Author Question: What are some of the effects that will occur as a result of global warming? What will be an ideal ... (Read 59 times)

Bernana · **on:** Aug 22, 2018

What are some of the effects that will occur as a result of global warming? What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Explain where and how plastic accumulates in the open ocean. What will be an ideal response?

Animal_Goddess · **Reply #1 on:** Aug 22, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Carbon dioxide is being produced at a greater rate than it can be absorbed by the ocean. Earth
is absorbing more energy from the Sun than it is emitting into space. There has been a 5C
rise in global temperature since the end of the last ice age; most of this increase has occurred
only in the last 200 years. The year 2010 was the warmest on record; the hottest recorded
years have all occurred since 1998. The ocean is warming too. Observations suggest that
about 90 of the excess heating of Earths surface since the 1950s is stored in the ocean.
Though the measured temperature increase is small, water has a very high heat capacity.
Floating polar ice is also melting rapidly. When reflective ice is replaced by dark ocean
water, more sunlight will be absorbed. Increasing warmth has caused the ocean to expand and
sea level to rise. The accelerated melting of the land-based Greenland and Antarctic ice caps
is also adding water to the ocean. Sea level is projected to rise another 60 centimeters (2 feet)
by the year 2100. Other effects include melting permafrost, which could increase the
greenhouse effect due to high rates of organic matter decomposition, and changes in
precipitation and storm patterns.

Answer to Question 2

Plastic accumulates in the open ocean specifically in gyres. The North Pacific subtropical
gyre covers a large area of the Pacific in which the water circulates clockwise in a slow
spiral. Winds there are light. The currents tend to move any floating material into the lowenergy
center of the gyre. There are few islands on which the floating material can beach, so
it stays in the gyre. This area, about the size of Texas, has been dubbed the Asian Trash
Trail or the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch. A smaller western Pacific equivalent has
formed midway between San Francisco and Hawaii and another lies off the east coast of the
United States. It has been estimated that the weight of the debris trapped in gyres to be about
3 million metric tons.