently. The research question for this topic would be, is a human activity the cause of climate change? The motive of this research is to prove that human activity is the major cause of climate change. To prove this, I am going to use different sources by using the Beam method. I am going to gather information using sources such as governmental websites, articles, analysis, and sources from the CCNY library.

 

Annotated Bibliography:

1) In the article “Climate change” from the United State National Weather Service gives a brief background on climate change. The purpose of the writing is to show how climate change is occurring based on the data that was gathered from the National Weather Service. Lastly, the article gives a brief example of how climate change is occurring by using recorded data that is based from centuries ago and data that are represented in our current millennial. One problem I might have with this source is finding which quote that would be good enough to discuss the background aspect of my essay. The reason why I found this source to be resourceful because the article gave a clear description of what climate change is. The article used evidence that is relevant to show the causes of climate change, the effects of climate change and how our current climate compares to the climate from centuries ago. Lastly, the article and the evidence was created by an organization known as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA) National Weather Service which can show how consistent their evidence is. An example quote that I might use in my essay is, “The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes, ‘that most of the observed increase in the globally averaged temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations’”(NOAA N.W.S 2).

2) In the article “Analysis Why Scientist think 100% of Global Warming is due to humans” by Zeke Hausfather discusses the analysis of how human activity contributes to global warming. The author begins with a brief summary of climate change and how humans and natural variability is affecting our climate. The author later analyzes the effect of human activity and the changing of climate based on a graph that shows the different factors that influence climate change. Lastly, the author concludes how human activity is considered the main contributor to climate change based on what the author analyzed. One problem that I might encounter while using this source is finding out which evidence would be the most appropriate. This source is resourceful because it provides evidence to prove the claim that human activity is a big factor for climate change. Not only that but the article provides graphs to show the different factors that contribute to climate change. Lastly, the source provides good evidence that contributes to the research question that I am going to discuss in my essay. When using this source, I would use the data that the author pointed out in the article and a quotes such as “The global warming witnessed over the past 150 years matches nearly perfectly what is expected from greenhouse gas emissions and other human activity, both in the simple model examined here and in more complex climate models. The best estimate of the human contribution to modern warming is around 100%” (Hausfather 7)

3)In the article “Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998–2008” compares the way in which the climate was 10 to 20 years ago and how it compares to now. The article discusses the way in which factors such as greenhouse gasses and human activities all contribute to climate change. Not only that but the author uses references from gathering evidence to show how anthropogenic climate change is occurring. One problem that I might approach while using this source is finding which evidence would be relevant enough to use in my essay. I find the article to be interesting because it provides records of how the climate is actually changing over the course of years. The article also is structured in a way in which it discusses the background, the results, and the analysis. This makes it easy to find certain quotes that I would be using to support my research question. An example quote from the text is “The finding that the recent hiatus in warming is driven largely by natural factors does not contradict the hypothesis: ‘most of the observed increase in global average temperature since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations (14)’” (Kaufman et al. 

4) The article Climate Change: Global Temperature” gives a brief example of the certain consequence of climate change. Climate change is already known to have consequences. One of these consequences that the author discusses in the article is the increasing global temperature. The author uses a model graph that shows how the global temperature has increased in time because of the increase in the CO2 concentrations. Not only that, but the author shows how the global temperature has increased over time with the concentration of the increased CO2 levels. One problem that I might encounter when using this source is finding out which evidence that would best describe the consequence of human activity and climate change. I found this article to be interesting because the author analyzed how climate change is the reason for the increase in global temperatures. The article also contributes to the research question as it shows how human activities have affected climate change and has resulted in the increase of global temperatures. An example quote that I could be used as a reference is “That extra heat is driving regional and seasonal temperature extremes, reducing snow cover and sea ice, intensifying heavy rainfall, and changing habitat ranges for plants and animals—expanding some and shrinking others” (Lindsey and Dahlman. Par 1)

5) In the article “Human behavioral contributions to climate change: Psychological and contextual drivers” the author discusses the way in which human behavior contributes to the change in climate. The article lists out the certain factors that contribute to climate change such as the population, environmental usage, greenhouse emissions and etc. The author does an analysis of statistical data to prove the factors that the author claims to be contributing to climate change. One problem I might encounter while using this source is figuring out which evidence would conclude the idea that human activity is a primary cause towards climate change. The thing that I found interesting about this article is that it shows a graphical representation of the different factors that contribute to climate change. The data then concludes that human show the greatest impact when it comes towards climate change. The article also shows graphical representation that I could incorporate into my essay. The section that I intend to use from the article is the graphical portion of the article, where it shows human activity having the most significant impact on climate change.

Citations 

The United States. National Weather Service. “Climate Change”. Silver Spring, Md. : NOAA, National Weather Service. Web. Oct 2007 Assessed Nov 2018

Exhibit: Zeke Hausfather, Analysis Why Scientist think 100% of Global Warming is due to humans. CarbonBrief, Dec 2017 Assessed Nov 2018

Swim, Janet K, Clayton, Susan, Howard George S. “Human behavioral contributions to climate change: Psychological and contextual drivers”. US: American Psychological Association. Assessed Nov 2018

Method: Rebecca Lindsey and LuAnn Dahlman, “Climate Change: Global Temperature”. Climate.gov.Web. Aug 2018. Assessed Nov 2018

Extra source: Kaufmann, R. K., H. Kauppi, M. L. Mann, and J. H. Stock. 2011. Reconciling Anthropogenic Climate Change with Observed Temperature 1998-2008. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, “CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions”. OurWorldInData. Web. 2018. Assessed Nov 2018.

Maria. Irma. Harvey. Sandy. Katrina. Andrew, “Hurricanes and Climate Change”. Union of Concerned Science. Web. Dec 2017. Assessed Nov 2018.

Michon Scott, Rebecca Lindsey, “Which emits more carbon dioxide: volcanoes or human activities?”. Climate.gov. Web. Jun 2016. Assessed Nov 2018

Rebecca Lindsey “Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”. Climate.gov. Web. Aug 2018.

Charles Q. Choi “Solar Power’s Greenhouse Emissions Measured”. Live Science. Web. Feb 2008. Assessed Nov 2018

“Kyoto Protocol.” Britannica Online Academic Edition (2018): Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Web. Accessed Nov 2018